The Workspace @ Kamshet

I would like to begin by thanking people who share beautiful photos of green mountains. Law of Attraction saw to it that I reach there within a month of noticing some nice pictures on facebook.

It is called The Workspace, in a village called Uksan, at Kamshet a hill station in district Pune, Maharashtra… This dedicated space for theatre rehearsals and workshops is dream of every theatre practitioner… They refuse point-blank at even the suggestion of giving the place for shoots.

Pic. by Gaurav Kunwar Singh

Anyway, a place and hard work such as this is worth applauding. I got the pleasure of being there by registering for this two day workshop by Tram Arts’ Trainers. Seven of us participants, had the good fortune to travel together and discover that it takes 4 hrs to reach, not 2 as advertised everywhere on the internet.

Clicked by Prasad Dhend

You have to see the focus of the founders… Seen here, are the children of the school nearby who performed for us what they learned at the workshop organized especially for them under expert guidance.

Afterwards, we had lunch, some people swam also and then began our workshop. We walked outside to collect materials that caught our eye with their distinct colours. In the next session, it was about texture and pattern and observing with our paper lens. It was fascinating! 

The third session was mainly about collecting rocks; and keeping an eye out for any touching image…

Then finally the installation- A group activity, categorizing the different materials and setting them according to their sizes and ages…

The next day, brought more of theatrical exercises- speed walking, playing/imagining/creating narratives out of our favourite rocks and responding when new pieces of rocks were added to the first piece and then again when another participant and their pieces were grouped together.

Picture Courtesy: Manisha Korde

Lastly, it was a partner exercise of ‘play with sand’. After a while of reacting, responding and getting involved we were asked to remember five acts that interested us and string them together for a performance for everyone else to see. Later, we were asked to objectively describe only the striking images created by all other performers.

When describing about the immediate feelings or observations during each of the above sessions, the findings were very personal. A training of observing our own response to surroundings- it was more like meditation than anything else. Kudos to the team! We need to remind ourselves to seek out the child in us by reconnecting with nature and playing.

Words, Hindi Songs and Family

When our older niece Manya says, 'she does not want to wake up now', Vivek sings to the younger one also still in bed, “Aye pagli tu kyun ro rahi hai” (Altaf Raja’s) and the little one laughs silently with her face covered by her long hair that she’s growing- 8 yr old Diva… This was after I had called out to Manya by the name Vivek had given her at birth, ‘Strawberry’ and he corrected me, “Strawberry gaay ka naam hota hai”…

One morning, Vivek sang the second line also, “ke daag chhoRna hai mere muqaddar mein”… I pointed out that there has to be some other word, let’s listen to that song; this does not make any sense… My brother explained, ‘May be, it’s like the Bill Clinton thing’…

Another day he admitted, it must be “Ke gaanv chhoRna hai mere muqaddar mein”… Yes, it makes absolute sense. He also pointed out that when his friend (they were quite young at the time) Gaurav Tondon used to

listen to “tum toh Thehre pardesi, saath kya nibhaaoge”, Vivek used to find it very strange. Gaurav, perhaps, this will bring back memories… I don’t know… I hope my beautiful bhabhi teases you tooJ

Of course, Diva and my favourite song is “Let’s Nacho” from Kapoor & Sons.

At one point, to pressure her into resuming Sudoku for her holiday homework, Vivek used all the difficult Urdu words at Diva (we had learnt those while studying "Oedipus" back in Lucknow), like “tumko behboodi

ho rahi hai” and “belaus”. 


When Barkha, our elder sister asked what they meant after we had burst out laughing, bhai, (I suspect, must have forgotten the meanings) instead of explaining, with a sombre expression, turns to the other side, as if to rest and says, “Itni urdu sabko aati hai, didi”.

When we were dropping them off at the airport, since, Manya had announced she does not wish to hear about studies anymore...


 Vivek asked Diva to promise (to repeat after him, like ‘shapath-grahan’) that she would allow her sister to study without disturbance for the next three years. Diva did not promise any such thing.

Now, when I miss Barkha, Manya and Diva, can you blame me? I’m making sling bags for Diva and myself, just saying… will share photos… 
What started as a way to document the kids' sayings turned out to be that of my baby brother's, which has been long pending, a dream to share our good fortune:) 

Holi & Easter in Germany! Back in Time...

