Silence in motion

The silence moved with me. Pondering while I read of Ancient Evenings and of Distant Music from a slim little novel from happier times many light years away.  Kincaid and Francesca circled as moths around their flickering flames of yearning.

The Harbour line rakes whoosh in always behind the advertised time and whine away old and less shiny, stuffed with humanity as in an indifferent teddy bear. A little musty, well worn, and weary to the look, peeking from the open seams. Comforting though in a I-know-this-and-not-changing-anytime soon sort of a way. 

Reading about how "... in a universe of ambiguity, this kind of certainty comes only once, and never again, no matter how many lifetimes you live..." makes for a strange transport on a Saturday evening. The "Why"s of a giving swirl in a cranium stilled.

Peregrine spirit musing on sliver of memory. Beatitude. Wistful. A memory that weighs the heart.  

Given along with Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Experienced apart. Felt.

Planet Death Star

The whispers scampered like rats on Facebook. The man is dead. RIP. Good riddance too (in a more muted tone). I expected to wake up to a identical and boldface headlines. A rather uneasy peace greeted the morning and I began to enjoy unusually peaceful and non-stifling start of a ride to office. 
Diwali has its good sides I thought. Till I reached Kalanagar and saw the throngs. Buzz flies and security sniffed at impending death. Necks craned at other craned necks and khakis squinted at the traffic flowing by just so that they could ignore the ignominy of randomly parked cars and bikes bang in the middle of a busy Kalanagar junction.
I flowed on towards work like a popcorn in a stream, weaving along and getting soaked in the day.
By the time I reached office I'd started to feel that something was amiss. It itched somewhere like a unreachable vexation. Dramatic mails releasing the happy children from the school of the production flow saw me leave a deserted floor at an unearthly early hour and the anvil of realization hit me on the way back... 
The traffic police! Whoa! Where were the hectoring sentinels amiss from their vigils at the junctions? The traffic flowed serene and obedient reflecting aeons of disciplining. 

The stormtroopers registered increasing on the mental Geiger counter as I neared Bandra and hung like a shroud around the vultures waiting for a news of a death.  

Mumbai's Planet Death Star proved all of those words. For the remainder of the Diwali week the bandobast was only around Planet Death Star leaving the traffic unattended and obedient and a city on skeletal security. I stopped on the flyover on my way back. The news of a reviving heartbeat had still not withdrawn the death vigil and the dotted the night while the Diwali smog shrouded the night. A city, waiting. For Bal Thackeray's breath.

  

Roaring landscape and a little bliss...

The Mumbai-Pune ride is like an old friend. The conversations are silent and filled with each other's thoughts--whispered like a track looping through the hills and the brain. The rattle bump of Mumbai gets over a little after Panvel and soon Khadala is bit too close too wait and savour. 

Winter in the morning air rushes by the journey, happy, crisp, uphill and soon envelopes in a welcoming uptake. The tarmac eases like fading vestiges of Mumbai and past Panvel it is placid and like a magic carpet.

Like holding your breath in a pool and looking up to a total internal reflection, the azure sky cleanses the mind of stray thoughts... That's when the roar of the engine becomes one with the ride. The traffic, the lumpy way of the paver blocks and the acne marked lunar-scape of millions behind, the engine-growl is not a constant clearing of throat to get rid of the cloying pollutants of the city when you wake up. Rather it reflects the gradient and the curve that reveals foliage and the verdant mountains that waft by like a Forest Essentials advertisement. The mountain looping by is addictive and lulling. The upward gradient and the lonely temple with monkeys whooping across the road is careful designed to pause the greenery and granite and record it in the peripheral vision of the mind. Khandala is soon behind and the slow scourge of a growing concrete Pune is soon rolling in.

Over too soon, the ride still croons of a little vestige of bliss. The laziness that wreathes Pune helps...

