Coming & Going & Coming - A life in flux

Before lockdown all of us were in different cities and converged during a common event like Diwali or a vacation. Just as the lockdown got lifted, we started getting again scattered with many false starts. Nikita came back after checking in for her flight as the college decided to do only online classes and she received the mail just before she boarded the flight. At another point Joyeeta came back just after 2 days after we dropped her at CEPT Ahmedabad because she got through pilani. Finally in January Pilani opened it’s campus and so did CEPT - so both were in their respective colleges. Not for long though as Nikita packed her bags and went to Norway for 2 weeks for a college trip which had a different level of preparation for the first time we packed theplas and Ready to Eats so she could survive there. 

This continuous coming and going brings with it the upheavals of booking a ticket and the drop at the airport and all the activities in between. Shopping - packing - send off dinner n drinks & conversations about past n future. 

While this is a reality it is also a harbinger of the times to come. In your mind, you know that from now on they will be visitors and that these coming and going is the only way forward. But your heart refuses to let go, you still feel their presence when you drop them and come back and see their used clothes scattered or after a few days when you aimlessly wander into their room and see all the pictures, time tables stuck into their softboard bringing back memories of time spent together.  

You quietly leave the room leaving everything undisturbed & waiting for the next home coming.

Postscript: Mumbai Dragon episode in Modern Love, Mumbai is a touching story of a Chinese mother and son, it’s also a story of struggle and success in Mumbai. See Nasiruddin Shah as a sardar for the first time. (Amazon Prime)

Day3: 200 words/day challenge ,333 words

Slowing Time

 One of the oft repeated quotes is Time is precious, (Don’t waste this time) it will not come back. Add to that - make the best of it & this becomes the mantra of our generation. Max It. Most of the time you feel like you are on a treadmill. Even if you don’t feel that way the sense of speed & achievement is pervasive - we have to always do something. 

How do we slow time even if it’s for some parts of the day? In the seen and the unseen podcast which I was listening to yesterday, where Amitava Kumar was the guest, there were a lot of interesting anecdotes on time. His relationship with time is that he keeps taking notes, doodles  and maintains a journal (which he has published as ‘’The Blue Book’ recently) & the reason he does that is because then he can see the doodle or passage at a later date & which would bring back memories associated with the note. He says that is the way he respects time.

 

What I like about the concept is that it is an interesting way of slowing down time. As  I am writing this I am thinking in multiple ways what does time mean to me and in that sense I am slowing time, observing my thoughts and single mindedly focusing on answering that question without any distraction. 

If one takes time as linear the only association you can have with time is memories. So for me time in the past is about memories, I have snatches of memory and not a photographic memory like many people have. I also maintained a journal from a very early age and it really helped me grow and understand things as I explained things to myself. Everytime I wrote and closed my diary I could feel a sense of calm.I started writing blogs also in a way to capture the thoughts that arose in my mind on seeing something or reading a book / seeing a movie.It was only hearing the podcast that I found a new meaning in writing the blog. It altered the frame of reference from people to me. 

Last week, Thanks to my film appreciation discussions I got to see quite a few black & white Hollywood movies ( 30’s / 40’s). For one of the discussions we saw the Nightmare Alley - 2022 version starring Bradley Cooper & the 1947 version starring Tyrone Power. I saw the 22 version first and the 1947 version later and it brought out the stark difference in story telling - the simplicity of black and white, dialogues delivered so naturally that you will feel like a scene unfolding in your village and not on a screen.The older movie stayed with me for a long time and I kept remembering the way stories were told to us when we were growing up and we would visit our extended family in Kanpur or Assam and listen to all kind of stories sprawled on the verandahs with no notion of time. 

For me one way of slowing time is to keep going back to movies by Basu Chatterjee or Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Whenever I saw these movies I envied the pace of life in those days - slow & languid, long drawn out conversations, cups of tea going around and people telling jokes as well as sharing family concerns without looking at the watch constantly. Those were the days when conversations and storytelling was more important than keeping track of time.

Postscript: https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/jhumpa-lahiri/ - listen to her and how she traverses time and captures them in her books.

Day 2 - 200 words/day challenge 578 words

28 days to go

Office after COVID & some stray thoughts

Covid has put shackles on my feet, a fear to step out which means battling traffic, noise, pollution, unplanned delays. When you step you give control to the outside world. 

