The murder of Naina Sahni – shot dead by her husband and her body stuffed in a tandoor oven to be burnt to cinder at an upmarket restaurant in New Delhi coincided with my exhibition of Torii sculptures and paintings at the LTG gallery in June 1995.

The principal installation of a Torii gateway in this exhibition was made using wooden planks that were coated with a clay and straw mixture. The Torii structure was erected with supports of low brickwork walls arranged in the form of a courtyard of a traditional Indian home. The brick structure contained within its walls mini gateways made of two bricks placed upright with one horizontal brick placed across at the top, to create little entryways.

At the start of designing the installation, I had originally planned to place in the courtyard space a collection of moulded objects that acted as signifiers or markers of early human history.

This idea of attempting to depict the history of civilization suddenly gave way when I heard of a horrific “Breaking News” item of the Tandoor Murder case just as I was working on the installation.

After I heard the news, my work changed – the structure remained more or less the same as initially planned – but the contents that were to be placed in the courtyard were replaced by objects such as charred remains of coconut shells, other burnt articles, and a full head of a woman’s hair as if yanked in one stroke and flung at the foot of the Torii gateway.

The uploaded image shown below is a doctored one with two images of the same work almost mirroring each other. When the main Torii work was created in the gallery as an installation I had titled it “Boundaries of Experience.” Broadly speaking, the title still holds even after the intrusion – into my work in progress – of an unrelated subject that of a gruesome murder that took place at a walking distance from the gallery.

An important lesson I learnt from doing this show was that when an idea starts to take the shape as an art object a dynamic, external entity may completely hijack your carefully planned art work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Naina_Sahni

The original title of the work was “Boundaries of Experiences”

It is very easy to remain in the pragmatic world of apparent realities. Seeing is believing but if this were the ultimate truth, people would never have felt the need to escape the bondage of the so called empirical reality and plunge into a land of possibilities which does not comply with the parameters of tangible realism and yet has immense possibilities of excavating the depths of inner human psyche within which lies the unadulterated truth of their lives. What is the reason for the real world often becoming fake when it comes to projecting human conscience? It is because reality occludes people from presenting themselves as they are with their personal beliefs founded on unconventional notions that more often than not disregard the fundamental principles of propriety or righteous behaviour assigned to them. Girish Karnad’s plays Hayavadana and Naga-Mandala explore deep recesses of human conscience that often remained unexplored by practical human efforts.

In Hayavadana, Padmini’s secret desire is that she wants a man with a sound brain and a good physique instead of a weakly built Devadatta, her husband. In Naga-Mandala, Rani’s secret desire is that she desires a loving man in her life instead of the tyrant husband she has in reality. Both these heroines are essentially tabooed by the society from expressing their wants openly and they are intelligent enough to comprehend the fact that crossing the boundaries of morality for them both would typify them as adulteresses. It is therefore that another world altogether different from the real one is recreated by both these women in which their desires are met, rather subtly but conspicuously. Moreover, despite the fact that they manage to fulfil their wants, they aren’t stereotyped as illicit or wrong in their conduct. This is the speciality of their created worlds that are far removed from the realistic life.

Padmini’s world includes Kali, the goddess who wakes up suddenly from her sleep and grants her the incredible boon of a man with brain and brawn. This is actually impossible in reality. Nonetheless, when we read the play or watch it, we accept this improbability whole heartedly as we are somewhere aware that the deliberate use of surrealistic setting acts as an apt device to counter our expectations of a ‘good Indian woman’ who is known for her strong ethical values. When Kali makes an impossible phenomenon a reality with her trick Padmini does not have two men but has only one man with two distinct qualities of two men. This apparently magical reality is accepted readily by the us because we are indoctrinated so strongly to accept anomaly in imagination but not in our reality. It is therefore that educated readers and audiences of the play do not dismiss the story as absurd or unreal because there is no need for providing any official approval to the heroine for her conduct of desiring intelligent Devadattta and the able bodied Kapila as she has them both in one man because of a divine intervention. We are practically saved, I would say, from the onus of giving our opinions on the legitimacy of the choice. Similarly, when Rani makes love to a serpent disguised as her own husband in Naga-Mandala, we are absolutely free from being judgmental about her in any sense of the word. Rani is shown as an innocent village girl who hardly has the calibre to deduce the reality of the man who appears to her every night in the guise of her husband. It is so comfortable for the proponents of morality to convince themselves that Rani is to be acquitted from the blame of fornication. Thus, surreal acts as the device of escaping reality that is stringent and demands an absolute insistence on ethical conduct. While we know that Rani has a tyrant husband who does not love her and the serpent has brought a lot of love to her, we cannot apparently approve this extra-marital relationship of her. Nevertheless, it becomes a lot easier to bypass the illicit element in the relation of the two if we accept the imaginary folk tale of the serpent lover as true.

