From my Travel Logs dated 26 July '09

Kaza

"If you keep coming to the mountains long enough, one day when you get old, you will realise that those who keep coming here, are closer to the Gods." - Mr Sethi's parting words to me who I'd met on the bus to Kaza.

A strange early morning exit from Keylong at 3:30am, through non-lighted streets and rugged fields of scented flowers, a torchlight, hotel assistant and clear star-lit pristine skies.....

Caught the bus to Gramphoo.....slept.....and awoke to mist. Waiting for the bus to Kaza at 6am at Gramphoo...... and a lucky bus came along.....empty army bus.....with only us, two ladhakis carrying their wares, and the elderly 60 yr old Sethi couple. Most friendly company.

Journey into Spiti valley - breathtaking (complete loss of adjectives!)

Change of landscape and the feel of Ladakh creeps in. Very interesting to meet the Sethi's - they drove to Kaza in a Wagon R from Shimla, travelled to Leh via state bus and are now back heading to Kaza. Young at heart!

And peeing in the wilderness is getting trickier.....!

27 July '09

Kaza

Headiness. Altitude sickness....did nothing but laze and visit a government hospital to get pulse and O2 levels checked. Walked to the market in the evening...ambled but faced breathlessness. Lovely breeze and gentle drizzle.....people wondered looking at me walking alone.

German Bakery of Kaza! Saved the day with a brownie and postcard shopping...ambled on across the homes and the lanes of Kaza town.......

28 July '09

Kaza

Headed to Ki monastery and sipped tea with two friendly monks inside......and then onto the village of Kibber. Crossed a group of foreigners hitching a ride on a tractor - and spotted our Slovenian couple again - waving like crazy!

Rest......more lazing and reading......and doing nothing in Kaza......in the middle of nowhere.

30 July '09

Kaza

2 days of a lot of driving - Pin valley and Chandertal today.

I leave Kaza tomorrow at 4am for Manali. Kaza is such a small place.....I can see foreigners in the market who simple seem to belong here. Sometimes, hanging out at bohemian places in India, makes me feel......I'm sort of invading or visiting their territory.

Locals are really friendly....men play chess all the time while women carry children on their backs, lots of labourers from Bihar here and lots of new constructions taking place.

Never ending Landscape.

It is hot, dusty.....but I look at rivers that keep flowing.....is it too cliche to say I see a meaning of life here.......?

William Dalrymple mentions (In Xanadu) - Oriental ism of Europeans during Colonization.... so true on this journey....... Westernization of us?

No Indian Woman traveler in these parts!

No Indian Male traveler in these parts!

Except for bikers and army men.......!

Bye Kaza!

31st July '09

Manali

Back to Manali - rain and the gurgling Beas. After a 12 hour bus journey from Kaza at 4am.....

What a bus ride! Crowded, packed and shaky as ever, bad roads again, blinding mist, blinding curves, rain, people sitting on the floor of the bus.........

Another interesting couple (I seem to meet only couples on this trip!)....from Scotland and England - archaeologists Helen and Paul......on a 5 month sabbatical from their firm due to the recession.

Heading to Delhi tomorrow but everything about a city feels alien.....after watching the glory of nature untamed, unbound for the past 10 days.

Fading Light

what's better than fading sunlight at dusk

does the heart feel a slight chill

as the sun escapes into the thick of the trees

or do those receding rays leave their last touch

of warmth on your face

with the breeze blowing gently in your hair

and the sun glowing its way about

what's better i ask of you my dear friend

than this time that fades in, and fades out

.....written on an aimless Saturday as I sat in office looking out at the rays of winter light.

[Photo: Moonpeak Cafe, Mcleodganj - I clicked this on our last day there during our trip in 2007]

From my Travel Logs dated 24 July'09

Manali

I enter the Kullu Valley and catch a glimpse of the Beas river from within my bus early morning at 6am. The gushing sounds of the river, the beautiful entry into Kullu Valley surrounded by massive mountains and the encircling river listening to Jimmy Page's guitar on my ipod...falling asleep and waking up to sunlight filtering through misty mountains and hamlets. I'd lost all memory of the Beas, only remember pictures of it from childhood trips. A beautiful river! I am a pagan worshipper! Mountain Gods and River Goddesses.........

