Shadowlines

At last the train slowed down and I could see the signboard “Varanasi Junction”. A swarm of porters with red turbans pushed themselves through the doors and all I could hear was “madam, do you need help”. I only had a small suitcase and a little purse, nothing much to help me out. Nevertheless, I did not want to disappoint them. Naveed took my suitcase on his head and started walking towards the rickshaw stand.

I am back in India after 30 years. Rickshaws were hand pulled then, now they have motors, pedals; an uncanny newness quite beyond my landscape of imagination hit me right away. Varanasi, a city by the river Ganges, a city of winding alleys, old shabby buildings with the smell of moist mosses, the Ghats or the steps that go down to the holy river and 33 million temples; a city where you can feel the shadow of history at every nook and corner.

I came back to see Maya. Maya and I went to college here before I left for the northern winds and the snow in the far away lands of Canada. The last image of Maya I have in my mind is her long flowing hair, her dark mystic eyes staring at me, her almost unbearable innocence asking “why do I want to go away so far”. I remember I smiled back, patted her and said she will be soon married to a rich man, who will have everything to protect her and take care of her. My predictions were not very wrong. She was indeed married within few months after I left. Roshan Babu was a well-known merchant of silk sarees in Varanasi. He had a huge mansion with a big courtyard. Maya wrote to me in one of her long letters that how much she loved to sit down at the courtyard and comb her long hair in the autumn afternoons. Roshan Babu was a kind old man. He had 3 children from her first wife. The eldest daughter was married and the younger two sons were going to the college then. They were almost same age as Maya. But Maya was the lady of the house, with a large sindur or vermillion circle which almost covered her small forehead, magnanimously showing off her apparent pride as a married lady, a heavy silver key-ring hanging from her sleek waist, the red silk saree flowing down to the ground and the tinkle of her golden anklets subtly leaving a mark of her presence in the air. Roshan Babu died suddenly, somebody said because of prolonged drinking, his spleen was gone, others said rich oily food destroyed his stomach, Maya said age.

Now, as the rickshaw made a turn on the winding alley, crossed carefully the cow and reached the green huge door of the Roshanbabu mansion, my heart started beating faster. I quickly took my little suitcase, gave Naveed his money with some bakshish or tips and moved towards the gate. The guard with the moustache stared at me in suspicion blocking any unknown entry to the house. I spoke in a soft voice if I can meet Maya. “Who is Maya”, he asked in a disgruntled voice. I started explaining Roshan Babu, his young wife Maya, the names of the children as I remembered from Mayas’s letters.  I could see an uncanny smile hidden behind the moustache. He told me, this house now belongs to Karim Sheth. His pair of suspicious eyes asked me in wonder “did you really come to find someone with an address written to you 20 years back in this city of 33 million temples leave aside the population”.

There I was standing in my blue old jeans, a navy blue kurta and a shawl, my coloured short hair, my nike shoes, my wristwatch, evidently telling my foreignness to my own native country; Reality hit  my desire to find my long-lost friend, my once confidante with an address written in an old parchment 20 years back. Even the rickshaws have changed. What made me think Maya is stagnant, here, still in love with the courtyard, still the same. Naveed was still there at the corner of the lane exchanging some local gossips with a fruit vendor. He looked up and asked “ madam chale’ as if it was quite evident that I have to go back; as if my search for Maya itself was an elusion. I turned round, walked up to the rickshaw and asked Naveed to take me to the Ghaat, Dashashwamedh Ghaat. The setting sun on the western front, the crimson rays, the approaching shadowlines of the evening paved the way for a discomforting silence.

As the rickshaw zigzagged through the narrow winding lanes, I stared in wonder at the tall eroded buildings, the moss-filled walls,, the climbers creeping up, children playing cricket on the alleys, signboards glorifying a hair oil for instant hair-growth and youth; reminded me of the old television shows in Doordarshan. As the rickshaw took a turn in the Akbarpur Mahalla, a faint voice with the tunes of strings reached my ears…miya ki malhaar, my most favourite eastern classical raga. “Roko roko//Stop stop’ I instantly jumped down from the rickshaw; crossed a courtyard and climbed up the stairs, lost way, found back and ultimately reached a room. There was an old lady with her tanpura, sitting on the intricately embroidered carpet, her wet hair, neatly done with a jasmine flower garland. The mystic aroma of the room filled my heart -jasmine, the old tapestries hanging, the incense sticks, the open window overlooking the Ganges, the breeze with mixed fragrances.

Rajia Begam was 78. Still, every dawn and twilight, Mahalla get to listen to her rewazz. Rajia Begam, one of the last baijis of the golden times. Her voice now little cracked but still can sing a dhrupad without a pause almost. Her voice can still lure people, as it did to me, to find her room. Everybody calls her "amma" here.

