s..l..o..w

Time Poverty

2011-11-15T11:54:00.001+05:30

Balancing Time and Money used to be the recurring theme in my Mumbai years. Earning Money took up too much Time. I wanted to read and travel and feel free. Now I have tilted the equation: I am time rich and money poor and happier no doubt. Life is vertically deeper and denser. Time flows gently... I was reminded of my time constraints when i saw this video today..

http://youtu.be/jgvx9OfZKJw

My friend Nandini saw a film In Time where the currency is Time not Money- what a brilliant premise. So one earns Time for services rendered. Wow I would like to work in place where I am paid in Time...

If fear of death drives our lives then how come we sacrifice time the way we do. Would we not feel compelled to live more deeply to fight off death? If one sits for some time in meditation or just connects with our inner being- there is no age there.... somewhere inside we are timeless. Being in touch with that eternity inside can take away this twisted relationship with runaway Time.

This must be what makes Mayflies dance all day long knowing its all they are given! Are we not dancing cause we have too many days given?

Slow flow

2011-05-29T12:25:00.008+05:30

Clint Eastwood works with a slow hand.

His films have grace and beauty and at 80 he has directed a really nice film. Any other director would have made this film 40 minutes faster and let the subtleties slide. Instead three stories work like a concerto and converge in maybe the only flaw in the film- the easy co incidence. Watching it I began to marvel how one really feels the people when the film has this pace- like life where relationships need the time width to soak in.

The film is really very western in its take on death. Here in India we take afterlife as a given and its almost incomprehensible to me how Western thought with a single lifetime works. I mean that not as a judgement but as a failure to have that worldview. But in the film death hits all the character hard and it seems afterlife gives solace. All that contacting the dead brings a continuing connect. Isn't that beautiful to know that nothing really dies in love ;)

Slow movies work. They are not as easy to forget as the paced up fare so popular today. Wish the new generation of directors remember this.

Hope I remember it when i make films.

Smile, breathe and go slowly

2011-05-08T10:59:00.007+05:30

This is Thich Nhat Hanh's line. I was on a lovely website called Zen Habits (see Other Slow Places) where i met the famous five words once more. This line is the poet and spiritual leader's life mission. Help the world slow down. My friend Nandini and I learnt to walk with him. I know that sounds corny but we really learned to take each step with awareness and see the various stages of every step-the lifting, the keeping of toes, the arching of heel and the lowering... its amazing how difficult it is to walk mindfully.

Just leaving the mind is the longest journey.
The destination is the heart.
Not a long distance. Takes a lifetime.
Unless we put those five words in the title into daily practise.

the quality of slow

2011-04-27T16:16:00.004+05:30

Jamalu, a young boy from Bihar, began polishing my floor. Unlike most workers, he loves polishing floors and would be most upset if the stains, cracks and edges did not shine through. His quality demanded us all to slow down.

It so easy to recognise quality: it shines forth on first glance, as does falseness. The temptation is always to produce quantity, to work without thought, to get to some short term goal quickly. That is the way of the world of media that i once belonged to. Get the job done as easily as cheaply as quickly as possible and you are king. Preferably not do the job oneself- find a minion to coax and blame.

Then to a well lived life: with quality people, quality relationships, quality work. My new mantra: less books, less music, less food but what i read hear or meet must inspire and uplift. Somewhere there must be a Purpose that is worth sacrificing for; somewhere there must be slow thoughtful work that brings contentment- like Jamalu- every evening he surveys his work and smiles. That is what Osho speaks of often- the joy of being present to your work. The spell of slow. The shift in what Q you choose to chase.

I have a friend who scans for music that touches the spirit and then relishes it by listening to it in a loop till it is deeply embedded, I imagine. I look back at my desire to cram my ipod with 120 GB of music. I have yet to hear the 10GB even once. That's one swing to slow I must nurture. One song at a time.

Slow enchantment with living. My life purpose.

