A Little Piece of Tusk

In readiness for anyone who may need it ...
Metaphorically.

You are a writer.
You are not one who usually runs out of ink but once in a while you find the flow blocked.
Or your pen breaks mid-word and the writing process grinds to a halt.
Sometimes making it impossible to resume, leaving unresolved thoughts that can arrange themselves only as they are transferred from mind to material
Leaving  half grown ideas and half told tales, a writer's unwritten words ...
We've all been there.

And as I woke to the celebrations of Lord Ganesha's birthday all around, I had to stop and wonder as a writer, what his special attributes meant to me.

"Lend me your divine tusk, I'm out of ink" 
The words tumbled out of me, addressed to noone in particular but clearly meant for the Patron God of Obstacle Races, our doorway to the resources of the universe.

As the words played over and over in my head,  I understood that I was asking for two things at once.  
And that he represented the source of both. 
The writing device(pen), as much as the medium(ink) that carries our thoughts outward from our inner being.
I re-read the oft-told  legend of Ganapati's broken tusk, which he held in his hand in apparent readiness for use. 
And I found my own meanings. 
He was a scribe for a sage who poured forth an epic, uninterrupted. So is the writer a scribe for an inner voice whose expression cannot be halted. 

Ganesh had to understand what the sage told him. The writer needs to make sense of subconscious thoughts, convert them into meaningful words, arrange them so they can be reached by another.

What did Ganapati do when his writing device snapped?
He turned to his own resources - a "weapon" that his "second birth" had equipped him with, his tusk!
And what do we mortals do when we are out of these resources? We appeal to the universe to replenish them!

Happy Birthday Ganesha!
You are a powerful symbol of creative realization. You are our writing partner.
Happy Celebrations Readers! In any manner you enjoy celebrating.
Ganesh broke a tusk. In my understanding, he broke convention to serve the creative process. 
May we all find ways to keep the words flowing.

In this unusual depiction, adapted by me from a photograph I'd taken of a Ganesh statue in Puri, we can clearly see his broken tusk and the whole one. We can also see that he's taken a break from writing  to play the flute! Maybe it's to serenade the muse and keep her happy so the writer's inspiration keeps flowing. Maybe the great sage Vyasa did halt once in a while to collect his thoughts and this was his scribe's way of encouraging him when he wearied? Or does it mean he is giving a voice - a new dimension - to writing?
What do the readers think this signifies? Eager to hear your thoughts. 

Disclaimer: No elephant was harmed in the writing of this post. 
Shiva might have severed an elephant's head in the alterverse of mythology but he wouldn't even try  in our real world. This writer staunchly supports the protection of elephants. 

"Come Out of Hiding!"

One never knows the secrets of that mysterious hidden River Sarasvati. She is the deepest essence of the Goddess we turn to in our empty moments when we are lost in a sea of void.
The river/goddess though, cannot be found by digging frantically underground in search of her. She is a silent operator and sometimes we need to co-conspire with her silence to allow her to reveal herself.

Today was one such day. A chance interaction on a Facebook post of mine that suddenly opened me to this wisdom. The first threshold on the path, crossed!

Cut from mystery to history - recent history. Yesterday I had chanced upon a beautiful quote ascribed to Vincent Van Gogh and it sent me powerful subterranean signals. I had touched the mystical river. She had come out of hiding for one precious moment and I had to share that moment spontaneously.

The quote was posted on a site that had an even more inspiring name "By All Means Create" that left me with an even greater sense of validation, being a painter who painted with words! Yes a word-artist. Hearing the resounding call to turn a deaf ear to all those naysayers within and without:

"We invite you to ignore that inner critic who says, 'you cannot' because it is through any medium and by all means that art is created."

I promptly shared the quote and sent out the call, loud and clear as my Facebook status.

I share part of the conversation that followed. It motivated me to make a post after a long gap. I am delighted at the way the post has timed itself. Read on and you will know.

To my jesting question of how I could possibly create in the absence of my "Head" (currently immersed in higher studies, more about him later in the post), I found some really profound answers in the shape of a conversation between Kim Raikes and Robert J. Evans II, awaiting me on waking.

Kim: "Fortunately creation does not come from our heads. I'm not sure where it does come from, though. I'm sure that Sarasvati knows."  

Robert: "Poetically speaking, at this time I believe creation comes from the Ground of Being's (Robert, I will request you to explain this term via comment, so our readers can understand better - I will simplistically equate it to divine power for now) will to love itself. From our perspective creation appears both peaceful and wrathful, at rest and moving. We participate in this whole process of movement and repose, creating and destroying as we learn how to love ourselves. (just thinking out loud)

Kim: "Just thinking out loud as well, yes, Bob. There is both a destructive and pacific edge to creation... both a passive and active participation on our part. Anyone who has ever watched birth or death, of a person or a poem or an idea, can probably appreciate this...The pacific and active parts are easy to love. I'm still working on loving the destructive and passive parts, and fitting myself into the mix "

I instantly connected with and replied to Robert's summing up of the magnificent cosmic process of which we  are -and in which we play- a part, seamlessly woven in.

