D. It is Written

"I fly like paper, get high like planes......."

Slumdog Milionaire makes me a slumdog in my heart. In my mind I am running with the children of the slums, through the colorful riot of garbage and filth, smelling their dreams and fear. I am there afraid, waiting and watching and running for my life, running for my dreams, running to catch my love. 

This is Life. This is Cinema. 

Get on top of a train with Jamal and Salim, and feel this country at its very raw core. Feel their childhood and yours. Feel innocence and the gangster in you rising at the same time. 

Feel Hope. 

Feel complete with all the senses coming together to embalm you with joy and passion. 

Its a rush of blood to the head which flows effortlessly from the present to the past and back. While you wait in anticipation for the hints of the future in your head to come to life. 

Chaos Theory 

In my 25^th year I wrote a post, titled 25 things to do on turning 25. The way 2008 turned out - makes that list prophetic! 

My quarter-life crisis year. Crisis it sure was! But all my travels and my experiences put together make me feel fresh as the year ends. I feel, I have seen the highest high in Ladakh, and the lowest low in the plains at home. Just like the implosion in the American economy and the explosion of bombs closer home, life too had bloated and busted, and anger had reached a tip. 

But I feel pure now. As if, the trip to Rishikesh and the clear pristine waters of the Ganga cleansed and washed my soul, clearing it of all its negative energies and filling me with happiness and hope. It’s as if, I am shedding my skin and a new child is being born. Or maybe it’s just the old one, dissolving and evolving. 

With a certain radiance, I think about the times when my mind was agitated, and there were no clear answers. When nothing made sense, and there was no control. Ironically, I dwell in the same feelings in my moment of peace now. The very same mysteries are beautiful and give new hope. In the words of George Harrison, "It's all in the mind." 

All you need is Love, and a change of camera angle. :)

It’s been one heck of a tumultuous year! Like the chaos theory – random but with a pattern…

What will 2009 be like? 

Another passage……another dream….another highway! 

Awaiting winter with misty scenes of Delhi in the mind

Through my office window fog clouds an office building opposite me as sunlight trickles through it. It reflects from the windows and makes myriad patterns on the wall outside. 

Cold breeze washes over my face and others – faces known and unknown as I walk out.

It’s cold but lovely. In a strange way it makes you warm…thinking about how warm you could be right now with a cup of coffee in your hand, or the hand of a loved one.  

Cold is nice. Cold is good. Better than being warm and left out cold.

It’s the death of a year, a cycle of life. Someone dies, someone unites, someone falls in love, someone breaks up. A cycle of mist that envelopes me like this one or clears up as I move along. The end of festivities and a harbinger of new ones. 

Yes, winter is a sweet season. 

School children wrapped from head to toe, fresh eager rosy faces rushing to make it in time. I was like that once, hating the number of clothes on me especially the stockings on my legs. Winter is about the past. Reminiscing what went by in the year and gloating in it or letting go. 

It’s a magical way of rounding up life by God. The snow, the Christmas hope, the New Year party…. 

So let's stop by the woods on a snowy evening like Robert Frost.....

The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.....

THE VAGABOND

Music: Air

Singer: Beck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9u4rh0V7Mk

Golden waves
In all directions
I could lose my soul right here

Colour lights
On the runway
Makes a stranger feel unchained

I'm running after time and I miss the sunshine
Summer days will come happiness will be mine
I'm lost in my words I don't know where I'm going
I do the best I can not to worry about things

I feel loose
I feel haggard
Don't know what I'm looking for

Something true
Something lovely
That will make me feel alive

I'm running after time and I miss the sunshine
Summer days will come happiness will be mine
I'm lost in my words I don't know where I'm going
I do the best I can not to worry about things

(Like a vagabond in the distance
Looking for a song to sing
A song that lasts all night
And for the rest of our lives)

I'm lost in my words I don't know where I'm going
I do the best I can not to worry about things

I'm running after time and I miss the sunshine
Summer days will come happiness will be mine
I'm lost in my words I don't know where I'm going
I do the best I can not to worry about things
I'm running after time and I miss the sunshine
Summer days will come happiness will be mine

(insert mad laughter here)
oh shit

[Photo Credit: Harmanpreet Kaur]

The Dark Joker

Pleasures are always dark. And Sinful.

Admit it, you walked out of The Dark Knight with pleasure written all over you. The pleasure of confusion, the pleasure of anarchy and the pleasure of Heath Ledger dead but alive on the screen you just watched breathtakingly for the past 2 and a half hours.

I have seen this film twice now. I was awed by the whole experience the first time, with a mad rush of admiration for the Joker. Second time around, it was like understanding your lover. I have fallen in love with Mr Joker....as a whole. Character and Actor as one.

And because Heath is dead, I couldn't help but reading his performance as his alter-ego. He will forever haunt me.

The best part about the story - is when Joker says, "Do I look like a guy with a plan?" Yet, all his moves are so well planned...his actions and his lines. And his performance. There is no chaos there...but anarchy...a dare to differ attitude....yes.

