Category: Books

The Queen of Espirit d’escalier

One cold January morning, I clutched at my tea for life giving support. I was sitting through the kind of gathering that happens across Corporate America when a calendar year rolls over. Executives suddenly pep up, and sit up looking important, and feeling purposeful. Like a pup in spring, who thinks he can play with the ball if only folks would toss it instead of gadding about.

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I sometimes like to watch these events. The actors change every so often, and the ones who remain have subtle changes in their motivations and ambitions too. The varieties of personalities we surround ourselves with is an ever fascinating experience, and we only really have the luxury of sitting back and watching occasionally. I suppose that is why the Dalai Lama is full of the milk of human kindness – he meditates, and observes.

Anyway, the gathering reached a place where credits were rolled and I noticed happily how people brightened when they were given credit for their work. It is true one should do the work without expectation of the reward, but how nice it was to see people get the credit where it is due. The meadow suddenly seemed spotted with frisking happy pups.

There was an amusing interjection when one team was accidentally left out of the credits, and claimed what was their due.

I smiled to myself thinking of this normal human tendency to crave recognition. We all do it. Just the other day, I bragged about how clean the kitchen floor looked: ‘gleaming like glass’ as I said, till I was reminded by the family almost gleefully that I had better stump it given that I had to clean up the glass I had broken, and therefore ‘gleaming like glass’ doesn’t really count.
“I am neither Jocelyn Bell Burner nor Alfred Russell Wallace. When I clean the floor, I want credit! “ is the quip that I would have liked to come up with.

But I didn’t.

I came up with the inelegant, “Well…I am eating the potato fry then!”, and stuck my tongue out at the children.

I am a queen of that phenomenon where you think of the perfect verbal comeback too late. I was delighted to note there is a word for that: Espirit d’escalier.(Wiki Link for the word, Esprit De Escalier) The link writes about the amusing origins of the word, please read it.

Where am I going with all this spirited Espirit d’espalier, potato fry stuff? One moment. Yes, Credit and Work and Meaning and all that.

Sitting there at the corporate meeting, and watching the team claim credit for their small part in the puzzle, I was reminded of Jocelyn Bell Burner and Alfred Russell Wallace.

Wallace, independently arrived at natural selection for the mechanism for evolution before Darwin did, but he jointly published the paper with Darwin. Darwin’s Origin of Species is vastly credited with the theory though. Did that make Wallace spout and keep the potatoes? No, he continued to travel the world, writing about injustice and social causes. He never stopped exploring or lost the joy of wonder or ceased writing on the causes that deeply appealed to him.

Jocelyn Bell Burner is another scientist whom I find admirable for this very reason. She was passed over for the Nobel Prize. Credited with detecting the first Pulsars in the universe ( she should have been a Nobel Prize recipient for Astrophysics in 1974). When asked how she felt that her Professor got the prize, and did not adequately exert himself to get her name on the nomination, she shrugged and said, “If you get a prize, it’s not your job to explain why you got the prize. ”

I read about these two stalwart scientists in the books, Lands of Lost Borders by Kate Harris and Black Hole Blues by Janna Levin. Every book teaches us different things. Even queens of Espirit d’escaliers can find a way to come back with Jocelyn Bell Burner & Alfred Russell Wallace and their phenomenal attitude towards recognition as it related to their work.

 

It makes me realize now what my stellar teachers were saying on those cold Assembly mornings when they dangled tantalizing pieces of wisdom in their morning speeches.

Bhagawad Gita on work without reward

Karmanye Vadhikaraste, Ma phaleshou kada chana,

Ma Karma Phala Hetur Bhurmatey Sangostva Akarmani

कर्मण्- ेवाधिकारस- ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।

मा कर्मफलहेतु- र्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्- वकर्मणि॥

Loosely meaning: Do not anticipate fruits while doing the labor, this was oft quoted by teachers trying to inculcate the importance of work.

