Untitled Ventings

The last week's been funny.

I do time trials against a setting sun in the evenings and write and read this and that most of the other time.

But at nights, the same dream that had left me sleepless for most of June last year comes back. Again and again, as nightmares do.

Its a stark setting, there is this conference room with a bunch of people around a table -- some half-asleep, some barely there, some pecking away at their laptops -- a management review meeting is happening.

And I have just being pronounced guilty.

"What do you do anyway?" has always been the question here. Sometimes voiced, sometimes not, usually very subtly stated of course.

"You don't deserve what we pay you" has also been always the accusation here {when the recession happened, my ROI was naturally the first to be questioned (purely a case of fingering because I had NEVER not delivered something asked of me)} sometimes veiled, sometimes not, never stated of course.

Let me cut back to the dream.

So I have just presented what my team has been doing for the last two months. All this has already been reviewed by my reporting head (and management by default), we have been sending weekly status reports.

My own reporting head has also never brought this up. Its been understood that my team will facilitate and support all techno-marketing-whatever-you-call-it activities and "marcomify" (as phrased by him) whatever content is sent over. Even if the content is a mish-mash that has been "captured" from this and that source and rewritten to be muck and "rewriting" which again meant getting a headache in just 10 minutes!

Psst...my team consists of only one writer. Yes, yours truly and him alone.

Now that I have presented the presentation, a gent says "Not happy with you boss!" Then he even kindly raises his voice and repeats the same thing yet again. As I have already said, the conference room is full of people, this is not a one-on-one review and I report to someone else.

So this was no off the cuff, casually uttered and unintentional jibe. This was evidently something far more than a rap on the knuckles. Something akin to "public mein pant utaarna" by somebody for whom I had bent backwards, never refusing anything, doing everything asked of me in the spirit of passion, leadership, blah, blah....

So a bit of me died that day and this dream started coming every night. I had decided to quit that very day and two other incidents that happened thereafter vindicated my decision.

ONE -- I am told that my reporting head feels that all I do is "put a comma here, a semi-colon there, and so on", by someone in management who had said the same thing to me a number of times earlier (of course jocularly, with marked bonhomie, a nice smile, et al). So a bit more of me died.

TWO -- And then {post a lengthy internal debate post which I am told my team of three will be an independent department again and will be AGAIN solely responsible for putting up a full-blown website (supervised by the techno-marketing excel sheet types of course) when I look at the work in hand and ask for resources, I am reminded of my hearing disability twice (but the same damn phrase) by two gents from management. Again, a bit more of me died.

Continuing there after these two things happening would have been like living on a dole or feeding off someone's far from veiled kindness.

So I quit, wrote Moving On and I had thought I had moved on.

But then this dream comes again and again.....

The Road

Paved,
cobble-stoned,
or the bottom of a river of dirt,
the road doesn't go anywhere,
it is just a way,
s t r e t c h i n g
in between
the here and now
and the deja vu of wherever
endless in ambiguity.

Night of the Scorpion

I remember the night my mother
was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours
of steady rain had driven him
to crawl beneath a sack of rice.
Parting with his poison -- flash
of diabolic tail in the dark room --
he risked the rain again.
The peasants came like swarms of flies
and buzzed the Name of God a hundred times
to paralyse the Evil One.
With candles and with lanterns
throwing giant scorpion shadows
on the sun-baked walls
they searched for him: he was not found.
They clicked their tongues.
With every movement that the scorpion made
his poison moved in Mother's blood, they said.
May he sit still, they said.
May the sins of your previous birth
be burned away tonight, they said.
May your suffering decrease
the misfortunes of your next birth, they said.
May the sum of all evil
balanced in this unreal world
against the sum of good
become diminished by your pain.
May the poison purify your flesh
of desire, and your spirit of ambition,
they said, and they sat around
on the floor with my mother in the centre,
the peace of understanding on each face.
More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours,
more insects, and the endless rain.
My mother twisted through and through,
groaning on a mat.
My father, sceptic, rationalist,
trying every curse and blessing,
powder, mixture, herb and hybrid.
He even poured a little paraffin
upon the bitten toe and put a match to it.
I watched the flame feeding on my mother.
I watched the holy man perform his rites
to tame the poison with an incantation.
After twenty hours
it lost its sting.
My mother only said:
Thank God the scorpion picked on me
And spared my children.

