Shibumi Magazine - 20-21

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My Monkey Encounter Nikhil In the year 2015 when I was nine years old, our teachers took my class to the Ajanta and Ellora caves. One day after visiting a few caves we all sat down by the river for lunch. All of us split into our own little groups to gossip and tease each other. After a while one of us spotted a troop of monkeys on the opposite bank. We watched them in mild amusement as they hopped from stone to stone in order to cross the river without being carried away by the current. We realized too late that the cause for the monkeys crossing the river was for us, or to be more precise, our bountiful boxes filled with a variety of foods. All of us panicked and we ran helter-skelter to gather our belongings and to run to the safety of the crowds higher up. Most of the group were able to run away but my darn fingers were shaking too much in excitement to shut my lunch box. After a minute or two of attempting to shut the box it closed with a muffled thud. But it was too late. e monkeys were upon us. ere were four of us and ten of them. Our chances were grim so we did the natural thing - we bolted. I went left towards the river, my friend took center and two girls took the right. I managed to have the lead on the monkeys for about twenty seconds before they caught up. One was on my right, one behind and another was overtaking me to block the front. To my left, some ten feet below the elevated area I was on, was the river, gurgling along happily at my plight. I mournfully looked at where most of the group was. Salvation. I looked back at the monkeys who chittered angrily at each other. Probably arguing about how to get food from me. I was very tempted to chuck my food down and make the monkeys chase it. Upon the eve of doing this deed an absolutely stupid idea struck me. And so in one fluid motion I heaved the bag of my back and swung it as hard as I was capable of at the monkeys. Two of them had the presence of mind to duck but one got smacked on the head. I would have felt sorry for it, if it hadn't tried to steal my food. I swung my bag again menacingly and the three of them ran away. at left seven others. During this time another three monkeys got chased off by my friend after he threw stones at them . e remaining four monkeys were gleefully advancing on the two girls who were holding their boxes like sacrificial plates over their heads and slowly crawling away. My friend and I charged at them, swinging my bag like a short heavy whip while he threw rocks on them. After a minute (during which we screamed ourselves hoarse) the remaining monkeys were finally persuaded to leave us alone. - 48 -



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No Home To Live In Nikith Once me and my mom were going to a friends house when we stopped to eat something at a restaurant. When we came to the entrance I saw a man on the footpath covered in trash. e man asked for money when people walked past him. When I walked up to him I noticed he did not have legs and that made me feel uneasy. It occurred to me how he would have been before. I wondered if he had legs and if he had a normal life like most of us. Did he have a family, children, wife, parents or friends? Where did he work? en I asked my mom for some money. I went and gave it to him. A week later me and my mom went to the same restaurant. I went to see if the man was still there but I did not find him anywhere. When I got there I found a photograph of a girl in a zip lock. Upon seeing this picture, I wondered if this girl was related to him in any way. Perhaps she was his daughter. I did not know what happened to the man or where he went. On the way back to the car I kept thinking about the man and the girl's photo. It made me feel unhappy and disappointed. ೋದ ವಷ ೆಲಸ ಇ ಲ. ಸ ಲ ಕಷ ಆ ತು. ಪ ವಷ ಒಂ ಾದ ೕ ೆ ಒಂದು ೆ ಗಳ . ೋಟದಲೂ ಾ ಆ ತು. ನನ ೆ ಸ ಂತ ಮ ೆ ಇ ೆ. ಜ ೕನು ಇ ೆ. ಆದ ೆ ೋದ ವಷ ೆ ೆ ೆಲ ಾರ ೆ ಆಗ ೆ ದುಡು ಾ ಆ ತು. ಾನು ೋಳ ಾ ೆ. ಾರು ಅ ಾಗ ೊ ೊ ೆ ಎಲ ೇ ಆ ತು. ಾನು ೇ ೆ ೋಟಕೂ ೋ ಾ ಇ ೆ ಸ ಾಯ ಾಡ ೆ . ೋದ ವಷ ಅ ೆಲ ಇ ಲ. ಮ ೆಯ ಇ ೆ. ಆ ೕ ೆ ಸೂ ಶುರು ಾದ ೕ ೆ ಇ ೆಲಸ ಾಡ ೆ ಬಂ ೆ. ನನ ೆ ಇಬ ರು ಮಕ ಳ . ಸೂ ೆ ೋ ಾ ೆ. ಮ ೆಯ ಎಲ ೆ ಾ ದ ೆ. ಈಗ ಸ ಲ ಪರ ಾ ಲ. ಆದ ೆ ಈ ವಷ ಮ ೆ ಏ ಾಗು ೋ ೋ ೆ ೕಕು. ಏ ಾದು ಇಂಪ ಆಗು ಾ ಅಂತ. - ಮು ಾಜು (In conversation with Muniraju) - 53 -

