The Pumpkin Quartet - Trick And Treat - A Halloween Nonsense Post

Not by T.S. Eliot
By Not.T.S.Eliot
By T.S. Not.Eliot
By and Not By T.S. Eliot

Schrodinger's Cat would insist on the fourth option/non-option. 


Certainly Eliot of yore didn't visualize his Four Quartets as Four Goofy Pumpkins carved in Maine, who have a carpet rolled out for them to walk/squat-on depending on whether they are Hollywood pumpkins or hefty desi Indian ones. So we say Bye to T.S. Eliot and proceed!

These four pumpkins are pet spooks of Kim Raikes
Keep safe distance

This silliness around a quartet of pumpkins - or Four Quartets of Pumpkins - emerged from a really serious conversation around the Trick Or Treat theme taken in the profound context (Eliot was involved)  of Life-and-death/Life-or-death. Believe me, the conversation gave me goosebumps of a totally different kind from the spooky shivers and shudders associated with a macabre Halloween costume or two. And the conversation will be posted another day, also entitled "Trick And Treat" because that dratted cat got us good and educated us on the new reality where they coexist peacefully and don't fight over scraps like old-fashioned Tom Cats did.

As with so many dear, lost souls, the kitty's real name has been lost to posterity. An reward is still on offer for the one who unearths the wise feline's birth name by which he was addressed all of nineteen times.

Meanwhile here's a deal. Readers please give Schrodinger's Cat a name and post it in a comment. I will put all the names into a witch's basket, toss it up to high heaven and bring it down and pick one. My next post will be themed around the word I pick - it does not have to be a Austrian/Hungarian/German/Irish or any sort of European/Abrahamic name. Indeed it can be a Vedic ahem Vedantic name which is probably what he gave his pet. 

Lest the Four Pumpkin Spooks who triggered this post feel offended, back to pumpkins. Do you know the first American to discover the magical powers of the Indian pumpkin? He comes next only to Schrodinger for his service to the Indian cause.

Cheers And Happy Halloween!

Keep off carpet
Do not walk without permission of Kim Raikes

Footnote: 

• Keep a sharp eye out for future appearances of that carpet in your dreams and/or this blog. 

• The Real Trick And Treat Post - treat as distinct from the trick - will hit these pages in the next few days. 

• Visit links in the interests of Higher Education on feline as well as Presidential behavior

Seeing Through The Veil - A Very Indian Samhain

Almost Asleep - Indefinitely - The Enigmatic Threshold 

Sleeping at odd times leads to major disorientation. On the other hand for me, most times a night’s sleep has been very hard won. I have started to believe that in truth I need and seek, both as passport to a good night’s sleep, and for its ability to open me to the creative forces that I need as a writer, a yoga nidra poised on the threshold between zones, where I have a comfortable degree of control coupled with the right level of excitement. Most times, the seemingly irresistible night’s sleep-call as I earlier mentioned, claims me only to betray me once I am in bed. Sometimes even the journey towards bed wakes me up. And I realize I have been on the verge of reversing it all, not to return to work or play some more, but to take another try for the bliss of the threshold that was all too brief. A zone way more delicious than sleep itself! 

Poised in The Almost Asleep State

I realized that these could be my struggles to discover a new form of meditation in which I can feel poised in a trance-like state and continue to write (you can see how obsessive writing, and now writing really well, has become) with eyes half closed. I have experienced unexpectedly meaningful flashes of writing during those brief brushes with the limina, that could never have happened while wide awake. I have caught myself doing this for short stretches. What if I could prolong those stretches? If I could hold myself in that zone over a period of time I would probably come out one fine moment and realize I’ve written half a book if not the whole. 

The Veil

As Samhain-Halloween approaches, I start to think of this zone as a veil! A veil between realms at its thinnest through which I touch the energies of the muse and draw them in.

Welcome to the veil! The veil cuts out the harsher energies of the mundane. It envelops you in an embrace that is sweeter and more life giving than sleep itself, but it brings you face to face with the energies you seek or which may seek you. These intriguing energies reside in a zone that opens itself to creative people. I believe there is a technique to navigate the hurdles that take you to that shore where you make smooth connections. Taking all the risks you want, safely! 

While the veil withholds the energies that could distract you (welcome to self distraction, these energies are often within oneself) it also behaves like a lens that empowers you with a different vision. Welcome to the third eye! I have often wondered if the scent and the smoke of dhuno (resins allied to frankincense ) help to hold you comfortably in that zone. For anyone who knows the experience of being enveloped in dhuno, it is indeed a veil. The silken smoke cuts out the negatives, the elusive half-pungent sweetness of the tingling aroma awakens those other senses that are numbered beyond five. I imagine one of those senses is the poise needed that ensures a complete cycle of communication. I will come back to that someday somewhere. I think of arati and what its esoteric purpose could be?

I recall sharing stories of basket dried hair when we were children. There was dhuno (dammar/loban/sambrani/frankincense not sure which precise one) smoking away in a holder and covered by a deep round wicker basket. You lay down and spread your locks over it. In the absence of significant locks to spread I suppose you rested your head on it. Methinks it was a tonic that awakened your brain’s ability to find its way to that threshold. And later in life when your desires spoke to you and invited you there, you found your way with ease. If not by any other way, by lighting the dhuno around you and observing how long you could remain poised in the threshold and thinking those thoughts in slow motion that were asking to be streamed out as your creative output.

