Lamp to Lamp to Lamp - and a beautiful angel came to light the last one

Update:
On Deepavali someone special turned up and helped us complete this target. May these lamps glow bright and continue to light those whose glow has dimmed. The festival is just the beginning of something far reaching that we are all embracing and becoming a part of. One little circle came alight and shone - more such circles of lamps will link themselves and girdle the world in a circle of light.

Lakshmi and Dipannita Kali be praised!
We made the full amount of 45000 INR!

Thanks to FB's anti-notes policy that they finally implemented  I can't update the last note with the latest figure so I have put  this up as a temporary post here to be deleted once we make the target.

A tiny little amount of 3000 INR remains to meet the collection target of 45000 INR. We are almost there thanks to the enormous generosity of friends. Now a few(or several) tiny diyas can come alight together to bring this to life in the spirit  of Deepavali. You can read the history of this fundraiser on this link

The Sailesh Vision Project - 2020 which has been archived. 

From the 9 November Update - after posting this the amount remaining fell to 3000 INR.

Most of you would have read the details of the case of Plumber/Craftsman Extraordinaire Sailesh. Thanks to an outpouring of love and support we were able to raise enough for his initial injection and funds have been steadily flowing in. His second injection has also been administered and there will be a few weeks of followup treatment. He is feeling better and is deeply grateful to all those who came forward with monetary contribution, healing thoughts and in numerous other ways. All we need now is 5000 INR to meet the total 45000 INR targeted amount and I know it will come in. Join me in wishing him Godspeed on his journey back to active life. I know many people want to be part of this and are wondering if there is any minimum amount of contribution. No there isn’t. We are grateful for amounts like 50 and 100 because we know how drops of water add up to the whole. We are grateful for every little act of love that added tremendous energy to the mission and actually helped with healing. And I also take this chance to thank all you wonderful people for helping somebody somewhere in these distressing times. I know the tireless work so many have done. My wishes and also Sailesh’s to all those givers and those blessed to receive.

PS - the note probably won't be accessible so here are the contents.

Sailesh, 65, a plumber and mistri by profession has been my friend and a pillar of unwavering support through thick and thin, including COVID and Amphan. My flat is in a 95 year old building riddled with problems created by irresponsible neighbors, chief among these being the man-made leaks that the ceiling and walls periodically sprout. The power of his wizardry in fixing these leaks as well as his ability to handle the harassers, in addition to his huge heart and readiness to rush to the rescue, sometimes several times a day, cemented our friendship. He was in pretty good shape despite having a slight problem with an eye that had been operated on for a cataract. That eye subsequently lost vision and he was managing pretty well on one. A traumatic episode in which he suddenly lost vision completely in his other eye in 2019 ended well thanks to the eye department of Calcutta Medical College that restored the vision through a series of procedures over a couple of months. Now his vision is failing him a second time and it breaks my heart as his eye hospital has been converted into a Covid ward since the past seven months and he has been denied the follow up treatments that were to continue for a year.
Sailesh is passionate about heritage and loves a chance to do restoration work. Though a plumber by profession, he is a man of many talents. In the cover picture he can be seen working his magic in a section of my flat that was being inundated by leaks. The photo below shows him holding up a copper Lakshmi he is in the process of polishing. Many of my friends have heard of him and some have met him in person and interacted with him at length. Someone who was so full of energy, not to speak of talent, now fumbles to walk a short distance and it hurts to see him grope his way around.

While out on a chore near his home, he had a chance encounter with an old customer of his who was startled to see him groping his way down the street. He promptly took him to an eye specialist in the area and has been taking care of the consultation and testing fees. That specialist has concluded (rightly IMO, going by what I know of his history in the Medical College Eye Dept) that Sailesh needs a couple of injections in an operation to restore his vision, and the cost of administering these is 45,000 INR.

Sailesh is not supported by his son and his wife is encumbered by mental health issues, a sorrowful reality among the families of many such friends who help us in our day to day lives as him. Being a freelancer in my sixties staying alone in Kolkata, I feel helpless as I am unable to support and rescue him from his plight, whereas he saved me and my home from several disasters including the aftermath of Amphan. I will be extremely grateful to one and all Good Samaritans who can come forward in extending their monetary help and sharing this post to help him see again.

Mayalakshmi Rao/Chakra Incognita

Bank details:

Bank details: IFSC Code: CNRB0000153

Canara Bank, L C Road Branch, Kolkata

A/C No 0153101005143 (savings account)

Name: Mayalakshmi Rao

Are These Questions Starting To Be Answered?

