Complementing Wolves

The reading habit has suffered for a while. Actually, a long while. The extent of suffering was such, that I was willing to accept that I had forgotten how to read. I was so close to to immerse myself in that belief – that I had started planning, how I would give out my books to libraries and friends. Yes, in that order. I shared my angst (of being unable to read) with a few friends. Well-meaning suggestions came through:

– Take a break
– Watch videos
– Listen to podcasts

And then, another one – Read Fiction. (I have never been a fan of adorning and ornamenting adjectives, which seems to be the mainstay of modern fiction. I am a big fan of Leon Uris and the ilk.) A decent argument was made by a friend. Who reads a lot of books. Not just fiction. Just a lot of books. And three books were promptly ordered. One of them was picked up two weeks later. Seventeen pages in, while nobody witnessed it, I was rolling my eyes. The other two books haven’t been touched since they were hesitatingly welcomed in the shelf.

Bookmarks, and many such accessories of reading were put in play. Rituals. But, I am no stranger to rituals. By themselves, rituals are robotic acts, that amount to nothing. The mainstay of a ritual is a function of what’s in your soul. If your soul is empty, it’s f(0). (Being fictional here, don’t troll me on the meaning of a null function). Rituals are expressions by other means.

Recently, I started reading again — back to non-fiction — and with some gusto. Whiffs of how and why I enjoyed reading wafted across the table, the pens, the markers, the sticky-notes, and the book. The pencil (don’t yet have the confidence of a pen) that would inscribe marginalia of thoughts and questions, seemed eager to please. It had been a few years since I felt this; the rituals started making sense; they were meaningful, deliberate, and were synchronised with my heart. They made sense. It was engrossing.

But you are never alone, are you? One bright consciousness is the one absorbing all that you read. There’s another; not a dark one – but an upset consciousness asking – why wasn’t it like this, for over five long years! Both the wolves have to be fed, if you want to move forward. Both are my wolves. Both are dear to me.

They are complementing wolves.

Same Blogger

There was a time when this blog was vibrant. Posts and photos and embedded YT videos were in full flow. And then something happened. Like a sunset over an evacuated city. Minimal movement, and eventually none. Some who were watching the city from afar, lamented – Oh!

“So sad, that there is death hovering around here.”

This blog never died, nor did the blogger. Even when death was hovering around. The world around this blog was messy, and the blogger was lost, distracted, confused – in the mess.

“I seek the glory that I once had,” said the blogger, and returned to the blog. Landing on that estate the blogger saw that the tools had changed. Methods were different. What was once available was no more. The damn editor was unrecognisable!

The blogger wants to come back; the blog is different!

//PAUSE//

The blogger has also changed. That long gap; the silence; those years of nothingness. The betrayals and the losses. The insults and the kneeling. The withheld secrets and the schemes. The blogger has also evolved. Yes, perhaps the blogger is back – and you may not recognise the blogger anymore. But it’s the same blogger. A shade or two darker, perhaps. But it’s the same blogger; not how you know him; not how you like him – but it’s the same person. With a better life experience.

//END PAUSE//

Hope to be back. Better.

In The Yonder

The anniversary that I mentioned in my previous post came and went as quietly as I expected. Perhaps quieter than I expected. And the So? question that I was just wondering about – was asked. I smiled faintly, gave a familiar shrug, and that was my answer. And a scary thought snaked its way to the fore. What if I was asked Now what? The familiar shrug and the faint smile would not work. My automatic response would be stone-cold stiffness. And when I would recover from this freeze, I’d just say Who knows! and walk away.

It has been (relatively) easy to find solutions for technical and transactional problems. A well-framed question is simpler to work with, especially if the question stays within the realm of your knowledge. It’s the questions that …

//INSET

Words are failing me, or perhaps I am failing my words; to lovingly gather them all and make sense of what I sense. The thought-pipes are rusty, much, and need quite a clean up.

INSET//

Its the questions that are so profound that your entire knowledge seems but a speck of nothingness, to even begin to fathom the question, leave alone trying to answer it. Not that I’d like anything to keep me awake at night — sleep is loved; sleep is precious — but if anything has to keep me awake, let it be such a question. These kind of questions: that ask me to move beyond the narrow realm of just knowledge; beyond facts, theories, numbers, concepts, formulas, structures, memory, and the ilk. And what’s beyond these? I have no idea – I have never ventured there. But, I’d like to.

