The Winter of Our Discontent ~

I remember the first time I read John Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent. I was in my early twenties and had finished reading his Grapes of Wrath, The Pearl and Tortilla Flats in a row. I was moved to bits with his intimacy of sight and his compassion for people who the world viewed as failures, but for the writer were real survivors and heroes. The backgrounds of all the novels was earthy, and his power of writing made me see the dirt deep inside the nails of his hardy protagonists. These were moving dioramas of people who refused to give up. 

And then I picked up this book. And the way it's background unravelled - urbane, full of sunshine, following the fortunes of a family, set in a small town in the eastern coastline of USA - it could have been written by a different writer. Until it reached into it's dark core and it's shattering dilemmas. It's darkness was greater than the black destinies of all the characters of all the books which came before this. 

The universality of the ethical dilemmas of it's protagonists made me revisit this book again and again. It was almost as if I grew up reading this book - or maybe the book grew into me. And every time I struggled with it's issues, and each time I reacted to it's themes differently. It was almost as if my evolution as a person was charted out in my different readings of the same book. I just finished my fifth reading of the book. And I sit back, as moved and disturbed as ever, with it's problems and struggles and heartbreaking resolutions. 

The year is 1960. Ethan is a clerk in a store, which at one time his ancestors owned. He has a wife, a son, a daughter. And society is at the cusp of a materialistic explosion, and it's effect is making inroads into every home. Ethan represents a lineage which is one of the richest in the town, but today he doesn't even have money to have a television or take his family for a holiday. And every time he enters his home, he enters a vortex of his family's desires and ambitions. And finally he is forced to make choices which burst into smithereens every value, every ethic he thought were his own. 

The theme is so contemporary and universal, that it seems it's written for today. At a time when our society has sharper economic divisions but similar explosions of expectations for a good life, what does a person do to fulfill desires? And particularly when he sees the corrupt becoming rich beyond any limit, with no holds barred - and becoming respectable to boot. 

Ethan at one point says -

"Now a slow, deliberate encirclement was moving on New Baytown, and it was set in motion by honorable men. If it succeeded, they would be thought not crooked but clever. And if a factor they had overlooked moved in, would that be immoral or dishonorable? I think that would depend on whether or not it was successful. To most of the world success is never bad. I remember how, when Hitler moved unchecked and triumphant, many honorable men sought and found virtues in him. And Mussolini made the trains run on time, and Vichy collaborated for the good of France, and whatever else Stalin was, he was strong. Strength and success— they are above morality, above criticism. It seems, then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it. Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn’t seem to be. The only punishment is for failure. In effect no crime is committed unless a criminal is caught."

But what do small people do with the small defeats of their daily life? What do WE do with the choices we are given ever so often between keeping a moral high ground & despair and compromised morality & instant gratification? The book is littered with the angst of ethical choices and the trauma of living below the expectation-levels of those who mean the most to you. 

The happy irony of this book is that even as it unravels it's onerous ethical knots, it's writing is bright, funny and sparkling. And like the best of writing, it works incredibly on numerous levels. It delineates married life and love within it's paradoxes: how often, how little we know the people we love the most, as also how our love doesn't lessen in spite of it. How both the villainy of circumstances and the heroism of choices both reside within us. And, more shatteringly, how our fragilities, foibles and fables find their way into our children - until they openly mirror our true selves, and we are helpless to do anything.

Packed with memorable characters and a storyline throbbing with inner tension, this is ultimately a book about defeat and redemption - and how destiny is just a handmaiden of the determinism of our choices. And why, in the darkest nights of our life we cannot let the light of our lives to go out. 

Trivia:

This book was specifically mentioned in the citation of Nobel Prize awarded to Steinbeck. The irony was that this book was savaged critically and hurt Steinbeck so much that this became his last novel. All books after this were non-fiction. Today, of course, this book stands as a literary monument documenting man's ethical dilemmas. 

The Silkworm ~

The pleasure of reading an author at the top of her game is an incomparable pleasure. And when it is Rowling, in her ghost writer avatar Robert Galbraith, writing about her detective Cormoran Strike and his comely assistant Robin, the pleasure just doubles. 

The smoothness of writing, the relaxed tone, and the never-boring detailing of a city I have grown to love ever so much, reminds me of those terrific speakers, who take you on the wings of their words and transport you to a place which is the nearest kind of bliss one can experience. That's this book. 

Oh there is a deliciously gory murder, and a slew of abominable characters, any of whom the reader would have loved to be the murderer. But the fun lies elsewhere. Rowling gives an almost insider view of the self-serving navel-watching narcissistic world of publishing. And all the characters who move in that circle - the established authors, the fledgling ones, the agents, the editors, the owners, the rivals - and all of them fighting for authors, attention, promotion, women, men, et al, And the delightful ugliness of it all. 

And it's quite cleverly done, like a film within a film, with the murdered author being the author of a book full of poisoned portraits of a host of industry characters.

One can literally see Rowling chuckling as she penned this inside story. 

Rowling treats each chapter as a set-piece, as she unravels the intricate threads of the murder. There is a classical English family dinner, where the hostess considers it her entitlement to know the inside story of an affair; the absolutely hilarious scene of a couple with two painful kids, who to the absolute horror of Cormoran, want a third; a lovingly described lunch at a quintessential English pub; a road trip which almost proves to be fatal; a drunken, gossipy party celebrating a publishing house's coup of getting an author; and so on and so forth. Each piece moves the story forward, whilst allowing Rowling to lovingly create atmospherics. And London, ah. It is in the throes of it's coldest winter, and there is treacherous snow and treachery out in the streets: one gets chilled to the bones, indeed.