From my Travel Logs dated 25 July'09

Keylong

The route to Keylong form Manali had the narrowest of passes, landslides, bad roads...and a bumpy bus ride over 8 hours from Manali starting 5am. So bumpy that my intestines were shaking in and out.....but I was thrilled that I was taking this bumpy hop across mountains......never-ending majestic mountains of Lahaul Valley, friendly people on the bus; a tiring ride ending in a killer climb to the hotel, hungry, dead and panting for O2 at this mighty altitude. Felt like a drive across to the other end of the world, and it's only been one day. Note to self:- I should have asked the Slovenian dude for a rolled up joint.

Tommorow:- Over 10 hours of bus again - I hope to reach Kaza! Keylong reminds me of Leh, although smaller and seems to be a pitstop for those moving onto Leh. A very small town compared to Manali. Hot day and chilly evening....but landscape breathtaking. Kullu Valley, Lahaul Valley and onto Spiti Valley......rivers and mountains.....nothing but landscape dots the mind.....long to meet interesting people living and visiting this landscape.

......to be continued.

Shift Focus

Friends, I've begun a new chapter in my blogging activity by starting a fresh new blog on Wordpress. This one will always stay, as I plan to continue fuelling it with my vagabond-ness! But I'm moving from my random writings towards something more focussed, atleast for a while. So, do drop by at : https://picturestarts.wordpress.com

Cheers!

Memory is the only paradise from which we cannot be driven.

Jean Paul Richter

Bibi, Begum aur Patni

Well, I've had a mammoth film viweing day of three classic hindi films depicting the social life of Indians in three different periods.

1. Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam (1962)

2. Shatranj ke Khiladi (1977)

3. Katha (1983)

Although Sahib Bibi and Shatranj were set in a time older than their year of release, I found certain similarities and observations on the role of men and women in Indian society in all three of them.

Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam: Meena Kumari's character is of a woman who is married to a rich landlord of Calcutta (pre-independence) who is given to heavy drinking and womanising at the kotha. But she is not like the other women in the house who quietly ignore these antics of their husbands and as according to her sister-in-law even support it as a 'manly' activity. She wants to spend time with her husband, or what else does she have to do the entire day! Her Husband is like a God, and she must serve him at all times, so much that she will drink liquor and sing for him (blasphemy in those days). I really liked her performance, it was powerful and conveyed the dichotomy of her situation very well. The song, "na jao sayian" is haunting with her drunk presence and Alvi's camera movements. But why does she have a deep devotion for her husband who clearly does not care for her? Was it a survival technique for women in those days who could not be economically or socially liberated? Or was it in some sense a powerful effort on her part to claim her husband back to where he belonged?

But there is only a slight retribution for her at the end, as her husband lies bedridden and she drunk....an ironic role reversal.

Waheedas's character on the other hand is of a woman who is also taking charge of her life, even though it is within archaic child marriage rules.

Shatranj ke Khiladi: Shabana Azmi is Sanjeev Kumar's wife who has clearly lost interest in her to his chess board. Here too, Azmi's character tries to connive Kumar's character into spending time with her. She is desperate and even sexually deprived. But the man here is not interested in being physical. On the other hand, Jaffrey's wife (a robust Fareeda Jalal) is cheating on him with his nephew and clearly expressing her sexuality. I found these to be brilliant characterisations.

Katha: Deepti Naval's character is easily attracted to the "bad-boy" Farooque Sheikh. While on the other hand Naseeruddin is never able to express his love for her till the last moment nor does Deepti's character guage his emotions. But what struck me was when Farooque's character asks her if she is 'modern and liberated'. As soon as she admits she is (hesitatingly), he finds it easy to canoodle and get her into bed. But even after facing humiliation from him, Naseer's character accepts her in the end as who she is.

All in all......I'm trying to place how women are portrayed in Indian Cinema through the ages. Why is a woman portrayed to be begging for a man's affection? And yet, they are infinitely free and powerful. It says something about our patriachal society, which has been, and still is going strong, if not directly but subtly.

Little Thinker and Miss Curious, Kaza

Wade in the water, Children

Mother and Child
Ki Monastery, Kaza

I saw women
carrying their children
on their backs
as they ploughed and walked,
I looked at one and saw the other
as they were one

Mordor Rock

Let's talk about Led Zeppelin! Led Zep were inspired by Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, and there was a discreet sprinkling of LOTR all over their lyrics in some songs. As a fan of both, I thought I'd share some of these lyrics which combine the best rock arrangements, vocals of Robert Plant and guitar by Jimmy Page.