WFH gave me my cocoon or bubble as per popular COVID lingo. My routine was set - wake up, walk, work, walk, eat, read, sleep. Repeat. Scanty conversations in between over food.. Weekend binge on movies, drinks mixed with philosophical discussions & a long run on Sunday to wear out the guilt of Saturday night. The only other additional activity of course was the newspaper which helped me do some armchair traveling and get curated news on interesting things happening around the globe - thanks to Mint Lounge & Sunday Hindu whose ‘Easy like Sunday Quiz’ had become an addiction. 

WFO changed that today - Missed walk, did Yoga,read newspaper on my way to office, had microwaved lunch, did not know anybody except our Admin so only spoke to her - imagine going to office and coming back like that. But ours is a plug n play office - choose your desk, work, get out. You have 200 seats to choose from. I guess this is the GIG culture which accommodates good talent in cities they reside & from HR’s perspective provides flexibility to employees. 

Being Curious has its pluses:

1. Recently I heard a motivational speaker Saahil Mehta  https://www.saahilmehta.com/ , most of them speak the same but have their own framework - I like frameworks. Although I have decided to junk them all and have my own. Having taken my e-mail id I received an email which spoke about mindset from which I found these lines in his email. “The "Iceman", Wim Hof, is known for being able to withstand extremely cold temperatures. He currently holds 26 world records, such as for remaining in ice for 1 hour and 52 minutes, and running up Mount Everest in a pair of shorts. “  I read about him and found him interesting (https://www.wimhofmethod.com/ )

2. Reading ‘The Pause’, weekly email from one of my favorite podcast On Being I found these lines. Our On Being guest this week is Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist with a lifelong love of the ocean, and of people. She is co-creator and former co-host of the How to Save a Planet podcast, and works across a number of channels at putting forward possibilities for what it means to love the earth, love ourselves as inhabitants of the earth, and love the ocean

3. On my way back from office I was listening to Seen & Unseen podcast https://seenunseen.in/ in which Amit was talking to Amitava Kuma - Author and recently turned artist - For the 20 mnts of podcast I heard (these are long talks upto 4 hrs where you are chatting to understand like your chats with your granny where she recounts her lifes & time  not like fireside chat where you have rapid fire list of questions which are objective and to the point) it gave a glimpse of how the author started observing life and why he chose writing in other words what purpose writing served in his life. What is astonishing to me is how a boy who grew up in Patna is now taking creative lessons in writing for people in the US / UK and is a celebrated author. 

As I closed my day and briefly reflected on these examples of 3 very different individuals in fact 4 if I add Saahil also in the list. I believe they are all successful because they were very focused on what they wanted, they may have stumbled on to it unknowingly like Amitava Kumar mentioned that he started writing because it did something which he could not define but he worked on it, converted that into a process and made a success out of it. To some extent what Saahil mentions about mindset is true. 

You succeed when you focus and it’s never too late to try. Iceman Wim Hof is 63 & I am only 53. So, I still have hope to put my act together ;0

Postscript: https://seenunseen.in/ & https://onbeing.org/. Listen to podcasts here.

Day 1 - 200 words / day challenge. 686 words.

29 days to go.

Me & The Fly

 Me and the fly

We just sat 

By & By

As the white clouds, Rolled By

Small & Big

White & Dark, Moving.

Sun is bright,

Is it showing it's might,

Dazzling after a rainy night.

The tree is upright,

Shouldering the birds & squirrels,

bees & the eagles.

Swaying & Saying

It's morning

Another day beginning

Don't start running.

Pause, Time is Flying

(Inspired by the view from my balcony)

On reading books in tandem

 

Typically, I would burrow into a book and read it at long stretches transforming the words into images and conversations in my mind. I would put it down at some logical point like chapter / section, but I wouldn’t read more than one because long after the book is laid to rest,              the memory of the images created on my mind keeps playing and it seeps into subconscious arousing more thoughts and feelings.

This may be also the reason why started reading 3 in parallel.

The God of small things

I read this almost 20 years back & I did not recollect it – this and the Inheritance of Loss are 2 books I wanted to read again. So, I took out of my steel cupboard, dusted it and started reading it. But while I admired the English & the interesting way, she would rhyme certain words to sort of visualise an incident or poem or a conversation somehow at the core of the book was churning of heart or bad memories written in a sarcastic or funny way. On the whole, it was throwing back the same thing which I was running away from – negativity. While I was trying to do justice to the book – it was dragging me down (most of the times).

