The Menagerie of Bottles

So, the Girl with the Encyclopedia of Bottles,  has gone and done it again. She's taken the most ordinary little bottles that you and I would probably walk past with nary a second glance and gone and created the most surreal little menagerie.

In this age of recycling and upcycling and generally over- priced 'Eco-friendly'  stuff , it's becoming, sadly, increasingly rare finding imaginatively conceived truly interesting work. This isn't a spiel I promise you.

Animal Farm by Nishi Chauhan (Source: Here)

This menagerie isn't about mere upcycling by the way. Oh no. Flo, Gerry, Peeves, Ellie , Humf and Porky are so much more. Each is a carefully thought out, carefully designed piece that will light up your day - quite literally as it happens.

The best part though- for me- is the confluence of the old and the new. These fantastical creatures born of glass and wood bring together new notions with the timeless craftsmanship that we have long forgotten to appreciate- in this case the skills of the craftsmen at Channapatna in South India.

Animal Farm isn't about putting an old idea in a new bottle as it were. This little farm is about a new idea.It's also about rejuvenating an old art form. This project is about wedding two extraordinary ideas and creating unique, usable pieces that speak to you and me.

Read more about  'Animal Farm' here.

Encounters 2

In December of 2005, I'd been in London about three months. This being my first time spending winter in a place that far north on the globe, the sudden onset of darkness by 4 in the afternoon was still a bit of a novelty and ever so slightly depressing. Christmas was definitely in the air. The weather was wet and oh so cold for my desert bred self.

One evening I was returning by tube from the last class of the term at SOAS. I got off the tube at Belsize Park where I was rooming and started walking up the street. I had gone barely a few meters out of the tube station when I saw an elderly lady wrapped up in a long coat and wool cap walking slowly and painfully up the street. The streets up in Belsize and Hampstead are rather steep.The ground was wet and she looked as if she might be in some pain. I'm not sure why, as I'm usually a bit reserved around strangers but I thought I'd stop and ask her if she needed  help. She immediately held my hand and asked me if she was walking in the right direction toward the Royal Free Hospital. As it happened she was and I was headed in the same direction. The residence I was rooming at was right next door to the Royal Free. And so it was that I offered to drop her off at the hospital.

It took us about 20 minutes to cover a distance that usually takes about 6 minutes and that was enough time for us to exchange stories and what a fascinating story she had. Her name it turns out was Dr. Jutta Singer. Yes, she made sure I knew she was a doctor. Anyway, she lived in Schonfeld Park in North London. She was Jewish and she used to be married to a doctor from Mauritius.Her husband was, she said, a Muslim man who had passed away about 20 years ago by then and she'd come back to London.  Her marriage had apparently not gone down too well with her community but now as a widow she'd been welcomed back. By the time she'd explained all this we'd arrived at the entrance to the Royal Free and we said our goodbyes. But not before she asked me if I'd like to help her sort out her papers and things at her home in Schonfeld Park. She apparently had too many of them and had a small army of students much like myself who occasionally helped her out. I almost immediately said why not. After all, this would give me a chance to learn a bit more about a community I'd long been curious about. Besides, Dr, Singer sounded like she had many more stories. And so began one of the strangest associations of my life.

Over the next four months, twice a week, I'd visit her in Schonfeld Park in the afternoons. Schonfeld Park , named for a rabbi who apparently ran an orphanage or some such ( I don't remember exactly now), was a housing estate in Stoke Newington in North London occupied entirely by Hassidic Jews. It was a world unto itself, as they say. Each time I visited it felt like I was stepping into another world. Dr. Singer's apartment closely resembled a storeroom of sorts. The little flat was overflowing with stacks of papers and books and smelled vaguely like something was boiling on the stove all the time.Most of her needs in terms of food was catered to by her young neighbours. I never did find out what these neighbours did for a living. The young women were all mothers to broods of seemingly extremely well-behaved young children. The men, I'm not sure what the men did really. They all seemed rather scholarly. I really should have been a bit more curious about this I guess. In any case, my days with Dr. Singer usually involved arranging her papers for her, arranging her various Sabbath invites and mostly just listening to her stories. These included stories about her childhood in Austria. It sounded rather idyllic until of course the horrors visited on that country by Hitler. Dr. Singer was shipped off to England before that along with her siblings. The rest of her family sadly perished in one of the labour camps.

Dr. Singer on the other hand was brought up by her relatives in London. She went on to study medicine and eventually specialized in women's health. Then sometime in the 1960's or so, the British government deputed her to go out to Mauritius and set up a family planning clinic. And this is where she met the handsome Dr. Ebrahim. There followed the usual drama that surrounds inter-faith marriages. In any case, they managed to get married and became parents to three bright boys  who all seem to have grown up into high profile careers and good marriages it would seem.

Sadly though at the end of four months, academics and my own life got in the way and I was no longer able to spare the time I'd need to travel up to her. I've always wondered what happened to her. I misplaced her number and wasn't able to get in touch with her before leaving London. I do hope that her sons came to see her. She always seemed rather lonely and they never seemed to be able to make the time. One morning, shortly before I left her  she told me that she wanted to give me a badge that said ' Angel Friend'. It turns out that the lady had a whole network of young people like me that she'd met in circumstances very like the one that we met under and she called them her Angel Friend Network. She told me that they seem to come into her life when she most needed them and they seemed to leave when their role in her life was up. But she was deeply grateful for whatever this plan was that the universe had that was sending her these angels. I suppose that's as good as an explanation as any , don't you think?

