To stop time

My Life’s Sentences
Jhumpa Lahiri

"In college, I used to underline sentences that struck me, that made me look up from the page. They were not necessarily the same sentences the professors pointed out, which would turn up for further explication on an exam. I noted them for their clarity, their rhythm, their beauty and their enchantment. For surely it is a magical thing for a handful of words, artfully arranged, to stop time. To conjure a place, a person, a situation, in all its specificity and dimensions. To affect us and alter us, as profoundly as real people and things do."

(You still do. You type them down. You store them on this blog. Which is all that remains.)

Full article, here. 

A song-cousin, a counterpart, a reflected image

"...But I got none of these responses from the Ihalmut. The unadorned fact that I, a white man and a stranger, should voluntarily wish to step across the barriers of blood that lay between us, and ask the People to teach me their tongue, instead of expecting them to learn mine - this was the key to their hearts. When they saw that I was anxious to exert myself in trying to understand their way of life, their response was instant, enthusiastic, and almost overwhelming. Both Ootek and Ohoto, who was called in to assist in the task, abruptly ceased to treat me with the usual deference they extend to white strangers. They devoted themselves to the problem I had set them with the strength of fanatics.

To begin with, Ootek taught me the meaning of the word Ihalmut. When I had mastered its meaning by the aid of devious drawings executed in sand, Ootek stood Ohoto in one place, then placed me a few feet away to the south. Now he pointed to Ohoto, and repeated "Ihalmut" over and over again with a remarkable excess of emotion in his voice as he spoke. At last he came over, took me by the arm, and led me to the side of Ohoto. Both men now beamed at me with the anxious expressions of people who hope their acts have been understood, and fortunately I did not disappoint them. I understood. I was no longer a stranger; I was now a man of the Ihalmut, of the People who dwell under the slopes of the Little Hills.

It was an initiation so informal, so lacking in the dramatic gestures, that for a little while its deep significance was not clear to me. It was some time before I discovered that this simple ceremony of Ootek and Ohoto had not only made me an adopted man of the land, but had also given me a relationship with both men. I became their song-cousin, a difficult relationship to define, but one that is only extended on the most complete and comprehensive basis of friendship. If I wished, I might have shared all things that Ootek and Ohoto possessed, even to their wives, though this honor was not thrust upon me. As a song-cousin I was a counterpart of each man who had adopted me. I was his reflected image, yet cloaked in the full flesh of reality.

Of course, under the law, it was assumed that  I would reciprocate to the fullest, and had I been born an Ihalmio I would have given the reciprocity without any thought. Yet as a white man I unconsciously refused it to both Ohoto and Ootek times without number, but never did they feel the need to retaliate by withdrawing any of the privileges of the relationship they had so freely extended to me."

Page 120, 'People of the Deer', Farley Mowat

Again

"But even now, as I walk down the street with a reminder of my ex-fiance wrapped up in my purse, I am reminded that that’s what life’s like: A shark attack. Just when you think you’ve got away, it comes back to drag you back under again......"

Classic Mercedes Requires Garage. Short story, by David Milligan-Croft:

http://thereisnocavalry.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/classic-mercedes-requires-garage-short-story/

And then

And Nothing Is Ever As You Want It To Be

You lose your love for her and then
It is her who is lost,
And then it is both who are lost,
And nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be.

In a very ordinary world
A most extraordinary pain mingles with the small routines,
The loss seems huge and yet
Nothing can be pinned down or fully explained.

You are afraid.
If you found the perfect love
It would scald your hands,
Rip the skin from your nerves,
Cause havoc with a computered heart.

You lose your love for her and then it is her who is lost.
You tried not to hurt and yet
Everything you touched became a wound.
You tried to mend what cannot be mended,
You tried, neither foolish nor clumsy,
To rescue what cannot be rescued.

You failed,
And now she is elsewhere
And her night and your night
Are both utterly drained.

How easy it would be
If love could be brought home like a lost kitten
Or gathered in like strawberries,
How lovely it would be;
But nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be.

Brian Patten

The Trail of Genghis Khan

The most beautiful and mind-blowing travelogue I've ever seen. Tim Cope's solo journey across the steppes from Mongolia to Hungary, recreating the journey of Genghis Khan and his soldiers, with 3 horses and a dog for company, a journey that lasted three and a half years. Stunning landscapes, and encounters with the most amazing people, making all the unimaginable hardships more than worthwhile. Above all, a great history lesson, and a lesson in being human.

