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Searching For The Light....Within

11/28/2020

Today is the festival of lights, Karthigai Deepam. People light rows of lamps especially the earthen ones, in their houses. In spite of the advent of other form of lighting, lamps made of clay exude their special charm. Serial bulbs look pale when juxtaposed with the glow of clay lamps! The flames of these lamps fluttering in the wind is a sight to cherish.

The festival is observed with special fervor at the Arunachaleshwara temple at Thiruvannamalai. On this occasion five deepams signifying the five elements; air, fire, water, earth, and ether are lit in the temple premises after elaborate rituals. A single lamp called the Bharani Deepam is lit from these five pots and is kept burning in the temple all through, signifying the merging of all five elements into the divine. Around the same time a Maha Deepam is lit on top of the hill which forms the backdrop of the huge temple. An enormous receptacle is filled with more than 3,500 kg of ghee and a giant wick made of a special cloth coated with 2Kgs of camphor is lit. The deepam can be seen from miles around for many days.

Karthigai Deepam is among the oldest festivals celebrated in Tamil Nadu and finds mention in many ancient Tamil literary tomes like ‘Ahananuru’ (200 B.C. to 300 A.D.), ‘Tolkappiyam’ that dates back to 2,000 or 2,500 BC, and ‘Jeevakachintamani’. The famous poetess Avaiyyar, also mentions about the festival in her works.

Festivals play an indelible part in the cultural history of the country and each one of them is interwoven with mythology and folklore: Karthigai Deepam is no exception. Prominent among the legends associated with this festival is that of Lingodbhava.

Once a very mortal dispute arose between Brahma and Vishnu as to who is the greater of the two. To settle the dispute they approached Siva who then took the form of an enormous pillar of fire in the form of a linga which stretched from depths to heights which no one could see. Curious to find out where it had arisen, and where it ended, Brahma, in the form of a swan flew upwards, whereas Vishnu took the form of a boar and went boring down. Many eons passed and neither found an end or a beginning. Vishnu realized the greatness of Siva and accepted defeat but Brahma tried to trick Siva by asking a Ketaki flower to falsely testify that it had indeed seen the top end of the linga. As they were recounting their experiences, Siva emerged from the flaming pillar. Brahma and Vishnu realized their mistake and offered their obeisance to Siva.

The iconography of Lingodbhava finds representation in most of the temples in South India. It is usually carved and placed in the niche of the western wall of the garbhagriha of the central shrine. The reason behind the choice of the western wall is that the energy of the main deity in the garbhagriha radiates outwards to the western façade bestowing blessings upon the devotees. According to the agama tradition, only one-fifth of Siva Linga in Lingodbhav Murtis must be visible on top and one-fifth at the bottom. The rest of it, in the center, must depict Siva carved as Chandrashekhara and the lingam itself should be left uncarved.

The picture above is one such representation of Lingodbhava from Airavateswara Temple at Dharasuram. It depicts Siva with four hands: one hand in Abhaya-mudra, another in Varada pose, the third hand carrying an axe and the fourth a deer. Adorned with Jatamukuta, Siva exudes a sense of serenity. The legs below the knee are left unsculpted and appear as if they are invisible. Brahma is depicted as a swan on the right upper side of Siva and Vishnu is carved as a boar digging the earth at the foot of the Sivalinga. The size of swan and the boar is usually the same as that of the face of Siva. On either side of the sculpture are Brahma and Vishnu facing the Lingam with folded hands in an act of submission. Adjoining the sculptures are paintings on the wall which have faded with time.

The growing and expanding Sivalinga in Lingodbhava signifies the infinite light and boundless knowledge that prevails in the cosmos; there is nothing static, but only the flow of relentless flourishing, rejuvenating energy.

In Tamil bhakti poetry, Manikkavasagar’s ‘Thiruvasagam’ has a special special place and in a singularly beautiful verse he describes Lingodbhava thus;

அன்பருக்கு அன்பனே யாவையுமாய் அல்லையுமாய்
சோதியனே துன்னிருளே தோன்றாப் பெருமையனே
ஆதியனே அந்தம் நடுவாகி அல்லானே
ஈர்த்து என்னை ஆட்கொண்ட எந்தை பெருமானே
கூர்த்த மெய் ஞானத்தால் கொண்டு உணர்வார் தம்கருத்தில்

Dear lord who is near to those who are dear to you
You are the light emerging from darkness
You are invisible
The beginning, the end and the in between
You drew me into your fold
To seek you not by knowledge
But by the true spiritual striving within

(My translation of this verse is no match to that of G U Pope who translated Thiruvasagam in 1858!)

Fire as a concept, an element, an informing principle, a deity and a metaphor has existed all through history. The worship of fire and the worship with fire have been a part of ancient religions across the world. If the Adityas and then Agni were primary deities in the Vedas, the Zoroastrians saw fire as the light of Ahura Mazda. The Vestal Virgins of ancient Rome worshipped the Sacred Fire of Vesta, the Greeks bowed to Hestas and Hephaestus, the Aztecs had Chantico, to name just a few. The Chinese worshipped Zhu Rong as a solar deity. The Buddhists have Goma/ Homa fire rituals for purification and warding off sickness and difficulties.

All of them have proclaimed the nature of the divine in identical terms emphasizing that there is no fundamental difference between religions. The differences in understanding and articulation are man-made to comprehend the incomprehensible. As the Vedas point out “Ekam sat Vipra bahudha vadanti” “There is only one truth and learned persons call it by many names.”

The festival of Karthigai underscores how all the five elements - earth, water, air, space and fire come together to form light that symbolizes the eternal, ineffable, divine spirit who has to be experienced and realized.

In the ‘Republic’, Plato described the human condition perceptively as the Allegory of the Cave. We are like slaves chained in a cave. All that we see are the shadows thrown by the flames behind us, offering an illusion of knowledge. He urges us to step outside and experience the dazzling, all pervading luminous light outside and emerge from the shadows to true awareness.

Let us strive to search for the light within, however small and hidden it might be!

As Goethe remarked, “someday perhaps the inner light will shine forth from us, and then we'll need no other light.”

Look forward to your comments…responses…

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At The Threshold Of Farther Shores . . .

9/18/2020

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In the late 80’s I was on a Commonwealth Fellowship, attached to the University College, London. UCL was ideally located to suit my perambulations. It was adjacent to the theatre district and all the major galleries were just a brisk walk away. Almost all of them were free to visit, which suited my paltry remuneration as a fellow.