Love stories



Source: Here

 I've just finished reading Annie Zaidi's Love  Stories # 1 to 14. And let me tell you one thing- love is messy. In case you hadn't already realized, that is. Love is messy. It's complicated. It's violent- and I don't mean physically. Being in love and loving and being loved are all on some level violent- the violence of the heart is perhaps something one cannot recover from - ever. You get over it, perhaps, but do you ever fully recover?

I remember in some movie one of the characters says " I have loved many people and each of them has taken a little piece of me." Isn't that perhaps the most violent act of all- giving a piece of yourself and taking a piece of someone else and neither of you is ever the same again.The happily ever afters are a dream really- a very unrealistic one. Even the happiest love stories I know of are not happily ever afters. And on some level I think who needs that anyway.

However, I digress. The book that I just finished reading- Zaidi's Love Stories # 1 to 14- is a collection of short stories and each deals with an aspect of love- romantic love. The stories are unexpected and honest. They have that strange quality that's so hard to capture of making one live each of the characters. You cannot help but be involved and wonder and even worry. For me each of these stories contained an 'aha' moment and I'm sure most readers would find this too. The magic of Zaidi's book really lies in the fact that she has somehow managed to capture and express the nuances- the layers- of love if you will. Even the cheesiest isn't necessarily the easiest cheese. They leave you with uncomfortable questions as well. Where does love end and comfort/habit begin? Is all love some kind of mass delusion? What's real? Who decides? When do you decide to trust and why?

A couple of the stories probably could have done with a bit tighter writing or better editing.

In the end though this is probably the best collection of stories coming from the crop of new writers emerging out of India that I have read in a very long time.

Icarus and reflections on a pale blue dot

I've been reading Mona Simpson's A Regular Guy and there's a lovely part in the book where the main character acquires a Matisse. He then gets so attached to it that he cannot stand the thought of it mattering as much as it does and proceeds to give it away. This is the second time that Henri Matisse has entered my life.

Source: Here

The first time was through a friend ( who is no longer a friend, unfortunately) and it was a very specific piece- Icarus. I fell in love with it. I don't know if it's that deep, vibrant blue. Or those exploding yellow stars. Or that wonderful, free falling, almost dancing figure with that beating red heart. There's something so beautiful and tragic about it.

Based on the story of the adventurer who aspired to reach the sun and in trying to attain his dream failed so spectacularly that he must be celebrated. But it's never really failure is it if you dared to dream and dared to defy the gods as it were.Dared to defy your 'humanness'.

Perhaps it meant so much to me then because it came into my life at a time when I was setting out to explore my own life.I was testing the waters.The universe was throwing things my way that were unexpected. It was significant I think in a way that was not yet clear to me and wouldn't be for some time to come. But now, almost a decade later I look at it again and it moves me. The artist who had so much to create that neither pain nor disability would stop him. He found ways to negotiate both. Isn't that what the story of Icarus is anyway? Indeed the story of humanity as a whole in a sense. For all our frailty we must defy the gods. We must - we are compelled - to reach for the stars. We look at the birds and we are compelled to fly. And we have. We have flown and we  have traveled among the stars .We are looking at worlds beyond our gaze. We are not perfect but that which is perfection in us is beyond compare- don't you think?

We no more know why we've been put on this "pale blue dot" " floating along like a smote of dust on a beam of sunlight" , than when we first began wondering about these things. But here we are.

So, there, those are my reflections for a Thursday night. I'll leave you with the following lesson in perspectives from the incomparable Carl Sagan:

Pale Blue Dot (Source: Here)

 We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Of feet of clay and a house sparrow named Ben Franklin

I feel I must write something today. But it's all rather random- the thoughts in my head.

Gaza is being pounded mercilessly by Israel. Israel is getting its share of missile attacks from Gaza. But the power balance remains skewed as always. The world remains divided as usual. I'd rather not say anything about a certain Mr Obama and his stance on the whole thing.

 My uncle and a cousin are stuck in Jerusalem. What was a tour of the holy lands has turned into a nightmare. They finally learn that the holy lands are not quite so holy anymore. If they ever were that is. I wish there was some intelligent insight into the mess that I could provide. But I'm fresh out I'm afraid.

The famous Aung San Suu Kyi was in town yesterday and I was given an opportunity to go meet her which I turned down. Her rather crude fence sitting on the whole Rohingya problem has been rather off putting. As a friend said the other day, it's best not to have heroes- they turn out to have feet of clay anyway.

All this is rather depressing. So turning to slightly more cheerful topics- the sparrow on my balcony has been christened Benjamin Franklin by my sister for his rather founding father-ish aspect and demeanour. She also believes he used to be a cat in his previous life going by the long hours he sits in meditation on our window sill. I personally find fascinating his fascination with the washing machine. Benjamin can sit for hours watching the water swirl and the clothes tumble. Watching him definitely makes clear why they're called house

Sparrow love

sparrows. He loves household sounds of all sort be it the clang of vessels in the kitchen, the pounding of pestle in mortar, the sputter of mustard seeds in hot oil, the sizzle of  frying onions, the whistle on the pressure cooker, the blender- anything really. Lunch preparation is his favourite time of day I have noticed. And he loves our flowers... the geraniums are a particular favourite.