".... the cosmic balance that Nataraja embodies in his perpetual dance.
 'At rest and moving' - your words are affirming and make me feel better about this roller coaster of fits and starts, of "movement and repose" that I ride 24x7. I ride it clumsily, Nataraja with aplomb!"

Suddenly I could understand with new insight, the often frustrating and inexplicable way the creative process worked for all of us. 

And I found myself bubbling over with my new found sense of revelation!

Sarasvati is that mysterious underground river and she is the wood nymph that turns up in unexpected places in the heart of a crowded city.

Wood Nymph Sarasvati of Kolkata turns Mystical Underground River Sarasvati
Photograph by Kim Raikes metamorphosed by Incognita in a moment of revelation

 And those happenstances impel us to create! My "Head" (introduced earlier in this post) was one such unexpected gift to me.

 To quote Kim, "The pacific and active parts are easy to love. I'm still working on loving the destructive and passive parts, and fitting myself into the mix"

Kim, this fitting in, is what causes the friction. You and I (and other creators we know) try to "fit" ourselves under some unseen pressure that we feel. I believe that "fitting" is only about "tailoring" ourselves  to connect with those who are happy to limit themselves and try to limit others so they can be in control. As they are currently in charge of the "world," we struggle. Maybe we need to alter this process and start to synchronize with Nataraja's rhythm. Let us creators take a step towards creating a new paradigm. Today is a day of celebration for both of us and we have a third hidden element that we both embrace as part of the celebration.

To you, dear Karan Vohra, the mystical hidden river in my life that surprises me when I least expect, I dedicate this post on your birthday. Let this be a day that awakens new creative processes in all of us and most especially you. A Very Happy Birthday!

Tabula Rasa

"Unwritten" - the title of this blog. What does this word convey to the reader?
I shoot the word out at a close friend who collaborates on some of my creative ventures and she shoots back 
"It means potential, something within waiting to be expressed, something harbored or secret, an open page, a tabula rasa..."


I grab the magical phrase promptly  as the title for my introductory post. It's like we were waiting to find each other!

Looking at the masthead she continues  
"Yes that's the idea I've been trying to express, a pen poised above a waiting page.  It's mysterious and full of potential.  We wonder, what is unwritten and why?  Hasn't it found its moment yet?  Is something about to spill from the pen...and what wlll it be? Was it too hard to express before, too painful, too beautiful, too precious?  What will happen when it IS written?"

My eye returns to the first sentence and sees the opposites, "secret" and "open" poised together tantalizingly. That is the essence of the definition for me. Like a lock waiting for a key to turn.


Indeed the reader can look forward to sharing thoughts that were growing within me and continue to grow, awaiting that moment of ripeness to burst forth into the universe. That moment of unlocking.

Potential! Words have creative as well as destructive potential and need to be handled with respect and  understanding. Writer though I am, I remain in awe of their power . I appear to toss them around playfully, yet I look deeply and thoughtfully into what they have the power to convey. They hold within them equally the power to create, affirm and comfort as they have to wreck.

Perhaps that's one reason why  they often remain "unwritten"

Welcome to this brand new blog through which I hope to channel the writer part of me and open myself to new possibilities.

You might ask me what potential I am waiting to tap? And what are these possibilities? In the widest sense, the potential of words to transform. Stay tuned to my posts!

The Theater Within

We all live theatrical lives. While we can act at the pace of a stage play, our inner lives move a lot more like what we see in a film. In theater there is so much left to the player  as well as  to the audience’s imagination, to be filled in through the prism of the individual  life-view. So a stage play is so many different plays to so many people. Well so is a film a unique personal experience to each viewer, a different experience with each viewing. The difference between the two mediums being, in cinema there is a lot more movement through time and space thanks to ever evolving techniques that are bringing cinematic representation closer to our own inner mental processes and even transcending them.

So often a movie has gone many steps ahead and it forces you to pause and derive the story from the melange of images and sounds that whizz frenetically back and forth in time and space, much as our thoughts do. There is no focal area like a stage for a play – a limited physical area in 3D where all illusions are conjured by the imagination(of course there are sophisticated multi media effects increasingly in use and they get smarter by the minute).

But think of a pure, stark play enacted on bare boards, the script and actors alone driving it! A process that seems in reverse to what happens onscreen – a virtual reality from which one often has to recover ones coordinates in real-time-and space. It is the unreality of cinema that has turned it into the kind of escape that theater has never really become. All save fantasy plays that allow your mind to be someplace else for those brief couple of hours in which eyes, ears and other senses are glued to that limited cuboid of space and its superset the auditorium, into which the sounds expand themselves. Releasing the imagination to run as wild as it will.

Footnote: This was not a random post. It was a spin-off from two simultaneous inputs. The first is the Movie Marathon I have been treating myself to over the past month. Perhaps in a bid to find the lost links to my earlier unfinished writings. And the second is the sense of awakening that I can continue from where I left off. That my imagination is ready once more for its wild and joyful release!

August 16th 2014
I dedicate this today to the memory of the late Robin Williams

Secrets Shared From the Marsh ...