"The band's individualistic style draws from many sources and transcends any one genre. Their rock-infused interpretation of the blues and folk genres also incorporated rockabilly, reggae, soul, funk, classical, Celtic, Indian, Arabic, pop, Latin and country." - Wikipedia


I wish I could have gone for one concert of their's in the 70's and seen them perform like Gods!



Misty Mountain Hop

If you go down in the streets today,
baby, you better, you better open your eyes. WOAH WOAH YEAH
Folk down there really don't care, really don't care, don't care , really don't,
which, way the pressure lies,
so I've decided what I'm gonna do now.


So I'm packing my bags for the Misty Mountains
where the spirits go now, over the hills where the spirits fly.
I really don't know.


'Misty Mountains' signify the Shire in LOTR


Over the hills and far away

Many have I loved, and many times been bitten,
Many times I've gazed along the open road.
Many times I've lied and many times I've listened,
many times I've wondered how much there is to know.

Many dreams come true and some have silver linings
I live for my dream and a pocketful of gold.
Mellow is the mind who knows what he's been missin',
many many men can't see the open road.
Many is a word that only leaves you guessin',
Guessin' 'bout a thing you really ought to know.
You really ought to know.
I really ought to know.


The 'pocketful of gold' mentioned here signifies the Ring


Ramble On

Mines a tale that cant be told,
My freedom I hold dear;
How years ago in days of old
When magic filled the air,
Twas in the darkest depths of mordor
I met a girl so fair,
But gollum, and the evil one crept up
And slipped away with her.
Her, her....yea.
Aint nothing I can do, no.

'Gollum', 'Mordor'...etc etc.

Customer Complaint

So, I wrote a customer complaint to a major footwear chain - Woodland. This is the first time I gave feedback to a company whose products I consume. And it turned out to be a hilarious exercise! There was no feeback book available at the store and I wondered if I should email them. And then my friend Sushmit inspired me, by calling the company’s lapse as "Sexist Capitalism!"
Here is what transpired:-

from Harmanpreet Kaur <harmankaur.82@gmail.com>
tocare@woodlandworldwide.com
ccsales@woodlandworldwide.net
date Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 12:35 AM
subject Customer Complaint

Hi,
As a resident of New Delhi, India and a regular shopper at the Woodland stores, I'd like to complain regarding the availability of trekking shoes in the women's range. Why are trekking shoes for women unavailable in India? Doesn't the company manufacture them? Or are they just not stocked or sold in India?
As a woman who frequently likes to be outdoors, I would really appreciate if Woodland launched a few interesting designs for women in the trekking range. Woodland has such a wide variety for men's trekking shoes. Does the company feel that women in this country do not like the rugged outdoors like their male counterparts?
The designs that are available in the shoes range, are not made for the purpose of trekking. Women only buy them to keep their feet warm in the winter season. They are quite boring actually.
There is a market for a whole lot of women in this country who have started to travel and explore. It would be profitable if you would cater to their demand. There is also no other brand in this nation that caters to the demand of outdoor shoes like Woodland does. If a woman wanted to go a trek in the mountains, she would not buy sports shoes from Nike/Reebok/Adidas. She would buy them from your store, BUT you do not manufacture it for her! It's a clear gender bias.
As a customer of Woodland since it launched in the early 90's, I remember purchasing the women's trek shoe (olive and brown) with leather laces when I was a teenager! Please resume that style or launch new ones!
Rgds
Harmanpreet Kaur

from Harkirat Singh <harkiratsingh@woodlandworldwide.com>
toHarmanpreet Kaur <harmankaur.82@gmail.com>, pksharma@woodlandworldwide.net
mailto:ccchamanlal64@hotmail.com
date Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 12:39 PM
subject Re: Customer Complaint

Dear Ms.Kaur,
We will certainly look into the issue and develop certain models for trekking and outdoors for women.Pls let us know your foot size and we will try to arrange something for you sooner.Thanks for your valuable comments.

Regards,
Harkirat Singh.

from Harmanpreet Kaur <harmankaur.82@gmail.com>
to Harkirat Singh <harkiratsingh@woodlandworldwide.com>
ccpksharma@woodlandworldwide.net,chamanlal64@hotmail.com
date Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 1:58 PM
subject Re: Customer Complaint

Thanks for your response! My foot size is 5.
Rgds

Now, I still don’t believe I wrote this, but I did – my emotional agitation was deep, and I was feeling sarcastically comical.
Ha! And I’ve just realized that my friend Anjali in Aberdeen shares similar grievances!! She read my email complaint and tells me that she too has been unable to locate good trekking shoes under various brands online! In her words, "I found funny baby blues and shiny pinks and NOTHING AT ALL SUITABLE."