And then there are two parallel and subtexual tracks, which add considerably to the heft and charm of the book. One is of reminiscence and endings, of Cormoran's abortive love affair with a heartbreakingly beautiful girl. In a short passage, she is shown to be getting married, and there is a sms and there's a photograph. Suffice to say, there is an incredible amount of despair and fortitude written in with consummate skill. 

And the second track is the ever on-the- edge relationship between Cormoran and his assistant Robin, who is, regrettably,       bethroed to be married. The exasperation and the exhilaration of the relationship has a delectable balance. A treat indeed. 

I have not read Rowling's Harry Potter books. But have read everything after that. Her A Casual Vacancy was probably one of the most heartbreaking books written these last two years. And then her detective series starting with Cuckoo's Calling and now this. She is a brave writer, unflinching in her dissection of sorrow and purpose, and the frailties of strong men, and the self-centeredness of despairing women. 

She's promised at least seven more Cormoran Strike books. What a mouthwatering prospect indeed. 

Delhi Art Fair 2015 ~

I will forever remember F N D'Souza's blue. All the fabulous contemporary outre art all around, and here I'm remembering only the blue of a 70s painting. It was unlike any I had seen. I remember every little detail of the still life, but that blue, well it's burnt into my memory. It was a rich, deep color, full of the most radiant and dark and deep character. I had stepped in front of the canvas, and I'd  thought I could spend all of my time of the whole of the day, just gazing at that color. That's how magical it was. 

Strange things one carries back.

Genres, styles, periods, countries: the riches on display were staggering. For me, each piece was like a story aching to jump out and be told. Sewing machines as still heads, the gulf between two mirror images of the same person, the playfulness on a canvas of an artist unable to keep his exuberance to himself, the intimacy of the handwritten letter and it's demise in the hands of the digital, the jumble of nonsense-shapes reflecting an airplane in flight when light fell on the installation, portraits of pain, faces which gazed as if into the soul of the onlooker, mythic figures revelling in modern times, women celebrating their sexuality and men discovering theirs. 

The beauty of art is the freedom it affords the viewer to see herself in each canvas. The story being told by the painter is seldom the story the viewer sees. Sometimes a deviant stroke, sometimes a killer color, sometimes an expression which burns through the canvas - and the tale one finds one's soul catching is the cumulative sum of the viewer's own life-story. Art is literature seen as cinema captured in a single frame. 

Sometimes I feel the craft of an artist is tougher, more exhausting than that of an auteur in any other art form. She has to compress all the exhaustion and exhilaration of life into one canvas with the literality of a paintbrush and the shade of a color. The most intimate stories require the most upfront representations. There's no place to hide.

As I stood in front of an incredible canvas of a moment caught in motion, but made hazy by memory, as if of an image seen through the mist of time,  I saw a young school kid in his uniform, with his backpack intact, staring at it with his mouth open. And I found,  I was also standing and staring at the painting with my mouth open. I recognized the innocence and wonder in the child. And I thought - well, there was still some hope left for me, in these cynical times. Art is such a journey of discovery - and rediscovery

A poem called The Book Thief ~

Life is often just vignettes,

of colour, silence

and broken shadows.

Death comes 

as black emaciated spots 

on white snow:

blood strained dark, often

bodies bereft of blood.

Hearts save stories

from the freezing hell of nothing

for a kiss of redemption,

not knowing that 

dreams die first. 

Refugees from life

find their sun with tangled tails      

on musty damp walls -

they survive in the eyes of innocents 

being charred alive. 

And off-kilter music fills caverns,

as broken notes join hearts,

& humans find beasts in themselves -

and kindness finds

victims. 

And people like us, 

blessed with breath,

orphans to ourselves, 

see losses in our riches &

death in every spurt of blood. 

And the magicians of survival,

obstinate to give,

faithful to the air,

sisters of flowers,

the reason itself for life's creation. 

Everything is Inside: Subodh Gupta ~

I first met Subodh Gupta some six years back in Bombay when his wife did an installation for a show my company was doing. He was helping her around, and was happy to just be around, as his wife was the center of attraction. Years later I heard Subodh in this year's Lit Fest. He was a very successful artist now, selling his pieces for croresu. And he came as someone with a charming  rusticity and a cocky charm. And he grew a little indignant when some difficult questions were asked. But there was a raw honesty about him which I liked. 

His solo show is on in NGMA ( with Amrita Sher-Gill in the hall across; such riches!), and I had a sliver in a day, and I knew I couldn't miss it. 

And I am glad I went. 

Installations are ever-so-often so symbolic that they become esoteric (for example Nalini Malani's show called 'You can't carry Acid in a Paper Bag' in Kiran Nadal Art Gallery, which showcases the artist's intelligence in such a way that the viewer starts wondering if he is a fool, and slinks away quietly). Subodh is on the other end of the spectrum. He is having fun. And he is in an intensely nostalgic mood. And he digs deep inside himself for memories of childhood, and of things which he loved and which have passed. Gimmicky? Oh yes. But in a good way. It involves you, but at the level of your curiosity and sense of humour. It doesn't superciliously challenge your IQ. It tickles your EQ. And for me the show was a winner for it. 

Installations are a clarion call for discipline. An artist can go anywhere with these. The temptation to self-indulge and intellectualize is immense, what with the arsenal available - videos, sculpture, painting, any material in the world. But when an artist brings intelligence and sensitivity and humor into his work, ah, such tales can be told.

