The annual Fireflies Music Festival is a dusk to dawn affair. It happens in a 80 acre farm cum ashram cum cultural centre tucked away in a village called Dinnepalya nearly fifteen kilometeres down Kanakapura road. An open air amphitheater, a makefshift stage propped up against a huge pipal tree, with rocky steps serving as seats. Theres a huge canopy of trees, with a small aperture to view the starlit sky.
Go there next year - with kids, friends, pillows, mattresses, food, drinks.... and enjoy. This year I was stirred by Shabnam Virmanis performance of Kabirs poetry in the Malwa style. She was totally 'magan' and held the audience in that state as well. She is a documentary film-maker by profession. And an awesome singer.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
Sentiment
Broke a bottle of perfume this morning. Never the one to really follow rules that dictate replacing lids tightly and never holding glass bottles by the lid, it had to happen sooner or later....Though with this particular item it has taken a full eight years. On numerous occassions these past eight years I have rapped two tiny pairs of fingers for climbing shelves and reaching to all things on shelf three.
The mess was slovenly cleaned up. But the whole apartment was emanating fire and ice. My neighbour offered her condolences and asked if it was a rarely-used treasured object, and if I had wanted wanted to preserve for forever kinds. I was stunned at this thought. She was equally stunned at my surprise. She said she has a bottle of perfume that she had used at her wedding and that she often just smells it to recollect those moments.
Hmm...this thing occupied my mind for a few hours. I guess the environment has conditioned me. My parents moved homes/places every single year till I was fourteen. That meant eight different schools till class eight. The cleanliness freaks made sure there never was anything in the house that was not currently in use or good shape. Except of course things that were produced using Guttenberg's ideas. No artworks (if only they had been preserved - I could have VOWed my current art instructor), no school books/notebooks beyond the last day of school for the year. Though I do remember somehow culling a whole load of greeting cards (only the pictures...the messages carefully scissored away) over the decades, and my brothers having truckloads of stamps. We even disposed off the veena when I discontinued my lessons!
My in-laws...they are different. They are very sentimentally attached to places, people and things. When we visited their village last month, it was moving to listen to their narration of the house they lived in, the fields they had tilled, the temples they worshipped, the rivers they swam in... Last year they gave S the piggy bank that their children had used. They even fished out the key from and ocean of metal stuff. The ocean also yielded cute kid-sized dinner plates about thirty years new.
Now, after all these years, in the scale of sentiment I can claim to be somewhere in between my in-laws and parents, tilting more towards the former. But still, worshipping perfume bottles....I still have a long way to go.
To continue lifting lines from an ancient poetry book (my fathers copy!) to which I am sentimentally attached.. heres Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
The mess was slovenly cleaned up. But the whole apartment was emanating fire and ice. My neighbour offered her condolences and asked if it was a rarely-used treasured object, and if I had wanted wanted to preserve for forever kinds. I was stunned at this thought. She was equally stunned at my surprise. She said she has a bottle of perfume that she had used at her wedding and that she often just smells it to recollect those moments.
Hmm...this thing occupied my mind for a few hours. I guess the environment has conditioned me. My parents moved homes/places every single year till I was fourteen. That meant eight different schools till class eight. The cleanliness freaks made sure there never was anything in the house that was not currently in use or good shape. Except of course things that were produced using Guttenberg's ideas. No artworks (if only they had been preserved - I could have VOWed my current art instructor), no school books/notebooks beyond the last day of school for the year. Though I do remember somehow culling a whole load of greeting cards (only the pictures...the messages carefully scissored away) over the decades, and my brothers having truckloads of stamps. We even disposed off the veena when I discontinued my lessons!
My in-laws...they are different. They are very sentimentally attached to places, people and things. When we visited their village last month, it was moving to listen to their narration of the house they lived in, the fields they had tilled, the temples they worshipped, the rivers they swam in... Last year they gave S the piggy bank that their children had used. They even fished out the key from and ocean of metal stuff. The ocean also yielded cute kid-sized dinner plates about thirty years new.
Now, after all these years, in the scale of sentiment I can claim to be somewhere in between my in-laws and parents, tilting more towards the former. But still, worshipping perfume bottles....I still have a long way to go.
To continue lifting lines from an ancient poetry book (my fathers copy!) to which I am sentimentally attached.. heres Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Spring
A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown-
Who ponders this tremendous scene-
This whole Experiment of Green-
As if it were his own!
Ah! Its real. Spring is here.
The glorious trees of the city are in full bloom. I spot the purple Jacarandas, the orange Flame of the Forest and numerous unknown ones...trees and plants that I never could have guessed sported flowers anytime. Its a refreshing sight.
And there are concerts galore to shake the really stubborn ones from hibernation. Took the little ones to Kadri Gopalnath and Mandolin Srinivas....we hardly managed to stay one hour at each, but we all enjoyed the experience.
And then my company has changed its name. The third time in three years!
Have scouted around for painting classes (for myself). Am waiting for inspiration to ignore the constraints of schedules to actually enroll.
And if spring is here can summer be far behind? My kids are doing vacation planning already. They want to see Red Fort and India Gate. They want to see Mumbai. My husband wants to eat the Delhi bread pakodas and parathas on the way-side. And I want to attend two weddings. And to buy coordinated paavadais for all the girls. Poor S though.
And thankfully the V day is over and done with. All newspapers, all TV channels will have not speak about it for one next 300 days (at least). Even CNBC had a V Day Closing Bell program! S thought that it was a festival like Id and Christmas which our family dosent historically celebrate. I decided to leave him at peace with that reasoning. It will last perhaps two more years, and then his ideas will change.
And then Jodaha Akbar is set to release. I dont know anybody who opines that its gonna be anything other than a failure...like the Umrao..I guess.Hrithik as Akbar. Its unsettling. Rai in jewelry more formidable than an armour. But it has got some peaceful music.
So long...till the Mango season arrives
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown-
Who ponders this tremendous scene-
This whole Experiment of Green-
As if it were his own!
Ah! Its real. Spring is here.
The glorious trees of the city are in full bloom. I spot the purple Jacarandas, the orange Flame of the Forest and numerous unknown ones...trees and plants that I never could have guessed sported flowers anytime. Its a refreshing sight.
And there are concerts galore to shake the really stubborn ones from hibernation. Took the little ones to Kadri Gopalnath and Mandolin Srinivas....we hardly managed to stay one hour at each, but we all enjoyed the experience.
And then my company has changed its name. The third time in three years!
Have scouted around for painting classes (for myself). Am waiting for inspiration to ignore the constraints of schedules to actually enroll.
And if spring is here can summer be far behind? My kids are doing vacation planning already. They want to see Red Fort and India Gate. They want to see Mumbai. My husband wants to eat the Delhi bread pakodas and parathas on the way-side. And I want to attend two weddings. And to buy coordinated paavadais for all the girls. Poor S though.
And thankfully the V day is over and done with. All newspapers, all TV channels will have not speak about it for one next 300 days (at least). Even CNBC had a V Day Closing Bell program! S thought that it was a festival like Id and Christmas which our family dosent historically celebrate. I decided to leave him at peace with that reasoning. It will last perhaps two more years, and then his ideas will change.
And then Jodaha Akbar is set to release. I dont know anybody who opines that its gonna be anything other than a failure...like the Umrao..I guess.Hrithik as Akbar. Its unsettling. Rai in jewelry more formidable than an armour. But it has got some peaceful music.
So long...till the Mango season arrives
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