The point here is, not only does surreal drama acquits the protagonists from the blame of disloyalty; it relaxes the recipients from the cumbersome task of giving an honest verdict for the two. As soon as the readers/audiences are released from this requirement, there germinates a whole range of viewpoints in relation to both these characters that are far removed from the idea of stringent categorization of good or bad. This is what the playwright Girish Karnad intends to execute in both these plays. He seems to provide us the luxury of freely interpreting Padmini and Rani as victims of patriarchy or shrewd creators of their own desired reality. Ultimately, this dual interpretation dismantles conventional bigotry in a very intelligent way without dismissing the ethical notions value education we study in our lives. Karnad does not undermine ethics and morals; he dislodges the fetish for these that often we have in our lives. In addition to this, he gives those the emancipation to liberate themselves from these notions completely who feel that they do not require them at all and their life is a personal matter in all its entirety. Thus, both these characters expose our expectations for an orderly social living as well as our keen desire to break the set concepts of ‘morally correct’. There is a Padmini and a Rani in all our lives who don’t want to comply with the rules but our reluctance to accept them in public is also a matter of perception in these plays. If we secretly support extra marital alliance, why don’t we have the courage to voice our feelings out in the open? Why do we have to have double standards in our lives promulgating loyalty in marriage on the one hand and carrying on a tacit affair on the other? Our perspectives of modernity are also challenged in the plays through the use of the surreal. We want the surreal as a means to escape reality of our misbalanced living that is both conventional and anomalous at the same time. Only surreal can divulge these inner secrets and can be digested by the people today who superficially cling either to their culture or to unconventional ways of living. If Padmini and Rani were vocal enough to claim their likings, am sure people would have then(when these plays were published) and even today would have comfortably judged them as wrong. At the same time, it would have been done by the same people whose notions of ethics and propriety and very vague and far from being culturally sound. Unlike these people, those that cling to ethics strongly would have completely dismissed both these characters as inappropriate in their desires. Surreal prevents both these extremes and gives us thankfully some space to think and decide which school of thought would we like to belong to – the ethical or the modern and how.

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All of us are born with memories that we wish to forget and discard like faded photographs having hazy blurry images or the thrown pennings of blue inland letters and creamy pages fading with endearing attachments. We would rather regurgitate the past than carry it within us. Are we in the real sense of failing to remember or do we wish not to hear the words of the recitative past and not get the truthful recollection of the echoing sights? To be called only as a witness is easier than to bear and pour out the visions we wish not to see. The ability to see things as they are, are so difficult to break, that to escape into the light hearted day seems much easier and much more uncomplicated.

No one wants to resound pain, express trauma or grieve for a loss. The identity of the self to happily live only within the confines of the day, going from hour to hour and knocking down the doors of the minutes that dissolves then into seconds, is true serenity and peace. However, many times we need to challenge the tranquillity we have falsely created and listen to the polyphonous sounds of the dead and buried. The graves of the bygone as much as you bury, as much as you decide the deepest depth the coffin should lay, needs the embalming, only and only to cleanse your soul.

To gain the convincing reincarnation of this lost spirit, is only possible if we allow ourselves to cry, lament and mourn for the forgotten memories. Just by dismissing the bygone and not evoking the emotions of sorrow, by not shedding the salty reservoir, we are creating only adulterated personifications of what we term as today. Its reason is enough to moisten the sodden earth of the buried past, so that the watering down can reach the submerged coffins. One has to sometimes open to see the enclosed skeletons and beat one’s breast to lament for the faded photographs or tethered inland letters or torn creamy papers that are screaming to be heard.

So, hear the cries within, grieve for the past, sob along with the beats of your heart and let your tears become the pulse. It will only allow the recitative past to become beautiful, melodious verses of songs of your life you will want to hear again and again.

A home is without any doubt a safe space, an extant that has the infinite capacities to being ourselves; where our clothes need not be washed or ironed and made to be presentable all the time; our unkempt unshaven looks draws no contempt from the gazing mirrors; cutlery can be limited to eating straight out of the pizza box  with greasy tissues thrown carelessly all over the floor; and leisure is our pass time and idyllic conversations the only competing games. The debate arises then, if  we choose to keep this space out of bounds for others, however familial or close.  It is the truth that only when we get this free entitlement to closing these doors of our room, shutting  out those as being totally  non transgerressable, barring these latitudes out of anyone’s reach, do we get a veracious sense of belonging.  The arguments arise loud and the cacophony grows louder  only when we keep these augmented heavens exclusive  for our winged flights, leaving others alone and far behind in what they see as their black earth.