Shalimar The Clown – Salman Rushdie & Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro

It was a chance trip to Blossoms after 2 years of lockdown that I got a basketful of books and coupls of books of 2 authors I wanted to read. I picked up Shalimar the Crown reading the blurb of a brilliant symphony, story of great imaginations etc”. This was my 2^nd book after I fell in love with Midnight’s children. But if one was to understand the meaning of erudite – one should read this. At least for me I am finding it very complex & convoluted writing. The way he write one sentence might be 5 lines and the way he is explaining things it’s like someone is forcefully using certain words. It was not negative but it was not inspiring as well.

Nocturnes is a set of 6 stories revolving around music and nightfall. And finally, was the book I was looking for. In fact, it was just the opposite of Shalimar – Extremely simple plots with gentle pre-disposition like Ruskin Bond or Alice Munro – You feel good after reading it & is perfect for a haunted soul like me.

I read two stories on two consecutive days and then went back to God of Small Things & Shalimar the Crown so that I could balance the sadness with love and complex with simple.

The Summit of Gods

 

One of the things which always baffled me was why did so many people try and do things which has 1% chance of success and 99% chance of death & not just failure. Of course, that 1% will put their name in history and give them fame & recognition.

The movie tries to answer that question and much more. We are used to seeing movies shot in Himalayas or snowy mountains with cold wind blowing and the mountaineers struggling to climb. Pictures of snowcapped mountains, Buddhist shrines, prayer flags and Gurkhas are a common sight. It takes you to a different world.

Why this movie is different is because it is hand drawn – in fact looked like watercolor. I know that Miyazaki is world class in his use of color in animations, but the storyboarding here is equal If not better. Drawing snow caped mountains which is almost white & giving it shades of greys & then that wisp of snow air / wind requires deft skill.

A glowing orange tent at night – with stars twinkling in a clear sky or the drawing of a Buddhist stupa with multicolored prayer flags blowing, or busy town with it’s linear row of buildings, flyovers, or the various things needed for mountaineering being packed & of course the technical stuff – like the knot on the rope needed to climb in a snowy mountain. Some of the images you remember long after the movie is over. And only when you look back you feel that only a mountaineer could have made this movie – else how would you know the micro details of the boulders / path which you will find when you climb a particular path to Everest. This is a passion project – because the topic is so different & it will appeal only nature + movie enthusiast.

The movie also contrasts the busy Tokyo life & a densely packed city with the vast & open mountains where time stands still. Habu – the protagonist is staying alone in a hut away from the village for 3 years and had made 8 failed attempts to climb the Everest in winter through the southwest face. So, one side there is loneliness & the challenge of climb and on the other side there is busy life filled with meetings, deadlines & the challenge of a corporate life.

The story begins with the search of a camera by a climber – Mallory who had made an attempt to climb in 19 22 but never returned. The story ends with Haibu making the same climb. Will he make it?

He doesn’t but he tries to answer the question – Why he and many others still climb? He says it is not about reaching a particular peak and end or rest. He must climb because that is the only way he knows. As soon as 1 climb is done – the search is for the next challenge.

I ran for a few years, and we did participate in a few runs before I drifted away.  But there are runners whom I know who got up at 4 and ran for 3 hrs or cycled for 4 hrs and come back. They did that before I started running and are still running – because that is the only way they know.

I don’t remember the name of one of the first animation movies I saw when I was growing up & in my innocent and clear mind I has this statement – If there is 1 thing, I want to do is to be part of this movie. Then of course life took its own path and here I am all of 52 when this thought again came to my mind after seeing this movie.

Postscript: After writing the blog I read about the director and his experience. He clarifies that he never went to Nepal or any mountains – the detailing was only research & online search.

The Bells of old Tokyo

 

I discovered travel writing which is not about the description of the place but more through the eyes of the author and the journey he or she is taking.

My first book was Into the Mountains – which was the authors cathartic journey (after his younger brother died in a freak accident) on foot across the Himalayan mountains, starting from Pakistan and ending in Nepal. It was like walking with the author side by side hand in hand – understanding what is going through his mind. Like the author it was kind of letting go – everyday the author would visit a village then just work with them – if they are harvesting, he would join them – have whatever food is provided and move ahead to the next village or sometimes he will put up a tent & use his cooker and stove to make daal & rice. Living a mechanized life this would be an imaginary journey which I would take every day along with the author. It was not like any other book I had read.

The Bells of Japan is about Tokyo and it’s history through the bells of Japan. It mixes the present with the past. The author will visit various sites and talk about the present – what she sees & some bit of history she knows about that place. Then she would talk to a priests, famous writers, artists who has more in depth knowledge i.e facts and lace it with his experiences and what happened, if he was present or any of his ancestors have gone thru the times – lets say when the Shoguns were leaving Tokyo and how many of the things they held close to themselves were destroyed.

