Memory of the physical 'self'

Just the other day I got back to my Keyboard...not that I regularly play music...(though I listen to music a lot)...I was trying to play something I had composed a few months ago...I just couldn't remember the notes...so I kept trying to think of the tune...though I had vaguely caught the tune...I still couldn't play it...and..
and amazing thing happened...I closed my eyes and kept my fingers on the keyboard...expecting to just play it...and my fingers did the magic...the muscles remembered the tune...actually...how strange is the co-ordination...between the soul and the physical self...
and so does the mind remember all the tiny details of an encounter...this always puts things in place for me that there is some underlying unifying connection...
what can i say?? i am happy to be given this opportunity...of sensing this and integrating it with my perceptions...

Yali - The Mythical Protector

If you have ever been to temples in South India, you might have bumped into(even literally) this magnificent creature of Indian mythology. The Yali, the lesser known protector of the Gods and the temples that house them. Even me, in spite of my countless visits to temples since birth, have never really paid attention to this mythical creation, that adorns almost every pillar, roof and corners of the fantastical world of temple architecture - an integral part of Hindu sculptural antiquity. They say the Yali protects the temples, roaming the rock confines of darkness and light. Although they look it, they are neither the Lion nor the Elephant - a potent combination of the two, the invincible dual-soul that makes the spine of every human tremble. The eerie-ness of its appearance can itself fascinate and shake your inner soul.

Yali (pronounced yaali) Tamil: யாளி is a mythical creature seen in many Hindu temples. These are also known as Vyalam or Sarabham, in Sanskrit. Yalis are often sculpted on the pillars of Hindu temples. Yali is a mythical lion, and it has been widely used in south Indian sculpture. Description and references to yalis is very old, but its depiction in the south Indian sculpture became prominent from the 16th century. Yalis are believed to be more powerful than the lion or the elephant.

These shots of the Yali were taken at the Aayiram Kaal Mandapam(The Thousand Pillar Hall) at the Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai, which was a frontrunner in the election for the modern seven wonders of the world for its architectural importance. By the way, in spite of its significance and wondrous appearance, the Hall has not been maintained by the authorities very well. Dusty sculptures and cobwebs galore. Damn the *&%king bureaucracy (partial source - wiki).

Diwali Revisited - 12 year Hiatus

Whoa, the above is a picture of one of the first few firecrackers that I lit after a twelve-year hiatus from the festival of lights, Diwali, in Pondicherry. Even since I went to college, I was never at home to celebrate it. And every year, the memory of the festival was kinda ebbing away, until this year on Nov.9th.
One big difference that I notice over the years is that, the Pre and Post-Diwali days are pretty quiet now, compared to those days when firecrackers were heard even a month before/after the fest. Dunno what created this change. At least, it's somewhat a relief that now child labor is banned...because manufacturing fireworks in the 90s were largely done by children working in the factories. Anyway, this Diwali day, we did burst quite a number and kids from my street were all jubilant about it. After I inhaled the smoke from the firecrackers, I was transported back to those days where we used to wait without sleep to light the first Lakshmi Vedi (big fat firecracker). Man, how I wish! Sigh...
Pondicherry has changed a lot. Well, more on that later.

Nature of Time - HUMBERTO MATURANA

HUMBERTO MATURANA
Excerpts from Readings that matter to me shared by The School for Designing a Society
Living

Living takes place in the now, in the moment in which it is taking place. Living is a dynamics that disappears as it takes place. Living takes place in no time, without past or future. Past, present and future are notions that we human beings, we observers, invent as we explain our ocurrence in the now. We invent past as a source of the now or present, and we invent future as a dimension that arises as an extrapolation of the features of our living now, in the present. As past, present and future, are invented to explain our living now, time is invented as a background in which past, present and future can take place. But life, living, takes place as now, as a flow of changing processes. To say this, of course, is a manner of explaining the experience being now in which we find ourselves as we ask for the explanation of our living, of time, . . .
Language
I have maintained, and I think shown, in other publications, that language is a manner of flowing in living together in recursive consensual coordinations of behavior, and that languaging consists in operating in a network of consensual coordinations of consensual coordinations of behaviors, in a relational dynamics of consensual coordinations of behaviors that is constitutively open to endless recursions1. Moreover, we are, as living systems, structure determined systems, and nothing external to us can determine or specify what happens in us. So, the external agents that at any instant impinge upon us can only trigger in us structural changes determined in us by our structure at that instant. As a result, all that we do at any instant arises in us determined in us by our structure in that instant, either as a result of our closed internal structural dynamics, or as a result of the modulation of that internal structural dynamics by the structural changes triggered in us by the interactions in which we participate. In these circumstances, we would have to say that we are constitutively ”blind” to the intrinsic features of the medium as an independent reality , if to speak about the intrinsic features of an independent reality had any sense.
This situation has the following basic consequences for understanding what we do and for more click here