Dhuno invited me to explore it as I wrote this. It wasn’t really in my mind while starting this post early in the morning, abruptly halting for the mundane. Twilight is the time for dhuno. It sends away nasty insects, disables germs and guess what? It asks you to worship. For those of us who write or play or sing or paint or act or just be true to our inner higher self, that defines worship. 

It is dusk. the hour when conches blow to communicate with the world beyond as well as with the children who need to be summoned home, the lamps are lighted to chase away threatening shadows and we sit sniffing the air around us. As I conclude writing, I smell it wafting in from the neighbors’. If there’s one thing I need to buy for Dhanteras* it is the genie’s lamp in which you prepare and light it. That is the paatra containing the essences of the magical world I seek. Awaken the genie and you have the key.

*Don't miss the broom purchase for Dhanteras - the Halloween Witch's Broom*

Arrival

The arrival of The Book (there are many arrivals) was put on hold after this was written in 2016. I feel like I can continue right here right now from Day Seven as a different writer and a different person. Hopefully not a different book, but a better one alright! 

Meanwhile rewind to Pages, Durga Puja Kolkata, 1st October 2016, though I could have written this anytime anyplace.

Where have I arrived?

I recall how I wrote my parents a single line on getting hold of my first job through my own efforts - “I have arrived.” My mom remembered that till the end. I recall too how they greeted me and hugged me when THEY arrived home to spend Christmas and be at my convocation. And mom declared “This is the proudest homecoming!” I wonder what our parents feel as they watch our decline? Mom couldn’t see my phoenix rising moments. Indeed those moments though I can feel them in the returning strength of my wings, are still ahead of me.

Again I think of how a parent feels at the shocking death of a child before their eyes. Shocking, because you have actually feared this for years. You have tried to reach out to your child and warn them, yet feel powerless beyond a point. Like you were not entitled to cross a certain threshold behind which they had isolated themselves. It is difficult when talking about pride and joy to avoid talking about the opposite - the melancholy feelings around ones children. No, not the opposite of pride as in shame. There is no place for something as crass as shame. It is one of the lower emotions and we all struggle to transcend it.

I would say deep anxiety is what parents feels when they think the child is headed in a negative direction. Some of my readers here are parents. All of us are children. And I believe all of us have parented a project or a dream or a vision. We are all creators in some sense. And then there is of course the opposite of joy – sorrow. Or it could even be pain. Sorrow and pain are complex. They are about what you cannot help, but even more about what you could have helped. They are also about the compulsive behaviors that lead you to repeat your mistakes – yes both we and our children.

But all this was not intended. This post is not about mistakes and regrets but indeed about arrival of the sort I commenced it with. This post is supposed to be celebratory about how the exercise called Pages – an offshoot of MorningPages – had worked for me and where it had led me to in these almost six days of writing. First I have a view of The Book (A Night's Tale) from a place I hadn’t considered seeing it from. I was led up to that place by this exercise. It’s like the way I felt when I arrived at the flat top of Gun Hill, Mussoorie, at the age of almost ten. Huffing and puffing for I was a lazy child and no good at stuff like climbing. But this silly wimp felt uplifted. At the same time down to earth. Up there it felt very safe, secure. A valley looks great and very welcoming when you are sure you won’t topple into it. I am at a similar plateau now, as I see my book comfortably spread before me all around. There is a mild thrill and a deep comfort to the feeling.

My biggest challenge however starts from the seventh day - unlike the Good Lord who decided to rest. As I feel the culmination of a stage, I feel the impulses that drive me to the next stage. And that stage is a crucial one. If you read my Morning Pages, you can see my introspection to uncover the processes that drive my writing and creation of a finished product. It is different for each of us and it is revealing, when I view these in a mirror I have managed to hold steady, long enough to freeze frames and save the images. I now know what goes on and what can tip the balance. From where I have reached now, I am driving myself to do pages– sometimes with effort, sometimes eagerly jumping in, but always feeling the imperative even when I don’t feel the impulse. 

And that perhaps is where the discipline of being a writer comes in. The urge to write can be spontaneous, it can be overpowering. The discipline to do it and deliver an optimum quality, is however, learned. And I am finding myself learning. It becomes easier as I start to do it reflexively. It won’t always be the best work but it will always be work of a certain standard. And knowing when the time/word limit are reached. Yes that IS a constraint for a book, not one determined by an external authority - read college examiners – but by ones own understanding of intent and purpose and by ones grasp of what a work of writing is, as distinct from simply the act of writing. I write therefore I am. It comes naturally whenever I feel like it and qualifies me as a writer but not yet as author of a work. 

My challenge from day seven then is to write THE BOOK in the same way that I am writing pages but with somewhat more foresight. Too much foresight would impede free flow and the offshoot of branches on the parent tree. There is a time to let grow and a time to prune and that is the next process up for learning. 