Looking forward to a quiet Sunday reading four books simultaneously ( always a thrilling , if not entirely practical, approach). But on the menu are Annie Zaidi's Love Stories, Mona Simpson's A Regular Guy, Agatha Christie's autobiography and Paul Theroux's short stories.

Here's hoping for peace everywhere...

Ruminations on a cold rainy day

So, a cyclone hit nearby Tamil Nadu state yesterday. And as usual, Bangalore must bear part of the consequence. This came in the form of rain that just still hasn't let up. It's Thursday afternoon and the rain hasn't stopped even one little bit in that time. And it's cold. Colder than I have ever felt here I think in these three years.

The mid-week holiday means that I have pretty much spent the day sitting on one sofa or another in front of my laptop and in front of the tv , eating bread and peanut butter and drinking gallons of green tea. The world outside - at least the glimpses of it that I catch when I look out the one open window in the flat- is drenched. My plants are holding on. Their blooms seem to be able to withstand the wind and the incessant drip drip of the rain.

I just finished watching a beautiful Malayalam movie, Adaminte Makan Abu. I hadn't expected to like it. I ended up loving it. On the face of it , it's a movie about a man at the end of his life who hopes to perform the Hajj in Mecca. But it's so much more. It's about human relationships and what it means to lead a life well-lived. It is about faith and what that means to each of us. Faith has got to be the most personal of all human experiences I think. And in an odd way it dictates our relationships. Or maybe not so odd. The protagonist has lived his whole life with the one desire- to go to Mecca. Not just go to Mecca. But go to Mecca on the terms dictated by his faith. No short cuts and no half measures will do. And so as he sets about arranging for this- the most significant journey of his life, it's the relationships that he's built over a lifetime lived faithfully that help him prepare.And in the end when things don't go as expected it's that faith that helps him live as well and find hope.

I found this movie a great comfort.

So, that was the theme of the day- comfort... and faith.

Changes

It's been a while. In that while, the world I grew up in has been changing faster than I can keep up. People gone. Monuments gone. So many things -just gone. Not complaining here. At least not too much. Not all of the change has been bad I must admit. In fact much of it has been for the good. But at least a couple of people who are gone , I wish they'd stuck around for a while longer. Nora Ephron for example. The way she saw the world made it always so much more bearable somehow. I loved the movies she made even before I knew that it was she who'd made them. I loved things that she'd said even before I knew it was she who'd said them.

Reading a book that has much to do with change at the moment. Julia Gregson's East of the Sun. The story's set in India of the 1920's -30's. If I have to categorize it , I'd call it 'Raj era chick lit'. Filled with inaccuracies of all sort. Some good research and fact checking would have helped it much. But the characters are wonderfully compelling and one does get terribly attached to them. The kind of book to be enjoyed with a lovely cup of tea and a plate of butter cookies. Hmm.

A friend also introduced me to the work of Joann Sfar through his graphic novel The Rabbi's Cat. A work of effortless genius. I highly recommend it.

In the meantime, the monsoons here are mighty spotty. Not good. But there are days with lovely weather and these are to be enjoyed when they do occur I suppose.

The fuss about marriage

So, I got an email from my father yesterday and all it said was this :

" Hi Serene, Go thru this profile. Let me know. Take care. Dad".

There followed a profile from a 'matrimonial website' called (believe it or not) "Muslim Matrimony". Now my dad under the best of circumstances isn't the most loquacious man ( unless you put him in front of an audience and then all bets are off), but when it comes to the topic of 'marriage' or in this case ' arranged marriage', the man becomes semi-literate. He'd like to be dictatorial about it and it instead turns into a sputteringly incomprehensible speech that loses steam about half way through with the onset of an acute embarrassment. At other times he tries the emotional blackmail route. This usually begins with " I'm getting older. I'm getting sicker. I'm not long for this world. Get married." That second part by the way is patently untrue. The last visit to the cardiologist proved this. The first part , well, we're all getting older. And somehow my "marriage" is supposed to be the panacea for old age and death. My getting married is also supposed to be the solution to every property dispute in the family ( this is probably true but I still maintain that this isn't anything that's going to be solved by marriage-mine or anyone else's-  let's face it my relatives aren't exactly in the running for the UN).

My mother, by the way, just goes for full on emotional blackmail. She has threatened me with various scenarios of lonely death over the years. If I remain a  single woman ,my life always comes to a gruesome end in my mother's mind at the hands of various relatives ( who all want to kill me for whatever reason , but mostly property); it comes to an equally gruesome end in some hospital where I'll lie rotting alone and dying; it comes to an end eaten by cats and raped and murdered by unknown assailants; my sister and all my friends will have their own lives to lead and men to marry and children to take care of and I'll be alone and dying in a corner forgotten and thrown to the side. Ladies and gentlemen, these are my poor mother's worst case scenarios if I continue to live my life in blessed singledom- what must be it like to be her I wonder.

And a combination of these strategies has been going on for well nigh 14 years now. Technically it started when I hit puberty but I thought I'd give them a little slack for the early years because my extended family were much more involved than my parents at that time.