I dream of  Mahalaya dawn at such a water body, the air pristine

Photo from 2023 - retrofitted(!)

29th September 2016 

Wow! The fifth day of this exercise. I do hope portals are opening and the first roots are being wound to form bridges to the chapters of the book.

But I digress. I am confused, tired and sneezy this morning. My hands are sore. The weather was cool at dawn and Canopus winked at me all the while that I listened to Mahishaduramardini. But the air was also stifling as the dawn slowly faded in. It was an oppressive feeling. The air smelt most unfresh. And this saddened.
A strange feeling on a morning that starts a new and special fortnight and welcomes a powerful and benevolent force that flows down a mountain into our homes and hearts as a clear, cleansing … well I can’t find the word so I will let cleansing play its role as noun.
It’s just that Devi and her essence this time seem to defy description. As the last hymn was playing, there was a familiar smell in the air. But it was not the usual smoking guns. I felt like I had been transported to the burning pyres. Yes I know that uneasy jolt to the senses. And I am taken back from the goddess to the Pitrus and the (not so) hallowed place where they all take leave of us. I did not welcome that scent for it was not the scent of welcome.
I tried for more sleep. Where was the awakening? I realize I am starting to find the Mahalaya experience, the dawn waking to listen to something that is no longer rare or special thanks to the ubiquitous Utube, strained. The art and craft of recording, of replicating and of holding on to and imprisoning what ought to be ephemeral, have changed the power of that ephemeral for ever. Reduced. altered, weakened, For the power of the fleeting is in its impermanence.
It is now bottled and marketed and we hold on to the shell and focus on all the trivia. It has to be four a.m. We have to feel autumn in the air. And so on. But what are we doing to bring the feel of autumn to that air? Rather we are vitiating every aspect of the divine and healthful in our air. Deliberately, carelessly, callously, mindlessly … I could go on.
I await a lesson from the goddess on how to let go and give HER a chance to approach us and find her favorite window or door or crack in our armor. I await lessons on a paradigm shift and the end of God For Sale!
Meanwhile the Pitrus have struck back. Late last night a friend posted the most incredible picture depicting the Pitrus and a hand stretched out with offerings for them. The Pitrus are inscrutable and they are beyond an unbridgeable gap. I will leave you with the profound image to express your own feelings. The image overpowered me and made me ponder the pitrus and their needs (or were they our needs?) for the best part of the night. I was restless, uncomfortable, anxious that a sleepless night would take away the pleasures of the dawn concert.
I have always associated that beautiful star low in the southern horizon with my dad. From the day of his passing, the star would twinkle at us through his favorite window and that star gave me company this dawn. It is a star of hope and the continuance of the cycle of life. A star has to rise and set and rise again. Even a long dead star whose light took all these years to reach us and which will continue its periodic reassurance through our own lifetime. Perhaps it is this assurance we think we are bottling in our recordings? There was a time when the ancestors were precious and we reached them just on that one morning and drew the year’s energy. I have a story of a precious perfume gifted to me that mysteriously escaped from a bottle. You can’t hold down what is meant to fly its own path beyond your ken.
Perhaps that is the meaning of an ancestor’s day and the old folks’ belief that you don’t disturb them at other times. While I may not agree on the details, I realized from Vidya’s painting shared below, that there were some deep yearnings within us which we reflect as the yearnings of the ancestors. In feeding them it is our own confined, bottled, trapped soul we are feeding.
I leave you with the power of the image

Vidya Murali's capture of the essence of Pitru's Mahalaya

I will talk about the two Mahalayas of Bengal another time and of the one time my parents rightly muddled things up <smile>
signed off 9 a.m.

Coffee calls!

Edit - the link to her image was removed alas so you see a blank you can fill with your imagination

Opening That Trunk

27th September 2016 

Welcome to the book. I have finally opened a portal to the seashore cottage in Maine. My mind is now split between two locales. One is the site of the unfolding fireside drama in Maine and the other a metaphorical place that straddles my home, the pandals and homes of Kolkata and the “para” or the location of my accustomed Puja. It would be around 55 times in all, maybe a little less if you count all those years that we went someplace either for fun or out of compulsion. While the scenario of those nine nights and ten days unfolds in that imaginary-cum-real space, the Maine work of the day will find coexistence and co-celebration with it.