Turtlish Thoughts

When the children are hanging out nearby, I am amused to see they take the phrase literally. I find them hanging upside down from trees looking like bats wondering why the world cannot be more topsy-turvy on occasion. One day, I found them on the monkey bars like this: one fellow upside down, the other swinging wildly. One child cart-wheeling on the floor, (hop, skip, jump, cartwheel),and chatting about Turtles. I don’t think they realize how the scene must seem to adults who have long given in to the expectations of the adult world, and walk upright at a reasonable speed and acceptable gait. I grinned at the unusual scene and they smiled and waved, before resuming their chats.

The scene reminded me of the Kung Fu Panda movie. Thoughts of Monkey, Mantis, Viper, Crane, Tigress , Shifu, Po and Oogway are always welcome.

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Sometimes, when a bunch of stuffed shirts are droning on in self-important tones at the tail-end of an exhausting meeting, I think wanly how much more fun it would have been if we had jumped up and down, cart-wheeled a few times and hung from tree branches while discussing ‘Strategic Improvements to Aid And Abet The Committee’. Every bit helps.

That night, with the wind whipping up a mean rhythm outside, I suggested visiting our old friends in the Valley of Peace, and embrace the challenges of the Jade Palace again. The Kung Fu Panda series has long been a favorite in the household, and we all nodded. Movie nights are never an easy democratic process, but I was glad we all agreed on ‘Kung Fu Panda‘ that night.

Oogway, the turtle, holds a special place in our hearts, partly because, measured and slow is not something we do – we are forever racing from one place to another, hanging upside down with friends on monkey bars, competing to deliver the quickest quips and generally making quick pests of ourselves in the home. Oogway, on the other hand is the coolest dude. The turtles: Oogway of Kung Fu Panda fame, Crush of Finding Nemo fame and Toby of Kindergarten fame, have all been much loved and have taught us so much.

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It was no surprise then that we reached for the ‘Always Remember’ book by Cece Meng and Illustrated by Jago.

It is a beautiful book that talks about an old turtle. After the turtle dies, all of his friends remember him lovingly in their own way. It is a lovely book showing us how far and wide our impacts can be by living a fruitful and useful life, sticking to simple tenets of compassion, loyalty and friendship.

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The marine worlds always make for the best illustrations, but even so, Jago’s work in he book is mesmerizing. The characters (dolphins, starfish, baby turtles, whales, sea otters) remember Old Turtle, the compassionate companion, the adventurer, the teacher, the explorer. We, by our very being, mean different things to different people and this beautiful multifaceted aspect is illustrated in pictures splashed across the ocean in hues of blue and green.

Side note: For adults, a similar book about the far and wide reaching impacts we have on others, is a book by Miss Read, Emily Davis. A school teacher by profession, her life is remembered fondly by those whose lives she affected. Often times, we think of these large sized impacts but the most powerful ones are right by us all the time.

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Our companions on Earth have always fascinated us. I remembered fondly watching a baby turtle sun itself on the rocks in Spring  a few months ago. A friend once told me that once we start paying attention to the world around us, it tells us in so many ways what we need to hear and how.

So, what does it mean when a turtle enters your thoughts so apparently suddenly and steadily? Does it mean that we need to synchronize our movements with the animal companions that are paying us visits? In this case, s..l..o..w……d..o..w..n ? Well, my turtle teachers will be proud of me indeed to see me following their example so well. I am sitting cosily in bed as I write about these dear creatures, and look forward to slowly drifting into a world of quiet contemplation, and gently falling asleep while the Earth slowly but steadily hums and thrums on outside. The flowers may bloom or they may not, the shoots may grow or they may not.

 

“Your mind is like this water my friend. When it is agitated, it becomes difficult to see. But if you allow it to settle, the answer becomes clear. “ – Oogway

Nature’s Shows

This article was published in The Hindu Open Page: The Art & Charm of Shoshin

If anyone has spent time watching pebbles make ripples across ponds, they will know what I am talking about. If not, I encourage you to take on your person a couple of pebbles and hike up the high hills and mountains, or cut through the pristine forests, in search of a puddle, pond or lake of reasonable size to cause ripples. Then, with the hand held flat, proceed to skip the pebbles into the water. The skillful amongst you may get the pebble to skip and skim the waters in the first few attempts causing beautiful rippling waves as they go along. I did not. Watch for the word skilled in the sentence – pebble throwing is an art that isn’t appreciated enough.