It was quite a surprise when one of my room-mates, Nils asked if there was a traditional Indian Festival that we could celebrate… I answered that there is Holi during this time. Then I asked my mother over the phone and she replied, “Yes, it is close by, on the 22^nd of March!’ That was in the year 2000. Since my hosts (for internship), the AIESECERs in Darmstadt, Germany were scheduled to meet at the University on the 20^th, we decided to celebrate in advance… Carnival colours were used to colour each other’s faces and as a treat I had carried black-eyed beans and ‘chaawal ki kheer’ which they knew as ‘Milch Reis’!

Soon, they were all about to go for the weekend to their parents’ house, and as was the tradition, they decided to give a taste of the festival to the interns also. So, ‘chinophile’ Mike took me to his parents’ house in Donnstadt for Easter. Yes, he was totally in love with all things Chinese then and is also married to a lovely Chinese woman now! Actually, it is not just about Mike’s ‘punar-janam’/ past-life, his parents used to live in Taiwan when he was young, so that sort of, explains the bond. I find it a bit scary because I lost friendship of a Chinese woman but I am sure, discipline and wisdom come easily to Germans, and he operates out of love, so, they must be very happy. I cannot see myself married to a Chinese person ever, unless it is Meiyang Chang, of course…

Anyway, it was great being there and also visiting Shwetzingen Park with Mike and Rupa.  Spring was awesome.

This peacock danced for five minutes straight, for a couple in love… They were showing affection to each other and even Rupa (a staunch traditional girl who used to describe PDA as 'infection') smiled at them. I was going crazy clicking photos as I had seen so much greenery after ages! Well, it had been four months since I had been away from Tropical Calcutta… And naturally, both my friends got irritated… But it was so beautiful!

This was also a pretty state of the weather when I had reached at the end of November 1999. Later, just when the Spring began, these trees had purple blossoms for a few weeks! We can see Mike here, with a broom he had borrowed from my room-mates. The apartment was close by, as I walked up with Nils from Jahnstrasse tram stop that day admiring the snow and Nils suggested we must take a picture of Mike with the broom. My room-mates used the broom to clean up the cellar for the Christmas party. I had made ‘pakoRas'... which thankfully came out well and people loved, especially Frank. BTW, I wanted to put better pictures and make some changes when all the text on Frank's blog vanished. I shall share that again with better pictures. For photos on this blog, I must give credit to my brother who took great 'pics' of 'pics'. Thank you :) 

Yoga on the Beach

I had no idea I would be so close to nature when I booked my tickets to Goa for the 21 day meditation (based on Osho’s Mystic Rose) camp. This was my second time. The last one was a year before last and had helped a lot.

Apart from the amazing experience of meditating to the sounds of real sea a few feet away and camping at the secluded Sweet water lake at Arambol we got the added benefit of practising yoga at 5 am every morning. The waking up was quite a process in itself. At first they would strike the cymbals, then start laughing aloud and sometimes they would play music.

(These photos are precious as my phone was later confiscated by Swami ji... The signal used to be very weak and I lost my cool one day, breaking the code of 'noble silence'... whatsapp is still not working)

So, here I was, trying to keep up with the rest during ‘Maha Mrityunjay Kriya’ and happy in the fact that I had got another gift from the supervisor Nora, the training of ‘Jal-Neti’, as a result of which, my nostrils had cleared and I could breathe freely, when a dog lying beside my mat passed wind, with his arse pointed towards me. I became fully awake and then he decided to leave, so did the stench.

Now, initially, as a child I used to be afraid of dogs. I tried getting over it by imagining myself banging the attackers’ heads together. But after having met Bozo a golden retriever that belonged to a friend, I became almost friendly with most of them. To the extent that today they may come close to me but accept that I give nothing in return other than respect, and we both part ways calmly.

Apart from being physically close to the person who felt the most pain in the first week of laughter and the beginning of second week of crying, the dogs chased each other and chased the monkeys up the mountain. A few people at the camp were naturally very fond of them. One of them was Dario. One morning, Dario sat beside me as I started to keep my head on Nelya’s belly to take support from her beautiful laughter. The dog came and put his legs upon my belly and began to lift a leg up, I quickly stood up thinking, ‘Oh my God, she hates me and wants to piss on me!’ But she really just wanted to climb up Dario’s back and play with him… 

Thankfully, I got a few ideas for the script that I am working on… learned of how the mind wants what it cannot have and that yoga can be fun too… Also, I am no more addicted to tea!