I wanted to read about Japan / history of Japan so I was looking for something which gives me a perspective. I was always fascinated by Japan – a country much maligned for their caste systems but known for their discipline / spiritual side. A country which rebuilt itself after it was almost destroyed in WW II. But I did not want to read about the facts of what happened in Japan which mostly you will get in Wikipedia or if you Google I am sure there will be enough material.

But a book like this is a kind of oral history, where the history is told by the people who experienced it and what they actually went through. What happened to the people of Tokyo when tons of bombs were dropped in Tokyo – many times more than Hiroshima. People living in bunkers and trying to save people or getting burnt in the process. Or how the bells & their removals symbolized an end of era or a change to a different Japan. It’s like visiting these places with the author and listening to the authors & painters who formed a view and was sharing it candidly with the author.

For me both these books were like reading meditation. 

A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towles

There are many books you like and there are book you fall in love with. This is one of those book. Over last 3 weeks – this book was the best thing which could happen to me. Plot has a parallel to our COVID situation because of which we are locked in our house for more than 2 years.

A gentleman we are talking about is Count Rostov also fondly known an Mishka who was put on house arrest in Metropol Hotel for 30 years. The whole story is based in a real & existing hotel in Moscow. It is one of the oldest Hotels in Russia which is still standing, and you can go and stay there.  

What worked for the book is of course Russia – I have not come across a fiction which is based on Russia. So, it was enlightening experience to touch and feel the country through Count’s eye. Right from pre-Stalin days to end of WW II. The good, the funny and ugly aspect of Russia. The foot notes where the author gives an historical significance or narrates an incident of significance sets the fictional incident in a real world.

Second of course is our Gentleman – Through various incidents and relationships in book the author establishes this beautiful character who is almost perfect but also flawed in many ways. It’s almost like peeling an onion – with every chapter you find something different about Count.

 In a very subtle way the book tells us about what the values and principles of a gentleman / a good human being should be? Long after I closed the book, I recalled the incidents which brought the relationship the Count had with the Chef or the watchman or his adopted daughter and actress. It’s written in a very lyrical way so that you can visualize a scene. In my mental picture Sherlock Holmes came to my mind – the B&W TV series which I grew up with. The discipline of dressing well, being true to your vocation, principled etc.

You can Google & read the principle – here are 2 Liked the most

“For what matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause: what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of acclaim”

“If a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them”.

After you read the books, start here:

https://www.amortowles.com/ The author’s site has the music / pictures of the hotel / Q&A on why did he write book? / what translations can you read.

I could visualize the hotel better after reading this interesting blog

https://www.have-clothes-will-travel.com/a-gentleman-in-moscow-tour-of-the-metropol-hotel-how-you-can-follow-in-the-counts-footsteps/

I am looking forward to the TV Series which will come up soon. 

The Midnight Library: Matt Haig

 

Do we live life in regrets, or do we just move on with life? In my early 50’s now, what I call the sunset years, I think it’s too late to examine this point. Now, I try and focus on what should I do to make this life more meaningful.

But for all those who joined the college along with my daughter this year under the cloud of COVID – it was a life changing decision. Because that decision is an important one for your career & life.

Written by Matt Haig who was on the verge of giving up his life and went through a depression this book looks at a possibility that you are given an infinite no of choices of living life – from being an Olympian, to a singer to a loving mother, Nora Seed the main protagonist can choose from The Midnight Library – any life she wants to live, or she can continue living the life she is living.

It is not a new philosophy – but it is written in a manner which will appeal to many of us who live in regrets. While many of us say bravely I don’t have regrets because that’s the right thing to say but of many who after 2 drinks or in heated moment take out their regrets. Of course, we have regrets it’s letting go of that which is difficult and it casts it’s shadow on all our future endeavors.  

As a book, first 100 odd pages I was not sure where it is headed it was looking like a science fiction but from the blurb you knew that it’s not. A library where you reach after you die was an interesting concept, a hub which leads Nora Seed the protagonist to all the lives which she could have. But after introducing the concept, it becomes a drab boring following Nora Seed in all her lives – it is a straightforward story line & you know that ultimately after experiencing many lives she will come back and continue to live her own life. She does. The only thing which kept me going was the nice quotes / life lessons which the librarian Elm tells Nora Seed.