Surely, the real adventures must be after we cross these known mountains.

And for sure, it will be a long trek, leaving all these mountains; all that is known – behind. Like a fingerprint, all these mountains are unique: and what lies in the yonder, may be the place where neither questions exist, nor answers.

Post-Pandemic Schizophrenia

I am not making a claim of ‘being back’ – it’s been a while since I learnt not to make such long & tall claims. I am here for now, and that should suffice (for me).

*

An anniversary is due soon. And while I am sure I will celebrate it, it’s gnawing at my soul. It’s a landmark anniversary of sorts, but not the popular ones that is a Hallmark event. I doubt if they (used to) make greeting cards for this. It’s an anniversary of that silently screams a question. So? The question is so wide, it has to ensnare answers from every possible quarter and direction. And that’s all there is to it. I am just filling up a basket of answers that the wide question may ask.

*

Live in New York City once but leave before it makes you hard
Live in northern California once but leave before it makes you soft

~ Everybody’s Free (Sunscreen) by Baz Luhrmann

*

I need to unstiff these fingers. Clear the pathways.

Right/Wrong

In our mind, we have a version of right and wrong. People around us, who know us, have their version. The world has its own understanding. And then, you have the universe — that’s a different version altogether. Us, them, and the universe. These are the three layers. Looking at events in our lives, each layer throws up a different answer; a different suggestion.

I use the words ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ broadly and loosely; it could well mean should/shouldn’t or deserved/undeserved or fair/unfair, and such pairs. Mostly, its about “fair/unfair.”

The universe doesn’t give you any more than what you deserve, and no earlier than you deserve it.

Adages, like the above, keep us grounded, and temper our sense of right and wrong. Whether the adages are “right or wrong” we will never know, because our sense of “right/wrong” is very personal; very contextual — it’s not universal.

The laws of man are difficult to follow (but we must, for they are the only tangibles) but they contradict with our personal sense of right and wrong. The laws of the universe are difficult to comprehend; even if they seem pacifying and are philosophically sane.

*

Back at my blog after a long time. Happy to be here [HUGS]

The Terrain Should Change

Heard the writer’s block mentioned a while ago, after a long time. I am not stranger to the block having faced it many times before. I don’t have a writer’s block anymore. I don’t write anymore. No writing, no block.

Ironically, I have written quite a lot about the writer’s block. Go figure.

So I sent a few pictures along to a friend, which would serve as inspiration (a trigger, actually) that would get the thought-mill churning. I don’t know if it has worked; we’ll get to know in good time.

For me, a writer’s block is when you feel like writing something, but nothing spills on the paper (or screen, as the case may be). When you don’t feel like writing there isn’t a block. It’s just that — no will to write. It is a peaceful and a clean state of mind. You aren’t agitated about not writing, and you are not dishing out a senseless combination of half-baked thoughts and ideas — just to fill the pages or the bytes.

All this while that I have not been writing, I have become a voracious consumer of the written word. No, not books, but the social, shared word; the truncated thought that is almost our birthright. In recent times, however, I cannot make sense of the social word. Satire, sarcasm, facts, opinions, curses, and conflict have become the mainstay of the social word, indistinguishable from each other.

I still do read books, but just like my writing, I don’t really feel like it. (There are exceptions, of course). The hobby, had transformed from reading books, to accumulating books. Paper books, i.e. I took my mother’s advice (which, in retrospect sounded like a veiled threat; but was sage advice) that unless I complete reading three paper books, I wasn’t to buy a new one. I live in Mumbai. And in a city where people don’t have space to live, a thousand books should not take up space, any more than they should.

I continue to buy ebooks. (They have tendency not to occupy physical space and reveal themselves, to my Mom). And these ebooks are being read, of course, at a snail’s pace. And just like writing, I do not feel the need to complete them. I will of course. Someday.

At this stage a question may be creepily inching up – where is he going with this?

