Mindfulness Challenge

Source: thepathway2success.com

Few days back I finished a 21 day mindfulness challenge. 

I always wanted to do a course on mindfulness, having read so much literature around it. So when the 21 Day Challenge was organised free, thanks to the Wellbeing movement - I jumped in and joined on the 9th day. 

I could not do all the 21 day prompts - because I realised that many of the activities were something I picked up as part of my DIY in the last few years & have been doing it off and on. I focused on stress / anxiety release, focusing on breath and a few others - which were in the  form of guided meditation. I have been using the app CALM for 10 years listening to London English so it was a good change to listen to Sumati in Indian English & she has a beautiful & soothing voice which envelops you as you put on your headphones.

From a framework perspective,

Everyone is clear on What ? (Mindfulness & Meditation is needed to be calm). How ? is where everyone struggles. How to be mindful. How to do deep listening ? How to control anger ? How to be more compassionate?

The 21 days challenge clarified 3 things to me:

One, it establishes the fact that it’s not 1 thing, it’s an essential ingredient in everything. Morning Walk, eating, bathing, listening in addition to the mindful practices like meditation to release stress / anxiety or meditation to focus on breath. 

2nd, With so much literature / videos / opinions we should not get overwhelmed (I was) - start small & do it. I will do some of the 21 day activities but 1 thing I have taken up as a challenge is for the month of June - every day I will do a 10 mnt anxiety meditation in the evening after work & before I go to sleep.

Lastly it helps us understand that mindfulness is not a magic wand - we have to practise it daily and every moment till the last breath. 

Even at 87, the Dalai Lama gets up at 4 and practices.

How old are you ?   

Postscript: I liked this simple article which captures many of the things we learnt in the last 21 days. https://www.thepathway2success.com/12-simple-ways-to-practice-mindfulness/

Where the crawdads sing

It’s a beautiful story which follows an abandoned yet defiant girl, Kya, who raises herself to adulthood in a North Carolina marshland, becoming a naturalist in the process. 

The storyline of Kya growing up in a marshland all on her own, observing birds & animals, noting and drawing them or collecting feathers, shells which line up her house in marshes echoed with my vision of learning. 

One of the main reasons for sending my children to Rishi Valley school was to be surrounded by nature - not as exotic as the marshlands of Carolina 🙂 but equally interesting with all kinds of birds & reptiles around them. 

What I liked is the power of observation and deep observation over a period of time which was the natural thing most of my earlier generations did and survived on. They could predict natural phenomena like rain or ripening of fruits or crop yield just by observing weather patterns. Our understanding of nature came from living with it. As we moved to the city we moved completely away from nature & got detached from the soil. 

The movie is also classified as a murder mystery which runs parallel to Kya’s journey - there is a beautiful twist which came as a surprise to many of us. After seeing one goes away thinking it’s a true story. But it is not a true story but an adaptation of a bestselling book by the same name. 

But these 300 year old marshlands are in danger, see the video here (https://www.pbsnc.org/blogs/science/vanishing-north-carolina-wetlands/ ) 

Very similar to the mangroves in Andaman where few islands have already disappeared and many more will go down under if the sea level rises. 

Read this beautiful article on migrating birds at the edge of Mumbai & the danger they are facing due to over development. https://mumbai.citizenmatters.in/chanakya-wetlands-in-the-pink-or-on-the-brink-50727

Being a caregiver - 2

Venice - Some day Soon :)

The weather in Bangalore is at its best now which is just before the monsoon rains come in. From where I sit, I can feel a cold breeze, the sun is not yet up but there is light and if you observe closely you can see the intensity change very slowly. Birds of all kinds are the most active flying, chirping, searching for their food & animals not seen by us but foraging for food under bushes or trees. Sometimes I hear the koyal kooing. It’s a beautiful medley of nature in the midst of a concrete city.

He is in artificial sleep thanks to tranquilizers and is unaware of what’s happening around him. His caregiver is busy preparing for the awakening of her patient so she can feed him, give him medicines and put him back to sleep. His walking is like a toddler if he can stand he rushes from point A to point B so that he finishes his task and comes back, in recent days this also has become rare. Food is fed and he is sponged & clothed like a mother would do a child.

