Vizag (and a bit beyond) diary

That much anticipated "sitting down on the beach with a couple of Beer bottles" contemplation of the past and remembrance of a dear friend's absence that I mentioned here did not happen.

I did manage to get away to what is lately Vizag's best watering hole -- Sandy Lane. For an evening of reminiscing on old friendships, photography, the road, Bullets, etc. all over some very highly priced (but very tasty) Draught. And that was recompense in a way because Sandy Lane is more or less (on) the beach and...

*****

It was on account of some depression over the seas. Or it was her way of ritually purifying all of us for her ceremony through a ritual bath of rain. Either way, the deluge was spectacular, verging on the torrential for 2-3 hours early in the morning and lasting till around 11.00 or so. Among other things that were thrown out of kilter, this rain resulted in my clothes (which I had dried on evening before) in which I had intended to sit through the ceremony getting an unasked for drenching. But sit through the ceremony I did, in a wet towel, hunched and withdrawn -- the way she used to be on my Grandfather's ceremony. Sit through, I did, remembering the almost ascetic way she lived (for as long as I knew her) "giving" and "doing" till her last breath. Remembering how the drying of a madi Saree was all that worried her during a wet day (like this one) in Orissa because (like me) she had come from one son's place to another son's place and with just two Sarees. Not that she had that many Sarees to begin with. Remembering how I had come very close to "understanding" what such "simple living" bequeaths in the form of valued experiences in the limited number of days I had undertaken Shiva Deeksha and had just two pairs of clothes to "bother" about.

*****

Lately, I have been wondering about how "easy" photography has become thanks to advances in technology. And lately (after a gap of more than 5 years -- yes, that's how long it took me to make the jump from film to digital), an extension of my eye has been my Nikon D-90. The D-90 and 55-300 mm (AF - VR) lens while not exactly the best "gear" for bird photography has been surprising me (and most others) with the results. Naturally then, I had got the camera (and the long lens) along to have a "go" at the birds that are as synonymous with Vizag as is the sea -- the Black Kites that as numerous (and as omnipresent) as Vizag's more noticed resident bird, the Crow. I was lucky enough to take some stunning pics of the Black Kites (near Tenneti Park) in the days leading to Grandmother's Tadinam and as such I utilized the time that I was rained in, to good effect too. Taking "zoom" shots of water drops. Handheld. Under almost no light. The results surprised me and inspired me to go walkabout (with elder nefoo playing chaperone) on the beach barely a kilometre away.

To curse at the "aankho dekha haal" of what plastic (and other urban shit) does to beaches, and to wonder at how the sea turned almost red from the runoff from the "Hills of Vizag" just behind. Can't say I took any pics of all that gory shit but by and by I did take some more pics of this and that marine. Salt water snails, crabs and such like. And was surprised by how good the pictures were. Is it technology? Or is it me? Will post some pics :-)

******

THE GRADIENT OF DREAMS

Nests. And a net thrown
neat around my neck.
It is night the concealed
voices are looking for.

Words are working out
against the napes of cries.
A withe of moment draws
me to an unknown throat.

In the dark a white, a
grief of lost. What is grace,
how dead, in this wanting
to be enough to reach across.

-- Jayanta Mahapatra (The False Start , Clearing House, 1980)

Muse India announces National Literary Awards

To recognize and reward excellence in Indian literature, Muse India is happy to announce institution of two National Awards to be given annually, during Hyderabad Literary Festival. These are -

1.) Muse India Young Writer Award to be given to an outstanding original work in English or in English translation from an Indian language. Each year the award will be for a particular literary genre (poetry, short fiction, play, novel etc.). For the 2011 award, the genre will be poetry.

2.) Muse India Translator Award to be given to a significant work of translation into English from any of the Indian languages. Translation should be of a classic or any other important literary work, preferably not translated earlier, and seen as an important contribution to Indian Literature.


The Reward** - Each of the Awards will have a citation and a cash prize. The amount will be Rs.20,000 for the Young Writer Award and Rs.30,000 for the Translator Award. Of these amounts, Rs 5000 will be given to the translator, in the case of Young Writer Award being given for a translated work, and to the original author, if living, in the case of Translator Award.


The 2011 awards will be given during Hyderabad Literary Festival 2012, tentatively scheduled to be held on Jan 16-18, 2012 in Hyderabad.

Jury – a distinguished panel of judges comprising authors, scholars and critics will assess the entries and select the award winners.


Eligibility Criteria –


#The author must be an Indian citizen or an NRI.

#Works published in English and in English translation only are eligible, not those in Indian languages.

