Faded and hazy… old eyes can nevertheless make out who is who. They are all standing awkwardly still for the photograph. It deserves a lovely laugh. It achieves so every time. And moist eyes…
Black is disappearing into the white and the white into the off-white. Will the memory die soon? Or will it live as an anecdote?
An anecdote that is passed on, with number of ears listening to it adding flavours they find must be incorporated, by one storyteller to another. It becomes precious, a small piece capsuling time. Golden time…
Her old, wrinkled smiling face was so young once. Gush of euphoria hits my mind for a few seconds, while she stays as quiet as serene scenery, softly caressing the black and white photograph.
Your memory, liquid time solidified by a click, an era’s voice captured in the photographic paper stays alive… first in form, later as a story.
If you fall and the fall resembles the fall of Macchu Picchu…
*
The dust around you, the dust in you tells you the truth. Listen carefully. They blame the dreariness on the modern technology, but just open your eyes to see who is not moving. City streets shine blood-red and dead empty; finding fault is out of fashion now. Hiding is a fad, not believing is a fad, not feeling is a fad. You don’t check the time any more, the clock reflects grime all around. The war is also over, the hunt has ended, panic seeped within is now quelled and happily so. The dead ones are dying and the living ones are dying. You know nothing stays forever, yet you hope for a forever. Stale thoughts to no thoughts, you look outside the window, you imagine what it will be like to jump, to bring an end.
*
If you fall and the fall resembles the fall of Macchu Picchu, you will rise back.
5W, 1H and a question mark.
If you go through The Heights of Macchu Picchu by Pablo Neruda, you’ll know. If you believe, you’ll know.
Why? Aren’t you ready? That table is your trunk, you packed it long back, ask the thick grime your feet are resting on.
Lurking on the wall is a spider, is he your friend or not, don’t bother I tell you, he is on his own journey.
For now, the lamp is cold and dead, for now, the darkness is not a thing unfamiliar, for now, you have mourned too long, so just get up.
Don’t you see the ants working? You sulk and cough and spit and drink thinking life will just pass, but it will not, not so easily.
Get up, step out, it has been so long since you heard the sound of your own footsteps… deep resonance… connect once again to the earth.
Shout or cry, dare or try and always happily fall… fall down for then you’ll learn to wake up… getup-getup.
You turn away from the light, no-no it is not laughing at you, walk with it a mile, you’ll smile and shine too.
The hands you’re resting, the head you’re swaying, the air you’re breathing knows better than you.
Don’t worry for smoothly it will all come back to you, the sun rises and sets, the moon shines and hides, the wind plays and takes, the river nurtures and leaves, the sky stays yours forever – see up, get up.
Witness, for the truth is waiting. Witness, for the Time is calling. Witness, for your life is yours to rule.
Aye! Aye! It is hard, bone-screeching, don’t listen to the stubborn emptiness, all it does is preaching.
See, you’re up, take a step forward, one at a time. Push away the hindrances, let the mirror fall and break into umpteenth pieces, for you’re about to change into an image that the mirror cannot behold.
Aye! Rub your eyes for now you’ll see the world beyond. Keep walking!
I dare you to forget not. Forget what not? Try to remember… remember that day when…
… for the first time you crawled… you struggled to walk… you hopped all along… you won a race… you tap danced with grace… you came in style… you left wearing a smile… you befriended the walking stick… you crawled for the second time…
… for the first time you were loved… you were pampered… you were jealous… you were told to share… you were lonely… you made a friend… you believed in dreams… you knew true joy… you hurt yourself… you stood up… you worshipped time… you quietly realised… you happily understood… you loved them back…
… for the first time you felt you knew absolutely nothing… you followed their path… you managed to survive… you built a new track… you knew right is right and wrong, wrong… you travelled in time… you accepted the change… you thoroughly read writings in brief… you said of course… you said not at all… you repented and laughed at the mistake… you cheered your take… you declared that you still knew absolutely nothing…
Everything is forgotten on the way, but the journey goes on… the journey that is unforgettably yours.
*
“Don’t forget now, alright? Go, leave, carry on!” [Image by Lin Tong from Pixabay]
The contents of the collective unconscious are archetypes, primordial images that reflect basic patterns that are common to us all, and which have existed universally since the dawn of time.
