I started writing about being ‘in the zone’ or the feeling of losing oneself in an activity. But I didn’t have anything useful to say. So I decided to try and sketch something. I have never done this before, so this took time. But god-bless the beauty that is color black against white paper.
Here is another translation I had done early in the year. I have been hearing this song ever since I was a child (its a bit unavoidable if you are in the region) and I had never quite given the words much thought. When I started translating it, it just made so much sense (in terms of familiarity and thinking of what it means for geography). Anyway, this is ‘supposedly’ a traditional Koli song. I say supposedly because I remember speaking to someone from the Koli community and them suggesting that the song is relatively new. However, has become synonymous with the perceived music of the indigenous fishing community.
It was fun translating it. I tried to structure it like a poem, although if you see the video below, you will see that it is anything but. However, it makes sense when reading I feel.
In deep water it stands, that she’s never seen.
Will you show her Janjira?
Oh Boatman!
Will you take me on your boat?
Not Mumbai, nor Pune.
I don’t want Goa!
Colaba Fort and Holy Khanderi,
show that to me!
At his door-steps, in Nhava sheva,
will you let me lay my eyes on Shiva?
Oh Boatman!
Will you take me on your boat?
Let us see;
Versava, Khar-Danda,
and Fort Arnala.
Through Naigaon
into Satpati
onto Dahanu Creek.
To see it my heart yearns.
Will you fulfill my desires?
Oh Boatman!
Will you take me on your boat?
Beloved. Your Beloved.
You lovingly call me Queen.
Let my eyes behold the water.
When will we go?
When will you take me?
Will you decide the time already?
Tell me.
Oh Boatman!
Will you take me on your boat?
I don’t dream. I am told I do, but am unable to remember. Which is, for all practical purposes, not dreaming at all. Recently though, I did dream and remembered it upon waking. It was a strange one, with a hint of spectacular. It felt like a peculiar distillation of all I have thought of in a while, wrapped up in all consuming anxiety and framed for cinematic distribution. It was unsettling, only by referencing unsettlement, for to describe the actual feeling would require me to be outside the dream, which I cant since I was in it, watching it unfold. And have a word for it, which I don’t.
For some reason, I decided to try and put it to paper. I suck at all artistic endeavors and this wasn’t some spark which produced an awe inspiring illustration. But am sharing it here.
Hopefully you dream of better things, and of feelings which have words
Crossover Apocalypse
It’s been raining here. A lot. The sort I haven’t seen in a while.
Perhaps I have.
But we tend to forget easy.
Same way we forget the heat and the sweat. Till it comes again, and goes. And comes again. Such has been the nature of cyclical life. Such has been the inspiration for how I have felt about the world. Forgetting ever so slightly, remembering broadly.
But it seems the world has also been changing ever so slightly. It is getting hotter and wetter and dryer and sparse and intense. All at the same time. Sounds weird I know. But it has apparently. And if I absolutely have to remember, perhaps I will be able to tell you how it has changed over my now-respectably-longish life.
But we tend to forget easy.
Hopefully, our skin remembers.
Bye
_
Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus
Shakespeare missed out a bit, it seems.
We may be a lot, or little
More, or less
Plentiful, or lacking
Happy, or ever searching
All of these may be within us
But just as much is outside
Within others,
And in the liminal spaces between the two withins
It’s in these spaces, that bodies talk
Through touch, speech, taste, and sight
Even presence
Ideas form
Love is felt, lost, and rediscovered
Fellowships forged, broken, and reunited
It is within these spaces, that we become
More than us, even if just a bit more.
Or so I think.
I wait at the entrance of a bar
Brewery, drinking hole, a bustling space
Dreading the meet to come, I’d rather be someplace else.
Someplace else with friends, comrades, keepers of my soul
Fragments of my fellowship
Friends with broken arms
Friends chasing stories
Friends who feel ghosted
I’d rather be there instead of here
Here the hope is that there will be a story for the evening
To move beyond borrowed experience and have some of my own.
So when I meet these dear friends again, there will be a tale to tell
An evening to narrate
And belonging to feel
Hey hey hey,
I am in London.
Everything is so damn quirky and strange.
There is so much history here: owned, borrowed, stolen. But it’s here, and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Its overwhelming at times, the sheer number and geography of destinies which sprung forth and contorted themselves to the notes emerging from this city. This is true for my parents, and theirs before that, as it is for millions around the world.
Meanwhile, I spend my days in a library reading 18th century texts. It’s quite enjoyable, once you get used to the circuitous writing style, which is also unnecessarily polite. I occasionally take time out to dig out manuscripts pertaining to my home town and any information I can find on it. Apparently I have descended from ‘heathen’ ‘aboriginals’.
I am exceedingly tired today , and can’t even think of a half decent point for writing this, if not for its own sake. Nor do I have a profound observation about the city. Except perhaps how well dressed everyone is, and how I feel like a potato here. It’s annoying that I can’t ever dress well, or care to.
Finally, I think all women everywhere are beautiful. And fabulously better at most things. But before I go, a special mention about the women here. I struggle to frame this delicately, trying to balance between sounding appreciative while not seeming flippant: but these striking visions of beauty I can but be grateful for, and hope they realize they are so.
Ok they possibly do. And I can’t be poetic to save my life. And this just sounds all wrong.
Now I sleep. More history awaiteth tomorrow.
S
P. S. I am already seeing regular faces in the Tube.
Today, I submitted my first half finished assignment. Why? Because I am coming to terms with how acutely limited my aptitude with numbers is. Extremely limited. I can’t do numbers. I really want to, but I can’t.
And now I sit in a lecture, watching spectacular visions of post-human architecture in the dark landscape that is the future smart city. It’s beautiful, in a sad, depressing, inevitable sort of way.
Did I mention I am having bourbon from a flask? In my defense, I had forgotten I put it there.
I feel like writing a novel.
I have the feels, not the words.
Si
fake tales of slibeiria 