Kaagazi hai pairahan

My friend, Aasheesh Pittie, has many interests, and books have been a consuming passion with him for many years now. He sent me a link to a fascinating story the other day – where a sculpture had ‘appeared’ at the Edinburgh’s Leith Library, the latest in a series of ‘gifts’ that the mysterious artist was making to various bodies of her(?) choice: the Scottish Poetry Library,  the National Library of Scotland, the Filmhouse among others.

The works are intricate, inspired and incredibly beautiful. Someone has been crafting them out of printed paper, choosing scraps with delicate interest and creating these wonderful installations that pay tribute to words, books, movies and other forms of “magic”. And then s(he) has been giving them away, leaving them to be found in obscure shelves and ledges to be found by their recipients.
Many of them refer to Ian Rankin, but the artist has diversified of late. The latest one bears a quote from AA Milne: “It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like “What about lunch?”” What fun this is!

My favourite must be this scene of ‘books-turned-movies’ where horses and armoured warriors leap out of the screen, surround their audience in an utterly immersive experience.

 

 

But this one is funny too:

The whole story up to a year ago is here and detailed pictures of the sculptures are here.
And for more, LOTS more on book culture, http://www.bookpatrol.net/ Hat tip, again, to Aasheesh.

Cheentis!

Ant populations crawling out of my keyboard. What on earth is happening here?

Pulling it together

बदल रही है आज ज़िन्दगी की चाल ज़रा
इसी बहाने क्यूँ ना मै भी दिल का हाल ज़रा
सवांर लूं... सवांर लूं...

 
badal rahi hai aaj zindagi ki chaal zara
isi bahane kyun na main bhi dil ka haal zara
sawaar loon... sawaar loon...

When the summer heat has abated, at a time when cooling winds blow, bearing rain, and tales of other places... bringing with them tokens of a larger world... it is perhaps the right time to set your internal world right as well.

Sar jo mera chakraye

I've exposed my mind to such an array of impressions this last week that it is jangling like wind chimes caught in a blizzard. So wanting to blog, but the coherent words won't come. So this, to hold till they do.

The Pioneer

My Sadhguru says something very significant and profound in his latest Wednesday post:

This is clear to me that before I am done with life, I will see that Adi Yogi is recognized and acknowledged for the contribution that he has made in the shaping of human consciousness or the tools and methods that he offered for a rapid evolution of consciousness. In terms of exploring and understanding the human mechanisms, there has never been another one either before or after to rival him. In acknowledging him, all the possibilities that he offered can also be brought forth into currency. Raising human consciousness is the single most important task ahead of us. We, as a generation of people, are placed in a unique position where our survival process is organized like never before, comforts and conveniences like never before and above all, we have the capability, resource and technology to address all issues upon the planet like never before. The only missing ingredient is the human being whose experience is inclusive enough to propel into action of the right sort. Adi Yogi is a true antidote for all the ills of societies of our times. He is the man for our times as he does not demand belief or faith but offers a science of transformation.

Read the whole thing here. 

It's your birthday

I was cleaning a cupboard today (yes, I'm good that way, once in a decade) and unearthed a considerable bundle of Archie's and Hallmark cards. If only I could get half-price for the lot, I'd have a fortune. Birthday cards, 'do well in your exams' cards, notes... cards exchanged between ourselves, wishes from cousins, friends, neighbours, parents, one from Bapa (my grandfather) and three from a dog. A few are straight, sweetly sentimental but mostly the pile yields 'insult' cards that were all the rage at one time.

I found several wishing me on my 21st birthday - sigh, already they had started insulting about my age and at least two friends, I discover, urge me to be wild and drive Porsches. Err... note from the future: that would be a Nano, and no, I haven't gathered the guts to drive it around the colony at midnight yet.

I don't know how it started but no birthday card was ever, EVER complete without the adjuration to 'FREAK OUT'. It became a joke with us, and we never did fail to have that golden phrase figure somewhere. From Shweta to me, me to Shweta, cards from Nitya, Priya and Sriram... all bearing the famous words.

When she was here and cleaning her cupboard, Shweta uncovered a set of unused cards - no doubt purchased so to be handy when a dear close friend sprang an unexpected birthday. They are ALL age cards. She showed them to me and I chuckled over them. Then, she said, "No one gives anybody cards these days, so I'll just give them to you." But alas, I had seen them all. Never mind, she tells me bracingly, you'll never know WHICH one you're getting. That just makes me feel warm all over. 

Baatein yahaan wahaan ki

I put to rest a deadline yesterday that has taken all this week. I woke this morning and stretched to a delightful feeling of freedom. Time at last to write to friends, scratch about my favourite time-waste forums, change a display picture and even blog.

***

One post about Bombay Talkies was in draft mode for more than a fortnight. Since it seemed de rigueur, here is my list:

1) Dibakar Banerjee. Lovely, lovely vignette. Hail, master of the short form. Whatsisname Siddiqui! the layers of sound in that film... hell, the whole world-view. Loved. And Anjali, the Emu. Seriously, man. I suspect, my eyes started bulging even as the lines played out. "Anjali ne saara besan kha liya..." already my mind was reeling with speculation -- wtf! who eats besan? and hehe, the frame moves to the phlegmatic bird. Haha!

2) Anurag Kashyap. The madness of fandom in India.  Allahabad vs Kanpur. Amitabh Bachchan, the last superstar. The human-ness of security guards. The casual cruelties of occupants of top berths. The unreasonable demands of parents. The principles of storing murabba. Nice!

3) Zoya Akhtar. Sweet kids but she bit off more than she could chew. The complexities of transvestism and deeper psychological/gender issues compounded by inept parenting in a short? Didn't work.