Adoring such realities, one, is discerned to be “ unconventional” or can I say “ odd” to the normal public eye.  However, if we all sieve through the thoughts running in our minds, we  come to this realization, that all of us wish for an exclusive home, that only belongs to us and only to us.  This hearth does not see the privilege only of the “single status” fancy holding few, but to all, men, women or children.  All, I see as wanting to  create an expanse of an unparalleled area that echoes our only headrooms.  We  then come to conclude that we are faithfully heard.  Our tete-a tete might be  limited to the capacity of recording random intramural thoughts, however, inner, however wordless, or however out of tune for others,  it forever plays as a  beautiful melody for our ears.

We, unfortunately, are created as social byproducts and often have to assume suggestive capacity giving roles, inundated with responsibility and risk.  The risk that we can carve out then, for our own employment seems much easier and much more responsible. If created exclusively  for us,  they are results of accurate victories as  being free of failure in the eyes of others. As the endeavours seeked  are for our own purview; and we are un-mockingly forgiving towards ourselves, we sense a literal liberty.  Thus  being unrestrained from scorn, and disdain, we seek everlasting joy in solitude, and  despite being born into a home,  I see the human mind seeking and wandering eternally in the search of this unerring habitat. If our birth homes can define and allow such unconfined liberties, uncontested un-contemptuous ways,  will only then, this never ending sojourns of seeking of ours to belong, cease and stop to identify the true borders of a hinterland.  Let’s become companions to the exodus of the few and return thus to our realistic homes.

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. Umberto Eco

 While we envision ourselves as heroes, we wish not to be called cowards.  We are living constantly in fantasies where we can rescue our own fears, our steps on our trepidations to us are totally daring.  While we wish, therefore, to be proudly displayed as shiny, victorious, golden, medals, however, they are nothing but self-created fallacies.  Are we really glories of validations or are we just self “constructed monomyths”?  We are only “heroes by mistake”.  While we have carefully constructed these high titled “notions” of being brave hearted warriors, these, unfortunately, are lying on the grounds of fiction; many times, they are only much “larger visions” of our invented individualistic personas. 

I do not wish here to destroy the embarking of the soul, in the tireless pursuit of life, or undermine human effort, but by creating ourselves as champions we are only becoming Don Quixote, wishing to somehow windmill away the troubled clouds soaring above us.  It sounds cynically true, but many times, we run behind the falsities of the moments but save our energy in doing mundane tasks and giving validity to the common.  I see the monotony having power, the vitality and momentum, that we fail to recognise, lies many times in the never ending, repetitive tasks of life.  This gives us only the much-needed vivacity to be a champion, a true victorious one.

Vibrancy comes not from creating something new and novel all the time, but in the unchanging ways we have adapted ourselves into.   The ordinary is the one that creates the true promise of the monomyth. We can find that much needed mentor in our everyday practices, who will help us thus discover the elixir of life and make us reach victory.  The observation of these humdrums will deliver the individual from the “cowardice of performing the ordinary” into the awakening of the hero. The paladin should be recognised in repetitive ticking; the recognition of the monomyth accordingly awakens the apostle, because of performing these monotonous instances.  

The honesty in recognising ourselves as cowards, to release the conventional within us to flow freely, creates an instant of true heroism to emerge.  This approach to “the innermost cave” as Christopher Vogler rightly determines, helps us to cross over to the thresholds of the uneventful one to being the victorious one.   While we all seek victory upon our daily returns and celebrate, much like the monomythical heroes that we have heard in the tales of our toothless and wrinkled grandmother; we are, therefore, trained not to give the due respect needed rightfully to the insignificant.  The honour we bestow on sometimes the dry, dull, and commonplace will turn the tables around and noteworthy ones will emerge. So, permit the unvarying and unvaried to herald the significant, entitle the dull to be bright, and… the prosaic will name the profound.                      

It all started with what in Mumbai’s parlance is known as ‘ Pateli’. Let me elaborate, Pateli‘ and it’s stronger aspect ,also known as ‘ Vatt Pateli’, loosely translates itself as arrogance or false bravado. You see I have been living in my idyllic farmhouse in Orchha, Madhya Pradesh, with my family since March 2020 lockdown, along with our cows, dogs, cat and even peacocks so how did I get the dreaded Covid?   I did Pateli.  To be honest I have tried to be disciplined most of my adult life ( ever since I gave up being a 4 packs of cigarettes a day smoker back then in 1989) and had turned into a unrecognisable creature who gave up smoking, meditated, did yoga, pranayam, ate clean food and basked in the adoration of  friends and family who  made me feel pretty invincible. In fact I hadn’t taken a single pill for the last 3 decades, and combated the rare fever with coconut water and fruits.

So I swung around with full pateli,with the belief that Corona or whatever the world was talking about with such fear, could never reach me. It helped that we don’t have a TV as ours is a microclimatic  zone, and so I kept myself occupied with reading novels, and occasionally watching ” goody goody” stuff on my cellphone.  Then I made 2 fatal errors.On the 10th of April, I sauntered with my friend, (a woman who was contesting as an Independent candidate for the Zila Panchayat election from a backward seat, )as we wove in and out of Bundeli villages, drinking water from the homes we visited, not realising that some water came from wells, others from bawois and some from God knows where. So we had ” ghat ghat ka paani‘, because in these parts refusing water is equivalent to hurting the host.   