When the day ends and I walk outside alone I often wonder - Is this really worth it ? Is this life or imprisonment, a stage where death is more welcome than cure. From being independent and head of family you have become a cause for all possible pain and discomfort to the family. What is there to look forward to apart from the day when you breathe your last? 

Will I go through it? Will I have a choice in this matter ? Human mind grapples with these questions which are quite pointless. Or Does it help you define your point of view? Having a cancer patient at home, stories of cancer survivors and otherwise come to us every day. In one of the stories I heard, a lady after being detected with cancer - she refused any treatment and said she would rather make the best of the rest of the days left than be in bed. She famously said to her son ‘I would rather make that trip to Venice which I always wanted to do and die in a year than lie in bed for the next 3 years’.

Objectively, sitting here and imagining that this can happen I would like to follow her principle. It makes sense to prioritize experience over survival. 

But as John Lennon famously said ‘Life is what happens to you as you are busy making other plans’.    

Postscript: She made the trip to Venice & lived for more than 3 years. She was living not surviving. 

Being a caregiver

On A Good Day

One of the toughest jobs being a caregiver is to understand the unsaid. How can you get a cancer patient to voice what’s going on in their mind? The only question in their mind is When? In most cases death is the only finality which one reconciles to unless a miracle is on cards. Yes they do happen but you need to want it.

I had 2 lived experiences, one which is over and one which I am living through.

In baba’s case he had surrendered his care to ME & I became a primary source & decision maker. So at least the line of control was clear and the larger aspect was that he was willing to try everything possible to heal himself - from kiwi to coconut water to some herbal medicine. Super positive and disciplined about everything. At that point it looked normal but looking back I can realize what it would have taken to have that mindset. As I reflect back, one thing which worked was that we were a TEAM and worked towards a common goal.

In my current experience I am not a caregiver directly but being a small house experiencing what she is going through. Unlike baba here it’s complete anarchy and revolt, he does not want to take medicines or food. Is abusive towards his caregiver and adamant to go to the toilet at night resulting in him falling in the bathroom and developing a clot in his brain. She has lived through all this treating him like a child and offering all possible options of food but in the end he might just eat a spoon and she will have the leftover even though we will tell her not to. Despite the treatment she continues to get, she is soft spoken, does not raise her voice and accommodates him in all possible ways.

Not sure how she manages it but even from a distance most of us are at a stage where we avoid getting into a discussion on food or medicine as it leads to shouting and screaming at her.

From his perspective - he is hovering between sanity and insanity. I never knew the power of the subconscious but seeing him smile, talk about his childhood and cousins and incidents just shows what’s hidden inside the brain and when it will lay bare without us knowing it. Scary - but his locus of control is his caregiver and he punches it with all his might. Till he can that is.

My sense of right or wrong get’s grayer as I toss and turn both perspectives. My own frailty and shortcomings tints the glass further making further viewing a tough going.

But then we have to walk, time stops for no one nor can we.

Everything the Light Touches - Janice Pariat

It’s a BIG book - 700+ pages & the first question you have after reading the book is the question, Is she a botanist? And the answer to that is No, which is more fascinating because I haven’t learnt so much about plants before reading this book. 

2 large sections of the book are about Goethe & Linnaeus - both are philosophical botanists, and their way of looking at plants as a whole and not as a specimen or a classification. I got the philosophy but I found the whole thing a bit long and arduous to read. Yes, it brought out the 19th century poet's obsession with plants and how he looked at every individual plant or leaf as one leaf and not as a shrub. With drawings he explains that the same plants growing in 2 different places will grow differently. One growing under the shade of a tree and the other in the open.

I could relate to it especially my new connection to sustainability and visiting our farm in Solan. Also reading about cultivation & farming and talking about it in the climate challenge, hearing stories about people who have left their corporate job and then started farming and in the process how they connected to the earth / soil. How they are trying to lead a slow life which looks deeply & lives mindfully. 

The central premise of the book is interdependence between beings - humans, forests, animals (biodiversity). How we existed so peacefully  and in balance with nature and how that balance was disturbed by science, development & I guess by greed / desire to control everything and understand everything so we can use it to our advantage.

