Excerpt from MINDFULLNESS – A Practical Guide to Awakening by Joseph Goldstein

Chapter 1

We can also strengthen the quality of ardour by reflection on the transiency of all phenomena. Look at all the things we become attached to, whether they are people or possessions or feelings or conditions of the body. Nothing we have, no one in our lives, no state of mind is exempt from change. Nothing at all can prevent the universal process of birth, growth, decay and death.

When we don’t deeply understand the truth of impermanence, we devote ourselves, our lives, and even our meditation practice to seeking and wanting other people, possessions, experiences. WE get caught up in all the appearances of Samsara, the rounds of birth and death, and solidify our sense of self in the process. There is no peace.

The following is an excerpt from The Life of Shabkar, a book of teachings by an 18th-century wandering Tibetan yogi, and is a powerful testament to the truth of change:

‘Another day, I went for some fresh air to a meadow covered with flowers.. while singing and remaining in a state of awareness of the absolute view, I noticed among the profusion of flowers spread out before me one particular flower waving gently on its long stem and giving out a sweet fragrance. As it swayed from side to side, I heard this song in the rustling of its petals..

Listen to me, mountain dweller: . .

I don’t want to hurt your feelings,

But, in fact, you even lack awareness

Of impermanence and death,

Let alone any realization of emptiness.

For those with such awareness,

Outer phenomena all teach impermanence and death.

I, the flower, will now give you, the yogi,

A bit of helpful advice

On death and impermanence.

A flower born in a meadow,

I enjoy perfect happiness

With my brightly coloured petals in full bloom.

Surrounded by an eager cloud of bees,

I dance gaily, swaying gently with the wind.

When a fine rain falls, my petals warp around me;

When the sun shines I open like a smile.

Right now I look well enough,

But I won’t last long.

Not at all.

Unwelcome frost will dull the vivid colours,

Till turning brown I wither.

Thinking of this, I am disturbed.

Later still, winds —

violent and merciless —

will tear me apart until I turn to dust. . . .

You, hermit, . . .

Are of the same nature.

Surrounded by a host of disciples,

You enjoy a fine complexion,

Your body of flesh and blood is full of life.

When others praise you,

you dance with joy; 

Right now, you look well enough.

But you won’t last long.

Not at all.

Unhealthy ageing will steal away

Your healthy vigour;

Your hair will whiten

And your back will grow bent. . 

When touched by the merciless hands

Of illness and death

You will leave this world

For the next life. . 

Since you, mountain-roaming hermit,

And I, a mountain-born flower,

Are mountain friends,

I have offered you

These words of good advice.

Then the flower fell silent and remained still. In reply, I sang:

O brilliant, exquisite flower,

Your discourse on impermanence

Is wonderful indeed.

But what shall the two of us do?

Is there nothing that can be done? 

The flower replied:

 . . Among all the activities of Sāṃsara,

There is not one that is lasting.

Whatever is born will die;

Whatever is joined will come apart;

Whatever is gathered will disperse;

Whatever is high will fall.

Having considered this,

I resolve not to be attached

To these lush meadows,

Even now, in the full glory of my display,

Even as my petals unfold in splendour . . 

You too, while strong and fit,

Should abandon your clinging. . 

Seek the pure field of freedom,

The great serenity

 

the mill and the cross

I saw the movie ‘The Mill and The Cross’ very recently; had to leave it mid-way because i couldn’t understand much of it. The movie was intriguing in some harsh way, though, so i just did some reading on the net afterwards and watched the remaining part of the film – it had a different meaning thereafter. I’d like to watch it again some time, complete in one sitting

The link below is to an interview with the director Lech Majewski – one could catch a glimpse of the philosophy behind the idea and its execution.

http://www.spreadartculture.com/2011/09/11/reimagining-bruegel-lech-majewskis-the-mill-and-the-cross

Do see if you could get to read about the film, the painting, and then if possible watch the movie.

Following by Christopher Nolan

I recently saw Following which Nolan made (his first) way back in ’98, and one could easily term it as the harbinger of some great quality work that would follow – the prestige, memento, the dark night, inception, et al.

I was then reading about the film on Wiki, and what the article states right in the start is something that reminded me of our one and only Tigre. It goes thus – “it was designed to be as inexpensive as possible to make; scenes were heavily rehearsed so that just one or two takes were needed, thus economising on 16 mm film stock, the production’s greatest expense, and for which Nolan was paying from his salary. Without expensive professional lighting equipment, Nolan mostly used available light. Apart from providing the script and direction, Nolan also did the photography, editing and production himself”

I all the more believe now that Tigre can achieve what he has set his eyes on! And more!!