The situation of women’s trekking shoes is abysmal in this world! I demand the same shoes that women wear on Nat Geo/Globe Trekker.
But, I do feel like an empowered consumer. And as my friend suggests, I hope I’m in for a free pair of boots here.

The Importance of being Idle - Part 2

Idleness can be rewarding. Idleness can drive me crazy. It can clear my mind. It can jumble it more than ever.
I hurt my foot (a deep cut at the base) which had to kept bandaged and upright for almost more than a week. And I spent my time slobbing away to nothingness.

I read, cooked, watched a whole lot of television, films and wimbledon matches. I sat out watching the rain and staying blank. I sat staring up into the sky thinking a thousand things from apocalyptic conditions and futility of human life to the immense beauty of this universe, power of all the art created by us, why we indulge in art at all, and whether we are a lonely species.

I also pondered over different ways to cook potatoes. I tried making them with butter and garlic. It turned out to be a rather heavy affair.

I just saw a documentary on BBC World on Madeline Murray today. She'd founded and headed the American Atheist Association. Whether one agrees with her views or not, I realise this - that there are, were and will continue to be deviants in society. I heart this dynamism. Also another documentary on HBO, U.S vs John Lennon, was revelatory when it came to the same observation. Also the media was fascinated by them, not because they understood what they were saying, and what it held for society, but because they both spoke brilliantly and attracted eyeballs. Both Murray and Lennon were murdered by people with a past criminal or psychiatric record.

I wonder that if one remains idle for a sufficiently long time, if it will drive him/her to insanity? But then people go insane working in harsh environments. Sometimes people go insane with boredom of working in a safe montonous environment. Sometimes insanity seems sane.

So, I conclude that I'd like to be idle in Paris, or Roma, or Seychelles, or Spiti!!

Within You Without You

Writer: George Harrison

Album: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band (1967)

We were talking - about the space between us all

And the people -who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion

Never glimpse the truth -then it's far too late -when they pass away.

We were talking-about the love we all could share - when we find it

To try our best to hold it there - with our love

With our love - we could save the world - if they only knew.

Try to realize it's all within yourself

No-one else can make you change

And to see you're really only very small,

And life flows ON within you and without you.

We were talking-about the love that's gone so cold and the people,

Who gain the world and lose their soul - They don't know-they can't see-are you one of them?When you've seen beyond yourself - then you may find, peace of mind,

Is waiting there - And the time will come when you see we're all one,

and life flows on within you and without you.

This is one of my favourite songs of The Beatles. The lyrics are transcending, and the song never fails to lift me to ascension every time! And then I wish I could shmoke one up for them fellas!!

Cry baby cry

Make your mother sigh

She's old enough to know better

Cry baby cry

Song: Cry baby cry by The Beatles

Year: 1968

Album: The White album

Can you picture what will be

so limitless and free

Lost in a roman wilderness of pain

All the children are insane.....

waiting for the summer rain.

-Jim Morrison

Don't be shy

by Cat Stevens

Don't be shy just let your feelings roll on by 

Don't wear fear or nobody will know you're there 

Just lift your head, and let your feelings out instead 

And don't be shy, just let your feeling roll on by 

On by 

You know love is better than a song 

Love is where all of us belong 

So don't be shy just let your feelings roll on by 

Don't wear fear or nobody will know you're there 

You're there 

Don't be shy just let your feelings roll on by 

Don't wear fear or nobody will know you're there 

Just lift your head, and let your feelings out instead 

And don't be shy, just let your feeling roll on by 

On by, on by, on by, on by.....

Love
by John Lennon

Love is real , real is love
Love is feeling , feeling love
Love is wanting to be loved

Love is touch, touch is love
Love is reaching, reaching love
Love is asking to be loved
Love is you
You and me

Love is knowing we can be
Love is free, free is love
Love is living, living love
Love is needed to be loved

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njG7p6CSbCU

Jack Kerouac

“What’s in store for me in the direction I don’t take?”

“No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.”

“Write in recollection and amazement for yourself”

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.”

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!”

Class Act


I saw two films today that I'd like to write about. The first is Entre Les Murs or The Class, the french film that won at the Cannes last year. I had read so much about it, and heard so much, that it was a real treat watching it finally!