Gently Orange Inhaled Grey

Submerged in a misty grey chill of an impending winter the morning soiled odours pulled away without a tug. Bobbing like a marker cork in a wave test pool I wafted through the obvious signs of receding industry speeding towards my karmic cycle of labour-linked sustenance.
Granite ballast shards treacled by motion paved to horizon. Unwhitened by the tooth paste promises flashed on televisions and grease spray recipients of millions of axles whirring by, the oft shat on sleepers banded by steel are keerrrruping through early morning consciousness like a comb running through teeth. The rails are the ignored travellers' yin and yang-burnished, shining, use-shined on top and rust browned laziness impaled to inexplicable perpetuity.
The sun has been holding its breath for a while as it dives gradually and relentlessly diving through, making the clouds paler with progress. The clouds clung on to the sun's progress with viscosity preserving the modesty of the mountain tops  like strategically draped limbs of a glow lit nude portrait.

The sweaty labourer smell of wild marigolds is flowing orange. Fleeting fields of wild marigolds hit the senses like an over ripened fruit with with a wrinkly squishy skin and sweet cloying ripe papaya flesh desperately holding a lot of slimy seeds--the fields of marigolds are exploding. Showering snaking blue windows and hitting the face with orangeade splashes of millions of beads of tangerine, marigolds lull to a slumber.
Surfacing from briefly from slumber is picturesque along Western Ghats falling off sharply green and the-rains-are-over-browns, pulling wool over eyes to stretch vision towards deeper greens and cloud wreathed spires of calm.
Another return...

Already...

Navigating darkness is a necessary in a 'party' skill. Semi phosphorescence filled with people who seem to 'know' each other. Skeletal fashion wonton wrapped  creatures swaying decidedly little to the thump-bump-bang-thwang emanating from the cochlea killing  boom boxen. The faithful at the bar is trying to grow a mullet (no... Really!). Wedge heels and pencils, stilettos and flip-flops alike sway and wave green pints. Short rolled up sleeves hold biceps nurtured with great effort and much chemical... And the odd happy plump. In tights.
The alcohol really helps ... Soon the music is swaying to the head. Happy people make an awesome sight. Of entertainment and of amusement to the red balloons punctuating in the darkness. DSLRs twinkle many in the nightscape... Orange biriyani punctuated with kheemaed proteins of forgotten provenance  and red wine... Jostling and losing to the Bacardis and Teachers. Still can discern that the rancid walnut on the cake... More alcohol ... Perhaps...

Dora Dora

Sun beams light the leaves in yellow and green
Sparrows are fluttering like leaves in a breeze
The world outside the window is a tempting one
Where pigeons await to provide a little sport
Striped like a tiger built like a cat
Doradora was christened while behaving like a brat
Largely found sleeping whether in the house or out
The appeal to play is fierce at oddest hours

Towards tranquility...

The monsoon rains serve but to sizzle and calm the dosa griddle that is Mumbai. The vapour from the quenching still hangs around the bustle and vigour of the mornings waiting for the glowering heat to return in a big sweaty odorous embrace. Travelling towards Pune is not unlike scuba diving from the depths of the ocean. The pressure of existence and survival eases as one travels without. Both the road and train journeys have their own kinaesthetic zephyrs of their own ready for discovery along the travel.
Travelling on a train to Pune is enamouring. Doubly so when the monsoons are at the fag end of dispensing their succour and perhaps rest and look with a maker-like contentment at their own handiwork on the seventh day. The journey is an imploding dive into a gradient but like a fractual. The more one dives through it the patterns are resplendant with myriad curiosities. The metronomic clackity-clack of the Deccan Queen blurrs away the city of bustle and concrete greys towards the browns of the suburbia rapidly. Blacker sewer flows fuse in a blur of motion to browner little streams.
A compressed look at the journey is like the childhood wonder of glimpsing and running a finger along the neatly arranged colour gradients in a large box of pastels.
The dark skies blur into the grey black concrete of a hurrying city. The girders and strum-throbbing heart-strings of ever growing construction fuse as one moves towards the movement blurred unending billions of granite shards of the rail-track bosom. The grease streaked sleepers kreee-rup rattle like running comb teeth over dentures, while the glittering streak of rails lead towards the warmer rust and the browns of soil. The specks of green have started already like the ilshay-guri rain mist as one rides into impending rain. The greens of moving landscape soon start soothing like a chamomile tea kicking in. The foliage gradients take off towards the already calming verdant blur. Bright uniform rainfed swatches of the farmers' toil rush to meet the natural darker greens of nature's spontaneity towards the horizon.
Enter the Western Ghats in a crescendo lofting the experience towards the clouds covers. The olfactory senses lessening sweat grime soot and more of the seas little wild flowers dotting the greens with pinks and yellow, the moss clasping the mountainside, and the spray of the cataracts cascading like hundreds of rivulets of milk tumbling past. It's like swirling slowly into the clouds. The clouds around the mountains are drift closer and swirl as cotton candy mists softly wisping the dense flora covered gentle undulations. Through the mists glimpses of ant-like vehicles tendril and stream on ribbons of tarmac past Khandala, Lonavala and beyond.
The speed too eases soporified by the mountainous gradient towards a brief halt triggered by an unseen signal. Enough to show signs at Malavli beckoning at the forts and Buddhist caves of Karla. The sleepy eyed doggy on the plaform cranes to look briefly before quickly resuming slumber as we move towards a soporific Pune.

