Books – Page 33 – Nourish-n-Cherish

Biophilia

Oh! What a surprise amma?! The book, Nature’s Fix appeals to you.” said the daughter peals of laughter barely concealed in the sentence.

“I know right?! I always keep an open mind to see how else I can improve, my dear!” I said not to be undone in the sarcasm department.

“You are cooped up in a dull office building in the bustling city – you need a change. I get it! But I am quite happy and young enough to not ‘stretch my limbs’ in nature walks! Nature kook is what you are! I suppose you will now use bits of the books to convince us to come on walks with you. I’ve got homework to do, bye! ” said she mock-straining at my tug to come on a walk with me. But she came.

As we walked around our neighborhood, watching the leaves slowly turn colors, birds making their way home against the brilliant sunset, children playing and biking, I felt calm. How much of that was due to the fact that I could take the time for a walk at the end of the day, and how much of it was Nature’s work, I am unable to say, but I felt a wonderful shiver as I watched the evening breeze rustle through the large trees in the neighborhood. Slowly, as I watch the wave of leaves tremble in the wind, some of them shaking loose, and others just swaying to the orchestra of the evening, there is a definite sense of belonging to this wonderful planet.

As I move around the office or often when I am walking to and from work in the city, I feel a concrete shudder. We are so proud of concrete as a structural material, we pour it everywhere. I feel a lonely stab when I see our gleaming imperfections reflected back to us in the gleaming glass panes of the concrete structures. Even the trees on our city sidewalks seem to be lonely, surrounded by concrete footpaths, and millions of people jostling by them everyday.

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The book, The Nature Fix by Florence Williams, details studies taken up in Japan and South Korea around the effects of nature. It studies blood pressure, release of how long the effects of nature remain with us – does it only last as long as we are with nature, or does a weekly hike contribute to our wellness over a period of time? More interesting questions such as these are handled in the book.

I was lured into the book reading about the concept of Shinrin Yoku & Salim Yok(Forest bathing in Japanese & Korean respectively) The Japanese are also probably the only people in the world who have a word for commute hell – Tsukin Jigoku.

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Excerpt:

Study in the Nippon Medical School:

Qing Li is interested in nature’s effect on mood states and stress as manifested in the human immune system, Specifically, he studies natural killer immune cells called NK, which protect us from disease agents and can, like cortisol and hemoglobin, be reliably measured in a laboratory.

Only in 2016 did we officially became an urban species – for the first time, population in cities outnumbered population in rural areas. As we cluster around in larger numbers, it is even more important to study the effects of nature on ourselves. After all, our biophilia has evolved over millennia and this abrupt change from it is bound to bring changes in the ways we can adapt.

Biophilia | Definition of Biophilia by Merriam-Webster

Definition of biophilia. : a hypothetical human tendency to interact or be closely associated with other forms of life in nature.

Is Nature the next wave after Meditation, Exercise and Organic Foods?

There have been days when I have wondered how the children found out whether I indulged in a spot of meditation. 🧘‍♀️ 🧘‍♀️ I might have, but did they find out because I had taken the time to meditate and therefore already in a better mood, or did the meditation itself help with specific stressors? Nature studies have similar questions, though I am truly grateful for its personal influence on our well-being. Whether it is because of my beliefs or something else, Nature soothes.

The joy and importance of walking – Solvitur Ambulando – It is Solved by Walking

Moonbeams in the Morning

The morning alarm trinkled: Dawn’s misty summons. I got up, wondering why the nights passed so quickly, hoping for a little more precious sleep in the mornings. I stepped out of my bed and gingerly peeked out the window. Dawn was doing the same thing – trying to sleep in a little more, while the moon shone high above the tree tops, bathing the surrounding clouds in a magical shroud of moonbeams. The dew drops on the trees glistened in the same benign light. I stood there shivering a little for the night temperatures had dipped, and there had been a mild drizzle.

The moon is there every night, the sun rises every morning, and yet the moments of quietly standing there before the hustle and bustle of our days started made me appreciate everything a little more sharply. When the son woke up, I held a finger to my lips not ready to start talking just yet, and made him peek out at the fine moon too. His eyes widened a little at the beauty of the morning, dew drops, trees, clouds and the moon. He chattered in his bright tones that sent the waves of sleep flying from him, “Did you know? We may not be able to enjoy the view of the moon for very much longer?”

“Why?” I asked in spite of myself.

“Well… we are already working on building colonies on the moon. Soon, the moon will be full of houses just like ours, and then who knows how the moon will look from here?”

“Who told you that?”

“No one!”

“Okay….where did you read that?” So much for quiet mornings bathed in contemplation.

“In the Time for Kids magazine. It seems we are already planning on moving there.” he said a tinge worried that I hadn’t received his original memo in my sleep addled state.

“Well…for all the things we have built on Earth, from outer space, it still looks beautiful you know? Maybe it will be the same for the moon. Although, I am not sure I am happy with the idea of looking in on someone’s home like that. Wouldn’t it be creepy?!”