Anyway, so coming back to last night. A combination of curiosity, exasperation and boredom made me open up the profile. This was the information that the profile contained - the gentleman was all of 37 years, unmarried, 6ft tall, living in Kuwait and working as an engineer (not software) and earns 12,000 Kuwaiti Dinars per annum. His 'partner preference' could be summed up in one word 'Any'. So, 'Anyman' here, basically didn't care what he married ( I'm glad in a way that he specified 'female' or maybe that too was an assumption on my part- things are a bit unclear at this point). So, based on this 'profile' , my father ( an otherwise intelligent man albeit an extremely , and proven, bad judge of people) wanted me to make a decision on whether this should be 'taken further'.

Now , tell me dear reader, how was I supposed to respond?  Was I supposed to say, " yes please, dad, let us take this further because I see so much potential." After all this man put up his own profile on a website meant to attract future partners and clearly he was so interested in attracting the best of the best that he simply couldn't take the time out to fill in what sort of a partner he would like to see himself with. This is exactly what I want to do with the rest of my very short life- spend it with a man who can't be bothered.

What I really wanted to say was " Are you kidding me???? What is WRONG with you???" But then that would lead to sulking and more arguments and frankly I don't have the energy. Not even a little bit. So, I took the path of least resistance and simply ignored the mail and shut down the computer. But I did take a look see at the various trolls who'd "expressed interest" in my profile, kindly provided by my dear parents ( and reads like it was written by two barely literate people!! What happens to two educated and extremely well-read people when it comes to this topic is something for another post). There was , believe it or not, a 58 year old pervert who's trolling for a second go at marriage. His claim to fame? He's a doctor in Saudi Arabia with a brood of kids. I mean ,what the hell! The past months on this particular website has in fact washed up the very bottom of the barrel. It's soul-crushing I tell you.

The reason is of course painfully clear. In my society ( and even more specifically, in my religious community ) once a woman is well into her 30's and unmarried, it is immediately assumed that (a) there is something physically or mentally wrong with her (b) she has a bad character ( read: she's no longer a virgin and this is THE WORST thing) (c) she's so butt ugly she'll settle for anything that comes along because she's just so desperate to jump into bed with anything ,and (d) in a late breaking development they assume you're lesbian. So, "profiles" of women my age on these websites always , and I mean ALWAYS, attract the oldest, most pathetic losers on whom other women have already given up. I mean these are men who have been dumped or have dumped others. It wouldn't matter to them that I have more degrees than they can count in subjects that is way beyond the comprehension of their puny little minds. Oh no! To them I'm still fair game because I'm in my 30's and that means my parents and I are desperate. 

And what about men my age from the same community you ask? Well, this is what happens. They put down their profiles with their most 'dashing' photos and demand brides of 29 and below. Yes, they must have prime  ( and untouched) meat don't you know? Now that they have "sowed their wild oats" they must settle down with " a young woman who understands their needs". Double standards anyone?

What do my parents have to say about this? Well to be fair, my mother suggested that I advertise for a younger man. My dad  of course has maintained his sphinx-like silent disapproval and carries on sending me 'profiles'.

Source: Here

Now, what do I think of marriage you may wonder dear reader. I think it's an extremely flawed institution and in many ways it's sick. But as institutions go it does have its advantages.But for something that began as a way of preserving property I wonder when it became so emotionally overwrought. What was the need to have made it so? Why couldn't people just keep it practical and carried on as usual? But no, everything had to become about sex and emotions and violence and sickly sweet  and frankly disgusting anniversary celebrations ( I mean what is that? Yay! We survived each other these many years and scrubbed toilets and washed underwear without killing each other! Let's cut the cake!). Okay, fine, make it that way. But if it must be that and if one must saddle oneself with this other human who's going to be hovering around every single day, then let it at least be a someone that one can tolerate and with whom one shares more than just human DNA and a few ape-like characteristics.

If I must spend  time in enforced companionship with someone I'd like it to be with a reasonably intelligent human being who will have something to say if I mention ,say, Damien Hurst . I'd like it to be someone funny and who can make me laugh. And I'd like it if the person was reasonably good and had some financial security. I don't have an ideal man in mind. Yes , I have fallen 'in love' before ( whatever that may mean to various people) .But no, I don't expect that to happen again. So, really, is it too much to ask for me to not completely lose myself and my life and my perspective on things. I don't want to meld into another and become one with someone else. I want to be me and I'd like to have someone to be 'me' with. Simple.

I fear though that I may be dreaming for such simplicity in life. These days when I bring up how annoyed I get at the constant pressure that I have been for the past decade and more, the word 'duty' keeps cropping up. Earlier it was just the parents - "It's our duty to find you a suitable boy". Now my sister is in on the act too- "They're just doing their duty." And on most days I'd love to tell everyone where to go place their misplaced sense of duty.

It's fair to say I've given up. Now, I just wish 'they' would.

The Sage of Sanaa mesmerizes -again

Have any of you ever felt that miserable feeling when you've just finished a book? Especially a book that was so engrossing and so nearly surreal that at some point you begin to wonder if it was real ( no matter what it says on the cover!). I've just come to the end of Travels with a Tangerine. 

