A checklist to get you started—you can either do the same thing or a different thing… More of the same Persist Get the word out Doing something different Change an element of what you do Raise your prices Lower your prices Make it better Tell a different story Serve a different customer Enter a new segment Change the downstream effects of your work Earn trust Make bigger promises Organize Get better clients Do work that matters to someone
Day 6 I called Vandy again, out of love. To show our solidarity, that school is behind you, that we are with her in this hour of anxiety and need. We had already planned couple of prayers for her and a few things that might have helped her. But some things hit you like a sweet surprise that can only be expressed in a dismissive laugh. It was Vandy who was imagining that it could be Blood Cancer that might have reached her lungs but it was in her f imagination !! Nothing’s proven, no such reports have come out, its just that she thought it could be so. So, as of now it is pleasingly relieving to hear something like that. I read and wrote the points down all noon and evening. It is giving a sinking feeling one day after other as i am walking towards somewhere i have never walked. I hope i am able to create something of value. I will be meeting Abhishek tomorrow and i hope i get him …
Winters had started settling in Leh. I used to get up the earliest, take the coldest shower from the waters of Indus. For at least half a day to come, my peace with that. I was making tea when i heard Cynthia, singing. An old American woman who had been teaching in Leh for last 29 years. From the US, she arrived each winter to teach Laddakhi students. I offered Cynthia Tea. She said “I am sorry, I am still not Indian’ and laughed out loud. And asked me to come up and look at the old lines on her table. The table had a beautiful map. And this map sounded fulfilling. It had a path along the river Indus, that left the road way down and lead one to an ancient looking narrow canyon. She suggested, I must take that. And then without asking walk for an hour or two to the village called TAR. There lives my best friend; in a cave, like kitchen, where Ibex’s and snow leopards come sometimes to say …
The night was strange. It was a mix of sleeping deep and aware of some thing gone wrong. Two weeks were over in Leh. And as I had planned I got a bike for myself from Angchuk. I wanted to have a classic 350 but after the new UT status, government ordered the bike union to commercialise all the bikes or they’ll be seized. I got a Himalayan with me. While riding down to the narrow path of lama ji lane at upper changspa, something happened; the tendon, the tissue that joins the back part of the knee just went numb. For a moment i could not lend my weight on to my left leg. As I lied in bed in the night the pain was such nonsensical that I couldn’t straighten my leg, and if i even pushed and did, i could not bend it again. Throughout night as I moved from one position to other, I could feel the weight of my knee. Somehow i completed the task of sleeping. In the morning …
Even after thinking about doing something daily, one ends up doing it, achieving it, finishing it only in the head. In the head is good, as it creates enough compound interest in head but it is not good enough. I have had ups and downs, and have been away from home for some time. I was in Kashmir when article 370 was taken off. I was one of the last person to have trekked the majestic Amarnath ji this year. Without any plan or any inclination to have wanted to do it but surrendering to flow of life is such it takes you along on the paths, and you would enjoy. I fell in love with the harmony of the few people who walked along, some saints barefoot, and two without a leg who finished approximately sixty kilometres in as many days as I did. Food, sweets, tea, love and the name of shiva. But the feeling was erratic even then. Tents, people were leaving a month before. And many had already left. The way …
It takes discernment to do this. Most problems don’t require more data. They require more insight, more innovation and better eyes. Information is what we call it when a human being takes data and turns it into a useful truth.
Long work is what a lawyer who bills 14 hours a day filling in forms does. Hard work is what the insightful litigator does when she synthesizes four disparate ideas and comes up with an argument that wins the case–in less than five minutes. Long work has a storied history. Farmers, hunters, factory workers… Always there was long work required to succeed. For generations, there was a huge benefit that came to those with the stamina and fortitude to do long work. Hard work is frightening. We shy away from hard work because inherent in hard work is risk. Hard work is hard because you might fail. You can’t fail at long work, you merely show up. You fail at hard work when you don’t make an emotional connection, or when you don’t solve the problem or when you hesitate. I think it’s worth noting that long work often sets the stage for hard work. If you show up enough and practice enough and learn enough, it’s more likely you will find yourself in a …
Anyone who in coming weeks, months or years comes across this post, must know that we are always on a look out for someone who is happy and wants to share a bit of his/her joy with children and women. Ones who are carrying colors, words, artists, illustrators, designers, Photographers and filmmakers, theatre artists and the ones in academia are wholeheartedly welcome. They must come and teach to learn, share with the ones who altogether are the ones making a fabric of our society.
