yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

As we walked around the Masjid building, a proverbial parikrama, two aunties over-took us – spring in their steps. Clad in burquas and holding bright coloured sports-shoes in hands; they left us surprised and with smiles. There was something about this sight which conveyed that the world around is neither constant nor boring, all we need is to keep our senses open.   At a corner another aunty we saw sitting on a bench with her two small hand-bags for company. With interest and peace levels that are not common at public spaces she was engaged with the bags. She reminded me of dadi and I kept watching as she got a bottle from one of the bags and sipped water. As we walked ahead two other aunties sat on the floor between the Masjid wall and its boundary wall as the children played in the shade. Was the Masjid’s compound too being encroached at some point of time, I wondered, like that of Khilwat. Such an unimaginative boundary – in either case - and a tad too small for the large, an...

All good things – they say – happen by chance. In the space of ten days I saw Deepti Naval on large screen and on the stage. How in the minimum screen time in Mirch Masala she conveyed the frustration and helplessness – despite being the village mukhiya’s wife    –  with her eyes; that feeling off oneness with the women held in captivity, through that one look from behind the window. That defiance when coming out of home and banging vessels or walking her daughter to school for the first time! Amidst the stellar cast of the movie she shone; she did not come out and hit you all of a sudden but she touched you and stayed with you. I was reminded of an article I had read some years ago that hers are the only eyes that can cry and laugh at the same time on screen. It has been her eyes – over the years – that have taken the audience to her ( on screen ) world then.  Be it Chasme Buddoor – which with a group of friends I recall enjoying more than few times – as...

I enjoy dabbling in conservation education and feel the need to work upon my faculties so as to improve, to perform better. In other words I tried to analyse and break-up what little I do into multiple areas. From these I narrowed down on what I was keen to work upon with the caveat that opportunities too would guide what I ended up pursuing. These included communication and facilitation. Two events, one each on back to back Saturday’s, provided interesting opportunities. These were organized at Lamakaan which meant that I ended up gorging on chai and samosas. J B Priestly author of the classic essay ‘On doing nothing’ and would have been very happy to come to Lamakaan . Besides a host of options ( plays, film-screenings, book-releases and else ) it also offers you the space to come and do nothing, just be. The importance of this can hardly be over-emphasized. I place below snippets from either event. First was an event on facilitation; ‘Introduction to Process Facilitation...