The son attempted a large stone throw and I held onto him lest he launch himself with the stone. Size matters: large stones and small boys could cause the cannon to fly with the missile. This is the kind of thing that would have made Newton come up with complex mathematical calculations to support the theory of pebbles and ripples, missiles and cannons, and extend it to comets and stars. We, on the other hand laughed, and substituted a flattish stone is his hand. Father and son threw pebbles and I sat watching mesmerized at the beautiful rippling effect it had on the water.

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It was a lovely bright day, one of those gems that present itself in the midst of a rainy stormy week. Much as I adore watching the storm rage around me, and the wind whip the bare branches to breaking point, it doesn’t make conducive walking environments. I tried. I went out for a walk during the raging storm that had flights circling the air space multiple times before attempting to land, and I must say that I was wetter than water. It took 3 days for my shoes to start feeling damp again. The daughter shook her head sternly and said I was going to come down with a pneumonia if I continued on this idiotic path of loving the rain. “Are Pluviophiles Pneumoniophiles?” I asked her, and told her to be crazy and feel the rain, love the rain and watch the rain. She watched me with love, and a strong feeling that I was crazy. Oh well.

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I raised my face upwards towards the sun and my thoughts drifted once again. As I sat there thinking of this and that, a beautiful thing happened. The mind snapped out of the mundane and omnipresent things that occupied it, and went into a lovely, meditative state. Watching the sun sparkles drift meditatively on the waters was marvelous. The world seemed to be throwing these tiny diamonds into the water for our enjoyment and they drifted obligingly with the tiny waves, Little shimmers bobbing up and down, dancing and shining in the sun’s rays, set to the perfect rhythm of the breeze rustling through the bare winter branches of the trees nearby. The earth was bursting with new shoots and moss lined pathways.

Ducks, coots pelicans and geese were bobbing on the waters in the distance. Birds were chirping and swooping -I enjoyed the swift elegant swoops of swallows as much as the impressive regal swoops of the hawks overhead. Some people were biking, some others walking. The clouds – white today, drifted lazily across the skies, as though they too enjoyed the sunshine and did not want to hide the sun. The air smelt fresh and clean with little wafts of eucalyptus and fir scented drifts.

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Nature’s shows are marvelous. For a moment I forgot about the to-do lists, the worries and tensions that a concept of a New Year brings, and enjoyed the free show in front of me feeling revived and refreshed in spirit with every passing moment. All my senses keen, alert and marveling at the wonder around me. I looked at the little fellow enjoying himself by the waters, and hoped that he would remember these simple pleasures as he grows and takes his place in this frenetic world.

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Edit: After I wrote this post, I saw this excerpt by Mary Oliver on one of my social media feeds: it is from the book, Upstream, and I look forward to reading the book, but this piece of writing spoke to my heart (bolding my own):

Teach the children. We don’t matter so much, but the children do. Show them daisies and the pale hepatia . Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen. The lives of blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin flowers. And the frisky ones-inkberry, lamb’s quarters, blueberries. And the aromatic ones-rosemary, oregano. Given them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves, and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.

Attention is the beginning of devotion.

My hope is for everyone to savor a moment like that every now and then, to keep the capacity to wonder alive in us. The beauty of Shoshin.

Existential Angst or Gelato?

Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.
“Michelangelo Quotes on BrainyQuote”

As we walked past the thousands of statues displayed in the Roman corridors and roadsides, it is astounding and humbling to see the thousands of hours of creative labor that survives. The Vatican alone houses so many art forms and pieces of art, that we were quite naturally hurrying along if we did not wish to spend a good decade in there admiring every piece.

 

 

The Roman Empire is probably the most famously chronicled and studied empires in the world. The human condition across millennia has sought peace, temperance, a cultivation for the finer aesthetics even while battling the evils of war, famine and barbaric practices, and nowhere is that more apparent than in Ancient Rome.