Error No. 2. On the 12th, I accompanied my husband and our manager who got their vaccines but I bluntly refused. Vaccine? Oh no , not for me. Vatt Pateli.   That very evening I was invited as chief guest  for a function in Jhansi, where my friend, Dr Neeti Shastri was celebrating National Street Theatre Day and as I had been part of the street theatre movement in Delhi, back in the early days, I was happy to attend.  The only problem, (which of-course I realised in hindsight,) was that the anchor, a veteran journalist, who stood and sat next to me had a very bad cold and sneezed a lot which reminded me to keep my mask on firmly but when the photographers wanted to see my face, vanity kicked in ( I’m an actress) and I let my mask down in more ways than one, with chilling consequences., (Error No. 3).   

13th, 14th and 15th of April were busy days as I prepared to welcome Mother Durga who  it was said was coming this year on horseback and did not portend well for mankind. And I , in my fervour,  was determined to fast and pray and so I ignored the horrid body pain I felt for 3 days not for a moment imagining it could be the dreaded Corona. Then on the 4th day the pain vanished mysteriously and I had no memory of it as I gaily completed the Naudurga, fasting on fruits, coconut water and one  small meal of permissible items. I was continuing with my yoga, meditation, walks. No cough, no fever, no body pain.   Suddenly it got curious.

Error No. 4. On 23rd April, I committed another Pateli. I walked out in the noon heat for a small pooja we were perfoming at the farm for the creative Academy my husband is building and returned dizzy from the heat. ‘ Vinaash kaale vipreet buddhi‘ 2 hours later I was on my way to Jhansi, 15 kilometres away, helping my team source iron and cement blocks for the construction..After that every thing got black. I declared to all that I would self quarantine. I may have had a slight fever but since in the past I had never paid attention to it, coupled with the fact that we did not own a thermometer and did not see the reason to have one ( Pateli), I dropped into a pitch black hole of sleep, utter fatigue and an unquenchable thirst. A small cough started. Not dry or racking but just an irritating moist cough with phlegm. I did not listen to my husband who sent me a strip of paracetamol but cunningly tore one pill away and hid it under my pillow, in case he inspected the strip ( Pateli)   From 23rd to 30th, I kept myself strictly self quarantined. Food was sent to me outside my door but I was not particularly hungry. But thirsty, yes, and fatigued, by my standards. My yoga, walks, meditation continued but with difficulty. 

So for 21 days after possible infection I was sustaining without any medicine, only on fruits and coconut water.  Suddenly on 30th morning, I woke up with a panic attack and called my doctor in Mumbai who immediately prescribed some pills and asked me to take the RTPCR test. Now this test had been the bone of contention for a while. My younger son who is studying to be a scientist in New Zealand, along with his school classmate, My doctor,, who is in the frontline of Covid treatment in India, had been pleading with me to get a test done.  I had dismissed it as medical haranguing.I had first heard the term from my very concerned older sister, and ofcourse I was determined not to go to any hospitals for testing ( Pateli) But my Mumbai doctor was not going to listen to this insane patient in Orchha. A conversation happened between him and my husband and I was bundled off to to our small but clean hospital in the village where they stuffed some cotton up my nostrils and the dreaded RTPCR test seemed like child’s play.

I was seeing the outside world after 3 weeks, the weather was nice and I felt really well.   My husband’s younger brother and his wife were visiting and knowing my propensity to cure myself with fruits and water were not unduly alarmed as I now started to hang out with them, albeit always at a safe distance.   Then on 2nd late evening, the verdict came. Covid positive. We had been sitting out in the cabana, chatting, having tea, and suddenly within minutes my family disappeared like in stop block and reappeared covered from head to toe in whatever plastic they could lay their hands on. It was such a comical sight in an absurd situation where  within minutes the whole scenario changed. Of-course in hindsight it was not so funny!  Next day, 3rd of May came the epiphany, the real reason to write this personal chronicle. My husband, Raja Bundela, is well known in these parts as an activist leader, and without my knowledge an ambulance, an oxygen cylinder and a hospital bed in the most premiere hospital had been lined up. Lucky me!