In between I saw a lot of great stuff – 13 Assassins, Life During Wartime, Equus (if you could survive it), Five Minutes of Heaven, Udaan, Remains of the Day, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Road, Moon, Nueve Reinas, Tropa De Elite 2, Smile Pinki, and a lot more.

Limitless was slick and enjoyable, but one could not put it with the above.

Blade Runner, Ex Angel Exterminador and The Tree of Life, though quite celebrated titles, were really taxing on my limited capabilities, though i survived all of them out of my dogged determination to be some day counted somewhere at the lowermost rungs of the hierarchy of world cinema watchers, if i could say so; but frankly, i’d give them a miss if given a chance. I mean, i do watch a lot of cinema, but these (and The Killer of Sheep), they were a bit beyond me!

Am visiting Allahabad again, after about 10 months. It has worsened a bit, but the good part is i’ve brought Keshav (my son) with me. Today, i took him to my school St. Joseph’s College (est. 1884) (he was awestruck by the enormity of it, and the fact that the school has rabbits as pets, and a full blown tank showcased right in the middle of everything), and to the place where Chandra Shekhar Azad shot himself with the last bullet he was left with while fighting British soldiers (the plaque said he was all of 25 years of age, which made me think what was i doing at 25!?!)

And, of course, it’s great to meet old friends. Plus, the entire house is treating me like royalty, preparing all things (under mom’s supervision) that i used to savor as a kid. This time, the treatment is all the more grand ‘coz i brought Keshav with me.

Its biting cold here, and the roads are all screwed up beyond redemption. But what the hell, its still Allahabad, and I love it here!!

ek doctor ki maut

hello,

i shamlessly keep borrowing this statement which dr dipankar roy (pankaj kapoor’s character in the film ‘ek doctor ki maut’) kept writing all the time – “so much to do, so little is done.. hurry up!”

but while i keep feeling, all the time, that there is so much to do and so little is done, i can’t get myself to “hurry up”.. i just can’t.. hence, the huge gaps between the writing sessions.. time management is something that i preach, but don’t follow 🙂

in between, i did some interesting (and some not-so-interesting) things – went to Harda (an obscure station head in Madhya Pradesh, an hour from Khandwa – tigre would know the place) to see something magical (more about it later, perhaps); trained hard at the gym; opened a couple of Ethnicity stores; got another portfolio added to my work; read some good stuff; drove to allahabad from delhi, and back; watched some amazing (and some pure-shit) movies; discovered a bit of the sahyadris with a trek to lohagarh with keshav (i’m hooked now, going on another trek to Peb coming Sat); attended an interesting training program at alibaug; met friends; didn’t write, et cetera!

for the movie buffs – if you haven’t seen Kurosawa’s ‘Ran’ (’85) or Polanski’s ‘Repulsion’ (’65) yet, you should do so.. Ran is the simplest of all stories, beautifuly told.. each of the characters, however small, have been worked upon so much, the end result is mesmerising.. plus the landscapes and the battle scenes (esp the last one between Jiro’s and Saburo’s armies) are too good.. Repulsion requires patience, but turns out extremely engaging.. there have been several lame attempts to replicate Repulsion’s lead character’s role in some of the hindi movies by stupid actresses like Urmila Matondkar, but they need no comments.. also vying for your attention are the subliminal ‘Owl and The Sparrow’ (Vietnamese),  the heart-rending ‘Last Train Home’ (Chinese), mildly stupid but starring the gorgeously aging Paul Newman ‘The Sting’ (English), the fluid ‘Ilk Ask’ (Turkish) and the brilliant Hadewijch (which amply carries the tradition of ‘difficult-to-watch-but-immensely-lovable’ French movies).. i also watched the enjoyable ‘Stanley Ka Dabba’ (which i saw with keshav) and ‘Delhi Belly’, and plan to see ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ soon – i’m a die-hard Hritik fan for 4 reasons – 1. He is as fluid as me when he dances, 2. He is unbelievably handsome (leaves me miles behind in this category), 3. I’ll never get to have abs like him even if i continue to work out for the next 60-70 years, and 4. He was very intense in Lakshya 

