Year: 2018

The dip

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Sometimes one dip changes your smile and temperature. It takes you then to places that can only be created in dreams through memories ofcourse. You walk long looking at forms, colours, patterns, walls, speculating age, sounds of children and cows, of burning dead trees and water ripples, hearing bodies visually and later language. Sometimes a small reaction changes the whole tail of events. Sometimes the start was the only end. But the dip is important. Because that is a window to nature. And nature is inside.

I will let the story find me

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Left my red bed today. Made coffee for the other two. For myself I had cashews, raisins, walnuts four each, early in the morning. I first thought to go cycling but today it seemed well to sit and better prepare for the upcoming challenge. I washed myself fast and shaved in harmony. I was ready in time. I cut all the fruits and ate. Got to the new hotel where the workshop-residency will be taking place. I got the first room by the pool. Didn’t want to stay that much upfront but it saved so much time that i can only feel blessed. I was saved from so much small and big talk, distractions that might have triggered further distractions. But all in all It was a privilege to come this far, meeting people who have been working in their preferred sense, in person sharing and making a world feel one and together again. It is rare for artists to come together and see each others work and ethics. And more so when, here in …

Love is everywhere

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Cambodia has started to settle inside. It is hot. But Its winters here. Its Busy and Open. Moving slowly. Women from various countries as diverse as nature is are seen Smiling, enjoying. Much like Indian, Cambodians have a strong family sense. Rafa, was the first person i met on this fellowship. He was also the first person to arrive in Cambodia. Second became I. He is a good man. As we sat talking with each other the first day after meeting he opened up like he cannot hide. Tears coming down from eyes. He told me he is divorced. And is a father of a young girl, Maya. We bonded most beautifully and talked about photography and the history of Angkor workshops and things to be seen around about in Cambodia. I met a woman cycling, and found each other cycling to the river together. She is going through her divorce too. After documenting all day i got to a bar where i found a ping pong table. Ben with whom I played yesterday sat …

First Flight to Bangkok

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We are a few minutes away from entering into December. Most things if asked from the deepest alleys of transparent, unadulterated desires have a thing of becoming real. There is nothing more truer that that truth. You wouldn’t know it might be sneaking up on you. For me it took a few years, an slow ascending process that by the end bore memories for lifetime. I am sitting in the big plane tonight. I am flying out of my country for the first time. Previously i only crossed them over by land. It should be special. Should it be special? Well, the process seems similar, of flying, of seeing people. Even though it took some time also because it couldn’t have been any other way. Currency’s exchanged. Dark chocolate bought. Immigration guy made a krow(krowdinya) out of my surname that which I could only smirk at. I don’t know why he was after surname. His only questions to me on the immigration desk was about the origin and history of my surname. I do not know if …

In the land of Snakes

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Twenty six days ago and three hundred fifty kilometers north I Moon I reached Aldona late in the night. It was Purnima, the full moon of Holi. Vishwan was away, gone to a border village, tsar. A place somewhere in the middle of the jungle at the border of Goa and Maharashtra. But I had no idea of that then, I was waiting. I sat downstairs at the bar. Grandmother was pouring feny to a local. She told me about Vishwan smoking too much. The room was lit with two cyan bulbs. He arrived. We kept my backpack at his place. He lit his cigarette. We sat. His hair had grown and white; beard thickened and black. Soon, we were off, feeling the dense wind of the leaving winter, scooting through the western ghats in the night going towards the moon. We entered the fair. Vishwan parked the vehicle somewhere outside and we started walking away from the lights towards the jungle. It was late. But it wasn’t dark. The night seemed to have dissolved with …

For a better Life

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As someone pointed out; convinience trumps privacy. Morality and good judgement for too many of us- the internet has made things faster, and faster has become the point. But whatever place you’re going, at breakneck speed, the one that requires shortcuts, hustle and compromises. What will happen when you get there?

Pattern

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Here In north India if women had left dishes overnight to wash them tomorrow; then elderly women used to say that the dishes will now go to bathe in the Ganges. It has a metaphorical meaning if you apply it to human day to day life. What you set out for today, has to be finished today else killing time kills more time. Don’t turn it into a pattern.  

The measure of happiness

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In one of my travels a sage asked me, what is the measure of happiness? I tried guessing but I wasn’t close ? Measure? I could only ask back if it can be measured. As I softly asked him to please stop smiling, and enlighten me. He took his time. And said the true measure of happiness is the average sum of sunrises and sunsets a man sees divided by the days of life. Sometimes it feels inappropriate but it is kind of apt.