Hopefully in the next six rounds, by which time I would have arrived at the dos and don’ts of the book. Here’s to A Night’s Tale. I will let go and let it be written and find direction. Like a new river that has been waiting to start spurting as mountain spring. By the time Durga symbolically claims her victory and releases those energies all around to be absorbed and stored by us, the real name of the book would have found itself. As also the number of chapters and what intends to tuck itself into each. Well I can take another week as a buffer. 

I need to pace this and be addicted. Being addicted to a good thing can change the world! Watch this space for a transformation of Pages into The Book. The root bridges will find a life of their own. The bamboos will be gently withdrawn … and … ok chup. Signed off 12:08

Footnote: While I feel Morning Pages are way behind me, Morning Chapters will take over soon. And journaling will quietly go back to scribbling pads. 

Edit: 13th October 2020 - The Book is as yet Unwritten. Maybe it's time to rename this blog "Written" :)

The Air Is Thick With Bhoots!

The Air is Thick With Spooks and Sprites and Demons

From Pre-Diwali 2016
Though written as a Morning Page this is disqualified from Pages and is presented to  you as a well researched article!!

Even as the veil gets thinner, the air becomes denser. It feels loaded with the weight of anticipation in celebrating hearts and the thick vapors of oil and ghee as homes hasten to prepare their traditional goodies. The demons of cracker smoke add to the autumn regulars – the acrid vapors from piles of smoking trash mixed with heaps of drying leaves. The Indian motto is “sweep it out and then burn it away”. Yes the air is thick indeed!

We are creating our own death trap this time of the year. Explosions and fires from dangerous crackers and other carelessly handled fireworks. Sulphur fumes from the whole lot. The macabre aspect of Bhoot Chaturdashi takes on a contemporary idiom. About the ghosts of the future! Perhaps previews of our own ghosts appear before us in this dense, smoky. lethal air. There has always an aspect of the grotesque to all the Kali puja celebrations. If you notice the accompaniments to Kali images they can be ludicrously ugly creatures with mean grinning faces, quite farcical if you ask me. But then demons have always been known to leer and mock and laugh demoniacally to celebrate the success of the evil deeds they perpetrate. 

As a child, Kali Puja would frighten me because of those demons, and not really because of the Goddess’s ferocity and bloody tongue. Dad had taught me to befriend her so I hovered between awe and a respectful holding back, but I didn’t ever think of her as ferocious. I will never forget the conversation with a guest Thakurmoshai (priest) who was a regular for some years at Durga’s Pandal. There was an animated discussion on the munda mala or garland of heads that Kali strung around her breasts. He explained that she held them close to her heart in forgiveness. The entire “slaying” was about realization, atonement, forgiveness in that single instant. Kali’s silence that I have often mentioned - that moment when the world appears to stand still in complete silence and awe at the end of her battle - is perhaps the same instant the sinners enter her heart?

Even as people in Bengal light akhanda deepam (lamps burning through the night) to commemorate our ancestors on the night before Kali Puja - one for each of the 14 days of the dark fortnight leading to Amavasya (new moon)- they revel in sitting up all night listening to ghost stories told by family elders while the lamps watch over them and light the path for the ones from another dimension. No, not spiritual and profound stories but creepy stories of the Halloween sort. 

That same night Krishna bumps off a demon Narakasura and people in South India(especially the Tamils) feast in anticipation of the victory and wash away the grossness of the demon’s leftovers in a pre dawn ceremonial bath. Piping hot "Shanti Jal" instead of the cool spray you get after any other puja, from abundant sprigs of mango leaves dipped in a pitcher and shaken all over the gathering. And for people who have no access to the Ganges it is ironically termed “Ganga Snanam.” Maybe heating up the water magically turns it into the Ganga. Rivers are mysterious beings aren’t they? It is all over before the new moon rises invisible and unnoticed, as dawn steals over us. And the bathed and refreshed South Indians sit down to a repast. 

This year the Bhoots of Bengal and Battling Krishna are vying for time slots with Lakshmi and Dhanvantri and Yama. Well fending off Yama seems appropriate on the night of overcrowding by ghosts. We have one ghost less to deal with, sweet young Prince Hima who is threatened with ghosthood before his time. Though Yama oftentimes has his own night which he shares with Lakshmi and Kubera and all those benevolent folks, this year they are all vying for time slots on the 28th. And Kim’s birthday happily coincides with that! 

I’ve never been clear whether we are meant to welcome those ghosts on Bhoot Chaturdashi or shoo them away. The creepy tales, the spooks on the prowl and the ancestor worship! Methinks the good ghosts are meant to keep the nasty ones in their place. Returning to the thick air, for me that is personally the most menacing ghost as it truly foretells doom. A ghost in the making is more scary than one that has already “happened” and can’t un-ghost itself, merely appearing before us to scare us or sometimes chill with us like Casper. And in my case the beloved ancestors anyway drop by for parties and festivals and even on a normal dull day to spark it up - kind of senior Caspers!

When my mother departed she left me with two promises. One that life would get better for me after she transitioned zones, and the other that she would always turn up whenever I needed. That sense of having her a call away, has never really left me. Nor can I say for all my trials that life got worse. I have been enveloped by so much love, enduring love from unexpected sources. For me Naraka Chaturdashi is about making the connection with her and my dad, with family and memories (memories are also spirits aren’t they?) Welcome to another Frontier Festival*. While above the ground it’s about sweets and fancy diyas and candles, below there is a more exciting zone to explore!