He laughed.

I was reminded of the essay by Oliver Sacks in the book, Everything in its Place: Who Else Is Out There?

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In it, he starts with his thoughts on the book, First Man on the Moon by H.G.Wells.
Anybody Out There?- Oliver Sacks essay
“One of the first books I read as a boy was H.G.Wells First Man on the Moon. The two men, Cavon & Bedford lie in an apparently barren and lifeless crater just before the lunar dawn. Then as the sun rises, they realize there is an atmosphere – they spot small pools and eddies of water, and then little round objects scattered on the ground. One of these , as it is warmed by the sun, bursts open and reveals a sliver of green.’A seed! “says Cavor, and then, very softly, says ‘Life!”.They light a piece of paper and throw it into the surface of the moon. It glows and sends up a thread of smoke indicating that there is oxygen.
This was how Wells conceived the prerequisites of life: water, sunlight (a source of energy), and oxygen. “A Lunar Morning” was my first introduction to astrobiology.”

While it is interesting for us to dream of conquering alien worlds and expanding our footprint with habitable planets, such as K2-18b circling a red star called M Dwarf; it is also highly interesting to see that even on Earth that is our original home, we require a very specific set of circumstances for our life to thrive. We need our oxygen levels to be exactly right, our carbon dioxide levels to not rise too much, we need our microbiomes to be in a particular state of harmony with the larger ecosystem.

Read: Good Food Mood

Take for instance, this excerpt from cosmonaut Alexei Leonov – the first man to walk in space for 12 minutes. Excerpt :
“I decided to drop the pressure inside the suit … knowing all the while that I would reach the threshold of nitrogen boiling in my blood, but I had no choice” Leonov said

I enjoyed Oliver Sacks’ footnote, for in one sentence, it reconciled both the resilience and delicate nature of our entire species.

“If Wells envisaged the beginning of life in the The First Man on the Moon, he envisaged its ending in The War of the Worlds. where the Martians, confronting increasing desiccation an loss of atmosphere on their own planet, make a desperate bid to take over the Earth (only to perish from infection by terrestrial bacteria). Wells, who had trained as a biologist, was very aware of the both the toughness and the vulnerability of life.”

How many species have left behind their fleeting impressions on the cosmic playground? Our own are laughably recent. Will the Quod-liop-tukutuk-sfaunusaurus call us by the same name when they dig up our remnants millennia from now?

Books:
The First Man on the Moon : H.G.Wells
War of the Worlds : H.G.Wells
Astronaut Alexei Leonov: First Man to Space Walk
Everything in its Place : Oliver Sacks

Running like Elephants

“Guys! Let’s hurry up a little. I like how we are dawdling, but the school bell waits for no ships to sail across the seas! ” I said. There had been a mild spattering of rain across the dry summer season. A few snails had popped out to enjoy the moist, and the son and his friends were looking at them as they chatted and made their way to school. Rain drops on the late summer roses and oleander flowers made the scene a rather endearing one.

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The response from the children was predictable – they ran, and I ran shouting like a charioteer pulling the reins on the excited steeds, “Slow down! No running here – oncoming traffic!”
“But you asked us to hurry up!”
“Yes – run like Elephants!” I said.

I had told the children earlier about the Elephant’s gait, and they exchanged glances and started laughing. The snail they were studying looked startled and showed a leap of speed as it made its way back to the comfort of the garden bed.

Is this walking? *giggle*
Is this running? *giggle giggle*
Is this fast walking? * giggle giggle giputly duggle*
Is this slow running? *giggle puddle chuckle duffle*

I smiled slowly. “Pretend you are Elephants teaching Snails to run.”

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I suppose that was a wrong metaphor altogether. By the time we arrived in the school, not only were we out of breath with the laughing, but we were also fashionably disconcerted. The legs seem to not remember how to walk straight or run properly, and were caught in this limbo of the Elephant’s Gait.

Later that week, I was sitting in the garden and watching the world go about its true business of living. I watched a hummingbird’s fast-paced wing movements up in the trees. A few butterflies were flitting hither and tither. A skein of geese were flying overhead in that beautiful v-shaped formation. Closer to the ground, a few snails were marking their slow way across the courtyard.

This combination of sitting in a garden, and watching life flit by had me take a hundred pictures with my phone. Pictures that may or may not be seen and appreciated again. I could capture the slow motion video of the humming bird whizzing up above or the butterflies in my midst. I could use time-lapse videos to capture the slow moving snails and a dozen pictures to capture the beautiful movement of the caterpillars.

As I sat there musing on the ease with which we capture movement these days, I could not help comparing and contrasting humanity’s struggle to capture that. I remember yawning in the Art galleries after seeing the n-th painting of a horse or the x-th statue of a horse drawn chariot.

But as I sat there that afternoon, I wondered whether I had appreciated them enough. After all, at the time of their making, studying movement was not all easy. One had to have an almost eidetic memory to understand the muscles and the way they moved.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s work is appreciated because of the lengths he went to study the anatomy of the creatures in his works. 300 years ago, movement must have been particularly hard to study.

