Grahanam

 

The opposite of daanam (giving) is grahanam. Receiving. A dear friend told me about this recently, when I visited her. It jolted me. 

Receiving, and gracefully, is as important as its opposite. It completes the circle. For someone for whom giving is just a way of life, a reflex action, not even requiring thought or reflection, receiving has always been hard. It had to be learnt. 

Because for that one must truly believe one is worthy of love, despite all evidence to the contrary. Hold the hand offered to lift you up, with gratitude, even if you can climb up yourself. Accept the gift of shelter, without apology. Pick up the phone and say, this time, yes, I would like someone to come with me to the hospital. 

And know that the circle is completing. Everything you gave away is coming back. And you must not stem that flow. You must allow the universe to restore balance. You must bow down and open your hands.

“… because who can look in the mirror for three minutes
and say I love you, I love you, I love you

without bursting into tears over all the ways
we have not loved ourselves.”

Jennifer Saunders

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Because for that one must tear down the walls, brick by brick. 

Lie down, let go, and notice how the earth is supporting you always, as my dear yoga teacher tells me, again and again. Break, so the light will come in through the cracks. Look at the beautifully adorned stone gods in the temple and say, “Here it is, my life, let your will prevail”. Add “Insha Allah” to everything you claim to do, every plan you make, so meticulously, nothing left to chance.

“Be Ground.
Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are. 

You have been stony for too many years
Try something different. 

Surrender.”

Jelaluddin Rumi

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Because for that one must encounter the opposite, the other side, have the things you believed in turned on their heads. To see that the reverse is just the other half of the story you could never see, the knowledge that you had to grow humble enough to receive. To know that age comes to you with gifts like nothing you ever imagined, if you are not busy trying to hold on to youth.

"…And most importantly let them believe in themselves

Let them be helpless like children.
Because weakness is a great thing
And strength is nothing.
When a man is just born,
He is weak and flexible
When he dies, he is hard and insensitive.
When a tree is growing,
It is tender and pliant
But when it is dry and hard, it dies.

Hardness and strength are death's companions.
Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being
Because what has hardened will never win…"

The Stalker's prayer at the well, before he takes the two men into the Zone.

from the film 'The Stalker'
Andrei Tarkovsky

That Commonplace

More conversations around mortality these days, as everyone I know nears or crosses over the mid-way mark. Or just hit by an increased awareness of the randomness of death. So what do you want in the time you have left? More and more I am tempted to say "ordinary days". When so much is actually happening that is sustaining me, quietly. When nothing is distracting me from the minute detail. Like how the orange flames of the Rudrapalaash flowers have quietly started reaching upto the sky, while I wasn't looking. Just in time, announcing September, and the festivals to come. 

What is the measure of a life? Would really living every day count? Whether or not you remember the details. :) 

Re-reading, Gilbert, who asked of the gods, "Teach me mortality, frighten me into the present". 

Highlights and Interstices

http://whilethereisstilltime.blogspot.com/2016/11/that-commonplace.html

The Disappeared

 

To the ones who lost loved ones, and to the ones who saved lives, in the summer of 2021

A Splash Quite Unnoticed

Decades ago, I remember reading a poem about a man sitting in front of his house, waiting for the crows to come eat the rice balls kept on a plantain leaf - as part of the Shraaddha ritual for his father's death ceremony. He is devastated by the loss of the person he was closest to. But outside the gate he sees children in uniforms going to school, chatting, laughing, care-free - it is just an ordinary day for everyone else. And he wonders whether the most painful part of grief is how private it is, how intensely lonely.

But should it be? 

It is exactly one year since thousands of Indians lost close family members or friends in the horrific  Covid wave of Apr-June 2021. We even lost perfectly healthy people, fitness enthusiasts, and thousands of our young working population. And thousands nearly lost loved ones, went through long traumatic waiting periods of not knowing, not being able to even see the person who was struggling alone.

The world has moved on. As it must. This summer people have been partying, getting together, making up for lost time. Even as the possibility of yet another wave looms large. But for the ones who suffered the immediate losses, and the rest of us who were impacted by it, this is a horrific anniversary.

It is important to move on. That is part of being resilient. But the brutality of that summer. How does one get over it? What lessons did we learn from it? 

We have never seen a disaster of such proportions, cutting across class and caste. 

We have never in our lives seen our vast medical system collapse to such an extent. Thousands of people died waiting outside hospitals for oxygen and beds. 

We have never been in a situation where thousands had to die without seeing their families. Where families were not given the bodies of their loved ones. 

And the millions who lost their livelihoods, their bread winners, and have never recovered their old lives.

And the doctors and the hospital staff who worked tirelessly across months, without sleep, putting their own lives at risk.

And the ones who went on to suffer long Covid, or died of sudden heart attacks well after recovery.

And the ones who went on to suffer PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder) and never fully recovered.

And through it all, the thousands of amazing volunteer groups that formed within days across the country, working across cities and villages, forming task forces, war rooms, desperately trying to get oxygen, beds, and medicines for strangers, supplementing what the government struggled to do. So many of us are alive, so many of our family or friends are still around, because someone somewhere struggled day and night and got us help at the right time. 

We saw our worst, but we also saw our best, the incredible amount of compassion and drive there is in this country. 