There is a big unsolved riddle and that’s around how the growling stomach will be pacified and more so the dirty dishes and floor will be redeemed in manner befitting an auspicious home where a kalasha is installed to symbolize the Devi. Because come the day and hour and we will have an exodus from here that the old Israelites could never have matched. An exodus of all those who serve me. It remains a mystery to me who remains to keep the city spinning 24x7 during those days, keep the streets spanking clean and all those growling stomachs filled. Why does this have to be my lot in life – year after year after year? A passing thought comes to me. Why were the forefathers of these gentle folk not hurtling back to their villages like maniacs for every celebration? While it is cool that everything is now celebrated everywhere, we need to find a way that sprites and spooks can take over these dreadful chores.

I turn my mind away from negative thoughts. Let God scrub and clean during that festive week if she will. I am mentally prepared to eat four junk meals a day outside and just hope it doesn’t come pouring. From the banal that always tends to take hold like a monster lurking for revenge, I push my thoughts back to the delightful escape that writing offers me. And I think about my fellow writers who must be struggling with similar problems and still managing to actually write. They are all ahead of me. I am perhaps the least prolific writer I know.

The puja week will be packed. There will be a line up of outings, and a line up of home celebrations. Perhaps Sailesh will end up washing the dishes ☺.

:)I find it remarkably easy to run up 750 words when I type. And these pages are becoming kind of bloated as the days go by. Perhaps there are more thoughts than I can hold on to and it’s a good idea to throw some of them out into a safe place where they can vent and ventilate.

I think about how the first guests are arriving. It’s a scene that’s halfway between Navaratri and Onam. Because we welcome them with an Onam arrangement – that’s created by none other than Kim. And we have a lamp lighting ceremony. Because these kids have read about all these practices and they are going to be living several of them in the story. Kim and I need to discuss what else we welcome them with. I recall the way we had our celebrations in my childhood. The focus was on the home and not on the pandal.

Our home was special because we had people from all over visiting to enjoy our kolu – the tiered display of dolls and figurines and all kinds of art work. While other homes had ready made steps we were always the kings and queens of jugaad. This house has been like a camping site since its very inception and today it’s more like a Howrah station from which the passengers have mysteriously disappeared leaving their luggage.

Well our navaratri steps also wore a different kind of transitory aspect from that which steps convey(I don’t think that is the intention but more a vertical arrangement that saves space). Our steps were built out of boxes, trunks, suitcases. Arranging those was the most exciting part and we would all heave and haul. As manpower became more scarce we would make somewhat smaller arrangements. And as I grew older we went back to more extravagant displays. The last ever was 1979. Its hard to believe what a sudden and abrupt end the whole beautifully creative celebration encountered. It was that house, that other house of heritage.

Till date I plan that the coming year will see this exhibition restored to its former glory. We have twice the number of suitcases and all the original artifacts have remained in their own trunk, unopened since – yes since 1979 when they were put away. I have no clue whether they still exist or they have had their own form of visarjan. I almost don’t have the courage to open the trunk and I was hoping a good friend would be around to hold me up through whatever would happen. I remember all the clay models that were lovingly sourced from Kalighat’s potuapara. The very last entrant was a miniature Durga who came in much later from a fair or an emporium.

Last year I visited Potuapara and posted pictures and videos.

Ganesh in the making

You can order your own stuff as well when it’s off season. When mom’s house was disbanded she salvaged the clay images she has used in her younger days. They were in a different style and very evocative. And she had to give many away but had salvaged some special pieces for me that made their way into history when sad times took over. A friend had held on to many treasures for my mum, but tragedy affected her life as well. It’s so hard to go back to her and ask for my clay dolls. I remember one particular model – a very realistic portrayal of a traditional Brahmin. One who really knew the scriptures and actually subsisted on Bhavati Bhikshaam Dehi. Today I increasingly feel like his alter ego. It is nightfall and evening pages draw to a close. The stomach calls as usual.