In Oliver Sacks’ essay on Elephant Gaits in the book, Everything in its Place, he writes about the problem of studying movement.

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More than a century ago, Etienne-Jules Marey had made a pioneering investigation of elephant gaits. Of course, he did not use video analysis then, but still photography. I quote: “Marey’s lifelong fascination with movement started with the internal movements and processes of the body. He had been a pioneer here, inventing pulse meters, blood pressure graphings and heart tracings – ingenious precursors to the mechanical instruments used in Medicine even today. ”

Later, he moved onto the animal movements and analysis.
“For animal analysis he used pressure gauges, rubber tubes, and graphic recordings to measure the movements and positions of limbs. From these recordings, he rotated in a zoetrope, reconstructing in slow motion the movements of the horse.”

Muybridge, a contemporary of Marey, however, a peripatetic artist as Sacks describes him used 24 cameras along a track where the shutter would be tripped by the horses themselves as they galloped past to capture the movements of the horse as they raced.

When a similar technique was used to analyze the fast movement of elephants, it was found that they neither walked nor ran, but rather a combination known as fast walking.

I remember a long ago conversation with a friend who was training for a marathon on the more recent study of leopards running, and how he had changed his running technique to take a few tips from the world’s fastest runner.

As we watch the world around us, I wish different creatures could teach us some of their marvelous techniques. The dragonfly and the humming bird for flight; mallards and coots for water locomotion. Doesn’t Biomimicry as a field of study sound more fascinating than ever before? I positively yearn to be Dr John Dolittle at times!

Books/Articles to be read/referenced in this post:

Everything in its Place – Oliver Sacks
Picturing Time – Marta Braun
River of Shadows: Rebecca Solnit
Voyages of Dr Dolittle – Hugh Lofting
Elephant’s Gait.
Leonardo Da Vinci – Gates Notes

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Horse

The husband was wearing a red t-shirt that had Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawing on it, that said, Simplicity is the ultimate Sophistication.

He was particularly fond of the t-shirt, especially as he was reading the biography of the great man.

“Be like Leonardo Da Vinci guys. Be simple and eh… persistent.”, I said.

“Oh! I don’t know about that! Did you know about Leonardo Da Vinci’s horse? “, said the husband. He was reading the biography of Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson, which is to say we almost read it. The book is a lengthy one, and as he made his way through it, he shared tidbits of things that fascinated him.

Time has probably been kind to the memory of Leonardo Da Vinci. Most of us only seem to be remember his genius in art, his legendary stature as a polymath, he said. The husband chuckled as he read and told us about Walter Isaacson’s portrayal of him – a tempestuous man who often did not complete the commissions given to him. Leonardo Da Vinci’s horse is an excellent example.

He then went on to relate the tale to much mirth and chuckling from the children. Apparently, what was commissioned to him was to build an epic statue of the Duke’s son riding a horse. He then went off to live on a farm, to study horses. The farm life yielded a treatise – an unpublished book, on different kinds of horses, equine surgeries to understand horse anatomy etc. He had originally planned to create a statue of a rearing horse.

This is an image that is much popular in the art forms at Italy, I remembered. The raw power of a horse rearing up on its hind legs is both attractive and magnetic. I am not sure how riders feel when they are about to be bucked off, but it makes for good Art. The prince would have to look brave while clinging onto dear life.

Study_for_the_Sforza_Monument — Abandoned Design. Image Courtesy: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59580

Anyway, after a few years studying horses, their physiology, their movements etc, he started developing models for his statue. Clay, lead and bronze made its way from the armies to Da Vinci for his great statue. Then, he figured that the greatest statue of the magnitude he had in mind would not be supported by the hind legs structurally, and he went on to make it a standing horse. The prince riding the horse resplendently was forgotten!

These things took time, but it did not seem to perturb him. His sponsors may have been antsy, the bronze supplies may have been running low, the armies getting fidgety with not having enough new armor, but that was their problem, seemed to be his opinion.

In time, a large clay model of a beautiful horse may its way for the Duke’s inspection. The model won Da Vinci much critical acclaim. It truly was beautiful. If the Duke was slightly upset about not seeing his son on the horse, he did not show it. The royalty raise their children well.

Soon, war broke out, and no longer could his rich patron commission bronze and lead to be diverted to the most magnificent horse statue of all time. The clay model was put up in Milan, and was used as target practice by the young lads joining the army.

“But isn’t there a big horse in Milan or Florence? Da Vinci’s horse? I remember seeing a picture somewhere.” said I.

“Yes, but that was not done by him. Years later, somebody else finished it. “, said the husband.

By now, we were all laughing.

“What is remarkable is his insatiable curiosity and creativity however, and though he went off down rabbit holes, it was from a deep motivation to understand the world around him “, said the husband.