(however, that doesn’t mean i’d ever go to watch duds like Kites and Guzaarish, though i’m waiting eagerly for Agneepath)  

 i have a soft copy of ‘Thirukural’, given to me by none other than our very own Daroga Singh, plus a few stuti renditions by Gundecha Bros on Shiva.. these are priceless possessions, and if you want you can have them by simply sending a request on my gmail id

love

dubes

~be true~

the world this week

The other day I had the fortune(?) to watch the finals of Pantaloons Femina Miss India ’11 (got cool VIP-category Gold Class front-row passes, courtesy Boss)

Gorav and I were excited at the promise of free beer in 5-star environs, with film stars and wannabe MissIndias strutting around! Finally we were at the cusp of getting into Page 3 party snaps! The let-down couldn’t have been more ironical – Mehboob Studio in Bandra was no any-star, there was no free- or for-sale beer (no food either), and since we got late in reaching the venue, all the special ‘Gold Class’ seats were gone, and we had to content ourselves with standing at the far end of the hall, where we were constantly being asked to move our butts ‘coz we disturbing some or the other imbecile’s view of the ‘beautiful’ Miss India contestants.

The only iota of excitement was when a string of losers like Kangna Ranaut, Fardeen Khan, Dino Morea, Leander Paes and Prachi Desai passed Gorav and me on their way to the judges’ podium. Ms. Ranaut, I believe, has been having a bad field day ever since a botched lip job, so she seldom looks up to face anybody – she probably feels the entire world has nothing better to do than watching her messed up lips!

The anchor of the event was one of the most stupid people whom the organizers could find, some loser TV artist named Manish Paul – perhaps they had organized another, parallel written test where the guy with the least IQ (about 15 or so!) was selected to anchor the show. He complimented himself by calling other morons (read unseen, unheard of TV artists) to the stage, who introduced us to the finalists of the Miss India contest. It seemed like a prologue to the horror show that was yet to start, what with ‘beauties’ from Bhubaneshwar, Lucknow, Shimla, and other such places telling the audiences their ages and hobbies! God, half of them couldn’t even say their names and origins properly!!

Then the show started with a bunch of faux-attitude youngsters (whom almost nobody had ever heard of, but as per the venerable Mr. Paul, had won many awards in singing rock songs. Where, nobody seemed to know). They hammed and lip-synced to a song I had never come across, but the guy at the drums who was wearing white sunglasses seemed to be really happy seeing so many people looking at, guess what, his white sunglasses, and we just prayed for it to end.

The neat bits were Sonakshi Sinha’s song and dance show, and even Malaika Arora’s sequence was bearable. Hard Kaur lip-synced too, but she was at least energetic in her dancing. Sonu Sood came with a suit made of some Ramlila left-over shiny black satin fabric, and couldn’t wait to slip out of it and dance for the Malaika Arora’s ‘Munni Badnam’ piece. He has good muscles, though – better than me, even! Which of course, made me feel slightly jealous.

We left the show mid-way hungry, and angry too, at being constantly tortured without being offered any beer! The masterpiece of the half-evening was a bunch of three asses who had cross-dressed (one of them was Babloo Mukherjee, son of Keshto Mukherjee – Keshto Ji must be turning in his grave seeing his loser son doing what he was doing), and bombarded us with inane banalities that they must have felt were jokes! I could have smothered them publicly, which would have made a better gory show that what the Miss India contestants were up to.

Anyways, I can’t possibly devote any more time describing such a big mistake of mine – going to the Miss India finals with false hopes! To better things now – last week, I watched ‘The Savages’ (‘07) by Tamara Jenkins, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman, I guess, has stopped acting ‘coz he’s gotten so sublime he maybe doesn’t need to act anymore (reminded me of Paul Giamatti in ‘Sideways’ (’04) by Alexander Payne, which is another gem). ‘The Savages’ is quite capable of spellbinding you (same with Sideways), so see if you could get to download it at the earliest.

For comedy buffs, there is ‘Zelig’ (’83) by Woody Allen. It was one of his initial works, something so unusually shot I’ve never seen anything like it before, and gives you a hint of his genius which is so very evident in his later works like ‘Husbands and Wives’ and ‘Annie Hall’

Then there was the thoroughly enjoyable ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ (’05) by Shane Black – makes you actually start liking Robert Downey Jr.!

Nothing much on other fronts, life’s as good as it could be. Keshav has passed his Sr. KG with all A+s and As, and is pretty excited about it – has been asking for a Kinder Joy as a reward, which I’m yet to get for him. Hopefully, tomorrow. He will now be moving to Std. I

See you soon

:) happiness..