Stay at Home Dads... (excerpts from a Facebook parley)

Josh shared a link on Facebook Why Men Can't Have It All; with a comment that went...
‎"Many men buy into this mentality or stereotype without thought, and assume that they are not good caregivers, that not much is expected from them as fathers, that they are bumbling fools when it comes to family."

Just wondering how many women (even those who are educated, earning and, apparently, more emancipated) would be fine with the idea of a stay-at-home husband who prefers to be with his children.

I was reading about Mary Kom and responded with a link... As women's boxing joins the Olympics, Rahul Bhattacharya profiles the phenomenal Mary Kom—five-times world champion and mother of two—who has had to battle against far more than just her opponents in the ring...

This article about Mary Kom is an interesting 'proof' about the silent man behind a successful woman. Also how a woman CAN succeed... Even after becoming a mother...

As usual, I thought that I was supporting the cause till I was told

 ‎Ignatius, this is not about a 'silent' partner (man or womam) behind a 'successful' one. This is about men and women both believing in stereotypes rather than themselves. And that women can succeed despite having children is no longer a debate.


So I responded...

Jasodhara, :) interesting deja vu of you scything down points like you would like in a debating competition :D

I realized that you were focussed on the woman's perspective while I was thinking about the man's...

Allow me to qualify my statement... being a silent partner does not mean 'not believing' ... Perhaps, the silence is proof of a greater belief and strength, especially since the traditional stereo type is supposed to do otherwise. 
How many men do you ever see voicing a positive stance in any of such 'discussions'?

Perhaps you did not consider that I was trying to reinforce your comment about women (and men) being unaccepting about men as primary care givers and yes, adhering to stereotypes... The article is about an exception that proves the accepted rule...

It is a clearly demarcated category... Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stay-at-home_dad
Also read http://www.callister.co.nz/fathers-as-primary-caregivers.pdf  and about the societal back lash about gender role reversal

Even books like "Do Men Mother?: Fathering, Care, and Domestic Responsibility (Andrea Doucet)" (relevant excerpt at http://goo.gl/1wdF5 )

reinforce what is commonly shown in media--If men are primary care givers, then they are:
1. Losers (lost a job because of an economic downturn, wannabe writers..etc. *always* with a superbly successful )
2. Eased/dropped into the role as a passing phase (e.g. Kramer VS Kramer, Chachi 420 etc.)
3. Forced into the role (single parenthood etc. "In the Pursuit of Happyness")

The number of men who choose the role to actually help the woman have doubled over the last decade (read http://www.nwherald.com/2012/08/02/more-men-choosing-to-be-primary-caregivers-at-home/aeq343/)

Do read a few samples of men writing about being in the role... Most of them are defending their positions and choices (example... http://www.orble.com/myth-of-the-stay-at-home-dad/) ... and not celebrating it...

Review the second part of your reaction (successful mother...)... It is in context to the man helping the woman go ahead and succeed... 