4) Karan Johar. Same topic. Unlikeable characters, all of whom behaved badly. Very *shrug* for me.

When's the next portmanteau film? Can I direct one chunk? Please?

***

Then, there was a bit of time for some Sufis today, and I found a couple of things I wanted to keep in my folder Poetry\Punjabi.

Shah Hussain says:
Ashiq hovaiN, taN ishq kamavaiN 
Rah ishq sooee da nakka, dhaga hovaiN taN javaiN 

If you could be a lover, you could earn love
The path of love is the eye of a needle, you could pass if you were a thread.

***

It's being a weird summer in Hyderabad, hasn't it? First it wasn't hot enough, now it isn't dry enough. Icky humidity. Bleah. Still, my father has brought home this water sprayer and I walk about phish phishing the air in front of me. Come soon, rain - the Bangalore walas on my timeline are getting unbearable.

***

I managed to see Star Trek into Darkness (is that the right name?). IMAX, 3D, good seats. And Benedict Cumberbatch was good only in spite of Sherlock. Also Kirk. And Spock. Liked Sulu also. Everything and everybody, in fact, except Klingons.

Ashte.

Khwab juda...

You know what annoys me? When people say - over and over - that they want something and then, when life offers their heart's desire on a platter, they're too... oh, I don't know... too damn scared to reach out and take it. They step back, they make excuses and then they become wistful at how free other people are to do whatever they want.

It's too inconvenient right now, it's too expensive, my children have exams, the timing isn't right... may be next time.

Either take it -- take a risk, make yourself uncomfortable, go out on a limb and see if you like it after all -- or SHUT UP. Be happy with the life you've CHOSEN! Just don't tell yourself (and me) that your life would have been this wonderful, many coloured rainbow, if only you had had someone else's luck.

====

The title of this post is from this wry sher by the most quoted poet on this blog, Farhat Shehzad:
Khwab juda, rang bharna aur
Kehna aur hai, karna aur

ख्वाब जुदा रंग भरना और
कहना और है करना और

Dreams are very well, living them is another matter
Talking is one thing, doing is another matter

Indeed.

Night raga

#nowplaying Bade Ghulam Ali Khan sa'ab with a tarana in Malkauns.

I should do this more often.

On the go

There may have been a time before twitter when I would've liked to blog on the fly, eager perhaps to record my views of a film even at the interval, or the excitement of a match before I could get to a computer but blogger on mobile is by and large useless to me.

But again, during these long power cuts, why should we be deprived of pandering to our whims? We shall blog. Now. Be our material ever so slender.

Daunted!

There comes a time in February every year when the Hyderabadi's heart throbs with dread. The winter - our version of it, that is - was barely here, we have not used even half our winter clothes and already there is a mix of currents in the air. Now and then, a certain warmth meets the skin, although the mornings are cool and delightful, the west facing rooms are reminded of the presence of the sun and its awful potential.

'It is only February,' we say to one another meaningfully. There is March to come, April after that and then there is May... a parade of escalating hardship. Slowly talk veers around to summer plans. 'Shall we get a big desert cooler?' my dad asks. 'Depends on the water situation,' I tell him. He grimaces. No water, no water cooler. It is like that.

Everyone is upset that the dark filters have been stripped from their car windows - it will make a difference to how much we get out. Already courier delivery men have started to request a glass of water after they have gotten their signatures. I have made enquiries among neighbours, asking to be given coconut fronds to line the terrace with. It makes a mess and I can't stride about the terrace as I'd like but the 3-4 degree respite in temperature is worth it.

But the good thing is that few summers are actually as bad as they appear in February. Once the season begins, it comes to us a day at a time... the koels sing, jasmines bloom, mangoes get bought... there are power cuts and a blessed silence reigns everywhere.

There is something very compelling about summer in our part of the country. It is our most extreme season. Look at me, it says. And we do. The cycles of nature that we brush aside as inconveniences that get in the way of our lives... summer breaks that idea. It is awfully inconvenient but it shows us how big it is, and how ineffectual our ways of taming it.

In the last week of May, I will probably write to complain of the heat but here, now: YAY!

Half-time

I had a birthday last month and it has been creeping up on me these past few years that I'm in the middle of my life. No, I'm not about to wring my hands over the passing of youth or energy, the appearance of white hair, the onset of Hyperopia or the fact that I've had more medical tests this year than I've had in a long while. Right now is a good space.

This haiku, which I thought nicely appropriate, sounds more dismal than it is really. Youthful dreams have faded, written over with what actually took place. Some have been achieved perhaps, or they have mutated as you changed. Some dreams haunt still... the phrase 'some day' is alive, raising its head now and then, giving you a distant hope that you will some day have it THAT way. Some desires you have transcended, leaving you shuddering in relief that they did not, after all, manifest.

But it is midlife. There is some room to manouver still, there is potential yet, something out there that we could catch if we put the antennae out at the correct angle.

midlife...
my car radio
on scan
-Christopher Patchel

I love the apparent everydayness of this poem. Driving to work... a motion that has been gone through many times now. Many, many times. If you're inclined to be bored, there is a mind-numbing sameness to the exercise. But the scan is on.

While on the theme, I have always appreciated the advice in this sher, where the poet suggests you dream, but lightly:

Ankhon mein jo bharloge toh kaanton se chubenge
Ye khwaab toh palkon pe sajane ke liye hai

आँखों में जो भर लोगे तो काँटों से चुभेंगे
ये ख्वाब तो पल्कों पे सजाने के लिए हैं

Fill your eyes with them and they will hurt like thorns
These dreams were meant only to adorn the eyelids