Twenty Years After

          Artwork by Karan Vohra - this work was ephemeral, it's message though is enduring and  is the message of this post 

Here I am surrounded by the clutter of my own thoughts, floating into this page from the fogged up zone in my head where this script has been running. 
I've started my day with my usual round of friends' posts because that's the only way to banish the confusions of the night and feel myself back in a circle of love. The past few nights have been filled with bad dreams. Last night the trees all around me were being murdered while I was away at work - what work I have no idea because I haven't done that sort of thing in 23 years. And there were belligerent salesmen crashing into my house and refusing to sell me what I had asked for till I bought a new cell phone from them. Bizarre it was but  not more bizarre than it is becoming in this strange(not brave but very cowardly) new world that 2020 has gifted us with. In other news my neighbor has parked his bed on the landing right outside my door and mom and I are quarreling over whether to shoo him out in the middle of the night or wait until dawn.
The word that hit me first today was "crepuscular" and I hoisted it up on my Facebook page as word of the day. I am indeed a creature of the liminal zones though I was born well after twilight. And this morning brought the realization that a part of me has been living in that zone for the past twenty years. 
It's that day again, the 30th of October, and it's been twenty years. I hoist up my November gloom post immediately but something is different. I am thinking about my own departure.

Today it just feels like one vast, blank space between me and that day twenty years ago. And now everybody's gone and I'm the only one left.
Chakra - leave the place as you would like to find it! Lock the door, gently turn the key and hand it over to someone who will cherish it. My only wish for when my turn comes and may it come gracefully. 

And the thoughts continue. What do I want to leave for the person who unlocks that door to take over where I left off? They will see a life vibrantly lived. They will find the key to a quaint little car that's almost as old as I am and instructions on how to drive(or not to drive) it attached to the key. They will open drawers and find bunches of keys to all kinds of treasure chests. They will be intrigued and charmed, but never angry and frustrated. They will see the swirl of confusion of a life being lived - like things thrown around. Even one hapless little spoon I forgot to wash. Some clothes drying but hopefully no dirty laundry. If it's there I promise you a working machine and water in the tank. They will see a whole lot of things thrown around and they can spend a lifetime putting them away only to find them throwing themselves around again. That will be my omnipresent prankster self that won't leave the place even after I've checked out.  
As each person melted out of my life they left me feeling increasingly abandoned. But each time an angel melted in to restore my sense of connection. I still haven't found my happy place amid the confusion. Sometimes I touch it briefly in dreams or even in the reality around me. The day I am able to hold it down and tell it to stay and that it's ok to stay, that will be the day I'm ready to leave. 
Is this my farewell message? Heck, no! Please check in again after twenty years. But meanwhile stay by me. Because if this post speaks to you, that means you belong and we need each other. 

Dedicated to my funny, crazy, fun-loving brother who weighed himself down for god-only-knows what reason. You are up there, now have fun old chap while I devour all that porridge to pay you back for eating up my four day supply in 1999 - the last meal we shared at home. And visit now and then :) 

The Curious Case Of The Beloved Ex

This post a is a quickie - yup I borrowed that word (to the chagrin of some of you maybe)

I am dashing it off on an impulse because I fear the words will evaporate from that space in my head where they have newly formed themselves. 

Most people I know have an ex(a lover, a spouse, a sibling or parent, even a so-called best friend)  with whom there has been a bitter parting. Bitter partings are often the natural consequence of unrealistic expectations and commitments, and most of all assumptions. I've been in those spaces and I carry bitter-sweet memories too.

But this post is about something else and I'll come out with it.

For some folks I know, there is one ex who is their best friend. They love each other for life by which I mean true,  unconditional love. Love unsullied by the strings of a relationship, the most sacred of which can often cut into you and leave you scarred. They love in the purest sense and often setting each other free is the most loving gift they give each other.  They don't tie themselves together on the mundane plane often because they are on distinct, individual journeys that are vital to who they are and who they want to grow into. And perhaps they are the ones who will find a way to be by your side when those who promised to do that, find themselves unable to. 

I know some of my readers will relate to this with positive feeling while it might be triggering to others. 
And I don't think this post wrote itself quite as it created itself in my head but that's bound to happen when the mundane impinges on the quiet time one needs with the self to transfer those feelings authentically onto the page. But here it is because it felt the need to pour itself out.

Read and share your thoughts.  Maybe you have such a person in your life? I know a couple of people who do.

PS - if  you are lucky there could be more than one. In my own case, my loves are all partly tied someplace else while I travel through life solo. Do the strings hurt them and have they ever felt the need to untie some or all? I believe yes in a couple of cases. Do I for my part find myself loving a person that way? I don't have an easy answer. Maybe there'll be another post and more time to find out.

Meanwhile I'll leave you with my beloved kadam tree that grew before my eyes and showered her love on me till Amphan threw her down in one brutal blow. She still stays there within view, her leafless form etched against all hues and cloud patterns that melt in and out behind her. She is another kind of ex - her form standing by me, her spirit within me. My post Words Unspoken, Tears Unshed prompted me to include this image with these words. In fact sharing the link a few minutes earlier with a friend, led to this post being created.