Laughter Meditation continues on the way to the Natural Food Festival, while other passengers shyly smile for few seconds...

I am grateful to all present at the camp. Those who were friendly with me were the loveliest people and those who were distant helped me in different ways in getting to know myself better. I would recommend such an adventure to everyone where pure drinking water is brought from the mountain crevices in the forest… The concept of ‘work play meditation’ was fully utilized to bring order into chaos, both outside and inside…

Songs and Memories-1- German Christmas & Rains

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrTnxXI1AUg  You can listen to Taal se taal mila via this link...

Remember this song from Taal? I find it beautiful, the audio as well… Not just because of the amazing A.R. Rahman but also because this was one of the happy songs I would listen to, away from home in ‘students’  city Darmstadt, back in my German Internship days…

Since I had always idolized my father and wanted to be like him, I had taken along his favourite Talat Mehmood’s ‘dukhi’ tapes; which I somehow, later, understood were not good for me and confessed to an Indian elder-brother-like Indian friend the office people introduced me to. I called him ‘Basav bhai’. 

Mr B. Patil and his wife Kiran were very kind to me. Basav Bhai asked me to not listen to those tapes. Simple enough… But I needed something and hung on to them and confessed again to another Indian friend I acquired at the Christmas fest Aiesecers took me to in, Mainz, a city nearby. This was

Devraj! The ever helpful and smiling brother to Devrupa, who in turn, was to become my confidante later… Devraj promptly invited me over to their place in beautiful Heidelberg for the weekend. The brother and sister are IT people and Bengalis with Hyderabadi accent! Devraj took us around the castle city and also sent me off with the Taal cassette tape! This music brought a new lease of life into my evening meal cooking time or simply after office hours!

Nils, my bubbly flat-mate had made fun of Aishwarya’s picture on the cassette-cover, “Indian girls make naked pictures? Are they not traditional?” I explained, “No, no, she is wearing skin coloured leotard!”

Nicole, my other flat-mate remarked on some instrumentation of one of the songs, probably ‘kanhin aag lage lag jaaye’… “This sounds like some European music I have heard before…” I had to say, “It is quite possible… Our film music has a lot of western influence…” But they all liked the whole album overall and I was in any case, very proud of our national treasure, A.R.Rehman. I probably left it for them before coming back, just like the red chilli powder requested by Frank my third flat-mate, along with other spices…

Coming back to the song above, ‘taal se taal mila’, while for us Indians the rain is a wonderful phenomenon not just because we are an agricultural nation but also because it is a welcome change in the warm climate; whereas, for the westerners it is more of a hassle. So, when dancing and singing in the movies seem already funny to them, dancing in the rain must seem ridiculous! In their kind of cold weather, it is quite understandable. So, when during my Christmas invite at flat-mate and fellow AIESECer (Students Exchange organization), Frank’s parents’ place, after numerous questions whether to carry umbrellas by his younger sister Anne, Frank refused confidently, it was only natural that she gave it back to him when it rained heavily during our walk!

And I took a photo!:D 

Hope you enjoyed this:)

Smoked Baingan ka bharta, Mommy-style

Clicked by my brother at Botanical Gardens, Lucknow, circa 2004.

We miss the way people make us feel and she made me feel really special. Sharing today, my mother’s Baingan-ka-bharta recipe… My brother and I were planning to shoot the video but I was so tempted to cook and eat ASAP, and Bhai had a meeting to attend, so, we shall have to make do with my phone-photos. Here’s our favorite smoked bharta recipe... Hope you enjoy it too...

Smoked Baingan-ka-bharta:

Preparation & Cooking time: Total 20 mins.

Serves 3 people (We are voracious eaters of this dish)… We couple it with roTi/chapaati. Ideally we should have daal also, but we do not like anything to interfere with this favourite indulgence, not even coriander! The videos on youtube were also off today!

Ingredients:

2 large Brinjals

5 medium onions/ equal to more than the mass of brinjals

6 Green chillies (hot variety)

Half tea-spoon red chilli powder

Salt 2 teaspoons or to taste

A pinch of turmeric

Coriander leaves for garnishing

2 Table spoons Ghee or oil

Method:

1.       Slit brinjal on four sides to eliminate the possibility of worms, leaving the crown/top on.

2.       Roast the brinjals on open and low flame, carefully cooking it all over. The brinjal needs to leave skin and also become soft inside.