WINGS OF EVOLUTION in City University NY

Hey everybody...we will be having two consecutive screenings of WINGS OF EVOLUTION, one on Dec 5th (Wednesday) and one on 6th (Thursday) in one of the classes of the City University of New York...and this is through a friend of mine Carol Huang who teaches there (the screenings will be in her class and we will have a Q&A session after that)...this week with Carol's help, we will be visiting one of the directors of the Asian American/Asian Research Institute to request for another screening of Wings of Evolution...
We need to spread the word so that humans all over the world are somehow inspired to take children off the streets and care for them and give them the education they deserve!
Let us unite the children of the World!

Shadow of a soul...Bella Dizhur

I recently got the book of collected poems by Bella Dizhur from STRAND.
The intense words immediately drew me into the poet's world!
How many humans have to struggle to make their voices heard?
Some of them do succeed... while a vast number of them are pushed to the obscurity by the cruel winds of humans' prejudiced judgments...or...you-know-what...
Well, the introduction was given by Vasily Aksyonov...
Bella Dizhur for many years, a member of the Sverdlovsk branch of the USSR's Writer's Union, and she published several collections of Poems. From the outside, all of this appears to be an absolutely normal. privileged, professional literary life. But actually, and i know this from personal experience, this life consisted of a multitude of petty insults, nasty carping; and sometimes, a truly "endless number of humiliations" unfolded before the poet.
Many of Dizhur's poems were unpublished in the Soviet Union. She was denounced so much for her poetry and lived seven years in Yurmala as a refusnik, a person denied an exit visa. She was finally allowed to emigrate to the U.S. in 1987, at the age of 84.
I would like to share some of her poems which were translated in English with you all...

From the Notebook - URBAN DESERT
Lie for now, notebook, deep inside the desk;
Lie pretend to be without tongue.
My journey is long -
I am not looking for a short one.
So keep safe my truthful voice!

In a large universe
a small world.
Not a room; just a corner.
A book by the window, a view of half-sky,
A crust of bread, a glass of wine
And solitude. Such is the lot
Of someone who keeps to himself.

But this is a fate I do not fear.
Another stands with an outstretched hand
And from my window, a view of half-sky,
bread, a book and a glass of wine.
And all of the universe moves towards me.

There is a saying in Tamil..."Yaam petra inbam, peruga ivvaiyagam!" meaning...
"Sharing the happiness I experienced, with the Universe!"

Don't misinterpret Nature's art !!

Autumn is here...
you might just mistake this piece of Naure's art for a disastrous forest fire!!
Take some time out and enjoy the art...instead of sitting amidst four walls of your house or office!!
and for the humans who have evergreen trees around them...well, i will fill you in with the moments as much as i can!

GARBAGE Dreams - Short film!

Egypt’s resident garbage recyclers, the Zaballeen, struggle as Cairo modernizes its waste disposal system.

Hurray!! Am Back!!!!!

hello my dear friends...i know it has been a lonnnnngggggg time...well, i was not gone completely...i kept you all in my thoughts...while still feeding my procrastination and laziness...and then finally got tired of it...and here i am!
You must be wondering what I have been doing for all this time?
I was busy doing all these...
Reading and writing Shayari (which means poetry in Hindi)
Watching a lot of movies...
Thinking endless thoughtless repeatedly...
Enjoying the Sunset and the river view...
Hiking...
Climbing mountains...
Trying some adventure sports...
and lots more...
but i have missed coming to this space...
and now that i am back...i promise to share a lot more...a lot more than i did before!!!