“These days it is so easy to take a picture of a horse, model it, and run a simulation for structural evaluations. We sometimes forget how hard studying movement must have been!” I said, remembering the essay by Oliver Sacks on the Elephant’s Gait, in the book, Everything in its Place.

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He writes about how more than a century ago, Etienne-Jules Marey & Eadward Muybridge pioneered the study of animals running using 24 cameras along a track where the shutter would be tripped by the horses themselves as they galloped past to capture the movements of the horse as they raced.

Persistence comes in various forms, we all agreed. Muybridge and Marey were examples in a long list of people for whom a problem was intriguing enough to delve deeper and deeper into things that may or may not yield results.

But we never know the breakthroughs possible, and how things will change. That is why I am vary of futurists. A few centuries ago, to study the muscles straining for a horse running, one had to have an almost eidetic memory, along with a decent understanding of anatomy.

Today, photography has come so far as to allow us to snap a thousand pictures, take slow motion videos, and analyze everything from a butterfly flutter to the swift flying of hummingbirds. People are still extraordinarily creative with photography, and as long as we retain curiosity and creativity, I suppose we shall thrive.

The Art of Breathing

A colleague caught me mid breath one day. It was one of those days that butterflies would have looked on me with mixed emotions.

On the one hand with pride: When did this caterpillar learn to flit like this?

On the other hand with amused tolerance: The half-wit seems to be forgetting the sweet joy of collecting nectar amidst pretty bright flowers, with all the fast paced flitting. Forfeiting the sweet thing about flitting – tut tut! Flutter tutter utter nutter! (I am not high up on the poems caterpillars learn to sing about when still creepy crawlies; and the butterfly metaphor only goes so far!)

Anyway, it was one of the many days in which I flitted about the old work spot tasking, multi-tasking, sub-tasking, reminding others about their tasking, setting reminders for my own tasks and so on. Thoroughly immersed in my second self that Mary Oliver so succinctly calls the Social Self…yes, it was one of those days.

Mary Oliver’s, Upstream, is a book of many marvelous essays. The essay, Of Power and Time, talks about the three selves in many of us:

•The Child Self

•The Social Self &

•The Eternal Self.

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Though in the essay, Mary Oliver, refers to the Eternal Self as the artistic self, I like to interpret it as the Creative self.

• The Child Self is in us always, it never really leaves us.

• The second self is the social self. This is the do-er, the list maker, the planner, the executer.

• Then, there is the third self: the creative self, the dreamer, the wanderer.

T’was during one of these trying days that I remembered the deep breath technique my Yoga teachers had tried to teach me about. Take deep breaths, and concentrate on it filling your stomach, feel it coming in and out of your nostrils and so on. So, I started my deep breaths as I was walking from one meeting to another. Deep breath, exhale, deep breath, exhale and so on. I had thought no one watched, but one colleague caught me, and grinned. “That should be your GIF you know?” he said.

I nodded sheepishly, and went back to my brand of breath-less flitting within minutes.

Later that week-end I ran into this beautiful children’s book in the library. A book that was just waiting to be written. A beautiful capture of all the different types of breath, Alphabreaths

Written by : Christopher Willard (a clinical psychologist) & Rechtschaffen MA, Daniel (a counselor)

Illustrated by: Clifton-Brown

The book is a lovely read urging us to Breathe like a Dolphin taking a dive, or our favorite one, The Ninja Breath – silently and slowly. The illustrations too make for a marvelously relaxing read. Please check out their Youtube clip : here

Mindful breathing and Yoga are excellent concepts to teach the children, and I am always in awe of those who can take complex concepts and make them palatable for the consumption of young and old alike.

If you happen to come home and find the son and I swimming like dolphins or getting ready for a Star Trek mission on the floor while Yoga-ing along with the Cosmic Kids Yoga series by Jaime Amor , do not be alarmed. Her yoga videos are appealing and fun. If, along the way, we do something to calm ourselves down – then great, else, we have had a great time.

There are so many aspects to the Philosophy of Being (I am amused it has such a strictly medical sounding name: Ontology)

Ontology is the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being, and reading the Wikipedia page itself boggles my simple mind (A post on the Study of Philosophy is sitting up on its hind legs and begging to be written). Maybe, what is required is a Ninja Training on Ontology. Excerpt from the wiki page:

Such an understanding of ontological categories, however, is merely taxonomic, classificatory. Aristotle’s categories are the ways in which a being may be addressed simply as a being, such as:^[9]

what it is (its ‘whatness’, quiddity, haecceity or essence)
how it is (its ‘howness’ or qualitativeness)
how much it is (quantitativeness)
where it is (its relatedness to other beings)

*** Taking a Y for Yawning Breath before a Z for zzzz breath about now ****

Keeping ontological explanations aside, if The Nature of Being comes down to simple techniques of breath, fluidity and movement, it makes the simplicity behind it all brilliant.