Well, nowhere, actually. Just like my reading or writing. Nowhere. While I didn’t plan it – I am enjoying the old adage – the journey is the destination. Enjoying the adage, not necessarily enjoying the journey; it feels thorny, barren, monotonous, and tiring. It’s been a while now, the terrain should be changing soon.

Perhaps, if I’d write more, read more…

A Social-Media Experiment Unravels

This post is premature. By a day. But, I’ll allow it. The advantage of having your own blog! Rules assume the garb of guidelines, when you want them to.

I have ranted often of what I am now writing about, today. The topic is not new, the emotion has been experienced often. The content, perhaps has a fresh flavour or a tantalising twist.

As of tomorrow, I have been away from three social networks that I used to indulge in, regularly — for a working month. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. I was mostly a consumer on all three, while creating some content on Facebook and Twitter. YT was pure consumption.

Little over a month ago, I finished reading Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport — I was amused by the directness of a Chapter Title — “Quit Social Media” — but I read it nevertheless. This post is not a review of the book, nor do I want it to be. After a while you pick and choose your battles — like writing a review of a book. A star rating is enough to describe where you stand.

Of the many reasons mentioned in “Quit Social Media” – the one that intrigued me the most was the question: how many people (of the few hundred friends you have) will miss you, if you do not post. YT didn’t fall in that category, because I never created any content on YT.

Twitter also did not matter much, because a decent percentage of my followers started following me, because of a random tweet in a timeline of years, which appealed to them. They stayed followed, but never ever interacted after that one tweet. Most Twitter connections (other than my actual friends) are connections of convenience.

Facebook was the one I really wanted to put to the test of: how many people (of the few hundred friends you have) will miss you. I do actually know all (ah, ok, most!) of my connections on FB. In recent years, I was never a prolific poster – but I was irregularly regular. What would happen if I stop? Armed with a commandment from Cal Newport’s book, I took the step. Changed my profile picture — showing my back, looking away, to all my FB friends. Changed my cover photo to a metaphorical chain (smart, eh?). And just stopped posting.

For ten days since that day, I religiously did not open any of the three sites, web or mobile. But, what if Cal was wrong? What if in the ten days gone by, people were missing me? So, I did some soft cheating; I did not post anything still, but went and checked who was missing me.

Zilch on Twitter; Zilch on Facebook.

//INSET

The mobile phone innovation came to us in the late 90s. Even before that – basic telephony was costly and cumbersome. It was cheaper to meet-in-person according to convenience. 50p and 1Re coins jingled in our pockets. In 2021 coins have almost gone out of circulation, and 1Re coins cant get you anything worthwhile. We used to make 3-min calls, without any niceties, conforming time, place, and Plan B’s.

For me a phone has always been about name, place, and time. Most of friends and relatives do not understand; I have a low tolerance for conversation on a phone. The real engagement happened when I met the named person at a time in a place that we we had planned for. Face to Face.

//

So, some people had liked my profile picture, with my back turned to them. No comments, no questions. Cal Newport was winning. On Twitter there was one mention, purely circumstantial; work-related. I didn’t even bother about YT.

I developed a 10-day-itch, so I continued to soft-cheat every ten days.

Zilch on Twitter; Zilch on Facebook.

(One day, I liked a photo that a cousin had posted; sheer muscle memory. #FAIL) #Sigh! I totally OUCHed myself!

In just a month long social-media rehab, I feel cured; or at least on the way to a cure.

For sure, however, not a cure from friends. For Sure. It’s a cure from the network. It’s like mistaking the map for the territory; or forest for the trees. Something like that. Specifically, it is a cure from the compulsions of the network. A networked connection does not automatically mean friendship. Not every network enables conversations (if they would, they would have greater opportunities of data mining and targeted advertising!)

[Damn! I should not have given them that idea. But, chances are, they have already exploited it.]

I have not lost touch with my friends because of my absence on social networks. In fact, I am speaking with them more often. On a mobile phone that does not weigh as much as a construction brick. Pandemic and all, that is the best we can do today. I no longer feel the need to post my crappy humour, unoriginal ideas, ill-formed opinions, and angry rants on these social networks anymore. I have not lost the feeling; I just do not feel a need to post it. (WhatsApp/Other IMs are an exception, because they are more intimate; but I think I shall conquer that, in good time)

Finally, this post; about social networks and social media – is not a rant. It’s a happy experience of not experiencing everything that is fed to you.