So you have him doing a wall installation of what a lovely messy kitchen looks like. Another one is a massive  house made solely of cow dung (how did he eliminate the smell?!!), which he remembers from his childhood in Bihar when he used to help his mother make dung-cakes and use them when lighting a fire. Then there are the doodhwalas who get their motorcyle- charm registered. And do you remember the hold-all we used to carry in olden times' train journeys? The rolled up thing which our Dads opened up in the night and which had a pillow and a quilt, and in which we tucked ourselves in, as the train rolled on through the night? Yes, that makes an appearance. And the dabbawalas. And then there is a full series of memories of cinema as it used to be, shown in so many ways!! And then there is the lovely clever depth he gets inside a tall earthen jar, as you peep In through an orifice - and then there is a surprise inside.

And then the two massive massive structures he has created with pans and buckets and all kinds of things - one in the gardens of NGMA and the other outside the KNAC. The one in NGMA is called The Ray. And you know exactly what he wants you to have in your life, as a bucket pours all of it right on front of you, with the winter sun reflecting gorgeously right on your face, into your glad eyes. 

Catch it. 

The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair ~

“A good book, Marcus, is judged not by its last words but by the cumulative effect of all the words that have preceded them. About half a second after finishing your book, after reading the very last word, the reader should be overwhelmed by a particular feeling. For a moment he should think only of what he has just read; he should look at the cover and smile a little sadly because he is already missing all the characters. A good book, Marcus, is a book you are sorry to have finished.”

These are words from Harry Quebert to his protege, student and friend Marcus, who is himself a writer, presently suffering from a severe case of writer's block after a successful first book. And both of them are together after years,  because Harry has been accused of murdering a young girl - his 15-year old lover - and Marcus is certain that's not true. 

And this is certainly a book I let go of with some regret, after gulping it down after a continuous stretch of hours and hours of reading. Neat, complex in it's time-wrapping technique, confounding in it's numerous false leads, and with corruption beneath it's dermis, this is a novel you can't put down.

Rare is a book which could stand authentically, and simultaneously, as a treatise on writing, a story of forbidden love, an essay on ambition, a commentary on the circus that the publishing industry has become, and a critique of social ambition - but is actually a thriller!

Embedded in the racy story is the tale of 'us'- the desire for love, recognition, fulfilment. And the boundaries we are ready to push to get what we want. The ageless question of what is right and what is wrong comes to haunt the destinies of it's protagonists: the conclusions are as uncertain as life itself. 

But it is clear that the only test possible is the answer inside us - is our wrong for a right reason? What is the harm caused? Is there innocence behind our most grievous sin? Or are the answers to the most important questions life brings us fraught with cynicism? And the principal question - can you be corrupt on one side of the soul, and not the other?

Life's lessons never cease. And the learnings it can share, paradoxically, grow richer, the deeper man slips into the abyss of his soul. And though love is often the reason, it is not always a satisfactory answer. 

As Marcus delves deeper into the mystery of the murder, he also encounters the devils of love and belief. As Harry tells him "The truth does not change how you feel about someone. That’s the great tragedy of love.” The depth of this assertion also becomes Marcus' test of his love for Harry.

Deceptively pellucid (with the love story spanning out in a gush which even a Mills & Boon editor would frown upon), it will be easy to lose the sublimity beneath the physicality of this excellent book. But as the layers of this onion peel, and the horror of it's rotten core are revealed, we cannot help but reflect how this drama could well be an allegory for the relentless pursuits of our lives - and the values we are ready to let fall on the wayside, to find 'success', however singular or plural our definition of that be. 

And that is more frightening to think of, than the denouement of this book. 

An aside:

The book, a 600-pager, has been translated from its French original into 32 languages, and is considered to be one of the biggest original acquisitions for it's English rights, in the history of Penguin Books,  and has become a worldwide bestseller. Hopefully that should not put you off reading it!!

The Giver ~

Devastation in simplicity. 

Those are the words I was left with as the book finished, and I stayed with it's deeply disturbing aftermath. 

Dystopian Young Adult literature is a whole genre by itself. But to put this book in that category (as publishers are wont to do), would be an injustice. Here is something which can be read (with increasing disquiet) by any adult. And more one thinks about it, more one uncovers layers. 

Here is an utopian world, where there is order, safety, serenity. Everybody knows the mission of their life, the work they will need to do to maintain the equanimity of a society obsessed with balance. But hidden within this serenity, there is also the raw truth of the price man pays to get these. The grey tones, the regimentation and the ruthlessness, which accompanies the intrinsic nature of this society. 

And then there is one boy, Jonas, a Receiver, who is chosen to be the one who will receive all memories, without bar, of myriad generations of people from a Giver, who is himself one of a line of people who continue to be the repository of all possible memories. 

The inflection point comes when Jonas learns of a world which has passed but of which he knew nothing of - and the changes it wroughts in him. And what he does with the truths which cripple his very soul.

Recently I had written on the persistence of memory, and the pleasure and pain it can give. The Giver talks about what it would mean if there was no memory, and if a person is suddenly confronted with the accumulation of a hundred generations of it, at the same time. 

On another level, the story talks about the choices we as societies make, easily making severe moral sacrifices for a seemingly larger good. The devastation is in it's normality.

The book juxtaposes plastic happiness with the despairing tenderness of the bond a boy forms for a child; of the despair of knowing but not being able to share; of how eliminating pain is never an answer to achieve happiness; of how loss is as important as love; of how not-knowing is a right of choice and not of compulsion. 