e Time Travelling Conundrum Sidharth. G ere I was, in the middle of a pack of velociraptors. Last time we used this abominable machine we landed in ancient Egypt and got stranded there for four years before we could refuel. After that, we landed in the Cretaceous era, judging by the dinosaurs we had seen. Before I continue, you should know how I got here, so let's rewind a little bit, to 7th July 2107. First, let me introduce myself, my name is Sidharth Ganesh II. I am named after the great _______ Sidharth Ganesh. Sorry, I had to censor that, don't want to spoil the future. Okay, where was I? Ah yes, I'm 24 years old and I live in New Asia (they discarded the idea of countries long ago, in my terms, at least). It was on this day that my life turned upside-down. My day had started out perfectly. I went to work. I work for the Interplanetary Travel System (IPTS). My line of work involves piloting the pods that are used to travel between planets. e pods are thirty metres long, twenty metres wide and ten metres tall. ey are white in colour and can seat about two hundred. Because I travel between planets, my sleep cycle goes to the dustbin. e biggest perk is getting free tickets whenever I want them (only for me and my family, of course) “Now, back to the stor…” “How far do you travel?” “We travel anywhere up to ten million light-years away” “How do you travel faster than the speed of light?” “Anywhere less than a thousand light-years away is easily traveled to by using warp drive, for distances further than that, we use wormholes. Now please stop asking questions, it disrupts my flow.” If you have any questions, please send them to [email protected], thank you very much. Now, let's continue, I had had a tiring day and was on my way home. I landed the pod in the New Asia spaceport at around 7 pm and then took a plane home. When I reached home, my butler announced that he had drawn up a hot water bath for me. I came out two hours later, fresh and in ironed clothes, and found my butler waiting for me. His brow was knotted with visible uneasiness. “What happened?” I asked. “Sir, this afternoon when I was wandering through the house, I found a machine of sorts in one of the locked rooms.” he said. “Describe it.” “It was grey, with two automatic sliding doors, there was also a bench inside. On one of the panels of the machine, there was an alphanumeric keypad.” “Where is the machine, Alfred?” “It's in the North wing sir, should I take you there sir?” “Yes Alfred, I wish to see it, take me to the machine.” I should explain, I inherited this house from my father, who got it from my grandfather, who had built it as a safe house. e house is inside a mountain called Einadale. Its windows stick out from the sides. e house is so large that it had to be split into four wings (North, East, South & West) each of which has remained majorly untouched. - 54 -

As he led me through the house, we passed doors I had never seen before. We finally reached the doors behind which stood the machine. I understood what had piqued Alfred's interests. e doors were made of solid 24-carat gold, they stood ten metres tall and were half a metre thick. Engraved on the door were pictures of beautiful forests with rivers running through them and animals frolicking around them, and they were studded with emeralds and rubies, diamonds and sapphires whose dimensions were unimaginable. e doors took my breath and my voice away. I could never even imagine seeing something so magnificent, but I digress. I finally found my voice again. “Sorry Alfred, can you open the door?” “Of course sir.” He said, opening the doors which had stayed well oiled and rust-free for years upon years. When I asked him how the doors had stayed oiled, he said there was a mechanism on the back of the doors. In the middle of the room was a raised platform with stairs. At the top was the machine Alfred had described, I walked up to the machine and the doors opened. Being the idiot that I was, I went and pressed the ON button and immediately felt a sharp tug in the pit of my stomach. It subsided quickly. I stumbled out and smelled fresh, woodland air. From the hill that the machine had landed on, I had a good view of a city. In front of me, I saw big walls surrounding the city. Looking inside I saw temples of strange tall figures. A beeping sound alerted me to a panel on the machine stating: 105 CE, Rome. I realised what had happened, I had gone back in time! ~ Tanu

Black Holes Medha and Pradosh Ever wondered what a black hole is? And what it must be like to be sucked down one? Does that ring a bell? Like tasty spaghetti going down your throat? AHA! Yes, ringing of a bell and spaghetti are linked to black hole. Let me throw some light on this: Oops! at will be quite an event! Is your head spinning? Well, you can actually see the back of your head at one point, when you are close to the point of no return! What is this place called and what exactly is happening? I am sure you are dying to know, just hang in there, I will throw some light on this! So here we go! Getting right to the point: A black hole is a gravitational singularity, that is, a point at which time and space have no meaning! Boy! What wouldn't we give to be there! And get to see the back of our head? Wow! Without a barber behind us holding a mirror too! Cool, way too cool! if that is what you are thinking, wait a minute! It's not all that fine and dandy. Why? Because...the place where you can see the back of your head is the photon sphere and you are well on your way to the event horizon! Too excited? - 56 -

Hold on! Once you enter the event horizon, the spaghetti effect is put into play. And no, you won't be served spaghetti. If you happen to be there, you are the spaghetti and get elongated, shredded, and sucked in, in a spiral formation too! And there's no going back! “Will you walk into my parlour, said the Black Hole to the Light!” Not every star can become a black hole, mind you. Like which ones, you ask? Well, only those which are three solar masses and up to the point of exploding. Meaning? One solar mass is equal to the mass of the sun. So, for you to be labelled a black hole, you need to (I mean, the star) be at least as heavy as three suns AND EXPLODE! Here's something more interesting: there are 3 types of those--(1) Super Massive Black Hole which are those found at the center of galaxies, like the Sagittarius in the middle of Milky Way galaxy; (2) Stellar Black Hole which are formed when stars burst and (3) Intermediate Black Hole which are in- between Stellar and Super Massive Black Hole. With so many around, think collisions happen? And how must that sound, considering their size. Yes, they do collide and believe it or not, we are told it sounds like a bell! And the physicist whose 50-year- old study was proved by Nobel Prize winning scientists, belongs right here in India! He is Dr.Vishveshvara, known to all as “Vishu”, the founding director of our very own Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium in Bengaluru. To conclude, black holes are just huge stars that have exploded (dead stars, for you!). ere are 3 types and are all over space, with the closest one to the earth being 25,000 light years away. Apart from knowing that black hole collisions sound like bells, we also know that trillions of years from now, they will start emitting masses and the dead star will further die. Yet, they continue to fascinate scientists because there's still so much to learn about them. My Name Is Medha – My zodiac is Sagittarius – you will not find it a surprise that I/my room is considered a black hole by my parents – Well, you will understand me better now that I am proud of being One. - 57 -