On one such visit to the National Gallery, I walked into Room No 30 and I was transfixed by a large painting, St Francis in meditation by Francisco de Zurburan. St Francis was kneeling life size before me, oblivious to the people walking past him. Against a plain, unadorned, dark background, the figure was illuminated by a bright light from the side. The contrast between the light and shadow was quite striking. He was wearing a plain, tattered brown robe. His head was raised upwards with parted lips in awe as if he was caught in a moment of redemption and release. From a distance, I was unable to make out his eyes, but when I approached the canvas all I could see was a void. A skull was clasped in his hands with the empty sockets of the skull staring directly into the eyes of the saint. The entire image conveyed an intense psychological experience of confrontation with the unknown, with death, and what must lie beyond.

I must have looked at the painting for a long while, unmindful of people milling around me. It was an immersive experience. Over the course of the next few weeks I returned to the gallery many times just to have a look at the painting. The image of St Francis never vanished from my thoughts.

Why did this painting have such a hold on me?

It is the story of an unwelcome alien and its devastating effect on me! In the early 80’s the place where we were living was right in the middle of a sea of Parthenium plants. Considered as one of the most invasive species in the world, it perhaps found its way as a contaminant of PL480 wheat which was being imported from USA. It is said to produce at least 3000 million pollen grains per square meter during the flowering season, which cause a range of intense allergic reactions. Some of these pollens sneaked their way through my nasal cavity causing a persistent running nose. Over a course of time I also started experiencing retching cough, which was worse during night. I managed to keep everyone awake at night by this unrelenting, hacking cough. Cough medicines were of little help. One night I woke up with severe cough which wouldn’t settle down and I became breathless. Ahalya woke up and the last thing I remembered was lying in her arms. What happened in the next few seconds is something that would remain etched in my memory for ever.

I was in a beautiful, otherworldly realm, feeling a sense of connectedness, suffused with overwhelming tranquility. It was an exceedingly radiant, serene, rapturous moment, the like of which I had never experienced before. I was immobile but didn’t experience any pain. When I opened my eyes, Ahalya was vigorously rubbing my chest, trying to bring me back to life. Strangely cough and breathlessness stopped. I was back in my body, thoroughly exhausted and drained of energy. I felt I was being pulled away reluctantly from a magical realm.

Over the course of next few weeks there were similar occurrences, each one much like the previous ones. Though these brief episodes were personally blissful for me, it was a continuing source of anxiety and concern to others in the family. As the cough continued unabated as also the breathlessness, I consulted a senior ENT surgeon. He took a careful history and said, “Doctor, what you are experiencing is post nasal drip, which is trickling down the respiratory track, resulting in cough and breathlessness.” He advised an ayurvedic medication which proved to be very effective and thankfully, I have never had a similar problem since then.

But that transcendental experience was an eye opener for me. It was the strangest, most beautiful world I had ever seen. Whether I was in the presence of the divine or my brain was merely pumping out chemicals like never before, the entire experience was so intense that it stays with me even now.

To me it was akin to watching a total solar eclipse. In 1980 a few of us traveled to Karwar to have a view of the phenomenon as it was touted to afford the best view. We positioned ourselves on a small hillock overlooking the sea. There was lots of activity on the beach below with children and adults enjoying a stroll in the evening. The sea gulls were squawking noisily and merrily. As the eclipse advanced, the activity on the beach faded away and the gulls were suddenly quiet. Without a prologue, the sun disappeared totally, a black disc covering it like a lens cap. There was an eerie silence and the entire landscape was bathed in surreal colors. Slowly light peeped through like a thin golden ring around the sun. Thought it lasted for just a few minutes, it was an enthralling experience during which I felt an intense sense of connectivity to another realm, a vast uncharted universe. In that brief moment when the all life-giving giving sun disappeared in a behind a black veil and re-emerged, it was a reminder that all things have an end and a new beginning.

There is no shortage of scientific theories about what causes near-death experiences. It’s well established, for instance, that an oxygen shortage, a glitch at the temporoparietal junction, too much of carbon dioxide and a range of neurochemicals might play a part.

No matter how you explain them, near-death experiences are pivotal events in people’s lives. They are a lens through which to gaze at the workings of consciousness—one of the great mysteries of human existence, even for the most resolute materialist. For a person who has gone through such an experience and resurface again, it can be a profound transformative spiritual experience as in the life of Sri Ramana Maharishi.

The literature is replete with narratives that attempt to capture these moments..

For instance, Hemingway in his famous short story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” wrote about an African safari that went disastrously wrong. Harry is stricken by gangrene, knows he is dying and Compie, a bush pilot, arrives to rescue him. The two take off and fly together through a storm with rain so thick “it seemed like flying through a waterfall” until the plane emerges into the light before them; “unbelievably white in the sun, was the square top of Kilimanjaro. And then he knew that there was where he was going.” The description embraces elements of a classic near-death experience; the darkness, the cessation of pain, the emerging into the light and then a feeling of peacefulness.

Vladimir Nabokov’s autobiography, Speak, Memory, begins with these lines: “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for.”

The quality of our life is determined by how we interpret our experiences, not by the experiences themselves.

For me, these experiences were catalysts for growth on many different levels—psychologically, emotionally, maybe even a tad spiritually. It stripped away uncomfortable thoughts of existential oblivion, ushering in a more compassionate stance about the fragility and precariousness of life. As St. Augustine wrote, “it is only in the face of death that a man’s self is born.” It helped me to cope with fears of death with a greater appreciation of the gift of life both in personal life as I attended to my elders (all of whom who passed away peacefully at home) and professionally in caring for those who are facing the end of their lives.

I am often reminded of the Buddhist meditative practice of Anicca (in Pali) or Anitya (in Sanskrit), in which one focuses on the desiccation and disappearance of leaves from a tree and then on the future impermanence of the tree itself and, indeed, of one’s own body. The transitory nature of our life need not be a source of discomfort. Like dewdrops at sunrise, though lasting for just a few minutes shine with light within, it can be an ennobling experience.

Exploring ways of overcoming our fears of death and adopting a creative approach to the impermanence of life provides us valuable insights to negotiate our lives in a richer and more compassionate manner.

We are not the beginning
We are not the end
We are a link in a chain
At the edge of mystery

Look forward to your reflections here . . .

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Soaring High On Graceful Wings . . .

8/6/2020

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When the five Rafale jets streamed into the country, they held the nation in awe. The frenzied attention of the media as it covered the occasion in minute detail was infectious. One of the facts mentioned was about the long and arduous journey the pilots had to make across continents to reach India.

In the process, we turned our gaze away from a flock of birds that have been flying above those nimbus clouds, every year without fail, for eons!