– Carl Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious
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Lovers, on their way to meet the jester. [Image by Jo Justino from Pixabay]
*
It is an archetypal journey. The action, the beckoning, the characteristic, the defined, the empowering, the foolish, the grand, the hierarchical, the idealistic, the justified, the karmic, the love-blind, the materialistic, the nurturing, the ordinary, the perilous, the quark-shaped, the resisting, the surviving, the tempestuous, the utopian, the visible, the wanderers, the X-catchers, the Y-believers, the zealous.
Collectively it is all done. But still the individual holds the absolute power to create… to create once again, to retell, to relive. And together we witness.
If you find the process as a slow one, then let the jester hit you with paradoxes. Understand, later you will, that every cell is wholly participating and it isn’t slow or fast, but magnificently beautiful.
This elemental connection when subtly enters the conscious, baffles and simultaneously glorifies us.
Nearing the known, reaching the unknown; beginning with a fear, ending triumphantly or vice-versa; thinking that it doesn’t matter, feeling that it does… each journey has a homeland.
Well, the map in my possession is incomplete, I still have to collect many missing jigsaw pieces- Ponyo, Porco Rosso, Pom Poko, and more. I am all AGOG!
Dominant colours– green, blue, white, yellow, and red – on the map, endless stretches of farmlands, mountains, rivers, sunny days, foggy evenings, starry nights, and cottony skies are fulfilling.
Colours reinstate the quiet you, making you sensitively aware. Wide EYES!
The map warmly takes you to different worlds; worlds you will strongly start to believe you belong in, you always did. Yes, each world on the map has that charm, each world is linked through MAGIC.
Magical creatures, seen for the first time as you follow the map, will become your close friends, the closest ones. Tell them your secrets to make them yours forever.
The map took me to the magnificent majestic world of Princess Mononoke. I confess I was afraid, threatened for my familiarity with and my memories of this life-journey disowned me and left.
Alone I walked, met many Kodamas and I walked ahead. Alone and FASCINATED!
This world merges evil and good, rights and wrongs, anarchy, and peace… thoughts and feelings of being in the centre, with a grand forest and a grand iron fortress, converging. I will return to this world, for I have to.
Do you know what Prince Ashitaka said to Lady Eboshi when she asked him what was he there for? Prince Ashitaka said, ‘To see with eyes unclouded by hate.’ GRAND!
In the world called Spirited Away, I was with Chihiro all the while even when she became Sen… or was I? She kept swinging on the threshold, meeting and understanding the spirits and their realm.
With Chihiro, I crossed the tunnel in the end, we turned together with a measure of hope, wanting, trust, and belief.
We left and the threshold disappeared, but the feeling stayed. The feeling is ALIVE.
The map will take you, to your utter pleasure, both in the future and the past, in the known and the unknown, in their story and your story.
Gladly I followed the dirt road and reached the world of Totoro, My Neighbour Totoro. All I did there was dancing, under the huge tree in the Tsukamori forest along with Satsuki, Mei, Totoro, and two small Totoros.
Listen to the track we all danced to –
*
*
Déjà vu, dreams, and fantasy fused together in this world and promised. A promise so DEEP, one never made before.
Oh how the dreams never end, how we build on and on… maybe for the dreams speak to us honestly without any guilt, without shying from LOVE.
I have been on Howl’s Moving Castle, what a wonderful world.
But I warn you, it is like being in a dream, a lengthy dream, one which tackles evil and disgust and the power game; where love and compassion dimly shine and darkness shakes you from within, leaving you weak.
If you hold on, Howl the wizard fights back and casts a spell to restore harmony and balance.
How well a spell can work? For how long will it preserve? Corruption spreads, how will it all end? Howl’s Flying Castle a dreamlike reality…
I left this world after learning how to make a castle fly – apart from Calcifer’s (the fire-demon) help, you need to nurture freedom within. VOILA!
And so the map showed me another beautiful world which was all about flying, The Wind Rises it was called. Know that ‘flying and magic’ is a must in life. Abide by for there is magic WITHIN.
If you happen to forget yourself, truly forget yourself, may you be reminded as the wind rises, that you must LIVE.
Live to fulfil, to cherish, to create, to inspire, to love, to remember, to let go, to smile, to embrace the truth as it all ENDS.
I will continue to make the map to Miyazaki as slowly it is being revealed to me how the dreams are unfolded, how the stories are made, what it takes to truly believe in it all, and what a treasure living is.
P.S- My friend Tashi gave me the first piece of this map, the one that took me to the world of Princess Mononoke; this is the tradition, I now pass it on to you.