I left the book, deeply unnerved, and looked for every colour I could identify, letting my skin know the warmth of touch and the coldness of a rainy icy day. I let myself get angry, get emotional, get hugged. I might die tonight - but not before I have Received everything life has to Give. 

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green: a meditation

I cried. No shame in saying it - I cried a lot. But I laughed a lot too. And hugged whoever was around me, as I read it. And strangely, even as I smiled, I often found my eyes moist, and a lump which I couldn't swallow.

Love in the time of Death. 

The inevitability never lessens the pain. And the wonder never ceases, of people who find Zen as night starts to fall. And love, however brief, can still be an 'infinite forever'. And 'some infinities are bigger than other infinities'.

And when you start to see yourself die, and find the world of everyone you love start to revolve around your existence, and you feel guilty for being a 'grenade' which would inevitably explode and fill everyone near you with shrapnel. And you resist falling in love, for you don't want to hurt someone so. But life and death and love still manage to take their own blighted route. 

And as grief falls on you like petals afloat in spring, you realize it changes you less than it reveals you. And it makes generosity second nature, even as it reveals how 'pain demands to be felt'. 

And you understand that heaven is here, just where you are, as every breath brings you closer to closure: 'an elegant universe in ceaseless motion, teeming with ruined ruins and screaming children'.

And you think, as your life starts to break down - when was my last good kiss, when did I recite a poem, when did I hold a hand, when did I feel the petals of a flower against my cheek. And you realize that, even as you scream and shout through your breathing moments to have the universe notice you, all that mattered really was to notice the universe. 

And how you just need to tread lightly on this earth, maybe touch just a few lives, maybe live deeply and not widely, maybe see fewer things but see them with attention, and though 'you don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world', you do get your say in who hurts you. And in that choice you revel, in having loved and being loved.

Chicago in the sun ~

It's official. Chicago is giving a close run to San Francisco for the status of numero uno city of USA, in my list. Particularly when the sun is out. 

Of course, there are huge differences. Whilst San Francisco is a soft, artistic, almost feminine city, in it's grace, generosity and beauty, Chicago is hard as nails, it's steel, it's practical, it's pragmatic, risk-prone and brave. Even it's pulchritude breaks moulds. 

But both the cities revel in the pride of their characters. You only need to meet and talk with the people to discover that.

Chicago has so many things going for it. For if it is not the gorgeous lake-front which gets you, then it has to be the architecture, and if that's not your thing, then the art, and if even that is not your thing, then the theatre, the friendly people, the randomly strewn sculptures and installations at the turn of a corner, and the spirit of a people who refuse to play by the book.

In a random order, over three days I encountered Monet, Chagall, Frank Lloyd Wright, Gehry, Anish Kapoor, Picasso, Sargeant, Renoir, Seurat, Dayanita Singh - only to mention a few; saw places touched by Martin Luther King, Capote, Bugsy, Obama, Swamy Vivekananda; was enchanted by Rogers & Hammerstein and Willie Dixon. And that was just scratching the surface. 

Apart from what a city offers, is what it's citizenry is. On the streets, in the driving seat in a cab, at a ticket counter, in a drawing room, at the hotel reception desk, whilst sharing a meal, whilst showing the city around, across a meeting table. One may not get intimate views, but one does get the pulse. And Chicago might well be under snow and inundated with freezing winds, but beneath it's cold facade is a warm and warming heart. 

A summer-clothed beautiful American family stopped to offer help as we stood helplessly wondering how to go from A to B. A cab driver denied himself a bigger fare by guiding us to a closer metro station. A bus driver helped us all the way into a terminal with our seven pieces of luggage. A shop keeper guided us to a better bargain. 

Is all of this normal for USA? Or is it more so in Chicago. I don't know. Maybe it was the long Memorial Day weekend which did it, for the holiday mood was everywhere. But what I do know is that there is a far greater swirl of happy black, white and brown on the streets here, than I've seen in other cities in this country. 

We traversed through the length and breadth of Chicago, the stadiums, the university areas, the taverns and pubs and restaurants, and the tony tree-lined avenues where the president of USA stays when he comes over, and the boulevards, and the sky-shattering buildings which came up literally over ashes of a burnt city, the areas where Jews stayed, where the Chinese worked, where the blacks congregated, and the gangs fought. But what permeated throughout was the iconoclastic story of this city and the brave imagination of it's people. 

Chicago has been random in it's usage of genius. It has used a street for an airstrip, has made possible a river to flow opposite to it's natural flow, has given the world it's first skyscraper, has rebuilt a whole city burnt to the ashes in three years, has given air rights to builders to build where they wanted, has given the world some world-class gang-wars (!), has given architects the creative freedom to create history. And so many other things which I dont remember now. 

As I stood in Millennium Park, gazing up at my convoluted happy face in the reflecting steel of the enigmatic and absolutely fascinating Cloud Gate made by Anish Kapoor, I caught a bit of the spirit of this terrific city - made of steel, but with enough heart to show you, not only as yourself, but also you in your most mordant way: as you go below the Bean (as the locals call Cloud Gate), and see yourself, you can't see where your reflection ends and where the sky begins.

A city which can use art to show human nature is a city of worth.

Gone Girl ~

Here's the book you have to read, if it's the only book you will read this year. A searing treatise on marriage in the guise of a thriller, Gone Girl is guaranteed to twist your brain - and make you feel guilty, along with the guilty pleasure of reading something totally unputdownable. 

A wife disappears. Everything points towards murder. The husband is the prime suspect. And that's just the beginning. Things unfold from the perspectives of both of them. And you can't believe anything in this insane story. 

