28th June 2005 (continued)
Well I didn’t write yet about the place we stayed in, Pasra. The continuous rain drops, sleeping on the veranda, the orchestra snoring from inside, the roofless toilet where you get drenched because of the rain. The movie we saw “bunny’. How funny it was (so I kept saying Bunny is funny). About Sashi-how I became his fan and ardent admirer. How I intend to call him to college to speak about something or other –at least fro his balanced way of thought and speech.
Didn’t say a bout the jungle stream Padma Akku Madhu and I walked on-about the WONDERFUL tailor bird nest I found ,about the “birabbutti” (?) I found. About the root hanging-a broken branch just hung from a root naturally. About the rocks the little bit of water the mud the paw prints. It really was really great and the weather. How nice it was! All in all I’m really truly glad I went and didn’t chicken out because of this silly feeling of inferiority and insecurity.
And you know? I believe there was no French class on Saturday. So it was all gain and no loss, touch wood.
Must go to Thinksoft tomorrow also. Actually it is a great place to work in. I hope I become good enough to work there even though Amma works there. I guess I wouldn’t mind working there in spite of Amma being there and the perceived terrors of working in the same place –like in Vidyaranya where I was but a child.
I still am like a little thing. But when am I going to write those novels and those poems? If I can’t write them when I am young and free it would never be possible to write them, never. I should make good use of my free time, indeed it is an absolutely must! (This paragraph is in French)
28th June 2005
(This seems to be a narrative inspired by her trip and the many memorials we saw for ML activists killed in encounters)
Hiding behind the bush he sat. Sweat ran, gushed poured out of his back. They could spot him any moment. And no! They wouldn’t care a damn. Bang Bang! And that would be the end. Death.
Breathing unsteadily he peeped out. How many more like him were hiding behind rocks and bushes and trees trying to save themselves and shoot their enemies? People of the same land –fighting for justice and for righteousness-at least in their own eyes.
Well, he was probably shot and a structure –a red painted ‘stupa’ shaped differently erected in his memory –his epitaph destroyed by his enemies the police. Even his name had to be wiped out. Yet the people idolised him. Shaheed –dead for a cause. And nature forgot these killings, this violence-retained her tranquil beauty. The hills, the bushes, the fields-all back to their original hues- year after year. The people came, they came, they fought, they died, they went, they, rotted. But tranquil beauty remained. True, sometimes it was gorily splashed with flesh and blood and burnt. But the rain cleaned up the mess and nature took over once again and basked in the sun and bathed in the rain and shivered in winter and ignored all the pain. Inflicted unnatural pain. –oh the misguided human brain- “durmargullara”
Friday, August 28, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
trip to pasara,kamaram
27th June 2005
It’ll be impossible to describe the full beauty and wonder of this trip to Warangal District-Pasara, Kamaram and Tadavai-at least in one go. So many of these trips I go to I enjoy thoroughly at the moment and then slowly over the years the details diminish. Everything fades away and the wonder and the beauty is lost.
The beauty of the ancient monuments is one thing –something which fades away faster – a pleasure not FULLY experienced by one like me but rather forced onto one self. But nature-living nature-the forest, the stream, the mountain, the animal, the village, the language-the pleasure comes naturally. Barely forced. True you do find it great, the beautiful temples, and the great sculpture- the lovely temples like the temple near Ramappa lake.
Anyways this trip lasted three days. We (= Nisha, Padma, Madhurima, Sashi, Akku, Amma and me) left on Saturday morning about 8 am or so from Secunderabad station on the Telengana Express. We then went to this NGOs office and then went to the 1000 pillared temple. It was really cool, 12th century A. D and it was a bit like the Hoysala architecture, the platform and all. There was a dancing floor in between made of darker stone, BEAUTIFUL.
The pillars in the Mandapam were really cool. There were MANY, MANY pillars but we didn’t think there’d be 1000. Thatha says its 1000 including the kutty pillars sculpted on the. As usual later invaders (Islamic) have destroyed many of the carvings and sculptures and stuff and have destroyed the beautiful Nandi’s head and tail.
