Let go already

“You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings. It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing.

Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications. Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them. If it seems to you that I move in a world of certitudes, you, par contre, must benefit from the great privilege of youth, which is that you move in a world of mysteries. But both must be ruled by faith.” 
Anais Nin

My Pondicherry Week

I stumbled off my bus from chennai into Pondicherry,  right outside my hotel already wishing I understood some Tamil. I was getting by with the bare, “bus stand enge, Anna?” Or simply, “beach??” with a thumbs up hand poking the air upward and backward, but conversations were impossible, and I probably lost out on many an interesting detail in the Pond life.

Nevertheless,  I trudged on making random friends determined to not let my handicap get in the way, encouraged by the amiable demeanour of the people on the road. Two women in the seedy bakery opposite my hotel decided to investigate my conference tag as I investigated their countertop for signs of chocolate. Once they hit the realisation that I was a doctor, they insisted on having a long dialogue with me in Tamil, ignoring all my protests and hand flapping. They insisted on giving me their phone numbers, at which point I just gave up and started enjoying the game. I took contact photographs and asked them to call me right there, earning that look of glee, much giggling and a rather forceful backslap. Pondicherry buses proved to be incredibly easy to get into, the conductors always taking pity on the lost expression on my face, gently nudging me in the right direction. My google maps decided to stop functioning until my last day in Pondicherry, but even with my terrible sense of direction,  I managed without really losing myself in those streets.

The city is divided into a christian, a hindu, a muslim and a french quarter. As one movedls through the city one notices the change in architecture, a difference in trade, in characters on the sidewalks, the graffiti on the walls and the colours of the buildings.

Towards the beach, the buildings become square-r, flatter and more pastel coloured. Music turns from shady tamil movie songs to Rahman and finally blends into strains of the piano mixed with classical carnatic music punctuated with the mridangam, fused with the more forceful spund of the western drums.

You notice immediately that this is where different worlds have collided and merged, mixing into a rich heady cocktail of French and Indian culture. The rocky beach is busy but peaceful. Paved sidewalks and small cafes are dotted with smiling people writing, sketching or reading with their cup of chai or just staring into space. Something interesting is always happening on beach road, and the tourism office chap was quick to direct me. Proper advice was given, with a poorly disguised look of indignation at a young lone girl traveling.  Whats more, she drinks and doesnt seem averse to the idea of sampling a new cocktail. Such horror! I almost snorted when he suggested that I carry a bottle of wine for my brother or father. I listened politely to the chap carry on about his distaste for Indian politics, the placement of the gandhi statue at the beach, and his disagreement with the fact that Pondy should be an Indian state  and not french. Still. The 24 hour cafe quickly whipped up a chicken salad for me and let me carry a delicious almond croissant  to enjoy in the solitude of my hotel room.

When I fell asleep watching national geographic in Tamil, it was only because the first few days in Pondicherry had been stuffed with street adventure leaving lots to be explored.

Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna

(ऐ वतन,) करता नहीं क्यूँ दूसरा कुछ बातचीत,
देखता हूँ मैं जिसे वो चुप तेरी महफ़िल में है
ऐ शहीद-ए-मुल्क-ओ-मिल्लत, मैं तेरे ऊपर निसार,
अब तेरी हिम्मत का चरचः ग़ैर की महफ़िल में है
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है
वक़्त आने पर बता देंगे तुझे, ए आसमान,
हम अभी से क्या बताएँ क्या हमारे दिल में है
खेँच कर लाई है सब को क़त्ल होने की उमीद,
आशिक़ोँ का आज जमघट कूचः-ए-क़ातिल में है
सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है

Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna is a patriotic poem written in Urdu by Ram Prasad Bismil, who was involved in the Indian Independence Movement during the British Raj period in India.