Life on Sale

2011-04-17T11:56:00.003+05:30

Lets see what advertising brings into our lives: near free world class cricket, email, facebook, newspaper (yup, it not the 3 bucks you spend on it), all media actually, those brands you love, that overflowing cupboard when we need a fraction, the politics we think, the packaged foods that bring bad health, the lies we live with (remember when Dalda was good for the heart and called trans fat today), the cigarettes we smoke, the alcohol we drink... after all advertising is sometimes more entertaining than the movie, the concerts we go for....

Advertisers have got us by the neck and are driving us to the fast lane. Advertisers/companies tell media what to write or produce(hey I was there doing this), tells politicians what policies to make, tells economists what theories to teach all the way from Harvard down...

I hope we all feel the pressure of selling our time and health to these companies and support the small and the slow- the organic farmers, the dastakars, the local stuff, the essential stuff...

Small is indeed beautiful.

enjoy the ride

2011-04-12T08:16:00.003+05:30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Hsp-Zn7ak

This has to be my anthem film. Please watch it.

Some others on slow

2011-04-01T07:43:00.003+05:30

You cant go deep until you slow down. Tess Gallagher

There is a shortage of deep work, of work of love, in this rushed world. We need more work of the soul.

I rededicate myself to slow work.

It is fantastic to spend a long time creating a work of art. The search for beauty is without end. To make a kind of physic work you need time to reflect and rework. When you come to the end, you see the beginning differently ....

- Frederic Back, creator of the Oscar-winning film, The Man Who Planted Trees

Craig Harper, my fav blogger on slow

2011-03-29T07:54:00.001+05:30

A Conscious Slow Down

The Rush of Humanity
It often occurs to me that, in the middle of all our energy-saving, time-saving technology and breakthroughs, in some ways, we’re no better off. Of course, life is easier on a practical level but I wonder if easier necessarily equates to better? And I wonder if easier necessarily equates to happier?

Is it possible that, on a level, easier brings with it some potential developmental disadvantages? Perhaps, in our quest to create an easy, painless and convenient existence, we’re actually depriving ourselves (and our kids) of some valuable – but less convenient and less comfortable – experiences and lessons?

Addicted to Speed
Like it or not, for better or worse, our world is a faster place. For some reason, our society has an obsession with speed. We like fast food, fast cars, fast-drying nail polish and the fastest internet connection possible. The other day, I read about an unofficial competition between car makers to see who can build a convertible with the fastest roof (up-down, down-up time).

For some people, that number matters.

Nope, we don’t like to wait. We don’t like to be delayed. We don’t like to waste time. If things can’t be done quickly, then we’re wasting time. Or so we tell ourselves. You only need to consider the ever-expanding pool of abbreviations and acronyms. We love them because they’re faster and require less effort than real words: LOL. OMG. LMAO. Time-saving communication; crucial for survival in the rat race.

RMC.

I’m currently trying to figure out how I can write an entire post without using real (whole) words. This is what an entire post might look like in a few years: DSOFTYADASOAKFDOCMOSSOTCUAQSDKSOS…. the end.

Or not. (O.N.)

In many ways, we’ve become addicted to speed and if certain things aren’t fast enough, we allow it to affect us mentally and emotionally. We give away our power. We allow the situation to manage us. We get frustrated, anxious and angry. Occasionally, violent. Yes, it’s come to that.

How unnecessary.

For some reason, we’ve bought into the lie that faster is always better. Sometimes it is, but not always. Personally, I’m a big fan of some regular slow. I think slow should have a place in our lives. Not always and not everywhere but sometimes and some places. Sometimes, the cost of all our time-saving speed and efficiency is that we miss out on some of life’s gems. The simple. The beautiful. The unplanned. The spontaneous.

The-not-necessarily-fast.

I love being able to step out of the busy-ness of my day-to-day commitments and into the slow-ness of just being. Feeling. Listening. It keeps me sane. Healthy. Grounded. Calm. It gives me perspective and space from the mayhem. For me, slow is the place where I can turn off my brain and listen to my heart for a while.