Growing up in the 70's / 80’s & even early 90’s we were still living in an Indian way - our food habits, thinking was balanced. I always referred to baba’s generation as a generation of scarcity and our current generation a generation of too many choices. While I also enjoyed the hyper choice & the blinkered view of ‘focusing on discount’ and less on the question ‘do we really need the t-shirt, in the last 5 years I stopped buying and kept only what I need and not what I can afford.

Reading the book also gives a small peak into Meghalaya culture / traditions and tribal life and their beautiful & musical connection to earth. Come to think of it - this may be the first book I have read on North East, the only other author I recollect is Anjum Hassan which was a decade back I think. There is so much less written about the North - Eastern part of India that it is an enigma to many of us. 

I can also connect to my Assam days where solutions to all health ailments were found in plants, shrubs, seeds, fruits grown around. In fact just a few days back I was telling my cousin if she can send me some dried thankuni leaves which are very good for the stomach and she said they are not available & grown in our homes. We have migrated to artificial and manufactured medicines which have side effects. (Found this interesting article Thankuni - Health Benefits, Uses and Important Facts https://www.potsandpans.in/blogs/articles/thankuni-health-benefits-uses-and-important-facts - Was pleasantly surprised that someone wrote about this obscure plant)

Read the book to re-establish your trust in nature.

Pinocchio - 2022

Only movies can help you visualize the wonderland of fairies & their magical land and in this case it’s puppets. It affects your senses in a way that it takes a while to come out of it. For those 2 hrs you are in a world where reality is the imagination. 

At 54 I am still as amazed, fascinated, blown and wait for a release like a 14 year old. I am sure  that’s true for many of us oldies but age is not a factor when you can experience this magical world and let go of your reality. 

You walk in as an adult but come out a child. 😀

I have not read the book, but I think all of us know him as a character whose nose grows if he lies. The last remembrance of Pinnochio is in one of the Shrek movies – where he is another character / toy who raids Shrek’s house and later helps him in escaping the castle.

To take such a character and create a beautiful movie which one remembers for a long time after the movie is over requires exquisite vision and execution. Seeing the movie I felt like every scene is from a story book, beautifully coloured and textured. The animation is very different from the Pixar movies which have been laying the rules for animation movies. 

Not just the animation, the story also is beautiful with a strong message on war and accepting someone as they are and not comparing them with someone they have in their mind or what they want them (their daughters / wife) to be.

Director Del Toro, known for his visual storytelling, waited for 15 years to make this movie. He used stop motion puppets which are operated through mechanical gears in their heads & the title character was fabricated via metal 3D printing. 

Read about it here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/movies/guillermo-del-toro-pinocchio-puppets-stop-motion.html 

Do not miss the director’s cut which is also available on Netflix to understand the journey of making the film. There’s a lot which goes behind every scene and every movement. 

The sine curve of life

Mangalore - Jan 2023

Up, down, down, down, Up down….The roller-coaster of life is like the waves I tried to navigate in the sea a few days back when I made my 1st dive at Netrani Islands. .

Out on the boat we rode for almost 1 and half hrs before we reached the mainland - Murudeshwar. They toppled me over with an oxygen tank, taught me sign language and took me down 100 m to show sparkling, beautifully colored fishes - fishes which looked like they had come out of the painting. The fishes were not a big deal. I had seen a larger variety of fishes & corals in Havelock Island (Andaman & Nicobar). 

But the dive was a big deal. 

Reflections: 

The ride: Sea is a choppy place and we were riding in a small boat with 12 people. None of us can swim. Our life depended on the flimsy jacket and the skills of a local boatman. My whole family was in it and we boarded with the enthusiasm of doing the dive not caring so much about the boat which would be in the ocean for 1 and half hrs. This thought came to me as we were on our way back and the waves were really big and a bit scary probably because of tides. 

Much of our life we ride different boats - job, marriage being 2 of the longest rides for most of us. We jump into both with the excitement of a dive without accessing the depth of water and its impact. In both of these cases experience is the only teacher rest is all theory.

So  what is our safety jacket - do we actually have one ? Each of us has our own jacket but it’s hidden or not worn like many of my fellow riders in the boat. The question is - All of us reached the land safely - so do we really need one ? 

We do,don’t wait for the right time…unless it's too late.

The sea: The sea is a place of change and in many ways reflects life. Every wave is different and is unpredictable. You are walking calmly and a large wave wets your trousers or takes away your slippers kept on the beach. 

