The Kohinoor Diamond

Quoting from Wikipedia:

“The Kōh-i Nūr  which means “Mountain of Light” in Persian, also spelled Koh-i-noor, Koh-e Noor or Koh-i-Nur, is a 105 carat (21.6 g) diamond (in its most recent cut) that was once the largest known diamond in the world.

The Kōh-i Nūr originated in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India along with its double, the Darya-ye Noor (the “Sea of Light”).

It has belonged to various Hindu, Persian, Rajput, Mughal, Turkic, Afghan, Sikh and British rulers who fought bitterly over it at various points in history and seized it as a spoil of war time and time again.

It was most recently seized by the East India Company and became part of the British Crown Jewels when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India in 1877.”

Today a news item  on the BBC caught my eye as a parallel.

Quoting from BBC.com

“Berlin museum must return Nazi-looted art

A German court on Friday ordered a leading Berlin museum to return to a Jewish family in the United States a valuable collection of posters stolen in 1938 by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels.

The collection of some 4,300 posters, valued at around 4.4 million euros ($5.7 million), was taken by the Nazi propaganda ministry from Jewish dentist Hans Sachs, the top poster collector in Germany from the early 20th century.

Later that year, Sachs was sent to a concentration camp but released a few weeks later, and fled with his family first to London, then to New York. He died in 1974.

In 1961, he received a sum of 225,000 deutschmarks — more than half a million euros in today’s money — in compensation from West Germany

The collection survived the war and languished in the cellar of the German Historical Museum, at the time behind the Iron Curtain in East Berlin.

The Federal Court of Justice, based in the western city of Karlsruhe, ruled that the Sachs family “was the owner of the poster collection and can demand it back” from the museum, ending a tug-of-war that had lasted for years.

Not to return the art “would perpetuate Nazi injustice,” the court said in a written statement.

The museum said it would accept the judgement and would “shortly” begin talks with the family to decide how to proceed.

Matthias Druba, a lawyer representing the Sachs family, said his client hoped to find another museum in Germany that would display the posters as works of art, not as historical artifacts.

“Ideally this would be in Berlin, because the Sachs family originally came from Berlin,” Druba told AFP, adding that they had held back from the search for a new home until the ruling had been handed down.

Hans Sachs’s son Peter, who had brought the claim against the museum, is a retired airline pilot and as such “doesn’t have the means simply to build a museum,” Druba said.

“In any case, this was never about the money, but about restoring the family’s history,” he said.”

BBC Link

Parallel situation?  Is it time to begin hoping that the fairness shown by German courts spreads to the rest of the world?

jm

March 2011

Nomad across Time

As I live in the year 2012, and travel to different places, I realise that not all of us are living in the same spot in time. Yes we may all be recording the same year on our calendars – but even as we all stand in 2012, some of us live in 1970 and others in 1950.

This is an observation about everything that defines a time zone or an era – the extent to which modern day discoveries and inventions have seeped into the lives of people, as well as the thinking of the individual and the society.

For instance – in Singapore people live their lives almost totally dependent on technology and are constantly wired minute to minute. That group has embraced every little piece that science and technology has offered to the public and made it an integral part of their lives. The first thing that I do when I wake up is to rush to check emails – even though I know that the world will go on without an instant reply – but I am addicted to being wired to the outside world.

Another group  – the urban elite of Bombay – are following by about a few years. They are living lives – with respect to the presence of technology – that Singaporeans lived maybe a few years ago.They have totally embraced the new media but it has yet to become a ‘life support system’ for them. Its just a mater of years before that happens.

A third group – the un-elite urbanite – follows the second group by a few decades – and so, lives in the equivalent of the year 1980. My phenomenal maid and cook, my ex-chauffeur and my parents and grandparents all are part of the bustling Bombay partaking of the prosperity here, with their net-worth soaring like never before.But in terms of technology – they remain rooted in the days of my childhood. Where the TV is the only technolody that has entrenched itself in their lives. They still depend on landline telephones for communication and human meet ups for social bonding.

Go one step further and there is my amazing caretaker in Goa from a gypsy tribal family. In in his village he  water is available at the village tap and women carry away pots of water to their respective homes from that point. Landline phones do not exist in homes and internet, privacy and privacy laws are unheard of.
A point in lifestyle evolution that was quite likely seen by the Singaporeans in the Kampung lifestyle of the early 1900s, and my grandparents in the 19060s.