By Nissim Ezekiel from The Exact Name (1965)

The Truth about Dhanya

His old skin
is like the ground
on which he sleeps,
so also, his rags.

He cannot
stand upright
or walk without pain,
does odd jobs
for the ten families
of The Retreat, collects
a few coins every day,
uses them for tea
and smoking.

Given food, he eats,
otherwise, he goes without.
Quite a cheerful chap, really.

Nobody minds his presence
as he stumbles around the place.
He's lucky, in a way,
isn't out in the streets, begging.
We look after him
and he makes himself useful.

That's all the truth about Dhanya.

By Nissim Ezekiel from Poems Written in 1974

Jeet Thayil

"I think one very fine way to tell the development of a society is how it treats its poets, its gay people, and its women. And in those three areas, we really are backward. I believe that two generations from today, there may be value placed on all of this. Young people today read poetry, they buy books, they read poetry on the Internet. The Internet has taken poetry out of that academic conversation, which has to happen if poetry's going to live. Say `poetry' and there were a lot of people who were turned off already, who had forgotten that a poetry reading is just a man or a woman speaking to you. Poetry needs to resonate with you if it's going to live. It's human speech, and it's the most beautiful speech, it's elevated in a way we can't have in our normal lives; it contains the best of us." -- Jeet Thayil in conversation with Nilanjana S. Roy for Hindu Literary Review, full story is here

Some poetry and a lot of pain

On the morning of 17th February (it wasn't afternoon -- of that I am sure) one of the dumb bells I exercise with (once in a while) fell on my left hand.

Nothing broken thankfully (especially not the dumb bell), but my hand really ballooned up in a big way. To look like a bear's paw and become equally unwieldy.

Typing was a pain, holding onto a book was a pain, putting on a shirt was a pain, and so on...

I did manage to cycle around (the motorcycle's clutch lever is on the left handlebar; will try clutching it tomorrow and hope that I don't pass out from pain) and though jolts of pain shoot up when I put the left hand on the handlebars, the joys of moving on are worth it.

Incidentally, on the evening of 16th I was cycling after posting up Memory's Scythe here and it rained and rained and rained, making things more than a bit dicey for me since my clothes (I was wearing a Kurta and baggy cotton cargoes) soaked up all the waters and made cycling back home really heavy going.

Coincidentally (I mean this in an eerie way), I had been similarly soaked (and caught up in a 4 hours long traffic jam somewhere near SR Nagar on my way back home) when I had written Unslept.

Eerie, no?

Maybe I shouldn't complain about the rains not raining too much :-)

Two poems up at Asia Writes

Media-shy and Banyan Square, two poems from my book, Moving On are now up at Asia Writes. Do take a look, they are here

Moonmist at Twilight

Like a lakebreeze's
gentle evening coolness
voiceless whispers
of twilight's wind
caress kiss me
butterflying my face
with a cherub's lips
turning my pedalled sweat
(while the road stretches ahead
a dry river of red)
into a balm
cooler than moonmist.

Memory's Scythe

If your hair wasn't black
blue-black or browned out of a bottle
but green, with highlights
of yellow, wild-flowering
red, pink and yellow, and

If it had flowed down
longer than waist long, like love let loose,
it could have been
my monsoon world of grasses shoulder-high
where I crouched all those days

Lost -- questioning --
why the skies copiously flow down
their wetness coupling them to the earth
and rise skywards again in wet green
that summer's flaming sun scythe will burn.