Corona Days Medha Quarantine has made me lazy, Sleeping late, watching TV Exercising at odd hours and eating when everyone is asleep, Seeing all this, my mom is going crazy! My schedule has gone for a toss, Especially this long weekend, All my plans have been squashed and made into tomato sauce! Dreaming of freedom with people living 8633.33134 miles away, A cruise, maybe the Bahamas, oh we can go to………... Planning for our post COVID19 getaway! I don't know what else to say, I hope you got an overview of my quarantine days, I'm going to end my poem here, So goodbye for now my readers. 6 Strings Chetan I have a 6 string It's a friend in need Been a while since I played that thing Makes one smile indeed If only I knew how to sing... Sounds splendid Dusting off the dust I try to find the right tune Shaking off the rust From January to June Learn to play it, I must! It sounds about right, but when I play, it feels like a wolf's howl on a full moon! e sounds it makes It beckons to be played, till lines on the fingertips All the neighbours it wakes fade... All the feelings it rakes Play the right note and tears will fill all the lakes - 58 -

e Year at Was Chetan e year that was Awakening the artist within Filled with a sense of loss Taking the imagination around for a spin Of time, of rhyme, a choiceless pause Shut doors, hearts open, revealing a grin Lives changed Invisible fear, making things unclear Patterns rearranged Valued now more than ever Relationships some estranged A loved one`s tear Words unspoken ings once seemingly so dear, no more Silence woken ings that were to entertain, now such a bore Worlds broken ings now discarded from the memories galore Relationships riding virtual waves Dreams paused Dependent on how the internet behaves Paths uncrossed A path of connectedness it paves Plans tossed Here's hoping for a fresh start Amidst the chaos Living every moment by heart Reshaped ethos Playing the part before its time to depart. Moving beyond personal loss New beginnings, building upon the learnings Renewed goals, rejuvenating Hidden bag of hobbies overflowing - 59 -

e Invisible Barrier Prakriti I see many divisions in society. Mr. Samer's talk with us seemed to be about all the divisions in society that manifested itself in a much more open way, if that's the right word, than what I usually see in my life. In Israel - Palestine, the divisions between the people is the scene of everyday life. Of course, my life is also filled with division, and I don't think I am any less divided than an Israeli or Palestinian. Well, I may not be divided on the common issues of religion, colour of skin, caste, or gender, but on other issues I think I am as divided and confused in a way. e Jews came into Palestine, thinking that it is their rightful home. e Palestinians fought back because they saw not people who were desperately in search of a home country, who were threatened everywhere, but people who were invading their homeland. e Jews did not stop with just occupying a foreign state. ey conquered surrounding, neighbouring areas, endangering Palestinians. e Israel – Palestine conflict has been going on for so long – but, really, who is to blame? It all started from a divided mind - one divided mind, so capable of destruction. Yet, that very same mind is capable of watching, of a pause, of a question. How do we choose to live? We can, in fact, live the same way and as comfortably if we choose to ignore the outside world and create a bubble, but is that really the same? I think being aware of what you are thinking, how you behave with people, how your behaviour changes with different people, all these things really do matter. When Mr. Samer said that he would like a normal life, that he does not care which country he lives in, it made me wonder, it made me marvel at the fact that I actually had a normal life. en how do so many of us, who lead a so called normal life, who are normal human beings, capable of abnormal behaviour? What I mean by abnormal behaviour is hurting people and at the same time making some people our idol, our aspiration, relating with people through a curtain of ideas, having such mechanical lives, and being completely okay with this whole thing. at's what's so abnormal. Being okay with your ideas and beliefs, your way of life, your divisions. First of all, do we know that we are divided, that we are in constant conflict, that every time I talk to you, I see you through what you did yesterday? I was able to understand what Mr. Samer spoke about, but I was not able to relate to it. My life is drastically different, and I have not gone through half of what he has gone through. But that makes me think… do I have to go through it to be able to relate to it? en, that makes me wonder, why should I relate to it? I am fairly sure I won't go through any of what he has been forced to endure. Now, this brings me to the word 'privilege'. I have a house, a caring family, an education, friends, food, clothes, everything that one needs to survive, and much more. When I look around, I feel guilty. I feel like I have deprived others. But then, I investigate. Do I really feel guilty? Or do I think that I should feel guilty? After all, we have the money, so - 60 -

we make ourselves comfortable. I think the danger comes when you get too comfortable, then you make your own little, safe, secure, cosy, homely bubble, which, starting from one which can be broken easily, it escalates speedily to one which you need a tractor to break. When you make a bubble, you are divided. en it does not matter what you say on the surface, how you look, because you have a bubble, an inward wall. All the divisions in you are because you create a bubble - a wall. It does not matter whether you actually don't mind which religion a person is in, but you run away when a black person enters. at bubble is ever existent, ever in the picture. What would happen if you break that wall? Do you even know the wall exists? - 61 -