Once again this is for Gauri Lankesh 

The 6:10 Express

 
Where and how do I start this? There were so many thoughts fighting for attention in my head. I've been writing these birthday posts for the past month in some space in my mind and I imagine those posts have found their way to the destination which is my mom's ears, wherever she may be holding them open, in whichever alter-verse she is currently exploring.

The dawn's copper, brass, silver turn to gold with one touch of midday sunlight

The sparkle is courtesy our genius Sailesh who brought them back to life with his magic touch

There is one place where she has permanent residence though and that's my heart. If ever there is an after-life, it's in the hearts of loved ones. And somehow that transmits itself to those who enter the lives of the loved ones at a later time. 

Just one look at the overwhelming wishes I received today from unexpected sources, will tell you that the energy she passed on to me as she crossed over to a different zone, keeps passing itself around. Everybody everywhere seems to know this Mom of mine. In fact this has been happening over the past 13 years. 

First, I figured that there was no way to celebrate a life that has been with us and around us for a century, in just one compressed birthday tribute. So I decided to weave out of this, a series on the rich heritage for which she was the prime channel, sourcing as she did from all over - what she inherited, what she absorbed from her several homes in two cities and her travels through all the reading she did and people she met. 

For starters what's with 6:10? Mom had got it into her head that she made her grand entry into the world at 6:10 am. That's what memories are all about, little fantasies we rewrite based on what our childish ears pick up from adult conversations. These sometimes stay with us a lifetime. 

My parents spent the last few years of Dad's life moving back and forth between cities(of those wanderings, another time). With them their articles and goods often roamed the country and some got misplaced while others fell victim to floods and termites. Some of those treasures turned up in unexpected places and one such was an old, journal belonging to her dad. She waved it at me triumphantly one day. "Look!" she called out. "Daughter born to Lalitha this morning."  Yup, that was her birth announcement - her dad had entered it in his journal and that journal had turned up in some random trunk. On closer inspection, she found there was a time entered and it said 6:25. Well even in 1920 with the British running the railways, the 6:10 express had been delayed by fifteen minutes!

In a way this feels like my own birthday. When our mothers are born we are already present inside them, only we don't know who we are and we need to be the lucky one that received Daddy's kiss before we turn up in this world as the makings of who we grow into. In fact I was already present inside V A Lalitha (of that precocious child-mom, another time) who had this beautiful baby in an ancient house called Lalitha Vilas in Triplicane, Madras on that special morning. The baby was named Rajarajeshwari Tripurasundari Kamakshi after a Mahavidya as she was born during Devi Paksha. 

In other news, Mom dug out her horoscope (yes back then and even now, every new born had a horoscope cast for them with the usual back and forth squabbles about whether they count the time that the baby's head was visible or the time the entire(!) baby touched Terra Firma) and that corroborated the 6:25 time. Maybe that head(she had an XXL head) peeked out at 6:10 and the rest of the train reached the station at 6:25?

Meanwhile here's the celebratory message and song posted by my dear Dheeman Ghosh (Dimu Bear) on the Quarantine Playlist group that's kept a whole bunch of us sane and forged many new and true friendships through the dismal months we've had to endure. 

"So this is a little something dedicated to our dear QP darling Mayalakshmi/Chakra, on her mom's 100th birth anniversary, from all of us ❣️ . She has been the one who has held so many of us together here through music and her kind of love that has an everlasting resonance in our souls.

This is a live performance by the infamous middle eastern metal band Orphaned Land , who reminds us that concerts can be venues where all can be themselves, young and old, different religions, sexes, dialects , all united in unison in heart and spirit through music :') , a celebration rescuing us from our dreary lives full of depression and loss at times. This song moves me to sheer joy!
P.S: The guitarist's dad has also joined in and is singing, beat that :P .
Much love to you Chakra, from all of us, happy birthday to your mom "

The Book Is Beginning

Gathering In The Cabin

“It is such an iconic fieldstone fireplace with a huge thick mantle that was once the plank of a ship. So that piece of wood has made some amazing journeys of its own.”
The picture above is of a sunset on Saddleback Island in Maine. While our story is set in a cottage with an interior more like that of an Indian house except for the fireplace, the surroundings are remarkably like what you see here.