Ganga Snanam in this house is done using water directly piped from the Holy River (via a distributary thereof) - via some filter beds of course - and boiled to strengthen its powers over demons!

Footnote:  In Bengal the 14 lamps commemorate ancestors on Bhoot Chaturdashi. Meanwhile the living have a repast made from 14 kinds of greens. They combine the lot and sell them in the market for this occasion. Perhaps their real purpose is to prep the tummy for the fasting/feasting that follows? Here is one version "Bhut Choturdoshi And Choddo Shak." Don’t miss the Yama connection. All these legends are in some way mixed up together to convey the same essential messages. Now I’m off to find the botanical names of those greens. Because this is heritage! The article has valuable insights and conveys the writer’s very authentic Bengali experience.

The picture is of Dhanvantri’s green deepam from a past year. I believe as the resident doc for the festival he tells us to eat those 14 herbs/greens and helps us keep fit so we handle all these mixed energies, banish the dense, smoking demons (tamasa) and come out in the light! Not sure all the herbivorous Bengalis will like my tongue in cheek, but at least the blogger above is mostly on the same page as I. Anyway it gives me a good reason to eat them. Detox, oxygenate and flourish!

*the ones that choose liminal zones*

Déjà vu – An Epilogue Of Sorts – Enjoy the conversation on heritage and sundry other memories between me and the aforementioned Kim whom you are all familiar with.

 Kim: Well to start off I just can't believe you know about Casper the Friendly Ghost!!! LOL Lord I haven't thought of those old cartoons in years.... Anyhow I was going to chat with you more today about Dhanvantri...the manifestation of Vishnu as healer...because it's his birthday on Dhanteras right? Prasad are neem leaves wtih sugar. You told me "neem flowers, 10 tender leaves, 1 spoon honey, 4 spoons of other soaked herbs, pinch of asafoetida, grind together into a paste." (gosh she remembers!) And that's what I've been thinking of today in conjunction with the 14 clay lamps and the 14 green herbs/vegetables for Chaturdashi. I'm gathering what I need for those 14's, and I'm appreciating so much their implication for both unity with those who have passed on, and with the Ayurvedic principles of healing in this world.

Me: Wait I don't seem to remember that recipe. Sounds like some dreadful tummy mixture. God save me from the asafoetida. I have that once a year on Diwali.

I recall the year that we were in Chennai a little before Diwali. We went shopping for sweets all over the place. We had quite a feast that year on our return to Kolkata and we still have the sweet box from one of the shops (Sri Krishna) used by mom for conveniently storing her numerous meds. We found there was no trace of the sacred their celebrations. It felt like pure hedonism!  I'm thankful for the thin veils we still sense here in Kolkata, despite the crass commercialization.

I recall, on the late evening journey back from the airport, we saw the illuminations at every corner in readiness for the festival and a stillness of anticipation  in addition to some real silence(those were the years the sound pollution laws had just started to be implemented after the noise rakshasas had held sway for decades). And mom sighed and remarked "It's a relief to be back. Now that tells me I'm home!" That year we also returned to a rousing welcome from the whole posse of boys/men who "helped"(household and sundry help) us. Friends had dinner ready for us. Dear young Manu (RIP) cleaned up the place and readied the beds for us in a flash. We had also carried a bunch of goodies in our luggage including the very special gunpowder that Latha (my cousin’s wife in Chennai) had made. The best thing about it was that it had no HING (asafoetida) but sesame seeds (til) instead and a little gur (jaggery). I have resolved to make that one year, but the hing calls me away. Mom thought hing was important and Diwali is about memories. Looks like Dhanvantri agrees with Mom. There's an almost frightening "maleness" about the pungent aroma of asafoetida (hing) and a gentle feminine quality about til.  Til would seem just as appropriate, if you consider that it's offered to ancestors. And it's great for the uterus. The oil that the Diwali idlis are dipped into is sesame oil and methinks the hing is meant to counter its soporofic effect. But hell, they add up to send one into a python-like retreat after the meal. I will never figure out these Ayurvedic cocktails and just how they induce the balance we need.

But thanks Dhanvantri - I don't need to solve these mysteries. I put my trust in you and get by.  Happy Birthday in advance and keep our tummies fit this silly season.
Kim, sesame crosses many cultural thresholds. It is a cultural unifier :) I have many sesame stories from my cache of memories. I have also shared my airport gunpowder story with you.

Wait I forgot! I use hing in my annual salted pongal as well.
(I have meandered in and out of the conversation)

I've enjoyed Casper comics since forever :) He is very popular here. My CTT spooks and sprites are a bit like him as are some other little children we both know. And even for those who don't know him, Brad Silberling brought him to life very dramatically! 

 And this song will always make me cry because so many I love are in another realm.