Then we had lunch and went to Ramappa temple. Wow we drove and drove and we drove. We’ve reached. Off the car. Enter a compound, beautiful garden (sparse) on either side of along walk, leading to a reddish brown temple. Oh what a brown! Not quite the Pattadakal red. But a different brownish red. The carving was beautiful – different stones black have been used inside. Again the central dancing circle, intricately carved pillars and doorways asanas on the side. The whole temple seemed shaken with fallen pillars –seismic activity. Beautiful nonetheless….
After that we reached Pasara-where we stayed the next two nights.
29th June Tuesday 2005
How does one learn to balance the overall whole with the detail? The tiny little details that bring life and magic with them. I must learn to give a story briefly without concentrating on every goddam detail and hence wasting time. I must learn to make an overall basic design of the whole and THEN fill in the details. Magic before life is of no use. The necessities ought to be FOLLOWED by wonder. True I wan the wonder but what use is it without limbs, bones, blood, kidneys, livers, hearts, brains, nerves, veins, arteries, flesh?
So on the second day what happened? Every detail wasn’t important. Only the most wonderful need be mentioned.
Well we went to Kamaram the Koya village. A BEAUTIFUL village. We kept asking the women from various SHGs to describe their village. An old lady very bright and sprightly said it would be better to just go see the village. So we did…
We walked across the main street to a tank which was a spring and got water from another lake. It was green barely any water and full of leaves and plants like lotus and stuff. Then we waked past fields and fields and fields a stream and finally a check dam. Real nice has bund made of stone sediments which show different colours-pink purple yellow TRULY BEAUTIFUL. Looked like an art piece, a mural or something.
Beautiful houses –don’t know if I described them.
Spacious, clay walls, with wooden rods within. Roof made of thatch . large specious compounds, a separate cooking hut, 2-3 hens, some cattle, and most often a dog. Electricity cable TV a serene atmosphere. Place to grow vegetables and some other plants within ones compound, two or three acres of land to grow rice on, the forest 2-3 kms away –where the cattle graze, where the fires blaze –every summer they set it on fire. Secretly, so the Beedi leaf plants give off new leaves when the rains begin which they collect and sell. Lovely Kayatthu kattil (cots made of rope) can sleep on them in the compound.
Local school, anganwadi. Barber carpenter dhobi Kirana shop (REALLY SMALL) available locally. Health workers and vet visit regularly…superior people the Raasa Koyas.
(will be continued )
Saturday, August 15, 2009
everyday events
when i read what she says about the ordinary events of her day i realise how she lived each moment fully...
i notice the increase in followers and am encouraged by it. keep following and do add comments!
March 28th 2005
(Written in French-translated by me)
It is an absolutely maddening day. There was an exam but many other things to annoy me. In the morning in the ladies room a lizard fell on me. I first thought it was a wire or some such thing. I was scared when it was a big lizard. There’s a belief that this is bad luck. Perhaps that true because it was an irritating day. Full of foolishness. I gave Vinay Rs 50 for the reunion which I am not going to help with. Then it was the exam –during the exam I dropped my Style Parker pen which I adore and the nib broke. And after the exam I was sitting with the others and I felt alone. It was as if they were all part of a group I could not enter. And to get back here (home) I did not have enough money to take an auto and I had to come by bus. Then there was leakage in the gas tube. Grrrrrr…
March 31st 2005
Communities sharing a common territory often influence each other in so many ways without even realising it. Hyderabad is a PERFECT example of this. Just a few minutes ago I heard this Muslim neighbour of mine describing somebody said. “tho me bola ayyo”. “ayyo” is a very south Indian expression in Tamil Telugu and I don’t know what other languages. Ayyo is supposed to be Yuma’s wife’s name. So it is rather funny that a Muslim teenager expresses regret shock etc by calling out the name of the wife of the Hindu god of death. In the same way me Tamilian in Hyderabad find myself saying Kaiko and nakko and the like ever so often and thinking them even oftener. Jalal has to call me Gowri Amma with the ‘ow’ pronounced properly unlike all those north Indian belles who call be gauri. Gori vs gowri –that’s the difference.
I was just saying that even though Hindus and Muslims are supposed to be all antagonistic and sometimes some of the ones led more easily by politicians tend to hate each other, they are rather friendly and influence each other in many ways. To start with –of course- YEARS or CENTURIES after the Muslim invasion they were pretty friendly especially when they knew each other. The British did the kirikiri bit and induced hatred. The common Pakistani Janata they don’t hate us like we hate them. They love India Bollywood and the Indians and have a lot of curiosity about us. At least that is what recent newspaper articles reveal.
