On busy-ness and time

Busyness, we say is the syndrome of the malady of modern life. There are always more things to do than the hours can accommodate. It almost creates a surreal wish for an additional 12/24 hours (as per the individual needs) or for cloning of the self in many of us. We imagine life would be so much better if there was more 'time' in our hands. What this leads to is a constant sense of incompleteness, a constant feeling that so many thoughts, ideas, desires, possibilities have to die due to lack of what we know as time. The Irishman, James Joyce, talked very candidly about time as we perceive it. If we are 'busy' doing something that we love, or, participating in something that we enjoy, time seems to fly. It seems time has walked its space a little faster when we are doing things that that we are fond of. When I used to attend Bharatnatyam (a classical Indian form of dance) classes, the two and a half hour rigorous routine of practicing dance moves and steps, repeating them incessantly till the gestures are right, seemed like a fleeting evening. At times, I wanted the clock to slow down, so that I can dance a little more. In a similar vein, try doing something that is a pain-in-the-neck. No matter how little clock-time such a thing would require, it would seem like an eternity. For me, it can be anything from making the bed to dusting the furniture. Time can and does (if you will notice) fly or creep, depending upon the involvement of the mind, the body and the soul in the act being performed.

Time leads where we want to go...

Joyce charted out the difference between the clock time and the psychological time exquisitely in a novel titled Ulysses. (If you love reading Joyce, you will sail through the book. If you don't, you may end up making several attempts to read the novel, each with a fresh surge of enthusiasm, for a period spanning from 5 to 15 years.) Without involving ourselves with Joyce's particular novel, let us rest our case on what such different categories of time would mean in our common, down-to-dust lives.

*****

In the previous post, I had confided in you that I was assailed by too many tasks and ideas, thus leading to a serious need for a stopgap post!!!! When we have to undertake several important tasks (each with a red priority tag), the mind takes the easy route of escape. It simulates tiredness and acts as if it is too much burdened. (This almost reminds me of stomach aches I 'had' in order to stay away from school.) The mind tells the body - "Gosh, you are sooooo tired! Why don't you take rest?" The body believes in the mind and thinks, "Yes, I will regain my strength if I rest." And so, the mind and the body, along with a little pricking in the soul, draw the curtains, arrange the pillow and sneak underneath the tugged blanket. Off to sleep. Off to a world away from the real world of red-tag-priorities, until waking brings back the horror of priorities. Continuing to postpone the priorities create Hamlets out of us. To wake or not - that becomes the crux of existence. The only unfortunate thing in this entire episode is, that, the priorities never lessen or die. Every time we shut our eyes, the priorities flash like the headlights of an approaching vehicle. It keeps getting bigger.  

*****

The only way to avoid the evident imminent disaster is to keep awake the whole while. Instead of giving in to the bullying mind, we need to master over it by understanding the way a bully functions. A bully has the might to threaten because the victim has the fear of the bully. If we choose to be unafraid in the face of the bully, traditional wisdom asserts that the bully will crumble. The definition that might constitute the idea of being 'unafraid' is pretty ambiguous. It may appear to mean the absence of fear, while I understand it more as the act of walking through fear. This is because denials doesn't help me usually. When the priorities loom large, in number and/or in complexity, take a break but do not go to sleep! 

The 'psychological time' that flies is the time that we enjoy, that relaxes the mind such that it leaps beyond the continuous hammering by the clock-hands. Create that 'psychological time'. Do something that gives you immense sense of pleasure and peace. As the mind falls into the rhythm of the relaxed psychological time, it calms down and stops its hysterics. Then, you can simply sit with pencil and paper and chalk out a routine that accommodates all the priorities. As the routine is sketched, with each unit of time allotted to a particular priority, the next important gesture is required. 

In each bundle of priority-allotted-task, we need to train the mind to focus. As we focus, we simulate the absorption in an act that we feel during our experience of 'happy' psychological time. And then we conquer the inhibition that clock time injects in us. What we do in the process is simply see the priorities in perspective. They remain priorities that need to be addressed, but shed the aggression  implanted in it by the unbridled clock. At the end of it all, we realize, it is all about perspective.

close up

from a distance

 











Images:
"Time leads where we want to go". Spiral staircase inside Salzburg castle. Salzburg 2010.

"close up". Structure in museum in Vienna. Vienna 2010.
"from a distance". View of Prague from top of a tower. Prague 2010.

            

All images copyright Susmita Paul 2010.

 

Puja Chronicles: the memory and the questions blend ...

Be it Deepabali/Diwali or, Halloween, the fearful and the dreadful are not kept at a distance. Each is a celebration of the duality of existence - of light and of darkness. The legends behind each is varied. The legends associated with Diwali include the mythical return of Rama to his kingdom after a period of 14 years; the mythical slaying of the demon Narakasura by Krishna (an incarnation of Vishnu); the return of Bali (the demon-god slayed by another incarnation of Vishnu- Vamana) from the nether-world, to dispel ignorance; the celebration of goddess Lakshmi and that of goddess Kali. Each of the myths involves the victory of good over evil, light being the symbol of wisdom, knowledge, wealth and goodness. 