6 stunning videos of 26 mins each. I couldn't stop.

"From the former Mongol capital Karakorum to the Danube, young Australian adventurer Tim Cope retraced the path of the first nomads and followed the route taken by legendary Genghis Khan as he forged his great empire. Over three and a half gruelling years, and guided by an old Kazakh wisdom - "to understand the wolf, you must put on the skin of a wolf and look through its eyes" - Tim lived just as the ancient nomads did.

Tim travelled 10,000kms alone on horseback across the Eurasian steppe through Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Hungary..."

The Trail of Genghis Khan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsirF1WeE54&feature=share

I never saw light that way again

The Two Times I Loved You Most In A Car
Dorothea Grossman

It was your idea
to park and watch the elephants
swaying among the trees
like royalty
at that make-believe safari
near Laguna.
I didn’t know anything that big
could be so quiet.

And once, you stopped
on a dark desert road,
to show me the stars
climbing over each other
riotously
like insects;
like an orchestra
thrashing its way
through time itself.
I never saw light that way
again.

The comfort of strangers

"Henry had written a novel because there was a hole in him that needed filling, a question that needed answering, a patch of canvas that needed painting - that blend of anxiety, curiosity and joy that is the origin of art - and he had filled that hole, answered the question, splashed colour on the canvas, all done for himself, because he had to.

Then complete strangers told him that his book had filled a hole in them, had answered a question, had brought colour to their lives. The comfort of strangers, be it a smile, a pat on the shoulder or a word of praise, is truly a comfort."

'Beatrice and Virgil, a novel' by Yann Martel, Author of 'Life of Pi', Winner of the Man Booker Prize

Glass Door

"Though that’s not
what you’re thinking as you hurtle
through the night, jittery as the rabbit
you swerve to avoid, your head filled
with chattering fog, a glass door sliding shut
between you and the world, that feeling of being
outside yourself so loud you don’t seem real."

So you walked into a glass door again, much blood this time, and a scar. You of little faith, believing in a path where none exists.

And the glass door between you and the world, which you also sometimes miss. You have scars, for having tried to walk through it too, for having dared to reach out.

The Tundra Book

The Tundra Book: A Tale of Vukvukai, the Little Rock

Director: Aleksei Vakhrushev
Russia I 2011 I 105 minutes I Russian and Chukchi with English subtitles

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpQjoFWsoKY

The Tundra Book: A Tale of Vukvukai, the Little Rock presents a rare and stunning documentary about the lives of the Chukchi people who inhabit a remote Russian peninsula in the Arctic Circle, leaving them virtually isolated from modern life.

The story centers on Vukvukai and his community. Vukvukai, the Little Rock, is Chukchi from eastern Russia and lives along the Bering Sea region. He has lived his lifetime as a reindeer herder and thus is known in his community as a true man of the tundra whose life is inseparable from the reindeer. The Chukchi herd more than 14,000 reindeer. Vukvukai lives in one of the harshest climate zones in the world, the Arctic Circle.

His story and that of the Chukchi is one of a nonstop struggle for survival, but the people believe that following the practices of their ancient, nomadic, cultural traditions contributes to the perseverance of their survival in the unyielding, frozen tundra. The film presents a glimpse into a land, culture, and people that few have ever dared to capture, since it is so remote. For now, the nomadic Chukchi culture remains virtually intact away from the influx of modernity.

By the All Roads Film Project: http://events.nationalgeographic.com/events/all-roads/film/

 All Roads Seed Grant

This grant funds film projects by or about indigenous and underrepresented minority cultures from around the world and seeks to support filmmakers who bring their community stories to light through first-person storytelling.

*Photo from Google Images

Call and get a Sparrow House

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If you are in Bangalore, please call: 9686456287 / 9686192739 to find out where you can pick up your 'Sparrow House' from!"

http://gubbigoodu.in/sparrow_houses.html

An initiative of Zed Habitats (www.zed.in)
BCIL, Poonam Chambers, Opp Food World,
397, 13th Cross, Sadashivanagar Main Road, Bangalore
Tel: 080-4018 4018. Cell: 91-96864 56287.

*Sandhya, who works at http://www.zed.in, says they have changed the design into horizontal now.