Clearly my family was in panic. I was pretty well and when I reached the hospital in Jhansi, a doctor rushed to me and slipped something plastic in my index finger, where I met an oxymeter for the first time. Puzzled, he did his check again and murmured…” 98″Then he asked me” Can you walk or do you need a wheelchair”? I was astounded even a bit enraged ( me, the compulsive walker!!!) Much too sweetly I replied,” No, I can walk. Thank you so very much’. To make my point, I walked faster than usual as he led me inside a door which read ICCU. It closed behind us. The room was abuzz with doctors, nurses and wardboys. Next they moved me to a sheetless bed and said that it had been sanitized for me. To my left I had a glimpse of a brown wrinkled arm and several people were thumping him up and down. (He died minutes later) The air was rent with what seemed to me like demonic sounds of people moaning and groaning, all out of synch, ; the AC was not functioning at its best and it smelt of anasthesia . I was asked to lay down on “my ” bed as the doctor hurried out.

I had 2 options, I could look around or I could shut my eyes. I suddenly remembered a line I had read somewhere, that during World war 2, the only Jews who had escaped the concentration camps were people who kept their inner bodies clean. And then all of a sudden, the developmental biologist, Dr Bruce Lipton and his seminary work, ‘ Biology of Belief’ popped up in my mind. He claimed that our cells prosper in the Petri dish of our bodies only if they feel safe inside. So despite the shock of being unloaded in the ICCU without warning, I closed my eyes and within minutes, I was roaming inside my body which till date I can remember clearly. I was surrounded by million, trillion tiny sparkling lights, much tinier than the string of fairy lights we put out in Diwali and Christmas but they were golden  yellow and each point was disappearing into another point which went deeper into another point in an amazing non stop dance. It felt as if I was roaming inside a large warm golden honeycomb. I thought I lay there endlessly as the sounds around me dimmed.  I am told that about 15 minutes later, I was aroused by the doctor who arrived with a flurry of nurses. He handed me a sheaf of papers to sign mandatory before being admitted to the ICCU. Shocked, I almost charged out of the unit, desperately looking out for my family.  Some more conversations happened. I convinced them that I was well enough not to utilise the ICU and to give it to someone who was really critical.   So I was sent to the room where my CBC and urine were taken. The sight of the stoic south Indian nurses, in their pink frocks, made me weepy with gratitude. A chest x ray was taken and I was allowed to go home. 

Next day I was asked to return to the hospital in Jhansi where they took a CT scan. Latest medical knowledge says it has the power of 300 chest x rays but this one was from the University of Whatsapp so it is yet to be authenticated.    By evening the report came. All was well.  But with Covid there is always a risk of pneumonia and I had a slight chest infection. And with that the allopathic medicines were started on me.Technically  then, I got my first shot of medicines after 21 days of infection.     This was the worst cycle. My body completely unused to medicine lay drugged and fatigued. I used to get panic attacks at meal times because the very thought of food was nauseous. I was dizzy. I fell down twice and was in a very bad place. But I ploughed through because of the immense loving care from my extended family. For 10 whole days my insides were  bombed with antibiotics to deal with the dreaded Covid. My body shocked and confused, just collapsed into a heap .

During meditation,the part who I think is ” me” I would often pity that dead weight . That was the time I thought of writing my will when I realised the full idiocy of chasing career, fame, money when my body was deciding whether it wanted to be “killed”, by chemicals in order to “survive” the virus. The existential question came up: Can matter destroy matter?After my ICCU experience, I can say with utter serenity, that in my case, energy was the most potent tool to kill matter.   This is not to say that one should not take medicine if attacked by the virus, or not take the vaccine, because physicians and doctors too have a life purpose, which is to help cure us. But the best cure is not to identify with matter. In other words don’t get hooked into the disease, don’t give it the attention it is craving. In short, do what the doctor tells you to do, but at the psychical level, give Covid the BIG IGNORE! 

Instead,while distancing yourself from your body, treat it like a ” treacherous friend” who when the time comes, will walk off the earth in death, whether one is ready for it or not. So while  still on earth, keep giving it the antibodies it needs in the form of laughter, sunshine, positivity or whatever it is that makes you happy. Joy is energy. This will create the best immunity to recover. This has been my first hand experience.   In conclusion then, I had spent the first 3 weeks without any medicine and then 2 weeks with lots of them. A huge thank you to everyone who helped me crawl out of the black hole, back to sunlight, yoga  meditation, barefoot walks in my beloved farm, albeit with much more gratitude and. .ZERO PATELI!  

From a spiritual perspective, there may be good news. It appears that disease, is like the cream that collects, when milk is boiled. The more it is boiled, the more cream comes to the surface. This may be equated to our ‘ Prarabdh karma’, or alloted karma, which has to be worked out this lifetime. So the onset of a disease ( likened to the surfacing of cream), forces us to work out our karma when we are still conscious and able bodied. By this token, who knows, the Carona may have reduced our karmic load, both individually, as well as from the perspective of collective humanity.

Susmita Mukherjee finally got her first Jab yesterday the 7th August 2021. Cheers to that.

Like a lot of things these days, her interest in crustaceans coagulated into an actual project in the summer of 2020, right in the middle of Covid-19 Lockdown 2.0. She was holed up with her adventurous parents in one of the few tall buildings built right on a stretch of Pacific beaches, grandiosely called, Panama’s Gold Coast.