Why do you remain silent thus?
Whoever I see, is gathered quiet so…
O martyr of country, of nation, I submit myself to thee
For yet even the enemy speaks of thy courage
The desire for struggle is in our hearts…
When the time comes, we shall show thee, O heaven
For why should we tell thee now, what lurks in our hearts?
We have been dragged to service, by the hope of blood, of vengeance
Yea, by our love for nation divine, we go to the streets of the enemy
The desire for struggle is in our hearts.

We can do so much. This Republic Day lets do just one thing towards this, one thing more than updating our status.
(one more from the preach factory, but it has to be said ) Read, write, tell your sibling a freedom struggle story, teach the car wash kid how to read the alphabet, watch the parade, look up illiteracy statistics, volunteer. Do something while you still can. Ill get off my bum too.
Its Republic Day. Start the cascade of revolution today.

Poor Visibility. Dust in the Wind.

I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment’s gone
All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind
Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

Dust in the wind, All we are is dust in the wind

Don’t hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away, all your money won’t another minute buy

Dust in the wind, All we are is dust in the wind

All relevant and true, this Kansas song plays in my head as I make yet another trip. I know for sure, that now I grumble, but in 2 weeks I will look for the grime in the sink as I wash my face at the end of the day, miss the heartache and body ache that working in the field offers me everyday, crave the sound sleep It affords me and my soul will corrode for lack of confrontation on a five minute basis.

The shift will be fast, and permanent, and how well my constitution tolerates it may be decisive in the path i choose to follow.

Chai on the way.

Theres a firefly, loose tonight, better catch it before it burns this place down..

And suddenly there’s a lot of Ed Sheeran playing in my head. Not that I’m complaining.
Hmmm hmm hmm hmm, but the world looks better through your eyes!
Sitting centimeters away from this bonfire, watching these people around me, go through their thoughts, living like there was no tomorrow, sleeping like this may be the last time they may get some sleep, giving up any semblance of normality by the usual standards and reveling in being So different and finding solidarity in this, how can i help but be inspired. This, I say aloud, is the life.

I see flames burn Auburn on the mountainside

And if the night is burning
I will cover my eyes
For if the dark returns then
My brothers will die
And as the sky’s falling down
It crashed into this lonely town
And with that shadow upon the ground
I hear my people screaming out

And I see fire
Inside the mountains
I see fire
Burning the trees
I see fire
Hollowing souls
I see fire
Blood in the breeze.
– I See Fire from The Hobbit soundtrack

joy!

skimming over water

A Golden-baked Sunday

It has been a glorious Sunday. Early in the morning, a baby turned pink from an almost purple blue.

Then a hike to the hill just off the highway, hidden behind dense thicket, surrounded by large rocks and purple weeds, revealed a stream gurgling loud complaints as it splashed rocks into shape. We watched water spiders make waves and heard brainfever birds in the distance, in addition to my company airing their ear worms loudly. 

On the way back, we made a detour through the local sunday market, and while the others bought strange shaped and coloured vegetables from small piles, i attempted to catch the eye of anyone who looked like they may be interested in being my camera’s subject.

Brunch was an omlette, with the sweet locally baked bread and a colourful salad tossed in olive oil, vinegar, pepper and lemon ( I think). After much lazy hot water splashing, I sit here, with my feet up(my toe ring changing colours after having been subject to multiple elements of nature), my back to a luke warm sun, under a wood thatched roof, a wooden hand-made chime dancing gently over my head, and strains of flute coming from the neighbouring hut. My limbs ache sweet from the walking. Afternoon is spilling into evening, the birds are flying back in poorly constructed Vs and I feel good. I have caught the day, as if off guard, in a moment that is still, and alive. Im sipping very sour lemon tea, nibbling on a very sweet sweet a friend has brought from Kerala and reading a book called ‘Emergency Sex (and other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a war zone’, written by a bunch of people who worked with U.N.

The song of the crickets has already faded into a barely discernible back ground track, and the infamous Bijapur mosquitoes have begun to buzz in my ears, attracted to my bright laptop screen.

Today has been sorted. I am grateful.