The book's ingenuity doesn't only lie in it's mad twist, it's cutting humor or it's uncanny unpredictability, but in it's plunge into the darkness of what marriages can become. It's written with feeling, and documents with searing insight into how relationships reach their acmes, before they start to plunge. 

The elation of the first flush of love, the early ethereality of marriage, the feeling that nothing can go wrong with love and life, slowly melting into realizations of how we all carry the baggage of our pasts, our proclivities, our blood, into every relationship - and how that puts everything into a spin, and often gets us to act in ways totally out of our own control. 

Outstanding prose delves, cuts, and reveals what makes us fall in love, the expectations, the exploration -  and then the disintegration and the disillusionment of truths which burden us more than lies. 

And then the book talks about truths - about how lies are truths and truths are lies, if only you know how to view them. As the book spins it's tale, we realize we can't believe anything or anyone, and even as things become extreme, the stark truth of what our needs make us do, sinks in. As also the realization that whilst we are often victims, we very often make ourselves our own victims. 

Cautionary tale for the married? A forewarning for the about-to-be married? Relief for the unmarried? However you see it, you will want to plunge back into this terrifically written book the moment you finish reading it. 

The Desert Festival in Jaisalmer ~

Camels immaculately dressed, knowing it, and standing with their noses in the air, supercilious in their knowledge of what we mortals have no idea about. And their riders, with moustaches which covered cheeks in florid designs, the final masculine symbol somehow making them look effeminate. And the sand lying strewn on the stadium. And a blue and white tamboo across the length of the stadium. And villagers and foreigners and tourists basking in the sun, the cool breeze fiddling hair and cooling heated brows. 

The beautiful Desert Festival of Jaisalmer, which we just stumbled into, out of sheer luck. 

And what we had in front of us was a fun localized version of everything! First an obstacle race (locals who started out in kuttchas, first putting on dhotis, then turbans, than putting harnesses on camels and then racing to the finish line on their camels!), then tug-o-wars (locals - men and women - vs foreigners which the latter were winning for the last many years!), followed by the matka race, where ladies ran 50 meters, picked up earthen matkas full of water, put them on their heads and ran all the way to the finish line, which was another 50 meters away. The fun was when matkas broke half way, and the women got drenched or cracked open even as they picked up the pots!!

And then the funny fun of a camel polo match and a camel race!! 

The polo was a five-a-side, and in two parts of ten minutes each. There were referees, linesmen, goalkeepers, et al. Sounds serious? Ah, but you had to be there to see what a riot it was. These serious looking, luxuriously-mustachioed ten men with long polo sticks swung it all around, almost never ever getting to hit the ball. But they did hit the reedy feet of many camels, who obviously got angry and ran to sides opposite to where the players wanted them to. And then the ball got hit all over by the camels themselves, and one goal was scored exactly that-a-away! 

And this was only to set the mood for the three camel races, which were the grand finale! And here was where the camels decided to show men who was the boss. So, as soon as the gong sounded, two camels ran to the right of the race course towards the stands, one ran towards the back gate, obviously wanting to go back home quickly, another refused to start,   one took off straight into the track - a perfect start. Now the two running towards the stands created total panic amidst the onlookers, and the BSF guards in front of the stands ran helter-skelter to save themselves from camels gone crazy!! And then one camel ran right next to the stands, weaved itself between parked cars and reached the finishing line - but from the opposite end!!  

The feel and atmosphere was totally dehati, except that the local voices all around mixed with French, German, Spanish, Japanese, English and sundry languages and accents. And it was langrous and disorganized and sleepy and fun. And like much else in our nation, it could be construed as a test of patience or a waste of time or the acme of poor planning. But the truly evolved know that this was the way to dusty nirvana: we don't have spaces between action. We have spaces to revel in, disturbed only by sporadic action. Rest of the time is for contemplation of ones atmosphere, the special feel of a place which is sandy, and brimming with a strange character of relaxed hurry. 

In the evening there was the culture-vulture program, with a French woman singing a terrible local folk song, a Bombay comedian cracking jokes on the local collector, a host who was choc-a-bloc with Urdu shayiri, and a small kid in the audience who danced to shenai-vadaan. And all of this, as the near-full moon and the stars like bulbs smiled benevolently down at us, and the sand dunes somewhere nearby sent cold messages! Oh god, I lobe my country to total siyapaan!! 

The next day was the grand finale. The day when culture went into the dunes - and (we hoped) didn't die a dusty death!!

It was exciting to ride into Sam dunes, as the vegetation all around was sparse, though mum could identify sangari trees and kair bushes, and the rest were all babool bushes and the like which camels eat as their staple food, though they're full of thorns. We stopped at Kuldhara village, which is one of the 87 abandoned villages in Jaisalmer district. The story goes that a corrupt (and horny, I might add) vazir, who enjoyed a new girl every night, fell for a nubile Brahmin girl. Her father knew the dire consequences of a choice, either way, and asked for time from the vazir. A 'niet' from the father meant sure death for the family, and a 'yes' would put the poor girl's life into perpetual misery. As a consequence, the elders of all the villages having this strain of Brahmins decided to abandon their villages overnight, leaving everything behind, barring the bare necessities. And till date, these villages lie abandoned. 

The place had nothing but broken huts, cow sheds, and a partially restored temple. But there was a certain poignancy to see this large area of destroyed and broken houses, lying like carcasses in the desert air. 

Sam is a village, but has got known because it forms the spot from where you can take camel rides into the dunes. It was also the spot where the last day of the festival was going to wind up. 