Read Matt’s interview here:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/nov/17/matt-haig-i-wanted-to-end-it-all-surviving-and-thriving-is-the-lesson-i-pass-on

Some of the quotes/life lessons which I went back and read:

“Want is an interesting word. It means lack. Sometimes if we fill that lack with something else the original want disappears entirely.”

“You can choose choices but not outcomes.” (This is my favorite – it fundamentally changes the lens, there are so many parables of living life based on your choice – but that does not guarantee outcome. For outcome you must work /persevere after making the choice – most of us overlook this part.)

“The only way to learn is to live.” (Rest is only concept and stories which you make up in your mind)

“We only know what we perceive. Everything we experience is ultimately just a perception of it. It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” Thoreau (And what we see gets clouded by the memory of your experiences in your life in the past.)

Every life contains many millions of decisions. Some big & some small. But every time one decision is taken over another, the outcomes differ. An irreversible variation occurs, which in turn leads to further variations…  

The last quote summarizes the core of the book. Living our life is a continuous process - As we live our life, we keep making decisions – once decided you have to move forward because that is the only road which you can traverse.

On Beauty & On Family

 

I bought On Beauty in 2007 – recently reading about Swing Times being nominated for Booker, I had a faint recollection that I did own a Zadie Smith & I dug out the book out of my home library.

In 2007 I had 2 kids and now I have 2 teenagers who are stepping into adulthood – As a father I am still getting used the idea. As it happens with most of us you go through an event or an experience, reflecting on the experience in a desolate stretch of a cab ride back home – certain lines / thoughts flashes in your mind. At times when you start writing words get’s formed and the idea takes shape in the form of a poetry / blog / scribbles in my diary.

Reading On Beauty which is essentially about 2 families with teenagers stepping into adulthood was like reliving many such moments which I have had as a family. The brilliance of Zadie Smith is how she evocatively writes about a similar experience many of her readers might have gone thru – many times my expression was Oh! She expressed my idea / feeling / thought in the best possible way.

Family life shifts between mundane like vegetable shopping to heated deliberations on choice of restaurant / menu (in Bengali households this is cause of most altercations) and confusing – read going in circles discussion with teenagers in deciding a college or making a career choice. And of course, COVID is whole new chapter.

But family is a deeply personal & sacred space – beyond work that’s your refuge. In today’s work culture the dividing line between office and home is thin & slippery. So, during weekends or when you are back home after spending 2 weeks away on work – you are fully charged to devote your full attention to family what in marketing jargon is called quality time. Sometime, we tend to overdo it and keep stepping into each other’s private spaces & evokes reactions which when u look back may have no logic and you end up saying – we are like this only. Better to ignore and hope to change than carrying the guilt on your heart.  

In many books family anchors the book & creates it path which leads to many other paths like the recent book which I read last month - ‘The Mountains Sing’ where the story is told my grandmother – but it’s all about the Vietnam and it’s history. On beauty is only about family hence it did not evoke a positive response in me when I read it 14 years back. To that extent this is for more matured audience who have been through this phase and can relate to similar situations.

Other thing which I like about the book is the beautiful description she gives of a place and people – the book is set around Boston and England – she beautifully describes the season and uses it as a movement / passage of time. It’s almost like screenplay and as you read you can visualize the place in your mind.

On Beauty and being wrong

When I say I hate time, Paul says

how else could we find depth

of character, or grow souls ?

Mark Doty

The end of a chapter, or maybe the beginning.

 

Some quotes get stuck inside your head and one of them which is inside me and keep remembering it when I cross a threshold. “What seems to be an end is the beginning of something new”.

Yesterday was one such moment – when Joyee passed out of the Rishi Valley School, her home for last 6 yr, since her 12^th was mostly from home. A year she would like to forget. Before that Niki had spent 6 yrs. From 2012 every year & the 7 – 10 days we would spend in the valley when we were invited to visit the children were like a gasp of fresh air from the rest of the year.

The moment you turn into the road leading up to the valley the hush of the valley with chirping birds, trees, vast sky and mountains all around – had a profound impact on my senses. It was like suddenly everything else have fallen away and this is the world I would like it to live in even if it’s for few days. 

Add to that the children all around me just doing what a child should do, climbing trees, eating mangoes with their hands – tearing the skin and biting into the mango, younger kids rolling all over sand. It was not something from a playbook or a brochure – it was real. It took me back to my summer holidays when we would all pack our bags and go the village and there would be 20 kids doing all the above and parents having no clue – who is eating where, who is sleeping in whose house. The only time they will come into the picture is when some one has fallen from a tree or someone is drowning or bitten by a leech and such unfortunate incidents.