If you are lucky your slippers may come back the next morning. 

Just like many friends, relatives, colleagues who took their boat and got busy riding the waves of success or despair. 

Last year when we went to Goa during monsoon was the first time when I experienced the fury of the sea which scared me. It;s very easy to associate anger with human & animals as you can see it in their face / expression but this is the first time I could visualize the fury of the sea. The only thoughts which kept coming back to me were tsunami. Even if you are a strong swimmer you don’t stand a chance against it. 

It has to be either your luck or God’s hand.

In life we are swamped by monstrous waves and at times we have to give in, like a bad day, just like you cannot assign a reason to a big wave you may not be able to assign it to a bad. 

Accept the day and ride on. Like today I cycled 8 km to overturn the nauseating and suffocating feeling which had no reason to be there.

And sat to write it. Life is hard work - there is no easy way out. 

The dive: One of the critical elements of the dive is you stop breathing through your nose and breathe only using your mouth. That fundamental change sounds easy but when you go diving for the first time and try it, you revert back to nose because we are hard wired to do it. I came back in a minute, not able to suppress my natural instinct. 2nd time round - the whole brain was focused on only one thing - breath through your mouth and with complete concentration I could do it and was comfortable after some time. 

This is akin to my panic attacks which I used to have where the whole body behaves in a completely different way - as if you don’t have any control. Your mind wants something but your body refuses to listen. Anything which goes against nature takes a huge amount of conscious effort and it is possible.

We all have our templates or ways of doing things and it takes a big effort to change and create a new template. It is possible, it may take days, months & years - don’t give up. 

Hold your breath and dive in.

The Garden & Unrealised Dreams

 

We stay in a flat in Bangalore – so it’s only concrete around us at home. We have using a composter to convert our wet waste to manure. Everyday morning when I go to mix the waste I touch the old wet waste which is almost half formed soil. Running it through my hands is my only feeling of soil. We have small pots in which we put plants and hope that they stay alive.

One of my dream was to sit in the garden in an easy chair reading with a dog by side – You know kind of house you see in old 70’s, that image is stuck in my head.

So, every time I come to Jaipur where my in laws stay – it’s like an unrealised dream, the lawn and the flowers and the house. There is a driveway and a lawn, beds of flower, and also a mango tree which is full of flowers now (mid-march), butterflies, birds, squirrels. The whole place is like an eco-system which we wanted to be a part of, creating something looks like a distant dream.

So I soak it in – a walk in the terrace which gives a lovely sunset view, walk under the mango tree, or photograph the different flowers, birds. During winters, sit in the warm sun and read a book.

As they grow old, the place is becoming a difficult place to maintain, but they stick on to it like I do with my dream.

They have realised it and I am yet to realise.

Maybe I will never, but what’s wrong in dreaming, after all that’s what keeps us all alive.

Hearty Breakfast of Rawat Ki Kachodi at Jaipur

Jaipur - March 23

You know you are old when you ignore the upset stomach and sleep to gorge on Pyaz Ki kachodi from Rawat & add half a mawa kachodi to it. Done, that’s a hearty breakfast.

The other thing which you realize as you write at 55 is that most of your writing is like a memoir because you want to cherish the memories you are making and start hunting memories.

My visits to Kanpur and Lucknow was to meet Mama & Mashi (mother’s brother and sister) but it also brought back memories which were made when I was a growing up and used to make my summer holiday trips to Kanpur.

Lastly you give more weightage to meet physically even if it’s a shorter duration like the current visit when we are meeting Nikita & Joyeeta for just 2 days. These are the only 2 days when we will be a family but the effort required to make it happen is worth it.

As we grow old, you can either be terribly fit like many of my friends who live by the book – in terms of food intake, sleep, drinks, physical activity and there are some who say we have to anyway go so might as well make the best of it – eat, drink, make merry & lastly there are some like us who follow the middle path. Be austere when you are on your own but maximize the short visits and occasions.  

Hence the deep fried breakfast we had today (and we will have tomorrow) in honour of the children who are back.

Can there be a perfect movie - Carla Simon’s Alcarras n Summer of 93

With Oscars announced on Monday and Everything Everywhere All at once getting 7 Oscars and being nominated for 11 - the answer might be an easy one.