For me, it’s where much of the joy of life lives.

Hyperlinked hi-wire

2010-07-23T16:44:00.006+05:30

I have never seen an iPad for real but did hold a Kindle for some minutes; going by how the internet operates, I dont miss them or want to own one. My facebook and twitter time needs all my organisational resources to begin with. Left unchecked, I have several windows loading articles, reviews, pictures, videos and mostly i cant recall what led to what. In the effort of assimilate all the wonderful pages, I am left with faint recall of any. If I were with an iPad, I would never finish any complete story or article as I am bound to be wooed by some hyperlink, never to return.

Compare that with a book. Nothing can quite match the joy of losing yourself in a singular story or theme. One love affair versus a dozen mini lovelettes. There is much to be said about slow reading.

What got me to write today was a memory of some of my bombay friends- the recall was of their flitting eyes as their mind raced forward in a conversation leaving you with half completed sentences. Always speedy, mostly unfocussed, easily bored, I remember them with a sense of understanding. The pressure is relentless. When i look at the late afternoon light in my garden, I think of all the people who are denied the beauty of this special light. Everyday it has a different hue.

Life unplugged- ahaaa....

Two slow quotes and one joke

2010-06-03T09:45:00.004+05:30

It's important to be heroic,ambitious, productive, efficient, creative, and progressive, but these qualities don't necessarily nurture soul. The soul has different concerns, of equal value: downtime for reflection, conversation, and reverie; beauty that is captivating and pleasuring; relatedness to the environs and to people; and any animal’s rhythm of rest and activity.

Thomas Moore

The faster we go, the less we can connect with anything. Slowing down, beautiful connections are found.

Nithya Shanti

Tortoise goes into a pub to meet his friend the 3 toed sloth. You look terrible, what happened says tortoise. Just got mugged by 3 snails. says sloth. Did you get a good look at them? Nah, it all happened so fast

Co incidences

2010-03-04T19:32:00.004+05:30

I have been keeping a little black book on co-incidences to see what's behind the mystery. Surprisingly as I look at the list I am convinced its God's personal language whose secret code will never be broken 'cause She is so creative.
Here's one example- Many years ago in Pondicherry i met a spiritual seeker from France- we chatted about Sri Aurobindo and the meaning of life over many coffees and despite dozens of rendezvous, we never exchanged any personal details other than our names. Two weeks later in Coimbatore we were at the same spot at the same time at a railway station. He was in deep trouble (money stolen and still two weeks from his departure ticket) and the only Indian he knew was me. Looking back God just wanted me to help him because some years later he would host me in Toulouse, his hometown.
So now i look at the list with amazement. We are once more in communication-God and I. i would love to hear your story. If you don't just watch out for those 'freaky' things- they are meaningful!
(Deepak Chopra has a book on this theme - Synchrodestiny)

My article in Life positive magazine

2010-02-16T22:17:00.003+05:30

Since it is not available online, am putting it here.

Living in the slow lane

It’s hard to map milestones on how I came upon the slow life. One comes up readily. As a kid growing up in Baltimore I remember tugging at my mom for a trip to New York and her firm reply was, ‘I don’t like fast cities’. Of course since then New York became the epitome of all that I craved- high creative energy, edgy living and a certain maverick genius. Through teenage and twenties, I was attracted to atypical arts and in a fuzzy illogical way Mumbai became my home for 22 years.

Working in a cross section of media, I sampled the maximum life of that city. Driven to achieve and enjoy but always at the verge to promotions and success I would sense the futility of it and seek something new. An interesting tension developed from this – I began to participate in my work with a sense of distance. Less engaged, I became more interested in knowing what made others tick and why I remained keenly dissatisfied. I returned to spiritual philosophy, meditation and chanting. It helped cope with my unease by numbing out the pain. After a decade of this fly on the wall way of being in the city, I began to attract happiness. It started with meeting creative people living alternate lives and seeing the possibility of not being defined by ones work. Moving to Madh Island helped me reconnect with nature and silence and it was here that my love for SLOW really came alive.