And I'm miserable! It was such a beautiful account of the author's travels in the footsteps of Ibn Battutah. In an earlier post I'd written about another of his books that I'd read- an account of his travels through India in the footsteps of Battutah- The Hall of a Thousand Columns. The author has portrayed so beautifully and 'surreally' two of the countries that have meant much in my life- Oman and India. And yes, I want to gush endlessly about it. He has managed to capture so beautifully that something quite not captured about Oman in a way that I never could. Although I do disagree strongly with him on his perceptions of Khor Rawri ( which has to be my most favorite spot anywhere on earth) , I couldn't be happier with the rest.

There seems to be a wonderful linguistic alchemy to the author's words that just transports and transforms and you're constantly surprised to find yourself in your everyday surroundings (which will always seem so dull when you do emerge I promise!). And the words he uses- they are mesmerizing and unusual. 

After the sensory assault (almost) that the book was for almost two months ( I tried to read it as slowly as possible), I feel I've been left high and dry.

Once I've re-adjusted though I have a whole pile waiting to claim me. I think I'm going to finally open up the Amitav Ghosh that has been eying me ( and that I've been eying back) these past couple of weeks. 

Of miserable Sunday evenings and how to put them right

So, today is one of those miserable Sunday afternoons after a glorious weekend.The gloomy ,vaguely wet weather just seems to make a bad situation worse. It has partly to do with coming off of the high of hosting a mad tea party for a bunch of deliciously mad people it seems. But every Sunday evening has begun to feel a bit awful lately. I hate that back to school feeling. Maybe it's a sign that I need to move on. In any case, while working on that, I have realized there are some things that do make me feel a lot better. A list of movies and books.

Today , for example, it's that lovely cozy movie 'Two Weeks Notice' with the lovely Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant. And here's a list of all those other movies that are guaranteed to calm me down (romantic fool alert!!) . 'You've Got Mail' , 'Must Love Dogs', 'Once', 'Father of the Bride' (both parts) , 'Music and Lyrics' , 'About a Boy' , the BBC production of 'Persuasion', 'It's Complicated', any of the 'Thin Man' series, ' The Women' (the old B&W one) , 'Clueless', 'Sense and Sensibility'. A brief list this one is. I'll be here all night if I had to list them all out I think.

I know I know. I'm an old romantic fool. But hey ho as a friend of mine says.

Then there are the books. I'm one of those weirdos who reads several books several times - either in whole or in part. I've read two of Anna Quindlen's books multiple times cover to cover. I have read Anne Bronte's 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' more times than I can count. I don't know what it is with some books. Then there's  Anna Karenina. Believe it or not I read that one cover to cover 7 times. I've read Levin's part more times than that. There are others , too numerous to count.

There's something about these books and movies, that instantly sucks me into another world that puts mine right at least briefly. Just talking about it makes me feel wonderful.Thank god for them I say. Then there are all those new ones that are showing me new worlds. My tea party produced a whole new crop and I can't wait to dive in. 

Matters of the heart

Cardiologists , I discover, are the gods of the medical universe. ( Perhaps that's true of the neurologists as well but I still think it's the cardiologists). These past few months I've had the opportunity ( misfortune, some would say) to observe them at rather close quarters.

In all the visits to the department this is what I've observed. There's a certain swagger to the way that even the nerdiest of them walk. A swagger and a certain humility too- it's an odd combination. I figure it may have something to do with the job itself. I mean, imagine holding a live , beating warm heart in one's hands. Is there anything that gets one closer to the actual essence of life? That brief instance must feel like - what exactly? A meditation on one's place in the greatest mystery of all?

Maybe I'm over thinking it and none of them has really internalized what it feels like- what it means to be in that position.

And what about mine? My doctor, looks like , believe it or not, almost exactly like Dylan Thomas. The resemblance is quite uncanny. Not sure if he's as poetic though. But definitely filled with a stern comforting fatherly (almost) concern and a barely hidden impish sense of humor.  All of which is cause for confidence. After all, in matters of the heart one must trust oneself only to the best.

My imagined life

Today I have been thinking of the kind of life I'd imagined for myself. I know for sure that this isn't the one. Perhaps I'd expected more. Or maybe I'd just expected different things. Different isn't always more. Different isn't better either I realize.

I think maybe I ended up with bits and pieces of the life that I'd imagined. And that is sometimes the absolute worst that can happen. That awful feeling when you're shown what could have been and then have it snatched away. It isn't even a case of grass and the perceptions of its 'greenness'. It quite simply is the absoluteness of shut doors and lost opportunities and just not being able to keep up anymore with the mad rat race of having it all or at least having what you absolutely must have. 

When I look back at the times that I have been absolutely happy, it has rarely had to do with another human being. It has been about places, books, paintings, spaces. What does that say about me? Other humans even in my imagined life (or all my imagined lives) have been incidental to other ephemera and even not so ephemeral things.

Somehow in my head and in the farthest reaches of my imagination, life (mine) is much more magical. Maybe the magic is my own sense of entitlement in my imagined self. Something I cannot seem to muster in the real. Maybe that's a good thing. I don't know.

As a milestone approaches, I'm drawing an absolute blank when I think of both my imagined and 'lived' lives. I don't know where things go from here. I cannot seem to conjure up an idea of where I need to go either. I'm confronted by the question - so, what now? Where do I go from here?