Her name is Aradhana and she is a prospective 7^th grader at the International School of Panama. Her most prevalent learned behavior during these initial months of Covid-19 has been “Science Curiosity”, be it in Physics, Chemistry, Biology or Zoology. We were pleasantly surprised when she was recognized as ISP’s “Most Independent Thinking Student in Grade 6”.

After waking up with a smile each morning since the end of school, it dawned on her that perhaps she needed to test her newly discovered interests. And that made her look at everything with more focus and greater curiosity than before. We noticed that she could actually muster up sufficient courage to touch live creatures, whom she had only seen in books and dream of creating a shelter or even a habitat, where she could study their behaviors.

That brought her face to face with Hermit Crabs, her first Pacific crustaceans that she felt the need to befriend and understand, if at all possible. She wanted to observe, to study, to get familiar with them, till she could understand what their most pressing behavior traits really were.

So, she caught four (4) Hermit Crabs on the beaches of Playa Corona and named them: Herra (white, round shelled with 10 hairy legs), Hermes (brown-black, spiral-shelled with spots of white with 10 less hairy legs), Hermosa (tan & coffee colored spiral shell with 10 hairless legs, longer antenna and big red eyes) and finally Hercules, the smallest of the four, who looked like Hermes.

This quartet was introduced to their first home in a cardboard box with vertical cut-outs for windows, complete with lots of beach sand, separate bowls of fresh water and sea water and a potpourri of chopped lettuce and tomatoes. In addition, she created several human-made “hides” in the habitat, into which the Hermit crabs could disappear, if they wanted privacy.After an hour of investigation of all ‘ground floor’ facilities, all four Hermit crabs started showing-off their amazing vertical surface climbing proficiencies. Aradhana noticed that each had two (2) frontal “pinchers” which they used for eating, gripping when climbing, and protecting themselves from predators. These was followed by four (4) walking legs- two (2) on each side, and finally four (4) additional longer thinner legs that stayed mostly inside their shells and were only used when digging holes into the sand.

She got a first-hand demonstration of how effectively they could pinch to get away from predators, when Baby Hercules actually broke off a piece of her left hand thumbnail in less than a second!

Within an hour, this busy foursome, after feasting on the chopped tomato and lettuce repast, geared up for a visceral reaction to their captivity. They seemed to have decided they would break out and escape at any cost.

The next four hours saw five (5) increasingly intelligent and desperate attempts to get out of their makeshift prison. First, was a simultaneous attempt to climb up four different vertical walls, then edge onto the roofing (just cardboard flaps bent over) and slide down the other side of the outer walls. However, they were spotted by their pretty little jailor and returned to incarceration. The ill-designed roof was then “secured” by her with a remnant tile but she cut two (2) small windows on opposite walls to let the air in.

Several hours later, three (3) members of the group had burrowed sloping holes in the wet beach sand at different locations and were about to penetrate the soggy cardboard walls located there, when they were intercepted.

After these break-out attempts, I noticed Aradhana had become quite thoughtful about the whole matter of holding Hermit Crabs in captivity. Despite what Google had said about them being really friendly pets, she felt that her four (4) captives were really “born to be free” and to roam their own stretches of Pacific beaches, whenever they wanted. But she decided to “sleep on it” and leave her decision-making till the next morning.

Early next morning, I was awoken by her loud sobs. Broken-hearted, she informed me that “the whole lot” had climbed the walls and escaped through the smaller windows. Their habitat had been parked in a corner of the enclosed balcony, some distance from the tempered glass wall facing the ocean. Now, she couldn’t locate any of the Gang of Four on the balcony. So, over a mug of Darjeeling tea, I discussed options with her, before she wandered off. Suddenly, I noticed two (2) horizontal opening – each the size of a brick laying on its wide side, in the structure holding up the glass wall. They were drain openings to allow rain water to pour away from the balcony. 

I grabbed my flipflops and face mask and took one of the elevators to the downstairs Social Area overlooking the cascading swimming pools. As I looked for clues I noticed the same two rectangular drain holes under a similar structure holding up a similar glass wall. Gingerly, I made my way there and looked down to the first pool area with a row of long lounge chairs. My eyes soon picked up pieces of Hermit crab shells and some intact insides.

I realized that these Pacific crustaceans had a DNA with a built-in propensity to escape from bondage at any cost. They did not realize that when they launched themselves from their 14^th floor Freedom Gate, they were still several meters away from the beach and the waves they were born into.

Author: Samar Choudhuri

Freelance writer based in the Republic of Panama

Date: June 29, 2020

Have you ever felt like you’re walking back into the same pattern. 

