Vipassana II

I leave in the afternoon on Sunday.
Love to you two.
Hope new surroundings are being hospitable.

Hands

My hands are fading, as if.
Where's the drawing in them?
I have no idea, but I look
Almost exactly the same to me,
And this effect on photobooth
Will let me forget, too. 

Public art for Pune Biennale

The Pune Biennale happened over 11 days. It was small, but a lot of very cool artists participated strongly and wholeheartedly. 

Theme: Hills of Pune. 

Here's some interesting installations we saw on the Taljai hill. We felt, on the walk, like we were in some other place, not in Pune. It was so cool to see art everywhere, in Pune,  for a change. 

(:

Tarantula dream

I dreamt, last night, of a grey, hairy tarantula.
For a long time it was just sitting in a box at the foot of Aai-Baba's bed, with a cup of water or something for it to drink from. The cover of the box (it may have been something made of a thin, light mesh o that one could see the spider through it) was missing, suddenly.
Baba and and I were in the room, I was sitting on the bed and Baba was lying down under the covers. We were watching the tarantula the whole time and talking about it. I stood up and was looking around for something cup shaped to trap the tarantula under. I found the perfect thing- a large-ish glass bowl. As I crept near the box with the bowl in my hand, I knew I was too afraid to trap it. I sat back on the bed, and we started talking about how to do it. We watched the spider put one foot onto the edge of the box, and Baba, uncharacteristically, shifted back to the head of the bed and drew his knees close. Well, I thought, if Baba was scared, then truly this spider wasn't an ordinary villain. I shifted back too, suddenly, There was suddenly a gap between the foot of the bed and the box, of about 3 feet. and we watched with growing horror as the tarantula clambered over the edge, stood there uncertainly for a second and then leaped up into the air, only to land a foot away from my feet. I remember Baba and I scrambling to get away from it.

The tarantula is free.
We're in a room, Radha and I, which looks like a library. The ceiling is far, far away, and the floor is crowded with books stacked high in the air. The tarantula is clambering all over the books, and we're following it from a  distance. Radha is telling me about a new project she's working on, a new theory. 'It's a little like understanding yourself better,' she tells me. When I ask her how it works, she shows me a list of questions with 26 answers each; each answer is next to a letter of the alphabet. The questions must've been very subjective, because I remember feeling very happy that there were so many answers to choose from.
Radha holds up, suddenly, a list to my face. It has the 26 letters of the alphabet, and she's telling me how they let the tarantula free in one of these library rooms, it clambers over all the books in the room, and when it stops dead, you look at the letter it's on At this point I remember there being a sort of disc that did something with the word or the letter that had just been chosen by the tarantula. and that's the  answer that is considered. She's saying that it is a pretty accurate theory to come closest to how you feel about something. I thought, wait, can't you manipulate the answers based on which word the tarantula is most likely to go towards, I have no idea how I figured that out but now she's talking about all the important journals this theory has been covered in.

The tarantula is free again.
Baba and I are standing in my room, Baba's telling me that the other spider in their room has been dealt with. I keep asking him, did they capture it? did they capture it? and he keeps being aloof about it. I go very close to the tarantula, and realise it's a big ant.

I'm suddenly very confident about getting rid of this ant. There's a soft cardboard egg carton on the floor, I lift it and place it on the ant upside down, but Suddenly it's the ant I'm holding and it's become as big as my fist the ant is not hollow underneath, like I'd expected. the ant's outer covering lifts slightly  as I try to move it off the floor, and suddenly it looks a lot like the caterpillar from the animated Alice in Wonderland. It's turning its head to look at me, and it's saying something very loudly because the room started shivering with the sound waves, but I couldn't hear anything.

I woke up and stood on the ground, and I was very unstable on my feet.

Relief

I came to Bombay yesterday on a bus.
It was an uncomfortable journey, I was freezing all night and was feeling creeped out by the co-passengers. I think I barely slept for 15 mins at a stretch and time moved ever so slowly.
The sunrise at 7 am came as a relief.

Ishes and Nu

Was such a pleasure to see them!

Amdavadi Uttarayan

Sindhu,

Uttarayan this year was spent in sunny Ahmedabad, with Avani and Shantanu and other such items. It was with such sprightliness that the city unwound its manja and let their hair down and let the wind take over.
My favourite bit was the old city-rooftops. I have never, in my entire life, seen so many kites in one place at one time. It was, I later felt, like everyone was mapping the skies with their own special kind of instrument. It was fun to remind oneself, while looking at the heavily dotted sky, that each of those colourful (or silhouetted) kites was one person holding one string. And then looking around, I'd be amazed at this impeccable display of community-fun.

The bare, prickly trees were looking like strange sky-toothpicks. That's a funny image.

Next time, we both go. Yes?
Love.
Ish

For everyone who made it to the other side peacefully end of last year and beginning of this year, hope it's nice and comfy where you are. Love. 

Тоска

"No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”

- Nabokov. 

Clay/mountains

I was in Gokarna recently, with a few fellow graduates. I found, on one of my secret early morning escapades, this little pool filled with water on a rock. 

These pictures make me feel like I'm hurtling towards the earth at a great speed!! I love it. 

Final glimpses