Stock-taking...

Standing at the threshold of yet another new year, I decide to indulge in some traditional rituals. After all the end of a year and the start of a New Year does call for cleaning up and stock-taking, doesn’t it?

A year that started in Bangalore with Ma and I bringing in the New Year surrounded by family, is ending in a full circle with us bidding adieu to it with some of our companions in the revelry from last year’s party. It has actually been a year of coming to a full circle and finding closure on several fronts…painfully screwed up at times, I’ve faced some bitter truths, learnt that sometimes you simply have to be ruthless and cut people out of your life however painful it may be. I’ve dealt with losses that revived the smoldering pain of a loss that I still haven’t come to terms with and probably never will. I’ve dealt with inefficiency, ineptness and an absolute lack of basic intelligence coupled with some really juvenile and yet nasty politics and learnt to hold back my anger, manipulate and work things around. I’ve come into my own, learnt to put my foot down and spoken my mind at the risk of some severe professional damage.

On the upside, an absolutely marvelous opportunity was seized and I did what I’ve dreamed of doing ever since I was twelve or thirteen – traveled with one of my best friends. Discovering Europe with K shall remain one of my most treasured memories – we’ve always understood each other, but I think our understanding and acceptance of each others eccentricities and weaknesses is so much more now. Thanks, K, for being there. I’ve made some fabulous new friends in Spain, Switzerland and Serbia, come closer to others in France and here as well…on the home front I’ve discovered a pair of arms that will envelop me in their warmth offering comfort and a set of ears that will listen to me rant and rave, even if it is at the price of suffering endless hours of repeated conversation! ;-) All forgiven in love and war, isn’t it Extempore? I’ve rediscovered a friend whom I’d missed sorely. A friendship that has stood the tests of life I really wonder now how I managed without this friend by my side. From coming so close to giving up, I’ve rediscovered hope, I’ve finally understood what it is to fall asleep at night peace prevailing in my mind and happiness spreading in my heart.

The next year promises to be challenging – personally and professionally. If miles were traversed this year, many more are waiting to be treaded upon. Much struggle and much growth lie ahead – I must be insane for I am not daunted, but almost waiting to bite the bit, as it were! Here’s to a challenging, fulfilling and peaceful 2008!

Immortal Connections

In a day and age where people often lack the inclination to even lift the phone to call their friends, I still treasure the practice of writing letters, sending cards on festive occasions and sending postcards when I’m traveling. A habit that had suffered greatly with the invasion of internet and emails, my dear friend P, who travels a great deal revived the habit by sending me postcards from each of her myriad travel destinations in her motherland France, Europe, North Africa and Canada. So it is that I have a decent collection of postcards through which I, too, have traveled; postcards that I treasure as much as the postcards Papa used to send me from his trips to Europe when I was a child.

Papa would also bring back postcards that captured in timeless beauty the many places he visited on his umpteen trips to Europe on work. Somewhere along the way, as his trips got busier leaving him little time to do sight-seeing the number of postcards dwindled and I, too, stopped asking for them. P’s postcards renewed my hunger for them and so on his last couple of trips Papa brought back some really exquisite postcards from Switzerland, which I hope to frame some day. Sorting through my collection of postcards (received or bought on my own trips to Europe) I came across a thick envelope filled with the postcards Papa had bought. Much to my surprise I found there postcards of Cologne, which I hadn’t known he’d visited and then I came across a collection of postcards depicting Chagall’s stain-glass windows in the Musée Chagall in Nice, dedicated to the “Biblical Message’.

Having visited both Cologne and Nice (where I had been dragged a little reluctantly to see the Musée Chagall, an artist I knew little of and thus wasn’t very interested in seeing his work – am I grateful to K now for taking me there!) I found myself filled anew with regret that I can’t share with Papa, what I’ve seen and experienced . Having finally reached an age, maturity level and garnered enough experience and insight into various subjects I yearn to be able to discuss all of it with Papa, making me miss him so much more.

If I hadn’t already absolutely loved and been awed by what I saw at the Musée Chagall and decided to buy some day, reprints (just like one of the Degas’ series) of either his brilliant paintings in which he uses vibrant colours like the brightest of yellows, reds and blues or the absolutely stunningly beautiful stain-glass paintings, all of which lean heavily on Biblical imagery, I do now. The only difference being that I will no longer have to buy them when I do have my own house, for Papa has left behind the most perfect collection for me to frame.

Thank you Papa.

I should have known you’d always be there for me irrespective of where you are. Never again will I doubt it.

For more on Marc Chagall, visit Artchive.

Tarikhi-Hind

The friend has a new blog. He wrote stories that I loved to tear apart, refusing to acknowledge that he is a published writer and I am not.Then he wrote posts at which I rolled my eyes and posted photographs which I criticised. It vexed me to say anything vaguely complimentary to him and I waited for an opportunity to go for the jugular. I still do, but this time I am forced to admit that he writes well and he knows his stuff. Grumpf.

