Today…
…is one of those days when all I want to do is retire to the hills and do nothing but make bead necklaces, or even bread.
Filed under: Cranky kettle | 6 Comments
Tags: whimsy
Festivals galore
So who’s going for the Jaipur Literary Festival?
And the boi mela (book Fair) at Calcutta?
And the Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka?
Let’s just say I am not going for any of the above and am therefore asking.
Filed under: Books, Travel, Writing | 2 Comments
Tags: Books, Literary festivals
2010 – the year ahead in books
According to Tehelka, you can look forward to the following books in 2010.
Filed under: Books | Leave a Comment
Tags: Books
Pondicherry and the Blues
“Pondy has the soul of an old blues man.”
Some sentences catch you unawares like a fishing hook and don’t let you go. This was one of them. My niece and I were discussing how refreshing our last holiday during the New Year weekend was. And somehow the conversation turned to Goa and our mutual dislike for it. We agreed on how it has lost its soul when compared to Pondy. That’s when she made this perceptive remark. Of course, the bottom line was that we both loved Pondy. The soft French sensibility that permeates every product made here or the strong tropical sun that brushes off the dust of your regular life or the delightful food available either at the corner café or a luxury hotel or the sound of the high-tide waves that seem like background music or the cheap roadside clothes with fantastic cuts. There is something to be enjoyed every moment in Pondy. Sometimes, all I wanted to do was sit and gaze at the sea. I went there for three days only but it felt like a different universe.
Pondy, indeed, has the soul of an old blues man.
Filed under: New Year, Travel, Trip, urban India | 6 Comments
Tags: Travel
There is something wrong with the world when the regular “buy one and get one free” concept can be applied to art! In the last week of 2009, I was hypnotised by the bargain counter at the neighbourhood bookstore. It has become a true mega-consumerist utopia. And I its shameless consumer. The prices of the bargain books were not reduced rather one book is given away along with the other. Obviously, of the same price, size, and maybe other essential parameters such as weight. So I bought a book on Cézanne and had to hunt for another art book to fulfil the basic criteria. Luckily Monet found me. Till now, I still can’t believe it—I bought a Cézanne and got a Monet free!
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Tags: art, Life, whimsy
The name as seen on the cover of this short story collection by Michel Faber is vertically placed. Apart from the fact that it echoes the rain of the title, it is, I think, an obtuse reference to the vertigo-inducing variety of stories that populate the book. It seems to be a conspiracy by the cover designer and the author, some sort of dramatic irony intended to be decoded by the reader. Inhabiting this book are fifteen individual worlds not just on earth but some seemingly different planets as well. Faber mixes up genres with alarming insanity but it works. There is sci-fi story next to the post-modern story, a librarian’s nightmare but a short story reader’s delight. I don’t know what to expect each time I finish a story. I do have some favourites, “Some Rain Must Fall”, “The Crust of Hell”, “Pidgin American” and “The Tunnel of Love”. The others are quietly magnificent. But these few stories push the boundaries of the short story as I had known before. The one common factor that binds all the stories seems to be this sense of waiting, very Godot-ish in its execution. Most of the characters seem to be waiting for something while missing the startling beauty of their present extraordinary lives. And whatever happens seems to be outside the framework of the short story. Read this collection for the sheer joy of experiencing the unexpected.
PS: S, muchas gracias por este libro magnifico!
Filed under: Book reviews, Books, Reading, Stories | 6 Comments
Tags: Books, Notes
Lost and found
One exuberant day in August last year (16th of August 2008 to be precise), I wrote the following piece. I found it tucked away in a notebook the day before yesterday. I don’t feel very exuberant today but reading this made me feel better and hopeful. It’s a strange coincidence I read so many authors but this time I received hope from an unexpected (and unpublished) source—me!
***
Transformations
The past is in our genes. The present is in our every step. And the future is a halo that we never see. We loose molecules from our skins and grow a few more every minute of the day. We are truly the transforming creatures. We do like transform ourselves into richer (in all senses) human beings. The biggest commercial media enterprises of today, TV/reality shows, tap into this psychological urge to see people being transformed and vicariously transform ourselves as well. And like all things that do transform, change, transmogrify, we human beings transform everything we touch. And yet we are so ignorant of our power. We can morph into different personalities without changing a single item of clothing. We transform ourselves, we transform the others.