March 23rd 2005
It was nice helping out Gita auntie’s mom in French. I hope and pray she does well in her exam tomorrow. I really want her to pass and not only for myself. She’s very sweet
Yesterday she gave me loads of dry fruits, today she gave me whatever I forgot yesterday and chocolates and a bottle of a parfum. When I asked her why she, she says Gita aunty got them for me and I should contact her for further details.
She’s quite chatty and a sociable person. I wonder why she lives alone though. I am sure Gita aunty would take lovely care of her. Maybe she likes to be independent? Maybe she likes this particular flat? Don’t know and it is none of my business. But she doesn’t seem lonely or unhappy or anything.
She’s a really simple person and I admire the way she accepts facts. She's cute and in some ways even like Vanaja pati. When I was there today her other daughter (Kamini) called and she told her how I was teaching so well and all. Boy, did I feel great! She told her I was gentle and nice just like Gautam. But of course she has to say these nice things about me when I was sitting right next to her, even if she thought me a bloody pain in the ass.
She always makes these ‘just like’ comparisons. She keeps saying how Sneha is just like Kamini and stuff and she asked Sneha the other day why she didn’t bring her mummy along for the evening programme .Cute!
i notice the increase in followers and am encouraged by it. keep following and do add comments!
March 28th 2005
(Written in French-translated by me)
It is an absolutely maddening day. There was an exam but many other things to annoy me. In the morning in the ladies room a lizard fell on me. I first thought it was a wire or some such thing. I was scared when it was a big lizard. There’s a belief that this is bad luck. Perhaps that true because it was an irritating day. Full of foolishness. I gave Vinay Rs 50 for the reunion which I am not going to help with. Then it was the exam –during the exam I dropped my Style Parker pen which I adore and the nib broke. And after the exam I was sitting with the others and I felt alone. It was as if they were all part of a group I could not enter. And to get back here (home) I did not have enough money to take an auto and I had to come by bus. Then there was leakage in the gas tube. Grrrrrr…
March 31st 2005
Communities sharing a common territory often influence each other in so many ways without even realising it. Hyderabad is a PERFECT example of this. Just a few minutes ago I heard this Muslim neighbour of mine describing somebody said. “tho me bola ayyo”. “ayyo” is a very south Indian expression in Tamil Telugu and I don’t know what other languages. Ayyo is supposed to be Yuma’s wife’s name. So it is rather funny that a Muslim teenager expresses regret shock etc by calling out the name of the wife of the Hindu god of death. In the same way me Tamilian in Hyderabad find myself saying Kaiko and nakko and the like ever so often and thinking them even oftener. Jalal has to call me Gowri Amma with the ‘ow’ pronounced properly unlike all those north Indian belles who call be gauri. Gori vs gowri –that’s the difference.
I was just saying that even though Hindus and Muslims are supposed to be all antagonistic and sometimes some of the ones led more easily by politicians tend to hate each other, they are rather friendly and influence each other in many ways. To start with –of course- YEARS or CENTURIES after the Muslim invasion they were pretty friendly especially when they knew each other. The British did the kirikiri bit and induced hatred. The common Pakistani Janata they don’t hate us like we hate them. They love India Bollywood and the Indians and have a lot of curiosity about us. At least that is what recent newspaper articles reveal.
March 23rd 2005
It was nice helping out Gita auntie’s mom in French. I hope and pray she does well in her exam tomorrow. I really want her to pass and not only for myself. She’s very sweet
Yesterday she gave me loads of dry fruits, today she gave me whatever I forgot yesterday and chocolates and a bottle of a parfum. When I asked her why she, she says Gita aunty got them for me and I should contact her for further details.
She’s quite chatty and a sociable person. I wonder why she lives alone though. I am sure Gita aunty would take lovely care of her. Maybe she likes to be independent? Maybe she likes this particular flat? Don’t know and it is none of my business. But she doesn’t seem lonely or unhappy or anything.
She’s a really simple person and I admire the way she accepts facts. She's cute and in some ways even like Vanaja pati. When I was there today her other daughter (Kamini) called and she told her how I was teaching so well and all. Boy, did I feel great! She told her I was gentle and nice just like Gautam. But of course she has to say these nice things about me when I was sitting right next to her, even if she thought me a bloody pain in the ass.