Two decades of whirlwind living had messed my digestive health. I knew lots about food and nutrition so I changed to organic and home style food in an effort to cleanse and detoxify. The old lifestyle would creep back and for years I fluctuated between living foods that brought buoyancy and heavy dead foods that just sank like lead in my stomach. My food polarity reflected my twin desires of wanting to rock in the fast lane and rest in the slow one. I chose the latter after many many months of battling with both. Sometime in 2006 I began a ‘surrender’ process- just not thinking so much, not processing and analyzing so much, not reading or watching television. I also attended a workshop with Satish Kumar (www.resurgence.org) which was a catalyst in my experiments to find meaning in my life. At 72 he had shining eyes and a presence that spoke of centredness.
He shared what a natural man is about using his life as a metaphor. Lots of pennies dropped and I knew the road to fulfillment would include minimalism, a search for my authentic self and a new approach to time.

Surrender itself is a powerful concept. It takes a huge weight off living. Surrendering to a higher source means accepting that you are a not what your ego would have you believe. That a higher order works through you if you allow it to. The biggest truth I felt was that change is slow- like nature at work, personal growth towards health is a slow slow process. It unfolds with leisure but makes deep roots. One of the aspects of my surrender was that I stopped pushing myself towards work especially since I was no longer sure what I wanted to engage myself with. Sitting in the back garden of my mothers Bhiwadi home, I was offered to author a book and rediscovered my love for writing. To fill in the hours I returned to another love- cooking and healed my body with slow food and cooking styles.

The kitchen is a place of much learning. Like the effect of mood on food. Since every meal is a live activity I could see the way your personal energy gets transferred as taste in food. I made friends with the vegetable sellers, learnt how far the food traveled to reach me and began making more local choices. Small things like using ‘desi tamater’ over the usual red good lookers brought joy. So did the discovery of Navdanya and other organic food sources. Since I had never known food deprivation, I began a gratitude and acceptance exercise towards what I had. Blessing the kitchen, the raw foods and the meals also creates a great shift in the energy and experience of eating. From wolfing down food in vast quantities, I now eat a little slower and certainly more appreciatively than before. Even after 4 years of awareness I find my old habits return. Change is s..l..o..w but it is worth every thought and effort put in.

When making the final shift from Mumbai to Bhiwadi I was faced with the clutter of possessions. My mothers home is small and it was such a relief to get rid of innumerable ‘things’ and keep the essentials. Anyone who has done this knows how valuable this process is. It is like discovering who you really are and what really matters. I have pared my stuff down to four cupboards and may free one in the coming months. As you question what is essential, it becomes a meditation into life. Minimalism is an enriching virtue.

My relationship with time is strange. The mind still thinks many steps ahead but the body is languid, almost lazy. I take great pleasure in the slow pace- I listen to music better, get new meaning from revisiting old books, savour food in a new way, travel with fresh perspectives. I wonder at the blur of those Mumbai days- those myriad parties, people, talks, trains, exhibitions, film festivals- all that doing that has left patchwork quilt of foggy memories. What was it all about? What was that need to sponge on life and activity? What drove me to work long and party hard? Was it a flowing with the crowd? In contrast to packing in a zillion activities, I pack away most these days. I am learning to under commit – both to myself and others giving me space and time to live in this new continuum.

The quantum jump in the journey to slow is the altering and heightening of awareness. It begins with self awareness as opposed to self absorption. While my self image was of a empathetic sensitive person, it took the move to Bhiwadi to look after my mom to accept my intense preoccupation with my needs and aspirations. A small town offers the freedom to just be nobody. As the urban pressure wore off, it was replaced with a constant state of happiness. Everyday the happiness continued. It was surprising – this unattached to any event or mood happiness. It just hung around all the time. I really searched for reasons and the only one I find is my slower lifestyle and the effect of surrender and acceptance.