A Chaotic Year Srishti Having lived most of my life in a small community Read and read and read. Very often I would read so where there were no other children my age to play late into the night that Tejas would get angry at me with, I was happy with spending most of my time for keeping my bedside light on so long. But then at home. I was confident that the lockdown there were other days where the moment I woke wouldn’t affect me in that regard. up I knew it was going to be an enjoyable day. When the freedom of a completely unstructured When news of the novel 'Coronavirus' spreading day ahead was both exciting and relaxing. On days like wildfire in China flooded the newspapers, I such as these, studying was easy, I got through my was convinced that the cases were going to work easily without distractions, while on other skyrocket in India. Every morning had me reading days it was a chore to get through and I had to the newspaper, anxiously checking the large motivate myself by breaking it up into tiny, yellow tab on the front page for the previous day’s manageable chunks. statistics. Checking the internet for the updates throughout the day was like checking the time. My days swung between both extremes, never in When the evening rolled around, we would turn any pattern as my emotions kept changing rapidly. on the TV to surf news channels as new In a year where there were no big landmarks by information would still be pouring in. e same which to register the passing of time, the days felt routine repeated day after day in those early weeks as though they were coming quicker than normal of the lockdown, repeated and repeated to the and yet as though we were going nowhere at all. point of living the same day continuously. e biggest indicator to the progression of time Unconsciously I fell into a rhythm and became was the season change, when the hot stuffy restless with morbid anticipation, waiting for the summer changed to the cool of monsoon. When day the cases shot through the roof, for what I staying at home became a lot more enjoyable with believed was inevitable. the chill breezes and raging storms. But along with it came the realisation that my exams were just a It never felt as though that dreaded “day” I had year away. Classes were held more frequently and built up in my mind arrived. Instead of blowing my workload increased. Studying became a chore up in one big spectacle, it was all so gradual, the that took longer and longer to finish. Often, most cases rising day by day, regions being categorised of my work was done at night when I panicked in red, orange and green zones, watching shops and scrambled to get back on track. Inevitably, the being cleaned out shelf by shelf as people last day's work would spill over to the next and on frantically hoarded. and on. It felt surreal. Along with it all the Covid cases ebbed and flowed, But after a year I realised that it did affect me in we rode out the peak and were now on the last small ways. Some days the tedium of repetitive stretch (or so we thought). days became too much to bear and the most exciting part of the day was the time right before I Going into this new lockdown, I can tell that it is went to sleep, when I was bundled up in bed and going to be a very different experience from last everything was dark outside and I would just read. time. - 62 -

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Aks Roohi Iss tarah badli kifayat teri ae zindagi, Din, din marne lage iss aas mein ke mile mohlat jeeni ki teri. Kaise jeeyen in lamhon ko jahan hayat ki nishani nahin Kahan dhoondu apne aap ko kitna jhaankun andar, ya maan loon ke doosron main dikhti hai tasveer meri ak gayi hoon dhoondte , dhoondte apni tasveer doosre mein... Khoob lagti hai unki ankhon main magar pyar ki talab nahi mitt ti, lo abhi pyar hai apni badsoorti se, apne aap se, kyun ki yehi milti hai akele main. Yeh akele hone ka ehsaas dard bhara kinara hai. Jahan se dikhta yeh samundar aur uski gehrayee, jis ka koi nishaan nahi… Kyun lagta hai dar akele hone ka, kho jane ka, bhicharr jane ka, mar jane ka Magar suno ishq karna apne aap se yeh bahut hai mushqil. Abhi, Abhi hoteen hai baatein hawaaon se, parindon se, khule aasmano se, tim tima te sitaron se… phhool pattiyon se, baharon se, kaaton se, kali kali raaton se, cheerti huee dhoop ki dhaaron se, jhaanko in talaabon main, kho jao in badalon main, apni talaash hai toh bus itna yaad karo ke saans hai tuhamri hifazat main… ki kyun karen shikayat in dukhi logon se jab itna kuch falaknuma pada hai dher sa meri in nigahon mein ke maine kabhi tumhe tawajjo hi nahi dii… ghaflat bhari zindagi jee li bade arson se... abhi koi gham nahi, bas jeena hai in lamhon main. Jiis mein main aur qayanat mukhtalif nahin.. mera ek kaha man lo, Apni shaksiyath ki nishaani ki ummeed nahi rakna kisi se. Warna roh padoge un maukon pe jab wajah thee khil khila ne ki. Aadaab! - 64 -

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New Times Asba inking, thinking, inside my head, thinking. I’m walking and I’m brooding. A feeling in my chest – a delicate, ever-present sense of lukewarm anxiousness. e expectation, the cautious nature of this feeling, it’s as if something might pounce. It fades, but is there. e days move one after the other, blurring together. But they’re not the same. Telling them apart, picking through them in my memory store, I see moments. at new feeling. at new thought. at new sound inside me. at frustration there, staring at lifeless screens or open books. Itching annoyance when you roam the same spaces, see the same faces. Again and again. Hope and anticipation every so often replaced with dread and gloom as I think of the future unfolding – can’t afford to be unprepared. It’s fear disguised as truth. Imagination. A constant engine fueled by the limited reality. Changing tracks at unrecorded speeds between the past, present and the future. ere are moments of flatness. A bland, colourless skin that I wear every now and then. ere’s resistance to change, it’s subtle so it pretends it isn’t there. Guilt, gut-wrenching and all consuming. I slip into it unconsciously – a cycle of justifying my existence and more. But why? And then there’s love, overwhelming amounts of it comes and goes, like waves. But just like with waves, the water is always there, warm and lapping against my heart. A craving. A want to move past walls and walls, into crowds - a longing to let dirt and dust from streets and encounters to be. Joy, it’s light, it’s bright. Sometimes to an extent where I feel I’ll burst. Disbelief. I felt so often as though I’d wake up and get ready to go to school in the morning, as if nothing had happened, as if this giant bomb of change hadn’t hit us. But even now it appears so regular - how quickly we adapt and that just further perplexes me. - 66 -

I don’t understand it all. ere’s confusion, a jumble in my body and my brain when I look at myself, at everything around me. All of these...feelings, come at me forcing me to see them like I’ve never done before. All of them flow into one another – sometimes making it hard to distinguish. ey’re thoughts about feelings about thoughts in a cycle. What influences what? Contradictory and ordinary. It seems nothing stays, it's all moving. I call it hypocrisy because it’s changing so quickly. But I think that's me trying to cement myself and the world – fix it. Either way, it’s uncomfortable and I struggle to recognise myself - understand myself. I’ll never fully be able to describe this time. A time of opposites, slowness, wonder...just everything. I feel like I’m forgetting to record something in this article. at’s what it is, every tiny phenomenon feels so important. e year passed quickly, time spent catching time. And now a new year has begun and I’ve easily slipped into a new routine, one that I don’t want to change again. It is what it is. - 67 -