The fireplace in my cottage was a symbol, visualized till now merely as a glowing fire casting its warm glow from a niche in the northern wall. These lines suddenly gave shape and form to the niche, the kunda in which the hearthfire burned.

This picture has led me to seek my path back to this iconic fictional cottage/lodge/cabin depending on where you stand and view it. It’s been several months since I felt the end of the book. We typically write the end before we work on the body of the story. As with everything I will ever write, the end is an unresolved cadence tinged with mystery, hope, poignancy, promise and the copper-pink of a Maine dawn - or any dawn for that matter. The circles on the hearthrug have fanned themselves outward to gather afresh at the shore beholding the row of pines. And they will move northwestwards, hug their favorite trees and disperse.
We are starting, let the first guest enter!

Where did it all start? First there was a tree that could have been birch or beech. As the locale opened itself to me through lucid dreams, the trees seemed to move within reach and reveal their details. There were indeed birch and beech trees, each distinctive in its pre-fall clothing. It was September and soon the colors of rust and flame would transform that copse into a beacon when it caught the sunbeams. But there was one special tree standing a little alone from the others, part of the circle but playing a distinctive role. It was a beautiful old elm that had escaped the elm disease that often swept through that area of Maine and brought down many members of the clan. And they were in awe of it.
To the south of this copse was the edge of the bay. The coastline curved away to the west and then meandered on in twists and turns.
The most enduring impression of this spot was of the sun setting over one of those indentations, sinking its orange bulk into the bay. But on this important occasion we were celebrating the hour before the sunset - by welcoming a group of guests to spend a night with us by the Hearthfire.

Footnote 1: Picture courtesy Kim Raikes, taken by her.

Footnote 2: This was written on 20th June 2018. Time and place have lost all the meanings we once ascribed to them. The apparent "timelessness" of a story that brought together unlikely seekers in an unlikely space, seems to have found its relevance now. There's a good chance I could actually complete it now as the events will no longer seem implausible.

Footnote 3: "The Book Is Ending" was written several months prior to this. They will now coalesce into a whole that one may not have visioned at that time

The Book Is Ending

Before The Dawn

I realized on seeing Mary’s photo of the dawn breaking over the bay right outside her home, that I somehow needed to write the last chapter of the book as I have written the first one. It attaches a destination to our journey, to the leg of our Imramma* that we fortuitously gather together on. Any book starts somewhere and ends somewhere. It is a snapshot(well a video clip?) of part of a story, because the story has no beginning and no end. So between the covers of the book opens a portal through which the reader and the travelers have a conversation. Like an accordion fanning out its bellows and pouring forth a melody that we dance to.

After a vigorous start, the book has been teasing me since the stars uncannily brought the wrong end of both our countries(the ones involved in the storyline) together in a Dance Macabre in November 2016. Morning Pages wound themselves down and fizzled out and so did the momentum on writing A Night’s Tale evaporate with a groan of sorts. Fortunately the winter just past has been unusually enriching and eventful. The fruits I gathered are crushed against one another in an overfull basket. They demand that I spill them out and serve them up as salads and juices and rich fruit cakes. And I am so tired all I’ve been able to do is stuff them, basket and all into the fridge and stare at them with weary longing.

So here’s where Mary’s picture helps. It is a snapshot of a journey completed. A culmination as dawn breaks. And a homecoming. The culmination enfolds within it all the pages of that travelogue. And Mary’s picture conveys it with a sense of revelation and peace. Each of the guests around the hearth-fire that night weave their tales together. Each of the guests has arrived from somewhere as the evening commences. As we stare in wonder at the dawn that Kim and Leon call us out to see and save in our memories before the moment passes into a different moment, we each experience a personal homecoming. We each have traveled “home“ a little altered. And we are lucky to share that moment, transcending the barriers of space and time. Because the special place we shared in that cozy room over hot chocolate and fellowship has no limits of time and space. We have come that much closer to finding ourselves and finding one another and we celebrate that moment with our shared salutation to the dawn.

And the fruits crushed against one another in the chill confines of the fridge are asking to be released. The offering will be nothing like I planned. Perhaps closer to mulled wine. Perhaps worth the winter’s hibernation as I serve it up a day or two shy of spring?

PS The picture belongs to Kim’s daughter Mary. Please refrain (no I don’t need to say this) from posting it anywhere. This vision was shared by parents and daughter and it feels like nature painted the moment and Mary preserved it just for my inspiration and delight. The picture captures everything the book wants to express. Bless you and thank you Mary. maybe the characters in the book decide to fall in a heap and sleep in celebration rather than get on their vehicles and head back to where they came from?