The Bar Headed Goose is a pale grey goose, easily distinguished from other species of geese by the characteristic black bars on its head that gives the species its name. They hardly look like super-athletes although they are one of the most amazing birds on earth. They come down to India all the way from Central Asia, 6000 km away. They are the only birds known to fly at an altitude of 35,000 feet. That’s the cruising altitude of a Rafale jet! On the way to India, these geese fly right over the Himalayas, and have been sighted flying over Mount Everest. Covering 1000 km per day, bar-headed geese spend their winters in North India and visit us down South, before flying back 6000 km to breed in Central Asia. Bar-headed Geese tagged with GPS transmitters had completed migration journeys of up to 8000 kilometers in approximately two months, which involved crossing the world’s tallest mountain ranges, the Himalayas, twice! Although the birds made frequent stops during their journey, they seemed to be crossing the Himalayas in one continuous stretch of approximately eight hours of flight. A similar physical exertion with no time for acclimatization would simply kill a human!

At those altitudes, the oxygen in the atmosphere is about a third of what is available at sea level, and temperatures are well below freezing. Most mammals would have trouble breathing, while these birds manage to fly for several hours nonstop. They have been reported to climb from sea level to 4,500 m in under eight hours, achieving speeds of up to 150 kmph.

How do they do it? We now know that bar-headed geese have several physiological adaptations, which enable them to survive these extreme conditions. Some of them include a very large heart with a high density of capillaries which deliver oxygen to the muscles, and haemoglobin that has a high affinity to oxygen. This enables them to meet the oxygen demands of the flight, which is ten to fifteen times more than the oxygen needed at rest. This enables them to function at high altitudes without the need to acclimatize. They also fly at night, when the air is colder and denser as it allows the geese to generate greater lift. Cooler air also helps to regulate body heat and contains more oxygen, enabling geese to fly even as the air thins at higher levels. Flying in such oxygen-limited conditions, the geese slow their metabolism and the temperature of their blood also comes down. As the temperature in the veins near their lungs drops, they can circulate more oxygen to the chest muscles to enable them to endure the arduous flight. Improving the understanding of how tissues in bar-headed geese are so adept at handling oxygen might elucidate human respiration as well, especially in these Covid times!

These birds are truly amazing. They are capable of achievements that we humans can only dream about. They crossed continents and explored the higher reaches of the sky even before us!

The bar headed goose has caught the attention and inspired artists and poets alike!

The earliest art in India does not depict swans, but rather birds that resemble the bar-headed goose. For example, the birds painted at the Ajanta Caves are much like the bar-headed geese rather than the swans. Among the many animals portrayed in the majestic Arjuna’s Penance or the Descent of Ganga at Mahabalipuram are a couple of geese by the side of Bhageeratha. Perhaps the most stunning depiction of the bar headed geese is in the door frame of the Da Parbatia Temple near Tezpur, built in the 6th century. On either side of the door frame are beautifully sculpted images of Ganga and Yamuna and there are a couple of geese depicted in rich detail besides them.

Dūtakāvya or sandeśakāvya, messenger-poetry, constitutes one of the finest literary genre in Indian literature, especially in poetry. These poems usually posit a pair of separated lovers, one of whom sends a messenger in the form of a cloud, the wind or a bird, with a message to beloved who is far away. Barheaded goose was quite popular in dūtakāvya was because it is said to fly the highest of all the birds making it an ideal choice of messenger since it was sure to reach any destination with no trouble at all. This also benefitted the poet since it offered scope for a detailed bird’s-eye-view description of the lands it soared over.
Perhaps the most beautiful description is in Kalidasa’s Meghaduta..
Regal birds longing for Manasa-lake,
Gathering tender lotus shoots for the way
Will be your companions in the sky
Even up to Mount Kailasa’s peak

Vedanta Deśika, born in 1268 at Tūppul near the great city of Kāncī, was not only an outstanding philosopher-theologian but also a talented poet. In the short Sanskrit kāvya, Hamsasandeśa or ‘The Mission of the Goose’, Vedanta Deśika draws inspiration from this long-established genre of Dutakavyato to describe Rama’s feelings for Sita, held captive by Ravana. Rāmā despatches a goose with this message for Sita.
Our bodies touch
in the southern wind.
Our eyes meet
in the moon.
We live together in a single home –
the world, and the earth
is the one bed we share.
The sky scattered with stars
is a canopy stretched above us.
Think of this, my lean beauty:
however far away
fate has taken you from me,
I still find my way
into you.

One of the most beautiful legends in the Buddhist tradition comes from the 12th chapter of the Abhiniùkramaõa Såtra and concerns the goose. Once, while walking through the palace garden Prince Siddhartha saw a goose fall from the sky with an arrow lodged in its wing. He nestled the bird in his lap, gently extracted the arrow and anointed the wound with oil and honey. Soon afterwards, Devadatta sent a message to the palace saying that he had shot the bird and demanding that it be returned to him. Siddhartha replied to the message saying: `If the goose was dead I would return it forthwith but as it is still alive you have no right to it.' Devadatta sent a second message arguing that it was his skill that had downed the goose and as such it belonged to him. Again Siddhartha refused to give his cousin the bird and asked that an assembly of wise men be called to settle the dispute. This was done and after discussing the matter for some time the most senior of the wise men gave his opinion, saying: `The living belongs to he who cherishes and preserves life, not to he who tries to destroy life.'

Flying through a swirling mixture of wind, temperature and precipitation is not an easy task. Much like aircrafts that have to negotiate adverse weather conditions with unforeseen consequences (like the recent crash at Kozhikode) the bar headed gees are also in mortal danger especially when they land on the shorelines. It is not the hunter’s arrow that proves a threat to them anymore but shrinking wetlands and indiscriminate use of pesticides in their natural habitats.

So, the next time you spot an unassuming grey and white goose with distinctive black bars on its head, just pause for a while, admire and reflect on their wondrous journey through years…

Flying high
On borderless skies
Among dispersed clouds
Through mountainous slopes
Between rocky peaks
They descend
On still waters
In distant plains…

Would be delighted to have your comments here . . .

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In Pursuit Of Kairos . . .

7/16/2020

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The sky is grey and I catch a glimpse of a solitary bird flying high among the darkening clouds. As I watch it, I am reminded of the remarks of Robert Lynd, “In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.”

The house is still and silent. Ahalya and myself have been part of that silence for the past five months, rarely venturing out.

It brings to mind Emily Dickenson who confined herself to her bedroom, shutting herself from the outside world. Later in her life, she would only speak to visitors from behind the half opened door of her room. Hers was the greatest literary engagement with isolation: “I have appetite for silence,” she wrote, for “silence is infinity.”

The appetite for silence has increased exponentially ever since the virus took hold of us.