A Night in Lockdown Sidh Quiet, You hear a generator grumbling dark slowly murmuring a cold summer night making its point the roads lie barren like everything else. hostile Stagnant. yellow halogen lamps line them flickering occasionally It fades into its surroundings as you accept its lighting nothing. presence validated, it recedes. A cat scurries across the street e sky has given up quickly pale, elemental. knowing it shouldn't be there. Her magical stars all seemed to have betrayed her A faint smell of jasmine hangs in the air. now You hear every bark she simply lays every chirp a blank slate every screech. in wait- Unmistakably clear Clank --- undeniably present. a metal object falls somewhere ere is no wind. the sound ends abruptly e trees lie still as though knowing, it shouldn't disturb the motionless sleeping city. lifeless before me More howls e city sleeps more cricket chirps. a deep slumber induced by its own kind. e horrors of the city A vague cover of haze blurs the skyline are now enclosed the houses morph. tucked away. A dark haze ey see not what they have done to her with strings of golden beads, left her alone the streetlights. away from their safety Dormant. away into the mercy of the lost You don't miss the cars the unknown the night trucks and she, you don't remember them barely breathing you've gotten so used to this. disappears into a void. is dark soulless era. - 68 -

Silent Windows Sachin Silent windows full of blue skies, White clouds and soaring ibises. A lost kingfisher calls out from a lamppost, Asking where the people are going. Getting ready for summer's embrace, e neem and amaltas let down their browns and yellows, While the wind neatly parts it To guide the homeless home. e giants continue to dance in the cool breeze, e sun continues to shine gently, e aching heat doesn't draw close. e heartache doesn't let go.

A Time For Everything… Kumaran e year 2020 was unlike any other year: Space-wise, I hardly moved from the tiny personal and family bubble, except for the occasional virtual contacts with the outside world. But, time-wise, it was another matter altogether – and I experienced time in different perspectives. Let me elaborate... ere were times when I was completely immersed in an experience, paying hardly any attention to the passage of time. Like in the early mornings when you wake up and watch the dark blues and grays of the sky turning slowly into pink shades; watching the slight movements of Venus day after day, framed by the bedroom window, hovering just above the tree-tops. Listening to the distant “woooooo….” of tree owls (before the day break), or to the long songs and chirps of the birds just waking up (just after the day break); feeling the chilly air spilling into the bedroom from the open window. is is when you don't feel the time at all, and you're just happy to stay put, wide awake not doing anything to alter the mood or state you are in. And there were times when I was immersed in a familiar routine. After a few days of my daily routine of walks, Yoga, Math classes, reading or writing, a bit of helping in the house or in the garden, watching a movie, food breaks, and the inevitable lounging around in the verandah for the evening, one loses the awareness of the passage of time. e unchanging routine makes the hours merge into each other into one long uneventful day. e days devoid of any specific events to remember, begin to feel the same, becoming just a smear of a single day. Often I started asking myself - Is today a weekend? or Already another full-moon? e weeks went by uninterrupted and unmarked and soon the summer became a long-drawn-out hot week, and the monsoons became a long-drawn-out rainy week. e months of home-stay had started feeling like a few looooooooong weeks. And finally, when the exam season started, I was mildly surprised - Is it already October? Wasn't the school closed just a couple of months ago! e time sure did fly so fast - after long days, looong weeks and even looooooonger months, six months had passed before I was aware of it! Once the exams started there were regular trips to CFL, meeting others, both for the children and us, and an occasional side-trip for a Masala-dosa on the way back home. As the college application season started there were many, many to- do's between applications, entrance exams and interviews. As the saying goes, when it rains, it pours. Before the exams and applications were over, a physical ailment required many visits to hospitals and labs in the city, and before that was taken care of, a death in the family required long trips to Chennai. After many cooped-up months, suddenly there was a flurry of activity, and before I realized it, another six months had flown by. A year after the original lockdown had started, here I am, wondering what happened – did the time drag on or did it fly past? Did the time pass quickly in the first half to make me not notice its passage, or did it pass slowly in the second half, to allow for much more to be done? Obviously, the time is not the culprit – it goes one day at a time. But, the problem was with my perception of the passage of time – that is not based on time itself, but on what I remember as happening in that time. If I were to be asked about the pandemic year 2020, my reply might be a list of events from the second half, and none from the first half. - 70 -

It was such a revelation for me that we experience life moment-by-moment as it unfolds, but we recall it by what is remembered during that time. Kahneman – the Nobel prize winning economist and author – studied scientifically the influence one's memories have on one's decision-making, and describes such phenomenon as the “tyranny of remembering self ”. is is sort of what I experienced during the pandemic. I could see viscerally that it is the experience-of-the-moment that constitutes our life: happy/sad, busy/lazy, excited/bored, being-in-the-moment/lost-in-time, etc., but it is what we remember is how we perceive our life to be: wasted/valuable, boring/purposeful, etc. I recalled reading about ancient Greeks, who had two views on time - Chronos and Kairos. Chronos is the measurable aspect of time, the quantity. It's measures are seconds, hours, days and years; season; sowing and reaping; building monuments, or making war; it is measured by the movement of sun and stars, or by the movement of sand grains in the hour-glass. Kairos, on the other hand, is just the moment and how it is experienced and utilized; was it a moment filled with peace or joy; a moment you lose yourself in music; is it a moment in which you are overwhelmed by the grandeur of a thunderstorm or a mountain-scape. It is not the measurable quantity of any duration, but it is the quality of the moment one lives by. Is a meaningful life lived in Chronos or as Kairos? 2020 taught me something about our lives – one's life is in Kairos, but one remembers it as Chronos. As a species, we are creatures of Chronos - we record our achievements relentlessly in art, in poetry, in monuments and in history - and define our culture. As individuals, we record the events of our lives in memory - and live as I or myself. It made me wonder: Traditionally \"a well-lived life\" is one that is full of worldly achievements. Really, shouldn't it be equally the one that is filled with joyful in-the-moments? What kind of life would it be, that is lived in Kairos primarily? Perhaps that life might have been lived well and in joy, and perhaps with no visible trace of achievements. Or, I wonder, if the impact of such a life would be incredible, whether visible or not. I wonder! - 71 -

