Mind The Gap!

Photo courtesy the Metadyne Website

 "London Underground Platform Gaps and the origins of Mind The Gap"

Or "Please Mind The Gap" as I've heard more often.
No, this is definitely not a post about the Metro/Underground/Tube/Subway or whatever you call it where you are. The article linked is however a delightful read on the nuances of gaps. Those ever repeating recorded announcements have taken hold of my imagination since forever and they buzzed in my head as my thoughts dwelt on The Gap!

The thoughts came flowing in as I walked home with my loaded shopping bag and started to prepare for shift #3 of my day. And I dropped everything to write this down before the 5 second gap claimed me.

My biggest challenge has been this gap between thought and action, between an idea's birth and its transfer to the neo-natal unit where all such ideas are lovingly nurtured.

Lately I have had my head pounded by public events. The  Kolkata Transgender Appointment which was an apparent breakthrough but not, the Kolkata Skeleton Case which an irresponsible police, medical blabbermouths, titillation-crazed media and the general public have made such a mashup of,  that the critical thinker truly has no idea where the truth is embedded. Followed by the Marriage Rights Breakthrough in USA that has stirred up a plethora of questions and not a little controversy! There are indeed far too many to list.

In between invariably come challenges faced by myself and my creative collaborators in our individual spheres, as well as changes I have hoped for in my own life. I'm slowly inching towards them, hopefully not stepping back even if I don't appear to stride forward.

The salt and spice of my life in the absence of other creative stimuli, have been the conversations on my own and other people's posts. I get the feeling that my best ideas have been dropped all over the place as Facebook comments, many scattered beads that I am carefully gathering to string together with meaningful interconnections. Indra's Net never got so interesting as it has right here, right now.

Between me and this wonderful creativity comes The Gap.
My 5-second short term memory that's become such a menace, I regularly leave my  purchases or a part thereof in shops and have to go traipsing back for them.

Yesterday I took my luchis without the dal at the snack shop, and waltzed off. I did think to myself that the packet was a little light, but hell, these days plastics make light of everything. I was in luck! A kind gentleman who had noticed, followed me at a brisk trot and caught up with me at my next halt to inform me.  Luckily I hadn't jumped into a cab and headed home. There is goodness left in the world. And to celebrate it of course, I picked up some mishti-doi for good measure!

Then, there is another kind of gap I struggle with and this sums it up.
"I write much better than I talk
But I talk much faster than I write"
Somewhere in between the two I have to make connections with those who matter. Communicate, given the constraints of time, distance, coordination, my eyes, my migraines ...

If only thoughts could just flow out as well  (as they flow IN)......

I made two connections that closed the gap between my writing and actually posting these words on this space.
And this is why we need those open channels of communication and connection, especially with creative collaborators and indeed collaborators in the art of living!

In response to my expressing a sense of chronic "incompleteness," Kim Raikes  reminded me of what she had once shared about "purposeful incompleteness" in a creative venture. It made me realize all the more that this was different. These gaps were not imperfections but brought energy flow to a halt. They could be negative in their effects, draining energies.  What I needed was also purposeful! A mindful bridging of gaps, to create a purposeful synergy of art, craft and purpose! 
Right after came a conversation with Sridevi Datta culminating in her (maybe coincidentally?) Facebook post, linking 6 Pieces Of Buddhist Wisdom That Will Transform Your Life.

This little fragment from the article, "but we all do better when we all do better." caught my attention and I responded with 
" We don't realize how networked we are and how all these energies flow through the network when we don't block the channels. There is power in the collective and power in the kinetic."
My words automatically flowed into this shared space!
Unplanned though the piece has been, I haven't left it unwritten!

And through all this confusion and my melange of reactions to the various events, viewpoints, crowd behavior et al, and to your conversations with me, has emerged a definition of my own personal needs. Thank You Gap! 

Footnote: 

All of us have dealt with the challenge of The Gap. Whether its a small space that catches and twists an unwary ankle that happened to slip in, or a yawning chasm that could spell danger, whether its the critical five seconds that intervene between the thought and the deed or a project that lies half complete for years waiting to be resumed, we all deal with it. I hope readers will share through comments, their own experiences of The Gap.

Apologies for not providing more links.  Trusty old Google is at your service. The gap this time is my eyesight!

Unseen, Untold, Uncreated

This impromptu post emerged out of a conversation with my dear friend, filmmaker and writer Ritwik Goswami. His latest offering "Fade To Black," led me to think about all those  metaphorical films that are lurking in dark spaces, in some state of gestation. As negatives(yes I used that word deliberately) in an archive,  as scripts in a file, as lives yet to be chronicled, all waiting to be brought to to light. We can connect at some level to these unmade films in our own lives.

"Fade To Black" uses the constraints the creator worked under - ten minutes viewing time and 48 hours to create the complete film - to open the audience to those untold stories and films-in-waiting. For me at least, its real strength lay in that.

This ten minute film has left powerful spaces where stories lurk - written and unwritten. The stories of so many kids who don't remain in this world to tell them in person. They reveal themselves differently to each of us and we are left to relate to them and unravel them. 

The film is a reminder to me all over again, that when we are gone, a huge part of us remains that will never be known to ourselves or to anybody. Unless it is through these connections in the stories of others. 

Azaan's was a life unlived. So many possibilities of what could have been. Yet so many possibilities of what it could still be in other lives. Not sure what the title stood for in the mind of the film maker but to me it affirmed that it's darkest before the dawn, that we can "mine the darkness" and illuminate the future ...

Watch the movie and find out for yourselves. You will recognize that the stories - told and untold - are our own.