Invite - The Scholastic Aviva Storytelling Night

Scholastic is organising an evening of Story Telling for children between the ages of 8-14. The event is at St. Mary's College, Yousufguda, on Saturday, 20th Feb, starting at 6.30pm.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Picture yourself in a boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies.
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

Cellophane flowers of yellow and green,
Towering over your head.
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes,
And she's gone.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Ah... Ah...

Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain,
Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies.
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers,
That grow so incredibly high.

Newspaper taxis appear on the shore,
Waiting to take you away.
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds,
And you're gone.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Ah... Ah...

Picture yourself on a train in a station,
With plasticine porters with looking glass ties.
Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile,
The girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Ah... Ah...

By The Beatles, primarily written by John Lennon (credited to Lennon/McCartney) for the group's 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club

Becalmed

Storied high, a giant child's Lego toy
heights noon light hazed
-- by existentially weepy skies --
Malaysian Township soars kite like
stringed to yellow flaking stumpy blocks
state named as Kukatpally Housing Board.

Off-white in the diffused light
oozing from cloudy skies
that are not a cerulean brochure-blue
hope is the balconied washing
colours waiting to flutter fly
like Sankranti kites in electricity wires.

Canceled !!

Sorry folks, this event has been canceled due to a sudden change -- for the worse -- in the situation on OU Campus.

Just heard this, just now...

Documentary Film Invite from OUCIP

Osmania University Centre for International Programmes

cordially invites you to a screening of

‘Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir!’
(by Shashwati Talukdar and Kerim Friedman; 80-mins).

The screening will be followed by a discussion with the directors.

Time: 2 pm
Day & Date: Mon 15 Feb 2010
Venue: AV Room, OUCIP

-----------------
‘Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir!’ is still a work in progress. The
documentary is about a troupe of young Chhara actors
using theater to fight police brutality and the stigma
of criminality. The Chhara are one of 198 communities
in India—now over 60 million people—labeled
“born criminals” by the British. Although the British
are long gone, the stigma still remains. We meet Roxy
whose father was beaten to death for speaking out, and
his best friend Dakxin who was thrown in prison for
writing plays critical of the police. We meet Dakxin’s
Dadi(grandmother), who tell us about life in the
government-run prison camps.

The film is about a society in transition: the older generation did
whatever it took to make ends meet, but they want a better life for
their children. With social prejudice blocking all exits, for some
young people, theater offers the only way out. From busy
street corner protests to a climactic nerve-wracking
performance in front of cadets at the Police Academy,
'Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir!' takes us inside the lives
of these young people as they use theater to carve out a
place for themselves in the world.

See the trailer here

P.S. - Posting this a bit late as I have been dealing with an iffy Internet connection all of today (I came to know about this yesterday).

OUCIP is located in the Osmania University campus, and can be reached by turning left opposite College of Arts (if you are coming from the Tarnaka side) OR by continuing straight from the Administrative Building (if you are coming from the Vidyanagar / Shivam side).

Lion, lion, burning bright

How the lion lost his throne
By Mahesh Rangarajan*


It was a coup with a difference. No life was lost. No blood was shed. No one lost power. There was, to use a common phrase of this century, no regime change. But a king lost a crown. A new claimant became an icon.

It was a momentous time in human affairs. Conservation was among her priorities as Indira Gandhi tightened her grip on the polity. But it was the tiger that took pride of place, and not just in conservation efforts. In 1972, the tiger replaced the lion as India’s national animal.

Project Tiger’s first director, Kailash Sankhala, celebrated the moment later as one where the tiger ousted the lion that “had ruled meaninglessly for thousands of years”.

Both animals had long held claim to the human imagination. But from at least three centuries before the Common Era it was the lion that dominated verse and prose. The Buddha was known as “Shakta Simha”, or the lion among the shaktas (worshippers of God). The sermon at Sarnath was compared to the roar of the lion.