But of course, the school is much more than what I wrote above. It’s only when I interacted with the akka's (it's a word in telegu which means elder sister & that is what the children call teachers) and spoke to Niki & Joyee that I could understand the deep involvement with every single child. They would know them almost like we know them – their 4-page pdf about how they are doing in school gave us very different insights bettering our understanding of how they are growing up, the conflicts they are facing and of course what they enjoy the most. It was never about chapters completed & exams conducted - it was always about what the child can do, what is she good at.

Niki who hated sports was the sports captain when she left the school and now runs marathon with me. Joyee was always keen in sports but can create art works overnight – like she did yesterday when she wanted to create a card for her friend and left it at the school.

The underlying approach and the foundation are of course set in Krishnamurthy’s philosophy of creating a better human being who can create a whole new world which she can do only if she is treated equally and gets an opportunity to find her calling.

His approach is unique – I don’t know who gave me the book ‘The fire in your mind’ – a yellowed version of the book remains after 30 years but that was the start of the journey and he has been with me as a friend and a foe always challenging me – even now off and on I will pick up his book or see his talks he still jolts me and challenges me like no one else has.

My children may have left the valley and they may have not enjoyed the K Talks like many children, but I know they will always carry the air and sound of the valley wherever they go, and their mind has absorbed what was spoken in K Talks and will shape the future they are chasing.

And who know where their children will tread….

Reading about Legends: Bob Dylan

The Bill Gates divorce and the articles which followed was like a personal loss to me. Unknowingly I had become a fan of his, reading his articles / talks / his book list. For a long time, my mind still could not accept it. I am 50+ so it is not that I am a teenager and infatuated with Justin Beiber. There are so many corporate scams which are written in India that now we have become thick skinned if we hear about ILFS (the latest one going around). There also these hushed departures when a person is asked to leave overnight and the stories start floating about inappropriate behavior, bribe etc.

Although I know that we are humans and are allowed some distractions, but I always wonder why people at such senior levels who have everything they need – money, fame,  would cross the line knowing that they are hitting the danger zone. Is it worth it? But corporate actions doesn’t interest me (I think most of it is greed) as much as the creative folks mind and heart.

Inside my heart somewhere there was always a hidden creative light which was shining like a sun till teenage and after the whole engineering/medical melodrama of life landed me in the fringes of creative world. So as a day job creativity took shape in videos, websites, emailers campaigns & not the way my teenage heart had visualized but not blank also – so a middle ground.

Hence, it’s fascinates me on how a person writes books, songs, makes certain movies – what’s the inspiration / drive, how they have grown. With the internet you can get drowned with opinions but there are a few columns / journalists I read time to time. And some land up on at your inbox – thanks to Netflix / Prime / Disney and not forget the Criterion channel & now MUBI. 

The Other place of discovery is Blossoms where in that mountain of books you just may find a book which you never knew existed. That is how I picked up Bob Dylan’s Chronicles: Part 1 (just for record there are no other parts – it is like the last book of GOT, still being written).

And when I did a search on Netflix, I found a Dylan documentary Rolling Thunder Revue directed by non-other than Martin Scorsese. With my playlists having most of the Dylan albums, it was easy to envelope yourself with Dylan, I was listening to Oh! Mercy and reading about how the album came into existence. I also Googled and read about New Orleans a melting pop of jazz, folk and music – that is place a house was converted into studio and Oh Mercy was recorded.

Bob Dylan’s book is like a blog in some sense, he just rambles in a way that it almost feels like he is narrating you a story. Imagine a big wooden house in heavy winter where the logs are being turned over to spread some warmth and both of us are sipping some scotch. The language is very different I think that is way he would have spoken in his early days and maybe now as well. So it’s not an easy rad and type set also not the usual font – this is a 2^nd hand book which was printed in UK in 2005.

What stuck me – one was his sense of observation & sense of detailing; it was like he was capturing the milieu of 50’s / 60’ & New Orleans so beautifully that I could visualize the whole scenario. A similar feeling comes to you when you listen to Tambourine Man or Hard rain is falling. I think that is what makes a great poet / writer. The words creates a whole new world in front of you – This are the words of Kazuo Ishiguro for whom Bob Dylan’s songs were an inspiration and why he got into writing.

I don’t want to judge Dylan or any of the greats because they also toil through the lives like we all do and what we wanted to do and we do sometimes are very different. Although his inspiration Woodie Guthrie just did that all his life – sing folk songs, his sings took a very different edge as he passed through his lifetime.