Education. Students. Teachers. The system. We like to stick it to the man starting from a young age. It was very interesting to see both sides of the system in close interaction here and to realise that sometimes students are liable to question their teacher's authority and not, how teachers exercise so much patience with young minds and lose it with them as well. I tried to look at those students and spot myself as a character there. I tried to cast back to my schooldays to find out if I was rebellious or understanding of authority. None actually. I just wanted to learn, ignore teachers that I didn't understand, and go with the flow. Maybe children have evolved. Or was I passive?


The second film, is the 2003 Canadian documentary, The Corporation. I liked it a lot, loved it....it has extensive research and we get to hear a good balance of either sides, the owners of big corporations in the U.S and thinkers/activists who consider them to be new-age psychopaths. Which makes me link my observations of Entre Les Murs with The Corporation - "The system's got too much control". There is a part of the documentary that films a public discussion in a small town of America that is opposing the entry of corporation chains to set-up base in their town. I was struck when a woman says, "So, we'll figure it out what we can do apart from jobs in this sector. We are creative people."
Narrator: "Some of the best creative minds are employed to assure our faith in the corporate world view. They seduce us with beguiling illusions. Designed to divert our minds and manufacture our consent."


So are we passive?

Sigh

Sigh Sigh Sigh Sigh Sigh Sigh

Sigh Sigh  Sigh  Sigh  Sigh  Sigh

SighSighSighSighSighSighSighSigh

Sigh

SighSigh  Sigh    Sigh   Sigh    Sigh   Sigh

Sigh

Sigh SighSighSighSigh SighSigh Sigh Sigh

SighSigh  Sigh

Sigh

sigh...no pattern to this sigh-ness

song for summer

by harry

this heat plays on me

plays on my heartstrings

summer summer

a month of love

summer summer

a month of pain

rain come and wash

away all the stains

Call me the Breeze

J J Cale

Youtube link 

They call me the breeze, I keep blowin' down the road
Well now, they call me the breeze, I keep blowin' down the road
I ain't got me nobody, I don't carry me no load
Ain't no change in the weather, ain't no changes in me
Well, there ain't no change in the weather, ain't no changes in me
And I ain't hidin' from nobody, nobody's hidin' from me

Well I got that green light, baby, I got to keep movin' on
Well I got that green light, baby, I got to keep movin' on
Well, I might go out to California, might go down to Georgia, I don't know

Thanks to my friend, Anand in Pune for sharing this song with me! 

Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live! 

- Bob Marley

[Picture Courtesy: Flickr.com]

Turn! Turn! Turn!

The Byrds

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to mend, a time to sow
A time to love, a time to hate
A time for peace, I swear its not too late

Love, Love is a verb....

Yesterday, I commuted through the underpass at South-Ex in New Delhi in an auto. That underpass is choc-full of graffiti. Lovers Graffiti. 

I found it so amusing. Is this graffiti vandalism or a celebration of love/a relationship? I have always found it funny the way, hearts are scratched on tree trunks, bare walls or arches and alcoves in historical monuments. Even disgusted. 

But now, I am looking at it as a certain kind of expression. Maybe you won't consider it art, but it is certainly one or two persons dire need to tell the world about themselves...and their relationship status! Heart-broken, single and yearning, lost in love....statuses long before facebook came on.....

Whatever their reasons....it's encouraging to see some public spaces vandalised. 

I drank endless cups of tea

that flowed from pots

and not cups....

tea, tea, tea

ginger, lemon and honey....

is the soulful combination

of divinity

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.....

.......while walking to naddi village, mcleodganj

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

--Buddha

....inside the Dalai Lama Monastery, Mcleod.....

[Photo Credit: Harmanpreet Kaur]

Wall-art in Mcleodganj

Spotted two places with wonderful wall paintings in Mceodganj this time around. One was a shop selling coffee, handicrafts and interesting crunchy blocks of cornflakes bathed in chocloate sauce.

The other a quaint tea and food place set in a garage of sorts, whose name I didn't notice or probabaly wasn't there. I was attracted to the art on its walls, and it was the most revelatory excited awe feeling to look up at its ceiling, to notice a map of Tibet or probably a way into the homeland, painted up there. That was my moment...another moment of nirvana. To sit in absolute silence sipping tea, admiring the ceiling and feeling the presence of two more individuals - a tibetan guy staring outside and a foreign lady deep in her book....each of us in our own spaces of mind.

It's all in the mind.......

I met these two nuns at the Dalai Lama monastery in Mcelodganj. I asked them to explain me a tibetan quote painted across the door of the monastery. Despite the language problems, they explained to me that if one lets go of all suffering from the mind, it can free you. Their faces are peace and joy personified.

