WINDOWS OF INFINITY

"A slow unraveling of narratives…" I had heard this about Adalaj once. But never paid much attention to the wise person at that time. But his words echoed silently as I stepped onto a bare stone platform overlooking the entrance to the stepped wells.
Step by step as I climb down the words take form… a form of yellow stone leading to a chasm of infinity. Infinity of beauty carved in yellow stone.
I first reach the threshold. Even though its not a traditional threshold, its not a rectangular opening which opens onto something. No, that it definitely is not. But I call it a threshold. Even though I am some way well inside the well. Yet it seems like a threshold, simply because it frames the entire space… or as the wise man would like to call… it frames the entire narrative. It looks like a grand start of a story book. Not a ‘once upon a time’ start. Allow me to rephrase that. It’s a ‘once upon a timeless time’.
In one glance I am able to fathom the entire space and there is a new expression that starts ringing in my mind. ‘Windows to infinity’.
Yes, that’s what I see as I impulsively start clicking away… I want to take them all in, when and where else will I get a chance to capture infinity? When else will I be able to capture timelessness in time. Paradoxical yet true.
And then there are the windows… stretching infinitely. Offering me glimpses through each of them… and miraculously even though all of them look the same they offer me different views… the closer I get to one the more infinity tries to stretch beyond.
Its everywhere. Even as I journey downwards, closer to the bottom the harsh sun trickles down to black shadows and an eerie silence. The echoes of voices from above seem to get lost somewhere within this infinity. As I go down I see multiple layers of infinity. There are windows right in front of me on each level stretching into the horizontal beyond and forever. Then as I look down more windows go vertically down giving me a feeling of being suspended in space… suspended within infinity.
I feel like an intruder… peeping through windows… trying to look for things that haven’t been meant for me to see… but rather for people from another time and place. Perhaps for the queens of adalaj and their maids and courtesans of a long forgotten court… laughing and giggling playfully as they run about and get enveloped by this infinity while savoring the cool water on their bodies on a hot day. for them yes, but not for me. Its not for me, yet I know I am very much a part of this space. I am an intruder, I know it, yet I feel at peace with myself. I feel at home within this play of light and shadow and infinity. I feel at home because like the queens, courtesans and maids even i am getting enveloped with this infinity. I am an intruder yet it has lovingly embraced me. Offering me all its mysteries and glimpses.
I look up at the sunlit sky. The biggest intruder of us all. It comes in everyday…first glimpses then peeps in then slowly weaves its way in sweeping though every nook and corner and perhaps feeling a little exasperated when it cant reach the end of the dark infinity. I know it hasn’t reached. I can see the cool dark infinity stretching forever beyond the reaches of the sun. smiling a mysterious bewitching smile. A smile that entices you to move towards it wanting to explore it and yet leaves you wondering what the mystery is all about.
That’s the game of infinity and the sun. they play it everyday. And today, I am a part of it. Watching them play through windows. Above me is the sunlit sky which is bright yet it again is infinite. And below me is solid stone stretching into nothing. Dark and infinite. And I am dangling in the paradox..
I am at the very bottom. And not surprisingly once again the bottom is not really the end. Now the solid infinity has flown away into a limitless pool of water. I cant see limits of its depth. Here infinity has the final laugh. I cant explore it anymore. I can just sit back and look at it and then look at it stretching from the endless bottom to the very top. And then I laugh along. Because way above beyond me is the sky… caged up behind bars… trying unsuccessfully to get in and failing in every attempt. In the end reduced to a mere spectator.
Infinity has won its game afterall.

Ignore me... and i shall pop right into your face.

Those are not my words...well not literally at least but rather what i hear life telling me every now n then. And it does pop up. At very unexpected moments at that!!

Not that i always ignore it. No. On the contrary I'm the one who believes in living it to the fullest. I know that sounds rather cliche'. But then thats how it is for me. Living each moment, sometimes taking them laid back or sometimes tipping them over the edge and sometimes just living. Yes, thats what i do in the end i guess...all in all...i am living. And what i choose to ignore about life in all my living 'life' are the gory faces and facts which me, a modern priviledged urban citizen has never had to face.