November Gloom Is A Creep

For Those Who Grieve
For Those Birthed By The Twins Of Grief And Celebration
For Those Who Celebrate For They Have Nothing Left To Grieve

Shared with readers for the first time, as these dates come around again in 2018

Being in an indefinable space and time that happens to be 1st November 2016 of the calendar, I  have been hopping from one topic to another, toying listlessly with each one before giving in to the pervading gloom that comes back to cling to me. November gloom is a creep. And I mean a real creep. It creeps upon you in the aftermath of the celebrations. It helps to have the festivals stretch comfortably over the first few days of the darkest month of the year. This time they all came in a mad rush at the tail end of October and blew themselves out like a myriad candles that suddenly felt weary of lighting up lives. And it’s horrible for me.

Because I am alone, increasingly lonely and thinking more than ever of sixteen years ago and that dreadful evening of 1st November, standing in the corner behind the door where now stands a switchboard that lights up my altar. Talking on a landline, over a dismally long distance in the twilight, to a melancholy house that had once throbbed with life and hope. From a corner where I had stood barely 48 hours earlier hearing the words that left me numb and trembling inside - Yama’s final stroke in a lonely guesthouse where no one belonged. Suddenly I find that 16 years that were meant to heal and had chances to, have only widened and deepened the dark empty vault of bereavement. Maybe I have been jolted by the sudden death of Maitreyee’s dad. While lighting a candle for him on Deepavali, I was reliving the loss of my brother right after the festival in a way I didn’t these past so many Deepavalis 

Grief is for the grieving, as life is for the living. No-one can order it out. It has a way of leaving its lingering scent in some forgotten corner to suddenly awaken at a touch. What’s worse is that it scatters its seeds in the wake of parting. Tiny and numerous like mustard or maybe like the black sesame seeds we offer the ancestors during Pitru Paksha, laden with mystery and nutrients. A bit like both, because they roll away like mustard into dark unsuspected crannies. Sometimes they sprout unexpectedly. Sometimes we gather them up and toss them out, but there will always be a couple that got away.

Have you ever spilled mustard seeds from a packet and tried chasing them around? The seeds of grief behave the same way. There are times when we pause and gather them carefully and lock them away in a vault where no light or air can reach them. They are sacred; we dare not disrespect them for they are the seeds of connection with those we have lost. They are seeds, they hold the power of life. Amazing for something that connects us with the dead. They hold the power to germinate, though germinate into what, perhaps depends on how we tend them. There are times when we open the vault and a miraculous ray of sunshine and a breath of air that snuck in unseen, have left tiny poignant plants in their place that remind us that we were connected to a living being. 

In these sixteen years perhaps I neglected some seeds, planted and tended others while yet others are locked away in a vault. A clock, a T-shirt, a pair of earrings – the last I ever wore. I have not worn earrings in 16 years – can you believe it? I am never able to, my ears get so inflamed! With anguish?

Why is Halloween, a the day of fun,  at a liminus with All Soul’s Day? Why is Bhoot Chaturdashi as much about spooks and sprites as it is about wishing the ancestors safe passage towards higher energies? I can understand now that while Pitru Paksha brings them to us, this occasion sends them on their way. Returning to those seeds, there are yet others that rolled into corners, some I deliberately tossed out in anger. A still-young, vulnerable lover grieving her beloved, closed herself in unbelievably. She too felt anger after the edge of grief wore off – towards me and my mother because it helps to turn it outwards. Today she is grandmother to teens and little ones! 

Meanwhile a mother passed on without ever venting or sharing her grief. Again a brother turned all his anger towards the wrong people. Sadly those people were us/me all over again. Their emotions have also riddled my home with seeds of all kinds. Amidst these are the seeds that bring sweet harvests. I am gathering them slowly, one at a time, reminding myself that they will endure and take charge over time. There are sweet memories of my brother’s strength and compassion, of the way he carried me aged 10 on his back when I tired out climbing slopes – the first thing he recalled when I got him into hospital and saved his life in the first instance. 

Diwali once in a while cruelly coincides with that day of dumb shock and emptiness – 30th October. Mostly, light has won over those days because I had the youthful energies to suppress the darkness. But as I move towards another threshold that brings me closer to my own end, I feel the pangs afresh. It seems like I have completed my wanderings away from the grief to come full circle and bump into it when I didn’t really expect to. These circles, these spirals, they are the ultimate tricksters. Halloween’s innocent "trick or treat" takes on a painful edge and trick seems to be the winner. And I seem to have more and more in common with those disembodied spirits that lurk around awaiting attention.

I have started and abandoned many editions of Pages since Kali Puja. It seems I cannot write about anything anymore unless I give these abandoned seeds their due and their place of honor. I need to engage with these spirits and tell them it’s ok, we will all find our journey towards peace. After reading a friend’s post it struck me that Bhoot Chaturdashi  which we always thought of as a day for swapping ghost stories, was solemn for those who had lost loved ones. She would know, having lost her dad at a tender age. Today the day reserved for brothers when Yama is worshipped all over again  (Bhratridwitiya,) just 4 days after Yamadeepam, this time with Chitragupta in tow. That’s a lot of death gamboling amidst us during the festival of light. There’s Kali the destructor as well. I didn’t think of it at all. 