So while all these different groups live in the same year 2012, their lifestyles are separated by decades.

Physical living conditions are visible to the eye, and it is easy to make these observations and draw these conclusions (the examples above are just a miniscular few of the glaring differences in lifetsyle that can be seen). But alongside these physical anachronisms, there is also a psychographic anachronism amongst all these people groups that is easy to see, but hard to abstract and present conclusively.

Flitting from one time zone to another as I travel between these places and people 4- 5 times a year and then back and forth between different decades is often confusing and it takes effort to remind myself of the time context of the people I am with in that moment.

My kids taught me a new word a few years ago ” Biome” – which meant the physical habitat of the creature (I think!). So here in my world I can see that each of these groups lives in a different psychographic biome.

Maybe my tribal caretaker’s descendents will one day evolve to the lifestyle of the present day Singaporean – maybe not. Maybe an altogether new evolutionary path may come about – maybe new directions, or skipped stages will be seen……..

But at this point it IS interesting to note that as on 2012, there are people living in several parts of the past as I know it.

jm

March 2012

Every woman needs a Daughter!

My daughter is a ‘cat’ in spirit.

She has the most likeable personality I have ever met combined with the ability to treat everyone like a piece of furniture.

In her presence everyone becomes an attention-seeker – trying to win her majesty’s attention and approval.

But once in a way – she does completely unexpected things – something so delightful that an unshockable person like me is compelled to sit down and announce her wonderful acts to the world!

Today is Valentine’s day. It is not really a tradition tradition in our lives – because we are Indians and mine is the first generation that was exposed to this custom. So it is not in my blood and its just something I look at out of the corner of my eye, mostly unaffected by its occurrence.

But my children see it around them growing up every day in the international environment they are in. So it IS a significant event for them and they celebrate it wholeheartedly.

So this morning I woke up after working till 2 am, arrive at my home-office desk and ask for coffee.

And in the mess of note pads and pens and spectacles and wires i spot a pretty pink box with 5 little Hershey’s Kisses placed artistically on top of it. My first thought was  ‘husband sathia gayaa’  – ‘husband is entering his state of dementia’ (which of course he is not – but nothing else could have explained such an act in our context). I rejected that idea because it was too bizarre, and examined other possibilites. My sons were both out of the house that week, so that left only my daughter and my new maid and myself. Me giving myself a Valentine’s day gift would be more bizarre than my husband giving me one, so that didn’t even occur to me.

And then the delicious idea that my royal kitten had done this!!

It filled me up with ssssooo much love and tenderness and happiness to have her in my life!

She had done something like this when she wasabout 10 years old. We all woke up on Valentines day to see the dining table covered with gifts for each one of us, kept inside a large heart made out of tinsel. I have pictures of that moment and seeing that photo with her uncombed wake-up hair and a sleepy face makes my heart burst with gratitude for having such a person in my life!

And today she repeated it!

A student in her final year at IB – she works really hard to earn her 42 score and has hardly any time for anything else. Yet she put in the thought, put in her pocket money AND put in her effort & time  – which is the hardest for all of us to do but harder still for her – and bought each one of us an individually suitable gift!

I don’t know how to begin to show her how much I appreciate it.

These are moments when I know that my life is truly blessed and thank the probability and chance for giving me a daughter!

jm

Feb 14, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Last Dance

The Paris Opera Ballet (France) presented “Giselle” at the Esplanade in Singapore in four shows.

Before I entered the private box that I had a seat in, the hosts – the Esplanade management – explained that that particular show was the last dance of the principal ballerina Etoile Aurelie Dupont. The last dance. Ever.

As I sat through the show in the dark theatre, catching zoomed glimpses of the perfect footwork with the theatre binoculars, all I could think of was the state of her mind.

What must she be feeling? In performing every move, in listening to the applause, in her bow – what was she thinking and feeling?If I had been in her pretty ballerina shoes, would I be able to be so stoic and maintain a perfect performance?

A last dance – a last good bye – to the stage – to an audience – to the activity that must have consumed her whole life – how much strength would one need to not cry in that last bow!

jm

Feb 2012

New Year Contemplations

I never did see the value of celebrating the completion of an additional revolution of the earth around the sun.

I did not see why this was a reason to celebrate.

But now that I am older and wiser …. I know that any reason is a good reason to celebrate life.  I know that any date is a good date to make a fresh start about things we would like to see change on.