She always makes these ‘just like’ comparisons. She keeps saying how Sneha is just like Kamini and stuff and she asked Sneha the other day why she didn’t bring her mummy along for the evening programme .Cute!
Saturday, August 8, 2009
on what she was reading
Suku read widely -slowly and carefully savouring each word if she liked the work. She would distinguish very clearly between good and poor writing quite early in her life. and her views were her own....
14th Jan 2005
On “Sophie’s world”
Just finished Sophie’s World. Somehow it’s kinda disappointing in that it now seems totally uncharismatic. Yes! It is an amazing work- a novel on the history of philosophy. Its ideas-contents are SOLID but its total emotional emphasis ,ethos becomes slowly devoid of charm. May be I expected too much because of so many people swearing by it. Akku, Tejaswini, Tanya…I don’t know so many people.
And not only that. When I read the beginning part when it was taboo –boy it was amazing- about Sophie and all her pets and her hideout and her letters and stuff. And the philosophy stuff was real good though I can’t remember who said what. Besides I don’t think that’s necessary. But weirdest end ..where was the mystery? It was just talk of it. What did Tejaswini find amazing in the last chapter? Beats me! And seriously!
The idea is good. Being a part of a book. Then coming out and role reversal with the author. It is an amazing idea. But the way it is written is not in the least bit appealing. Maybe I’m stuck in the aesthetic stage. But heck! Who cares? It was really a great work. it has taught me quite a few ideas. But I dint like the way Alberto dismissed some ideas-just like that and it seemed almost American in its stupidity at that point. But being Norwegian it did 3000 years of justice to western philosophy with some mentions of ‘orient’-like ‘asura’ meaning ‘god’. Which they got totally wrong-actually not quite so wrong. Maybe they were actually of the same level as ‘devas’ Dunno.
I thought wrong about how my masterpiece should be in the Sophie’s world genre. It should be better. I should be able to sustain interest and wonder. Sustainability seems to be the key issue in my life and I don think any amount of planning can achieve a thing. It just has to happen, that’s it!
Jan 17th
Been reading this book called ‘the dangling man’ by Saul somebody. It’s really REALLY nice. I never expected our college library to have such AMAZING books. It’s too good and that a guy could actually be me. It surprises me how every main character in every book I read is at least to a certain extent in certain aspects like me. That just shows how all human beings are so similar. It just shows how we are all so connected and how we are all from the same stardust. It’s pretty amazing.
28th April 2005
I wonder how Daphne Du Maurier wrote. I mean did she start at the start of a book and spontaneously come out with such wonderfully well woven tales-so connected and yet so natural and real. Just out with it or did she get a basic idea and then put parts together add a line here or delete another there-HOW? Did she just add the first part after she’d said the whole tale so that it’d seem coherent or did she start with it and try to reach it again?
Just finished reading “My Cousin Rachael”. What do I say? It is a beautiful book-she really is amazing at taking you into a mood delving into her character’s emotions. You really connect to them and they seem so real. One would have to be really imaginative to do that. When we get transported tot hat world when we read it so casually she must have literally felt part of them. I don’t have that kind of imagination. I can’t go too far from what I believe to be the facts and though at times I feel a kind of regret at my lack of imagination I’m quite glad about it on the whole. I don’t even have Philip Ashley’s or Mary Yellan or the girl in Rebecca’s or the woman in Frenchman’s Creek imagination. I cannot imagine so much from nothing. I don’t have that poetry.
But what I love most about her works are the way most of them begin in such a mysterious way and end with the mystery more or less sorted out but with a trace of confusion or enigma about them all the same.(I haven’t seen it in Jamaica Inn and the Flight of the Falcon moved me too much to notice it). Though they are complete they are not altogether clear. And they
are disturbing and quite emotionally moving. She has an amazing understanding of people and in each book one tends to connect with the narrator. Another reason I liked it. I always liked first person narratives. But I couldn’t connect with Philip Ashley-he irritated me too much. I couldn’t understand his love for Rachel –how he could tear Ambrose’s letters –how he could trust her so when she was robbing and poisoning him. It irritated me. I was glad he didn’t warn her and she died but in the end there was no proof. May be she was good. Maybe he was the ass acting foolishly and he was dead. What proof that she was poisoning him? So I shared his guilt though he hadn’t really murdered her. Again I liked connection-so unconnected at eh beginning. Her style of writing is simply amazing. ok I’m off to have a siesta.