And then suddenly, it creeps up, in the form of a meeting, a chance encounter, a movie, a picture, a news.... anything. leaves me disturbed... partly maybe because i had to face it and partly because i could not do anything about it. just sit there and watch it.

Saw India Untouched the other day. Saw Perzania a few weeks ago. Saw Ammu a few years ago. All films... yet not fictional. And perhaps that's why all disturbed me. Because i saw something that i never gave much thought to. i knew it existed. Yet i chose to ignore it. Until the time i saw it relayed across the big screen. I chose to ignore it; perhaps because i never knew the depth to which they penetrated reality. In fact they were reality. Perhaps thats why i was disturbed.

I remember slapping a guy in my school bus when he was abusing India just because he had recently come back from a US trip. I was around 10 then. I punched another guy when i was 15 in the basket ball court. He claimed that girls cant play basket ball and tried to shove me off the court. Yes, I have claimed to be of quite a fiery temper since a long time... not hesitating to rubbish Gandhian stances and take matters in my hands. But then again... I wonder what ill do to the guy who tries to kill my neighbour just because she is a muslim. Or what ill do to the person who kicks and beats up the sweeper when he asks for a raise. Or will i rush out of the safe haven of my home when a family is being burnt alive just because they have a different faith? I wonder...

I really don't know the answer. I honestly don't. As i watch films like this they fire me up... just as they do anyone else. I curse and abuse and cringe at the same time at the acts committed by so called moral guardians of my Indian society. I get fired up... and i feel ashamed at the same time. Ashamed because i am seeing it all happen and cant really do anything about it...because of course it is happening on a screen. Also ashamed cause all this has happened in a place where i live in front of people very much like me and people who have let it happen without lifting so much as a finger. Ashamed, because i still am not sure if i were to take the place of the same people what will i do.

I want to... i want to stop all this in my own way. But will i be able to face up to my own self when such an extreme situation arrives? I try and ponder. I take myself to the place... trying to stop a person trying to bring an orange sword down on a head, rape a helpless woman and suddenly the person turns on me... i am a vulnerable target.. a person who can be made into a victim as well... i can be killed..or worse i can be raped... I can probably risk the former but my feet turn cold when i think of the latter and i close my eyes and i am back in the safe haven of my room... while what goes on outside goes on...

But then i shake myself. because i know the room is a safe haven but it wont save me from me. Will i survive myself when i question myself why i let such things happen around me. And then i realise that yes, perhaps ill go out.

perhaps... a big word...

I leave it at this.. cause my mind is too disturbed... i want some respite. But can there be a respite when a sleeping mind is shaken... and shaken so violently. I take to my pen n paper, or rather my keypad. I type for a while. Then i lay back and close my eyes and try to give my mind some rest. I think of home... the one place that takes away all the disturbances from my mind. And i think of Raji... the little 2 year old daughter of my maid who is my mothers pet. I imagine her sitting and gesturing playfully in my mothers lap while talking a mix of sense and nonsense in excited gibberish.

The problems may be big...and deep routed and violent... but then they can be overcome... by little gestures on our part.. a little bit of excited gibberish, sense or non sense... but full of love.

sleep???

So my comment on the visits being a sleep invoking experience might seem rather eyebrow raising to certain intellect upholders of the society.... but then can you really blame a sleep deprived overworked design student for whom meals are equivalent to a dash for a vada pav and chai between classes.... since when did it become necessary to appreciate art with bleary eyes and empty stomachs?
anyhow... leaving that argument aside i shall further elaborate on our trials and tribulations with the ecstasy called sleep. 'tan tana tan tan tan....' no... i havent lost my mind. Its the theme of DON that is my wake up call every morning arising rythmically and rather irritably ot of my room mates mobile phone. God! how i miss the good old alarm clock that went beep beep beep during my board exams back in school... but then again...even then i would pray everyday that it would meet some catastrophic end... which it never did. Anyhow... my room mates attempts at her wake up call from mr DON himself are all a feeble ateempt as they sowly fade away to snooze afetr snooze....

visit to the art gallery

art galleriy visits can be quite a thought provoking and even sleep invoking(for some??) experience!!