Many portraits and statues were commissioned by the noble wanting to cast a sliver of their mortal presence into the immortal. The legacy of their lives as they might have seen it. But in works such as these, who endures? The person whose statue was carved, or the work of the sculptor whose ability enabled it? (See this picture drawn by my friend, of a statue)

Is it the Artist or the Object of the Art who endures?

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Image by Suresh (SureshSketches)

It isn’t hard to imagine the artist with a philosophical bent of mind when one sees the thousands of head busts carved out of stone. The busts themselves may be of emperors and powerful men, but they were carved by the skilled artisans who were not all famous. I’d like to imagine that the artisan who carved Caligula’s head had his laugh by secretly carving a statue of Caligula’s favorite horse, Incitatus. (Incitatus was made a senator, and was granted a place at the royal dinner table. ) Claudius, the one everyone assumed to be the local fool turned out to the successor to Caligula in the end. His head bust stands right next to Caligula’s in the hall of head busts in the Uffizi gallery.

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So, who endures and who doesn’t? It was Claudius’ writing that showed us all about the dangerous, mad tyranny of Caligula after all. ( The book, I, Claudius by Robert Graves is an excellent peek into Ancient Rome)

Walking past the arrays of the head statues, I could not help thinking of the Tamil poem by Bharathiyar that the husband quotes often:

Pirappal pala pizhaigal seidhu …
narai koodi kizhaparuvam eidhi …
Verum kootrukku eraiyagum pala vedikkai manidharai polae
Naanum vizhuvaen endru ninaithaayo?

“பிரப்பால் பல பிழைகல் செய்து
நரை கூடிக் கிழப்பருவ மெய்தி
கொடுங் கூற்றுக் கிரையெனப்பின் மாயும்
பல வேடிக்கை மனிதரைப் போலே
நானும் விழுவேன் என்று நினைதாயொ?”

Loosely translated it means:
Did you think I too would live the life that wracks ordinary human beings?
That I would sport grey hair, grow old, be small enough to talk pettily about people, and fall at the hands of fate?

The angst that has wracked mankind for centuries is apparent in the poem, and in the head busts and portraits by which I was surrounded. So, what is it we hope to leave as our legacy and for whom? We should aspire to be a thread holding the tapestry of life together while alive, but beyond it, what do we crave?

After the 160th picture of non-smiling faces, 100 head busts, and the n-th depiction of the crucifixion and the nativity scene, I knew what we craved for: Gelato.

“Before we go though, let’s go to the next floor. There is a gallery of musical instruments of the time.” said the husband. The children groaned, but I was intrigued. Music is a beautiful anthropological constant. We even sent a recording of whale song, Beethoven, Bulgarian folksongs and so much more on  the Golden Record  when we sent it out into space aboard the Voyager. NASA did not want to waste the space, but Carl Sagan, saw the poetic touch to it. The need for space exploration was to learn and connect, and what better mode to connect than through music?

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The image of a man playing the harp in a city square, as people walked by tingled in my brain, and I rose happily, urging the children on. “That man playing a harp could be from the 12th century or the 16th or the present. How beautiful is that?” I said to musical groans.

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After we climbed up the flight of steep stairs, however, we found ourselves peeking into another floor of more paintings. I looked around confused. The husband pointed to the sign there: Piano Secondo:

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‘Piano’ in Italian means ‘Floor’, and not a collection of pianos. He looked sheepish, but happy to be the person who relieved the tension, and off we went in an indecent hurry looking for gelato. Anthropological musings and existential angst can wait, Gelato cannot.

The Anthropological Note – Bonjourna

Traveling from the US to any other continent is different. Continents with older civilizations hold an anthropological charm, and a cry to learn from History. Setting foot in the first city on our Italian holiday, Rome, I could palpably feel everything we have heard about Rome ringing in my years.

All roads lead to Rome
When in Rome, be a Roman
Rome was not built in a day

The Great Roman empire, Remus and Romulus fed by a wolf. An Italian Sojourn was unfolding, and I was filled with the milk of human kindness as we made our way to the first place of stay.

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Ruins in the middle of the city – Roman Forum. A pathway over 2000 years old!