But having watched maybe 30 + movies on MUBI in last 2 months from 19 40’s to 23 and yes this also might be because I saw it most recently - my vote would go to Alcarras, It won the Golden Bear in the Berlin International Film festival last year. 

It’s a Spanish movie but the spoken language is catalan. This is the first catalan language movie to be nominated and winning. The director Carla Simon grew up in Barcelona speaking Catalan and living in a catalan village. 

The beauty of the movie lies in 

#Every character in the movie has a story to tell and through their behavior and actions one can understand the pre teen & teenager angst or the how a child’ mind works with so much cross talk happening between adults.

#Every relationship has beautiful moments but is also fraught with tension. That is beautifully portrayed very subtly

#The lovely picturesque setting and life in villages - from the outside it would look like a perfect place to be - reminded me of the Italian countryside with their large houses like the one they showed in many Italian movies.

#kids are real gem of the movie - their spontaneous acting and shots of kids in siesta or doing simple things like eating a fruit

#the clash of tradition - the farmer kills the rabbits as they are a menace to his peaches he grows but the blacks who are plucking the peaches, cross their hearts and bury the rabbit. 

#the village life and simple traditions of wine drinking competition and easy friendship and simple life 

#the farmers' plight with large corporations coming in and buying stuff cheap (very similar to whats happening in India.

Read a nice review in scroll below:

https://scroll.in/reel/1044583/alcarras-review-a-masterly-portrait-of-a-farming-community-on-the-brink 

I followed this up with Summer 93, 

In 1993, six-year-old Frida left Barcelona and her grandparents for the countryside. Her parents have died, and she is taken in by her uncle Esteve and aunt Marga in their farmhouse. Despite the beautiful summer and the warm welcome, Frida finds it hard to settle in.In 1993, six-year-old Frida leaves Barcelona and her grandparents for the countryside. Her parents have died, and she is taken in by her uncle Esteve and aunt Marga in their farmhouse. Despite the beautiful summer and the warm welcome, Frida finds it hard to settle in.

It’s an innocent movie which is not like a movie, the acting and the setting is so natural that it's almost like you are god and seeing it from somewhere top. 

Loved it because it shows

#the pains of being orphaned

#especially when both your parents died of AIDS

#sibling rivalry and it’s innocence

All of us have run away in our childhood, i went to a sugarcane field and my brother in law tried to catch a bus and in the movie Friday packed her beautiful dolls, took some fruits which I thought was wise for her age and then trudged out of a farmhouse which is literally in between a jungle - with a high way on one end a stream on the other. You have to see it to know more…..

Reading Agatha Christie & Thinking of Slow LIFE

Solan - Feb 20 23

My mindspace has been blocked by MUBI and the daily dose of movies where I am trying to sample a few movies from directors and across genres. While I did my best to pick and choose based on reviews and suggestions. Many of them were stark / had strong emotional overtones or covered topics like transgender growing up n identity (GIRL), war and its effect (beanpole) which leaves with a very melancholy mood.

To beat the same & lack of a good book for which I have a strong desire I picked up Agatha Christie’s ‘A pocketful of Rye. I had never read a Miss Marple mystery - I am not an out and out fan of hers but I enjoy reading them when it comes to our house. In recent years I am more in the space of experiencing different genre’s / authors and have not read any of the latest books of 3 of my all time favorites - Amitava Ghosh, Jhuma Lahiri or Murakami.

What I like about her books are the way she describes the English life, the description of characters and the overall setting is of a laid back life, something which I always looked forward  to and am enjoying (read trying to) in the last 6 months. It’s like the movies by Hrishikesh Mukherjee & Basu Chatterjee - everytime i feel bummed I go back to Chupke Chupke or Gol Maal. They have to put a smile back on your face. Yes they are comedies but they are also so 70’s an era I wish I was born - there was a romanticism about life which has been taken over by our aggressive competitiveness / career focused objective life. Everything has to have a purpose and an outcome.

As I was reading the book I realized that so much of the investigation is about the understanding of the character and how his / her mind works. Deriving how a criminal and all other character’s minds work based on their past actions or what they speak about. Her deductions are mostly based on an astute understanding of the psychology of the person & the mechanics of the society and less of the deductive science which Holmes uses.