Royalty and divinity embraced the lion imagery even more than sainthood. The Tirupavai of Andal compared the gait of Lord Vishnu to the walk of a lion. The lion throne or simahasana, still common in Hindustani, has a long and distinguished lineage.

Sankhala, founding director of Project Tiger, saw cause for enthroning the tiger. It would be the rallying point to save an endangered natural heritage. Dr Karan Singh, chair of the steering committee of Project Tiger, hoped that the tiger would be a symbol of unity in diversity.

As it turned out the lion did get protection, not only directly but also for its forest home and prey. More chital and sambhar meant less cattle kills. As conflict with humans dwindled, lions bred.

Today, the tiger gets its share of press. By contrast the spell of poaching lions two years ago in Gujarat has not been repeated. The lions may be secure but biologists argue it needs a second home. No amount of persuasion seems enough to get Gujarat to part with its prized possession: the lions of the Gir Forest.

The lions have taken things into their own paws and have a range well beyond the frontiers of the protected zones, whether national park, sanctuary or reserved forest. The big cats are peripatetic and do not recognise human-made boundaries.

But their future is trapped, amongst those who cannot or will not think beyond the bounds. The fact of being in Gujarat is said to secure their future. In a narrow and immediate sense this is indeed true. Over four decades of science-based surveys and studies indicate a healthy, breeding population, cubs and all. But all it will take to wipe them out is a round of feline distemper or a virus. As it turns out, the lions of Gir have a narrow variation in their genes. More of them are likely to be vulnerable to a calamity in the form of disease than appears so at first sight.

How and why they became symbols of regional pride has to do with Gujarat’s own history. Narendra Modi is now the champion of their cause, but it were the Muslim nawabs of Junagarh who saved the animals from near certain extinction. They doled out hunting invitations in the most miserly way possible and shot only a few. In return, the lions flourished.

There was a bill to be settled, not with the hunters but with the cattle keepers. A buffalo owner is unlikely to take kindly to his prized milch animals ending up as dinner for the king of beasts. So as early as 1900, the nawabs set up systems to pay compensations for loss of stock.

They knew just how rare the lions were. In his magisterial and richly illustrated The Lions of Asia, Divyabhanusinh shows how the nawabs resisted pressures form even the rulers of Gwalior to transfer a few lions to their hunting reserves. Rarity was what made the big cats so valuable. Rarity and the unique status of being the last lions in all of Asia.

What got the species into trouble is probably what made them so significant in legend, icon and symbol down the ages. The mane of the male made it a magnificent trophy. Hunters with bow and arrows, spears and swords did not make the inroads that modern weapons did, one British officer shooting dead as many as 55 within a day’s ride in Delhi in 1857-58. But more than the gun, it was the axe and plough that cleared the dry grasslands, its ideal home. Cattle were always easy prey. But this earned the lions the deep animosity of cattle owners.

Gir was unique. Its maldharis, or buffalo keepers, learnt to live with the lions, securing herds in thorn fences at night. The hills were malarial, a deterrent to settlers. So the big cat survived in this corner of India, helped by the nawabs’ beneficence and the pastoralists’ tolerance.

But as is often the case, there is more to this than meets the eye. For a species that once ranged right across north and central India and westward to Palestine, this is tiny toe, or should we say claw, hold of a home. The lions have helped protect the Gir, the largest intact natural forest in Gujarat.

The commendable job of the state has kept alive in flesh an animal that resonates deeply in culture and legend. Yet, care is not enough. The Kuno reserve in Madhya Pradesh, readied over a decade ago, still awaits lions. These would be only an insurance should disaster strike Gir.

Politics deprived the lion of a status at a national level. Regional nationalism needs to see reason. A second home would do more than secure the lion’s future. So much for the throne long gone. Will Gujarat let India give the lion a future?

* Mahesh Rangarajan is an environmental historian. He recently co-edited the book Environmental History: As If Nature Existed

Reproduced in its entirety from here, a related (but older) story is here

Got the above as a feed from group (on Yahoo Groups) called Wildlife India where it was shared by Atul Singh Nishchal of the Asiatic Lion Group.

