Pandit Ranjan Sajan Mishra in concert: An uplifting experience

I went to the concert with much cynicism and came out invigorated with all things noble and uplifting. That was the magic of Pandit Rajan Sajan Mishra who are part of a 300-year old lineage of Khayal singing of the Banaras gharana.

The Mishra brothers started the evening with Raag Bhimpalashi. As they started performing the alap, I closed my eyes and suddenly found myself transported to the world of Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. I shared the ecstasy of Jonathan's successful maiden flight. How does a seagull feel when he first learns to fly - achievement of mastering the impossible, ecstasy of a new found libre and the uncertainty of what to do with it, trepidation of the non-conformist. The alap musically captured those mixed feelings much like human angst captured by Edvard Munch in 'The Scream'.

As the evening progressed from Raag Dhaani to Tappa, my soul escaped my body and joined Shelley's skylark on its upward flight to the highest point in the sky. As the brothers were dwelling on the Tappa it was necessary for me to hush my tumultuous inner self to enjoy the contrast - the restlessness outside (in the form of the Tappa's notes) and the queit silence within. That was a beautiful moment that will remain with me for many years to come.

After the 30 minute recess, the brothers resumed with Raag Bihaagra. The alap now took the form of a raging fire burning high and just like that the fire melted away to a placid river that was engaged with me in a frivolous banter. It then grew more sombre with the lightness of water casting a vaneer on the surface. It was as if the river grew older and wiser for she had seen too much - the changing fortunes, the trails and tribulations of the civilizations that bustled on her banks, thrived on her generosity and then disappeared into oblivion.

The brothers then moved onto Raag Kamod. They personified Kamod as a woman, of noble pride but with a pining heart wasting away her years trying to appease her beloved and win him over. For does not life cease to exist as love withers away or perhaps for Ghalib life itself withers away in mirthful satisfaction on the first sight of love.

The brothers concluded their performance with a Gurunanak Bhajan that brought back memories of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.

"Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentrated all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonor'd, and unsung."

Sir Walter Scott

I walked to the stage and touched the feet of Pandit Rajan Mishra in reverence of an artist whose art was too lofty to contain itself in our pale blue dot or the universe abound. The grandeur of that art humbled me in its majestic presence.

A portriat of wine

So what's common between beautiful verses of poetry, soul-searching music, a gorgeous desert sunset, the esoteric orchid and a glass of red wine...I figured..a 100 equally plausible dimensions of interpretation as it appeals to your senses. So here's capturing, that fleeting love-affair with a glass of wine, on many an incandescent evening of my life.

And then there was.. Dr Khargharia

My rendezvous with the paranormal has always been limited to the confines of my rich and often wild imagination. Let it appeal to the judgmental critique that I am not a lonesome day dreamer. In this age of measured, careful, syncopated emotions, this imagination is simply, my instant trip to the land of vicarious thrill, a minor detour, in our otherwise drab lives of algorithmic precision and repeatability. But today was special for two different reasons. Today this algorithm branched into the Kafkaesque territory and I came face to face with my vivid imaginations of the paranormal. Today was also special because I had been pronounced a doctor of philosophy and the story begins where these two reasons meet atop the majestic Mt Lemon. I and four friends drove up to the heights of the Mt Lemmon to celebrate my brand-new achievement. The night had already set into a somber note and a grand moon illuminated the mountains in a queer sort of way… they appeared strangely alive in their century old sedentary life-style. By then, we had already driven quite high up when we spotted at a brilliant vantage point in the cradle of the mountains while the faint city lights flickered away at a distance. We hopped out of the car, and took a moonlit walk towards a mammoth rock. We suddenly heard a faint repetitive laughter bordering on the hysterical. That was a little strange because the empty parking lot clearly suggested that we had no human company that night. We stopped, walked on and stopped again. The sound of the laughter grew incessantly stronger now and in the back drop we then heard a mumble of words – in English …perhaps, a very familiar voice. A thousand thoughts arose in our tumultuous minds, while we tried to fathom the possibilities of what our journey would reveal that night. We shuddered at those thoughts and yet marched on, relishing every moment of an agonizing fear that had no precedence in our lives thus far. Suddenly, I thought, I heard someone scream …yes in English… clear English…..’I am a doctor’…while the laughter at the backdrop grew incessantly shrill. It was the voice of a woman or perhaps two….distinctly two. We heard it again, this time louder…’I am a doctor’. Who is she? What does she mean? What are her circumstances? This is not Wordsworth’s Solitary Reaper, but evokes the same questions about her past, her joys and her sorrows, her losses and her gains, her successes and her failures. Can we help? We suddenly found asking each other this question as if we just woke up from a spell. We rushed close to the source of the sound with our hearts racing fast. We searched and searched and we could find no faces while the voices lingered on. Were we still in the world of imaginary thrill? We had it captured on video. It could not possibly be, because all five of us heard the laughter and the words – bold and distinct. Perhaps tonight we did have our first encounter with the paranormal, at least a great idea to romance with. But alas! just as every good thing has to come to an end, this momentary thrill now meets its sad demise as I sign-off as that faceless voice engulfed in the omnipresent darkness of that Mt Lemon night.