Falling back into your ex- lover’s arms, the magical appearance of the slender bodied cigarette tangled up perfectly between your fingers after you’d promised yourself the 23^rd  ‘last time’ or driving without a destination in mind but gradually finding yourself at the corner of that house or person you left years ago.

Or just for a second, answer this-Have you ever broken up with someone thinking that it’s for your own good? And specifically in all unlikelihood, not just stepping away from a toxic, gruelling, narcissistic relationship but a truly genuine one. The comfortable one. Maybe the “too comfortable” one.

You find yourself in a coffee shop. 

Wearing your favourite yet only saved for special occasions shirt, the top button unbuttoned. A dash of pink across the cheeks and a tinge of nude on your lips, ordering his exclusive coffee.

Black, no cream, three cubes.

You want him to be happy. 

At the sight of you, he truly is, happy. His hands have blots and patches of acrylic, the side of his hands are painted maroon. The colour of my top. 

As you sit across him, delving deep into his fancy brown eyes. You keep wondering. 

Are you happy for him? Or are you happy with him? 

You tell him you can’t do this anymore. You want out .

He’s taken aback at the abruptness of it, but seemingly calm about the words spoken.

The words that poured like sullen wine from your lips.

 Distasteful and needy. 

The decision that took months of reflecting, internalizing. You can’t pin point a problem, if there was, he would solve it. But you decide to act on this decision. Maybe some things just don’t fit.

Only after the failed futile attempts you realise, there’s never really a good time to part ways. 

No perfect day, no perfect occasion. Well, no perfect temperament. 

Not for you, neither for him. 

Yet, you are sitting at an arm’s length. Probably breathing the eye-gouging regret already.

You tell him.

Blatant. Honest. Guilty. 

And then, as the course of time plays, you come to realise that that uncomfortable space, you inflicted on yourself needs to be filled with friends or alcohol or painting classes or gym or girlfriends night out or self help books or romantic movies or just plain loveless sex. 

Eventually you succumb to the superficiality of  it.

And so, you crave for that comfortable safe space. The eager familiarity. The known face in the crowd. The one who could protect you when you were lost.

Which brings us to the next part.

When the other person fulfils your need, is it safe to call it love?

What happens when the needs are met?

What happens when the needs are not met?

Is it still safe to call it love?

Wait. So are we just using each other? For happiness, money, safety, freedom, security, sex, comfort, loneliness, satisfaction, hunger, redemption?

What if we started loving keeping ourselves out of the equation. What if we just loved with complete detachment.

True love is when their closeness is liberating and not suffocating, when their leaving is tormenting and not relieving.

The patterns evoke, of how you treat them, what you feel and most importantly, how you treat yourself.

The continuous falling back into the comfort, the familiar sensation, the treaded path we walked for weeks together. We feel the urgency to crawl back into that. Our memory cells aching to sprint through those lanes, actions and people. Again.

The uncertainty is unsettling.

For people who repeatedly, nonchalantly say “Love yourself!”

Let me tell you, for those who are listening.

It’s the hardest thing to do.

Worse than the weekly-Sudoku and Mumbai’s traffic post rains. It beats the tragic hangover or even ramming your new car into a tree.

Loving yourself is the hardest thing to do.

Have you ever found yourself sitting in the car as the rain comes crashing on the glass shield. The sound of it, a melancholic tease, the rhythm in the familiarity of life falling apart.

We empathize with pain.

We empathize with our pain and are envious of our happiness. Almost as if it’s a time bound gig of your favourite artist.

But pain. So easy to hold on and so bloody hard to let go.

Trying to like yourself is like telling yourself it’s okay to screw up. It’s okay to feel lonely and sad.

It’s okay if you don’t fit into that dress.

It’s okay for you to walk away.

It’s okay to let go when they expect you to hold on.

It’s okay if you feel differently at the different time due to a different reason for a different person.

IT IS OKAY!

Trying to like yourself is like breaking that pattern.

You detach little by little. You get uncomfortable little by little. 

You break yourself apart..slowly.

Giving up cigarettes is like telling that psychosomatic slavery “ENOUGH!”

Revelling in the comfort of ‘too comfortable’, knowing it is stagnating your growth. Break apart.

Tell your toxic ex-lover that you wish him well. That you deserve better!

Buy that goddamn dress!

CPR yourself..

A friend once said, soulmates exist. There’s Yin And Yang in each one of us. The masculine and the feminine energy. And they, are each others soulmates. We are not incomplete. Our partners are not our ‘Better halves’. He/She cannot complete you.

Only you have that consent.

It’s you. Whole. Complete. Fulfilled.

So why the desperate search for completeness and fulfilment from the ones we meet.

Or falling back to the apparent safe haven that is need based, desperate. Animalistic.

The taste of freedom when love is glorious, away from your attached heart.

The demands, the expectations.

The role-play of right’s and wrong’s. Good and bad. Would’ves and Shoud’ves.

It wouldn’t matter.