3.       In the meantime, you can chop onions while turning the brinjals around on flame (after every few seconds as the peel comes off), holding the crown.

4.       Keep roasted brinjals on a flat plate.  Now, press the water out of the brinjals by keeping some heavy vessel on them for 5 minutes.

5.       Chop green chilli. (You can also make roTis now if you want the bharta to be smoking hot, like I did).

Roasted, peeled, mashed brinjal

6.        Now, carefully allow to drop all the water from brinjals and take the burnt peels off them.

7.       In a round vessel, mash the brinjals with a fork. The top/crown can be very enjoyable so ensure the part close to it is also cooked well.

phulka/roTi

8.       Warm up ghee or oil in a wok.

9.       Saute onions for 2 seconds only. (We like the ‘khach-khach’ sound and taste of them in bharta!)

1.    Add red chilli, turmeric, mashed brinjal and green chilli and salt.

1.   Mix well, switch the stove off to keep the onions as firm as possible, garnish with chopped coriander and serve with roTi.

P.S. You could add tomatoes and ginger right after onions if you like but the smoked flavour would diminish...

My mother used to also make bharta with boiled brinjals… Then she would definitely add tomatoes, chopped green garlic leaves and also boiled peas.

Found Sharda, ‘isi khushi mein’- Polly Part II

Sharda and family

Sharda has two kids now, one boy and a girl. She smiles gracefully in photos now, with her husband and kids in fb pictures. Earlier she would giggle uncontrollably. We must meet soon.

So, anyway, we were in Class VI at the railway police station, explaining our end of the story when ‘Nazaaqat’ made that comment about ‘this hullaballoo just another way of making income’, when the officers got really angry and fined us. We requested them to reduce the fine, but they would not listen as they had to teach us a lesson. I do not know if ‘Nazaaqat’ learned. So, we reached Hind Motors late and also returned home late. But in between we had tons of lovely Bengali food and laughter. Polly and her family were unbelievably good hosts.

Sharda, Polly and Shadma in the middle, as they've discovered what my didi Barkha had done in Antakshari

Naughty Sharda was pretty hard working, unless she could avoid it… She generally brought aloo phulka in tiffin after cooking the same herself! She looked after her younger siblings and diligently helped out at home.

But in school, we got the best of her witty comments and giggles and also physical fights in good spirit. You ask her and she will tell you all about the comments made by one ‘bhaen’ (van- cart rickshaw) guy to our ‘bhaen’ (van- cart rickshaw) guy in Ballygunge, a village where Shadma had taken us for a picnic.

We were going from Shadma’s property in the village to the really large and ancient well near a dargaah. The mode of travel was a cart fitted with cycle, commonly pronounced as ‘bhaen’. Apparently, Polly and I were bringing the ‘bhaen’ down at the back and the driver could not cycle at optimum speed, according to Sharda who interpreted as well as related the passing van-driver’s comment, “peechhe mein weight jaada ho gaya hai”… We do not know what had really passed. But there were Nauras, Shadma, Sharda, Polly and Nazaaqat at least, if not Sushma also on the van…

Sharda and I, clicked by her niece Jil

Sharda suggested we make Polly jealous so she visits soon

I finally reached Mulund East yesterday to meet with Sharda at her home (It takes 2 hrs 30 mins from Malad West, where I live!). She came downstairs to greet me! Sweet, soft-spoken and ever so graceful, she fed me with delicious home-cooked food after apologizing umpteen number of times that she had not made anything special as I had made her cook special Gujarati delicacies twice already without turning up. I didn’t even bother to put her at ease, hungrily lapping up tasty alu-bhaji, daal, gazab roti, Tikiya on chutney toast, more chutney, ‘chhaas’, ‘mithai’ and unbelievable ‘Srikhand’. Some of it was prepared by her girls, (She wishes her son would learn cooking too) her own daughter and her ‘devrani’/sister-in-law’s daughter. Sharda introduced me to the latter and their ‘bua-saas’/aunt-in-law also.

Sharda's niece and nephew Jil & Deep.

Sharda still looks after her younger sisters who are married in Mumbai, what with her mother and younger brother gone in an accident. She sent me off with a beautiful necklace and some home-ground white dhokla-powder. An ideal human being, beautifully living in the joint-family set-up in separate floors of a building, where the children celebrate togetherness, busy to the T, I am so looking forward to our next meeting.