Lessons in finiteness and complicated simplicity

There is something to be said about confronting one's mortality. I don't mean the flashing of one's life before one's eyes before the car wraps itself around a tree kind of confrontation. I mean being confronted with the deterioration of one's body and the message of mortality therein.

Suddenly , as one lies there actually forced to face the fact that this whole shindig is going to come to a screeching halt in a couple of decades, one realizes all the things that remains to be done. There is a certain paring down that comes into play until life is whittled down to its bare essentials.

 It isn't meaning that one is concerned with anymore. In fact , there is a certain regret at the hours wasted in the constant whys and wherefores. I mean, honestly, if the constant belly-aching had yielded results that would be a different story. But honestly, who's going to solve a question that has been asked through several thousands of years with not an answering blip in sight. Not me.

Source: here

So, yes, this is finite. I'm not sure about the rest. I mean, at this point I don't even know if I care that much about the rest.  But this right here- it's heartrendingly finite. I follow a blog and the person who maintains calls it SLOW LOVE LIFE. I began looking at it because it was so pretty. The author had of course her own reasons for starting it. I have made it a place I go to to see how ephemeral everything around me is. Ephemeral and beautiful.

Astonishingly, I find all of this a relief. It's become simpler really. And complicated. A complicated simplicity. Like cherry blossoms. The transience and beauty and simplicity. They're there. They're beautiful. Then they're gone. I'm here. I'm whatever it is that I am. And then, one day I will be gone. Simple really. Don't you think?

Lives of quiet desperation and that red balloon

I'm nearly at the end of Theroux's book , Ghost Train, and I cannot help but feel impressed by his description of Vietnam. It strikes me as an almost ridiculously optimistic place and his account of it makes me want to jump on the next flight to Hanoi. And I probably will in a few months' time. I do feel an urge to run away that must be acted on quickly.

All this made me start thinking of the people where I live now. One would imagine that in a country so desperately poor ( yes, in spite of whatever maybe shining for the chosen few!)- and chaotically and suffocatingly overcrowded and with its urban squalor-  one would imagine that in such a place people would be leading lives of quiet ( and sometime, not so quiet) desperation. And yes, many do. I personally know several who don't see any end in sight.

Source: Here

And yet, even here, in this place that defies description or generalization or any kind of theoretical pinning down ( and not for want of trying either), there exist those who are optimistic to the point of being deluded. Or maybe that's just my curmudgeonly way of looking at things. A friend went trekking the other day to a forest resort.Her guide there, a young man of twenty or so, knew every kind of plant and bird they encountered on the trek. During the trek, he pulled out a book about the birds of India and proudly told her that he'd learned it by heart. He went on to tell her that he planned to become a forest guard. He was going to sit for the exam ( for which he had been studying since the age of 15) and get selected. She asked him when he intended to do this. And his rather surprising answer was that he'd do it as soon as he'd saved up 200,000 rupees. It turns out that when he went to register for the exam , the officials ( employed by the government , of course) had said that this was what he needed to pay them if he hoped to sit for the exam.

So, there you have it. Here's a country with young men and women willing to serve ( and he was doing it out of a genuine passion for the forest and the fast dwindling forest resources) , and the government, or at least those who claim to represent it, were doing their best to discourage him. Still, it's good to know that this hadn't dissuaded him completely.

Maybe that's good. Maybe, if we had more like him, some of the despair may by some weird alchemy transform into hope. So,here's to him and the nameless others that still hold out hope. Here's to those like him that make you believe- in something... the future...the human spirit... whatever. Here's to that elusive red balloon.

A state of wordlessness

There has been so much happening and I have been trying to put it all down. I sit in front of the computer and watch the blinking cursor and the empty screen and the words refuse to form. I open my journal ,pen in hand , stare into space and pray something comes.And nothing does.

It was a sad weekend with Whitney Houston's death. The soundtrack to some of the happiest times in my life contains nearly all her early songs and her remarkable voice. And with her death a silence has descended in some part of that life. But that cannot be, can it? The songs live on - and with them the memories.

It was a happy weekend with Adele winning the Grammys. This other diva with her songs of sadness is a near perfect soundtrack to these past couple of years.

I also had a visit from a remarkable man who has changed my life for better or for worse- sometimes I can't seem to decide.He always leaves me dissatisfied with myself. It was wonderful seeing him after three long years. It also brought to mind more starkly than ever how time passes and the traces it leaves of its passing. But it also brought news of possibilities for the future.

There seem to be so many things that I want to say and I can't seem to say any of them. My 'chronic dissatisfaction' seems to be at a peak. I have immersed myself in Paul Theroux's travelogue Ghost Train To The Eastern Star. Apparently immersing myself in another person's restlessness provides some relief. I'm new to Theroux's writing and find that I love his razor sharp observations and general 'curmudegeonness'.

Signing off -always hoping for the remarkable...  

A rant , a moan and a celebration (?)

Quite an eventful week this past one has been. Ms Winfrey arrived in the country and a burp in an espresso cup  gripped the chatterati up at the Jaipur 'Glit' Fest. Things were read that apparently should not have been read. I say 'apparently' because I am yet to be offended by said piece of 'offensive' literature. Unlikely assassination plots were revealed concerning individuals with positively farcical sounding names. There were denials and protestations of innocence and eventually all blame settled on the elusive 'central intelligence'.