This morning as I opened my eyes and my windows the change in the weather was noticeable. A cloud cover brought in cold winds into hot Bombay.  It looked like it might rain. As I snuggled into the rajasthani quilt next to my children, I thought of the interpretations of the Mayan predictions for 2012 and wondered.

But the chill that the wind brought in, refreshed my mind and turned my thoughts to life.

I was the generation between an ailing grandma who raised me and a young daughter who was on the threshold of spreading her wings.

My grandma had lived a full, comfortable and happy life. A life that is nearing its end. Not a happy thought but not thinking about it won’t change the outcome. But when I see my daughter alongside my grandma, it is impossible not to feel thrilled and contented that my grandma leaves this legacy of her genes that will carry my grandma silently and invisibly into the future. My daughter is blooming with life, ready to go to university, ready to find an engaging occupation, ready to find love and ready to create a productive life for herself. She is the fresh fluorescent shoots of little leaves of spring. And she is the legacy that my grandma will leave behind. My grandma’s life is being celebrated through her great grandchildren.

And as the date on the calendar changes, this change of  guard, this passing on of the baton of life is staring me in the face.

Never before has the morning of January 1^st alerted me of such poignant winds of change, both literally and figuratively.

Life -  it must be celebrated.

jm

Jan 1st 2012

Thoughts and dreams

Experiences evoke thoughts and reactions and dreams.

Some that I’d like to remember years from now have been put down here.

jm

Third World Country Happiness

My 20 year old son asked a question to which I have no answer.

We’d spent 2 hours  neck deep in the Arabian Sea,  wave-bashing at Candolim Beach and eaten the most amazing Goan Prawn curry ever made over a fun conversation with the chef-owner under his large old mango tree.

Everywhere we turned people were in a state of bliss – irrespective of whether they were locals of Goa or recent immigrants from Karnataka, irrespective of how close or far they were from the poverty line.

And so this question came to him as he viewed Goa & India through the eyes of a non-resident.

” If people here are always so happy, why is this called a third world country?”

No idea Son!

But the world is obviously caught up in the wrong measures and metrics.

An old chinese saying “You can never have enough pf what you didn’t want in the first place” might provide the answer…

jm

dec 2011

Falling from the sky

(Written in Sep 2010, images added in Nov 2011)

Last year around the same time – we were in Lake Wanaka, South Island, New Zealand – getting our first taste of adventure sports – hang gliding, aerobatics and sky diving.

My daughter and I.

The sky diving experience:

The inviting dare-you-to videos, the attraction of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the desire to control your fear instead of being controlled by it, all led to the sign up.

My younger son who was with us, staunchly refused to join in to this high-risk sport – he was very clear that none of the above reasons were worth the risk  of death that it entailed. He would have done this if it were a necessity – but taking on the danger just for the thrill was just not something he was willing to do.

So my 15 year old daughter and I went.

The trick I played with my mind was to block out all thoughts of jumping off as we taxied down the tiny plane – with the door open. Strapped to the experienced tandem skydiver gave me confidence and I watched the  landscape through the open door receding. It was beautiful, as long as I didn’t think about leaving the plane!

Higher and higher, with the diver noting the height we’d reached. He gave me kinesthetic instructions – that I was sure to mess up on but it gave me something to think about and push out THE thought.

And then it was time. My daughter and her tandem were to go first and we were to follow. I saw her slide to the door and watched her face full of fear – wish I had never ever seen that face! Watching the pain of your children always hurts infinitely  more than that you experience yourself. Anyway I did not have much time to dwell on her fear for long…as it was my turn. We slid to the door. I held it with one hand with my legs hanging out of the door of the plane. At 15000 feet. This is the second time in life that I was feeling ‘faith’. In my tandem diver – that he knew what he was doing.

I refused to believe that this was happening to me that we were sitting precariously in an unimaginable spot, about to do the worst imaginable thing in that spot i.e. to let go of the door instead of doing the obvious thing commanded by intuition i.e.  holding onto any part of the plane for dear life. .I  shut my eyes tight and forced myself to think of happy times in Goa. And we jumped. I didn’t mind if I died at that point because I was thinking blissful thoughts. I had no cognition of the awful act of letting go of a perfectly fine plane and jumping out into emptiness.I have no memory of that moment as my eyes remained shut through those awful microseconds and thus cheated fear.

The next thing I knew, we were horizontal – with our hands stretched out, facing the earth and enjoying the most spectacular adventure of my life. Free fall. For a whole minute. A minute that will stay imprinted forever.

