Solitude

The solitude of this, in this… because of this. Excruciating. Exquisite.

Alive and still here because of this great human.

It’s simple: some of us would have killed ourselves if it weren’t for D. V. Gundappa (what a muddu muddu thaatha!). Some humans are quite as-a-matter-of-fact life-savers. ‘Bhuvanavé Shivavaarté’ — haven’t found a phrase as short as this contain whole philosophies combined. DVG’s ardent followers will probably be nodding furiously in agreement. If you disagree, let’s meet and I’ll give you copies of both Mankutimmana Kagga and MaruLamuniyana Kagga, and we can meet again once those verses enter your system. It’s a privilege to have faith in something, someone, such profound humanity that has manifested in the form of deep and vast literature.

A whole year

A year ago, we weren’t on the Indian soil. The plane was cleaving the European air, gaining miles towards France, where we would land in one of the most romantic cities in the world. A whole lifetime has passed in this one year, and I’m still not done sharing the stories from this extraordinary journey that included cities and towns to which some of the soul-enriching writers and poets belong. Minds that are here to stay for as long as the written word is here to stay. Our Earth’s existence itself could be nothing more than a blink of an eye in the cosmic scale of things, but here’s another new day, right here, and may these hours as we know them still continue to make us. May borders never mean fractures but only seams holding us all together as one fabric of humanity. May Whitman’s eternal call to add our own verse to the song of life give us the strength to make it a harmonious and meaningful one, one in which we are all creatures walking this one Earth.

Pessimism or optimism?

What things of beauty! In a world where the media and extremists of all kinds want us to believe there is only separatist politics, violence, bigotry around us, may we also pay our precious attention to those who are quietly kind and creative and stay resolute in their pursuits of spreading beauty and joy. Either through work or art, anything at all that aims to focus on peace, harmony and being genuine seekers and not spineless hypocrites whatever the heck our political affiliations are. Aren’t we so much more than these limited identities? When we look a little beyond all the human mire and quagmire, the more-than-human world, this gracious planet, always helps us get out of our own heads for good. How many birds did you see today? Did you escape a wasp-sting and let the poor little creature out of your open window? Did you not kill an ant near the kitchen sink and chose to simply watch it instead, until it disappeared behind your oggarané dabba? How did you let the world love you today? Write to me.💗

Love. Poetry. Isolation and togetherness.

Give all the pain, give all the drama, give a world of gut-wrenching poetry in love. Some of us are such masochists that we might not even want it any other way. Unhealthy obsession? So be it. A consciously chosen hell? So be it. You see, our Faraz knew, our Faiz knew, our Azmi knew. So many of those lovelorn souls knew… So many know… There is a togetherness there in that void. Fragile and furiously protective of its own tenderness. What glorious oxymorons. Rant by a moron? So be it. Love… oh, so much! 💗

Pānini. The wonderful language that Sanskrit is.

A three-day introduction to the genius. Of course it could take a lifetime for a dullard like me to understand the Pāninian depths and vastnesses, but I am inspired to no end after the first session earlier this evening. Dr. Saroja Bhate is such a bad-ass! “There’s usually 5-6 interested people in the audience, so I’m happy to see so many here in Bengaluru,” she said at the beginning. She also said it’s a great injustice to the maestro to do a mere three-day masterclass but that she considers this could spark an undying interest in us. I’m sure she has ignited a fire in the way she shared her decades’ worth of work in priceless nuggets, talking about language in general and how it always precedes grammar, and such things. Truly, what a miraculous language Sanskrit is. Also, how the heck does one even categorise this man who played around so much with a language? And some of his verses show what great fun he was! Such humour packed in breathtaking grammar! Tomorrow’s session is on phonemes if anyone’s interested.🙂

View from my mother’s room, not many but about two half-moons ago. And to think that the ancients, by just observing, could fathom so much about that cold rock and this life-bearing rock moving in an even colder space! Relentlessly. Ridiculous.

Ajji: My maternal grandmother

Some soul-crushing sacrifices are lost to those of us who forget our histories. Wars we have dodged because someone older than us never toot their own horns about being frontline soldiers in their time. Sometimes, we seem to know so little about our own parents and grandparents. What were they like as children? What was their favourite game? What were their first experiences of love, if they had any before being pushed into early marriages? What were they scared of? Did they ever fall in love with the spouse they didn’t choose for themselves? For some, what was it like to be in poverty and for others, what did comfort and luxury mean? Do their decades untangle freely now or do they still entangle in awful knots? Do they regret anything? What do they fear now? What is it like to look down at their own trembling hands, time’s flow etching itself on them? In the face of death that will come to us all, could we be worthy of trusting each other with not only our stories but also our secrets if any?

Chameleon. More-than-human world. Language.

Away from the recent anxious rumination about ageing while spending some precious time with my beloved grandmother, a short meandering into one of MYsooru’s backyards proved to be a soul-salve. When the human-world details become too overwhelming to bear, perhaps the best way of healing is to completely turn outward, to the more-than-human world to take over. That kind of liberating self-abandonment that has been an arduous journey, personally. So much of the spiritual softly hums right here.

Also, life’s intelligence flows in such infinite ways. And we think we are the smartest creatures, we who use the word ‘chameleon’ for humans who commit volte-face. Perhaps we need to stop using language so flippantly, especially some animal idioms. More on this:
https://youtu.be/cJLij6i_Akg?si=LkEjls6yT3fTdDqR

Himalayan Aves #88: Snow partridge

valleys lap up cloud-shadows
and echoes of your calls
we pant up a peak with searching eyes
you, snow partridge
between the soft crunch of snow and rock
you show up, far but familiar
familial even
you wake all the fractal selves from their slumber
into fixed fascination
a faint thrum of a thrilling unison
allow me the hyperboles, they will save us
from ossifying into futile restraints