Every virus tells us a story.

The narrative of Covid 19 is one of uncertainty and unpredictability.
In outlining the uncertainty principle Heinsenberg pointed out the limits of our knowledge by stating that the more precisely we know the position of a given particle, the less precise our measurement of its momentum. What if that particle were to be a virus? More disturbingly, we know very little about it and what we know is often uncomfortably contradictory.

We knew it was coming and we were not prepared, medically, scientifically, and socially, despite all the dystopian pandemic movies and literature that have been circulating for ages! Covid 19 was not a black swan but a grey rhino. Michele Wucker described grey rhinos as “highly obvious, highly probable, but still neglected dangers,” as opposed to “unforeseeable or highly improbable risks, as envisioned in the black swan metaphor.” The hunt is on to trap that greys rhino which keeps eluding our grasp.

Talking of uncertainty, two kinds have been described: epistemic uncertainty (due to lack of knowledge) and aleatory uncertainty (due to randomness). Covid seems to be a heady combination of both.

Infective agents, whether it is bacteria or viruses have always been lurking around, waiting for a time and space to surface. They don’t just attack weaknesses in the human body. They also exploit changes in the world we live in. As wilderness dwindles with large scale environmental degradation, zoonotic infections jump easily to infect humans.

Health is not a static condition. Mechanisms are continually at work to maintain a constant internal environment termed as milieu interieur by the French scientist Claude Bernard (whose painting used to hang outside our lecture theatre in JIPMER). It is a crucial component in maintaining homeostasis which is essential for health. As physicians our focus and commitment is to sustain that. Yet at the same, the internal environment cannot be viewed in isolation of the environment in which we spend every day of our lives.

What we fail to perceive is that we are all part of a large ecosystem and any disruption in it has implications for our health. The emergence of COVID-19 has challenged the human-centered relationship between us and nature. As much as Covid 19 infection is a medical emergency, it is also an ecological calamity.

Isolation is not just about endurance, but of our survival and of our environment as well.

With the forced slowing of life granted by the coronavirus, we can re-think our involvement with and management of time. The ancient Greeks had thought along this line long back. They had two words for time: Chronos and Kairos. Both the words stand for time in the English language, but with different connotations. While Chronos refers to numeric, chronological time, Kairos refers to a proper and appropriate time of action. Chronos measures time in such terms as seconds, minutes, and hours, but Kairos views time terms of periods for rest and reflection. Unfortunately in the midst of our preoccupations in everyday life we don’t have space for Kairos. The virus has impacted the Chronos time, but we can still explore the Kairos! It provides an opportunity for us to slow down to restore our inner self.

We need that unstructured, beckoning time to imagine, to discover the meaning of our lives afresh which disease has taken away,

True, the journey in the valley of uncertainty can be a daunting task.

Sometimes when we amble along the seashore, the waves advance and erase our footsteps. Undeterred and hardly noticing it, we walk ahead. In the journey of our unfathomable lives, darkness will engulf us occasionally. All that we can do is to strike our matches of meaning to dispel it.

There are many differing narratives about Covid 19. The ones we choose to believe and tell will reflect and affirm what we value personally as an empowering one.

As I write this, I hear the splatter of rain on the leaves outside. The sky has turned tar black with large rain bearing clouds. Unmindful of the growing intensity of the drizzle, the black kite is still soaring in the sky. It is confident of negotiating the dense, menacing clouds and the downpour with faith in its feathers.

I keep wondering as to when I can grow wings and venture out of our nest . . .

Feel Free To Post Your Comments Here!

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Finding The Extraordinary In The Ordinary...

6/30/2020

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Yesterday was the World Camera Day and I travelled back in time to reflect on my tryst with cameras.

My first camera was a borrowed one which was lent to me by my cousin who went on to become one of the celebrated cinematographers in the country. That was during my undergraduate medical school years, when prudence in all matters was the overwhelming mantra. More so with photography since one had to save money to buy a 35mm roll and also spend more to print the images later. Each frame was thus precious.

I cycled on weekends hugging the camera close, exploring the landscape around JIPMER. Auroville was just being built and the place had a vibrant feel to it. Many unusual structures were coming up including a school with a flowing water body inside, which was aptly called the Last School. All of this provided fodder for my roving eyes. When I was not cycling around, I persuaded my classmates to pose for me in some unusual frames. A few of those photographs received awards in Inte-rmedical Photography Competitions.

Life after medical school was a very demanding period as the quest was to enroll in a post graduate course in a good college. I was passionate about psychiatry right from my college days and fortunately got admission in the prestigious National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences. Photography receded to the background as I became totally immersed in studies and honing my skills as a psychiatrist. It was only thereafter when I joined the faculty, I could afford a point and shoot camera. This came in handy during my treks with the students. But the lure of photography was kept in check with growing demands of the academic life.

I began saving money and bought my first digital camera. No more money spent on film rolls and printing! When the camera arrived, I opened the box like a child eagerly unwrapping a longed for gift! And there it was…a petite camera with a shiny, silvery tinge. I wanted to test it immediately, but the sky was overcast and chances of going outdoors were minimal.

I was casually looking around the room and a fork lying on the dining table caught my attention. I was struck by its reflection on the Formica covered table. As I looked closely at the fork and its reflection, it turned into something extraordinary. It wasn’t a simple fork anymore! In its reflection on the shiny, unexceptional surface, it had transformed itself to an object of beauty! I was enthralled to see the extraordinary in a mundane object of everyday life.

In that moment there was harmony between the object and its reflection. Henri Cartier-Bresson called it the “decisive moment”: pressing down the shutter button at the right time.

Images surround us every moment. We have to see them as if we have never seen them before. The world is full of such moments, if only we open ourselves to them and observe mindfully. There is always a difference between what we look at and what we see. Photography is often about embracing that moment…however fleeting it may be. All too often people spend far too much time preoccupying themselves with the equipment and its technicalities and not enough on just ‘seeing’.

If we use our cameras as poetic tools for seeing, and really notice the beauty all around us every day, we will find ourselves astonished by the seemingly ordinary things we might otherwise pass by in our busy, activity-filled lives.

The real camera is not in our hands but in the eyes behind the lens of the camera.

As I was looking at the fork on the table from a different angle, an entirely new perspective emerged. The fork and its reflection merged together to form a folded hand! It was a visual photo haiku!

Photography is a meditative practice for me, providing me with a lens to view life around me. It inspires me to search for beauty in the moment, often right in front of me. At that moment, time slows down and the mind expands in a magical way…

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Onto The Wooden Wonders . . .