The only time my family engaged with Yama was to celebrate Savitri’s intellectual victory over him every March. On Kali Puja I had savored the closeness of Kali as protector (she is considered Vishnu’s twin). But the day after, it was all gone before I could write it down. My vacuum has been all the more poignant on seeing the celebrations of others, the conversations around family and friends, the bonding in groups. Even though I tried to find joy in their joy, I felt more alone than ever with the lamps and their shadows, Chloe and my camera for company apart from the horrendous noise. I recalled how decades ago we would set out in the evening braving the fireworks, driving carefully through risk laden roads where rowdies placed crackers in the path of cars and lit them, abruptly bringing vehicles to a screeching halt to serve their demoniacal capers. We risked it all because we wanted to meet two lonely old souls who were alone at Diwali and light up their lives and fill them with a sense of home and family.

I never felt this way before. I guess old age awaits me at the threshold. Thank you Yama, you didn’t let my brother experience it though he got more than a taste through that bitter illness. Today is your Deepam again and this time it’s your sister Yamuna cheering for YOUR long life. So shall we say Happy Birthday??? Keep well and keep sane. And interpret that CG dude’s ledger with compassion!

PS1 I wonder why Bhratridwitiya is not celebrated in South India. Pretty much as Yama Deepam is not.

PS2 It was painful bringing this post out of my system. It comes through as intense but you know it is not meant to hurt anyone. I emphasize this as I post this publicly. Know that I love you all deeply.

PS3 The picture has the diya-candle for my brother. After the two naughty ones that drowned I decided not to float the boat but to anchor it! Behind it you can see the Ganesh stone that represents the brother I have left*. He brought it from Ganapatipule beach and gifted it to me. On that bitter November morning in 2000 he had the toughest job of all - to send his brother across. The 3 black Ganeshs are the ones my older brother would play with which he suddenly decided to install in his grandma’s altar for worship. I like to keep these 3 and the stone Ganesh together. They somehow represent the bond between us siblings.

*There are no brothers left to lose. He left us on 3rd January '18*

"Relazzio Ad Absurdum"

The New Pages Paradigm 

“Maya !! This is so terrifyingly simple !! And I know exactly how difficult it is to be simple. But you make it all just smooth” said good friend Anasua Basu.

That has been my challenge oddly enough and I feel I never seem to reach there. I'm surprised that Anu feels this way. Maybe I am hard on myself? Or maybe she sees the result after the struggle of battle has been cleansed out with Shanti Jal – a thought for Rosh Hashanah, a time of cleansing. Yes I have that little piece of Jewish soul that tucked itself into the recesses of my being in some lifetime. 

Think Before You Ink – but don’t overthink. And I am trying to do just that. Trying hard to relax. Heck no, you don’t try hard to do that. Just be Just be Just Be! Haven’t I said it before? Pages are unintended this morning but jottings are irresistible – good habits set just as bad ones do. I am so tired today and I have so much to do including conscious relaxing, obligatory worrying and eating and sleeping to catch up with. I seem to want to melt into horizontal bliss but can’t find a comfortable zone to do it, which means I need to meditate and find that zone in my mind. 

Wait! There is a difference between “trying hard to relax” and conscious relaxing. Maybe the latter is about being aware that you are entering the relaxation zone and enjoying and savoring every part of it? I am fond of this typo – “relaz” for relax. I find it closer to the actual feeling of letting go. Not to speak of the suffix “laz” which reminds me of the very deliberate and most therapeutic pursuit they call lazing. Again the word “relax” contains “re” just as “karuna” contains “ru” (tears). And guess what it means in this case? “Late Middle English: from Latin relaxare, from re- (expressing intensive force) + laxus‘lax, loose.“  So it means to loosen intensive force  :) Do I see something conscious there?

My dear friend and official "inspirer," Sridevi,  has read everything I’ve been pouring out as Pages and she LOVES everything; in the fitness of things as it was Sri who got me started on this Pages business. Through all the struggles and letting go, I keep reminding myself of the sunset and my attempts to grab it all up in my arms till the best of it fell out. Well that is reflexive. How about relax being reflexive or shall we say reflezive? Oops, actually reflective. Sit by a still pool and just keep looking at your own reflection in it – and just relax. No it is not about narcissism but maybe more about self acceptance? That’s what makes you relax. Acceptance never comes without a struggle, the calm after the storm. The sunset reminds me to sit calmly and relax/relaz/reflect and choose the streams to reflect on, from the many that quietly flow into the pool and occasionally create a ripple to make you notice  their arrival.

I am with my book – The Book, and I am with Pages which will slowly transmute into the book or flow their energies into its pool.  I have all those posts that are driving me from within. They are crying for birthing. Easy there, babies! One at a time. We will keep you safe in neonatal and show you off to the world in good time. 

Signed off 1:21 pm because the rice needs to be cooked to calm the growling stomach 

Footnote: Who thought these Pages would become so addictive? May book writing command a similar if not stronger addiction!

This one could have been written any time, any place - you figure that out, dear reader

For Those Thirty Three Mariners

A Post with one foot in 2016 and Morning Pages and another firmly placed in the present and resolutely stepping forward towards The Book!