My favourite quote from Mahatma Gandhi is ‘There is more to life than increasing its speed’. To explore the concept deeper I began a blog – www.restingintheslowlane.blogspot.com and I invite you to join me there for moment of interconnectedness.
Bulbul Mankani is 48, single and works a corporate trainer and author of “The Bollywood Cookbook”. She lives between Bhiwadi and Gurgaon and is working on her second book.

of Bhutan prayer wheels and flags

2010-01-17T10:13:00.005+05:30

A week after return from Bhutan, I am still in wonder at the experience. The big valleys and silence made my spirits soar. The prayer flags fluttering in the breeze , faded as the wind carries the words into the beyond. Sunburnt Bhutan faces. Their faith is deep and simple. Turn the prayer wheels. Light butter lamps. Full of generous offerings to the gods. They are protected by the many chortens. No modern ills to be seen- depression, anxiety, stress.... a sense of stillness pervades the countryside.

Silence is all around- talking is not all that popular.... working or sitting around is mostly in silence, chanting prayers is a popular sport and they smile a lot. Its an experience to see the simple forthright buddhist style of living there. The big debate that ran thru me if I would choose this life? Would I give up my addiction to knowledge and information and gaze gaze at the valleys instead. And i know i want both.... the expanded time and space of bhutan and my internet, books and music. Sometimes i would pick up the wheel and turn it giving thanks for the best of two worlds.

Song of the open road

2009-12-22T10:43:00.003+05:30

Travel unhinges the familiar and awakens the spirit. As I prepare to leave for Bhutan, all of this wonderful year sweeps by the mindscape. From vipassana to the heart world of Nithya Shanti. Precious time with loved ones. The increasing sense of thankfulness for the peaceful times. The investigations into Happiness with Michel Ricard and Deepak Chopra. Intending 2010 to be filled with work and cheerful mind.

Wishing you a song filled heart. Freedom, joy and radiant love.

slow passion

2009-11-12T10:22:00.005+05:30

People like me with love for beauty can also get frozen with their own creative abilities in many spheres.... will I be good enough? So the passion for many things brews and simmers. Its most hilarious form is spending time and energy helping others with your dream while you vicariously watch from the sidelines. Feeling safe. Or total immersion in the works of others while you do this and that to run away from your own truths. Another safe road. There are a thousand things i did for a quarter century to run from a simple love.

One of the slow things i have returned to is meditation. this morning i found myself feeling the writer in me yawn and stretch. Like a slow slow unfurl of a sunflower the love for words, stories and ideas warmed the chill of pre dawn air. Like a slow release of the perfume, time took on a sound of saxophone notes. Words danced, images swirled and the heaven opened with streaks of rainbow light.

The key to infinity is here.

slow art

2009-10-08T11:37:00.008+05:30

I have almost never seen this kind of still, poised realist paintings. A story about the artist Edward Hopper is that he would be visited at his atelier in New York and found to be still and silent all the time. It would sometimes be a couple of days before he said something like... Today i think i will work on that canvas...

A bit like my mom actually ;)

Slow Love in the time of speed dating

2009-09-27T13:38:00.006+05:30

If poets have the key to know love and the leisure to unfurl the experience, then it must be a slow long ride. At least fresh, original first hand love. The kind which opens the portals of eternity. The kind which makes you write such lines-

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because--
because--I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run
together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

(that incidentally is Pablo Neruda warming up to a sonnet)

To those who write, images come from an unmapped planet to become words and phrases. To those who love, so many unrelated co incidences have to be set in motion to bring that cupid arrow to its mark. I talk of slow love because it can slip through your fingers like raw egg whites as the yellow sits and stares at the ceiling. In the constant beck and call of living, I have been that yellow...

More Neruda coming up....