6/24/2020

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In an earlier posting on the Thiruppudaimaruthur mural paintings, I had briefly mentioned about the wooden carvings. These magnificent creations enhance the beauty of the murals by their presence in that small, confined space. They have been sculpted on the wooden beams that support the ceiling and on the wooden pillars. They are very small in size and include miniature brackets, all exquisitely carved.

The content and depiction of these sculptures cover a wide range of subjects: acrobats, wrestlers, kings and queens, gods and goddesses, ascetics, warriors in battle, and a wide range of animals.

The most arresting of them all is the acrobat. He is seen balancing a knife on his face while twirling two circular objects with his fingers. There is a dynamic energy in his body as he executes the task, with one leg firmly placed on the ground and other bent at the knee to maintain the equilibrium. His clothes are swirling in the air during the act. All these aspects are meticulously etched in a small panel of just twelve inches!

Such attention to detail is also maintained in the depiction of two wrestlers who are engaged in a bout. It is interesting to see how their limbs are intertwined in the final moment of what is known as a sunset flip in wrestling parlance. There are two hunters, once enticing a bird and the other one hunting down a tiger with a bow. He seems to have just released the arrow which can be seen in the tiger’s mouth!

There is a petite Ganesha and also a beautifully carved Lakshmi holding lotuses in her hands. Ascetics and saints follow in various moments: offering pooja, teaching disciples and blessing the king.

The ceilings are quite low in each of the tiers supported by horizontal wooden beams. These beams are painted with decorative designs above, and below them are a series of rectangular reliefs, each one of them about 18 inches long and 6 inches high. These contain scenes from everyday lives of that era. The most conspicuous are the battle scenes, which are lively and brimming with energy. Interestingly there are depictions of Portuguese soldiers often shown fighting among themselves, watched over by a local king. Elephants and horses are seen in the battle. The portrayal of a soldier on the arched back of a horse holding the harness tightly yet turning his body to ward off the enemy soldier is quite striking. There is also a delightful and captivating depiction of a woman overseeing a bull fight.

In a corner of each tier there are superb life size figures of kings, queens, ascetics, warriors and wrestlers.

In addition, there are many small bracket sculptures in the eaves beneath the ceiling. The craftsmanship evident in these sculptures is awe inspiring. It is replete with figures of warriors, hunters, ascetics, dancing girls and musicians. Do have a close look at each of them and marvel at their intricate detailing.

The most spectacular of them all is a seated figure of a person with matted hair cascading over his face, sitting on an animal which has the face of a crocodile and the body of a fish. Such forms in Hindu iconography are often referred to as Makara. The term in Sanskrit means “sea dragon” or “water monster”, a mythical animal with the body of a fish and the head and jaws resembling a crocodile. The head is sometimes also depicted as an elephant. The person seated on it could be Varuna since he is reportedly the only person who can control it. Is Makara a mythical animal or a real one that existed eons ago? Intriguingly some have suggested that Makara bears a striking resemblance to the approximately 155 million year old Pliosaur fossil. Pilosaur existed during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods during which time it was one of the top predators of the oceans. If this were to be true, how did the authors of Bhagavatam, Ramayana and Mahabharatha where Makara is mentioned, get their information?! Beyond all these speculations, the sheer artistry of depiction is stupendous!

There is a wide array of animal figures deftly sculpted. Noticeable among them are beautifully carved elephants, bulls with stunning humps, ferocious tigers with prey in their mouth, intertwined snakes, doe eyed deer, galloping horses, plump rabbits, hulking camels and gorgeous hamsas. The hamsa being a “noble bird par excellence” is a favorite decorative form in Indian art. In Hindu religion it is taken to be the vehicle of Brahma and the goddess Saraswati and is considered to be superior to other birds owing to its graceful gait, swift movement and virtuous quality. In its ability to separate milk from water, it is also considered as a symbol of the discriminating mind.

Temples, though they are the gateway to the other world, are deeply rooted in the world around us and hence it is not surprising to find animals sculpted within their precincts. The depiction of animals and birds ranges across a wide spectrum in Indian arts. They have always been a perennial source of inspiration to artists to create multiple forms, motifs and designs in decorative arts. Animals are sculpted in their natural forms, as well as divine symbols. Hindu mythology lays enormous significance on the metaphoric significance of animals. For example, snakes figure prominently in the Hindu pantheon: Vishnu slept on it, Krishna danced on it and Shiva wears it around his neck! Hence it is not surprising that animals figure prominently in temple architecture. They assume a spiritual quality as they also serve as vahanas for the god and goddesses.

Animals are also depicted as composite forms in very imaginative ways in sculptures. The composite animals are a combination of the natural and the supernatural, of animal and the divine. Composite sculptures reflect the imagination of the artist and convey a deeper meaning. They are not mere physical forms: they symbolize a thought or an idea. The term Vyala is applied to such imaginative creatures and they can be noticed as decorative motifs in all temples.

The kaleidoscopic variety of wooden sculptures in that small, confined space reflects the ingenuity and creative imagination of the artists. Though frozen in time, they seemed to come alive as I gazed upon them. I was wondering whether the people in the murals and the sculpted figures were looking back at me as I was looking at them!

My entire experience in the dark cloisters of the gopuram at Thiruppudaimaruthur was akin to that of Alice in Wonderland. Instead of going down a rabbit hole, I ascended the dark steps to discover a magical realm, found myself in a fantastical world like her and ended up “curiouser and curiouser”!

It was an endless reverie
In a magical realm
Of unbridled creativity
As I bid adieu
I offer you a seat
To sail along with me
To savor its wonders..

Glimpses At: photos.app.goo.gl/EshvHrQvNmfNEkov6

Kindly do not share the album without informing me!

And feel free to post your comments here!!

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In An Artful Space . . .

6/1/2020

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As my previous posts would have indicated, I am besotted with murals. When I read that there are murals of the Nayak period in Tirunelveli district, I was keen to have a glimpse of them. When I researched a bit more, I realized that they were rather difficult to view and would require oodles of clearances. It dampened my spirits initially. As providence would have it, within the course of a few weeks, people who could help me through it got in touch with me. It is through their unstinted help and guidance that I was able to get access to many temples in the area. I am deeply indebted to their spontaneous assistance.

Let me start this journey with an account of our visit to Thiruppudaimaruthur.