When Your Head Is On Fire Sonali When your head is on fire, said the Rimpoche quoting Nagarjuna, even then, this is still the most important thing. Well, over this last year everyone's head has been on fire. Consequently I've been repeating the Rimpoche's words to myself (and to the one who lives with me) at regular intervals. Now if only I knew what the “this'' referred to, I'd have the magic bullet. Because the “this” turns out to be a shapeshifter. Early last year (I refer of course to March when the year as we knew it actually began), it was the military maintenance of meal times, cleaning rotas, delivering lectures/marking, making sure folks we knew personally (and some whom we didn't) were fed and watered. Also marvelling at sunrises and sunsets, at massive cloud formations, at flowers opening up their colours and scents to a newly hushed world, the feeling that one must make the most of this scrubbed time because who knew how soon it would be snatched away - to be once more thrown into the raggedy hurly burly of “normal life”. Later, it seemed to refer to a vigilance over the digital: in particular it seemed to be about never letting drop one's role as the Parental Scourge of Internet Enjoyment - or at least, Occupation. All the while, trying to internalise that role for oneself, wondering why it was that it had become impossible to care for friends and family without the little metal dabba, remembering a time when the phone was an afterthought, something that came to mind long after the day had begun. As I write, the “this” seems to be more unambiguous than ever. In the devastation that we are in the midst of, it must be about making sure that all those near and far in the community do not get, or do not spread, the deadly disease. Surely the immediate dousing of the fire must be the most urgent thing? And after this fire, surely of the fires to come - because we know they do engulf us regularly, singularly or collectively? If it's not in the head, it will attack the knee, or the liver, or the spleen. We know that, even as we attack this fire. But - what else to do? And - is Nagarjuna's injunction about a changing target? What's the relationship between circumstance and ourselves? Is there an ourselves that is not circumstantial? e fire is billowing so wide, raging so fiercely, that to devote any time to the very consideration of such a question must appear absurd. Faced with the unprecedented it takes all we can to not look away. And yet, even in the glare of the heat, we continue with our lives, we labour away at things, we plan, we - 72 -

eat, we plan what to eat....we cannot not. To do that is no betrayal. It is the clearest common sense. We even find time to look for new experiences, things that distract us from it (even in the midst of smoke and sizzle). Even as we flounder in the newest experience of them all. Indeed reams have been written on the sudden shock, on the sheer inconceivability, of what we are in - the whole grinding machinery seeming to come to a grinding halt and all because of a bit of genetic material run amok. Globally. Collapsing space and time altogether. In the early months, the newness was heady. If nothing was charted, nothing could be taken for granted anymore. Apart from the military meals the early months brought an expansion in which every leaf, every expanse of cloud and light, every blaze of sunset and promise of sunrise, every urgent rising dawn call from the koel, felt new. Fresh washed. But as the year curved around, somewhere in the swing between last March to this May, the world began to shrink. e shock had worn off, the walls closed in, new leaves came and withered, birds sang themselves hoarse, all our old quarrels resurfaced. How strange that nothing feels really “new” in the midst of an overturning. Everything's gone topsy-turvy and nothing seems to have changed. Is the apparent newness just the surfacing of old things, come to a head at last? Is that the “this” that Nagarjuna insists we pay attention to? e “this” in which we live, that which looks forward to things and shrinks away from them, that which quarrels and moans, rejoices and delights - even as circumstances swirl about in ever new configurations. ತುಂ ಾ ಕಷ ಇತು. ಎಲೂ ೊರಗ ೆ ೋಗ ೆ ಆ ಲ. ಮ ೆ ೆಲಸ ಾಡಕೂ ಕಷ ಆ ತು. ೋ ೋ ಾ ಇಂದ ಜನಗ ೆಲ ಕಷ ಇತು. ನ ಗೂ ತುಂ ಾ ಕಷ ಇತು. ಮ ೆಯ ಾನು, ನಮ ಅ ಾ ಮ ೆ ನನ ತಮ ಇ ೕ . ಾ ೆಲ ಮ ೇ ೆ ಇ . ಾ ೌ ೈ ನ ರೂ ಇತು. ೕ ಆ ದು . ಸು ಮ ೆಯ ೇ ಇ . ತುಂ ಾ ೋ ಆ ತು. ೋ ೆ. ಾನು ೋ ೋ ಾ ೆ ೇಗ ಾ ೕ ಾ ಅಂತ ಅ ೊ ೕತ ಇ ೆ. ಾ ೌ ನ ಏ ಾದು ೆನ ಾ? ಶುರು ನ ಮ ೆಯ ೆ ಾ ತು. ಆ ೕ ೆ ೋ ಆ ತು! - ೆಂ (In conversation with Venky) - 73 -