Remembrance

In Akira Kurosawa's movie "Dreams", there is this amazing scene where  a stranger comes upon a funeral procession in a village. He is astounded to see that everyone is singing and dancing. When he asks why, they say - "We are glad that we got so many years with this amazing man, we are celebrating that!" 😀

It always reminds me of this evening in Toronto, 2006. 

"On a San Juan city side walk, outside the Rawson neighbourhood bike shop, one shoe and a pair of glasses got left behind. Last traces of you."

So read the lines next to one of the numerous photographs at the Steelworkers Hall on Cecil Street, Toronto, that cold evening. The Argentinian immigrants in the city had a week-long program in memory of the 30, 000 people who "disappeared" during the military coup of 1976, that ushered in a dark period of 7 years where countless people were taken away and killed, so many of them so young.

It was a lovely evening of remembrances, music, and dance. An evening to honour the ones we lost so they are not forgotten, and also to remember to be happy and move on despite our crushing losses. An evening of solidarity with those who lost loved ones, and still suffer.  

I remembered that evening today. It was such a befitting celebration, understated but warm and joyous. An affirmation that we are all connected, and we need not allow others to suffer sad anniversaries alone.  

What could we do to honour the thousands who disappeared last summer? 

What could we do to remember the strangers to whom so many owe their lives? 

What could we do for those who are re-living the nightmare on the first death anniversary of their loved ones? 

Heroes of our Time: Malvikaa Solanki

 

I must have met Malvikaa only once, briefly. It was so worth keeping in touch to see her amazing journey in the mountains of Bandipur. On a really bad day, watching any of her videos just lifts up my spirits. 

Malvikaa Solanki is one of the heroes of our time - reviving not just the land, but also our tradition of working together as a community for the common good. We forget so easily that we are all interconnected. The video is just 5.53 minutes long. I promise you it will change your day. 

Transforming landscapes through Agroforestry Systems

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn9yAqPiwTY

The 1000 Tree Project: 

https://en.gaonconnection.com/1000-tree-project-reviving-degraded-farmlands-in-karnatakas-bandipur-through-agroforestry/

Swayyam

To know more about her and her work, watch these short videos:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtZ4G30RUyQrUqrYnZtvnGw

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swayyam/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swayyam_permaculture/

I felt in need of a great pilgrimage

 

There must be better ways of spending your mornings than sitting under your favourite Hongai tree and listening to the small flowers falling, like the first drops of approaching rain. But thankfully you don't know of any of them. :) 

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In the evenings, if you sit and wait patiently in your city balcony, you get to see the changing of the guard at sunset. The kites circle lower and lower and then come down to roost on the huge trees in the West. And once the kites have cleared the golden-gray evening sky, the bats come flying in from the darkening East, wave after wave, hundreds of them. Without fail. Day in, day out.

A change of guard that is so easy to miss, because it happens in total silence. When you sit quietly, the world is a different place.

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I felt in need of a great pilgrimage.

So I sat still for three days

and God came to me.

Kabir, in 'Love Poems from God, Twelve Sacred Voices form the East and West'

What kind of car would you like?

"What kind of car would you like?"

"A small one covered in Hongai leaves would be perfect. 😍😍

All year I'll park it under different trees shedding leaves or flowers. 

I'll mostly be walking. So a cheap car will do."

😀

An Update from the Keeper of Seasons

Every January the Rain trees lose their leaves completely. To reveal the exquisite shape of their branches, flowing like water into the sky. They have saved my life, many times. The Mahogany leaves fall and their winged seeds twirl down to form beautiful patterns on the ground. The fragrant Mango blossoms arrive, with promises of luscious fruit in March and April, the pride of our summers.

Every February the Hongai trees lose their leaves. And are quickly covered in the most beautiful fresh translucent oily leaves I have ever seen. Each small tree, a temple of shining light you must stop at because you cannot take your eyes away. I wait for this all year. In the meanwhile, the yellow Tabebuia Argentea starts bursting into bloom in our streets, slowly, little by little, until all the leaves fall and there is only a bright yellow tree left. And the Rain trees now cover themselves in lush thick canopies, getting ready for the summer. The delicate pink needle-like flowers start falling down and browning on their massive trunks and branches like soft down. 

Every March, as the temperature rises, the Hongai flowers form carpets of white and pink and purple on our streets. Early in the morning, when all is still, you can hear the Honge flowers falling, like the first drops of approaching rain. And the pink Tabebuia Rosea lines our streets, the flowers falling like snow and covering entire avenues, until the most hardened of hearts will catch their breath. Every year I stand at this particular line of tall trees on the main road, and cry. Like Sudama, returning from visiting Krishna and seeing his hut turned into a palace. 

Sometimes we ask nothing, and are given everything.

With every passing year there are more flowers in our city. Because more trees have now grown into maturity, and have started flowering. We sometimes fail to notice things that get better, because we are only tuned into Doom station. 

This year the rain tree leaf-falling was delayed, maybe because the rains lasted well into December. And the Tabebuia Rosea is early, and the Argentea slightly late. 

You take what you are given. With gratitude. In really dark times, the quiet abundance of trees can convince some to not leave. They save lives. By just being, doing their thing, resurrecting every year, coming back to life amidst so many odds. Sometimes they are all you have. But that in itself is so much. 

Albums

Rain Tree Raagaas

February, Seeds
Hongai
Hongai Flowers
February 
March

Light, Light

Sudama: http://whiletheworldisgoingplaces.blogspot.com/2016/02/sudama.html