Rattling along in the taxi from Rome airport to our place of stay nearer to the tourist spots, our driver was helpful. He gave us tips on places to see, and warned us about staying away from the railway stations at night. “Many people gather there, poor people, people from other countries, it can sometimes be , eh, dangerous for tourists.” he said in his thick Italian accent. I grew to love the tune with which Italians spoke English. “Italy now, there are no jobs enough for Italians, where will these other people find jobs? But they have no place to go, no work to do also.” he said sadly.

It was a sentiment that is commonly heard across Europe these days. Across Italy and Ireland, I heard variants of the same thing: The human heart that wants to share and welcome has to work hard to find the resources to aid all. It is easier for people to take to cynicism, nationalism and protectionism.  The refugee crises has peaked because of religious tensions, economic collapse, tyrannical governments – Rohingya, Syria. Millions are being displaced (Source UNHCR) without any shot at livelihood, and this will have consequences to a planet already stretched to its limits.

Do We Belong On Earth Blog Series

Travel as a Political Act by Rick Steves is a good book to read in this context. It is a book of short essays based on his travels to the countries of turmoil. Israel-Palestine border, Serbia-Herzegovina, Syria, Iran, Honduras.

You can watch the video here

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Traveling makes me think of Mark Twain’s quote:
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

A broad, wholesome, charitable view of men is all well when things are going well, and when one as a traveler or tourist is sublimely soaking in another culture, being helped by strangers and so on. I have to admit though, that I had difficulty summoning up charitable views of men when I had my purse stolen a few days later. I was sore at the end of a weeklong journey, and I swore at the pickpocket who stole my purse. Charitable view forsooth!

But, it too taught me something. I had ignored the pater’s teaching about splitting your assets and had stupidly taken all my credit cards together. That learning came with a cold lesson( a painful 6 hour wait in the whipping winds outside the DMV.) Another post for another day.

 

In the Land of Dreams

I often have the privilege of reading books that require re-reading, thinking passively about the book every now and then, and then re-open and rekindle the feelings of the first reading, thereby making it a layered experience. Every once in a while, I find myself in the extremely fortunate position of having read several such books at once or in close proximity, and though the next set of books are no less interesting to the brain, I am stuck re-reading sections of the ones I have read.

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A picture of a man sitting and reading in a park

2018 was a year that started off on a promising note, and went on to delight and stretch my reading in all directions. In over 100 books, there are a few that I really did want to share. The links to the nourish-n-cherish articles in the brackets)

While I enjoy all forms of reading , and happily wade through tomes, fiction and non-fiction alike, the ones that truly uplift my spirit are Children’s books. Whether it is the magnificent imagination at work, or the illustrations, or the simple act of making one think deeply with the minimum of words, I cannot tell, but I feel a soaring of spirit every time I pick up a children’s book. A few notable ones in 2018 that I would happily pick up again to read are:

  • Louis I, King of Sheep – by Olivier Tallec
  • Here we are – Oliver Jeffers
  • Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes – Eleanor Coerr (The Cranes of Hope)
  • One Fun Day with Lewis Carroll – Kathleen Krull and Julia Sarda (Zephyr Tales)
  • Wangari Maathai – Green Belt Movement
  • Counting on Katherine – By Helene Becker and Dow Phumiruk (To All Astrophiles)
  • A Symphony of Whales – Steve Schuch

To enable all of this reading, one must have a frame of mind that works out the curious and whimsical muscle of the brain. So, of course, I had a healthy dose of P.G.Wodehouse, Miss Read, Gerald Durrell and R.K.Narayan mixed in to all of this.

Here is to another year of varied and marvelous reading.

Happy New Year!

The Domestic Explorer

There are things every explorer wants to do. Whether it is as drastic as Thoreau spending 2 years, 2 months and 2 days in a cabin in the woods, or Kate Harris finding herself in the process of exploring the Silk Road, there are aspirations for us to reach that state of mind where we can look past the hustle and the bustle of our daily lives. A form of reflection that one gets to experience once in a while, but has no idea how to sustain. (At least I have had no luck at it.)