Like I said...there is no greater pleasure than to do what you are not supposed to do. The Joker makes us gloat in that feeling the whole time. Does that mean we become criminals in real life?

No, but to take inspiration to upset the set up...definitely.

Joker is a genius, but his brilliance does not get recognised or appreciated by anyone in Gotham. It is only admired by us sitting in the theatre. The villains in the film keep calling him a "freak". Just as in real life, anyone would call someone a geek. He is a character on the edge who can see through society's hypocrisy and finds the rules of the established order meaningless.

The Dark Knight, Batman on the other hand is confused about the "righteousness" of his job.

This paradox....of the "good" unsure of its reasons, and the "bad" having no reason....isn't that life? Yet everything ties in and ends are still loose.

And as the audience we take refuge in the darkness of this theatre.

Angsting in Kashmir

There is something about simplicty. When the sufis sang...they sang about simple things with a depth that touched the soul. And sometimes this art of simplcity reflects from faces.
Kashmir is a land bestowed with natural beauty. No matter how long you look at the landscape, you will not have enough. No amount of pictures can capture what you feel when you look at the rivers, lakes, flora and fauna, mountains and.....the people.

Just people doing everyday things. We go to work day in and day out, follow routine after routine. But here in Srinagar, I’d look out in the morning from my car window at the people of the valley going about their daily businesses....as art. Chidlren being rushed to school....or a man smoking a morning hookah in his shop....I found something so serene and simple in these passing images.

But every image that passed by me, was intersperesed with a figure. A solitary figure. An omnipresent figure. Of a soldier. Every 2 minutes you could spot him...looking at you....alert. It’s when I realised the price of the beauty around you, the price that it was paying and has paid. The conflict hits you in the face.

But sadly as life is - if there was no conflict...there wouldn’t be a story. Like everything else, this bittersweetness takes a character of its own in the Kashmir Valley.

Just go on.... that’s what I learnt here.

[Photo Credit: Harmanpreet Kaur]

RUMI

Those who don't feel this Love

pulling them like a river,

those who don't drink dawn like a cup of spring water

or take in sunset like supper,

those who don't want to change,

let them sleep.

This Love is beyond the study of theology,

that old trickery and hypocrisy.

If you want to improve your mind that way,
sleep on.

I've given up on my brain. I've torn the cloth to shreds and thrown it away.
If you're not completely naked,wrap your beautiful robe of words around you,

and sleep.

--

Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing,

there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make sense any more.

--

All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there.

--

Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us: We taste only sacredness.

--

The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.

--

Ladakh
--

Misty mountains,
Barren crags and blades of grass,
How are you so beautiful?

Winds and snow have carved you,
Made you unique and,
Filled you with mystique
Brown mountains of Ladakh
Love owns you
And peace flows from within you

You’ve been more human
Staying still,
Watching me as I went by you
And left me drunk
Wanting more

Harsh mountains of Ladakh
Your beauty shines through
Trying to survive you

You were music to my eyes
Memories are your stage
Perform for me
The dance of life

---- Harman

[Photo Credit: Harmanpreet Kaur]

SOUL SEARCHING IN AMRITSAR

Traveling anywhere is a pilgrimage on it’s own. But Amritsar for me wasn’t only that. It was almost a re-discovery of Punjab.

I’ve spent a good 5-6 years in Amritsar as a kid. Childhood in that city was about eating aam papads on my way back from school, falling off cycle rickshaws, running away from home to climb shehtoot and jamun trees and listening to bad 80’s disco and dancing to it.

Like then, I still love trains. I love them. I love watching the world go by…especially the fields of Punjab…an old man cycling along winding paths, electric cables giving an impression of movement as you chug past them and electric grids standing out on the landscape almost like giant people. I don’t think the childlike curiosity of looking out of a window can ever leave me.

You can see places you’ll never hear anyone talk about out of a train window.

Freak weather patterns? Climate change? Whatever the reason was for the April showers we experienced in the holy city…only made our stay holier. Stopping just in time so we could make it to the Indo-Pak border at 5 in the evening, the rain was a blessing in disguise. The border was a happy place…rain-dance…bollywood…jingoism…it was a potboiler! The people were crazy for no reason at all. Perfect. The passion for their country was visible on every Indian. The chanting, the dancing, gyrating and marching coupled with the weather converted this no man’s land into a universal dance floor.

This unreality spilled over to the Golden Temple at night. Lighted up and glowing all over – it only makes one bow down in reverence. For once I was in no mood to click. Walking barefoot till the feet froze with the cold, listening to the evening kirtans and the gentle percussion sounds of the tabla, you can only look on at this pure gold structure – with peace and love.

The nip in the air was bitter…but as we waited within a sea of humanity eager to step inside the main sanctorum, the chill felt surreal. It was quiet. People only breathed the name of God. Only the cry of a baby would break the spell once in a while.