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

I began to search for what love may be and found it in the last line of this sonnet.
To those in the thick and rush of living, you cant catch frames that move too fast... and love is no blur.

And finally Sonnet XI by the slow love master....

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

And I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

Come to me Love....I am seeking you slowly on padded feet below an open heart.

Age of anxiety

2009-09-06T09:32:00.002+05:30

While battling a personal issue, I found, along with the reading syndrome, a reluctance to meditate. Its not so difficult to just sit and breathe and watch your mind but the inner turbulence was extreme. Last night i finally got somewhere close and also discovered the subterranean anxiety that rules our times.

With me the anxiety is often about health of loved ones, my own health, food contamination, water and money shortages, climate change, environment.... but i notice i am not alone. People around me are also engaged in anxieties- often more personal than worldly- careers, relationships... I look at my mothers life and find it far less wound up over these issues.... the only stress was financial, sometimes. Mostly there was optimism and good cheer.

Almost in sync I chose to listen to REM and figured for the first time the level of anxiety in their songs- starting with 'Try not to breathe', 'ignoreland', Everybody Hurts..... onto 'Belong' 'Losing my religion'....

I wonder and this may sound totally fantastical... if all these dense vibrations in the air carrying mobile, internet and other wireless data are creating a buzz and riff in our heads??

Who is chilling out then? vagabonds, wandering babas, some children.... spiritually absorbed people.... poets maybe?

Time to meditate.

Reading syndrome

2009-09-05T12:29:00.003+05:30

Of late I notice myself avoiding picking a book to read. With a house full of unread ones this is very strange. As far back as i remember myself, a day of reading was the best. My favourite place was a bookshop and there was always one handy in my bag for the snatched moments of reading delight.

I bought a Haruki Murakami to bring the romance back- 25 pages later i am back to the 'avoid books syndrome'. Much contemplation has shown this to be a problem of 21st century living- the facebook, twitter, internet at large addiction, the enormous amount of access to music and cinema.... tv... who wants to slow down and read. Not me.

Partly the gratification of reading is slow and the speedy gonsalves mind cant wait for that long. Partly the world of words moves slower than those of images. Together books are slipping into frozen display zone.

I need help.

Green Gold

2009-07-06T08:46:00.006+05:30

After a quarter century (this sounds really grand, n'est pas?), I revisited my friend Amita's farm in bangalore. Just seeing acres of organic green and eating the super healthy food there gave me a green hit. The avocado tree was bending over with fruit, as were the mangoes and snake gourd. We have totally forgotten natural bounty and let greed poison the earth.

Amita is passionately organic and she has infused her sisters with the zeal. Sangita has taken the energy into rescuing seeds and working with marginal farmers in the seed and soil arena- fighting against genetically modified foods being one aspect. Her focused thinking is visible on www.myrighttosafefood.blogspot.com - the reality that gets hard to accept is how ignorant we are on vital issues: our daily food. There is nowhere to run from the chemical onslaught.

So heres my new S..L..O..W charter

a. I will bake my cookies and cakes at home with whole wheat, olive oil and jaggery.
b. I will grow as many veggies and herbs as i can.
c. I will read the food labels in fine detail.
d. I will eat and feed others only natural cheeses.
e. I will continue to buy organic foods and source a vegetable vendor.

Back on her farm I had a really S..L..O..W moment : at 6 am i stood on the large balcony and breathed in the chilly air laden with woody, spicy smells. The breeze brought in a mixed bouquet of lemongrass, citronella and many herbs that i cannot recognise. Just standing there breathing in the perfumes of gopathi farms for about half an hour was the best meditation.

PS : mahesh bhatt has made a film - Poison in my plate - a shocking indictment on the state of food in india.

one year in the garden: part one

2009-04-02T09:37:00.003+05:30

All the winter flowers are dried out and will rebloom 9 months later. If Nature is the ultimate creative force and it is absolutely, then all the slow lessons are right there...