Quote from Lands of Lost Borders:

“I’m not sure where I go when I spin wheels for hours on end like that, except into the rapture of doing nothing deeply.”

I think Kate Harris’s moving, poignant, lyrical, poetic, beautiful meditations on being, belonging, and living is well on it’s way to becoming one of my favorites. I have re-read sections of it soon after finishing it. Hers is a marvelous mind (I am grateful she penned her thoughts and found a publisher for us to enjoy). It does make me wonder sometimes how many others there are out there, who have similarly exalted thought processes, a Being larger than being squashed into narrow compartments that we seem to slot ourselves into: A Higher Order Thinker.

Kate Harris’s work is one for every traveler’s soul. Every body who has ever dreamed of adventures, ever dreamt of being bigger than your circumstances, hers is an invitation to sample what is possible. For everyone who is unable to sample the world with all its worries and problems, Lands of Lost Borders is there.

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The author writes of her journey across the oldest and possibly most famous road in the World, The Silk Route. Wanting to lose herself in the other worldly, she lands up finding herself on the oldest roads known to civilization.

Along with her friend Mel, the two women cycle through Turkey, the Stan-countries after Russia’s disintegration (Turkemistan, Kyrgystan, Uzbekistan), China, Tibet, Nepal and finally India – camping along the way, accepting the kind hospitality of friends and strangers along the way, navigating authorities, paper work and visa restrictions that make us want to throw our hands up in despair. A true voice of an explorer.

Her voracious reading sparkles in the form of quotations and anecdotes – Carl Sagan, Marco Polo, Charles Darwin, Russell Harris, Wright brothers are all in attendance adding their rich experience to the journey. Her clear heart blurs borders while sizing up people. Sitting up in bed with the wind roaring outside, the rains lashing, it is bliss indeed to pedal relentlessly through the high mountains, past lakes, punishing deserts and sketchy neighborhoods. Two women alone in an alien world.

As she quotes every so often,

“Every explorer dies of heartbreak.”

This is one of those books that will stay with me for a long time. I had the privilege of reading this book alongside another of Miss Read’s comfortable, cozy book. This book of travel and adventure was the perfect pairing to the domestic pleasures that a Miss Read book conjures up.

In Miss Clare Remembers, Miss Read writes about a young child of 8 or 9, who was excited and flushed after seeing the snowdrops when they went out on a school nature walk. Afterwards inside the home of the local farmer, where the farmer’s wife had kindly laid out biscuits, milk and cut fruit for the hungry children, she realizes how much she requires both pleasures in order to thrive. With a clairvoyance that children sometimes possess, she appreciates the vast spaces that nature provided for her soul to soar; and the cozy domestic pleasures where she can feel nurtured and at home. A safe haven from her flights of adventure.

Quote from Emily Davis – By Miss Read:

“One was her nest. The other was the place in which she stretched her wings, and soared, as effortlessly as the lark outside, into a different dimension.”

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I felt that way while reading the Lands of Lost Borders together with a Miss Read book. I savored the stars kindly drawing the constellations out for the explorers to reach out to every night; as much as I enjoyed the domestic problems of a normal life. Ensconced in the modern comforts of living, reading both the books in parallel left me with a deeply delighted sense of having both adventure and comfort, and feeling grateful for it.

I am not sure my blogs can do justice to the books, but it seems a perfect way to begin winding down the year.

The Book of Kells

I was intrigued to see the book that Dublin is so proud of, and I wasn’t disappointed. Walking through the rain-washed squares of Trinity College, past all the students and tourists milling about the campus, I walked into the Trinity College Old Library to see the much talked about Book of Kells. Written about 800 years ago by at least 6 different scribes, it is reputedly the oldest book in existence in its original format. It was probably written at a monastery similar to the one below by monks.