Sri Narambunathaswamy temple at Thiruppdaimaruthur in Papakudi Taluk, is one of the oldest temples in the region. It is situated in a picturesque location at the confluence of the Gadana and Thamirabarani rivers. It was built in 650 BCE by King Maravarman. The presiding deity is Lord Shiva. The Shivalinga is said to have been discovered when Veera Marthanda Pandy was hunting a deer. He found the deer hiding at the foot of tree and decided to cut it with a sickle. doing so, to his great shock and surprise he found a Shiva Lingam. To atone for his act, he built the temple and to this day the lingam is seen with a cut on the head. Because of this, abhishekam is not offered to it. The lingam is tilted to the side and there is another interesting anecdote to explain it. Karuvur Siddhar, one of the most renowned ascetics, wanted to have a darshan of the lord. But when he reached the place, there were flash floods in the Tamirabharani and he was unable to cross the river. Moved by his prayers, an invisible voice guided him to cross the river which parted to allow him to reach the temple. Since the Lord was leaning to listen to the prayers of his devotee, the lingam is seen tilted to the side!

It was a pleasant journey to the temple from Tirunelveli through verdant green fields. I was keen to reach it early to have a glimpse of the murals before sunset. To our great disappointment we found that there was no one at the temple. We went around its deserted precincts, fervently hoping that someone would turn up soon. To our great relief the person responsible to permit us entry came in shortly after.

He opened the iron gates of the main gopuram and we started ascending the steep steps inside in sheer darkness. It was quite an effort to scale the high, narrow steps and when I reached the first tier of the gopuram I was totally unprepared for what I saw. Every inch of the wall was covered with exquisite paintings, the likes of which I had never set my eyes upon. As it was quite dark inside, it was quite a difficult task to have a good look at them, which we accomplished with the lights from our mobile phones!

The paintings are in the five levels of the gopuram. Each level has a cruciform outlay which is bisected by exquisitely carved wooden pillars (more of it in a later post!). The carved pillars and painted ceilings create a perfect sense of rhythm. Four of the five floors in the gopuram consist of hundreds of murals portraying various religious themes and places of worship while the murals on the second floor are narratives depicting scenes from daily life illustrating the culture and socio-economic life of every part of the society, from the king to the common man in addition to battle, in an almost photographic mode. In an extraordinarily lively manner they offer us tantalizing glimpses of the era.

In each panel there is a continuous depiction of various scenes with stylized borders of flowers, decorative motifs and animals. Each one of them requires a detailed account. Some of the exquisite ones include a dancing Siva, Vishnu as Seshasayi, a seated Ganesha, marriage scenes of Siva and Parvathi and episodes from Ramayana. Another spectacular painting, two metres tall and 3.6 metres wide, portrays a sail-ship with Arab traders bringing horses. Cavalry formed an important wing of the army and thousand of horses were imported. One can see these horses in action in the battle scenes.

Perhaps the most vivid ones are the battle scenes, which are replete with dynamic energy. They portray warriors on horses and elephants, fighting each other with spears and sword. One can see sepoys with long topees and men holding flags, blowing trumpets and playing drums. These paintings have baffled art historians for several decades and they have debated on what was the war fought and who the adversaries were.

There is a suggestion that these murals portray the Tamirabarani battle in 1532 between the King of Travancore, Bhoothala Veera Udaya Marthanda Varma and the Emperor of Vijayanagara, Achyutadeva Raya. As per records, the battle was at Aralvaimozhi Pass, near Thovalai in Kanyakumari district. The war erupted when the king of Travancore Udaya Marthanda Varma after refusing to pay obeiscence to Achyutadeva Raya, annexed much of the territory of the Tenkasi Pandya ruler Jatila Varman Sri Vallabhan, who in turn approached the Vijayanagar emperor for help. To teach them a lesson the emperor himself undertook a 'Dhikvijayam' with his enormous army. The joint armies were defeated by Vijayanagar army and Marthanda Varma and was produced before Achyutadeva Raya at Srirangam who pardoned him after a light punishment.

These paintings date from second half of 17th century and bear resemblance to those at Lepakshi which I had described in an earlier post. The style is characterized by sharp angularity of the figures with elongated hands, fingers and feet. Deities are usually shown frontally whereas the rest are depicted in profile. Great care is taken in the depiction of different costumes and textiles with very captivating designs. The colour palette is quite varied with a judicious mixture of green, red and black. Interestingly a few of them have a sepia tone as one would see in period photographs.

I also wondered as to why these murals have been painted inside the gopuram (like the Chola murals in Brihadeeswar temple at Thanjavur) and not in the pradakhina passage around the sanctum where devotees would have greater chance to see them. Yet at the same time, safely ensconced inside the dark interiors of the gopuram, they have withstood the travails of time well.

The paintings do not bear the names of the artists. Given the extent of the work, several artists must have worked in unison to create these magnificent paintings. What sets these paintings apart is great thematic diversity, boldness in depiction and brightness of a rich palette of colors. These unknown artists are also magnificent storytellers! They have succeeded in creating an enchanting, enlivened space. As I walked through the five tiers, absorbing the myriad paintings, I was transported in time and space. It was a transformational experience.

To a large extent the history of painting in South Asia has focused on earlier works such as the murals at Ajanta and the North Indian courtly paintings of the Rajasthan and the Mughal empires. Though the Chola murals have attracted some attention, the paintings of Nayak period have been relegated to the background.

With my own personal involvement and passion in visual arts, I keep wondering as to what draws me to artistic creations like these. What is their mysterious pull? Is it just the attributes of the artworks itself or the way it resonates within me? Perhaps artworks are intertwined with our personal interests, predispositions and a larger world view. Something that is often referred to as ‘rasanubhava’: a delicate interplay between the observer and a work of art. Such moments often encompass within it a sense of intimacy, belonging and intense closeness with works of art which I continue to experience in many a place I visit, like this one.

The dusk was settling in and it was time to leave the company of these treasures. As I descended the steep steps, with much reluctance, after one and a half hours, these words of Kandinsky resonated deeply within “Color directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers and the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul.”

As I wander among
These paintings from the past
In flickering light
I find myself pulled inside
Their colorized world
Where paintings meet poetry…

Savor these painting…slowly…and there are scores of them at: photos.app.goo.gl/JinMXUCTkji1Yz8P6

It was indeed quite difficult to photograph them in darkness and I was keen to avoid using the flash from my regular camera. Two of my friends who accompanied me were kind enough to shine light from their mobile phones for me to have a glimpse so that I could photograph them with my iPhone!

Look forward to your comments here…and not in google photos!

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A Beguiling Beauty . . .

4/29/2020

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As I was strolling amidst the magnificent ambiance of Kailasanathar Kovil at Kanchipuram, I was assiduously searching for some remnants of the Pallava murals. It is said that the walls and the interiors of the fifty eight sub shrines of the temple were once covered with paintings of myriad hues. Almost all the paintings on the exterior walls have been lost and only few faint fragments remain inside some of the sub shrines.