*It is said that crossing deep waters, on a spiritual pilgrimage, is a  journey of the soul back to ones divine self.  The ancient Celtics identified this as an Imramma.  When one stands at the edge of the sea where land and waters joins together the  boundaries of two worlds align and one can slip through the mystical doorway that eludes most humans.* Footnote: this was written in Jan' 2017 and is being shared three and a half years later on this space. My Maine connection was fortuitous and triggered the completion and writing of another book - The Quadrant by Kim Ridenour Raikes - that had been 34 years in the making finally found its channel and poured itself out to the world. Maybe I'm not doing that badly, maybe that's the way time moves when the locale is Maine. I'm also pretty sure that the moment I finish it I will find myself physically in Maine - if Maine and I are still around.

The Fallen And The Felled

 An Elegy

My beloved Kadam tree whose final farewell took place two days ago - seen here a few months before Amphan felled her

The thud of axe on dead wood 

An eerie ring when it chances upon a still-living cell -

sap-filled and hope-filled till the axe deals the final blow,

and it shatters, spurting sap-blood.

Trees don't die all at once,

           they rebirth themselves many times

before you write them off as mere wood.

All around me dull, empty thuds,

Killer-axe striking the dead, till they are robbed of all dignity.

And still there are new green sprouts on them,

crying Life!

*

*

Cut to the ring of metal against a brave living tree,

that stands breathing love at us as we betray it.

Now that is a different sound!

The tree pours forth its blessings – even as it cries.

The tree can't run…

 

The executioner's axe and that of the undertaker,

the same weapon, the same hands,

different strokes ..

Weren't undertakers meant to give dignity to the deceased?

Wonder where these fallen trunks and limbs are destined to go?

To light the pyres of the non-covid fallen,

For the covid-felled need hi-tech to save their

souls - and our bodies?

Or will they light the hearth fires of those who scrounge for

leftover scraps from vegetable carts

and warm them on the street over heaps of twigs

and trash?

The ones that fall through the cracks in every

system - another kind of fallen ...

*

*

Will that fallen neem be the chosen of the Lord,

and come to life again as images of Jagannath, 

who rides his chariot in splendor, come July?

Will our stalwarts' hearts ring out once more under the caress of a dhaak-maker's hands,

or those of a wood carver who would bring their grace to life?

Albeit one frozen moment of that life with stories enfolded in its curves ...

Will that breath of life dance in eddies
through the nuances of a Mrindangam, 

fine-honed to echo  the cries and whispers my senses were tuned to pick up in their last birth?

*

The grain looks me in the eye,
 leaving a farewell message for me as they haul the log away.

As I stop to caress a limb of my beloved fallen, I see history writ between those bleeding lines.

History that I will, maybe understand,

when I too am among the fallen.

                       

-        Chakra Incognita

I am reading it here

 

PS - see the gap in image #2 where the green tree was bumped off while I was writing this. And the fallen kadam(#3,4,5) turning from gold to russet to brown, detaching itself slowly from this life and location

Uprooted on the road

Post and poem edited on 4/2/2021 as we let our tears nurture the soil for new life

Lockabout Chronicles - "Fear Is The Lock"

No this post is not about fear. It is about  creative ways to unlock and move past this deadlock (literally) to a more meaningful life.

"Fear is the lock and laughter the key to your heart" - the lines from one of my favorite songs came to mind today as I sat down to journal. Yesterday they opened liquor stores and the hordes descended on them, masked, unmasked and shoving one another around. And as you guessed it, liquor is a mood elevator. People lose their inhibitions. People dare to smile.

Maybe that's what the booze binge was about? Designed to disarm before coming down with a new clamp?
Clearly EVERYONE had a smile this morning. The smiles were so broad they were pushing and prodding the edges of masks to burst out. It's only a matter of time before the masks fall off but watch it - fetters may be clamped in their place! Meanwhile one can hope for the best while preparing for yet more nasty surprises. Henceforward my posts will be about co-creating that "best" with like minded people. 

I for one, decided not to surrender my power to words pitched at me by others. I will not own them or let them own me. Lockaround, lockdown, lockup and lockaway are old hat.
Walkdown-Walkaround-Lookaround-Walkup-and-Write is the new mantra. 