Of all the rituals that I have seen, I feel intrigued by three specific rituals. 

The first is the act of praying to the goddess Alakshmi (see the post regarding this here). 

The second is the the lighting of the 14 lamps on the eve of Deepabali, which is said to be a custom that started when lamps were lit as the mythical Rama returned to his kingdom after 14 years. I didn't know of this myth for a long time and created a significance of it in my mind. I believed (and continue to do so) that the 14 lamps lit somehow signify the 14 generations of ancestors who preceded me. I had no idea of myths involving Halloween celebrations then. In the presence of the pumpkin being 'Halloweenified' by K_ and A_, I thought of looking up the legend behind the celebrations.

I was in for a surprise when I realised that the legend of remembering the ancestors, that I had thought of as the explanation of the 14 lamps-lighting ceremony as a child, is eerily linked to the beginning of the custom of Halloween celebrations! Traced backed to the Celtic custom of celebrating Samhain, Halloween has its origins in the belief that on this day of the year, the border between this world and the Otherworld becomes thin allowing the passage of spirits into the human world. The spirits that could harm were repelled by carving out hollowed faces in turnips (pumpkin was adopted at a later stage for the same function) and placing them at the entrance of the house/ at windows; and, by wearing costumes that were repelling. The lamp placed within the hollowed turnip/pumpkin is symbolic of the souls in purgatory. 

It left me perplexed and humbled to feel that the Alakshmi, the 14 lamps and the carved face on the pumpkin on Halloween are connected by this inherent idea that the positive and the negative co-exist simultaneously. Life is not a shade of black and white. When the prayer to Alakshmi is offered, the act is that of humble request to the 'goddess of misfortune' to leave. When the Halloween pumpkin is lit with a candle, it is not to ward off the spirits of one's ancestors. Goodness and evil, darkness and light, hope and frustration (and all the antithetical ideas that can occur in your mind) co-exist in a strange sense of simultaneity. 

The idea of simultaneity is also evoked in the act of worshipping goddess Kali, which is the third ritual that intrigues me during this festive days. Kali has a terrifying form. The mythology of Kali is beyond the scope of the blog. You could have a look at  the wikipedia article on Kali. To an individual who does not understand the complex symbolism, Kali appears to me to be the confluence of all the oppositional ideas. When in the battlefield, the mother goddess, in the form of Kali is fierce. Her form can repel an individual. All that the mind tutors to believe as bad and ugly is present in her form. In popular iconography of Kali, she is naked; her tongue hanging out as she steps on her husband, Siva; she wears a garland of severed heads; and carries in her two hands a sword like weapon called kharga, a severed head while the other two are in the abhaya mudra (a gesture bestowing fearlessness) and varada mudra (a gesture bestowing blessings). She is usually depicted as dark skinned. The apparent opposites blend in this iconography. The violence of expression cohabits with the benevolence of bestowing blessings. 

It is possibly this simultaneity of the opposing forces/worlds that makes Little Miss Muffet of the household so excited to celebrate Halloween. In her innocence, she does not find the difference between what the adult world would designate as 'good' and 'evil'. Perhaps, this is the wisdom, that, inclusivity is more potent than exclusivity; maybe,this is the 'light' that dispels the 'darkness' of prejudice.

As the season of Halloween and Diwali passes this year, this humble blogger continues her journey towards that light ... an apprentice journeying to realise the celebration of that 'sound' which was 'noise' before....

 (Concluded)

Image: candles lit at the Esztergom Cathedral in Esztergom, Hungary @ self.

it's raining and windy up in the head

when and if,

you see a clear blue sky,

you will not believe 

rainbows can

climb that high.

yet, 

when they smile,

you believe

they can fly,

and, that

is the reason

the cheshire cat dies.

Image: a rainbow peeping at my window, Budapest

                                                       

When the pebbles taught the soul ... Noori Ganga's Philosophy

 Ganga descending from the heavens

The cool breeze is blowing across Har-ki-Pauri. The ghat (the river side area) is lit with a thousand twinkling flames that are flowing across the Ganga. Prayers for plentitude, for health, for peace sail in those little boats of fire. Looking out to the busy riverbanks in Haridwar, one will notice the bustling devotees eager to wash off their bad karma in the Ganga. They stand in a singularly identifiable posture-hands folded at the chest, eyes closed and the lips making arbitrary movements. It makes one wonder, whether, organically, the river is more polluted by all the sins that it washes off from the soul, or, by the filth that it washes out from the bodies of the modern metropolis. There is however little time to ponder on this philosophic proposition since the water of Ganga has started receding. We watch in amazement as the flowing vital river gradually reduces to a trickle, till its bed is visible. It is not the wrath of the Gods that has taken away the mythical bestowal of the Ganges from the earthlings. It is but a temporary situation caused by the technical functioning of a dam, a human endeavour with machines. That however does not take away the charm of philosophising about it!