Play. Pause. Replay Shivanti Looming uncertainties. at's how the year began for us. Little did we know that we were in for the times when we had to tell our loved ones that don't go out to play, don't go for morning or evening strolls, or even to vegetable vendors to handpick veggies. Such mundane things, that we took for granted, were about to cause a lot of restlessness. We shut schools, parks, and other public spaces. We stood feet apart and made conversations as if relationships needed more distance. We stayed cooped up in our homes, held back hugs, kisses, or even a gentle tap of reassurance on someone's shoulder as a gesture of 'things will be alright'. We recoiled, upon seeing someone come close to us. Standard Operating Procedures were put in place and still are even as I write this. People walked on roads wearing masks, as though we were all part of a masquerade ball happening on a global scale. Circles were drawn out on roads so that people maintained distance when standing in queues. Liquor shops were an exception and were overcrowded as ever. Some of us took \"Alcohol kills germs\" a bit too seriously, I suppose. We all spent a lot of time at home and heard each other's real voices that changed with ever-fluctuating temperaments. We got used to each other's pet peeves and mood swings and moved from getting annoyed by it to sometimes finding humor in it. I guess we had to since we had so much time on our plate and nowhere else to go! 287 days. at's the number of days I spent with family during the lockdown. My life felt secure unlike many people's. I ate scrumptious home-cooked food that I had missed over the many years I stayed away from home. My mum, of course, didn't let go of the chance to pamper me. I lay plopped on sofas many times, sometimes stuffing my mouth with chips, and in the winter, cozy inside my blanket with a hot water bottle in between my cold feet and a bowl of hot soup clutched closely between my fingers. ere were also times when voices in my head kept whispering to me that I better not while away this time. Since I had no pressing worries in mind, I decided to indulge. I started learning Spanish on Duolingo and brushed up my Urdu. I spent a lot more time in the kitchen with mum hoping some of her wizardries would rub off on me. rough my mum, I felt how lockdown was so hard for the women in the households. Her work increased significantly to ensure work and studies from home were going smoothly. I have had this impression for most of my life that she takes immense pride in the fact that she runs the kitchen like a boss lady. And just like an alpha, can get really territorial about it. Strangely enough, I saw that boundary blur this last year when she started trusting me with cooking meals for the family. I felt like an adult and more importantly, she saw me as one. I bore witness to Jammu's changing seasons after many years. I saw deciduous Chinar trees change their textures and hues; from soft bottle green in summers, rough brown in peak winters to eventually turning naked with leaves getting crushed as more pedestrians started to reclaim the roads. I gobbled up the seasonal fruits starting from loquats, mangoes, melons, Jamuns, phaalse, oranges, guavas, and finally kinoos. Food on the plate was changing with changing times; less meat in summers to more meat and leaves in winters. Even the pickles changed; from typical fruit ones- lemon and mango, to carrots (laal gaajar), kohlrabi (kadam), and fiddlehead ferns (kasrod). - 74 -

Although I oscillated between feeling comfortable and dejected (and continue to be as I write this), the absurdity of the times often tickled my funny bone. For instance, once on my evening stroll, I spotted a sign outside a small men's barbershop which was sandwiched by other small shops, saying \"Wear a mask and maintain social distance\". Now, how does one maintain 6 feet distance in a shop that's half the size! My father's newfound interest in bird watching amused both my mother and myself. He, like an early British birder, would sit in the Verandah early morning, hold his cup of black tea with one hand and binoculars with another, and would marvel at bulbuls, rock chats, even crows and pigeons, and occasionally even kingfishers. I was glad to see my dad admire birds that I no longer feel surprised looking at, as a result of boredom that follows familiarity. is one time, I found myself craving a chocolate brownie. Cravings, I believe, have a way of making you park your worries in life. I think it's safe to say that cravings and worries have an inverse relationship. So, I craved, caved, and decided to go to a Barista close to my house. ere I noticed a woman; sanitizing her hands after entering, not touching the main counter while browsing the overhead menu (Oh no! she wouldn't touch the menu booklet), sanitizing her chair before sitting while waiting for the order, saying no to the receipt, sanitizing her card after the payment, sanitizing the paper bag that contained the brownie followed by sanitizing her hands again and again after the exit. It became apparent to me how the fear of the unknown was making us behave in hysterical ways; ways where logic and rationality take a backseat. Even though the times have been largely comfortable for me, I had not signed up for a world like this. I do enjoy reading and watching dystopian stories, only because of the sheer impossibility of fiction turning into reality, but never had I imagined I would be a character in one. \"e end\" of this long story I would say is inconceivable as of today. Times are as strange as they were a year ago, except that there is a growing impatience, hopelessness, and frustration, at least in me. I do fear the short lives our memories have. I do fear how we change narratives and stories to fill in gaps as per our comfort in the present. So I wonder how I am going to retell this story 10 years from now. Will I recall it as a cliched tale of how our lives were promising until the Covid outbreak stripped us of our freedom? Will Covid be the villain? Will the focus of this story still revolve around me? Will I recall nothing absurd about the days leading up to the Covid outbreak, about Shaheen Bagh, about anti-CAA protests, or about Kashmir? Will I grow indifferent to the plight of migrant workers or farmers that resurfaced during these times as I get occupied in my life? In my hopelessness, which I have often felt off late, I feel like we're going in circles, encountering points of crisis one after the other and never fully meeting what's thrown at us. One constant question that has stayed with me over the last few months is “How did we come to this?” I have wondered if we are growing, in our oblivion, in our mindlessness, and consequently getting stuck in this loop. However, after enough brooding, I remind myself that maybe I am too eager to see some tranquility. Perhaps, just as uninvited as this tiny particle, maybe an insight will come and catch us by surprise. - 75 -

Photography and Lockdown Varun Photography helps me take a minute, and appreciate the things in nature that I usually go by unnoticed. In addition to this, the anticipation for the \"perfect\" picture is quite exhilarating. Photography during lockdown, has drastically decreased the places to which I can go to take photographs, this has made me appreciate the nature around me considerably.