Buddhism is so simple. I've been facinated with it for some time now, and the peace that one can observe in dharamsala on the faces of tibetans and monks alike, makes me wonder why we lead such convoluted agitated lives sometimes.
It's not easy to let go of pain, but if one really thinks about the simplicity of it all, it's easy to emancipate the mind.
I've always felt that life is about balance. And Buddha felt that the middle-way is the best way. All the excesses of life in a palace left him dissatisfied. When he stepped out into the world and saw suffering, he realised pain. When he penanced without water, food and even air, it left him feeling ill. The middle path--within neither extremes, was the way to live a life of happiness, he felt.

Is that tough to practice?

I feel it is not about "letting go of desires"...as I assumed it. If one reads the buddhist philosophy, you realise it's all about knowing yourself, crystal clear.

“We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.”
---Buddha

[Photo Credit: Harmanpreet Kaur]

All I Need......

I am off on another trip. Back to Dharamsala and Mcleodganj after two years. Even if it's for three days, I'll be back on the road with friends. Eager to leave and and eager to come back, with joy and the mountain air in me...to friends, dreams and writing...what else do I need?! 

Home 

i have traveled to lands

and made them home

with people

known and unknown

faces and spaces

have taken me in

when i knew not

what home meant

i yearn for that place

where i can be called 

your own, 

if home is where the heart is

let it be shown 

--Harman, 27-04-09

Of water and underwater.........

Off late, I have discovered a new Love for water, and things that go deeper....into the blue yonder...

I came across an interview with Werner Herzog on filming Encounters at the End of the World. You can read it by clicking HERE.

It takes me back to some brilliant deep-sea shots of a diver swimming in an alternate world of strange creatures that lurk and survive at the end of the world....at the deep end. They are spell-binding. It is a strange existence. Set to out of the world music by Henry Kaiser, you will be awed and maybe it just might reduce that inner fear of a shark-chase! (Are you reading this Sushmit?!)

Oh and this interview mentions a new film that Herzog is working on, which will be produced by David Lynch! Now that should screw my head right up!

Whether Herzog creates the obstacles in his way, or merely films them, the results are the same: there is ecstasy, awe, horror, a kind of bitterly compromised transcendence. "The distinction between fiction and documentary is the last thing I would spend a sleepless night over," he says. "It's all movies for me."

Beautiful Losers (2008)

Tagline: Make Something From Nothing

Summary: 

The greatest cultural accomplishments in history have never been the result of the brainstorms of marketing men, corporate focus groups, or any homogenized methods; they have always happened organically. More often than not, these manifestations have been the result of a few like-minded people coming together to create something new and original for no other purpose than a common love of doing it. In the 1990s, a loose-knit group of American artists and creators, many just out of their teens, began their careers in just such a way. Influenced by the popular underground youth subcultures of the day, such as skateboarding, graffiti, street fashion and independent music, artists like Shepard Fairey, Mark Gonzales, Spike Jonze, Margaret Kilgallen, Mike Mills, Barry McGee, Phil Frost, Chris Johanson, Harmony Korine, and Ed Templeton began to create art that reflected the lifestyles they led. Many had no formal training and almost no conception of the inner workings of the art world. They learned their crafts through practice, trial and error, and good old-fashioned innovation. Not since the Beat Generation have we seen a group of creative individuals with such a unified aesthetic sense and varied cultural facets. The world of art has been greatly affected by their accomplishments as have the worlds of fashion, music, literature, film, and, ironically, athletics. Over the years, the group has matured, and many have become more establishment-oriented; but no matter, their independent spirit has remained steadfast. The story of the Beautiful Losers will be a retrospective celebration of this spirit.

[Source: IMDB]

I read about this documentary in NYT last year. The subject really fascinates me. I'm unable to locate it online. 

"I don't get it....."

"Everything you can imagine is real." - Pablo Picasso

I studied a brief history of art in my Film Appreciation course at FTII two years ago. The first picture was a cave painting. As soon as man could find something to scribble with, he did it on the walls of the caves. He drew animals, human figures and pictorial stories of everyday life. As early in time as cavemen, we have wanted to talk about our situation in this puzzle that is life...to understand our surroundings, it's mysteries and our feelings. Art is but an expression of ourselves. As time has moved, mediums have changed....to photographs or the moving image. 