Notorious mind to THE MIND. [Image by IRINA from Pixabay]
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Minding the mind
It is kind of, sort of looking amazed and all it has done is talking… talking to itself. If thoughts wear colours then this mind is making rainbows after rainbows.
Mind’s petty issues
Whether a smoothie is meant to be always cold? If instead of right we had turned round and round? Why am I scared to say, ‘I said so’?
Mind’s grand tales
Oh, endless journey don’t you end… don’t you end before I set the hat right and check the change within and without with a smile. Don’t you end or change or stop or move or be false. Be happy.
Mind, when at peace
Waves, lights, colours ocean up and down for seconds, until the old stories return. Back and forth between peace and everything else.
Mind talks
And with enough repetitions dear mind, one is ought to remember it all.
Mind makes
The one standing under the shed, waiting or not waiting, unsure whether to wear the spectacles or not, is being made and unmade at that very moment.
Loitering mind
It rests quietly when one sleeps, but only to run wild and free in the dreams.
*
Sooner or later usher the mind beyond what it tells. Then have a laugh. A real laugh.
This painting was commissioned by The Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition to commemorate Carnegie Award recipient Dr. Leslie Ungerleider’s substantial contribution to the field of vision science. Her work in delineating the dorsal and ventral visual processing pathways led to the discovery that the ventral pathway predominantly processes information related to how we recognize objects (what), whereas the dorsal pathway interprets how objects are related to one another in space (where). The painting is designed to reflect this dichotomy in its layout and conceptual content.
Embracing, accepting, forgiving the doll walks on. Struggling, fearing, hoping the doll looks around. Learning, recognizing, changing the doll steps out, no longer a doll, but an individual.
It is Christmas Eve and the doll has told maids to hide the Christmas tree from the children until it is decorated and lighted up, and she is going to dress up and perform the Tarantella in the party as it is her master’s wish.
On the day after Christmas she will leave, changed forever, no longer a doll, but as Nora, Henrik Ibsen’s Nora.
At the time when the play A Doll’s House was written, marriages were sacrosanct, women were meant only to look after their husband, children and the house, in return the husband was to provide her with everything that she needed for maintenance; a rich man was a good prospect of making a happy married life.
Nora – managing the Helmer House and all the maids, taking care of her three little children, jumping around like a squirrel for her husband, Torvald Helmer – is struck by a calamity and there is no one on her side to support her, not even her master, Torvald. When the time approaches for the miracle Nora very much hoped and dreaded for to happen, she is left with absolutely nothing in her life.
From the year 1879 when A Doll’s House was performed for the first time on the stage to the modern 21st century, this play has continued to be appreciated both by the academia and the audience.
Free from the in-style verbose poetical soliloquies and with the woman as the central character, it was both a pioneering and a controversial play; pioneering for bringing the element of realistic drama in the theatre world which till then had been occupied with the historical romance and the thesis plays, and controversial for a woman behaving the way Nora did was unheard of, which is why Ibsen, on one occasion, had to present a leading actress with an alternate ending as she refused to act in the play as a woman who abandons her husband and children.
Many playwrights have also criticised the sudden awakening that Nora undergoes, which then gives her the strength to walk out; the Swedish playwright, August Strindberg, questioned Nora’s decision to leave her children with a man whom she doesn’t trust any more.
But, with or without any flaws, Nora’s story has touched many hearts and has made it a timeless piece of work. Its simplicity, conversational tone and ‘the slamming of the door’ climax gives us a truly dramatic, cathartic and a classic three act play. If the change of heart that Nora’s character goes through in the third act is unacceptable and absurd, then it only magnifies the fact that A Doll’s House is an absolutely realistic work because reality is stranger than fiction.
The storyline moves and grows and evolves and complexes with every scene. Nora, shifted from her father’s doll’s house to her husband’s, from past eight years had been working to decorate it. She, Torvald’s little lark, little spendthrift, knows nothing but to be at her husband’s disposal, by thoughtless choice of course. Ivar, Emmy and Bob are Nora’s dolls with whom she happily plays and she is Torvald’s doll, whom she happily obeys.
Nora (goes to the table on the right): I shouldn’t think of doing what yon disapprove of.
Helmer: No, I’m sure of that; and, besides, you’ve given me your word. (Going towards her) Well, keep your little Christmas secrets to yourself, Nora darling. The Christmas-tree will bring them all to light, I dare say.