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I was all agog to see the Book of Kells, rose early and off I went with nothing but 3 eggs, 2 pieces of toast with butter and blackberry currants jam, 3 cups of tea, some fruit, a spot of yogurt and some freshly squeezed fruit smoothie in me. (European hotels really do have the best continental breakfasts in the world. Try as I might, I could not get them to feed me less. Please can I have just 1 egg, nothing else, I’d say. “Just a leetel beet of vegetables on the side.” they’d say, and soon a tray bearing a couple of fried eggs, mushrooms, spinach, baked beans and toasts accompanying the eggs appeared behind a tottering waiter with a benevolent smile.)

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Anyway, the Book of Kells has scholars poring over its pages, art historians and critics study the dyes used for the illustrations in the book, and the book does look elegant. The letters were different, probably Celtic letters at the time, and the lettering had a calligraphic touch to it that we seem to have lost in the world of keyboards. What the book is about is, I guessed, derived more from the artful illustrations rather than the prose.

While it was inspiring to see writing as early as all that, I was not wholly prepared for how it made me feel later on.

Days later while walking down the streets, I’d recognize some rune from the Book of Kells or something similar looking displayed on the shop fronts, and feel a little strange. How ephemeral are our lives and its influences? Even the greatest works of the times, mean so little now. And only one book survived the times. What about the rest of the books written at that time?

So many languages fade away taking with it, another chunk of literary history forever with it. The thirukkurals in Tamil have had a good run so far.

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What writing will stand the tests of time, and which ones would not? What does it say about the writer who started with the intention of writing about the lofty Books of Kells and wrote instead of the fantastic breakfast she tucked into her stomach? Given how ephemeral even our inscribed works are, shouldn’t we have a little less ego, a little less lust for power, and little more acceptance of our state of being?

I mused on our social media presences. The place most avid users go to share our thoughts and feelings. Maybe we are subconsciously evaluating every thought that flits in like fluffy clouds on a bright day, taking a pulse of our feelings.  What of thoughts not shared, and if thoughts trigger feelings, will the absence of thought then remove suffering, but then what is the state of being?

Maybe that is why the old Eastern philosophers taught us to calm our minds. Ursula Le Guin’s quote comes to mind:

“Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy? I don’t know if our life has a purpose and I don’t see that it matters. What does matter is that we’re a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass.”

I like my spot of writing even if sometimes I have muddled things up a little more by the end of it all.

The Elephant Keeper 

I had been on a short trip to a Green island staying at a Purple hotel with White Christmas decorations in a city center. While there, I decided to make the most of it, and hopped on a tour bus to take in the sights of Ireland. It had been a dry few months in … Continue reading “The Elephant Keeper “

I had been on a short trip to a Green island staying at a Purple hotel with White Christmas decorations in a city center. While there, I decided to make the most of it, and hopped on a tour bus to take in the sights of Ireland.

It has been a while since I went meandering off on my own. As I boarded the day trip for Wicklow mountains and Glendalough lakes, that wily Master of Doubt was trying to work his way into the old brain stand, and I was becoming a little unsure. Most people had come with at least 1 travel companion. I saw the knots of people comfortable in their own little groups as we waited for the bus to come and pick us up.  I wondered whether I shall be alone. Not that it mattered much since I had a book about a jolly esoteric family to keep me company on the trip.

Sitting tentatively in the van, I was reading The Garden of the Gods by Gerald Durrell on the kindle. I giggled before I could help it. I was peeking out at the passing scenery every now and then, and imagining the little household at Corfu. The author, Gerald Durrell, then a boy, lived with his ‘Family and Other Animals’ in the island of Corfu. A budding naturalist, his boyhood is a most interesting one in which no living creature escapes his admiration. His bedroom plays hosts to barn owls, field rats, bats, along with the more traditional form of pets such as cats and dogs. He also has a donkey named Sally, and I could not help laughing at the resulting antics this menagerie produced with his esoteric family.

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The Corfu Trilogy is set in the island of Corfu, and since I read each book in the series a few months apart, it was most satisfying.

I could barely believe that it was possible for somebody to live the way he described it. The Universe is not always kind to doubting dunlins, but this time it was.  Within the hour, I was to meet someone whose life was remarkably like the one I had just read about.