It was one of those ‘Simple is brilliant’ types of quotes that I went looking for. I know many brilliant blokes and blokees have said marvelous things about simplicity -I know old Leonardo Da Vinci said something about it, so did old man, Einstein. In any case, looking for one of those made me fumble on this one by Norwegian explorer, Thor Heyerdahl.

From Wikipedia: Thor Heyerdahl became notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947, in which he sailed 8,000 km (5,000 mi) across the Pacific Ocean in a hand-built raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands. The expedition was designed to demonstrate that ancient people could have made long sea voyages, creating contacts between separate cultures.

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Continue reading “The Art of Breathing”

Music & Gardens

It is always a delight to pick up a set of essays written by prolific writers who are also curious intellectuals. These authors make me feel like I am reading the perspective of polymaths, and that in itself makes for a wondrous experience. The latest book that had me thinking and reading about things I had not thought about for a long time was the book, Everything In Its Place by Oliver Sacks.

Excerpt from Wikipedia:

Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE FRCP (9 July 1933 – 30 August 2015) was a British neurologist, naturalist, historian of science, and author. He believed that the brain is the “most incredible thing in the universe.”^[1]

He reminds us in broad strokes of his pen, the number of areas in which we can be curious. He reminds us about the vast capabilities of the human brain, even while reflecting on this particular author’s exceptional one. Reading about the brains many failings and flaws is both fascinating and eye-opening. (Oliver Sacks was a Neurologist who specialized in many neurological disorders, and writes from a place of curiosity and compassion for his patients).

His description of Tourette’s syndrome, for instance, certainly makes me think less critically of people I encounter on the public transit who have the need to shock the whole compartment with their absurd, rude and obnoxious statements, every few minutes. Sufferers of Tourette’s syndrome often find themselves cursing and shouting loudly, without being to help themselves. The shocked attention they gather seems to be the reward for their impulses.

He writes about a certain individual who exhibited severe symptoms in Vietnam and would make shocking exclamations in Vietnamese every now and then. But when he moved to the United States, his Tourette’s calmed down because people did not react as much as he thought they would in a country where his language was not understood.

I can now learn to see the person different from their symptoms, and for that I am grateful.

How can I not be fascinated as I read his sure voice confess that as a neurologist the only therapies he knows to work surely are Music & Gardens? I read his meditations on Why We Need Gardens and the words Biophilia and Hortophilia leap out and grab my attention. Nature is my soother, has always been my favorite soother, and it is refreshing to hear his perspective on the effect of nature.

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“Clearly, nature calls to something very deep in us. Biophilia, the love of nature and living things, is an essential part of the human condition. Hortophilia, the desire to interact with, manage, and tend nature is also deeply instilled in us. The role that nature plays in health and healing becomes even more critical for people working long days in windowless offices, for those living in city neighborhoods without access to green spaces, for children in city schools…..

The effects if nature’s qualities on health are only spiritual and emotional but physical and neurological, I have no doubt that they reflect deep changes in the brains physiology, and perhaps even its structure.”

As he says in one essay, his patients even in advanced states of dementia always look forward to an hour outside amidst nature, and not one of them has ever planted a sapling upside down when given a sapling. It is almost as if we intuitively know what to do and our learnings from time may fall away from us, but our affinity to nature will not.

In fact, he writes of one of his close friends, Lowell, who suffered from Tourette’s syndrome, that while hiking in the deserts of Arizona, his ticks and urges almost completely disappeared.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/05/27/oliver-sacks-gardens/ : Oliver Sacks

In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical “therapy” to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens

Children of Stories

Fresh smells of laundry detergent wafted up from the warm pile surrounding me on the bed. Despite the many piles that needed folding, I felt a strange sense of gratitude for a chore that allowed me to sit on the bed for a few minutes while folding them. (My commute doesn’t always accord me the ability to sit, my days are hectic, and my meals erratic – Yes! I was feeling benign and contented with this.)

Every time I sit with the laundry, my mind climbs the Faraway Tree. How often I think of Dame Wash-a-lot of the Magic Faraway Tree? I don’t have the satisfaction of pouring bucketfuls of water from my perch high above in the trees on certain heads, of course, but one cannot ask for everything in this world.

The son frisked onto the bed smelling like the fragrant soap in the bathroom after his long shower in which a number of valiant battles were fought.

Today’s battle was a long and strenuous one, but Iron Man had emerged victorious after throwing Thanos into the Deep Trench of Despair (I shudder to think of where I will actually find the action figure).

My own little Iron Man was full of the milk of human kindness that Tony Stark said was required in this world, and said “Shall I help?”

I thought for a moment, smiled at him, and said, “Sure, but I wish I could read with you though!”

“Okay, I’ll read to you,” said he and bounded out. He came back with a few picture books clutched in his hands.

His choice of books for the day were just what was required for a spot of laundry folding.

Pen – By Christopher Myer

My Pen, brings out what we wish we could do with our own imaginations. His pen fights battles, tucks elephants in tea cups, sails over imaginary oceans, captures gory wars while appealing to our humanity. The book is beautifully illustrated in black & white, and every now and then, the son stopped to show me a particularly appealing one, and we both admired the pictures.