#JOMO.

As an early-70s kid, it has brought back a happiness that I knew and related to.

Life’s better when it is small and full; rather than being big and empty.

The Story of Seventeen Years

Seventeen years ago, when I wrote my first post, without any idea what I was getting into and how how far I wanted to take it – I gave a very short advisory about carrying cash, if you travel to Konkan. The next post came much much later. And then slowly, but surely I found my writing rhythm, which has continued to this day, with all the highs and lows one would expect in any seventeen-year relationship. In a high, there is not much to think of – you go with the adrenaline-fuelled flow. It’s the lows that get you thinking.

You tend to seek the past highs as they were – and try and replicate them. But no high is like the other. The construct, the motivation, the experience, the quantity and concentration of the adrenaline – is all different. It is impossible to make the same concoction again. The lows become lower.

Needless to say, a high, with a different cocktail soon comes over, and you are good to go, once again.

That has pretty much been the story of my seventeen years of blogging. Quite a bit of the writing has been about my thoughts and ideas, but a large part has been about my experiences – translated, protected, or reflected upon. And each experience was a result of an adventure. Those adventures are responsible for most content here, on the blog. And, those adventures happened because I said – YES!

As I look back at the lows of my blogging rhythm, I discover that almost all those times were when I said no to an adventure. For a few, I had good reason, but not for all. But I don’t think the reasons matter – irrespective of the reason (unless it’s about your safety) it’s usually a good idea to say yes. I recently went through such a time when I was called upon to do something that I wasn’t particularly interested in, but I did it anyway – in spite of an utter discomfort. I imagined it would be one off, so I thought, I’d just get it out of the way and be done with it. And I did. Without warning, however, it has set me on a path that I am now very curious about, and I believe I will enjoy it. It has a faded scent of a concoction I have had a long time ago; yet is absolutely fresh (and frightening) and exciting. Where it will lead me, I do not know – and that is the best part of it!

From the “Keep the Faith” Series, Atul Sabnis

*

In the last few years, I have done a disservice to my readers, I feel. The frequency is down, the mood is depressing, and the tone is dark. Like the long-high of 2013-15, the time between 2017-20 has been a long low. Yet, many of you have always been here, often silently waiting, perhaps – for the high, that I have been waiting for.

Thank you all for all the love and generosity for all these years!

Reclaiming Pleasure

I completed reading a book the other day.

(No, not this book.)

Normally, this would not have been news. Definitely not bloggable. I used to read a lot and often. Like writing, something broke, and I didn’t read a book for a long time. I didn’t stop reading; articles, documents and such were still being consumed voraciously; but a book didn’t figure in the list.

Clearly there is a loss of patience to go through the book. From deep within, there is a constant nagging that seeks finishing the book. The remainder of the pages on the right hand is a daunting task. Desperately waiting to increase the pages in the left hand.

It doesn’t help that others are reading so many books and so frequently. What should work as motivation creepily transforms into competition.

What should be pleasure, becomes a chore.

#NotesToSelf

Inland Schizophrenia

We have a WhatsApp group.

*

Classmates. Living a peripatetic life. Non-linear overlaps across the length and breadth of India, in varying time slices. Born early seventies, all of us. Gen X. Gen X is a fancy name for a generation that didn’t have access to technology. Obvious. This Gen was supposed to build the technology. So, in our early days we were dependent on the technology that the Baby Boomers used.

*

Letters. Post. Mail. (not email). In India specifically we had Inland letters and Postcards. 25p and 15p respectively. If you had to write a really long letter, you had to shell out 50p for a postal envelope. But, we had to be careful, there was a weight limit. That’s when we discovered onion sheets – extremely thin paper. We could now stuff more sheets in the 50p envelope than before. We weren’t quite smart then, we used to pay a fortune for the onion paper pad, to save on postage. Go figure.