The tour bus dropped the folks who had opted to spend time at a Garden. Only two of us had opted for a hike instead of an amble around the Gardens to the dismay of the tour guide. The look we exchanged affirmed that we would be far happier being buffeted by the roaring winds, and gazing longingly at the rolling hills around us. I recognized a kindred nature loving spirit in her, and soon we got walking and talking.

As we loped up the trail with an enthusiastic whoop, she told me a little bit about herself, and I was so glad she did. She loved animals, she said, and lived in a home teeming with pets. I truly did not believe that Gerald Durrell’s family was possible, much as I loved reading his books. But her answer astounded me. She said they had a donkey, 2 geese, 2 cats, 2 dogs and 12 hens. Her business trip was the most interesting one I have heard to date. She worked as an Elephant Keeper in a Zoo in Holland. She was here, she said, on an week-long program to work at the Dublin zoo’s Elephant department, but would be going back to her own zoo at the end of the week.

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I told her that the children would love to meet her, and she nodded understandingly. Looking at the excitement of their mother, she very kindly sent me some pictures and videos of the animals she worked with in her work spot.  She too had come alone, and the pair of us spent the whole day together – on windy hillsides, amidst towers and remnants of castles looking like giant rooks and bishops on a chess board.

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I was so glad that my earlier doubts had not stopped me from having a wonderful day: the serendipity of finding companionship, the beauty of learning of another way of life, and above all, the opportunity of shaking oneself out of the familiar and the tried and tested.

The universe finds a way of showing us the rainbow if only we stick with the rain.

Boarding the Flight of Fancy

A version of this post was published in The India Currents Magazine: On a Flight to a Land Without Borders

I boarded the flight at the end of a long week. I was going to be away for a week, and I had spent weeks trying to get things in order for the week I was gone. It felt good to finally stretch one’s legs (as much as an economy seat would allow anyway), relax one’s senses, and stretch one’s mind.

The flight was strangely beautiful. It left in the evening, and as it took off, I left behind a sparkling firework of lights. The vast, urban sprawling city and surrounding areas looked kindlier from above. The freeways glowed like veins throbbing with cars as they crammed their way home for the week-end along the packed highways. I have watched ants with interest as they scurry about their daily duties and I felt we must look the same if someone were to be observing us. Maybe those monitoring satellites do have the feeling every now and then.

Bay area at night is beautiful from an airplane, however else it feels when one is on the road.

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I fell into an uneasy slumber once we passed the populated sections and darkness fell. I looked out the window hours later, to be pleasantly surprised by the beauty that greeted me. The plane was gently reverberating with the satisfied sighs of sleep from most passengers. A few were watching the brightly glowing screens. I peered out of the window, at first unable to see anything since my eyes took some time adjusting to the sudden lack of light. Once I did though, it was marvelous.

I have always loved gazing at the moon while traveling. The feeling of us moving, and our beautiful cosmic neighbor giving us company even though we are moving so fast is surreal.

I could not see the moon just yet, but I recognized the belt of Orion. We were flying along side the big hunter as he made his way in his pursuit of the seven sisters across the skies. It is a strange feeling to watch the stars and a familiar constellation accompany us on the trip while we journey through the stars.

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The Pale Blue Dot, as Carl Sagan so beautifully christened our lovely, if sometimes crazy planet, seems wonderful from high above. It helps us forget how judgmental, critical, harsh and war-mongering a species we are. While up there, borders and countries seem like a strange concept, like a tiger marking its territory. Can the tiger determine where life can flourish, where the weeds grow, or how many gusts of wind may swish through the bamboo groves? Our borders mean much the same especially when surveyed from the stratosphere: Meaningless asks from an arbitrary marking.

Musings from the wonderful book, Lands of Lost Borders by Kate Harris, took me to an uneasy land of half slumber in which strange dreams accompanied unknown stars through a flight that even a 150 years ago was nothing but a flight of fancy. Kate Harris’s work is one for every traveler’s soul.

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I got up to see the moon looking slightly alarmed at still being up and about when the sun was rising. The pink, and orange skies twinkled benignly upon the clouds below, and all the world was still full of promise and expectant. The blush of joys unknown.

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