The 'offending' author eventually said his piece by video interview with a certain Ms Dutt. Everyone and their mother spoke of freedom of expression. A bunch of fundamentalist cretins showed their disapproval of god knows what ( as all evidence points to no one involved having read a word of what they were protesting) by bursting on to the venue of the lit fest and doing a namaz! For pity's sake - get a life!

Ms. Winfrey got it absolutely right when she called India 'the greatest show on earth'. We love making fools of ourselves it would seem even as we take ourselves too seriously. How we manage such extreme paradoxical behavior is beyond me. We can in the same breath extol the virtues of cleanliness in every country we visit and yet seem completely complacent with public urination in our backyard ( sometimes quite literally in our backyard!) . Gentlemen , public urination is NOT a fundamental right- just so you know.  We preach ritual purity in a hundred ways and yet cannot seem to stop the practice of public spitting.

Okay maybe these disgusting behaviors are the result of some kind of pandemic of incontinence of oral and other varieties. But what about space? What pray explains the need to stick like a limpet to the back of the person standing in front of you in any number of lines waiting for any number of things?  A word of advice to those who think it's perfectly okay to stand 'that' close- it is absolutely disgusting . An arm's length is a respectable distance. And I would say that it's an economical distance considering that we seem to be really pushing the envelope as far as the population is concerned and showing no signs of stopping- EVER!

End of rant.

The current week began on a sad note with Sukumar Azhikode, that giant of  Kerala public life passing away.  He will be missed.

Also waiting to see what happens at Tahrir today. Cannot believe it's been a whole year!

Across the Empty Quarter

Wilfred Thesiger (Source: Here)

I've just finished reading a slim volume titled Across the Empty Quarter- an account of the late British explorer Wilfred Thesiger's journey across the fabled Rub al Khali or the Empty Quarter in southern Arabia between 1946 and 1948. The journey is a story of a lost way of life and the story of the endurance of man in the face of the most extreme conditions that nature has to offer.

This is a travel diary that recounts in great detail the journey across one of the harshest landscapes in the world. Thesiger has captured the romance of the Bedouin way of life as well as its perils. This story of a lost world and time are beautifully told as only a person who has completely immersed himself in it can.

While being a keen observer of those around him, Thesiger is also brutally honest about his own feelings , experiences and shortcomings. My favorite parts in the book are the vivid descriptions of the punishing climb up the treacherously steep dune of the Uruq al Shaiba as well as Thesiger's recounting of the three nights that he spent without food while his companions went looking for supplies in the desert settlement of Liwa.

Source: Here

Of course for those interested in a detailed record of Thesiger's travels through Arabia nothing beats the brilliant Arabian Sands.

Thesiger's life is an inspiration to every restless wanderer. And for those of us who feel compelled to lose ourselves in the beauty of the unexplored his is a life that is testament to the rewards of such compulsions.

Also check out this photo essay about the Rub al Khali in the Saudi Aramco Magazine.

The Girl with the Encyclopedia of Bottles

Source: Here

There's a girl I know and quite an unusual creature she is too. A ridiculously talented artist with the most peculiarly wonderful way of seeing the world around her. She seems to have a thing for bottles. Bottles that to you and me are just that ,somehow in her eyes transform into magical things that make you feel you've gone through the looking glass or fallen down a rabbit-hole. Come to think of it , I wouldn't put it past her to have done either or both those things. See for yourself...

Check out her latest work here.

Encounters

Lali was a fisher-woman who came every other day. She sat in her black abaya against the white wall of the house next door. A woven basket containing chunks of tuna, big pieces of king fish , pomfrets the size of plates , sat in front of her. She sat there from 9 in the morning until 12 . Cats walked up to her ,their eyes glazed over with pleasure from the smell of the fish. The housewives , a mix of Indian and Pakistani expatriates and Omani-Baloushi  women, trooped to where Lali sat. But this was not just a business. It was, for Lali and the women in the neighborhood, a place to exchange gossip about everyone living in the homes under the great acacia tree.

I think my love of fish dates back to that time.I can see her still in my mind's eye as if it were just yesterday. The fish was bought fresh each morning at the Muttrah fish market. And it actually smelled -good even before it was made into all the fragrant curries in the different households. Odd thing to say about fish I know. But it really wasn't smelly. The basket smelled like the sea as did Lali herself. I sometimes wish I could draw her. There was something wonderfully interesting about her face. She seemed of indeterminate age. But now that I think of it she could easily have been middle-aged or near enough. Her plump happy face framed by the black hijab with the sun-browned skin and the big silver nose stud and the twinkly eyes immediately invited one to spill whatever secrets one may or may not be carrying. Her smile was wide and her teeth crooked and yellowed. I wonder what kept her so happy. It could not have been an easy life.

Another thing- she was always good tempered. Even when the haggling began with her customers who invariably quoted ridiculously low prices she never once lost her temper or shouted back. Then again, her voice was loud and booming enough to be heard without her having to shout/shriek/scream. She was nice to the cats. I remember that too. No matter how annoyingly close they got or rubbed themselves up against her -ingratiating themselves to her no doubt in the hopes of having a piece ( or wonder of wonders- an entire fish!) thrown at them.