When I pulled out my camera to take a picture, amma smiled and said- “don’t bind your memories, let them flow and you flow with them. Varanasi has a history hard to capture in a camera. Why do all these “gore lok”/white people from all over come to prison the images. They only get a bit, the rest are scattered in every pebble. You cannot bind a history of million years in a box. Try to get a glimpse and immerse yourself in its bliss”. -

“Get the Foreign guria some milk and honey” amma’s shuddering yet authoritarian voice echoed through the corridors. She then turned round to face the flowing Ganges, strum the strings of the taanpura and then the voice flowed on as if trying to mingle with every ripple of the river, trying to drift away with time.

I finished the milk, got up, Niyamat showed me the way back to where my rickshaw and the loyal rickshaw-puller was waiting for me. Naveed asked me what did I get suddenly entering a strange house. I could not explain. Amma her deep wrinkled eyes, staring deep down to me, curiously asking with her silence “why am I here, what am I looking for. There is so much in a city of million years, every moist wall can tell you billion stories, what do I want to capture, What am I searching for?”

Naveed started pulling the rickshaw to the Dashashwamedh. By now, the last thin line of red has disappeared into the western horizon. Dark Ganga with thousands of oil lamps. Puja/worship started at the Vishwanath Temple. Fire and water, all I was staring at; and the earth, the land, the stairs that go down to the Ganges. I slowly started climbing down to touch the water. As I went down each step, it felt walking through time. It started drizzling, I looked up, the sky shrouded with dark clouds. I know now why “amma” was singing Miya-ki-Malhar, the raga for rains. She knew it was going to rain. The air told her. We cannot feel the air the same way, we are too busy capturing information. I didn’t want to walk down fast, my feet taking each step at a time, the moist wind touching my earlobes, the breeze making me intoxicated, the rain splashed over the Ghat, I stood still, drenched staring at the river, the burnt oil lamps, still one or two flickering.

I do not know how long I stood there, bare foot, wet, immersed in the wind and the rain, the flowing waters and the sailing oil-lamps. I left my search by the waters on the rocks, I left “Maya” by the Ghat. Now I feel light with an implacable sweetness, a tangible bitterness almost “unbearable lightness of being”, I smiled and murmured to myself.

The massage lady & the afternoon melancholy

Yesterday was a windy spring afternoon. the trees are still bare, one or two buds trying to open up but still the north winds are strong. the snows melted, the dry soil hungry for moisture. A little drizzle gives the caustic smell, brings in memories and melancholia. it was 2 in the afternoon, i had to go to see "the massage lady". The chronic pain has bent my spinal chord, my hands have lost its strength, my feet now can only take small steps. Numbness in my hands, my feet, my breath, my chest, my mind. the address was 84/109street. I reached on time. it was a cafe, which was going through reconstruction, the junks were lying all around. i could not find the entrance. then i heard a sweet melodious voice calling my name. i looked back and realized i was standing on the wrong side. "The massage lady" came out to greet me. white hair carefully palmed, wrinkled skin with subtle makeup, the two trembling arms reaching out to me to say hello. I could see the long slender fingers and the blue veins running through her wrists. I said "Hello Ms Jenny". It was a small yellow wooden house, the stairs took me up to a little balcony. i kept my shoes out and entered the small room where three cats were waiting to look at the new guest.
i sat down, signed some formal paperworks as she kept making tea and asking me questions. Then she led me into the little parlour, made me lie down. my face facing down where i can only see the old wooden floor and its cracks. Some oriental healing music was playing in the taperecorder. The light was dim, the room had a mystic aroma and the walls shabby but neatly covered with cheap paintings. As her hands touched my neck, rolled down my back,my spinal chord, i thought for a moment, "how old is she, 60, 70, 75". i could not make out. Jenny said, "don't wander your mind/relax, let yourself go, your muscles have stopped contracting, they are stiff like the way you have made your mind." Her trembling hands were strong and sturdy, ready to do the job she has been doing for the last 30 years. She kept on telling in her gentle smooth voice, the names of muscles, the nerves, how they are entangled, how mind connects to our body, how the complex neural network reacts to external stimuli, how pain is caused, how to win over pain, how life goes on. I felt her enormous strength in her wrinkled fingers, in her deep tone and her touch. She lives in this house for thirty years, alone, working on other's pain. "How painful can this be", i almost murmured. 60 minutes went by as she talked and i listen , as she put warm stones to heal my backbone, as her fingers rolled up and down, steady and firm. she touched my deep pain. she taught me to relax, to let go. She taught me how mind can capture body, how mind can almost make one cripple and also how we can win over pain with our mind.
i paid her, took the receipts, patted the cats and walked out. The wind was strong, blowing through my hairs. my locks falling on my eyes, my ckeeks dry with the afternoon air. but my feet tried to take longer and stronger steps. my hands decided to feel strong, my back lifting up. I could feel the chill in my bones. My pain was with me but i felt better, not just that my muscles got a professional touch, not that the warm Indonesian stones did some miracle, but my mind learnt to relax, to hope, to keep going and live happily, solitary with pain and dealing with pain. Thanks jenny.