World is the child of chaos or so it seems. Maharaj was expecting tea from a strange home when two bulls started sharpening their horns in front of an old white temple when a third one came. Tea was sweet. An old woman bowed to Maharaj and soon all including the bulls started walking in different directions. Jacky the panther roared all day so much that the sound became as usual as of crow’s to ears. I tried looking for him behind the Keekar trees but instead looked into my phone in front of the mountain on a real sun shine winter day. Jheeu came and complained about not getting his gun. I told him to cut some papaya and together we put pomegranate over it. By the time we could finish it Logar came laughing and told us he has fever.
The four rounds around fire and seven complexities. Sound of a marble like play of a mystic. Gaya left us to Kali and Logar. We moved around the Bodhi tree nine times and collected mud from the nine planets. We found a well and gave to the water some part rice, rawa and Lentils. Later while spreading mud around the bhairavi tree Maharaj found a small sculpture of Jesus. He laughed and kept it with him quietly. The leaves are falling. It is quiet again.
Today was shukra. Shukravar. A day of Venus. Shiva ate shukra, and so he became Shiva himself. That only meant that there is no shukra or Venus but the light of shiva through his shukranu/sperms/rays. From far I saw the same crane limping around Kali. Squirrels and other birds went about eating and devastating the plants with much more aggression then previous days. Japam has been similar but effect will only be seen days after. Gayatri is as pure as mangla’s milk but time is now to dig in and change the course to attain a smile. Get on. – Shukra/Friday and Shani/Satuday passed by. Last night winds are lashed anything that they crossed. Felling many a bucket full of leaves. As soon as the morning arrived a girl started running down from a mountain. She held onto the finger of Maharaj, who was coming closer and closer to her. But as she neared him, she started feeling dull, bereft of light. When she opened her eyes, she had no pupil in them. Maharaj’s eye …
Slowly I have started smelling like fire. There is nothing more to feel one with the divine than this. Ash is all over my head, my clothes, my legs are bereft of a sole. Pouring Ice water every morning on head now seems a ritual. And the heat from the fire has become a family. Is it because of these squirrels that i have started listening to? Or that bird in the morning quietness who comes sits by my bed in the darkness of the dawn? Something will change. It seems to be initiating something and directing somewhere i cannot know just now. Hear hear they say. Hear till your eyes see the light.
Mangla’s milk has been the best thing to happen in this sea ashram. But today even before I could taste it, Logar brought Papaya for the first time and we prepared shake for every one. I closed the dhuni myself today when Maharaj ji retired after keeping the planets outside out of rat fear. He seemed tired. We called different goddesses around sunset and went outside the premises along the foothills to buy rabbits for Gayatri. Later when we came back, Manavendra was sitting on his horse called gambler over the Thorn hill. For the night we were invited to a home where several varieties of food was being prepared. When we reached, a woman whose face I forgot as soon I met her as i kept looking only at her nose pin. She told me my caste, and while drinking the papaya shake left from the morning, asked me to slow down. Me? When i woke up in the night even though i didn’t have to, a man was seen going away from me …
Sleep felt like a burden. The sun was about to come when we began the fire today. Tarot was interesting in the morning but I don’t remember if any concretisation happened today as was predicted. We decorated the nine planets but birds, squirrels and their friends made it their personal food plates. We kept restoring it almost all day long. Running after them, making faces, sounds but they seem to be not taking us seriously. I drew the yantra with saffron on the ancient tree paper. Late noon we trekked to the Hinglaj devi temple to find cactuses all around our way. We sat there long looking at the setting sun. And found ourselves humming the sound of the universe till it started getting dark. I felt somehow that this could be my last visit to the cave on this journey. I found three white marbles and placed them such that they immediatly turned holy. In the sky a rocket left a line of shooting stars. It bisected the wires over a field which had …
It was a day of hardest work. Hardest work is to love. While when love being not what you are seeking. The sound of train passes far like they are in a hurry. Trains are always in a hurry unless you are sitting in one of them. Indian Railways. It was dark when I got up. I didn’t see any dream may be because my head is towards the mother and eyes towards the tree. We made nine planets today on mud kept of square wooden boards. filled them first with numbers and later with rice and colourful lentils. We couldn’t finish it as squirrels started eating them. A young mataji came with a beautiful girl from a city. She ate peanuts and soon went to sleep in the library. Maharaj came with milk that we shared and logar got a mobile. And the drums were not beaten for the first time tonight.