I always wondered about her. Did she have a family? Where did she go when she wasn't sitting there? I don't think anyone asked. My mother, one of the most curious women you'll ever meet, never knew much about Lali except that she was a Baloushi woman. Did no one ask her? I wish sometimes I'd been old enough to ask. How did it all play out for her- life, love, family, I wonder...

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Another encounter a couple of decades later- this time in the 2000's. I was in Jebel Akhdhar in Oman. It must have been sometime in November. I went trekking there with my parents. We came to a point where stone steps had been cut into the side of a steep hill. The way down was dotted here and there with walnut and almond trees- bare at that time of year except for a few leaves. Somehow , slipping and sliding over the lose stones, we managed to get down to the wadi which was dry and filled with tan colored boulders and rocks of various sizes. I found a ledge to sit on and rest a bit- taking in the pleasant silent solitude of the place. In the distance on the mountains lining the other side of the wadi there were ruins of some old settlements. And then we heard it - a slow steady dull thud of something hitting the rocks in the wadi. It came closer and closer until suddenly round a bend close to where were sitting, a wizened old man in a dishdasha and muzzar came by on crutches. His left leg had been amputated above the knee. But he seemed perfectly balanced on the wooden crutches and deftly negotiated the rocks in the wadi.

Source: Here

Seeing us , he flashed a nearly toothless smile and came closer and struck up a conversation with my father. Dad being fluent enough in the language sussed out that the old gentleman was on his way to a village nearby to meet his friend. The friend's village was five kilometers away from where we were and his village was about seven kilometers in the direction he'd just come from. Further questioning revealed that he'd lost his leg in the war in the 1950's that the Omani forces had fought with the British forces against the invading Saudis. He had apparently been a young lad of 17 or so at the time. There had been shelling and his unit had been hit. He had survived but they had had to amputate the leg. The story was punctuated with lots of  Allah Kareems ( Allah is Merciful) , both by him and my father. We then asked him why did he have to walk to see his friend- it seemed an exhausting thing to do. He said he enjoyed it- the weather was wonderful at that time of year and he couldn't wait around for his children to drive him down as he had already put off the visit for too many weeks. He was his best friend you see- this one that he was going to see. We talked some more and then he was off.

Confessions of a closet gardener

So, I'm a closet gardener. Or at least that's how I think of it. I don't have seed catalogs. I don't have gardening gloves and equipment and all the other paraphernalia. I don't even have a watering can come to think of it! But I love plants. I love having them around. I love playing in the mud. I love digging right into the mud with my hands. I love the smell of the mud when water is poured into it.

I love coming home at the end of a long day at work and going to each of my plants and stroking their leaves, touching the blooms, sticking a finger in the mud to see if they have enough water. I love seeing them early in the morning before I begin my day. And yes, I might as well tell you, I love talking to them. Admittedly I don't have long gossipy conversations with them. I like telling them bits of my day or even simply asking them sometimes how they're doing. I know , I know it sounds like I'm nuts. But the truth is there is something comforting about the way they stand there steady and somehow eternal and silent.

The best bit of growing plants though is when the flowering ones bloom. There are few things as satisfying as seeing that first bud grow, fatten, feel the life grow in it and then finally one fine morning the petals open -sometimes slowly and sometimes all of a sudden in a glorious burst of life and pure happiness and color.

Miss Violet with her first blooms

I plan to make a tropical forest in my balcony if it kills me or even if makes my nails absolutely ragged and dirty!I love those beauties. And the first ones to burst into bloom have been my African Violet and my beautiful Begonia. Violet here is a bit of a fuss pot with all her exacting temperature and water requirements but it's been a pleasure watching her bloom...The Begonia though has been bursting with waxy red blooms ever since she arrived. And for such a little plant she's been quite prolific.

Begonia

 







We have also acquired two different kinds of jasmine, a couple of geraniums and a deep red salvia. Can't wait for them to bloom!

The other residents

I often imagine these guys just sitting there and contemplating life. Or not contemplating. But simply being. That sense of just being. Breathing, drinking, blooming, growing. Silently. Steadily. Always. You do see a world in a wild flower. No wonder a bunch of daffodils moved a man to write a poem. How could one not? These lovelies make poets out of the driest of us I think. And let me tell you something else- there is nothing more startlingly wonderful than the encounter between a child and a plant. Ever seen that happen? There are few things that will surprise you as much as that, trust me...

2012

Source: here

The last few weeks of the past year were given over to various illnesses and end of the year stuff. So, a new year and a clean slate-well an almost clean slate. This is the time for new beginnings and wonderful new resolutions and standing at the beginning of a sparkling new year that is now about a week old, the thoughts of potential adventures , potential mistakes , potential victories and a whole bunch of other potentials have me excited.

This year also happens to be the first time that I'm entering a brand new year with no plans at all. I have always been one of those creatures that had a bunch of things that had to be achieved in a particular year. But now I think I may have finally learned to let go. I have decided that this year I will take each day as it comes. I will take lots of time for myself. I will indulge in all the things that interest me at any given time. I will live in the moment and travel wherever I can. I would also like to do something that makes me go weak at the knees. Hmm. Cliches they may be. But those really are the things I would like to do.

I think - and maybe this is the Indian/mystical new agey person in me talking- but opening one door is going to let in all sorts of other possibilities. And for an eternally restless, chronically dissatisfied person like me, the thought of possibilities is deeply comforting.

Happy New Year!