His second book, A Child of Books by Oliver Jeffers, was an equally worthy choice. A child goes to to say how she likes to think of herself in terms of the books she has read.

This book reminded me of a book, B-O-O-K by David Miles and Illustrated by Natalie Hoops, that we look at every now and then. A beautiful meditation on the word, B-O-O-K. Every illustration takes us deeper and deeper into the different worlds books open up for us. The worlds that never really leave us, worlds that teach us something every time we enter it, worlds that refresh us just with the memory of it, worlds where we wish we can live in.

Dame Wash-a-lot smiled down at me from her treetop, and I giggled. The son looked quizzical and I told him about her character and how certain characters stay with you long after you stopped reading books about them. Dame Wash-a-lot who lives in the Magic Faraway Tree in the Enchanted Wood is there when I take care of the laundry; the silly Saucepan Man with his Pots and Pans is there when I am tumbling around with my own set of pots and pans in the kitchen; Moon Face is there when I see the benign face of the moon on the evenings I do myself the favor of raising my eyes heavenwards and admiring the moon muttering to myself about Ceraunophilia (love of the moon).

“Like my Avengers and super-heroes are there with me!” said the son.

“Dame Wash-a-lot would have socked Thanos with her soapy water with half the noise you made in there!” I said, and we dissolved into a fresh set of giggles again discussing the strange noises during the heat of the shower battles.

Maybe we are Children of Stories.

The laundry took double the time it usually takes, but how enjoyable the whole task became?!

The Animals Within

The evening was a beautiful one. The children played looking like little angels in the glowing sun, and I threw affectionate glances at the noise in the playground.

I was mooning about the streets admiring the shabby looks of late summer. The same hills that looked brown and uninviting in the distance during the day, now looked ravishing bathed in sunset’s golden glow. Little specks of clouds in the sky were blushing to different degrees. The purple, red, orange and pinks poufs flicked about looking snippy and sharp. The oleander trees and the crepe hyacinths lining the streets looked prettier than ever before.

The approaching week-end seemed inviting, promising in its possibilities: my outlook was cheerful; my spirits soaring with the multi-colored clouds up there; and no must-dos competed for attention in the old brain.

T’was after a little growl came from within that I stopped to wonder what was amiss. I had completely missed the making-dinner task at hand, and the growl was reminding me, that I had not just 1 growl from my stomach to contend with, but the whole family’s as well. The husband trundled in, the children trooped in to say hi, and I whisked them all off for a dinner outside.

‘Forgot to cook?!’ cackled the teenaged daughter, looking indulgent and proud that I was not being the conscientious cook, and filling her plate with healthy muck. “Didn’t the sunset fill you up?”

“It filled me spiritually my dear. I could not be fuller!”, said I patting my heart, “but the stomach still asks for its due, Alas! “ I said remembering a poem my mother-in-law often references about what an irascible taskmaster the stomach is. I always smile at the wisdom of the poem. Loosely translated, it means
“Oh stomach!
What an irascible creature you are!
I ask you to eat a lot at one meal, and you rebel, and push back saying you are full.
So, then I ask you to skip a meal, but that too wouldn’t do for you.
What a slave to your demands have I become?
It is very difficult to live with you!”

So, off we went to a Chinese restaurant in various states of hunger.

This is one of those places that believes in keeping you engaged while they prepare the food for you. In front of each was a sheet of paper containing the Chinese Zodiac Animals and their characteristics. We started off in typical fashion:
You are a monkey!
Really? A snake – ha!
How could you be a tiger?
I don’t want to be a pig!

For those who moon about on Friday evenings without considering the demands of the stomach, here is a tip: Don’t! Friday evenings beckon all mooners-about, and restaurants find themselves busier than usual that day. As we sat around with hunger gnawing at the insides, the sheet of paper telling us about our characters based on the year we were born in looked inviting. Soon, we started tabulating and cross-referencing the listed characteristics against the personalities in the family.

It is an interesting exercise, and really makes everyone stop and pause and think about oneself. There are characteristics that the whole family gave a miss to. There were some that we hoped we did not have, but found we did. There were others we hoped to have in a higher degree. The tabulations were derailed every now and then with questions such as “Why are hippos not there in the Chinese calendar?”, After going into habitats and biomes with glaring holes of knowledge, seeing as none of us had ever to China, we got the animals back on track.

The resulting diagnoses has us giggling uncontrollably:
“You are most like a rabbit, but also have the tongue of a dragon, and the heart of a pig!”
“Snake hissing and pouting maybe, while galloping like a horse, and snoring like an ox.”

It turned out that we churned out more fantastical creatures in that half hour than a whole mythological genre could in a book. “Imagine if these creatures were sitting in us, wouldn’t that be something?” I said.

inyo_20q

Humanity’s capacity to imagine strange and wonderful creatures has always been remarkable, though there are precious few creatures left for us to imagine. No one is bringing another Clara to our midst any time soon.