I cannot think of a movie or novel where the gender stereotype in such relationships has a positive note for the man (example  Jack Forman & Julia's relationship in Michael Chrichton's 'Prey'). Women have it far easier (and better) in each such (fictional) situations...

If one were to answer your original question, the 'studies' seem to indicate (at least empirically) that you'd find more accepting women/moms in the west (Canada, Australlia, New Zealand, and US) than the East... Of course I would argue that the patriarchal tendency is equally strong in both cases...

Once upon a rain in Mumbai...

I noticed how I end up writing something when the rains start. I remember the electric atmosphere in Pune when the people in the office ran out and greeted the first showers on the terrace. I felt the rain, bathed in the energy, and rode back  in a cooler evening.

Rain Clouds gather over #Mumbai... #Mahim

Mumbai rains have a certain 'incessant' nature to them. It pours in sheets and lulls you in the initial moments into a certain soporific and temporary feeling of niceness. For a few moment the heat recedes. There is a cool breeze on your face and suddenly the Actinomycetes break out into a spontaneous aria flooding your senses with the aroma of a wet and joyous earth.

The grime, noxious fumes, the cavernous heat and the flurry of the Mumbai you know is suddenly different. You wake up to leaves and trees washed clean and dripping droplets of glistening freshness. You actually look at the grey and muted sky instead of nervously twitching to jump at the next fleeting local train, bus, auto rickshaw or taxi.

Clean and verdant Khargar after the first rains in Mumbai...

Mumbai has been kind to me. Especially the rains. When love turned her back and frowned it wept for me without while I did within. I have fond tactile memories of the change from walking out into murky evenings to fresh rain-cleansed-pink-light-polluted-yellow-sodium-vapour-lit journeys back to a home where rain quelled catties and kitties flowed in to greet my evenings.
If I ever write fiction, I might end up starting on a rain cleansed zephyr-like pavement before a Bandra-Kurla bus stop. Feeling the aerosol rain in my nostrils before stepping out to a squelching 62 bus ride lit all spectral and fluorescent, hurtling  through the night.

#Bandra Kurla Complex... evening at Bharatnagar bus stop during a pause in the first spell of rains

This city doesn't sleep. Nor does it let you. The quivering alertness keeps the adrenalin flowing. The first rains are perchance the only (temporary) respite to keep you from teetering off. A little release. This city is like the waves washing up brown and murky white foam on black shores and listless concrete. It roars in and gives hope, baubles, a few trinkets, hope--like heroin to a junkie, and then takes away--like the receding wave till you are left staring at the grains of your soul. Hope piled on greed, greed laced with lust, lust blinded sometimes in the dazzle eyed high beams of some form of trust, to a vertiginous and Promethean turn of liver pecks. Till one regenerates like the Promethean liver and becomes one with the cycle.  

But then--don't they say one has to be cruel to be kind? When you are done feeling good, you realize that you are now going to trudge through muck for four months, get stuck in insane traffic and perhaps drown in whiplash of a cloud burst. Really? Maybe not. Travelling to Saki Naka everyday, especially through the aftermath of some rain is training enough for Spartans. As the aeroplanes scream down overhead waggling the landing gear towards the tarmac some 30 feet away, I skid through the rain-water and oil laced concrete towards my office or grid down both my clutch plates and soul precariously thwacking trucks on either side. Ever noticed how it often rains ONLY in and around JariMari. Just out of spite. To leave you no option but to splotch your feet in the gruelly brown thing that passes for water. To inhale the fumes of a million stuck vehicles rumbling noxiousness into your being. The rain pours down in sheets, the your own little space in the helmet becomes your private little sauna and then your own little hell. Water pours in sheets and torrents from the heavens and seeps like acid through pores and cracks that never existed. The heat saps sweat in your rain coat and the fetid water sogs the crotch. Limbo. Cold, uncomfortable, resignation inducing and repeated till you submit.

The drains overflow. Brown becomes black. Black ooze becomes oil slick and chemical. The monsoon starts and continues with ferocity. The city media dusts off their standard fare of roads disintegrating and visuals of people wading through water. You are the disintegration and the wading through water. You are part of the entire Mumbai rains phenomenon now...