And as I was reading it, rather after finishing it I couldn’t help but reminiscence about my recent conversations with many of my relatives when I met them in Assam, Lucknow, Kanpur - especially the older lot on how much they talked and most of the talks were around pretty inane stuff which just did not make any sense to me. Why are we talking about someone’s issue in their house and how that will affect someone else & what’s happening in the village etc. I just could not make any sense about it and after a point of time I used to feel restless and find everything so pointless. 

But that is probably the biggest unlearning, there is no point of being so purpose driven, you have to learn to flow with the time. 

Kabir says” Aaaye hain to Jayenge Raja - Rank - Fakir…. 

Postscript: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaasWuOieqw (Listen to Prahlad Tipania - his renditions are priceless...)

Buddhist Chants

Ladakh mountains - 2019

In the last 5 yrs, I developed a strange affinity towards Buddhist Chants. Around the same time or maybe a few years before that I was drawn to Buddhism as a religion. It sort of fitted the concept of religion - it’s very logical in its explanations. Also led very strongly by psychology - for example mindfulness has become a whole new thing and there are lots of studies on how meditation, mindfulness helps to calm you down.

In Gayatri mantra or other sanskrit shlokas I have heard & I haven’t heard many - there is a meaning to whatever is being sung, recited. So you actually are listening to words and music is only on the periphery. 

But the buddhist chants, tibetan music - it evokes a very different feeling, the music, chiming bells and the way chanting or the words are spoken makes me feel calm. It has become one of my go to playlist whenever I am feeling stressed or a bit off sync. One of the visual memories which it triggers is of Ladakh. The snow peak mountains filled with mist and large rock cut images of Budha and the monasteries and prayer flags. 

Postscript: I stumbled on this blog & love this creation. 

Poetry and ceramic pots. http://blogs.newarka.edu/nawam/2022/06/07/poetry-ceramic-pots-by-julia-polen-24/

Off to forest - Reading about animals, birds and their habitat.

One of my favourite columns which I read regularly in the weekend edition of Hindu is by Janaki Lenin. It comes once in a fortnight and she shares the experience of a researcher / naturalist who studies a particular bird or animal in their habitat. 

She has a very beautiful way of writing - it’s almost like you are reading about a friend or family. She describes the approach and the reason for the researcher to get interested in a particular species & their behaviour and how difficult it is to be up close and personal with these animals. There are times in fact, most of the time, these young students will get up at 4 am and go in search of a bird or mammal or go into the river in search of a fish. Many times after 6 months they would have a sighting or they may come back empty handed.

But it’s not just students, the trigger for this note came from an article on nicobar long tailed macaques written by Ishika Ramakrishna. It must be a 1500 word article and beautifully captures her travel to Great Nicobar island and beautifully captures the island's micro-environment and the diversity of endemic plant, animal, insects & marine. It’s not just about macaques - it’s about an appreciation & holistic understanding of the fragile ecosystem. Everything will come to ZERO if the government’s plan to transform this into an international transhipment terminal, international airport etc. 

The power of an idea comes only through storytelling - that’s when common people like me can feel deeply about what’s happening in our delicate biosphere and they help connect the dots.

And stories are that we need to save the world, not just data and good work. 

Postscript:  

The hindu article which I referred to above are only for subscribers :( 

But you can read a few here.

https://m.thewire.in/byline/janaki-lenin 

Ishika’s article here

https://roundglasssustain.com/species/nicobar-long-tailed-macaques (Explore the site it’s a hidden gem)

Read how melting of arctic ice,leads to flooding in louisana. (Also explore evoke which has some of the best articles on biodiversity)

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/as-greenlands-glaciers-melt-louisianas-waters-rise-ice-is-the-keeper-of-deep-time/articleshow/98398561.cms

Banshees of Isherine - Some more ruminations

I have stayed with the movie for a day now - reading various interviews, reviews, making of the movie etc. In my morning walk, like it always happens, some thoughts from the previous day creep in - so here is a different take from whatever I have read.

Most reviews spoke about the Padraic character played by Colin Farrel. On how he was a simpleton and believed in goodness and simple things of daily life and ritual. Which is, herding his cows to feed them and talking and walking with Jenny his baby donkey, having his food with his sister and best part of the day was having beer in the pub with Colm his buddy aimlessly. And how the movie is all about coming to terms with Colm stating he does not want to be his friend any longer. And so about friendship and dealing with the bitterness etc.