Art movements moved beyond replicating or recreating life around us, to other levels. Levels of impressionism, expressionism, surrealism and abstraction. According to Picasso, "All children are born artists. The problem is how to remain an artist after one grows up." When we were children, we saw the world through innocence, drawing the sun, moon, mountains and stars as we "thought" them. I still find children's doodles so much more artistic than a perfectly drawn and painted picture of still-life fruits. I enjoyed art class thoroughly in school. Colors, brushes, palletes, dirty cloth, mess.....I loved it and still do. But my art teacher was an inattentive ass. He never gave me high marks and I would just scrape through. In my kindergarten, I still remember how much I was scolded for coloring outside the line of a circle. Why is our education system so immune to children's needs of not just learning but exploring and enjoying art?

This brings me to the point of abstraction. When young, the system wants you to ape and think in line. Once you are out of school and college, and working, the system wants you to "think out of the box" or "laterally" to increase profits for the company. This is where abstraction comes in. To go beyond and think of life in terms of dreams and heightened imagination. "Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth."--Picasso again..... 

Why does everything have to make sense immediately? Take poetry. Not all poetry can be "understood" at one go. You can learn it's meaning, but understanding can happen anytime. I'll give you an example of myself. When I was studying literature in my graduation...I studied, P B Shelley's Ode to a Skylark. I loved the poem...it just spoke to me...and my Bengali Prof was very dreamy. I learned what it meant and gave my exams. But I understood it only some years ago. It's opening verse is, "Hail to thee Blithe spirit, Bird thou never wert....that from Heaven or near it, Pourest thy heart in profuse strains of unpremeditated art." I haven't appreciated unpremeditated art until recently. Films/books/music...which flow effortlessly. A quote from the film The History Boys goes, "You don't always understand poetry? Timms, I never understand it. But learn it now, know it now and you will understand it... whenever."

I look at all abstraction with the same thought. It may not appeal, may not make sense for now....but if it has entered my subconcious at some level, there will come a time when I will gloat in it. I think of it from the creators view. His/her imagination made him/her to create what I am looking at now. They wanted to say something in a way they wanted to....they created it for themselves......for all great art is made for oneself because it's one's own expression. 

David Lynch's Eraserhead and Dali-Bunuel's Andulasian Dog have to be the most abstract and warped films I have ever seen. I do not claim to understand them completely or "get" them. They are a piece of art for me.....to make my own meanings out of it. An artist always has an idea behind his art, but when it's thrown to the public, he opens it to interpretation. No doubt I'd enjoy knowing what was his idea behind it too. While watching Eraserhead, I was holding my head in my hands, and wondering what I was going through. But it left me thrilled! Exalted! I still think of those images and enter an alternate world. That for me, is the escape through art that I love.  

I think abstraction is a challenge. To take the image, the words, the music and store it in your head. It is someone's imagination.... and it might just make sense someday!

"I don't think about art when I'm painting. I try to think about life." - Jean-Michel Basquiat

Space. The final frontier........ 

I've been wanting to watch the Star Trek series for a long time. Some people have told me it's silly while others write great things about it online. But, I would never watch the show on TV when it played a decade or so ago. Though Persis Khamabata appealed in all her baldness, for some reason I was never hooked on to it. Despite me, being a science-fiction fan. 

Hmmm I'll wait for the new Star Trek film.....and hopefully get inculcated into it's cult followers.

Which brings to me the fact that I haven't read Stephen Hawking's - A brief History of Time either. Why didn't I? Sitting on my ass with no work, I'm questioning myself right now, but I don't know. 

"My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the Universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all."

Stephen Hawking 

I think I am a sort of goal-less individual....with no major ambitions at my wise age of 26....of the kinds "I want to be a CEO by 35" or "I want to have children by 28" or "I have to finish my film by 25 because well, so did Orson Welles."  

My goals seem more like dreams...not given complete form, but there at the back of my mind....which I hope will take shape when the time is right. Like doing something....where I have a space of my own...a freedom to create and imagine and get lost. Or learning how to swim, so I can jump into the Ganga in Rishikesh with the white-water rafters...and maybe go Kayaking. Or looking up Eurail pass and youth hostel budgets in Europe while idling at work.

 
So, for now the Hawking quote is good. 

"For you, time is not a system but a flowing of the present." - An FB quiz result

"People who are so artistic, so intelligent -- you are interpreting what they are trying to express. You have taken a trip into this brain, you are a tourist in this fantastically interesting brain. People always say to me that I do such strange films, but it's not that I'm looking for something so different necessarily, it's simply that I meet a person who strikes me as intelligent and interesting and I want to take a trip into their brain."