Go read Tales of a Land Five Thousand Years New. He's only just started, but if he proceeds as planned then this promises to be an interesting one! God how it pinches to say that ;-)

Literary Mosaic

At the prodding of Extempore and the Amnesiac, I toyed with the idea of rejuvenating Literary Mosaic, where I once posted book reviews (apart from some rather pathetic attempts at writing fiction). I’ve been gnawing over it for several weeks and couldn’t come to a decision. But today, after one of the most perfect days I’ve had, a day that has left me so much at peace with myself that after the longest time I slipped in the disc of my favourite retro music and actually grooved to it as I typed away, my creative and critical bent surging to the fore with a vengeance, I knew it was time to revive my Literary Musings…

People it’s a pleasure to announce to you that Literary Mosaic is once again welcoming visitors (and comments). I've just reviewed The Girl from the Chartreuse, a book that I read over a year ago, a book that touched me with its incredibly pure eloquency, poignancy and richness of language.

Renaissance...

Browsing through the archives, looking for something (yes I’m perpetually looking for things) I was struck by how much I used to blog earlier. Most of it isn’t worth a mention and is really better forgotten, but there is a lot in the archives that actually shines through all the mediocrity…and suddenly I realised that back then, I was a better reader, not restricting to myself to any one genre or style of writing and thus a far more prolific writer who wrote with a comfort that is very evident in the words... bringing me to my first resolution for 2008. Read. Read. Read. There’s a huge backlog of books waiting to be read and it’s about time I gave them some attention. Just waiting for this session to get over, so I can completely overhaul the lifestyle which has pretty much gone for a toss in the past four months…

On What Lies Under Our Noses!

Ever searched the whole house, turning cupboards upside down in your desperate hunt for that thing that was lying in plain view right in the middle of the table all along? Well, I am quite an expert at it; I've given people much stress when I can't find that thing I'm looking for, and then been at the receiving end of many irate looks when I found the thing in the most obviously evident place which I refused to look at, because it couldn't possibly be there. I seem to have done it again...and boy do I feel like an idiot about all that time I wasted hunting for something that was right under my nose all along...and I don't even have a big nose! Sheesh!

Muchly Jaded, Ironically Re-enchanted.

Words Walk completed a year in Pune today – his post took me back to June ’04 when I first moved to this hamlet. There was little the city could do right and I grabbed every opportunity I got to run back to Bombay, the city I still like to think of as home. Pune for all means and purposes underlined my loneliness and my lack of independence. Till I met the man who made me discover Pune in a way that I couldn’t help but start falling in love with its charms. In the past two years I’ve had to distance myself from that Pune, caught up in the rather distressing realities of life. The last two weeks have brought many opportunities to reacquaint myself with that charming Pune and though it’s been an exhausting week that has left me drained, weary and vaguely jaded there is a deep-sated content slowly warming my heart and I can’t help but smile as glimpses of last week mingle with memories from 2005.

Extempore, who was visiting last week complete with her infectious gregariousness and photography apparel provided the perfect opportunity and so I found myself back at the Y-point at the Pune University over breakfast of upma and chai and animated discussions…dominated primarily by Extempore who can easily out-talk even my most talkative student ;-). A languid hour later I led her up the tree-shaded steps to the main building which though fenced in for restoration work, still charmed the socks off Extempore. Meandering through the grounds I led her to the watch-tower amidst the marshy weeds that I had fallen in love with when I was first introduced to it. After a most sumptuous meal at Arthur’s Theme, which just had to be finished with their heavenly lemon soufflé, we allowed ourselves to get lost in the by lanes of Koregaon Park, till we reached the Nala Park. Paradise created around filthy sewer water, there is something absolutely bewitching about this park. (Needless to say Extempore with her quintessential bindaas spirit paid no heed to the rules prohibiting photography and got some beautiful shots.)

My knees may have protested and my eyes may have struggled to stay open and I may have been "muchly" drained by the end of the day, but the happiness spreading inside made every ache and pain worthwhile…as did the crazily meandering conversations that were thrust on me. Discomfited initially, no longer accustomed to being hounded to talk about my feelings and dark thoughts, I felt much better having finally voiced aloud a thought that I had been nursing like a nasty wound. The inky blackness I stare at on my way home, seeking answers desperately still has none forthcoming, but the emptiness doesn’t seem as daunting. Why? Perhaps because of the knowledge that I have not lost all, and a vague notion that something wonderful might still waiting around the corner. Or perhaps because I’ve decided that it’s time for closure. Or perhaps because I once again have one of my cherished friends back in my life.