The penitent figures gradually get replaced by several kids and teens, running along the river bed, waiting cautiously for the water to recede completely. They are the paisa collectors. The five rupee coin that you had thrown in the Ganga this morning, wishing for a raise in your salary, is now his. They fight fiercely over the territory each will cover. From the bed of the river, that once flowed down the jata (patted hair) of Lord Shiva, now provides them with 'survival' money. As the evening light recedes and the land of the lords fall asleep, these busy hands continue to search the pebbles and their glistening corners for a coin or two. 

The evening, that saw the drying of the river to the white-and-light-brown-stained pebbles and rocks, melted into the morning light. The morning brought with it the scorching sun and the curious onlookers. What now lies before me is the route that the melted waters of the Gomukh glaciers had chosen a couple of thousand years ago, maybe. 

As I set foot on the pebbles and the rocks that usually lie uneventfully at the belly of this ancient river, I feel tremors of myths and histories rumbling under my feet. Several artefacts are strewn across the river bed. Who knows to which age this statue of Nandi (the companion of Lord Shiva) dates back to? Who knows what god or goddess was this four-legged deity in some lost temple of the yesteryears? Which was the era in which Ganga changed her course, making those houses of the gods vulnerable to temporality? All these redundant questions clatter in the mind as I walk across the  noori Ganga (pebbled Ganga). Murmuring winds blew across the expanse. They echo voices from the past...telling tales of grandeur withered by time ... from the present ... the curious tourists randomly picking artefacts strewn  across the bed ... from the future ... the rambling waters that will flow again in this course and will wither more eras and their cravings to transcend time.

People call Haridwar the seat of Hindu pilgrimage. To me, on this very day, when Ganga dried, I realised in this bustling city of religion, a law of life in its resplendent purity. What we may be in the times to come are but  hypothetical ideas. What is, in this moment; what I am , in this moment is true to my being. There is no before or an after. It is all in the NOW.

Eureka Balle Balle !!!

The strange dialectic of the ego is that it manifests from the desire to BE a persona that has an individual impact on others, while, its manifestation necessarily defeats its purpose. The persona that the human self dreams of crafting is something like the Hollywood he-man hero.While choreographing a Bollywood dance number I had this eureka-ish idea :)

I was interacting with a group of dance enthusiasts, and each member in the group was pretty sure that he is the next Hrithik Roshan or Prabhu Deva or Michael Jackson, if nothing else. It was interesting to observe how one claimed to do the "moonwalk" with élan and when requested to show a glimpse of his talent kept complaining about his ill health !!! I suppose, he firmly believed that he could do a better job if he was not feeling a little shivery. Another was a dedicated student who desired nothing but the appreciation of the teacher in presence. There was this other guy who, I guess, believed that he was a great dancer (I don't know if his train of female admirers invested this confidence, but I have a strong positive instinct working in favour of this logic) and hence needn't really practice much. And then there was this guy from the hills who was the epitomic heart throb of any party with his childish enthusiasm, sweet voice and a passion for dance. With  regards to this last variety of the dance enthusiast, I feel like sharing a couple of notes.

In him, I saw a partial resolution of the dialectic of the human ego. He desired appreciation ,but not without investing labour; he vyed for the central position in a group, but, never allowed his attempts to cloud another member; he wanted neatness and perfection in his performance and was ready to accept positive criticism for it. Though I was visiting them as a choreographer, and they had accepted me as their tutor with respect, while observing these budding individuals, with the natural gift of imperfection, I gained a new skill. While the others helped me realise my shortcomings, this young man actually helped me understand the potential that I contain in me to unlearn my learningsand learn anew. What did I learn is a pertinent question for you to ask. But the answer is as intangible as the sense of contentment that arises after this voluntary exercise of choregraphing. Not only did I teach them a couple of moves that are akin to the dance of Punjab (called Bhangra), they taught me in turn what the sages have said: look not without, but within. Each of these young men put forward an essence that I could identify with. Standing from the safe objective distance of being a "guest" teacher, I could analyse their attitudes. And even before I could realise, I had analysed a whole cupboard-full-of-'me's!!!! I had kept this cupboard bolted for a very long time (even twenty-something year olds feel time to be a vast expanse dear you-s!). I needed to unlock and clear the clutter that had been the self that I would like to believe is me. To those young hearts who put up a mirror to me, a humble bow with Bhangra-ish flamboyance: Hadippa! tinak-tin-dhaa!!! :)

p.s. the above picture is clicked on way to Havelock in Andaman Islands by either me or my hubby Arijit