Note: Film has Queer Content

There is so much more I could say but I don't want to give away anything.

Footnote: A Director's Cut would be welcome. Not to speak of "The Making Of"

And just adding that the viewer can fill in the "nuances" :)

Don't Stop Believing ...

The elephants that paid their respects to their savior on the first anniversary of his passing triggered this post.

Picture courtesy BBC One, color altered

"A herd of elephants stayed in silence for two days after the death of Lawrence Anthony – the man who saved them. Exactly one year after his death, to the day, the herd marched to his house again. It is something that science cannot explain."

Science is a journey, ever evolving.
As we are.

My favorite phrase from the  Corinthians, "Faith, hope and love" came circling back to me as it does periodically bearing new meanings like gifts. What these elephants felt was love.  And what my friend Ted revealed in his comment under  the elephant post shared on my timeline was love!
"I actually do love things like this that science can't explain!"
But it was also a lightbulb that illuminated a fresh doorway into the Corinthians and their oft-quoted triad.
Within those three, love had the edge: "The greatest of them all is love."
Love makes the magical connection between beings, between unlikely entities.
The how, the why and wherefore, fall into place in their own time. Faith gives us the hope that we will understand someday, what we don't today but accept all the same.
Maybe in our lifetime, maybe not. Nothing is set in stone. I for one, believe science will evolve to the point of explaining this.

Which brings me to a another insight that flashed out of my head in response to a heated and none too civil conversation on another Facebook Post and wrote itself on my wall:
"Between the post and the comments lay the truth."
"What is truth?" asked Jesting Pilate eons ago. The answer comes from my friend Neelima :
"In between lies a hidden tapestry of imagination....Each finds his own meaning."
There are no limits on the imagination. What imagination believes today, science will "prove" along the way.

This post is for my "thinking cap," Bharat Sharma(I'm sure you got that from the title). I enjoy the challenge of bridging your point of view and mine!

The Golden Thread

The Trap

The unlikely twins had struck again!
I had been restless and impatient, yet imprisoned by ennui.  Just when a mix of ideas was brewing to its fullness, the magical catalyst that brings thought to life had gone missing. Like a switch that wouldn't come on when pressed.
I shared my concerns with people.
Sometimes I expressed my own frustration in private. I just scribbled the scattered thoughts down. Or talked to myself. In my head ...

I watched the tender green fruits emerging on the jackfruit tree nearby. Some consumed by birds before they could grow, others shriveling away. Were my thoughts akin to those? Would the brew be flat yet again for want of the spark? Maybe those immature fruits were reborn in the spring songs of those very birds. Maybe what shriveled had its own destiny to fulfill as part of the universe? As we too do when this lifetime ends.

Never Not Broken

My mind raced through to the  Goddess Akhilandeshvari. The one who affirmed that we were anyway always in pieces - broken, scattered pieces.  I was impelled to share that I was acutely conscious of my own brokenness in this phase and troubled by it.
I confided to a friend:
"I feel like I have fallen to pieces and am gathering the pieces now and setting them into new patterns. Like a kaleidoscope that had a crash and has gone for an upgrade. I am angry because the pieces are not coming together into works of writing"

Were these random sentences all that came forth, in fulfillment of a promise to myself that I would write every single day? Something, anything, even a shopping list.

In speaking up though, I was making the connections needed to create a meaningful piece of writing.

I found myself returning to the theme of pieces. I was  responding in an unlikely context related to the idea that identity assertion was divisive and led to conflict,
"You need not necessarily separate yourself but be part of a pattern of diversity. It's like pieces of a jigsaw or threads on a loom. You could shake them up into a state of confusion/violence or they could harmonize into a beautiful pattern."

The threads were being spun in my Arachne-conscious. Their role as connectors was emerging unknown to me.

Those Invisible Golden Threads

Kim it was who ignited the golden spark that illuminated the thread and made it come to life in my imagination.

"Just because the pieces may seem to be detached and scattered at times, doesn't mean there isn't a golden thread attaching them.
It just takes time for the thread to become obvious.
Maybe because we focus on the pieces themselves and not on their connectors"

The thread is always there, has always been. Several threads that connect, relate and reveal patterns. Yet emanate from our common creative source. Just as we are in pieces always - Never Not Broken. Waiting for threads to connect those pieces into creations of value. These threads are active in my imagination. They are delicate, and it takes grace, patience finesse to transfer those patterns to a page that can be held up to view.

 Maybe my promise to myself could be "Look out for the golden thread. Handle with care." Visible to the inner eye, it takes tender craftsmanship to render visible to the eyes that read the written word. The inner ear listens for its delicate lyre-string too. So the voice can speak it out in affirmation.


As I started to write this post, through sheer chance I ran into this song by Pete Seeger.

More affirmation. Nothing is random. There are patterns waiting to be recognized.
 Kim came back with more:
"Have you heard of the plant named golden thread?  It's so mysterious and wonderful.  I wrote about it in my book.  Above the earth it's a simple, low-growing woodland plant; but if you dig into the earth you find its roots, and they're gold!  All interlocked in a wonderful golden network of threads :-) "

Pictures taken at my home on Vasant Panchami - yes that is a golden thread amid the flowers

Almost a full month into the new year I wish my readers the gift of this Golden Thread! Sometimes we lose sight of its presence. We need to believe that it lies concealed. You are all part of the pattern. In whatever form you recognize it, may it be yours!

Picture courtesy Dons Maps

Footnote: Do view the links. They part of this network of threads, part of patterns concealed and revealed.