Book Review: The Collector by John Fowles

Read in July 2008, San Jose, CA

I picked up this book from the San Jose Public Library. ‘The Collector’ is the first book I am reading by John Fowles. Although I own his ‘The French Lieutenant's Woman’ I never got to reading it. After having read this book I will never be able to catch butterflies or keep a caged bird. This book has been a journey through the minds of both the collector Frederick/Caliban and his beautiful collection – La Boh`eme Miranda. Frederick collects variegated butterflies and the story unfolds as he makes a new addition to his collection – Miranda, a human, as alive, as beautiful and as free spirited as his beautiful butterflies. The fascinating attribute of this book is that although Frederick is the soul-less devil that kidnaps and imprisons Miranda in the dark basement of his cottage, in a strange way he appears noble, generous, morally upright even. He is an intensely passionate individual, and a man of action. At the end, I am left with a feeling of sympathy for Frederick in spite of his almost diabolical selfishness. Miranda’s free spirit, juxtaposed against the confines of a dark basement, brilliantly flashes in the form of the silent philosophical discourses she has with her diary night after night. Miranda's numerous attempts at escaping from this almost fool proof arrangement that Frederick has put forth, makes me keep going back to my sixth grade chapter in Hindi literature – how the timid deer stages his most vehement fight for survival against none other than the mighty lion when he knows he cannot run any faster to escape. The deer will never win, but it makes me wonder, did it occur to him at death, if not through life, that he had such unfathomable courage as to fight a lion? Did he ever realize what he was capable of?

Miranda was very lonely, captivated in Frederick’s prison, with her loved ones – her family, G.C., her friends at LadyMont so far away. Frederick too was lonely in his own way. There was no one in the whole wide world that cared a damn if he lived or died. Miranda at least had her thoughts to keep company, fiery conversations with G.C. about the New People, art, sex, music and politics. Frederick had nothing, absolutely nothing but his collections. He really was, as Miranda would put it, a vast emptiness curved in a human shape. If I were to weigh their relative loneliness I wouldn't be able to say for sure, which was more tragic. At least they both had hope. Miranda waiting for the day she is free and Frederick waiting for the day he finds in Miranda, the woman whose company he desired.

At the end, I find my heart weeping for Miranda as much as for Frederick. Perhaps the book’s writing style, of first person singular, first used by Frederick and then by Miranda, had a role to play in accentuating that, as if they both were narrating their part of the story to an objective reader.