#Self published books or electronic publications like eBooks, Chapbooks etc are not eligible.

#For the Young Writer Award the author should be 35 years or younger at the time of publication of the work.

#Books of poetry published between Jan 2009 and end-May 2011 will be eligible for entry.

For the Translator Award there will be no age bar for the translator. Books published between Jan 2007 and end May 2011 will be eligible for entry.

Submissions –

#All entries must reach Muse India on or before July 31, 2011, superinscribed ‘Entry for Muse India National Award’ and enclosing complete details as sought.

#Please send a communication through email on dispatch of the material.

#Authors or Publishers can send the entries.

A set of 3 copies of the book has to be submitted initially. If short-listed for final stage of consideration, more copies may be requested, if required.

For further details contact –

Mr GSP Rao

Managing Editor, Muse India

38, Malani Enclave, Trimulgherry

Secunderabad 500015, Andhra Pradesh, India.

Mobile phone 91 98483 45490

Email- chiefeditor@museindia.com and gsprao2003@gmail.com



**Each of the Awards will have a citation and a cash prize. The amount will be Rs.20,000 for the Young Writer Award and Rs.30,000 for the Translator Award.

Of the amount of Rs 20,000 for Young Writer Award, Rs 5000 will be given to the translator, in case the award goes to a translated work. Otherwise the entire amount goes to the author. The focus here will be to recognize originality and merit in a young writer’s work.

Of the amount of Rs 30,000 for the Translator Award, Rs 5000 will be given to the original author, if alive. This award will recognize not only the merit of translation but also the effort involved in bringing to a wider audience, a classic or an outstanding work of a regional language, which otherwise would remain largely unknown.

A year on

Like love, it would be a lie,

to say

I have burned with cold, every dawn

feverish with your loss.



Like love, it would be a lie,

to say

my blood stayed frozen even at high noon

all its heat gone with you.



Truth is this loneliness,

this solitary road,

where your memories still take me for a ride

a year after you did.

Phonophobia on the last bus home

Then it hits you,

the tortured metallic groan

of the bus's axle -- its vibrations as shiveringly alive

as that of your spine when you had once tripped

on two Chillums of Ganja.



And you almost lose it.



Then it hits you,

the teeth-on-edge tinniness

of the bus's windows -- a rat-a-tat-a-tat knocking

that could be your nails tapping on your teeth

over and over again.



And you almost lose it.



And then it hits you,

this bray of noises, this cacophony voiced by metal

and glass -- Is it natural? Or but just

the phonophobic triumphal song

of your loneliness taking you back home?



And you almost lose it.

Book Release of Just look up...

On behalf of 22 giving trees (and their denizens), I invite you to the launch of "Just look up... to see the magic in the trees around you", a book by Sadhana Ramchander, at 7 pm on Sunday, 12 June 2011, at Saptaparni, Road no. 8, Banjara Hills (next to Kalpa School), Hyderabad. See you there!

Looking back, almost half a century into being a writer and editor -- Diana Athill

"Days short of her 90th birthday - the phone keeps ringing, with friends organising lunches to celebrate - she could not seem further from any kind of blurring. There is something absolutely present about her. Her voice is poised between precise pre-war tones and grammar and an unforced modernity - a tension that exists in her work, too. She began writing at 43, with short stories, before discovering that she was a memoirist, and that even dressing up memoir as fiction was not for her. Her work is always described as honest (generally preceded by words like "painful", "terrible", "deplorable", "breathtaking"). Pain, fear and shame, happiness and unhappiness are faced up to and anatomised- not dismissed, but not allowed to rule, either. She calls it getting things right.

She is helped by a vivid memory. Her parents were not particularly happy (her mother had an affair and her father, a colonel in the British Army, was often away), but Yesterday Morning, Athill's account of growing up on her grandmother's Georgian estate in Norfolk, written when she was 85, is full of happiness. She and her siblings and cousins had the run of the grounds, eating moorhen's eggs, feeding pigs, damming streams. "Everything important in my life seemed to be a property of that place: the house and the gardens, the fields, woods and waters belonging to it. Beauty belonged to it, and the underlying fierceness which must be accepted with beauty . . . safety belonged to it, and so did my knowledge of good and evil, and my wobbly preference for good." Indoors, every teatime, their grandmother read to them: Ivanhoe, The Jungle Book, Jackanapes"

Read the whole thing here

And oh, you may also want to take this test. And see how close you come to one of the world's most irascible (whenever he opens his mouth) writers. I scored 5 and was told -- "You clearly need to read more books by men."

I was like, WTF. Isn't that a "sexist" bit of advice?