ॐ नमः शिवाय

hari-har ek rup gunshila l
karat swami-sevakki leela ll 16 ll

rahtey deu pujat pujvavat l
puja-padhati sabanhi sikhavat ll 17 ll

maruti ban hari-seva kinhi l
rameshwar ban seva linhi ll 18 ll

A part of my daily prayer from "Sri Shiva Chalisa" (on those days when I get down to praying seriously), these three Dohas probably best explain the centrality of Lord Shiva in the Hindu pantheon. Thought of posting this up here for I have always been someone who trips on Lord Shiva and because today is Maha Shivaratri.

P.S. - For some weird reason, Google transliteration works only for the headline (and label) of the post, will try again later, for now, "Om Namah Shivaya" and may his vitality be with you and power your creativity!

Wasn't Born to Follow

Oh I'd rather go and journey where the diamond crest is flowing and
Run across the valley beneath the sacred mountain and
Wander through the forest
Where the trees have leaves of prisms and break the light in colors
That no one knows the names of

And when it's time I'll go and wait beside a legendary fountain
Till I see your form reflected in it's clear and jewelled waters
And if you think I'm ready
You may lead me to the chasm where the rivers of our vision
Flow into one another

I will want to die beneath the white cascading waters
She may beg, she may plead, she may argue with her logic
And then she'll know the things I learned
That really have no value in the end she will surely know
I wasn't born to follow

Written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, performed by The Byrds (from the cult motorcycling classic Easy Rider)

Ballad of the Easy Rider

The river flows
It flows to the sea
Wherever that river goes
That's where I want to be
Flow river flow
Let your waters wash down
Take me from this road
To some other town

All he wanted
Was to be free
And that's the way
It turned out to be
Flow river flow
Let your waters wash down
Take me from this road
To some other town

Flow river flow
Past the shaded tree
Go river, go
Go to the sea
Flow to the sea

The river flows
It flows to the sea
Wherever that river goes
That's where I want to be
Flow river flow
Let your waters wash down
Take me from this road
To some other town

Written by Roger McGuinn (on Bob Dylan's initial sketch), performed by Roger McGuinn (from the cult motorcycling classic Easy Rider)

पुष्प की अभिलाषा

चाह नहीं मैं सुरबाला के गहनों में गूँथा जाऊँ

चाह नहीं, प्रेमी-माला में बिंध प्यारी को ललचाऊँ

चाह नहीं, सम्राटों के शव पर हे हरि, डाला जाऊँ

चाह नहीं, देवों के सिर पर चढ़ूँ भाग्य पर इठलाऊँ

मुझे तोड़ लेना वनमाली, उस पथ पर देना तुम फेंक

मातृभूमि पर शीश चढ़ाने जिस पथ जावें वीर अनेक ।।

-- माखनलाल चतुर्वेदी

The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire in thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art?
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand, and what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb, make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

By William Blake (1757 - 1827)

P.S.I have posted up the old English version of this lovely poem, hence "Tyger". I guess most of us have read this poem in school in either this or that prescribed book. Would be nice if our politicians, administrators and the other brass who can save India's remaining tigers (1431 or so if you believe the recently launched Aircel ad campaign) if they put their heads (and hearts together) also read this poem and understand that the tiger is not just an animal but a part of India's shared cultures, mythologies, religions and so on. But then, I wonder not many would understand "forests of the night" in these days when most of the tiger sanctuaries are either flanked / encircled by swanky resorts or cris-crossed by roads on which buses, trucks and other four wheelers rumble all night, their lights on "full beam"....

Take A Look See

I have a blogroll section up now, people. Some of the links here will lead you to poetry zines / journals, some will lead you to blogs of other poets I know (through e-mail or because I have checked out their sites), some will be about this and that...

Will keep adding up more links, do Take A Look See