Clara the Hippopotamus – By Emily Arnold McCully

Clara the rhinoceros, was brought to Europe on a tour in the 18th century. No one had yet seen any of the creatures of the East, and had not even heard of such an animal. Clara became an instant darling of the masses – her gentle demeanor, her love of oranges and her sheer size endeared her to all those who had the privilege of seeing her. I can well imagine the wonder and curiosity such a creature brought to human society, and the number of children in whom the wonders of the natural world was rekindled. How many Gerald Durrells, who imagined the beautiful world of their family and other animals?

Image title
Rhinoceros Clara
Author
Jean-Baptiste Oudry
Copyright holder
PD

Today, we silently add more and more creatures to the endangered species list, watch in alarm as forest cover disappears and wait for magic to happen in our lives. Anthropologically, will we hear the news of a Middle Earth tucked away somewhere with hundreds of majestic creatures again?

Maybe one day, our space explorations will yield something. Till that day, we shall have to content ourselves with imagining the various creatures and creature traits within us.

Books:

Clara the Hippopotamus – By Emily Arnold McCully

My Family & Other Animals – By Gerald Durrell

Sketching Freedom

It fell to the teenaged daughter to keep her little brother and nephew in line during our forays into the forest. While they generally listened to her, they also enjoyed pulling her leg. Smarty pants that she is with me, it is sweet indeed to see her stumped by her little brothers. One such time when she was speechless, she said something wise and insightful. I looked at her with awe – “So, you finally got around to reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations I see!” I said beaming. Pride shone through my pores though I tried my best not to show it.

“Nope – still boring! Siri told me.” said she and laughed at my expression.

“Confucius, Buddha, Marcus Aurelius, and a thousand other philosophers in your Kindle, and you go for Siri?”

I shook my head and went off to do some philosophizing of my own. The walking philosopher if ever there was one. I walked into the sunset philosophizing, as I said.

Sunsets are beautiful things anywhere – enjoy them with a rustic feel, and they can be few things more poetic or romantic. That evening’s sunset had been particularly fruitful – it isn’t everyday that one gets to see a dozen peacocks take flight into the horizon, witness the chirp-filled fooling around of parrots, cuckoos and at least a dozen different kinds of birds, and encounter the folly of frogs skipping and narrowly avoiding one’s feet.

I traipsed indoors, happy with life, still rattling on about the beautiful image of the peacocks and parrots taking flight together in the evening light. “I wish I could be a bird sometimes! So Free!” I said, and walked straight into the trap.

“What is Freedom for you Amma?” said the daughter. She was sitting on the bed, looking happy and sketching.

“Well…errmm, eh?” After this coherent response, I decided something more was warranted and fumbled a bit more. ” Well…umm…it is the ability to be able to live without fear I suppose. ”

“So, is a free country a place where people aren’t scared?”

I paused – my answers were shaky. Why did I think birds were free? Because they could take to the skies when they wished? But they also take flight when startled or scared. Hmm. I have never been one of those lawyer types who could cover all angles, and espouse something that if examined from all angles will hold water. This needed thought.

So, I did the next best thing, and reached into the recesses of my teenage brain. I remember a song we used to sing at morning assembly in school, and a particular set of phrases that I liked at the time without fully realizing the impact of it all. It went something like this:
Blah Blah Blah-dee-blah
Blah Blah Blah-dee-blah
Freedom from Want & Fear
Freedom of Worship
Freedom of Speech & Thought
Blah-Blah-Blah

That was it. The husband said – “Hmm – good answer!” with the tone of one who wished he had thought of the answer himself.

Pretty soon, the discussion on Freedom took on multiple angles, and the whole family was there weighing in with their take on the concept of Freedom.

Is Freedom of Choice a thing?
What of the rules and laws required for a free society?
What about Freedom to Live? Is Immortality a worthy goal then? If so, is the opposite a freedom as well?
Freedom to Dream? Is there a limit on one’s dreams?

I remembered Trevor Noah’s narrative in Born a Crime on dreams,

“We tell people to follow their dreams, but you can only dream of what you can imagine, and, depending on where you come from, your imagination can be quite limited.”

Born_a_Crime_by_Trevor_Noah_(book_cover).jpg

The concept of our Imaginations being limited by our circumstances is an interesting and clairvoyant one. It got us discussing the dreams of women in far flung places like the toothless old lady we had met earlier that evening – what were her dreams for her life? In her book, Moment of Lift, Melinda Gates gives us a sneak peek into the lives of hard working women struggling in remote places. What were their dreams and ambitions? Do our dreams all follow Maslow’s triangle and what then for those who have reached the zenith – is there more at the end of it.

moment_of_lift

The daughter continued sketching looking strangely amused by the heated and fast pace at which Freedoms were galloping in the laid back villages of South India. It seemed to be the only thing galloping at the moment.

“So why do you ask about Freedoms my dear?” I asked.