Isabella Rossellini 

Some random off the cuff musings while sitting bored with a sprained arm muscle.....

Give....

Give me a thought

and I'll fly from there

take you along

To where our mind takes

Give me a drink

I'll mystify

and reflect your

soul in it

Give me you

I'll learn something new

of all that your are each day

and I'll give you myself 

--03-04-09, Harman....for a potential lover :P

Up

Never far

Never near

Roads 

and Destinations

Up and down

Left and right

the Centre

Never far 

---03-04-09, Harman....for Nitin V George

Grow Young with Me

By Justin Case

grow young with me
throw down our canes
and soak our brains
with endorphins
until our joy annoys the McCrap out of everyone around us
among their occasional shouts of
oh get a room, already

let's play like children
sing like drunks
and fill our trunks
with colored pebbles from the beach
and dance like two people with centipedes in their shorts
amid the occasional glances of
people who wish they had some, too

[Source: verybadpoetry]

The Importance of Being Idle

I don't mind
As long as there's a bed beneath the stars that shine
I'll be fine, if you give me a minute, a man's got a limit
I can't get a life if my heart's not in it

--Oasis

Everybody seems to think I'm lazy
I don't mind, I think they're crazy
Running everywhere at such a speed
Till they find there's no need (there's no need)

Please, don't spoil my day, I'm miles away
And after all I'm only sleeping

Keeping an eye on the world going by my window
Taking my time

Lying there and staring at the ceiling
Waiting for a sleepy feeling...

Please, don't spoil my day, I'm miles away
And after all I'm only sleeping

-- The Beatles

[Photo Credit: Sushmit Ghosh]

You're right, this blog IS getting too heavy. 

I think I need to step down the evolution ladder and become a single-celled organism. An Amoeba. That's done then. 

I also think that morning's are a great time for these wonderous thoughts to emerge...my ancestors believed that the morning was a sacred time. It's true. 

I am moping around work in my Osho chappals, my hands in my back pocket, checking out my reflection on transparent doors, wondering how fat I am. I don't want to think how fat I am or will be someday. Why are we multiple-celled organisms? 

Sloppy amoebas have it good. They can pro-create on their own too without intercourse. Why would they do that though.... 

I think I want to be an animal then. 

No, don't wana end up on a plate with my mouth open. Single-cells are just fine, with their one nucleus, mitochondria and jazz. A refreshing new habitat. 

I'm just a little person

What is it about Charlie Kaufman, that throws you into the delight of complication?
What a feeling. I'll call this the Kaufman emotion - one that I feel after watching anything written by him, or as right now in the film Synechdoche, New York ---his first directorial venture.

Oh Charlie, you speak to my soul...in the same convoluted manner that we all speak to our own souls and those of others around us. Because this is your story....and also ours. Exactly how Cayden in Synechdoche says, "There are millions of people in the world. And none of those people are as an extra, they're all leads in their own stories."

In this film, he has so successfully given some words, characters and visuals to the ever difficult questions of life and death. Questions we ask ourselves at so many points of life. When the character of Cayden (fashioned after Kaufman himself?) is not sure of what he is trying to achieve through the concept of his next play, his actress (played by Michelle Williams) says, "It's good that you don't know...when you know that you don't know, it is the first step to knowing."

The beautifully and immaculately constructed screenplay, is nothing but the circle of life that gives birth to its real, fictional and on-stage characters, lives and dies like a being and a world unto its own.

"The end is written into the beginning".....a line uttered by Cayden's love-interest........says it all for me. For it is isn't it in any written, spoken story just like life? A story that goes on and on, and never sees an end till death. Yet, it still goes on.
And as always, Kaufman blows you away with that one long monologue from one of his characters:

"As the people who adore you stop adoring you; as they die; as they move on; as you shed them; as you shed your beauty; your youth; as the world forgets you; as you recognize your transience; as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one; as you learn there is no-one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving - not coming from any place; not arriving any place. Just driving, counting off time."

Some of the songs have been written by Kaufman himself......and my favourite goes, "Somewhere maybe someday maybe somewhere far away............."

I cannot express myself anymore. Excuse me, as Cayden says, "It's Complicated."

Handmade Productions Present.........

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Mis-en-scene: Harmanpreet Kaur :)

Meditative Rose by Dali

"I don't do drugs. I am drugs."

Salvador Dali

Old and Gold.........some pictures from Delhi -6

[Photo Credit: Harmanpreet Kaur]