Opening A Banana Flower In 750 Words -

Or a page of yore refashioned for today's weaving

Banana flower in my neighborhood - photographed and included here on 1/12/18

Walking the time bridge as I’ve been doing through these past 17 October posts, I realize that readers would be more than familiar with the recurring theme of Morning Pages/Pages, their purpose in freeing the flow of ink to create a book and the ubiquitous number 750. The fruits of this exercise were in storage waiting to be claimed and in the interim seem to have magically ripened to a greater fullness and sweetness. Stretching back to draw them by the armload into the here and now, I feel my feet tread this bridge more safely and surely. It may take me a few more trips back and forth before the bridge is tested and certified to be an enduring one. Meanwhile here’s dipping into some of those juices to create the prequel to A Night’s Tale and the book proper. Keep crossing that bridge with me.

There being no banana flower at hand I am using clouds that dissolve and come together again making new clouds. 
Cloud formation could be a metaphor for just about any process!

2016 Autumn
It’s interesting that I spent a large part of the day thinking about evening pages and half planning, half guessing what shape the final outpouring would take. Can writing be all that spontaneous? Is it always helpful to allow a stream of consciousness to flow? A stream of consciousness and a word/page limit seem somehow at odds. Or is it like you keep talking, the way you did in those old trunk calls that cut you out when your three minutes were done? And abruptly stop when you finish the third piece of paper. It’s interesting to ponder this because I figured that nothing I wrote in the pages exercise was ever completely unplanned.

Today I was working with several ideas. One was about my writing style because reading over 3 days' written material in Pages, took me back to the seminal moments in my writing journey. I had stopped writing anything meaningful for several years. Well I had written stuff to promote my training services if that counts. When I dived back to do a piece of writing out of nowhere in 2006, it came with surprising ease. My first reaction was that I had surprised myself. Maybe as with swimming and driving (they say that don’t they?) you never forget and you actually take off and go forward from where you left off, even if it’s been years!

The thought came to me that we never really forget how to write unless we completely stop all meaningful conversation. And for me, far from stopping, I believe that the years of struggle from 1997, the therapy sessions with their need to articulate feelings, the teaching and training that I imparted over the years from 1998, and of course the rather nasty letters I would shoot out to sundry bank managers and not so nasty ones to an occasional relative or friend, honed my powers of expression. It was just a matter of transferring those powers to the appropriate written medium.

Well why am I into this analysis? I had hoped to write about the process of growing in any creative field using two kinds of symbols. One was the onion being peeled, starting from the papery outermost layer and working inwards. 

Better still a banana flower which is really a collection of flowers on a hard stem with a thick sheath encasing it like some smooth, finely ribbed raincoats I’ve come across. I have enjoyed opening those and taking the flowers out. The outer rings of flowers were distinct in their parts with a prominent hard pistil that needed to be yanked out. It was called “kallan” in Tamil, meaning thief, somewhat akin to the menace of the haddi (bone) in a kabab. As one worked inwards, the flowers became more homogenized with the parts integrated till the very tender ones close to the stem were yellow quintessence. Finally there was no distinction between flower and the mounting stalk. All was cream, tinged mildly with green – the end. One had penetrated to the core. One had reached the truth of a banana so to say.

The image grows and takes shape, layer by clay layer

The reverse of this process worked with the clay images being fashioned, layer after layer being added till they were show worthy. In intention, this post was meant to celebrate the pre-creation stage of Durga and her finally opening her eyes to her devotees! It was just such a Eureka moment that the short piece I churned out in 2006 on my ancient computer, left me with. And best of all, it left my mother (yes my sternest critic) with a smile that didn’t fade for quite a while. She had seen something. “You have evolved a fine style” she declared. “You have taken me by surprise with your finesse” Looking back on that memory, I feel those were actually clumsy baby steps. I could now tear apart what I wrote then with the kind of keen critical sense the years have put into me. Or maybe, just maybe, I would still be delighted and surprised and have an “oh” moment as in recognizing that I had actually crossed some important threshold.

There is no end to the thresholds crossed. When I read my writing starting from SMG* posts forward through 9 years to what is now emerging as the book – yes The Book – I can see the layers being added just as I see the layers being peeled to reach deep into the essence and show it to the light. I notice with some pleasure that I am coming closer to the magical mandate of 750 words. I feel though, that I have written more content. Am I being thoughtful while putting down my words, even though I am trying hard not to have a pre-vision of the outcome? I honestly have not watched my tenses and I don’t intend to watch them anymore. If I shift tenses it is spontaneous and not contrived. Which means there are –well - tectonic shifts? I leave the reader (no this was not meant for readers and I owe no readers an explanation, but ask away y'all) to figure out whether s/he felt like grabbing the editor’s pen.

Autumn 2018

It seems like time has stood still, and I have grown while standing still with time! I am pleasantly startled by this paradox. The peeling to reach inside and the layering over the core to create the whole are like my back and forth on the time-space bridge. The processes co-exist, supporting each other. And what I had hoped would happen, actually writing three pages of the book as Morning Pages, is hopefully about to take place. Wish me power!

*SMG was a forum I ran, which has since gone offline - a bunch of members got together to bring out two editions of an e-magazine called Consolidation,with their contributions.

Footnote: Edited on 1/12/18 to include banana flower on plant