The road through the village is strewn with camels and their owners hustling tourists for their bucks for real and illusory rides. We took a camel cart for a ride upto the place where the evening program was gonna take place. He promised a half-hour ride, and took money in advance. Ten minutes to the place and he asked us to get down. We protested and refused to get off. A major fight ensued, and we held our guns. He had to give us a ride over the dunes for another 20 minutes. At the end of it, he comes and asked us for a tip! The sheer cheek. 

But it was easy to forget everything, as we entered the spirit of the place. There were large bright kites flying and there were people taking camel rides all over the undulating dunes which stretched as far as the eyes could go. There were the ubiquitous tea stalls, and pakoda kiosks and cold drinks and cute little toilets made out of cloth, right in the middle of the desert. The stage was at a height, atop one of the higher dunes, and in front were large sheets laid out for people to just come and sit down and enjoy the show. 

It was, yet again, a village fair, and it was as full of locals as there were Indian and foreign tourists. And it was more crowded than the previous days functions - definitely 7000 or more people. The programme started bang on time. And the ethereal part of the experience was that across the stage, behind the audience, the sun set in a glorious orange orb, and as it set, right behind the stage rose a silver huge moon, unencumbered with clouds, and forming a shimmering background to all the music and dance being preformed on the stage. It was sublime. 

The programming was seamless, and the artistes chosen with care and variety. There were maand performances, kalbelia and fusion dances, gorgeous solo stints on local instruments, contortionists who did amazing stunts with glasses, spinning wheels and pots, artistes who danced and played with cymbals which were attached all along their legs. Their were singers who sang local satires and transvestites who danced with Japanese partners!! The final dance was a Krishna-Radha Ras Leela, which ended with a Holi of flowers and a humdinger display in the skies of fireworks, which lit up the night - and the way across to the dunes, back to our cars. 

A heart-warming climax to two days of revelry which both  bemused and exasperated us, but also provided hours of sheer enjoyment and joy. 

Recommended? Highly. Caveats? Oh yes. Go, knowing it's a village fair, with organization to match, but capable of reaching great heights. And you will come back happy! 

The Signature of All Things: a tribute ~

(The Signature of All Things is a new book from Elizabeth Gilbert (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86x-u-tz0MA&feature=youtube_gdata_player). It's an elegant, exciting and deeply compassionate tale of a determined young girl, at the turn of the 19th century, as she tries to discover the beginnings of all things inside the mysteries of botany. Instead she finds the meaning of life in the love of a man, who, in turn, throws her life into tumult as he finds the signature of all things elsewhere.

This poem is a freewheeling tribute to it's redoubtable heroine.)

She asked -

Why it is difficult being oneself?

To live within ones skin,

To desire a man within oneself,

To be selfish, brilliant and in love,

To find a world within ones heart 

And then despair to find it is too large?

She asked -

Can't I be less beautiful than my sister 

And more talented?

Can't I be a daughter whose blood 

Revels in the restlessness of an idea?

Who finds universes within 

The whorls of a leaf, 

And joy in the slow awakening

Of a petal?

She said -

It's good to be stoic,

But strong winds break backs:

Why did I fall in love 

And watch my love 

Fall in love elsewhere?

And then fall in love again,

Be in love 

And not be fucked?

She asked -

Can self centeredness 

Have redemption?

Can love find it's end 

As a tribute to life?

Or is love a transient companion,

Lesser than ego, larger than life?

She asked -

Can I find peace 

In finding my life's work 

In the work of others? 

Maybe.

Simply because I know      

The signature of all things

Lies not in finalities,

But in knowing what's incomplete,

And in revelling in it's 

Beautiful ambiguities 

And sudden revelations ~

Attachments area

Preview YouTube video Elizabeth Gilbert: Your elusive creative genius

Elizabeth Gilbert: Your elusive creative genius

Amrita Sher-Gill ~

Sadness in the eyes. Sadness in the way they looked. Sadness in which they congregated. Nude without recrimination or shyness, but the eyes hiding what their bodies did not. Even she looked into me with eyes which questioned, poised as she was, in the midst of her creation. 

Was pain her first and last companion? The love she gave, the first and last symbol of the pain she carried inside of her? But why? She had the world at her feet, lovers who also loved her. Were those who seeked her closeness claustrophobic to her? Was that village lady, in a siesta, with her legs askance, almost in rebellion, actually Amrita? And was every person she took inside of her, merely her attempt for them to read the words etched inside her heart of what she were searching for, but never found. 

When someone has everything, often the only wealth she seeks is what could fill the emptiness inside. 

(On seeking the world of Amrita Sher-Gill in NGMA, New Delhi on 2nd February, 2014)

London, a familiarity ~

There is an enveloping warmth about London. An intimacy. An hour into the central part, and the comfort zone is complete. The maze of roads reveals itself in familiarity, as the names come off a childhood's Monopoly game and present themselves as places with people - prices come later. It insouciantly lets you feel at home - with the lived-in feel of its pavements, the lack of squeaky cleanliness, and the slightly tired regality, fronting iconic names like Selfridges and Marks and Spencer, and the like. And to my mind, it is one of the few cities in the world where you may not seek places, but the places will find you. 

London, in a way, seems to know you. And you discover its pleasures, even when you might be doing something else. Its a rare character, only available in cities which are completely comfortable in their own skins. It loves itself, and lets its people do what they want - the city just knows that its soul is made of something infinite and infinitesimally indestructible. Of course people live and cry and crib and die - that's their DNA and the nature of things. And they continue with the loving and the intriguing and the shaming and the uppitiness. But they also care for a celebration of life, a careful carelessness. They know what it is to sit in the sun and feed the ducks in St James Park, to peacefully angle for fish in Clapham Commons, to contemplate the sky with a blade of grass in ones mouth in Hampstead Heath, to read a book in Hyde Park, to catch a play in Leicester Square or discover fresh adventures in Covent Gardens or discover a new restaurant off Regent Street or buy a double scoop ice cream in Piccadilly Square and watch people walk by. 