The pattern will break. We can break it.

Deconstruct. Dissolve.

Only thing vicious in this scenario would be your sole, selfish bliss.

Aren’t we all just craving to be happy?  

Honey,

Be your own Superhero.

When we hear the word stake holders, it reminds us of a company, with a marketing head looking into profits for the company.  Do we see a theatre company to be functional as a profit making company, most unfortunately no!  In India, with a strong tradition of socialism and the IPTA and the ideas of being the catalyst for change and activism we often fail to see a theatre company to have an economic model behind it.  With increasing globalisation and now India adapting itself into a more and more global economy, theatre should also not fail to look at the most important aspect of being an economically strong and viable model.  This hence will create more and more stake holders in artistic practices.

 

In India, the practices are dependent highly on grant giving bodies and neglect to get into even selling tickets for their shows.  The management practices are highly lacking and often times publicity is given the last minute emphasis and impetus.  Often one sees that it is the management students, despite their little formal training students doing a much better job at marketing and public relations.  What we really lack today is an equally  strong focus on theatre management.  Theatre in India should go much beyond waiting for the god in form to a government grant to arrive or to wait for a private benefactor to knock the doorsteps of the company.

 

The stake holders of a theatre company is thus not the role of only the producer and the director but the entire team.  Unless and until the theatre company does not make profits it will impossible to give any monetary renumeration to the actors.  The actors hence will be forced to look for work beyond theatre and get more and more into films ( if lucky) or be forced to act in sometimes absurd television serials in which they might go largely unnoticed.

 

We lack a strong focus and determination to get beyond the mechanics of staging a play and not looking at marketing in specific and general terms.  This input will also be able to not keep a record of all the old audiences but also create new ones and go to places that were unexplored before.  Theatre management will also make sure that designing of the publicity, posters, brochures and handouts are created in most effective manner.  One can perhaps see the role of the theatre manager as the most important person as he is the chief operative officer of the theatre company.  His role is that of an COO like any other important company.  Its time now to hence consider this role as a pivotal one and make sure that each theatre company has the focus and determination to start raking profits.  The time is now to act!

 

“Folk”, the ordinary, the mundane, the one without any purpose, that’s the first thing that comes to ones mind when we think of the word.  Is that true, can we negate the voice of the common man, the arts belonging to the masses as just meaningless, not to be cared for?  The recognition for folk arts, theatre, music, oral ballads, tales, stories now is a recognized study on its own.  It is being now seen as strong discipline to be studied and understood.  To categorize and delineate any dramatic performance as being folk, traditional or modern would be simply dispensing them off that can endanger our readings and interpretations for it. Our tradition has to be also be seen in through the eyes of the masses, the simple potter, the folk stories and the music of our villages, or cooking recipes and our theatrical shows all need to be studied in much more depth. While talking about theatre, all dramatic performances display set codes and conventions such as costumes, makeup, text, and use of diction prose or poetry and evolved choreography, movement or premeditated action.  It can be said as one having a “traditional process” as pointed out Brynjulf Alver.

By definition it is the process of tradition which creates, alters and renews, chooses and works in new topics in an endless chain, by the interaction between the individual bearer and the community. (Alver, 47)

Folk drama is said to often belong to the common and non-literate people.  It is time to go beyond the ‘folk’ or the common and rethink about this dramatic form as an ongoing concern of contemporary life.   As in the words of Steve Tillis,

…folk drama might be present throughout a culture, employing of any social rank who use texts that might either be freshly composed or have a basis in literature, and whose performances are an ongoing concern of contemporary life. (35)

Indian theatrical tradition goes back to antiquity and is deeply rooted within local culture and consciousness. Therefore, it has its own uniqueness and structure that is truly eastern in its orientation.  The theatrical traditions of India are divided into Loka dharmi (the popular), the folk, which includes Nautanki of Punjab and Swang of Himachal Pradesh and the Natyadharmi(the traditional), the classical, based on ancient texts on drama, like the Bharatanatyam. Several characteristics delineate the classical and the folk.  The classical performances of India are based on a set of codified laws, such as those of the Natyashastra, but at the same time are “open” to interpretation.  The Natyashastra (800 A.D.) is an ancient Indian treatise on drama, written in Sanskrit that is the foundation for not just the classical dances but also most of the theatrical dance forms prevalent in the country such as Kuttiyatam of Kerala, Ankiya Nat, Ramlila and Raslila of Uttar Pradesh and Terukootu, of Tamil Nadu and Chhau of Eastern India.

 

This demarcation unfortunately has given the classical arts an “ high and elitist definition.  It’s time to rethink and reconsider what is “high” and “low” after all?  Its time for a change in thinking, for reconsideration and perhaps a redefinition to all arts in general.  The future students and communities of practitioners now need to speak in favor of all arts, it’s time to think act now and implement the much needed change now!