I left Delhi again. And you know, every time I leave Delhi for a town or even a city, I am surprised with how pleasant the life is outside. First thing that you always notice moving out of Delhi is how vast and wide-ranging the sky becomes. There are no more glimpses of Moons and Suns between buildings rather you become an observer of a painting happening.
My Road To Nara Family, Namaste again. I hope you have all been healthy and enjoying these last few weeks of 2024. In late March, when i announced my break for I think five months, which initially i thought would be a lot more and I will start writing here a lot earlier, but life threw a beautiful mix of intensity and learning all these past months that strangely i enjoyed my new found freedom to an extent it became harder for me to come back here. But it was not the ‘not writing here’ part which concerned me most, it was not missing it. Family life, School- its responsibilities and then my own personal and professional commitments to myself. Some posts that were published earlier in last two months were pre-scheduled, so much so that I had written them in May itself. I forgot about them and couldn’t write or comment back as i didn’t see them for over a month. I will try to get back to the posts and answer each one. …
February is a special month in Life. Ever since my arrival on Earth, nature has given me people in Feb I feel I belong to. Now two, but the one who gave me birth, who showed me to serve first. She, who I realised became my inner voice, who gifted me the eyes to decipher the right from wrong and the mind to believe in myself that I can create, I can do and that I can become whatever in life I wanted to, I am. That I am because of her. And all what i can go on writing, as various people have on earth for their mothers. How much ever I may write but these words weigh nothing and will never amount to anything for how mothers are to us. Just like all the mothers of the world, they are nothing but rivers, that from wherever they pass, they nourish. And if I dig deeply and i did, I found that all along throughout my childhood it was she who has been a …
Much like Lost in Translation I had been wandering, walking for a Research Project in Delhi; One of the great historic cities of the world and spans some 10 centuries of its past. Understanding, observing Delhi is both exciting and challenging. Delhi has had a rich urban past, and what is particularly interesting is the fact that at different points of time several different sites were chosen by various powers/dynasties to found new settlements or cities. Most of them are in ruins but what is important to learn about it is that all even today are accessible. One of them is yesteryears Shahjahanabad, today’s Old Delhi. Shahjahanabad has been subsumed under the gigantic sprawl of metropolitan Delhi. Yet it has an identity that is distinct from any other. Popularly known as Chandni Chowk or Old Delhi, its name conjures up romantic narrow streets named after almost every thing on earth; maze like with a variety of street food and exotic markets. But my exploration is not completely about Delhi, its heritage or food but it …
I had not decided to celebrate today. But nature pulled me in. For last few months I had been parallel-y working on a project in New Delhi. Rather it is my expression on Climate Change living in a region which in itself is an extension of extremism in most ways. For one it is making our lives vulnerable to diseases here, viruses, climate catastrophes in terms of pollution and per square population density, in the National Capital Region. Working on a project such as this has taken my breath, my life in a way that I sometimes remunerate myself a quote that Andrei Tarkovsky used to say on ‘Cinema requiring sacrificing of yourself. That You should belong to it, it shouldn’t belong to you. Cinema uses your life, not vice versa. In all ways, i have proved him right, without making much progress. On a whim last night I and team decided to visit the Yamuna river early morning as mist has started to settle over the flowing water. We walked till noon to film the …
And now we move to the rhythm of this restlessnessOn these streets many people dead they drive with recklessness 8% growth has some people flex with lexusesIn South ex shop for Rolexes and diamond necklaces Land developers come down hard build power nexusesThey build more malls and shopping complexcesses State militia vacate villages – next exodusSo you can cash checks of sensex indexes. Many narrators refer to Delhi as be-dil(heartless). They say the city is cruel, treacherous, ungrateful, selfish and a whore. Prior to the Muslim rule, Delhi’s most popular name was Yoginipur, City of Yoginis. Jain texts and Prakrita literature mentioned the city as Yoginipur. Yoginis are lesser goddesses; some texts say they numbered 12 while others put the figure at 64. Yogmaya, the presiding deity of Yoginopur, reigned over all the Yoginis. : ँ : Excerpts and Images from an Ongoing Project on Delhi Thank you. If today is the first time you have arrived on The Road to Nara, you are heartily welcome ~ Namaste : ँ : I will take this opportunity to …
Even though every day, slowly months and years seem to pass as fast as they arrive; January is special because first so much celebration already happens even before it arrives that half of it leaves while many still living hungover or in the previous year. Yet for me it was bringing some change that i could experientially notice, and drastic at that. Father had a near death experience so much that one night sleeping outside Hospital, in the boot of a car made me succumb to the emotions of not having a father anymore. Those five hospital days were special in a strange and new kind of way. Father eventually came back strongly, and is on his way to retain good health. But still something changed in me. Probably the essence of time. How so much is often so little. Hence January had to be celebrated, in the only few way i can. Working, walking, writing better. Ever since the seed of working on Delhi’s past and present has yielded, i had been moving around …
