And then, there were none?

“There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.” – Robert Lynd, The Blue Lion and Other Essays

Returned from Kachchh earlier this month.

Glad to have met old friends but the trip remains sad and I fear what the future has in store for this most wondrous of places. Within hours of reaching Bhuj, I also learnt about the fire that apparently wiped-out Musabhai’s Bhunga and all his worldly possessions, including his flutes.

The Rann Festival will probably become one of the greatest threats to the sensitive eco-systems of this region – and nobody within the Sarkari Raj is concerned as long as the ‘Khushboo Gujarat Ki’ becomes global. Sadly, the Kachchhis themselves seem oblivious to the impending catastrophes that face them and, I don’t just mean the flora and fauna. Who is allowing high-rise buildings to be constructed? Haven’t enough lives been lost in 2001?

 

“The psycho of children”

“Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants.” – John W. Gardner

I have said this earlier – and would like to validate again – I am not a theatre person. This is a tag that has been given to me by others along with the much woolly label of being ‘multi-faceted’…whatever that means! Most expect me to break into a ‘song and dance’ on demand, whilst all I can do is to look at them and squirm with discomfort. Cursing them and then myself.

I have never thought of myself as a theatre person. I use theatre and drama as a medium of instruction – period!

So, what/who am I? At the risk of derisive sniggers, I would like to be known as a sensitizer and an educator. Who? What?

I would also like to be known as a wild-life person. What! Who?

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The Ballad of Bakersgunj

“Can you hear the voices? Can you hear the cries? Do you know they’re here with me? Watching you through my eyes?” – Angel of your darkness

He was the smartest retarded person I ever met and for some obscure reason reminded me of the dog in ‘The Zoo Story’. He disgusted and fascinated me. His real name was Wilson but people called him Pagala!

I remember the day I met him. It was a cold winter morning, and I had huddled in the bus that groaned itself towards Bakersgunj – its last stop and my destination.

“What a name!” I had thought when I received the invitation from the Mission school. I was thrilled, as the residential school was well known. But to teach in a girls’ school run by nuns?

“Shit!” I said to myself, confirming my own realization that I would have to watch my language there.

The letter from the school had very politely informed me that my “name had been recommended by Fr. J____,” and would it be possible for me to “accept this short assignment”. The fee wasn’t much but everything else was provided for and as I was between projects, I sent in my acceptance looking forward to Bakersgunj – which incidentally, had nothing to do with bread, cakes and biscuits!

 *

Jāggars

“Over the centuries we have transformed the ancient myths and folk tales and made them into the fabric of our lives. Consciously and unconsciously we weave the narratives of myth and folk tale into our daily existence.” – Jack Zipes

My previous post produced two official comments; an expected roar of silence from some; one empathizer from offspring; and, a surge of emails from others – with varying tones of advice, gripe, commiseration, vacuity, analysis of my psyche and fascinatingly oblique commentaries – the latter leaving me with one single bemused thought: I would be a darling of the shrink community and if I had the money, would keep at least a few occupied and financially secure for some years!

There was also a flurry of links to blogs with humorous posts. Taking the hint, I did make an attempt not to be darkly dismal and reverentially gawked at Humour for a long time waiting for it to tickle my Muse, but she of the whimsical kind and devoid of the lighter vein, ultimately skewered him with the acerbic end of a funny bone. Woe is me!

But thanks for the insights and here is a toast to all – cheers – which has joie de vivre associations.

 *

Was preparing for a journey and witlessly looking for something; found an old chewed-up diary.

टूटता क्यों नहीं दर्द का सिलसिला?

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” – Norman Cousins

I started on this path of blogging because I had thought and hoped it would be therapeutic for me! Don’t think it has, and actually, I am very close to that adieu post.

Everything dies…come to a conclusion and at times, terminated. Also, I see no reason why I should keep on encumbering others about my travails. People anyway forget words and deeds and if I am to be remembered, for whatever reason, I would want it to be for any sensitivity that I may have been able to kindle in them – a feeling that they are able to embrace with the strength to continue.

Maybe, I need to put an end to this. And, considering the terms used to define this final moment – wouldn’t it be just great, fantastic and bizarre if I were to sort of cop it; go away; be no more; conk it; kick the bucket; expire; walk the plank; rest in peace; stop living; drop off; croak; be taken; breathe my last; pass away, go to my heavenly abode; put out the lamp; move on to the next level; go off; mar jāun; swarg ko sidharun; cross the threshold; meet the grim reaper; say hello to the maker; khallās etc. soon after this post….now that would be droll!

 *

Breathing with the Chitals

“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”
- Chief Crowfoot

This incident happened 17 years ago, when Dhikala wasn’t the monkey-infested, jeep-cartel ridden, dirty, noisy place that it is now. It was always great to reach Dhikala after the long and exhilarating drive from Dhangarhi gate. Ignoring the tourism department’s restaurant we would head straight for Kaleji’s Dhabha; sit under the thatched roof waiting for aloo paranthas that would be washed down with steaming cups of tea and, checking what was being planned for dinner.

Pa katè vanotā?

 “And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true wise friend called Piggy” – William Golding, Lord of the Flies, Chapter 12

It was late afternoon and the khānchās (lanes) were fairly deserted. However, saw people attempting to peer out discreetly. The thug-faced man supervising the demise of a part of Kachchh’s history looked at me with suspicion and nervously shifted his buttocks that were resting on a mobike. Trying to control the anguish mounting inside me, I pointed the camera towards the blatant ruin of the heritage building in Mandvi.

Dancing with Demons

“Language…has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.” – Paul Tillich

This may rouse those once again, who were somewhat stirred by ‘My Way’. I was pleasantly surprised by their reaction after that posting…but none commented on the blog site!

Two themes that were the quintessence of most emails – “Is blogging like an online personal diary for me?” and, “How could I be so open about myself?”

I have thought about these aspects at a personal level and continue to do so. And, even though, blogging may be mildly interesting for me, let me assert that I am not the ‘diary kind’ and there are many things I don’t share and probably never will. So, the question of a personal diary – online or otherwise – does not arise.

Also, if I were to really be unfettered about my views……

…almost gone!

“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of transition was not the strident clamour of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

The beady-eyed clerk/flunky/official of the Archives Department looked at me with great suspicion. His mouth with protruding paan-stained teeth was more offensive than the open grave I had seen in Pratapgunj.

Going, going…

“There are eyes everywhere. No blind spot left. What shall we dream of when everything becomes visible? We’ll dream of being blind.” – Paul Virilo

Even though, my parents had a house at the Railway Staff College, Lal Baugh – my Baroda (as it was known then), address in the early Seventies was, ‘44 Pratapgunj’ – where I had a large room on the first floor and paid the princely amount of Rupees One Hundred per month as rent, inclusive of electricity charges.

Never did I imagine that nearly 41 years later, I would be witnessing the slow death of the retreat that was Pratapgunj.