Looking at the documentary it did not feel any different what so many Hollywood movies have visualised the late 60’s & 70’s hippie culture. It was very different from what you saw in 1963 Newport Folk Festival (63/64) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pid0Ud4y3XY / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeP4FFr88SQ ) – 2 of my favourite videos.

I still live with that image of Bob Dylan in my mind when I go to sleep.

For informed reviews read:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/oct/16/highereducation.biography

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/05/books/so-you-thought-you-knew-dylan-hah.html

https://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/books/reviews/10010/

Overstory: Richard Powers

 

Some books change your lens, and you start looking at things in a completely different way, and when that deals with the fundamentals of life – suddenly you start connecting the dots. Overstory is one such book which will make you look at trees in a completely different way.

The basic premise of the book is that trees talk to each other, take care of the world around it and are intelligent. The older generation / tribes / sages in the context of India understood this and hence they are a big part of myths and philosophy – like Rigveda / Bible etc.

Right from page 1 trees are symbiotically woven into every character and their family. I loved the choice of characters and for me, the first section – Roots which creates the foundation of all the 8 characters was the best part and held me spellbound by it’s lovely storytelling.

The second part – Stem is all about getting them together for the cause – which is protecting the trees from corporates who were razing them to ground to create resorts or properties. Some portion of it was long winded and but this is where the trees form the center piece – trees are described in a way that you can touch and feel them. I googled and saw the Red Wood trees and they are nothing like I had seen in Assam or the Himachal / Uttarakhand belt. These are like giants and, I cannot imagine a forest of such trees or how would somebody cut them.

Some portions of the book could have been smaller (630+ pages), some characters were there for no reason – at least I could not connect with characters like that of Ray & Nilay. But one would overlook these minor things and admire the ambition of the book – which is to write a book where trees are the real heroes. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2019. and is based on the principles laid out in The hidden life of trees By Peter Wohllwben.

As I was reading the book over a period of week ten days, I would go for a walk and look at the trees around my apartment with awe – imagining what’s happening inside the tree and all the birds, squirrels, woodpeckers, ants, mushrooms, bees, insects and the whole eco-system which exists because of these trees.

Trees always fascinated me and they have been part of many folklore, stories, poem. Here’s something from the book which I really liked:

We all travel the Milky Way together, tress and men….In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness. Muir

The Bystander at 51

 Is that what I am,

A question comes to one,

who turned 51

There is a war out there:

at every turn of the page, every switch of a channel.

Sample a few:

People of Lakshadweep protest just to survive,

Farmers and their family from Punjab Protest to no avail

Villager in Uttarakhand protest against the hydro projects in Uttarakhand.

Can they stop:

The dams & ports being built.

Reverse the policies.

The pages of history are replete with

1000’s of people maybe millions

Laying down their lives

Knowing that

Very soon

They will soon become 

part of

Public amnesia.

The only thing this bystander can do,

Is to sign some petitions which come in Wapp

Or make some contribution to a welfare schemes.

Beyond that,

he lives in the imaginary world where;

the stories come to an end.

movies come to an end.

He knows'

 this war will only end

When the world comes to an end.

Another Round (Oscar Round Up 2)

Another Round is a Danish film which won the Oscar for the Best Foreign Film this year and came to Prime last week. It was real fun watching the movie. At my dinner table explaining the movie theme got the expected judgmental comments from the 3 women surrounding me – one more reason for boys / men to go drinking, scientific reasoning that alcohol is a depressant & so on so forth.

I was reflecting on the comments in my solitude as I walked alone after my dinner and thinking about the movie and all my drinking sessions which started from my Engineering College and ended when all of us went our way. Yes there were some good ones during the early years of work when we were up till late singing, chatting, arguing etc.

Yes, it was the magic potion which helps you open, loosen your tongue, be emotional – remove your covers and stand naked in your emotions in front of your best friends. Friends who will not get up tomorrow and judge you but more importantly come forward to help you, be sympathetic to your cause and lend you their ear / shoulder.

Can it happen coffee? For some maybe but not for me. We have grown up on having filter coffee / hot chai standing in a small tea shop – not Starbucks. Somehow I have never warmed up to it. For me like many of my batchmates – the mahoul or the ambience is everything. In college it used by table lamp in the corner and Pink Floyd, which then moved to Jagjit Chitra at some point & of course Kishore Kumar & some old soft rock was a must have. Those wear the days of cassette players & not mp3.