While studying culture and ancient practises in the Higher Himalayas. Continuing from Pandava Forest and the Brahma Kamal : The Nights of Change in the Himalayas : ँ : Who would have known that a journey which merely started in documenting the culture of the mountains will end in a never-ending quest of finding the way to my own being. May be this is what Living in general teaches us. Like Googly in Cricket. Guruji and I came back to his home. It was cold and only a bulb far was filling the mountain home with some light. He stood for a while without speaking, almost waiting for the words to arrive. That mountain Narayan, that slope lead the last Pandava to Heaven, with a dog. We were seeing it together, in the dark. The tip of it shining, because moon was raining that night. And that is where you will find the Lotus of Brahma; a whole valley of flowers up there surrounds the divine flower; because they too revere it. They want to …
It was sudden. A day of change. Something shifted. Paradigm. Light. Its been months that I had known where to look yet It took time to find. Because it had already found me. It was in my hands and sooner I became it. In my search for the permanent, in this land which once was ruled by the snakes. Forest. In the name itself, energy resides. I reached Yogmaya. After months, without telling even my own self. The moment that child arrived I packed my bag, took my documents, opened the door and started walking towards her. As if she called on the eve of her birth night. It was five thousand and sixty eight hundred years ago. 5068. From today starts Nine days of Worshipping the mother. How will you do it?I will take the help of Fire. When she calls, the time subsides. Last evening, I was brimming with energy. I passed through the mausoleum and Mehrauli felt like a foreign country. It had been long I thought i was looking, rather …
It was a week later, since that night of inner churning, when I met Sangram Singh again, and for the first time at his one room flat in Delhi. And most interestingly, he was already drinking, since sunrise. His whole house smelled of tobacco. Lights not brighter than the ones we sat under, in his auto. The green wall behind him wore a Hanuman calendar of the previous year. His eyes swollen, pointed, looking towards me, followed my gaze from the wall to the glass that was kept at the low table beside his bed, rum still left in it. “It’s not good for a wrestler, you know”. He picked up the glass and emptied it in one gulp. When I was young even the smell of this bothered me, but now it’s my nectar. It is this, which makes me feel alive. But Narayan, you look different today, Sangram suddenly getting aware of my presence. You seem all ready? He said looking at my camera. You wanted to see the wrestling place, right? I …
In the silence of the night, the only sound that started coming was of the rain drops dropping, infrequently from the leaves above. Soaking in as soon as they fell on the road I was walking. The darkness had intruded beyond the trees standing like guards on either side. Their canopies meeting above making a roof, even making the drizzle feel like a poem sailing through the air. Till then I had my phone in my hand. My priced possession, I had bought after two months of work at my first job as a photojournalist. As i neared an approaching lamppost that once looked far, my shadow stretching behind me. Without any sound or intuition a hand caught me by my neck from behind. For a second I really thought it must be somebody known, a friend’s prank yet still unlikely. Within another second I got a strong hit on my back. Falling flat on my chest on the wet road. And realized that I was being hit nowhere but only on my face, a …
Sometimes guilt pushes for better results. Thus Chatter woke up dot at four in the brahm mahurat. Even though he left home at five. We were able reach Rajpath in the darkness of the dawn. It was no less than grand theatre going on there. Never was Delhi be heard and felt from the pride and the energy with which they marched past. With the bands of each regiment leading the way. The drums, the beats, the smell of the sweating young, the valour in the air. The discipline, the clacking of the iron bar beneath their marching boots to the tar ground woke us all up. The mist, the vapours coming out of mouths while a woman officer commanding against the street lamps of Rajpath takes you close to India’a colonial cold faced armies. The practise and improvisation that has gone in the making of them. Oneness in the motion. The pride. It felt like they were owning the day. It felt like they made it our day. Whole, united. It was a day …
I went rather late. In midst of going or not going which has become a pattern. The sun became orange and soon hid behind city buildings. I was still in metro. I took two tuk tuks and still had to walk. The air changed to worst. The smell. Blood was seen spilled. The water filled pot holed roads. I bought four chocolates for the girl and one for the boy. I reached without straying anywhere else. I arrived at a time when she was looking at herself in the mirror when she saw me from the sides of her eye. And hid herself behind the door. She was humming a song. Combing her wet hair. Looking at herself. But as she hid herself from my gaze, she was smiling, she was shying as she always did. I asked about her health. If she is studying? of course not. I met her brother. I remembered him fondly. I had filmed them both a year ago for over a week. He was the most interactive little boy …
An image of my parents wedding in 1982 I met J uncle on a rainy very cold january morning this year, near an empty swimming pool. His room – 705, is just beneath my room – 805, where i am writing this. J uncle had his own quiet world till he met my sister. My sister, she is a kathak dancer(banaras gharana). J uncle would not know about it for a month till one day they meet in the elevator, she moved and her ghungroo rolled from her bag. J uncle and his lovely wife had come from Banaras. In a quest to live with their son, they sold their house. They used to sing all morning there, he told me. He disliked it here. Everything. But he never spoke about it. He was just visibly sad. In his walk, thats how mostly i saw of him. A singer coming from a gharana who doesn’t sing anymore. In the meantime J uncle grew fond of my sister and attended one of her performances in Delhi. That …
ROAD TO NARA 