Everglades National Park, Florida

Friday Dec 29th, 2006
A frenzied trip shopping, 7 hours behind schedule and and one wrong turn later, we were heading towards Everglades. The SUV was damn powerful, the roads empty at 1:00 in the night, the music raucous and we - the float-trippers were a great company to be in. It was to be a long drive of about 13 hours before we enter Everglades driving through the Carolinas, Georgia and finally the south-end of Florida on highway 75. With people (but me) taking turns behind the wheel, we stopped at an esoteric place within Florida for breakfast. The plan was to be able to make it to the Gulf Coast Visitor Center by early noon and jet set on our canoes that very same day. While we proposed, God disposed as follows. A terrible accident on the highway slowed the traffic down to 5 mph. We sweltered in the Florida heat and enjoyed the beginnings of the sub-tropical landscape for as long as we could. After the landscape had nothing new to offer, and we ran out of jokes, interesting anecdotes and gas, we decided to detour. Deadlines are a great accompaniment of the urban life. If not anything they do give that adrenaline rush constantly making one feel bad about how very unpunctual and disorganized he or she was. And once the he/she becomes a they, he/she finds another someone in the they to play the blame game while heading towards the destination. Anyway, our original deadline was to be in the Visitor Center by 8:00 am. And our current deadline was to be there by 4:30 pm. 4:30 pm because that's when the Visitor Center closes for the day. We can't make reservations for any camp-ground with the Visitor Center closed and would have to stay at a primitive camp-ground for the night. With time drifting away on the Florida highway amidst terrible traffic we unanimously voted the situation to be quite hopeless. We agreed to give up on the 4:30 deadline as well and just sail along with the traffic like carefree birds. By now we were almost 24 hrs behind schedule. Motivated by this statistic and to add meaning to a hopeless 18 hrs on the roads, Amar and Anand proposed we stop at a beach nearby and catch the sunset there. I must say what we found was more than what we had asked for. The beach had such beautiful white sands that one person almost judged it to be artificial or as they say too good to be true. There were grills by the beach to cook our food and what more, two people were walking the stairway to heaven on their guitars. One of them gave us an empty pizza box so we could get the fire started. So, we unpacked just the food stuff, grilled our chicken and the vegetables by the white Atlantic beach. It was quite a sumptuous dinner with meat and eggs and bread and great coffee after dinner. Hardly had anyone suspected then that it was to be our last great dinner in the coming few days in the wilderness. Oh I forgot to mention that whenever we begin to cook we seem to be asking a standard set of questions in a certain order to one another. Questions such as where is the flash light, where is the knife, where the glasses, where are the spoons. I think as a group we love asking these questions, just one of the many things we love to do besides floating. Anyway after dinner, we started driving towards Everglades. We talked about the gays, Da Vinci & Turing, feminists, the beauty of the female body and the utilitarian male body. Emotionally, the discussions surged up and plummeted down in regular patterns finally ending in effusive laughter and good humor. Here's me and Amar taking a stroll on the curb-side as we entered Everglades area.Tonight we camped at a primitive campground with portable toilets.




Saturday Dec 30th, 2006

Anand, the early-riser and the photographer coaxed people to be up by 6:00 am so we can be at the visitor center first thing in the morning and get a campground reservation within the national park area. We were on the roads again by 9:30 am. We drove through the Everglades city staright onto the visitor center. Turns out bad news reached the visitor center before we did. All campgrounds were taken for the night. We got a camping permit for Tiger Keys for Sunday night. For tonight, we have to find a campground outside of the park area possibly in the Fakahatchee state park area. I jumped at the idea of camping in Fakahatchee for virtually I had already made a trip to the swamps of Fakahatchee with John Laroche and Susan Orlean (writer of Orchid Thief) to view the beautiful ghost orchid and unlike Orlean, surging with passion. My problem with handling romanticism is that within moments I feel light on the head and the feet, skip the runway and instantly take-off. This time, as always, the nautical map of Everglades steered my flight downwards and I fell with a crash and a thud. The nearest campground, the ever elusive Lulu beach is 8 nautical miles away. A nautical mile is 1.15 miles. Since we were starting at 2:00 in the afternoon, we have had to row 9.2 miles in 4 hours to hit the campground before night falls and we all were amatuer rowers. However, we were still young, and the sun shone brightly as ever up in the sky, there was absolutely nothing to mar our spirits. Reason gave way to emotion and we set out in search of adventure on uncharted territory. We decided to detour from the marked water trails enroute to Lulu. And thus started our journey after Abhay took the last puff of his Malboro and did a sanity check on the items he must carry to survive the ocean - smoke, GPS and water. Speech and tickets are of not much use while in the sea. Our canoes had quite some baggage, the half-empty bag of charcoal, camping gear, soups and noodles.

The start was rough with the high tides as faithfully predicted by the tide chart. However, we quickly managed to row out into placid waters. It was a pleasant sight out in the sea mottled with the ten thousand islands of devilishly intelligent trees they call the mangroves. The mangroves have been able to exploit a habitat of intertidal zones by growing physiological adaptations such as aerial roots to feed on sunlight and air.

Now, these mangrove swamps had hidden in their heart swarms of blood-sucking black biting midgets call no-seeums. We discovered their existance by experience. A zillion tiny bites on every exposed inch of the body. The midgets lauched this first attack of the day when Amar went on a reconaissance trip to one of these islands to determine the future course of the journey. And immediately we knew we were in forbidden territory, the gates of hell. The journals say that they put our blood to good use to nurture thir larvae. That's hardly a consolation.

After rescuing ourselves from the deadly bugs we kept rowing for a long time always staying away from any mangrove swamps. While rowing, we saw pelicans in flights, jumping fishes, menatees, dolphins and many more exotic species. Amar and Abhay would ocasionally do a check on the directions. I thought they had difficulty making the map and GPS to agree at times. But I was already beginning to feel jaded and confused. Very soon, people started growing impaitent as there were still no signs of any campground within our field of view and we were fatigued and hungry.