What makes us brave everything odd to get to where we want to be? For everyone present around us then, it was an omnipresent supreme power.

Photography is prohibited inside. But you don’t need it either. For there are things that cannot be captured on any recording device but the grey matter. So we stayed as long as we could in the presence of music and mysticism admist a pool of nectar. Surrounded by the sarovar on all four sides…it could well have been a space…far away in your mind.

It was soul tripping.

Night changed to day – a sunny hot day as we stepped back inside the Golden Temple to see it packed with humanity. And as I sat in one of it's corridors watching a milieu of people go by, is when I felt my own identity…the identity of my people and a religion that I was born into and adopted.

We can shed the symbols of our identity, adopt new ones or retain old ones. Very liberally speaking when I see a Sikh woman wearing a kripan, a salwaar kameez, wearing her hair long and keeping it covered - walking past me with a sense of pride…I feel enamored and thankful that she and I co-exist.

I couldn’t capture her on film…but she’s there in my memory postcard.

Because sometimes the best pictures remain in your heart.

[Photo Credit: Harmanpreet Kaur]

CLIMBING A NEW HIGH

I had never climbed a mountain till I climbed this one. I always thought about scaling one when I’d watch rolling ranges from inside a train, car or a bus. The peaks were inviting…but I knew the lessons lay in the journey. As I discovered when I touched the base and the peak of Triund in Mcleodganj.

You know what’s in store right in the beginning. I don’t want to give it away but I have not known steeper roads before this. Giddy up! Local kids run past you as if the road is a flat field…heightening the feeling of your own immobility and breathlessness.

But sights get prettier as you move along…trees, trees and more trees! Dense forests give way to mountain paths and soon enough we were blessed with the company of two friendly mountain dogs.

The climb is almost 5 hours long. But I want to talk about the most important aspect of this terrain – that it makes you think and leaves you blank with physical exhaustation. Here, your brain is engaged in getting past stones of all sizes, maintaining a steady pace, soaking in all the natural beauty and getting lost in your own private thoughts - all at once. It’s rigourous meditation at best.

The view from the top is always nice…but getting there is another story. It kills you. It kills you even on your way down. The body asks for a break but you cannot give it. You have to keep your mind strong and just move..move..move! Screw the scenery…move…get out of here…into civilization….a hot tub…a glass of wine!

Beauty comes at a price…but the pain is worth it all. Never will you appreciate the feeling of feeling so dead. It makes you feel alive.

[Photo Credit: Nithya Hariharan]

Kiss by Gustav Klimt

THE COLORS OF LOVE

What is the color of love?

Red, blue, green or black…

Seasons change, Does love?

Here are some of my favourite verses on love.

Listen for the stream that tells you one thing.

Die on this bank.

Begin in me the way of rivers with the sea.

Rumi

He himself aroused longing to become mad in love.

He himself became Laila to steal Majnun's heart.

Himself He wept, himself consoled himself.

0, what a game of love He plays!

What a carefree game He plays!

Himself the lover, He himself is the Beloved.

Here logic and reason have no part to play.

Bullah rejoices in his union with the Beloved.

Why does He create separation now?

What a carefree game He plays!

Bulleh Shah

You've no idea how hard I've looked for a gift to bring You.
Nothing seemed right. What's the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the Ocean.

Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient.

It's no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these.

So- I've brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me.

Rumi

Longing is the core of mystery.

Longing itself brings the cure.

The only rule is, Suffer the pain.

Your desire must be disciplined,

and what you want to happen in time, sacrificed.

Rumi

NO WAY BACK FROM HERE

“Lately, I've been Livin' in my head

The rest of me is dead…
Pleased to meet you take my hand,

There is no way back from here.”

Nothing better than those lyrics by Foo Fighters can describe Mcleodganj to me right now. I long to go back…because there really is no way back from there.

Never have I appreciated people-watching more than in this Tibetan refuge of India. But in turning this old British town into a refuge for themselves away from their homeland, the Tibetans have also made it one for every traveler. There are so many different faces here speaking different languages but wearing same expressions. The world is once microcosm here.

I wish I had clicked so many more photographs and so many portraits. If only every Tibetan from babies to the youngsters and the old, every Kashmiri pedlar, every hippie, every rich old foreign couple, every lonely traveler, every Indian honeymooned couple, every Buddhist monk, every himachali woman woodcutter, every mountain guide, every mountaineer, every trekker, every Tibetan rights activist, every wandering musician, every sadhu and conman were captured on film.

No, I still wouldn’t be satisfied. I’d go back again for more.

[Photo Credit: Harmanpreet Kaur]

IN TRANSIT

Random thoughts on the New Year 2008 – I’ve survived another 12 months… and enjoyed it, cried through some of it, and more or less have vagabonded and grown. Here’s to another one filled with wishes, experiences and flights of thought.

But this year worldwide will be one of change. And so it will be I hope in my life. A year of letting loose, learning and having fun!

A year of transit…a rite of passage…to a better present and future.