Take it Easy : that's the rhythm of nature. No stress. Perfectly formed leaves will come out of buds and in case they do not, its okay. Plenty of other branches to express the abundance of living.

Keep Experimenting : My mango tree has given out new leaves in the oddest colours- purple, maroon, dark orange, red and recently dark pink. There are no strict rules in nature. I love the surprises.

Shed the dead : Everyday the petals and leaves lie down to be swept off. Why carry too much baggage- stay light, fresh and green. Get ripe and drop.

Give indiscriminately : Why hold back? When there is so much inside why choose?

the slow manifesto- maybe

2009-04-01T19:34:00.001+05:30

amidst a growling city

2009-02-27T05:58:00.006+05:30

Last Sunday seeing the sleeping ducks on the Okhla lake, i understood what ducking down really meant. Here there were hundreds of still, ducked down heads bobbing on the water while the air was warming up with chirruping bird calls of other more awake birdizens hailing a new day, maybe.

We spent hours in the dry grassy and marshy swamps of the lake following the bird experts as they identified birds with sharp eyes and discussed the finer points of season and habitat. Amidst sightings of local and migratory winged friends, the city growled nearby- millions of breaths of man and machine- reminding me that this slow easy morning with its trampling prettiness is a luxury.

Right outside the park construction was coming up - mall, hotel, factory- who knows what the cement would bring up and how these birds will just go looking for a more natural home. Flashback to mumbai- i began life there in cuffe parade and move northward till i reached madh island- the last refuge of a crazed city. Here the sparrows still came. It seems the common sparrow is a mark of the health of the city. If you can still spot them you are better off than most.

When my mother bought her 'country home' in bhiwadi, the birds were noisy and many. all day long our garden would have a variety of visitors- kingfishers, bulbuls, doves, sunbirds, magpies... and hundreds of sparrows. Today it is much less and i dread the growl and menace of the future and waking up to the silence of the birds.

Dev.D and the whole circus of editing

2009-02-12T13:26:00.005+05:30

I really liked Dev.D but my shoulders went stiff from the urgent energy of the swift cuts and psychedelic colours. Film editing has acquired a frenzied tone in india in recent times - one gets to savour far less- sometimes i like a costume, a location, a dialogue but before i can get a grip i am afloat another series of cuts. So with dev d - i was constantly behind the dialogues, music and lyrics much as i think i liked it. I wish Anurag kashyap would look at Oceans 11 for lessons- great pace yet enough hold on the sequences to allow for a mood to build for the audience.

Are films going to be reduced to well crafted montages (and god knows i love music videos) but were they not meant to tell stories? Are audiences demanding a roller coaster ride in the movie theatres like junk foods? Is life going to be a speed dating clone? Hop, skip and jump through myriad experiences and go tick tick tick on the mental checklists? Imagine the abyss of - worn that, seen that, done that. Next??

I am a small time speed junkie in reform. I dont strain to catch everything in one go- i catch what i catch. Its often more than i can chew.

days in vipassana

2009-02-12T08:59:00.003+05:30

I learnt a great lesson in slow during my vipassana course- my body is such a vibration filled alive and responsive place and because i am totally seduced by the outer world i am unaware of the rhythms within. The mind also goes slow eventually and you realise that unwinding is not through numbing activities like watching tv but watching the body. My quality of sleep and dreams changed during the vipassana. I strongly recommend being with the body and breath before sleep.

slow start

2009-02-11T19:14:00.002+05:30

It started last summer when mumbai just lost its sheen and glamour despite my immense support system of friends and sleepy bhiwadi took on sharp focus. I have a mom in this little town who would not admit it but could no longer manage her life alone. Taking that as life's cue, i made the move and began my slow experiments. A few months later a kind of happiness flush seeped in. I was feeling centred and very positive. My edgy anxious mind was calmer and i loved life once more.

Its now 11 months of this new life. I know this slow turn needs to be shared.

My search on the net shows there are others who are on synchronous ground. Welcome aboard this powerful way of living.