e Essential Living Srilaksmi e year gone by was a humbling experience. I hold a lot of gratitude for all the support and love that we received as a family, though each one around us was facing hardship in many ways. e year made me realize all the entitlements that I had and how privileged it was for me to have a home and uninterrupted access to food. e one haunting image that would go along with me through my life was the plight of migrants. ey were stranded without work, a place to stay, and food to eat. e pain in their eyes when they had to ask for food, the breaking of their dreams of coming to a city to build a better life, and the despair of having nowhere to go. e only determination in their mind was to reach their homes come what may! I will never forget the picture of children, mothers, elderly, and men walking with a sack on their head or infants on their shoulders. It taught me how to reach out to help someone. It was not about just sharing what I had in excess. A lot of times, it was trying to see what they needed. Sometimes accepting with a deep agony in my heart that I was helpless. All that I could offer was a listening ear or be a mute spectator. Yet I got to work with an army of well-meaning individuals across the country who were willing to go beyond their means and comfort zones to ensure that the migrants were fed, went back home safely, and their health was taken care of - at a time when very little was known about the disease itself. On the personal front, I enjoyed being with Agni after a long time. It was a tough year with little work, many projects hanging loose without finances. His energy and never satisfying curiosity sustained me. He grew more sensitive as he saw the world as not just a place of plenty but as a place that also has suffering. He, in his ways, reached out to people around us, especially many children. He learned a lot about life itself. It gave us time to slow down, pause and reorganize. To really take stock of what is essential for us. My other relationship that sustained me was with Nature. e whole of last year gave me plenty of time to plant, take care of them, heal myself while nurturing them. It made my resolve to grow food forests and community orchards stronger. e year gone by was an opportunity for us to relook at our relationship with others, reassess our needs, rework our purposes, and most of all to struggle to be human. To be kind to oneself and others. - 77 -

When Prevention Is Worse an Cure Manoj Watching the way Covid-19 pushed its way through and percolated deep down, with our complete disapproval, into our everyday life was a unique experience. Some of us cowered in fear, while others stayed completely indoors but without the wearing down which accompanies fear. Some got paranoid about masks, sanitizers and social distancing, others went about breaking every norm of the government directives, with a puffed up chest, almost telling themselves that nothing can affect them as if they have had a swig of a magic potion of immortality. Some were very fortunate to be with their loved ones just when the lockdown was announced, while some unfortunate ones got separated from their loved ones, away from their hometowns, without enough money to sustain themselves, without food, medicines and basic necessities. On one side the pandemic was unavoidable, but the havoc that it created in our minds was far more damaging than its impact on our health. Has not the fear of coronavirus been more devastating than the virus itself? e negativity owing to fear of getting infected, seems to have severely affected humanity and altered the attitude of almost all of the population - the infected and the not. In the initial days of the first lockdown and just after that, it was really sad to see humanity getting affected by the virus, and not just human beings. Every person began to suspect the other of having been infected. Social distancing was understandable but the anti-social attitude of social distancing seems to have taken our society a couple of notches back towards being uncivilized. While we in our country do not generally greet the people whom we walk-by with a smile unless they are known to us, it was sad to see that people who were familiar faces, and acquaintances began to avoid eye contact, sharing a smile, or engaging in the exchange of a few words of comfort and asking about the well being of each other. If someone happened to visit our homes, our first reaction was to show them the sink, the soap and the hand sanitizer - without even showing the basic courtesy of a warm welcome. Even on a not so narrow street, people coming from opposite directions would create a huge gap as they would cross each other. Even this was fine, but the attitude of immense fear and the suspicion that the other person is a carrier of the dreaded virus, did more damage to our mentality than the virus actually did to our physical bodies. Did not the fear of the virus cause more damage than the virus itself? Did not the fear of getting 'infected' affect us more than the virus? Did the fear of the virus not manage to kill us from inside, whether or not the virus itself killed us? Watching some people live through the post lockdown period and until now, with the fear, the distrust, the vulnerability, the unknown seems to be more devastating than the death the virus would cause. And then there is this tiny segment of the population who did not let the negativity of the growing wholesale sentiment affect them. While social distancing was maintained, hands were washed and sanitized, masks were worn and on a few occasions a fine was paid to the marshalls, those few made use of - 78 -

the lockdown in so many different happy and positive ways. Some made new friends, the neighbourhood faces of many years suddenly became an acquaintance or even a friend, some learnt a new skill, an online crash course, some tried out new hobbies, some became excellent cooks thanks to the trillion different recipes online, some took all the pains to somehow source the ingredients, made many painstaking videos and posted their own recipes and some worked hard to lose weight and exercise more regularly. It was happiness to watch families sit together and devour both homemade warm popcorn and seasons and seasons of TV series. Creativity changed its direction and now some of us began to have some fun, creating silly videos to post online for others to laugh and get entertained. Jokes on the pandemic were being created every hour. Unique masks got designed with built in features like a secret slit to enable eating and drinking. Beverages of the same name got orphaned in the shelves of stores, some of us screamed 'Go Corona Go!' loudly, while health workers worked tirelessly round the clock braving all odds. Some even thought that the whole pandemic had unfolded upon us because we had not forwarded that email 15 times. It was unavoidable to feel that maybe it's our own doing, that it's because we have exploited mother earth so much. But it will give us one last chance to not repeat the errors, and build something better this time by consuming less, recycling everything that we can and without cutting down forests. All the catching up of pending books to read now became easily possible. e Kindle became a saviour and for the first time the stock price of Netflix overtook the price of an oil barrel. And when these folks had to step out to run errands, they did it while wearing their masks, sanitizing their hands and maintaining social distance, all without wiping the smiles off their faces and without suspecting that every other person was a carrier out there to get them. Death is inevitable and it will come knocking on our door - an unwelcome guest but inevitable - until then why live in the fear of it coming. Whether this virus actually turns fatal or not, it seems foolish to let the fear of it kill us from being humans. Even with the chaos all around us, one is free to slow down and just be. - 79 -

ese were some expressions of people at Shibumi when asked to describe the year 2020 - 80 -