Can't you do similar things anywhere else? Of course you can. In Istanbul you can sit beside the Bosphorous and watch the boats sail by; in Salzburg, the Salzach river catches reflections of castles, bridges and the sun all at the same time; along the Nile, the shores just throw stories at you; in Delhi, a morning walk in Lodhi Gardens has history walking beside you; in Calcutta, a tram ride can take you back and take you in; in New York, you can revel in the chic self containment of Soho. But none of these places has the busy serenity of London. 

Maybe it is the sense of history interrupted, the solidity and memory of its buildings, the tranquility of its parks, or the solitude of a lot of its people. But even in its uncertainties and upper-lippness, no one seems to even try to disturb a very basic character of the city  - the ability to be more of what it is, the more the world changes. 

Why I like art ~

I like art because I like reading. I am sure of it now. 

Reading is the stuff of stories, imagination, getting into the mind of characters and places and having adventures, inside or outside, and always always finding bits of oneself strewn all over the pages. 

I remember Vikram Chandra in the Lit Fest this year saying that when we go to the theatre and react to emotions, it's our emotions which are the ones which come out. For example in a play whose emotions are we feeling - the actors? They might be hating each other in a love scene. The playwright's? He is probably dead  for years. It's the bliss of our own consciousness that we taste. It's us, our resident feelings which are coming out when we react to something. Art only helps in bringing it all to the fore. And we suddenly discover ourselves right in front of us - as a poem, as a raga, as a painting.

As I see Satish Gujral use rams and horses as symbols of power in poignant ways to convey how humans misuse power; or I see a large canvas of a Google map of Bombay with roads crisscrossing all over, and birds flying and finding themselves trapped beneath those roads; as I see a painting with the hand of a clock turning into a finger sealing the lips of a woman; as I see an installation of a directory with a head lying on it - until one realizes that the head is also made of a directory; as I see Reena Kallat's wall-installation of a cobweb - made entirely of rubber-stamps; as I see Kehna Patel's painting called 'Fragile India, handle with care', a kaleidoscopic burst of color based on Foucault's theory of Heterotopia (nothing is original and we swim, even wallow, in the fragmentary and chaotic currents of change, forever legitimizing our expressions by references to the past); as I stand in front of Pedro Ruiz's anguished face screaming out of the delectable petals of a poppy or gaze transfixed at J Swaminathan's exquisitely minimalist 'Bird, Tree and Mountain', balanced like a Zen mind; as I see a naked child skipping, as a hawk in mid-flight looks on, almost waiting for the child to join in - as I see these and many more, I see tercets, short stories, sonnets, haikus, all around. Terse, poignant tales captured in transient strokes of colour. Stories which grab you, even as they set your mind free. 

But art is much more than stories. Art is colours. And shapes. And strokes. And where the strokes lead, as the choice of paint reveals choice and character. And under the artist's hand, a whole universe of meaning evolves. And as the artist grows with every story he breaks his back and heart on, so does the viewer as he views each work, and finds himself shimmering under the palette of colors.

And so I come out of each show, as through an emotional wringer, just the way I put aside a book which has moved me, as a film which makes me not speak to anyone for hours, I walk my head brimming with bloodied lessons and tragedies and views and tears and intimations of innocence and cynicism and a sense of hopelessness and hope. 

And I get back to life ready to live again.

Orchha ~

It was not even seven in the morning, and the sun had an ascendancy. It portended a hot day, here in the middle of MP, in Orccha. There was a loudspeakered bhajan emanating from one of the numerous temples all around. And as I looked around from top of the ramparts of the Orccha Fort, I could see dried brown vegetation upto the horizon, broken only by the cones of temples all around, as if there was a circle  of protection around the city. Birds chirperd, and the broken fort wall I sat on seemed to be begging for its stories to be heard. 

Who had passed by, what had they done. What were there dreams and frustrations? Was anybody a poet, pushed to become a king? A queen who wanted more of life, but didn't know what? Whose spirits haunted this place, who came here on moon-lit nights, who looked after these ruins and who wanted them no more?

Or maybe these are just passages in time, memories in passing, stone monuments perchance. For nothing stays. Just as we forget, these tall structures will break down and nothing will remain of them but the dust from there bones, which will then blow in the wind, and be no more. 

There is a strange desolation, which comes with the silence, born out of the sound which the wind makes around the temples and ruins, as I walk within the womb of a hot brown world, which finds ways to eke out sweat from my skin, and makes me feel a random panic. The wedding decorations are cones of glitter 

in front of abandoned temples. I feel I'm one with them. They mean nothing and everything. 

And I wonder how randomly god lies around, like breathing. Always there. You just have to reach out.

Places carry their stories in the dermis of their air. You have to be outside, on the roads, with the wind and the sun, and the sights, and the people, and the things they are saying, the things they are writing on the walls, and how they look at you, and what they say. The things they sell to you, and the way they sell them. The way they react when you say no, and the way they answer when you ask them about themselves. 

And amidst this all-encompassing dust and throat-stringing heat, I walk in clothes which are not only inappropriate to the place but bad for the body in the oven. Jeans and t shirt, the bare minimum in a city road, was excessive here: a dhoti or loose cotton pyjamas or an aerated linen trouser was max for the temperatures. And my sharp-looking cap was of course completing my peacock look, with the cap being my plumage. 