..may have many definitions, but one of them most certainly is watching the Indian cricket team clobber the Pakis, especially on their way to lift the world cup! What a contest, I’d say!!

I was so excited a day before the match i just couldn’t sleep well, and then ever since the morning of the match day, it was all i could think of. Vishal Singh, Gorav, Pareek and me descended on Pakiya’s room at IBIS Hotel near the domestic airport with tons of beer, made some immediate ‘jugad’ to chill the umpteen cans (the wash basin was filled with crushed ice and water), and forgot ourselves right from the time the first ball was bowled. Umar Gul being hit by Sehwag for five fours in an over was like Chennai’s Murugan Idlis melting in your mouth; sand-fingered Pakis kept dropping Sachin all to our delight, and despite being disappointed in Kohli and Yuvraj we were quite convinced of a win by the time the Indian innings ended. By that time, we had also devoured half of the 32 cans of 500-ml Kingfisher draught!

Thereafter, it was thrill at its best. My throat is still hoarse from all the shouting i did, and eventually ended up crying when the last Paki wicket fell. Everybody is dancing, and suddenly they see me crying, so they stop dancing and start comforting me and telling me not to cry. It was hilarious!

It’s Lanka’s turn to get screwed now. I’m really looking forward to Saturday 🙂

back to the grime

Dedicated to the types of tigre and dags who actually read my first blog post! And wrote comments too!!

I’m still dazed from my 14-day marathon absence from office.. don’t remember when i last did that. Since june ’00 when i started my career, leaves were mostly prolonged weekends, sometimes with an additional Thursday or Monday thrown in, so i was never really away from work, but this time it was different. Very enjoyable nonetheless, and the best part was the feeling of having had less time at hand. Unfortunately, that also meant i had to give a slip to many a thing that i had on my ‘must-do’ list.

The good things first – i was able to spend a lot of time at home, took mom to Benaras and Papa to Vindhyachal, talked unendingly with kids at home, ate so much i added a couple of kilos (no gym, of course), got the kids a puppy ‘kish-mish’, met a lot of old timers i hadn’t seen for ages, rekindled friendships, drove to Delhi from Allahabad, and many more.

The bad part was to see an intoxicating place like Allahabad slowly but steadily turning into a shit-hole, rather, as somebody put it recently – “a city decaying but not ready to die yet”. No hopes there, no matter how much i love the place. I’m seriously questioning if i’d really like my kid to grow up there!

Some of the places still have some of their old-world charm though – the chapel of St. Joseph’s where i studied, the banks of Ganga at 4 in the morning, the Hanuman temple on its banks where the deity is lying down instead of standing, the chaat stall of Shiv at Tikoniya, the robbers’ tribe that goes by the name ‘Pandaa’ – in the name of religion, they have self proclaimed rights to loot everyone who comes to the Ganga..

On my way back from Delhi to Bombay, i watched Federico Fellini’s ‘Eight and a Half’.. a bit slow in the beginning, it can test your patience. It grew on me later though – fantasy and real life intertwined with such magnificence! I really liked the boldness of the dream sequence where the hero Guido gathers all the women he loves, under one roof (!!!) – mesmerizing, (sadly) possible only in fantasy, but still requiring a lot of gumption to showcase it on screen. A must watch!

I’m hoping i’ll be able to start work by tomorrow. Keep sending your comments.

dubes

 

first time

welcome to dubelight (please, now onwards, always read it in rhyme with ‘tubelight’).. the name has been invented, patented and gifted by tigre, so all credit or discredit to him please

this is my first blog post ever, and i’m conceivably excited.. i’m writing it from the great holy environs of allahabad where i have reached today for a brief vacation of about 7 days.. this is home, and i haven’t been here for so long a period during the last 10 years, which makes this visit kind of special.. i have an unending ‘to-do’ list and i’m not very sure whether i’ll be able to complete all of it – places to go, friends to meet, stuff to eat.. to be in allahabad and to absorb its beauty needs about three lifetimes (plus i have to visit varanasi also for a day, that place requires about eight lifetimes only to decipher!)

i have no set agenda on what i’m going to be writing in my blog.. i intend it to be enlightening though.. movies, travel, friends, office, good people, bad people, good memories, bad memories, civic administration, architecture, corporate shit – whatever (or at least some of it) i see and like or dislike.. i hope it comes out decent..

thanks for your time and patience.. hopefully you’ll come back sometime