*

Times have changed. Classmates grew up, and are doing well in their lives. If we feel like meeting out friends, we just hop on to a flight in the morning, spend a day with them, and return in the evening. We have WhatsApp, we have video calls, and such (which our generation built, mind you). We now live in a world of hyper-connectivity. Just the other day, mates from Goa, Dubai, Mumbai, Pune, and Surat met one evening. Easy-peasy.

*

The 25p Inland letter is now Rs. 2.50. I have taken it up upon myself to write letters to my friends. Notwithstanding the WhatsApp group. It’s not easy. But writing letters is muscle memory. It’s all coming back, no thanks to the changed format of the new expensive inland letter. All my letters start by asking my friend – what do I write in this letter, given that we already know everything that is going on in our lives. What should be the purpose and content of the letter? And as my out-of-practice trembling hands ask this question, an answer emerges. Purpose and content in this context don’t matter much. It is the intent, and the sense of sending you something tangible – is what matters. WhatsApp messages get deleted every night – to save space. Their nature is transient. A paper and scrawled ink is forever. When we are no more (like the deleted WhatsApp messages) these letters are an ounce of us that will be with you forever.

I should know, I have letters from dead people. And they are a part of me. And a part of them is with me.

*

I have an old briefcase full of letters from all of my friends, from the early 80s. It is one of my most prized possessions. May the briefcase become a suitcase. May there be many more letters. May there be many more fragments of our lives in each other’s lives.

*

Some gratitude is due. To my teachers and friends. I may not be the best letter-writer, but I understand something of structure and format and choice of words. Here’s a big thank you to all my teachers for helping us learn how to write letters and follow know the rules. To break a rule, you first have to know the rule. Here’s a big thank you to all my friends for helping me to learn how to break those rules.

*

PS: I really, really wanted to use “peripatetic” – Happy now.

Friends As Homing Devices

 

Is it so small a thing
To have enjoy’d the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, to have done;
To have advanc’d true friends, and beat down baffling foes;

That we must feign a bliss
Of doubtful future date,
And while we dream on this,
Lose all our present state,
And relegate to worlds yet distant our repose?

I read this poem a couple of days ago. Only because I stumbled upon it, while I was reading a book. A book, which I had no idea existed, and discovered it only because I saw a movie, which was recommended to me by a dear friend, which, I would have never watched, if it was left to me. How and why this poem found its way to me, intrigues me. In an amusing way, i.e., not in a way that makes me weave the wool of conspiracy with needles of reason. Ironically, this book had itself alerted me to this phenomenon that I was to soon experience. I had smiled, when I read it; it was cute, but to have experienced the exact phenomenon couple of score pages later, was a revelation, it said:

“I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.”

Importantly, the above line ended with, “How delightful if that were true.”

Ah, well, dear author, here is a perfect example of why I believe that books have homing instincts. My time to tell you the story.

*

Time-travel is my favourite movie/series genre. It fascinates me, much. The actual time travel not so much, but the implications of it all. The scientific and the philosophical. Needless to say, all time-travel themed movies and series have been binge-consumed and there is nothing left. I move to the War genre.

Out of the blue, a friend asks, if I have watched The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018) – I tell her, it has been nagging me on Netflix, but it seems (because of the poster) too mushy for my taste. She urges me to watch it. A few days pass. I do watch it. I love it. I tweet about it. Amit thinks I am talking of the book. I say, no, I watched the film. As gently as he can, he curses my wretchedness, that I haven’t read the book, and Amit being Amit, he explains why. Point well taken. I buy the book. I flip through it. I know, what Amit meant. I start reading the book. It’s enjoyable. Then I stumble upon the homing device statement. I smile. Cute, I say to myself. Then I stumble upon the opening line of a poem, that the character in the book writes of; he doesn’t recall the author. Well, I have Google.

Is it so small a thing
To have enjoy’d the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, to have done;
To have advanc’d true friends, and beat down baffling foes;

These are the opening lines of Malcolm Arnold’s “Hymn to Empedocles,” part of Empedocles on Etna. I’ve never heard of Malcolm Arnold the poet before. More Googling ensues. I am reminded of something else, in the book”

“That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It’s geometrically progressive—all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.”

And suddenly, late as it is, I am reading “Dover Beach. for sheer enjoyment.”