When some people call for a revolution, it appeals to us because it appeals to our need to transform. When we learn something new, we transform ourselves. When we meet someone new, we transform too. We are the ultimate magical beings. There is no magic outside of us. There is no transformation outside of us. (1) We transform every day, in every way. And yet instead of looking inside to see the magic, we search for it outside. No wonder we don’t find anything.(2) Our bodies are the ultimate transforming machines; they change without us noticing. We create devices to look at and inside our bodies. But we have no device to read our mind, the nerve centre of such transformations.
On some level, we know we can transform at will. Why did Schopenhauer say the world was both a will and an idea? Because we need to only think of anything to change and we can change it. Our will is enough. To transform is to be alive. We transform what we touch. And we do this mostly unknowingly. Imagine if we do this with knowledge, forethought, and foresight? We would truly reach our human potential then.
–
Notes
(1) You could argue that nature is outside of us and therefore equally magical. I agree but from a different angle. We are part of nature. Assuming that we stand for all things natural, there is no magic outside of us.
(2) I am talking about the existential nothingness here.
Filed under: Feelings, Ideas, Self, Thoughts | 2 Comments
Tags: Ideas, thought
Microblogging
I am trying out something new called micro blogging. I can post links, photos, text, quotes, audio or video separately. Conceptually, it’s in between twitter and a blog. I felt rather restricted by twitter, what with character limits. I like micro blogging more. It gives me the freedom to add a link alone if I felt like it without having to explain anything! I know you can do that both on twitter and on a blog but somehow it seems a bit much for twitter and a lot less for a blog. In any case, twitter, tumblr, and blogs fill a different type of communication need in a person. One cannot override the other. It’s like friends. You need some friends for some purposes. Not all friends function in the same way. And it is in perfect tune with who they are, what they want and what is your connection with them.
And oh, this is my tumblr microblog: South Side Blues.
Filed under: Technology | 10 Comments
Tags: Technology
Sound magicians
After a week spent slouched in front of the computer, (spent, not slouched, more than normal), it was such a relief to have a creative weekend where I escaped from my life. On Saturday, I had the delightful idea of meeting up with friends and attending the Korean contemporary music concert that was going on as a part of the November music fest. Oh, it was such a feast for the senses. I say senses, because you don’t listen to music with just your ears, you listen with your eyes and with your body. This was one music concert where I listened with my body.
Four Korean musicians, Gong Myoung, transformed the Music Academy stage into a playground for their music. A music that was strange and familiar at the same time. The multi-talented instruments played contemporary instruments (guitar, drums) and traditional Korean instruments as well as the ones they themselves had created out of bamboo. The music they drew out from those instruments was dynamic, pulsating and energetic. I couldn’t sit still for long. The repertoire of music changed from fast and vibrant to slow and melancholic but each had its own crystallised beauty. True performers that they were, they combined many genres in their performance including acting. Their music spilled over the stage making them move all about the ground floor. They didn’t stay in one place. They entered (I couldn’t help notice like the Jatra) from the aisles just like the audience as if to say “We are just like you”. English words escaped them but the music made its way to an encore performance. We couldn’t just get enough of these sound magicians. Even household items were converted into musical instruments like bubbletop plastic water containers made into drums and walking-sticks made into flutes. Every thing has its music. Only a few seem to find it. They were one of those few.
Listening to their music made the dust off my life fall off . Gong Myuong’s music performance reminded me that there is so much to live for. I remember thinking in the middle of a stirring composition that a universe that has this music can’t be all that bad.
Image courtesy: Inko Center, Chennai
Filed under: Chennai, Life, Music | Leave a Comment
Tags: Korean contemporary music, Music
Advice to young poets
If at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you’ve written one line of one poem, you’ll be very lucky indeed.
And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world— unless you’re not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.
Does this sound dismal? It isn’t.
It’s the most wonderful life on earth.
Or so I feel.
— e e cummings
Filed under: Poetry, Quotes, Reading, Thoughts, Writing | Leave a Comment
Tags: Quotes
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South of the Border, West of the Sun is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
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