I looked keenly in each of niches of the sub shrines and finally could spot this beautiful visage of an unknown person in one of its dark corners. I had to bend my head at an awkward angle to have a glimpse of it. What I saw in the dim light left me spellbound. In spite of the vagaries of time and years of neglect, her face looked so ethereal! There was a haunting wistfulness in her face. Who was this doe eyed damsel? Did she emerge from the creative imagination of an artist who remains unidentified? Or was she real? There is something Elysian in the beautiful brush strokes of the artist, the play of light across the face and the choice of colors. In spite of its fading layers and evanescent tints which seem to have deliquesced with time, there is a transcendental quality to the painting that lingers on.

When I looked at her closely I felt that there was a striking resemblance to the paintings of Ajanta. It left me wondering whether the artists who painted them at Ajanta migrated over a period of time southwards! It is a fact of history too that the Pallava dynasty gained prominence after the eclipse of the Satavahanas whom they served as feudatories.

The paintings at Kailasanathar temple along with the remnants at Talagishwara temple at Panamalai are the only two surviving examples of the Pallava mural paintings.

Lurking in the shadows
Her mysterious allure
Shines through
The veils of history . . .

Murals are my muse and I have posted earlier about several of them which I was privileged to see. This link which is about the murals of Hampi also has links to earlier posts about murals in Switzerland, Rajasthan and Kerala:
https://www.profraguram.com/musings--reflections/entrancing-murals-of-hampi

In February this year, after lots of efforts and assistance from various sources, I was able to have a glimpse of several ancient murals which are away from the public eye in some of the most ancient temples in Tamil Nadu.

Will write about them soon….watch this space!

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Bonds That Endure . . .

4/15/2020

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This morning as I was listening to the bird calls, something caught my attention. A small leaf shimmering in the early morning light was twirling in midair. Its pirouette would have put a talented ballet dancer to shame. It was careening through space as if testing an invisible force in the air. Slowly it descended down and found its home, secure among the other leaves under the tree.

For a moment I pictured myself sitting under the tree and that leaf falling on my lap as a book.

As we course through our lives, we try to seek comfort in those persons or things that convey a sense of belonging, and for me personally it has always been amongst books.

My passion for books has its origin in my mother, Saraswathi Ramnath. She lost her father who was a Gandhian and a popular doctor early in life and was married at the tender age of sixteen. In addition to being a housewife, she had to bring up her brother and an infant sister. Caught up in these demands, she couldn’t pursue higher education. She too was drawn to Gandhi and when he gave a call that learning and using a common language, Hindi, would unite the nation against the colonial power, she pursued it on her own with zest and qualified as a Vidwan. That opened up an immense vista of discovery of Indian literature and she commenced writing, focusing on translating from Hindi to Tamil and vice versa.

My earliest memories of her are the ones when I see her quietly sitting by herself, after finishing household chores, writing furiously. This practice continued all through her life. Her days were filled with bring up three children, one of whom was differentially-abled, taking care of the household, teaching students Hindi and writing. Even now I am amazed as to how she found time amongst all these demanding tasks to pursue her call.

She was the one who introduced me to books. There was no cake on birthdays but a stack of children’s books. I devoured them as fast as they came and my ambit of reading expanded with years. She would take me to the Connemara Library when she had to do her research for her writings and I would wander among its beautiful environs with soaring ceilings and books stacked on high racks. There were volumes of the Illustrated London News beautifully bound in leather and art books containing beautiful reproductions. Running my hands over them was itself an idyllic experience. It was a tantalizing world, just waiting at my fingertips. I devoured all the books I could lay my hands on and it wasn’t surprising that I needed glasses at an early age!

It wasn’t just books but also authors I was besotted with. All the leading writers in Tamil would visit our house and there would be lively exchange of ideas. I would watch silently from the side amazed at their breadth of knowledge. As a child, I would keenly look forward to visit Azha Valliappa’s house where he used to arrange weekly story telling sessions “Kathai Sollum Nigazhchi”. His wife would provide us with snacks, and we would settle down to listen to his stories. He would also encourage us to sing along with him. Another visitor was the poet Namakkal Ramalingam Pillai. He used to collect all the children in the place where we stayed and tell us stories. As I grew older I was smitten with the writings of Jayakanthan. To hear him articulate his ideas with such conviction and clarity was an unforgettable experience. I had a long personal association with Ashokamitran. He would often sit in a quiet corner of a park near our house and write. He was a keen observer of human feelings and frailties which he described with a subtle sense of humor.

My mother was also involved in organizing the First All India Writers Conference in which all leading writers from across the country participated. As a small boy in half shorts I ambled among them clutching my autograph book requesting them to sign in it. The first person to sign in it was Tarashankar Banerjee. It is my most precious possession which I have guarded against the ravages of time.

Books continued to flow from the pen of my mother. She had three major surgeries and a very rare malignancy later on in life. But travails of the body had little impact on her abiding engagement with literature. She must have written more than a hundred books across various genres. She wrote a series of books on the major rivers of India, chronicling their history, legends associated with them as they traverse the land from their origin till they merge into the sea.

Her forte was translation. That was no mean task especially at a time when Hindi was anathema in Tamil Nadu. Through her work she opened avenues of readership across the nation for all leading writers in Tamil. She translated Kamba Ramayanam into Hindi and the President at that time Sri Shankar Dayal Sharma, read the book and invited her over to the Rashtrapathi Bhavan to personally felicitate her. Many accolades and award came later in life, Dwivageesh Award from Bharatiya Anuwaad Parishat, Akshara Award, Kendriya Hindi Sanstan Award, Souhardha Samman from Uttar Pradesh Govt, Saraswathi Puraskar, Award from Shantiniketan in recognition of her contribution to Indian literature through translation and then the Sahithya Academy Award.

Her passion for the world of literature was infectious. She taught generations of students, encouraging them to explore works of literature. Hearing her explain Kabir’s dohas was an unforgettable experience.

Understandably she has had a huge impact on me. With her by my side I have ventured into the vast landscape of literary works, unraveling in the process the far reaches of creativity expressed through words. Though I miss her physical presence, every time I discover an unknown author or savor a new book, I feel that she is along with me relishing every word of it. When I leaf through her books which have weathered with time and whose pages have become brittle, I am reminded of her unabated struggles in writing them.

Much has been written about how pain and suffering interweave with creativity. The connection between suffering and creative expression is one of the most elusive of human stories. All through her life my mother’s body was ravaged by one illness or the other. But that didn’t reign in her spirits. She embraced her pains and they became a partner in her life. Her creative trope transcended the travails of her physical body. She had to endure a plethora of adversities, yet in the midst of them her spirits soared like the phoenix.