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

I feel blessed. I thank my friend who suggested the movie. I thank Amit for making me read the book.

I am grateful to the homing devices, that are my friends.

Of Fifteen Years

Fifteen years.

That’s how long I have been blogging. Last year this day, I said, given that I have blogged for so many years, I don’t have much to show for it. I was referring to the number of posts. A year has passed since, and if are to go by numbers, the numbers are worse.

While I have not been writing much, I have read a lot; my blog, i.e. And I am very happy about what I have written. It’s not extraordinary, but it is good. It makes me feel good to read what I have written. That, I suppose is the value of a personal blog.

My relationship with words amuses me the most. I am most curious of how the most abstract emotion, event, or a thought actually transforms to something so discrete as a post. When I read a post, I enjoy how the original abstraction presents itself. In my head, at least. I hope, most of the readers get it too. This blog has helped me elevate how I think, and I am grateful for that.

I can’t promise regular updates, I do not want to promise regular updates.

All I want to say is thank you – to everyone who has helped this blog become what it is. Thank you for the love, appreciation, and acknowledgement.

It’s Not About Photographs – VI

Don’t take a photo of what you see – take a photo of what you want to show!

I said that in a recent conversation to a friend. There were some composition rules she was missing, which she could have easily rectified; was just helping her take a better photo the next time around. What I said to her, however, has been haunting me for a few hours, now. I don’t altogether believe what I said to my friend. I think, I was asking her to be more careful with the camera. Or, in my head, I was asking her to be more careful with the frame. Our eyes see a lot, we send it all to the brain. Somewhere, somehow, all the chemical and electrical events that occur during this transmission from eye to brain, are not the sum total of the image that we present.

What our eye does see is vast, the frame is a crop. Having a camera in your hand, in front of your eyes is a responsibility. How will you crop?

I cannot relate to the urgency of taking a photo. I just do not understand the urgency. Photography is patience. Personified. Why do we seek to take a photo in this moment when, it is possible that the next moment is better? And if the next moment is not better, what have we lost? If we lived in that moment, which we did not capture, is the moment lost to us? What wasn’t captured is a memory that is our own. Do you remember stills that aren’t available on paper or as digital files? When we crossed rows in the classroom; when we stood in front of each other, that split moment, when nothing was said and yet, an entire life was lived?

I don’t remember it, but you do. There’s no documentation of the moment, but both of us live it. Photos aren’t false memories – they are only artificial. Artificial in the sense of the frame in which they are presented to you.

Not that they do not represent the truth. Photos are as real. Just that they are a slice of the reality. And we have to learn to see photos for what they are. My eyes, your eyes.

All the eyes that see the photo, that is what the photo is about.

Crowd of Strangers

Fill it up. Fill it up. Fill it up. Damn the blank page. Put words. Words. Words. Words. And drop it in Times Square, NY. None of the words will know each other, strangers from far off lands revolving on the axis of their feet, drowned in wonder. The crowd of strangers is what gives meaning to Times Square. Not meaning itself. The meaning is in the presence; not in anything else. NY winks and we miss it in the blink of an eye. It’s at its naughtiest best.

Bow to the city, it has seen the birth of your grandparents; it is witnessing your death. Never, ever, however, has a city wished for a birth or death. It is a witness. It allows all. It winks, often, (and you may miss it) but it never asks for either this or that.

Fill it up. Fill it up. Fill it up. Damn the blank page.

I’ll just put five words. I’ll call it abstract. Not for what it is, but for what I can hide behind.

Nay, nay, nay! This wasn’t to be. At the peak of the strange words, there was to be meaning. For me, for you. Running around the base of the pyramid I am lost; for no stone at the base is discrete. I have to climb! Something forms at the peak. And it is built by these abstract slabs at the bottom. I am a slave to how these huge slabs were dragged in place. Without ropes, without connections, I am dragged down. I stay here as if a mutual belonging exists; yet the apex.

May I flex my wrists and twist my ankles. Flex my muscles and twist my body. Shackles will be broken. I will be free. In a foreign land. In New York. In London. In Mumbai. My I see the cities winking at me. And jump on those abstract slabs. Thoughtful; unlike the agitated Prince of Persia.