The Pages Threaten And the threat is real!!! The book asks me “Am I about to be swallowed up into oblivion? Are you about to tell me that you decided to integrate me into The Pages?” No no no dear beloved BOOK! You come first. I owe you big time. I owe it to those 33 mariners to bring their voices out into the universe in joyful symphony, not unlike the New Years’ Eve midnight foghorn symphony of my growing years. Perhaps the last I heard them properly was 1974 or ‘ 75? Does that mean those years signaled the demise of our beautiful port? Calcutta port was one of the first things I read about in the Geography class. I was studying the subject for the first time and what a portal that was, to connect me through and open me to the wide world!

A glimpse of a ship sailing towards Haldia Port

In a sense the wide world came sailing upriver to us, in a day and age when the Hooghly was navigable. Rivers of Fortune – the project, was inspired by that sailing upriver three and a half centuries ago. It made me think of the boats that had plied long before the first ocean worthy vessel made its way up and dropped anchor among strangers. Is there a record of the first ship that made it up the Hooghly? The first foreign ship? The first European ship? And all those ships from maritime civilizations nearer us that existed way before and engaged with us over millennia? Did they come up that river? Which way did its course run in that other day and age - I wonder ... I have to thank that geography lesson in 1966, the Calcutta Port Commissioners’ Exhibition in 1970 and from way , way before all that, those blessed foghorns. The music of those foghorns was my wake up call, mid-slumber. I would lie awake and listen. Mom would nudge me “do you want to hear something wonderful? Wake up little one!” And we would listen. I would be in awe, a little afraid. I was a tiny bit afraid of still, mysterious water, especially at night. We spent many evenings by the Hooghly near Man-of-War Jetty which is now out of bounds. The river front vastly changed after work started on the new bridge. And with the bridge now becoming an almost clichéd emblem of this city, the focus has shifted to Prinsep Ghat. Though most people don’t know how to spell the poor dude’s name correctly!

Today recreation is so contrived. As contrived as it was spontaneous back in the day. I remember in 1978 before the last nail was driven in the coffin, and a whole zone was cordoned off for the bridge project, how we once drove to a stretch of river that was a kind of no man’s land. It was in the vicinity of Marine House. Does anyone even drive through those areas anymore? We parked ourselves very close to the river on a stretch of grass and enjoyed a nocturnal picnic of puris and alu sabzi and the most delicious karamcha chutney. The simpler we lived, the happier.
Some years earlier I would have this sense of fear at a particular spot on Strand road where the river water flowed under the road to reach the Fort William moat. While walking along the strand there was a spot I would quickly skirt around where I could see the mysterious water through gaps in the concrete at my feet. That kind of water through narrow gaps always gave me a creepy feeling. I would peek in and look away. I could never quite still that fear. Once while visiting my cousin’s ship we looked out at another ship anchored really close and I peered at the narrow gap in between with the dock water flowing through. I was warned not to fall into that for there was no way I could be fished out.And then I had to listen to all those tales of dock workers who slipped and fell to their doom. And deep inside me, I connected with every one of those mariners lost at sea.
But why am I going to those places now in '18? Because it is every one of those deep connections that charted the route – consciously and subconsciously – to the 33 young mariners-in-the-making in Maine, who are the centerpiece of this book-in-the-making. And these "pages" (the Morning Pages are anyway a tale of two years ago) are only a way to keep me focused on the book and help me bring it to life. The plan is that every day’s posts will build a bridge to a chapter of the book. At least to its structure and intent.
I need to adapt my daily writings on this space, in ways that will drive my long term purpose. Which means while some of my writing could be random stream-of-consciousness and ideally meant only for my eyes, others more thoughtful will be out here both as fuel for, and as a log to keep readers abreast of, A Night's Tale.
To the fog horn then and to the maritime connection. And may all the mariners of the world have safe voyages, forever!

Kali's Silence

Writing A Night’s Tale  

- Of sea turtles and still points on lake beds and brilliant skies that are India -

Ideally night is when I should throw myself into the book-zone and actually go forward with the action. I have a feeling action that unfolds in the course of a night and is written in present tense, would be best written at night when all the world is asleep (does that ever happen at once?)

This brings me to the moments of Kali’s silence and their being the pivotal point in the narrative. We talk about stillness, the still point in Lake Michigan that Kim experienced and we arrive at the silence of Kali which is a nano second on the night of Kali Puja when there is actual silence. Everything is silent, even ones breathing stops. And that nano second stretches forever depending on ones own faith or meditative power or whatever it is that governs such psychic experience. I don’t know who else has felt this silence. I haven’t always been lucky enough. There have been times when the imagination did connect me to that place of stillness. But there was that one year when my mother and I held hands in bed and actually experienced it in oneness. The moment was profound and it continued for close to forever. We might even have thought we had died but for the presence of each other’s hands in tender affirming clasp. Yes we had both witnessed this and it was powerful. We could tell others about it and I do believe through the telling, people did find themselves opening their own portal to the private experience of this silence.