Uninformed and an act of love becomes unreasonable and an act of forgery for Nora Helmer; she took loan to save her sick husband and forged the documents because that was the only way out. Later when Krogstad present her with the facts, Nora replies,
Do you mean to tell me that a daughter has no right to spare her dying father anxiety? That a wife has no right to save her husband’s life? I don’t know much about the law, but I’m sure that, somewhere or another, you will find that that is allowed.
Krogstad is determined to reveal her secret and Nora is worried only for Torvald as she is sure he will take the blame for her sake and spare her any shaming. This is her fear for she knows Torvald would do anything in the world for her safety. What happens, though, is the stark opposite of this; Trovald is only worried about his own reputation and is even ready to bow and accept Krogstad’s demands. When Krogstad sends the IOU (I Owe You) and apologies for troubling Nora, Trovald changes euphorically and assures Nora that everything is fine.
*
“I must make up my mind which is right – society or I.” [Source – cocosse.com]
*
But nothing is fine for Nora as she finally sees herself; Torvald becomes a mirror for her and the quick personality shifts he presents her with, shatters the mirror altogether and a real view of things comes in forefront. Nora starts to question – question her life, her relationship with Torvald, her role as a mother, her understanding of what society teaches and what she wishes to learn. Torvald’s little lark realises that she can fly and she, thus, chooses to do so.
Helmer: Nora, can I never be more than a stranger to you?
Nora (Taking her travelling bag): Oh, Torvald, then the miracle of miracles would have to happen.
Helmer: What is the miracle of miracles?
Nora: Both of us would have to change so that… Oh, Torvald, I no longer believe in miracles.
Helmer: But I will believe. We must so change that…?
Nora: That communion between us shall be a marriage. Goodbye.
With A Doll’s House Ibsen had no intention to serve the women’s rights movement, rather it was to present the significance of individual responsibility, the importance of understanding oneself, ones’ purpose in life and then striving to achieve it.
By the end Nora is ready to take a stand for herself, without any fear of the society or her master, without her own fears and inhibitions, without any support, but only with a determined and awakened mind, heart to know about herself and her life. And this certainly is why A Doll’s House still charms its readers, after all, the field of studying oneself is not well explored and many discoveries, many inventions are yet to be made.
Originally published at SWA – Blog on January 11, 2017.
Endless footprints following footprints/
When suddenly a few of them rise/
To bloom like a flower.
Greetings!
A storyteller, following the ancient tradition of cave chroniclers, standing in vrikshasana (the tree pose) on a hill top (it is sunny, but windy), breathing in and out stories (relishing it all, but at times overwhelmed), declares animatedly that she will continue to – tell stories, share rare story gems, and connect with the pacy universe while also keeping the website ad-free.
Big thanks to my readers. Stay tuned!
Also, a humble request to the new subscribers to check the spam folder after subscribing. Silly (but necessary) confirmation emails often land there instead of the bright inboxes. Merci!
Ya-hoy!
Chiming Stories (formerly Home Chimes)
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Gabbeh, the 1996 film, is a simple tale of a gipsy girl, her clan and the way their life goes on. Unfolding beautifully just like an artist painting a canvas, Gabbeh quietly touches the grand questions.
Ranked as one of the greatest British films of all time, The Lavender Hill Mob confides in the audience, letting them see, feel, laugh and think without tickling persuasively with a joke here and a punch-line there.
Godard… Breathless and Alive
A Tribute to Jean-Luc Godard, the Film Philologist who Reinvented Cinema.
Yes fly! For walking on the second track is dull and usual, but dreaming high, high, high requires tools. Tools like the right pair of shoes, a chirpy, gritty soul that eats butter-jam dreams, a soul that drinks milky-milky creams.
Silver cascade shimmering the night sky, music to the waves and surreal beauty to the eyes, the Moon loves the art of discipline.
It may be difficult to believe for the Moon’s splendour defies time, it stupefies the clock, it follows the path of a dreamer, but how could this be possible if the Moon knew not discipline?
In this moment, I am a little bit of this and a little bit of that, I am complete and incomplete, I am pleased and uncertain, I wish for nothing and I know I have to wait.
Because the distance covered reminds me of the hurdles I have crossed and the ones I could not, it reminds me of a throbbing past and a dreamy future and it reminds me of how much time is left.
Meredith and the Green Lake
Illimitable Splendour
A joy so complete without any rise or fall, so free without any time corners, so real without true being false, false being true.