“Oh, I was thinking of drawing a girl who was free, and I kept imagining a happy one. But free is not always happy, is it?!” said she.

I looked around at the serious faces of the gathered folks and burst out laughing. “Really! Gotten us arguing on freedom to dream and imaginations and the Lord knows what else. You sketched us all having a good go I suppose – Well, my dear, what did Wise Siri tell you that Freedom was?” I said

She laughed raucously, and swished her long hair freely.

“Show us what you’ve got and we’ll see which face looks Free!” I picked two random ones from the 5 or 6 she showed us.

Which one looks free?

Galactic Plumes

I had been mooning about the fields outside in the village where we stayed near Topslip National Forest. People told me to be careful about venturing out far – “There are Elephants nearby, and they love the fields. “, they said emphasizing the word, Elephants. My eyes lit up. The villagers exchanged looks that doubted my sanity and hurried on, “It isn’t Good seeing Elephants in the fields – you never know what they will do. If you hear fire crackers in the distance, come straight back here!” said one toothless fairy godmother, and her husband (I think) nodded in agreement vigorously.

Off we went then, sauntering through the fields, listening to the loud orchestra of birds, crickets and frogs, accompanying the beautiful colors that nature was setting forth for us to see. It is magical indeed to see a half dozen peacocks take flight into the sunset. By the time, we fumbled for the phones they were gone, and I was glad I did not waste those precious moments of seeing them start off awkwardly and then gain elegance in flight by trying to get a picture. I have it in my mind’s eye, along with the indescribable moment of feeling your heart soar with the peacocks’ trajectory.

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Peacocks have long feathers, and while they know how to fan them out and preen in front of peahens looking splendid in the process; when they fly, it looks like it can feel like long hair feels to women.

Gather your tresses,
Of plume and multi-colored beauty
Tuck them in,
Letting it stream behind you elegantly while
Trying not to let it look messy
And all the rest of that.

It was then in the distance that we heard firecrackers go off in the distance. I don’t know about you, but this is the sort of thing that holds mystique. It is what inspired my Mother’s Day in the Jungle tale. Trumpy elephant going off to Farmer Hasalot’s farm – there is such an element of thrill and romantic mysticism to this kind of thing, though I think the elephants and farmers in question disagree.

I spent dusk in a similar fashion enjoying the fading sunlight, the rising moon, the fields, the clouds, the village, the children, the adults and creatures of beautiful Earth. Every now and then, crackers went off in the distance – elephants in the distance we whispered. Though, why we were whispering we had no idea. Dusk seems to call for these things. A laid back village in South India tucked away in the recesses of the Western Ghats with all the fascination of the bucolic. An occasional rumble of a vehicle is all there was to remind us of civilization, corporates, power tussles, wars, micro/ macro economics, nuclear heavy-lifts, and motives of profit.

Post dinner, I traipsed indoors, happy with life, still rattling on about the beautiful image of the peacocks taking flight together in the evening light. We stayed chatting happily into the night (Part 2)

It was well past midnight when the electricity went out, and the husband said, “Outside now! Completely dark – yes!”

Off we went, self carrying the son piggy-back to see the stars in all its glory outside. With the electricity gone, it was pitch black outside.
Oh!
My foot!
Not there.
Ouch!

We bumped into one another spectacularly and I tripped on a chair outside in the verandah, carrying the little fellow on my back. Both of us went crashing down, self trying to save the poor fellow from being dropped from my back. One splendid moment later, I truly saw what ‘seeing stars’ meant.

The pair of us dragged ourselves off our feet and took our eyes skyward. The light pollution we have unleashed on our planet means that there are very few places in the world that humanity can stand and gaze at the sheer immensity of the universe in which we live. On an average dark-ish day, we can see about 3000 stars, on a day like this surrounded by mountains, forests and fields for miles around us, we could see tens of thousands of them lighting up entire bands of the sky with their luminance. The stars and galaxies are always there, and maybe because of this very permanence, it is seldom appreciated.

Standing there in the surrounding darkness with people I love, I felt light-headed. There we were, standing on an Earth that was spinning incredibly fast in its journey around the sun; the sun was swirling around the Milky Way galaxy; and the galaxy itself was spinning and whirling away into vaster expanses. Carrying us all: our ethereal thoughts, wishes and desires; and our solid physical selves on a solid planet.

The galaxy tucking its star-studded plumes behind it gracefully, and taking flight with all its organic and inorganic components streaming gracefully along its path. Huge balls of gas and flames hurtling through space, and some spots in this beautiful expanse sanguine enough to cool down for a spot of life to flourish. #The Pale Blue Dot.

pale_blue_dot

The beautiful image of the peacocks taking flight earlier that evening came to me, and in that moment, the galaxies above looked like peacocks taking flight into horizons unknown.

Star Trails of the Milky Way Galaxy

Do the dreams of galaxies have limits? Do they have purposes?

Thinking back on that beautiful spin through the gathering darkness, I am reminded of this quote by Ursula K Le Guin:
“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.”

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