14th Jan 2005
On “Sophie’s world”
Just finished Sophie’s World. Somehow it’s kinda disappointing in that it now seems totally uncharismatic. Yes! It is an amazing work- a novel on the history of philosophy. Its ideas-contents are SOLID but its total emotional emphasis ,ethos becomes slowly devoid of charm. May be I expected too much because of so many people swearing by it. Akku, Tejaswini, Tanya…I don’t know so many people.
And not only that. When I read the beginning part when it was taboo –boy it was amazing- about Sophie and all her pets and her hideout and her letters and stuff. And the philosophy stuff was real good though I can’t remember who said what. Besides I don’t think that’s necessary. But weirdest end ..where was the mystery? It was just talk of it. What did Tejaswini find amazing in the last chapter? Beats me! And seriously!
The idea is good. Being a part of a book. Then coming out and role reversal with the author. It is an amazing idea. But the way it is written is not in the least bit appealing. Maybe I’m stuck in the aesthetic stage. But heck! Who cares? It was really a great work. it has taught me quite a few ideas. But I dint like the way Alberto dismissed some ideas-just like that and it seemed almost American in its stupidity at that point. But being Norwegian it did 3000 years of justice to western philosophy with some mentions of ‘orient’-like ‘asura’ meaning ‘god’. Which they got totally wrong-actually not quite so wrong. Maybe they were actually of the same level as ‘devas’ Dunno.
I thought wrong about how my masterpiece should be in the Sophie’s world genre. It should be better. I should be able to sustain interest and wonder. Sustainability seems to be the key issue in my life and I don think any amount of planning can achieve a thing. It just has to happen, that’s it!
Jan 17th
Been reading this book called ‘the dangling man’ by Saul somebody. It’s really REALLY nice. I never expected our college library to have such AMAZING books. It’s too good and that a guy could actually be me. It surprises me how every main character in every book I read is at least to a certain extent in certain aspects like me. That just shows how all human beings are so similar. It just shows how we are all so connected and how we are all from the same stardust. It’s pretty amazing.
28th April 2005
I wonder how Daphne Du Maurier wrote. I mean did she start at the start of a book and spontaneously come out with such wonderfully well woven tales-so connected and yet so natural and real. Just out with it or did she get a basic idea and then put parts together add a line here or delete another there-HOW? Did she just add the first part after she’d said the whole tale so that it’d seem coherent or did she start with it and try to reach it again?
Just finished reading “My Cousin Rachael”. What do I say? It is a beautiful book-she really is amazing at taking you into a mood delving into her character’s emotions. You really connect to them and they seem so real. One would have to be really imaginative to do that. When we get transported tot hat world when we read it so casually she must have literally felt part of them. I don’t have that kind of imagination. I can’t go too far from what I believe to be the facts and though at times I feel a kind of regret at my lack of imagination I’m quite glad about it on the whole. I don’t even have Philip Ashley’s or Mary Yellan or the girl in Rebecca’s or the woman in Frenchman’s Creek imagination. I cannot imagine so much from nothing. I don’t have that poetry.
But what I love most about her works are the way most of them begin in such a mysterious way and end with the mystery more or less sorted out but with a trace of confusion or enigma about them all the same.(I haven’t seen it in Jamaica Inn and the Flight of the Falcon moved me too much to notice it). Though they are complete they are not altogether clear. And they
are disturbing and quite emotionally moving. She has an amazing understanding of people and in each book one tends to connect with the narrator. Another reason I liked it. I always liked first person narratives. But I couldn’t connect with Philip Ashley-he irritated me too much. I couldn’t understand his love for Rachel –how he could tear Ambrose’s letters –how he could trust her so when she was robbing and poisoning him. It irritated me. I was glad he didn’t warn her and she died but in the end there was no proof. May be she was good. Maybe he was the ass acting foolishly and he was dead. What proof that she was poisoning him? So I shared his guilt though he hadn’t really murdered her. Again I liked connection-so unconnected at eh beginning. Her style of writing is simply amazing. ok I’m off to have a siesta.
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