No one talks about why Colm made that decision - which it struck me as a very nice take on the current obsession of most of us and especially start-ups. Which is - to leave a legacy behind. I guess it all started with Steve Jobs and his apple. But most of us are wanting to make that dent in this world and we will go to whatever extent we want to to do that. Me included. Which is a risky proposition - if it works well you are team Apple & if it doesn’t you are fraught with stress and irreversible damage to you mental n physical health 

In many of his monologues and explanations he gives Padraic who plays fiddle (kind of violin) he says “No one will remember you, me, our family but music is everlasting that is we remember Mozart & other composers. I also want to spend my last few years creating something so give me that space. Don’t talk to me because our chit-chatting idling is a waste of time. Leave me alone”

The particular conversion is very funny as well as meaningful, where Padraic does not have any clue on Mozart and says”I don’t know him. But it’s more important to be nice than being remembered.” Something to that effect. And he says that because Colm set the term that he will cut one of his fingers if Padraic talks to him.

Again I found it quite insightful at least for me - because when you are very objective in career or even personal life you may become very clinical and hurt / ignore others around you especially your family and relatives. 

One of those lines which made me think and change my perspective was from Stephen Covey. He says:

“Don’t be efficient. Be effective.”

The banshees of Inisherin

Since I got interested in sustainability - I see everything from a sustainability lens. 

So as the movie showed the houses made in 1928 my first thought was ‘WOW, these houses are so similar to the ones I had seen in the hills Rajgarh in Himachal. During one of our downward journeys from a hill we saw houses whose terraces were made with small circular stones. See pic below. In the movie which was shot on a remote island - Aral Island and Achille Island. Using local materials to build their house was common sense in the early 20th century - but as more and more people started to migrate to the city we started having the matchbox structure or flats in which we all stay. Our intention / dream to make a house the way we want is now a distant dream as the time and effort needed to make a house is monumental and neither of us have the energy to make it.  

Back to the movie

For me the stand out was the cinematography. 

This is how cinematographer Ben Davies describes how he chose the location “I spent a lot of time [on Inishmore]. I tried to spend my time in preparation and spent a hell of a lot of time photographing it and trying to capture what the island said to me. I’m not a writer as Martin is. I can’t articulate what I felt about the place or the feelings that place evokes. But I can photograph it and show you the images. There’s something very special about it, the raging ocean and the sky is so barren. It’s very beautiful, but it’s also quite melancholic, and I adored it. I loved it there because I’m not afraid of melancholy. It's something I quite embrace. That did shape the idea. But I think Martin always knew that.”

The key word is melancholy - different shades of sky, the barren land, the rocks and ocean all of them formed the perfect backdrop of a friendship which is changing colours & also the turmoil & angst which both the lead characters are going through. I could have taken still shots and painted them if I could. 

The second was music 

Again, the background score adds melancholy and builds the various moods across the movie.

This is how the music director Carter Bartwell describes how he created the music “I began largely with Colin Farrell’s character. We see most of the film from his point of view, and he’s this naive man-child. When we first see him, he’s got a big smile on his face because it’s another sunny day in Ireland, and you get the impression everything’s going great for him until exactly two minutes into the movie, when that stops being true. I started by playing with his childlike qualities. The way the melodies are structured, the harmonies are not totally straightforward, and it does suggest that there’s something that’s off or is going to go off in the story. I did keep basically the same set of sounds throughout the film, and it’s very simple: the celesta, harp, flutes and marimba, and then some low percussion-like tuned gamelan gongs. What happens is, because of the nature of the story, that same playing of innocence at the beginning of the film [becomes lost innocence] at the end of the film.”

I went back and heard the music and it automatically brought back the images from the film, that is how beautifully they are tied to the movie. Of course the credit goes to the director for providing stewardship and vision to all of them. It’s actually a very simple film - more like a play actually but the island plays an important role to give it a cinematic panorama.   

The movie has got 9 nominations and won several awards, so there is lot of reviews & article which one can read online. 

Below is the best one which I found in India.

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/the-banshees-of-inisherin-an-ode-to-broken-friendships-and-a-takedown-of-nice-guy-syndrome-11988512.html