Anand was the first person to voice his discomfort. He brandished his cell phone while on his canoe. He meant we should call for help now or it would be too late once his cell phone died.That must have been 5:00 in the evening. We however silenced him for the moment and rowed on.

Suddenly I had a desperate craving to feel land, solid land to stand-up on, twist and turn, stretch and aimlessly ambulate. The mangrove swamps were as close to solid ground as I would get here in the middle of the ocean. I didnot want to be sacrificed at the altar of the midgets one more time. So I tried to engage my mind in vagrant thoughts. Soups and noodles were as vagrant as I could get with my thinking.

The sun was almost at the fag end of his life, and at some level we were too. At that moment Amar fished the camera and captured our pathetic yet smiling faces in the magnificent backdrop of the setting sun upon the Atlantic waters.

We are now officialy rowing by the night. Technically this was moonlight kayaking only stripped off any of that embellishment of romance. Just the night before Amar and me talked about moonlight kayaking on Big Sur. We had our wishes come true too soon in a manner most unexpected and undesired.

Suddenly we noticed a sharp white line at a distance bordering a mangrove swamp. As we rowed closer, the line expanded into a tiny white beach with a big enough clearing for all of our feets.Amidst bug bites, we rested there for a while. I had already lost of speech owing to incruciating pain in the arms. When winter comes can spring be far behind. We saw this little beach attached to a mangrove swamp. So, we hoped to see more of such beaches now. And, we set off again. This time, there was a slight change in configuration when Shaunak was to steer the canoe and Anand would be the rower.This arrangement proved disastrous for they were unable to steer and follow our boats. Very soon, we lost them to the darkness of the sea. We could neither see nor hear them anymore. Meanwhile, the sea had started getting rough again. As our tiny boat swayed in the cradle of the angry ocean, and I rowed forward with the last bit of strength I had left in my arms I heard perhaps a dolphin or perhaps a bigger mammal following the boat very closely. The intensity of the sound did not change and it was produced in quick succession. Amar tried to appease me saying I was imagining things and God knows how much I wanted to believe him.

Suddenly we saw a very brightly lit circular spot a little further on, in the middle of the sea. I closed my eyes and opened them again to make sure it was still there. I thought perhaps my transformation was complete from sanity to hallucination. We kept rowing closer and lo and behold we see our garden of eden, our brigadoon, our Shangri-la right in front of our eyes. We couldnot rush faster to the arms of this little beach of immaculate white sands. In retrospection it sounds comically tragic the manner in which me and Amar came to logical conclusions about the nature of that white spot on the ocean in the darkness of the night. And finally land happened. Oh sweet sweet land!

This promenade was just the tip of the ice berg. It led into this once upon a time campground called Indian Keys. After being devasted by the hurricane it was no longer a designated campsite as we found out the next day.The nautical map had a printing mistake there one that cost us a 100$ each. But what do we care. We just found our our feet back. Part of the beach was submerged under water but we could wade our way to the island if we liked. We decided to wait there for our crew missing in action.

We kept signaling with our powerful flashlight until finally we saw another light at a distance sending acknowledgements. Abhay, who had gone back looking for them, came back on the canoe with Anand and Shaunak, hauling the empty kayak by the side.He found them just in time before a million dollar rescue and search operation was to be launched based on thier 911 call.

Of what happened later I donot know. Amar passed me a cup of warm soup and noodles inside the tent. I dozed off and the next thing I knew it was morning.

Monday, Dec 31st, 2006

Today is New Year's Eve. I was greeted in the morning by two law enforcement rangers. They spotted our tents from their motor boat and perhaps mistook us for illegal immigrants from Cuba on the hideout. Of Cuban cigars we had none, just a packet of Buddha Bar (tobacco) and a simple pipe. Shaunak was worried he might be arrested on charges of smuggling narcotics . But none of that happened. It was plain old "we are worried about your safety, so we will fine you, so you remember to be safer next time". And so the rangers left after wishing us a happy new year. I picked few sea shells on the beach and we explored the island a bit. Soon we rowed 'homeward bound'. We reached the visitor center at 4:00 pm. As we were unhauling, I noticed the packet of half-empty charcoal that sailed faithfully with us and came back safe and unused.Thus ended the story of the five brave rowers and a big bag of charcoal.