In the book (I was working on that part of A Night's Tale when I was diverted to write this as a Night Page) the silence is explained in a few words to the assemblage but does it actually happen? The book’s own spirit will have to guide us to whether it does or not. As I write this everything fades and I find myself in that room in Maine by the fireplace. Only the gentle dancing shadows from the gently dancing firelight. The warmth of the rug beneath me, drawing us all together in oneness, the gentle mewing of Tully kitty and the murmur of the ocean which you can hear only when you step out and walk a little towards the curving shoreline. It’s like this is the heart of the story and the story keeps fanning out in concentric circles around it, ever widening till its rim reaches the fringe of guardian birches and beeches that protect our sentinel elm which is the totem tree and guardian spirit watching over the unfolding of A Night’s Tale.

When Kim heard my story of Kali’s silence she was wonderstruck. It found immediate resonance in her own memories and she recalled,
 “Your moment of holding hands with your mom was my moment of holding hands with my daughter Mary as we swam in tandem with the sea turtle off Maui. It was instinctive and forever. So were my moments under the deep waters of Lake Michigan when I touched the bed of sand and saw the sun dance in the clear waters above me. This is the moment without time, and it's the moment whose arms gathers up all who witness it.

‘At the still point of the turning world...I can only say, there we have been; But I cannot say where. And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time...’ T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets"

I instantly recalled both that she had shared both those magical experiences years ago as as well as her dream in which she beheld incredibly brilliant skies that Mary told her were India.

As she would say, yes, that is the moment of Revelation. When the skies open up and we see the Otherworld and understand it's running right alongside this one, then we know that there are no limitations--time, place, and purpose are just a construct and are blasted away in an instant.

Streams And Velvet Skies

First posted on 16^th October 2016

“It has slipped away before you can even grasp a tiny bit.” I wrote these words down with the idea that I would come back to them in a bit and magically find whatever had slipped away. Passing thoughts that could have been a page – of The Book. They needn’t slip away but somewhere I have lost the connection.  Now I’m back here trying to make the best guess, because so many pages can grow out of this embryo which has surely been frozen somewhere.

Maybe we can find a way to trace back how that embryo was created and what triggered the unique coming together of the forces of emotion, nature and circumstance that made this embryo and not a different one. To go back to the origins of a thought-made-word - (or are words self-originating, remember the Bible?) - is like returning to the source of a river and finding there are so many sources, actual and possible. And each of those sources goes back through several stages to water – H2O. And then you pause and ask whether you really want to separate that molecule into its constituent atoms?

Halt! Water alone did not make a river. So much had to happen to that water molecule whereby it is now flowing with its fellows and other kinds of co-travelers on this journey named as this river. You can never really rewind to the beginning. So you do the best you can here and now. Go along with what seems like the best guess. The runaway line was surely about that evanescent phenomenon called Durga Puja whose end is already written in its beginning. I had really meant to write about my first visarjan* but circumstance in the form of my oozing hand intervened. 

Then Mary Oliver jumped in with "The Third Self: Mary Oliver on Time, Concentration, the Artist’s Task, and the Central Commitment of the Creative Life."

I sat up when I read her because I figured that as we evolve we surely have to find new techniques by which true art need no longer be an all-or-nothing phenomenon. It is true that the best bet we go with today is compromise.  And I want to know how Mary Oliver rates her own achievement as an artist. And while she gives us a list of what bothers her on a day to day basis, the line in the article that has bothered me is “self-distraction is the most hazardous kind of distraction, and the most difficult to protect creative work against.” 

Now having been in the IT profession in another lifetime, I know that there are ways a program can jump out to do sundry things and jump back and continue from where it left off with all the data intact. Maybe what it deals with is fairly simple, but hell no. We have gone way beyond those domestic simpleton-computers for which I wrote programs back in the day. Well we are taking this a step further. We are attempting to save an entire gamut of thoughts and feelings and all those live processes, not just dumb data “objects” but a whole dynamic. Surely there are mystical techniques from the ancient East that we can tap into. Yoga, mind-control, putting an entire personality of yours on hold while another effortlessly takes over to answer those calls, fight with those neighbors, take a leak break (in more ways than one for me) and a coffee break, and switch off and switch on again? That “person” who was the devoted slave of their art remains so and all we do is re-activate and continue? Sounds far-fetched, silly? Not! Perhaps it is the new paradigm for survival of the artist in a world that the Chanda-Mundas think they control. If we can gain this level of control over ourselves, the Chanda-Mundas will de-evolve into the dust they came from.

We will need less of the other kind of leak breaks (the Sailesh kind) and yogasanas can put on hold the compulsions of the leaks that are common to all living beings (have you creative folks ever noticed that you actually forget to eat, drink, pee and so on when your creative self takes over? And you don’t even practice yoga?) And whatever court breaks (some of you are familiar with the pesky litigation I have been drawn into) and neighborly-scrap breaks and so on that we need to take just carry on as foreground jobs. And let the background job of being true to ones creative self continue – in active or passive or mixed mode as the situation needs. The artist will claim his due. Like the sea he is unstoppable.

This seemingly pointless post was created to the backdrop of a bunch of musicians (a brass band) being creative. We are creating in tandem and working in sync. It is the mating of  two personas – self and world. Yes an actual consonance of the two. I needed the clarity of the opal moon in the velvet sky up there to put this in perspective!

*I subsequently did create that post  or discovered it was already created