Once again, watching the crowd of strangers.

That’s All There Is

Ink and paper.

Blood and tissue.

Teachers’ Day is for Teachers

Happy Teachers’ Day to all Teachers.

In these days, when a meaning of a word can be stretched far from its actual and intended meaning, even the meaning of “teacher” has fallen victim to Unspeak. It has now come to mean any and every person who is responsible for anything that we learn.

That’s not a teacher. A teacher makes a conscious commitment to nurture and develop young people to do better. The act isn’t incidental nor accidental. It’s a deliberate choice that requires a dedication to continue “teaching” for a lifetime. I don’t disagree that we learn from people who aren’t “teachers”, yet, if we were to ask these people to do what they do, day in and day out, we’d probably not get the answer we think we will. The attitude, the patience, the rigour of a teacher is different from a person from whom we learn.

It is not that these non-teachers are seeking to be acknowledged on this day. It’s us. We are expanding the meaning of the word and the purpose of the day to make it inclusive. Very inclusive. Perhaps it is our laziness. To take time to think of our teachers and be grateful to them, specifically. Open the gates wide enough, and we could pretty much include every person we met, for we have learnt something from every person we met.

Irrespective of whether that person intended to teach us.

We could thank the others on all of the 364 days of the year, but that would take effort, to think of who it is we are grateful to, and for what purpose. It’s a lot of work!Teachers’ Day is a good blanket that covers it all. And one message, which includes, “… to all the people who have taught me along the way…” covers it all. While we may learn things from people, I am not sure if everyone intended to teach us.

This day is in celebration of those who have made it their life’s work to teach – who have held their patience for years together, while we fumbled and fell. They picked us up time and again, without judgement and urged us on towards success. They loved us without discrimination, and we went on ahead in life while they stood in the same place, awaiting the next generation, and did the same with them. In return they get a paltry sum, but their biggest payment is in our happiness and success.

For all the others who helped us learn, we’ll celebrate it all through the year.

There is a sanctity to this day. Let it remain Teachers’ Day.

A Broken Letter

Everyone knows everything about everyone else. As it happens. Information age and all. Instant ka zamaana hai. Almost everything. From the important to the trivial. Fact that my friend bought a new house and the fact that another friend over-ate last Saturday.  You don’t miss a thing.

Most of us, moved a lot, during our childhood. Given our fathers lived a peripatetic life. Armed forces, Government, Banks, and such. A couple and three decades ago, nothing was instant. Except for coffee, perhaps. We had to resort to old-school (those days it was the best tech available to us) and used to stay in touch through letters. I was recently surprised to know that they still teach letter-writing in school. I wonder if the kids write letters other than scribbling make-believe content to imaginary friends. Even recently, a friend was lamenting the loss of all these sweet old-world charms; ironically on an instant messenger. Being a sucker for sentiment, I shared a letter (not the contents; just the back of the inland-letter he had sent me, way back). Emotions gushed, much emojical sentiment was shared and received.

Another friend caught on to it. Hey, do you have any letters that I wrote to you? I’d like to share them with my kids, show, how we communicated when we were young. Of course, I said, I have a few. I wondered, however, if he’d actually share the content of the letter. We laughed-out-loud emojically.  Share them with me, I’ll see what I can share. I started shuffling through the semi-organised pile of withering envelopes, inland covers, and pages torn from notebooks. I find three of his letters.

One letter, not in any particular pile, sits in the box, with not a care for the world. It’s in a decorative envelope, addressed, but no postage stamp on it. My handwriting. Stuffed, with neatly folded pages. Yellowed by twenty-nine years. I recognise it. I am not sure I want to open it. I know it is about fifteen pages long, back-to-back; that’s thirty pages worth of a letter. It was meant to go where it was supposed to go, but I never let go of it. Letters that don’t get sent, don’t live a life. They don’t die, for they never have lived. They just don’t live. It’s not an unfinished letter. It has been completed, signed. I gingerly open it. It starts to break in my hands. Folds that have not been opened for almost three decades are now sharp cuts where once there were folds. It’s broken. Yet, it does not fall to pieces. Something held the letter together. And I started reading it.