Her life has been an inspiration in my professional disposition in addressing the needs of those who are in throes of suffering. I strive to provide space for patients to tell their stories, uninterrupted. We all live in storied lives and want to share our stories with a responsive listener. Often stories that are told in therapy are the ones that cannot be told in everyday life.

My love of books continues unabated as witnessed in the shelves overflowing with them at home. In spite of Ahalya cautioning me not to add to them, I follow Oscar Wilde’s dictum that “the best way to get rid of temptation is to yield to them” and keep buying books. Turns out that bibliophileness is genetic! I seem to have passed the bibliophene gene on to our son Rahul too! For me books are like a Borgesian kaleidoscope, in which each reflection sparks another one..no pattern is ever the same and every book is a new revelation. And I owe that debt to my mother…

I am a book
Foreward
Written by my mother…

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From The Shelter Of Silence...

4/3/2020

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When I was studying at JIPMER, Pondicherry, one of my favorite haunts in the city was Honesty Book Shop which was manned by one of the gentlest person I have ever known. He was the one who introduced me to RD Laing. During one such visit, he silently handed over a paperback titled Space Within The Heart by Aubrey Menen. I returned to my room and finished the book at one stretch. The writer, after the demise of his biracial parents was driven by a quest to discover his personal identity. He isolated himself in a small room in the Thieves Quarter in Rome and proceeded to examine his life peeling off layer after layer of his personality and the events that had shaped it in the past, to finally arrive at the silent “space within the heart”. I was drawn to the evocative narrative about the search for self in isolation. Around that time, I also read a small account in a journal about a French aristocrat Xavier de Maistre who was placed in house arrest for 42 days in 1790.

I tried to imagine and visualize as to how a person would experience and cope with isolation for long periods. One day I requested my close friend Surendran to pose behind a partly closed door and took a photograph with a borrowed camera. When I described this to Mr Krishnan in the photography section at JIPMER, he was intrigued by it and helped me to take a print of it. I titled it ‘From The Shelter Of Silence’. Encouraged by him, I sent it to the All India Intermedical Youth Festival at AIIMS where it received the first prize and a commendation.

During the period of enforced lockdown due to COVID, I was wondering whether I could get hold of the journal kept by Xavier de Maistre and was fortunate to locate a copy of it, ‘Voyage Around My Room’. It was a fascinating read!

In 1790 Xavier de Maistre was punished for having gotten into a duel and was put under house arrest for forty-two days. de Maistre adroitly took advantage of his sequestration, finding within his own four walls a wealth of material to dwell on and kept a journal. Physically, de Maistre could not roam far and so most of the travels were, indeed, leaps of the imagination -- but he did find a surprising amount of material in his fairly comfortable room. He invites us to join him… “we will travel in short marches…yielding merrily to our imagination, we will follow it wherever it pleases to lead us”. He slowly leads the reader around the room, describing the pictures on the walls, the vistas and prospects within and beyond the room, exploring and dwelling on objects that are otherwise taken for granted. And what he sees brings back vibrant memories and leads him to look at things anew. The room is "that enchanted realm containing all the wealth and riches of the world".

At one point, de Maistre, is startled by what he sees outside his window: “A heap of unfortunate folk, lying half naked under the porches of those sumptuous apartments, on the point of expiring from cold and misery. What a sight! I wish this page of my book could be known throughout the world; I would like it to be known that, in this city—where everything breathes opulence—during the coldest winter nights, a host of wretches sleep out in the open, with only a boundary stone on which to lay their heads. Here you see a group of children huddling close together so as not to die of the cold. There it’s a woman, shivering and voiceless to complain. The passers-by come and go, quite untouched by a sight to which they are used”.

de Maistre proceeds at a leisurely pace and the journey is non linear, offering us rich insights as to how a person in confinement can cope with isolation through heightened perception and vivid imagination. Written in the form of short chapters, each one is like a polished gem.
de Maistre’s work springs from a profound insight: that the pleasure we derive from our journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to. If only we could apply a travelling mindset to our own rooms and confined spaces, we might find these places becoming no less interesting than the world outside.

In this world of hyper-chatter, we are less likely to observe and hear ourselves and unwittingly COVID has provided us with such an opportunity…

It is a break in our everyday busyness in which we immerse ourselves. The first thing we experience is silence the moment we retreat from the outside world.

The roots of the English term “silence” has its antecedents is the Gothic verb anasilan, a word that denotes the wind dying down, and the Latin dēsinere, a word meaning “stop.” Both of these etymologies suggest that silence is bound up with the idea of interrupted action. The pursuit of silence likewise begins with a surrender of the chase, the abandonment of efforts to impose our will and vision on the world. Not only is it about standing still, it is also a step inwards from the tussle of life.

My first experience of immense silence was when we spent a night in the sand dunes of Khuri. The silence of the desert took hold and overwhelmed me. It was the deepest silence I have ever known. There was nothing to hear. It was absolutely still, absolutely silent. The desert night was not very dark and the sky was deep – the stars did actually ‘twinkle’, and I had a sense of their distance – even distant stars seemed near, as well as larger or brighter. The starlit sky was an infinite space and one could gaze at it forever. Underneath my hand when I reached out from the dhurrie, the sand was made of tiny grains, very cool and clean, fine-textured, soft against my fingers. It was probably the most profound silence I had ever engaged with. Perhaps this is the silence that hermits seek in the desert.

Glimpses of the magical sandscapes of Khuri are at: photos.app.goo.gl/PyRP2rSB88Pt84w8A

We all live very noisy lives. Our silent spaces in cities have become constricted. It is not surprising to note that the word “noise,” derives from the Latin root nausea! We probably do not need a pervasive silence—desirable as this might seem. What we do need is more spaces in which we can interrupt our general experience of noise. We must also aspire to a greater proportion of hushed stillness in the course of our everyday life. And realize that many of the major physical forces on which we depend are silent – gravity, electricity, light.

We have not been locked away; we have been given an opportunity to silently discover a range of unfamiliar, sometimes daunting experiences, to maximize the connection with our inner worlds. It has given us a space to appreciate a great deal of what we generally see without ever properly noticing them. As Thoreau suggested we will have to become “our own streams and oceans; to explore our own higher latitudes.”

After these transformative few weeks we will recover our freedoms. The world will be ours to roam in, once more. As we resume our journey in the garden of life, hopefully we will see it from a different perspective than that we were accustomed to…

As Seneca commented long ago,“We are waves of the same sea, leaves of the same tree, flowers of the same garden.”

Looking forwards to your comments...and do post them here!