I am tired of counting days, forwards or backwards. This circus has crossed its sell-by date and inch by inch people will take back their lives. All's good as long as people don't inch towards me, which is the one dread I have. One thing we need to learn from these agonizing couple of months is to keep physical distance from fellow citizens you don't know. To respect their space. To be warm without being pushy. And to show concern and consideration. Staying three feet away from a fellow shopper needn't be connected with  a virus. It's plain courtesy and decency. Today a mask has become an excuse for inching closer to the old ways. The mask feels like a cure-all and the wearer feels safe and armed with special powers. 

To return to the weirdest six weeks of my life (nope, I have seen more bizarre things but not the whole world in one manic sweep) halfway through the tamasha, cops wearied of swinging their sticks at people. Methinks it's back to "your cops and my cops are having tea with our cops". And halfway through the tamasha people started looming over other people and breathing under their collars :P 
Today I thought I felt somebody else's nose slip into my mask. Fortunately I am nimble enough to skip aside 10 feet in one leap. Now THIS has to stop forever, the world over. 

Yesterday's booze bash has certainly changed the mood but is the situation changing? It may be another TRAP and something more horrendous could be slapped down on us. Methinks this time there is no submitting and getting away. There is no time like NOW for the long awaited revolution - one that arises from a creative wellspring. Because the monster that brought on this unprecedented and monumentally (should I write deliberately?) mismanaged predicament, is slowly slipping away from the foreground sans any evidence of either its containment or the  devastation wrought by it, while the noose just keeps tightening in its name.

Returning to my report on today's feel-good outing I leave you with a Lockabout Lookabout :)
Today was interesting. As I turned into the passage on my way out for the milk, I noticed cigarette butts - plenty of them strewn on the ground. Looks like somebody had enjoyed a smoke-binge there. Was my nose blocked? Or was it one of the neighbors simply emptying an ashtray that had filled up after weeks?
I headed out and found people walking by with a spring in their step.
I sniffed the air just to make sure my sense of smell was active - I'm told that losing it could be a symptom of the C-demon.

Rajkumar Sabji-and-Phal-Wala

Rajkumar's Squat-Spot aka Shop

Headed briskly to Rajkumar Sabji-and-Phal-wala's little squat-spot and was greeted in passing by the dude in the green T-shirt who lives down the lane and sits under a lamppost with his brown bread seated next to him 3 inches from the road, reading the paper and ... yes .... spitting. He Goodmorninged me through a tight black mask which I saw expand as he grinned behind it.

At Rajkumar's I chose my booty of two bananas, a couple of limes, two carrots and a baby pumpkin - not much today - and trotted Mashiwards -  the milk booth womanned by Krishna Mashi for the uninitiated. Found out that shops were opening up in the morning hours and it's best to get there between 8 and 12. Now tell me how many times does one dash out of the house, dash up again, soap and scrub only to head out again an hour later?

Two good friends greeted me as I cantered home. One was Jogindar Sabjiwala on cycle - lest we forget he's the original one who used to home-deliver before this crisis left his partner stranded in his village - with his cheery Namaste and ear-to-ear grin that all but popped off his mask. I was delighted to look into the warm brown eyes that were illuminated twice over with his smile. A few yards closer to home I saw a familiar figure lumbering towards me. It was my good Christian neighbor and friend of sixty odd years. We raised hands in salute and grinning through his mask he called out "Heil Hitler". I was smiling all the way home recalling an episode in November '16 soon after Demongate. Our man was heading down the road carrying, to my amusement, a long handled broom of the sort that the KMC staff use to relocate the trash on the road from point A to point B and then back to point A :) "Who are you planning to flog with that?" I'd called out, feigning amazement. No doubt he had been hauling it back from Jadu Babu's Bazaar to use in his yard. And bang came the reply - no prizes for guessing what the reply was! Of course the Villain of Demongate! Thank goodness for a sane neighbor in these times of strife. This brings a memory of me holding aloft a gigantic sugar cane plant and marching home from the same bazaar one evening in 1978. And a later memory of me holding aloft a jhool-jhaaru and marching down the same road in broad daylight, attracting a number of curious followers. It's time now for the neighbor, myself and all like minded folks to march - 10 feet apart and masked - carrying flags of protest. And change that our minds and hands take charge of.  Time for the revolution - yes I mentioned that earlier in the post


PS1 - Lest we forget that keys relate to locks, I am naming this series Lockabout. The inspiration is from Kanchana SS whose "lockaround-roundabout" I abbreviated.

PS2 - All references are to my country, happenings are from my area in my city and the goings on here.