It slowly comes back to me. I knew where I was sitting. I remember the time of that night. I sense all that I sensed then. It’s painful. It’s raw. Ironically, it is satisfying. In retrospect, it is always easy to justify something. And even if it wasn’t so intentioned, I was writing this letter to myself. To be discovered thirty years later.

Who knew, a broken letter had the power to mend so much.

The Matter of Form

So, my last few posts have been about the writing block. Or Laziness. Or some such thing. While I venture on exploring what causes us (me, actually) to shy away from writing well enough and often enough, I discovered that it may have something to do with the platform. (Previous Post).

I wonder whether it is about form — that makes us choose a platform. Now that micro-form is more popular than longform, do platforms like Twitter make more sense? But then, Twitter has added features that allow it become a platform for “longform” writing. See this thread:

Nov 7 2017 is an important day in the history of literature in my view. Or atleast will be recognized as an imp day many decades later.

It was the day Twitter decided to increase its character count from 140 to 280.

— Shrikanth Krishnamachary (@shrikanth_krish) July 23, 2018

So is it the death of longform writing as we know it, and that conventional longform has no readers now? From a readership and access point of view, perhaps, – it makes sense.

What then, stops anyone from using WordPress (or any other conventional blogging platform) for microform writing?

Synonym for Laziness

By now, we have clearly established that there is a writer’s block, and the July challenge is suffering on account of that. Fourteen days behind. Filling up the fourteen days is not the problem, come to think of it – it would take fourteen minutes to come up to speed; which, by the way is the plan.

The real question is, whether it would be quality content. Which in turn begets the question – what is quality content. Quality for who? And then, we do a full roundabout and start questioning the writer’s block. That phrase is just a fashionable word for laziness. And I prefer that. Writer’s block sounds so much better than laziness.

*

I read a book recently. From my perspective, it is an important book. Politically themed. It is a book that should have helped us all, get a deeper understanding of stuff. It did. Great insights. Important information. Cleared misconceptions. Yet, it fell flat on its face. Shoddy copy editing. That is about it. Nothing gets me upset than a word or a punctuation that is misplaced [especially one that could have been easily corrected], and I have to correct it — on-the-go — in my head. That just ruins your tempo and your flow.

*

Perhaps that is what my writer’s block is about. I dread I’ll write something shoddy. In a little over a thousand posts, I have perhaps written only 30-40 clean, neat, thoughtful posts. Maybe that is what writer’s block is about. You are scared of your worst critic: yourself. I am very unhappy with myself for those 20-30 really good posts I wrote. They are the standard. And anything I write now, reminds me of those 5 – 10 good posts of mine.

May the seas part!

Medium & the Message

This happened: A friend wrote a post, a very personal one. In a notepad. Pen and paper. I was privy to it. It was as personal as it could be. Photos of that very personal encounter were shared with me. It was later edited, to remove all personal references and posted in a WhatsApp group of friends. People commented on it, appreciated, loved it, responded to it. Good fun. In July. Last year. Six months later, the same post was reposted as a forward. Exactly the same text. Author changed. Apparently the same text was written by the Big B. I was upset, and I let people know that I was upset, because they just accepted the post as a Big B post. It was wrongly attributed to say the least. But none, in that group even wondered or asked, hey! Haven’t I seen this before?

Needless to say, that post went out of our group, and came back in our group in a shiny new bottle with celebrity status.

My blood started boiling and my FitBit had a fit.

I asked my friend, the author — did you see it? My friend sent me a smile. Just a smile.

*

It would have been very easy for me to tell everyone in the WA group that this was wrongly attributed. This was an original piece from our friend, which exited our group, and re-entered our group, now falsely attributed to a famous person. I sent a few messages describing why the famous person could not have said it. Let it be known that I am a big fan of the famous person. Some of my close friends asked me to disclose the source and get it over with.

*

Every once in a while, life asks you to look at problems, not from where you stand, but to take a position where a problem exists. Walk to where the problem is. Stand where the problem is. Sometime you have to see afar, sometimes you have to look inward. Giving answers is easy. Most people will take answers. Very few will take questions and go and to find answers. Often, what we call a problem, is just a question of our vantage point; or lack thereof.

Sometimes, we are just careless.