While the movie has a message – but it is bottled beautifully like a champagne. Uncork it to have some fun.

A more nuanced review here.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/another-round-review-raising-a-glass-to-self-improvement-11607028732

OSCAR 21 Round up - 1

 

In a world of movie nerds, OSCAR is the most popular pit stop. Despite all the criticism which it has been facing for diversity most movies are at the top of the heap & well made movies. 2021 was one of the rare years & I sincerely hope it is the last when I found most of them on OTT. I could see them from my home rather than waiting in que to see them in a movie fest. While I saw Father last week when my friend Jai shared it & wrote about it.

I got to see Nomadland, Minari & The White metal this week. If I include Father all four of them deal with people / situations which one would notice or read about, so it was a peak in to a very different world.

Nomadland:

In 2000 in one of our trips to Sariska, a small forest / sanctuary near Delhi – we saw this gigantic van parked and the owners were happy to show us the interiors which had everything which a luxirous home has – except that it had wheels. Driving back, we imagined like a newly married couple do – won’t it be great if we could do this as well.

Cut to 2021 – Hitting 50 & with 2 grown up adults, our dream is still to embark on a similar trip but on flights & trains. Inshallah!

Nomadland explores this nomadic nature of all of us. This urge to experience the freedom and new things and at my age this urge becomes more stronger because we are almost at the end of family responsibilities. At this age we seek people who also have gone through their life – most lived life is imperfect and there is a kinship a symbiosis which does not need much words. Just being together and in nature is fine.

But for Fern it was not fun, but a need borne out of the fact that the city Empire, Nevada had shut down due to recession forcing all its residents out. On her own since her husband passed away & with hardly any social security balance or savings – she lived on the van did odd jobs as she moved from state to state. Working with Amazon fulfilment centres or helping big farmers in their harvesting season – she barely managed to survive. And like her she meets many Swankie who is suffering from Cancer and in her last stages, Bob whose son died 3 years back and now he organizes these large gathering of van dwellers or Linda May who want to build an sustainable earth ship dwelling.

In a way the movie also depicts the fractures in the American society (maybe most capitalist societies including India) which worships money and choice and meritocracy. For what? People give their life and freedom to build something and under the burden of mortgages and other commitments – live a borrowed life. Swankie, Linda or Bob – all of them were grieving and the van was their way to make their vision come true.

Lovely cinematography & hard hitting acting by Frances McDormand, which is her forte, makes you think much after the credits roll by.

Below are 2 interviews which explains the deep involvement of both the lead actor & director. They both won the Oscar.

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/09/nomadland-interview-chloe-zhao-1234584703/ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc8X-6HI9d4

Ode to a new breed of story tellers

3 years back I read Sapiens & was stunned. I had never read a nonfiction book like a Murakami book. I just could not put it down. It was like a person with God’s eye who came back to earth and saw everything and then decided to create a movie out of it. Instead, it was a book I could carry around airports, taxi rides, loo and finished it in few days. I was addicted. I read all the remaining books but nothing compared to the first one – well success has it’s effect even on intelligent sentients. Ask Malcolm Gladwell.  

Thanks to my 12^th grader at home due to lockdown, I read Bio Mimicry by Janine Benyus. It was a fantastic look at nature, how the people in the past were much wiser than us in using things from nature. How scientists, designers are learning from nature and creating things which are more adaptable to nature. The language used and the visual description of professors, researchers and their love and passion for their subject was explained so beautifully – that you could visualize the author standing on front of a grass land or listening to a professor who has been studying about a certain variety of seed, nurturing it almost like his own baby & trying to explain all that in 30 mnts. Imagine the prof from Back to the Future.

Now, I am half-way through Origin Story, By David Christian which tackles the story of our origin, solar system, big bang theory, atom and so on so forth. Again you will read about science – where he talks about love, jealously, trench coated villain – and yes he is talking about science.

There are many people I know (and we all know) who have some knowledge about so many things. But Are you a good story teller, you may not write a book but how do you make a cab ride on the middle of night into a great story (this was a topic of a stand up comedy which I saw), or how do you explain the Arab conundrum to a 12^th grade (askmom.com – the wife) this was the conversation I enjoyed during my night walk yesterday?

Giving your story a shape take time & effort, tons of dedication and a sense of purpose, a belief that nobody have heard this before – or this can change the perspective.

Good writing & story tellers (I include movies in this) inspire wannabe story tellers like me. It re-kindles the emotion which goes dormant or gets covered under the carpet of living life for 5 days and tries to sneak out over the weekend 😊