All posts filed under: Letters to self

Travelling through Rural West Bengal in Blazing Indian Monsoons- I

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Monsoons are going on, Or are they going? They say that this year it’ll not only rain but the skies are going to weep. Clouds arrived four weeks early. And they have mostly stayed. Even the universe knows, that the monsoon times most children are angry or show their displeasure. They are told to not go out as it will rain, yet many go and whirl even at the expense of catching cold. Because only they know that cold does not exist, what does breathe in them is the joy of dancing with nature’s music. Few years ago, I travelled through Rural Bengal during the majestic Indian Monsoons. Being there it felt like my soul grew while only seeing the earth showing her abundance, her happiness. So many emotions churned within me then that I had to write a letter to a friend who sat far. Not to tell her as such, but to learn myself what was actually happening, to me. Many years later as I read this letter, I am taken back again to …

Reset Restart- 25 Lessons to Walk On In 2024

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My dearest co-travellers, from Nara family to yours, Happy Happy Happy 2024. 2023 was a strange year for me that even carried some most memorable gifts too. And as I press on this note to myself, these lessons that are not goals, neither resolutions but something that shall lead to a better day, better moments. As I reflect on the year that is history, I feel the need to share some lessons I learned or that have been reinforced over thIe pasttwelve months, that I must focus on before I think of any achievements or that light. Here you go: 1. God first. God always. God alone! 2. That value is in to serve, to solve, to uplift the ones in need. 3. Pray. Reflect. Act. 4. That reading for at least an hour each evening is 1000x better than scrolling. 5. Owning my mornings. 6. That the quality of my habits will determines the caliber of my future. 7. That a good night’s sleep prevents bad decisions. 8. Read a little. Write more. Think most. Meditate …

The Colours of November : A Photographic Journey

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Second last month of another year will be done soon. December knocks or not it has arrived. Many a times words feel weighty and probably this could be one thing for a writer which is nearly impossible to establish through his writing. A long Silence. Or the absence of presence. He may distract and not talk about a certain thing or may even carve out a poem. But silence is something that is personal to any breathing being. This November was that silent noise for me. It came as it is going. Like life, like age. It is not I who feels older still but only while observing my parents. streaks of hair, dehydrated skin, puffed eyes. Things are certainly moving towards a direction. It was a busy month. Filled with many memories that we as a family collected, and me in my own archival way. Away from expectations or even results. May be I have learnt the way of a writer. Yet still I am and will always be ‘in-practise’ an imagemaker first. Sharing …

Have a Little Faith: 5 things to Achieve by the Year end.

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I am writing. I have been writing. And even though I was away from Road to Nara, I kept writing on paper. I kept remembering everyone here. And it is now after thirty days of thirst, i finally opened this dying computer. How have you been? How is everyone doing? Please do tell me. Say it out loud. I will be very happy to read from each one of my co-traveller here. It is true that once the rhythm breaks, whoever you might be and whatever you do, life presides over. Life consumes even that time which once was someone’s. Like mine was for the Road to Nara. I tried to write on the 16th of this month and then on 26th but it took my might to break this monotony. Truth be told that there is no going far away from here. I missed writing here. I missed sharing here. Because words are as important as the ones reading them. Because these days, these months, this year is very important. And i would like …

How I found my self ? And sooner my strength- I

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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 …

Learning from Mahatma, knowing Gandhi

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There were many things i never liked about my school. And the foremost was that it unintentionally took my freedom away or so i think. I was never introduced to any ancient Indian texts, neither I learnt anything about Yoga or even Sanskrit till i was 13. A child like me who only wanted to see and know of the world was made to sit and learn answers to the question for examinations after every three months more like a parrot. So much so my unlearning started before i could wake up my interest for higher learning. And soon it started effecting my results in higher classes or that is what i think of it now probably because i couldn’t pursue anything apart from five subjects at school. I feel liberated at the thought that I am not in school. And more so there is no more need to answer questions about Gandhi’s contribution to India’s freedom struggle. School history curriculum was also one reason i did not take Modern History of India as my …

The Paradox

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Who is observing the observer? Are you in front of the camera or behind it ? Or are you it ? Do you realize the change Changing? We walked up to the oldest virgin man. The sevak of shiva sitting on a hill, under a bright summer sun. His skin had earned blocks of pentagon, shaped into numerous lines criss-crossing his whole body. Once wrinkles turned into scales, crafted like on a snake’s skin. For a moment when he stood, I moved and touched that skin. But it felt nothing like it instead it was soft as wool. We walked seven steps together and then he sat in the shadow, near few men who had come from the nearby village, singing. He was humorous. He looked at Maharaj ji and told him that you look older than me! abhi bhi dum lagate ho? Do you still smoke Chillum? And started laughing at his own prank. But when he did, i could see through his mouth till his almost neck, bereft of any bone. wide, narrow, dry and …

The Lovers Of Aurangabad

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Where are the lovers? The ones who roamed and flew kisses at each passing nightingale; that one who promised me the movies and photographs on the Valentines. I haven’t seen none and I don’t think one would come, instead i called him last night, in my sleep. His year began with a cold shower last valentines morning, of course it was February, of course it was cold. For many years he dismissed the day of love by saying saint valentines’s mother was a pagan and did not believe in Christ herself, rather was in love with a tree outside her home. So he, my boyfriend decided to love a tree that stood outside their home. You know trees have gender right! Also because his mother would rebel of even thinking about going outside, once she was walking on a street, and just when she reached at the centre of a four way crossing, she yelled out loud saying I detest this urban theatre,  Every one is a clone of the other. Look a likes, inside …

The Pride of the Capital Parade

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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 …

New Beginnings

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DAY 1 Yesterday father retired from his services after serving the government for thirty five years. He had organized a party which came out to be as good as if its someone’s wedding. For me It has not only been a teaching but it has been overwhelmingly inspiring to experience his intensity. And in later years how to start preparing your mind and executing various aspects of it efficiently. As efficiency is directly proportional to mind. The speed and clarity with which we could see his effortless involvement in all matters life showed his evolution. The last ten years had been the hardest of all, as he said during his speech. Travelling for over 50 kilometers in the early hours across Delhi is not cool by any standards; more so when you live only to teach. One’s mind has to be preserved of such log and ardous travels to take care of the biggest government school of delhi with a whopping numbers of students studying, approx.. 2300. Yet whatever came his way, he transformed it …

Jacky the Panther

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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 story of Venus and the Running girls

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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 …

Swaha / to the sun

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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.

Yantram

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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 …

Hardest work is to love

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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.

Arrival of the ancient mountains

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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 …

Shoes and the Sage

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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 …

In Omni to Hanley

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Starless night winter Old Donkey barking at the new comer To zojila, to Leh, to Hanle, to tso moreri, to i don’t know what pass that came after hundred’s of horses ran to take left, we took towards sky- a concrete river bed on top of a conical mountain which went all afternoon. Many called it a road. Through a broken bridge, through the ditches connecting another ditch on the Yoga day. While laughing at others. While laughing atourselves. While stopping before every loop to the mountain up. The dancing carrier. The nostalgia of the petrol fumes over six days. As every bicycle left us behind. Our omni made it across the Rohtang. But always carry two people to push it through. We needed many only once. On the road with Omni | July 15.