Its time to sleep. And Logar starts beating the drum again tonight. May be he does it for mangla, the cow. But then there is no need for that. Or may be to warm himself up. It is cold. Or most probably and i feel this could be the reason, to keep Jacky, the panther away from the cows. Its windy. Neem tree under which we sleep showers its old leaves on us all night. In the morning we went towards the field and started digging. The mud that we got was put into a copper plate and then was under the same tree. On it we placed a copper snake and twelve different coloured stones in the direction of the water. Maharaj went to the temple on the mountain. I, and the guy whose dream is to mine a mountain started putting the clay in the direction of the planet’s movement. But they wobble. Even though the energy is needed to pour in them, the vital breath but we shall see tomorrow when maharaj …
In the night a train came. In it was an engine sleeping above Maharaj. So loud was his snore that I started going from bed to bed but to only kept get up enquiry after enquiry. In the morning as the sun rose, Aravalis were seen passing. Winters seemed gone, the moment I poured ground water on my head at four in the morning in February. A mountain starts from behind the ashram. And holds in him a panther they call Jacky. Jacky is popular and so much that he has come in the premises for if the cows go munching in the night. Me and Maharaj went to the Hinglaj temple and sang songs for two hours after we had food. I saw mangla while coming down and went near her to comb her stomach. During that time I learnt few new things about shukra and shiva, Shani and Vikramaditya. There is one Banayan, one neem, a library and enough blankets under the open sky. Rathore’s Kuladevi is Mata Nageahwari. Lights are out but …
Threads of cotton. Some new event had to happen. A long day in motion. Paris. Not patparganj but Indirapuram came. Maharaj wore mehroon clothes and did not open his eyes till the time food arrived. He said nothing. He asked nothing. He saw nothing. He just sat with his eyes closed. But the moment food arrived he started singing the songs of Krishna. It was an auspicious day. Mother was waiting. For moon. She will eat but then she will be looking at the stars first. Instead Rain came. And I left home for many days to come.
Many a times when body starts feeling the temperature, it starts affecting every other small action, as simple as interaction. But there is one thing that has worked for me since my teenage years. Every time I felt tired or exhausted. When body felt like breaking up, lethargy, uneasiness or just plainly feeling low crept up. I always called up a friend and played a sport. Probably sweating it out, screaming, shouting and expressing every other emotion that comes with it. I learnt playing Table tennis only a few years ago and since then it has only added dimensions the way my body reacts while moving, watching the spin of the ball, or the moment when you know it has to be smashed. It has always been an exciting mix of playing serves with different arms of various nationalities and minds. It has made conversations start and built observations. It is as good as chess and as fast as instinct. I lost four games out of seven today but by the time it ended, my …
After forty four days, I arrived home. Home is wherever mother lives. When I was leaving, the only thing i desired on the 43rd day, was to buy good walking shoes. I had even spent a good second half of that evening trying to find anything likeable. The ones i was wearing now, a pair of black trekking shoes; i had bought them four months ago in early August. Even though there is nothing as such like over-walking in the mountains, but by the time I finished my journey in the Himalayas, they seemed done. Any ways I could not find new shoes and at last left India with the same black ones. I traveled around Thailand and more so for a month long work-fellowship in Cambodia. From there I flew back to Kolkata and while spending my ninth evening in Kashi on Assi Ghat I met an old man whom I felt kept looking at my black shoes. As I followed his gaze and later his worn out feet. I walked up to him …
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.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
ROAD TO NARA 