The heat was opening my pores and the sheen of sweat was soon converted into rivulets. And the brine drying on my skin made it scratchy. The hard and unrelenting sun, I realized, created strange illusions. It poured weight and had the capacity to crush, but at the same time it opened something which seemed to make you see within things, a kind of a vast-void-vision which was giving me waves upon waves of messages from things inanimate. 

Is anything ever dead?

Is lingering in the air,

is playing on the mind,

is crushing the heart,

not just other ways to say -

there are stories still to tell,

and the end is but a pause?

Ancient structures break my heart. They stand lonely and mute. They let light in. They let birds fly in them with abandon. They let their walls be mutilated with words which don't deserve immortality. And keep their stories and their pain buried deep inside their stone, until one day even that breaks down. And they die, brick by brick, as dust, unremembered, unmourned, unloved. 

Giants fall thus. In wilderness, in desert air, in rarefied light, with starlight and breeze touching their ruins and moving on. Rarely, if ever, comes the lover who searches, runs his fingers on faded designs and broken backs, imagines and silently mourns what was, what could be.

Dust to dust. So goes the trajectory - for men and all that they create. 

My RP sab ~

I once asked him why he didn't write his life story, after all, there were rich stories to be told. He smiled and said "Unfortunately the best parts will have to be left out. It would be a very small book." And then that smile - it reached his eyes immediately. 

That's what he was -  intensely full of life, but private in his life story. And when he passed on, the legend of his story passed on quietly. But, like all legends, everybody could sense that there was a loss. And for those who knew the man well, the mourning would be for the death of a life lived to the full and with unparalleled generosity. 

I have had RP sab in my world and consciousness for 24 years, interacting with him on and off. But I started working closely with him a few years back. First, on a project and then on a division of businesses. There were times when I spent hours with him, working out options, thinking of strategies. The sessions invariably ended with "Okay, what else?" It was his sign that lets stop work and lighten our moods. We would talk about politics, people and life. He had a library full of books, and there were always a couple of them lying in front of them. I asked him how he got the time to read all of them. He said I read upto the point I've got the essence of what the author wants to say - sometimes it requires the whole book to get that, and often just a few pages. 

Sitting with a living legend was often disconcerting in the beginning, but he radiated warmth, which was what was his defining characteristic.  

I once asked him how he chose the companies to takeover. He said "My gut feeling and my guts." He only had a balance sheet or two to go on. No Mckinsey, no spreadsheets, no five year projections, no market analyses. And he assimilated into his empire companies as diverse and successful as Ceat, Cesc, Spencers, HMV-Saregama, KEC, Harrison's Malayalam, amongst others. Some he bought as they were being scrapped under BIFR or some such laws, some he bought under stiff competition, some he bought through market purchases. But each one had his astuteness, his charm and his incredible credibility stamped, in the final takeover document. 

He was the original Takeover King. But he let the burden of his kingdom lay very lightly on his shoulders. 

Like his contemporaries of the time -JRD Tata, Aditya Birla, etc - he believed in his companies being managed by strong people who ruled with great autonomy and freedom. He bequested his trust on them, and they repayed by being leaders who delivered. Maybe, not always. But he was always slow to delink, cut off. Because he had personal ties with these leaders, he considered them family, and gave them huge space for redemption. 

'Giving space' is also one of the legacies which he bequested to both his sons. They have both become visionary leaders who lead with a light touch. Humaneness defines them, not hunger. Humility is their stamp, not hubris.

But the pleasure of being with RP sab was as a person, behind the immensity of his persona. He embraced life with both hands. Immensely fond of music, he took over HMV just as it was on the brink of closure. He took out a personally selected series of music called Chairman's Choice, which reflected his rich understanding of classical music. And he loved his food. He often used to visit Varanasi, and he knew which 'gali' had which famous 'chaat'. And he made sure they were made available for him and his friends, throughout the day. One day I mentioned to him how I loved the seedless dates from the Middle East. Lo and behold, there was a large packet lying on his table when I went to meet him sometime later. 'Luckily, a packet came, and I remembered you like them, hence I kept it for you."

A colleague of mine, who grew really close to him, one day mentioned a particular 'thandai' which was famous and available in just one shop in Varanasi. Next day, a bottle was delivered to his home. 

In the later years, he built one of the most beautiful temples in Calcutta, and spent time there. Every month he had religious speakers from all over India come to talk about the scriptures and their lessons on living and loving. He would be a quiet and attentive listener, often with tears in his eyes. 

His vision made him plan the business separation between both his sons, much before it was required. He, as always, knew the sensitivities of power and took the division as his final paternal duty. He had no happiness while the task got completed. I worked closely with him on it. His overriding concern, which he kept repeating time and again, was fairness, equanimity, above all. And he burnt with the desire for his sons to go beyond what he had achieved. "I want to see them double, triple, what they are getting." And, fortuitously, he saw both his sons, rapidly increase their empire. In multiples in just the three years of the partition. 

I saw him sporadically in the last few months. Somewhat lonely, sometimes alone. But one could sense he knew he was drifting. Old age and illness brings in a sad struggle between continuing with your lust for life and your body's impediments: every love affair has loss embedded into its DNA. 

I met him last about a month back. His room in his home was like a hospital room. He had lost weight because of his prolonged illness. He very softly told me what he wanted. As I left, I looked back. He was seeing an old Amitabh Bachhan film, and there was a smile on his face. He was unwinding, he was at peace.  

RIP R P Goenka