Letting go of ideas when they were building momentum - or dropping the strings as it felt like in my frustration with a pile of unfinished symphonies - was an important part of their growth it would seem. From my point of view maybe there were just too many of them fighting for their turn. Maybe the surge was more than I could handle. But they had in fact embarked on journeys of their own

Letting go left me with a sense of wading - indefinitely it would seem - through a marsh in which they had  all lost themselves. I just couldn't connect with them individually any more. Maybe I let go of them all in close proximity to one another. That's a fair bit of water mingling! Loss of momentum means a still pool. Still pools that don’t spring from deep beneath, fade into stagnant pools of old water. Not enough new inspiration means no new streams to nourish it, and that  means the pool turns into marsh. Before you think I am headed in a negative direction, that was only about how I felt. 

But looking more closely at what goes on,  and with the detachment of distance, this is when transformative processes are activated, unnoticed. Marshes are replete with potential. A marsh forms a teeming ecosystem of a different sort. One that is often morbid and challenging to negotiate. Yet life thrives in a marsh. Meanwhile, the water filters its way down deeper layers of earth and finally emerges elsewhere, sometimes not far away, as a faint trace of fresh water.... renewed hope. New plants begin to grow nearby and around. The rains feed the trace and it turns into a new stream and starts to wander on its own journey. What's important is to let go and allow it all to work the way it's meant to.

It seems to me my renewed creative stream is emerging. Where will this fresh meandering stream of writing lead me? Will it continue the broken journey, gathering the essence from these long-standing marsh-salts, refreshed with rain-water, charged with sunshine - and grow into a formidable river this time? From which, at the swollen womb of its sangam with other currents of other origins, it will split into slow, meandering Gangas, wide and surging Godavaris, rushing Krishnas and swirling Tungabhadras? Or an unexpected Daya that meets still water far more vast  than her expectations and is home to far more secrets than she imagined. To be gently, unexpectedly engulfed by it and find a home and consummation in the mingling? And wait calmly for the mighty ocean to embrace their union?

A union of stories written, stories that reach an audience, stories that are read and have the power to transform?
I write .... and await!

Drawing the strings together ....

All these books I could have written……… So many loose ended strings …….

Back in 2006 I was working on a  film script ‘If You Can’t Join them, Beat Them!”. A first ever attempt inspired by a series of events that took place in my own immediate sphere and catalyzed by the music of Led Zeppelin, particularly "Stairway to Heaven". My mother too was excited about this out-of-the-blue venture that events conspired to seed in my mind, and we would talk about it and brainstorm together  as I frantically scribbled and the characters came to life and the drama unfolded between the pages. I randomly researched all over the net and found - to my surprise but not -  that I was on the right track without ever having tried to validate what I'd found myself doing. I had just felt, "hey this is how it’s done" and dived in. Oddly enough I found at least a couple of respected opinions indicating that was indeed how they did it out there!

Well the film script never completed itself. Most creative streams that rise in the crags of my mind, tumble into some uncharted terrain (interestingly my first online venture was named Terra Incognita from which I derive my pen name) wherein they peter out into the marshland and lose themselves. Leading to a hiatus from writing. 

I groped for the secret energies to direct streams into rivers that swell and flow, building civilizations along their banks and finally emptying with  a surge into the vast and dynamic resource pool – the ocean of creative enterprise that is all of ours. The ocean from which the droplets are again distilled to feed those crags in my mind and the minds of others.

Maybe the secret lay in the hiatus. In the letting go. I realized something important and powerful could be at work unknown to me and I had to give it breathing space to work. And I did! 

Today I feel the emergence of something. A new creative stream. And I grab a pen once more to carry on, recharged. Yes I've had to be patient, often fretting through it. But something tells me it could have been worth it after all.

Could this film script resurrect itself and grow into a better  and more relevant one? Could it actually be completed? Can I continue where I left off  seven years ago - now enriched with experience - those books I was  inspired to write for those who feel lost and grieve that sense of loss and isolation? Those books that in 2007, at the time of my own personal losses, had magically named themselves “Embrace The Darkness” and “Embrace The Silence?” Titles on covers hiding secrets between their blank, unwritten pages that would come to life with a touch of new essence! Navaneeta(new essence) touched me that year in the shape of a person who unexpectedly entered my life but the books remain unrevealed. I realize now that they have written themselves somewhere and been stored, waiting for the power to be switched on and start them flowing to the outlet channels!

I often see the way people collaborate on books. I’ve always wondered how that’s possible. Is it that I start a sentence and you complete it? Or do we each fill in a random phrase and watch a sentence magically create itself? Now I’m starting to think one does the writing and the other is the catalyst, the muse and the beta-reader all in one. And maybe through the process they keep interchanging roles. “Transforming each of them into the other” to quote Loreena Mckennit inspired by St John of the Cross. Maybe, just maybe that's one of the important ways a book actually happens instead of remaining a thought in the mind or a sheaf of papers out away somewhere out of sight.

And maybe posting about this process is one way of collaborating with the potential audience, a way to exchange energy with the universe. To flick that power switch. And to see a book out there at last!

I write …. I hope

And await  the readers' thoughts......