Trauma

how do we define Trauma? how do we know what exactly causes trauma? is trauma a social construct, a mental reiteration? when i first read "bitter chocolate" by Pinki Virani, i was 15. i related to so many of the events and i bet any girl/any woman at any nook and corner of the world can relate in their own way. child molestation: a Trauma. the child grows, time fades memories and thats what everyone says. does time has the power to heal a trauma? i will say it only pushes to a dark corner, the truma remains hidden, takes its own faces, makes its own gestures. The pain learns to put on masks, hide behind saturated make-ups, tears finds sunglasses but the pain stays. the crude pain of the immediate moment reforms into a refined pain. gradually imagination adds or deducts from the actual reality. Trauma moulds, takes different shades and shapes and slowly moves to an affect unknown,... becomes a "construct".

Through a glass "darkly"

Ingmer Bergman's cinema captures human emotions, expressions and the complexity of thought. mind becomes web, God becomes spider and self becomes a hazy hollow, untouchable. "reaching out" has always been one of the main thematic component of bergman's creation. be it "the hour of the wolf"/"The silence"/Persona/Wild strawberries/Seventh seal or "through a glass darkly".
People, their life, their emotions, their expressions have been my curiosity, my search. so the reel began with portraits: expression of the face, the gaze in the eyes, the texture of the skins, the laugh, the smile, the hidden thoughts. my nikon lens loves them and captures the magnanimity of a singular moment in a fingerflick.

Images:moments captured

The goal is not to change your subject, but for the subject to change the photographer" ~anonymous~

"wise mind"

Let's think mindfully for a moment and try to realise 'how long our mind play as a 'WISE MIND'. Most of the time either we are on the emotional sphere or on the logical sphere. Important is the intersection of these two spheres or what is called the 'wise mind'. we take decisions, we act on our thoughts, we constantly migrate from emotional to logical boundaries. we consciously never know when we are in wise mind. The most difficult thing is to harness our mind. it is faster than light. when we are on the extreme periphery of emotion, impulsiveness is the most common immidiate reaction. when we are on the extreme side of the logical domain, we are too conscious that we can hardly take any bold step. so we have to try and consciously try to keep our mind on the middle path or the 'wise mind'. every emotion has a meaning. Being emotional is not stupid but feeling ashamed to accept the emotion is unscientific. Whenever we have a emotion, let us always give that emotion a name. Figuring out the exact emotion of mind is hard. but it is possible with practice. Emotions can be primary and secondary. It always starts with a prompting event with an underlying vulnerability in ourselves and ends in an action or expression of the emotion. We jump quickly from the primary to the secondary emotion because secondary emotion is what that gives us a comfort zone. The 6 most distinguished emotions are sadness, fear(shame), anger, disgust, excitement and enjoyment. If someone's primary emotion is fear(shame), he/she will jump into anger(secondary emotion) because being fearful or ashamed they do not feel comfort. Mind wishes to escape. So here comes the secondary emotion which is anger. Being angry gives a feeling of strength and thereby a feeling of security. The expression of the emotion is anger and most often we mistake the secondary emotion as the primary because we cannot distinguish them. The secondary always rules over the primary. In our wise mind we have to learn to identify the primary emotion and tease it out. Teasing a primary emotion is like a chain analysis. We have to consciously think what was the promting event and what are the vulnerabilities. Then try to analyse them. The best we can is to understand and confront our emotions rather then escaping from them. For escaping will not give us any solution. Mind is nothing but an emotional circuitry in the brain. An external event instigates or sends imformation to amygdala (the emotion regulation centre of brain) via thalamus. The outcome is excitatory and we feel happy. If the circuit changes its route and goes to amygdala via prefrontal cortex, the result is inhibitory and we feel sad. It feels quite harsh to think emotions to be such a mechanical pathway but that is the truth. Every step in our life is monitered by emotion . It is deep rooted in our mind that emotion is such a poetic, musical frame of thought. Then it becomes so difficult to accept that we are nothing but organic robots regulated and manipulated by specific neural circuitry. We are not robots but humans only on the fact that we can control our own circuitry and we can do it more effectively day by day identifying and regulating our every emotion; only we have to do it 'mindfully' or consciously being in our 'WISE MIND'.