We drove upto Orlando that night with the car reeking of wet clothes. We celebrated the midnight of new year's eve watching fireworks in Disneyworld and slept in Daytona beach that night.

I have never had a more beautiful 1st of January than this. A new sun upon the eastern sky heralding a branch new day, a brand new year of possibilities. And right then I lived a metaphor the most beautiful one so far.



We spent the rest of the day in Kennedy Space Center and finally drove back home at 6:00 that evening.

An ode to the sacrificial sheath

Watching the rubber plant in my living room grow, is a constant source of joy. Every morning I wake up to find a new leaf has unfurled. I noticed that the leaf develops inside a sheath, which grows larger as the leaf develops. Today morning it had unfurled into a mature leaf and the sheath around it looked dry and dead. As I touched the dry sheath it dropped off from the plant. Watching the elegant flight of the sacrificial sheath was almost poetic in the depth of its pain and the grandeur of its achievement. Inside this now mature leaf, another fragile immature leaf patiently awaited its turn to develop and I awaited its poignant arrival.

As I went floating along in the universe last night ...

I met Orionids, star dust from comet Halley. At 6800 ft above sea level atop one of Kitt Peak's observatories, I gazed at the stary sky waiting to catch Orionids in their fleeting flights across earth's atmosphere.Robert, our star-guide for the night helped us spot the Orion constellation in the night sky through the naked eye. Orion's belt was to be the radiant point for the Orionids shower tonight. He showed us how to spot the Pole star across from Cassiopeia, the Andromeda galaxy and of course our very own Milky Way. He also positioned the 20m telescope for us to view Orion's beautiful nebula following its belt. Robert was a good story teller. He told a fascinating story about how this supernovae in the Tauras constellation reached its end of life and all that remains of it now is the Crab nebula with a mirthful pulsar (neutron star) spinning at its heart about 30 times every second. He then positoned the telescope for us to view the nebula. There was something very elegiac about that sight ... as Khuswant Singh would say of Delhi .. "ruins proclaim the past splendour of an ancient monument". Our mighty Sun would meet the same fate many billions of years from now telling tales in its ruins of the magnifient yonder years of its brilliant youth.Robert showed us many a beautiful objects in the sky, the sparkling sea of a globular cluster, yellow twin stars, the bright and twinkling Sirius ...Amidst listening to Robert's stories and gazing at the universe through the eye-piece, sometime in between a fragment of meteor flashed boldly in the night sky,left a trace of its trail in the 10 seconds memory of the sky. 'We too are stardust' and I thought to myself .. there goes a part of me shining brilliantly with life just in that moment and then .. gone, leaving the 10second memory of my foot steps behind.So long, Orionids until next year.

Hillsboro NPRA Rodeo

July 28, 2006

The ususally quiet Faircomplex MAX station is a scene of joyous festivities today. An unusual flurry of men and mustangs. The scene is a rodeo. I walked along a sinuous lane toward the rodeo. There were people seated all around , two rodeo queens inside the arena and the competitors awaiting their turn in nervous anticipation. There were two people up on the high pedestal assumed responsibility of the microphone and made desperate attempts at cowboy hilarity I presume. The result was sad Britney Spears jokes and audience coaxed into applauds for many a sorry cowboy with a history of bad performances.

The competition featured many an interesting rodeo sport - bareback riding, the down roping, breakaway roping, saddle bronc riding, steer wrestling, team roping, barrel racing and bull riding. I caught myself half-way into breakaway roping. As the cow is released to rush into the arena the cowboy races behind with vigorous gallops swinging a nylon rope with his arm trying to noose the animal as it runs about crazy. This is a timed sport with both cow-boys and cow-girls competing alike. The next sport was a little more violent. The saddle bronc riding. The idea is to ride on an untamed horse or bronco which is held in a small enclosure. As soon as the gate is opened, the horse rushes out and attempts to throw off the rider.

I looked at the cow-boy on the horse, the perfect equestrian.. one animal tames another and the transformation is complete from two feet to four. And Sophoceles reads from the pages of Antigone ...

Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man; the power that crosses the white sea, driven by the stormy south-wind, making a path under surges that threaten to engulf him; and Earth, the eldest of the gods, the immortal, the unwearied, doth he wear, turning the soil with the offspring of horses, as the ploughs go to and fro from year to year.

We have been around only 150,000 years but our achievements are wonderous.

My phone vibrates to announce the arrival of my turkish friends Canturk and Deniz. We drive off to the Iranian restaurent for a sumptous dinner of polaaw and kabobs...