And then he pulled the string of the parachute. And suddenly, as a result we became vertical. Not half as much fun as it was being horizontal.

We slowed down, the diver managed our manoeuvres expertly and we soon landed on earth as planned.

Adrenalin gushing, fulfillment gushing, greed-for-more gushing…..we were all hugging and grinning with supernormal delight at this other-worldly experience.

Just a few of the many images :

torn between keeping my eyes shut out of fear and keeping them open to watch the landscapes

Free fall …..among the top 5 experiences in life!

the parachute opens and we become vertical> Suddenly I could feel my weight.

***

Today a plane crashed at Fox Glacier, South Island, New Zealand as sky divers set out to get their shot of adrenalin. It caught fire as it began taking off.

It took me back to all our deliberations before we signed up for a similar thrill last year.

We went in full knowledge of the risk involved. That risk we knew would be overcome by the expertise of all the providers involved. In case of tragedy, I would only be ashamed of the loss I would have caused to the people I left behind – a loss that would result from the selfish pursuit of my own free will and desire for thrill. My son would have been as angry with me – maybe more than he would have been sad about his loss.

In any case, today’s accident was not a ‘sky diving’ accident – it was a flight accident.

Potential for risk and tragedy are present in every choice we make…..even when we choose to cross the road or drive on a highway. Can’t stop living just because of the risk of death!

‘a ship is safest in the harbour but that’s not what it was meant for’ ……

and so, I will certainly go back for more skydiving someday….

jm

Sep 2010

Nov 2011 Photos added

Heartaches and Heartbreaks 1

It was a night several years ago. Our apartment on the 17th floor was near enough to the balcony of the neighbours on the 16th and 17th floor – near enough to have conversations. Near enough to hear conversations. Near enough to hear sobbing and cries of anguish.

The family that lived there, were among the sweetest of people we had known. No airs. None of the false airs that afflict the well-to-do. Completely modest, humble, simple minded and sweet. It was a large family – 3 grown up children and parents.

The cries, drew me as they would have in India. Where a neighbour’s anguish is your own, and one extends oneself and does everything possible to help.

The cries came from one of the daughters -  “He does not love me anymore” as she sobbed.

Her parents were around her.Trying to hold an inconsolable girl.

The girl was in pain.

But the parents appeared to be in as much pain. Pain of helplessness. Pain of failing to comfort their child. Pain of being a mere spectator. The heartache of the parents was silent. No tears. No outburst. Just a silently burning heart.

Having lived to this grand old age, and having seen life from both sides – as a daughter and as a mother, it is clear now that there is no love greater than that which a parent feels towards the child. Even though it is limited in its scope of influence in the adult life of the child, over a whole life span, there is possibly no one who showers more love than parents*.

When I look back at the heartaches and heartbreaks I have witnessed, the anguish of the parents that night still pierces my soul and draws out grief. Grief in empathy for the helplessness of parents.

***

(Even though relationships are conducted badly, and interactions can be terrible, the love factor is probbaly the greatest)

Units to measure Life – contemplations on a Birthday

As a teenager I had resolved that birthdays or anniversaries are in themselves useless.

A year = a revolution of the earth around the sun. So it is at the same spot in its orbit that it was in, when I was born.  SO?

How is that a big deal? How is that a reason for me to celebrate?

And so I stayed away from such ideas that held no intrinsic meaning.

If one must celebrate life itself then there is no need to wait for an annual occasion. But if one is looking for an excuse to celebrate, then any day is just as good.

*

We created a little family tradition. We pick out a person, and the rest of us tell him or her 3 things that we totally appreciate about the person. Kids need to not just feel love, but they need sound bytes  that articulates this love to have concrete emotional foundations. And so this became a much awaited ritual. To ensure that we never forget to do this, we chose birthdays as a special day. In addition, the birthday person then reflects on the past year – to pick out the events that stand out, to pick out the successes and the failures, and to make a plan for the next steps forward. Finally everyone writes in the log book of the birthday person and we all have fun reading past entries that contain many of the significant stories of the person’s life.

This little family ritual is probably the only thing that I look forward to in my birthday. A ritual that we have artificially implanted into this specific day.

No doubt the memories of the cake splashing and friends and food will also remain. But these will probably act as the ribbons and the confetti and balloons surrounding the real thing which will be memories of the articulated love.

*

The question of how to measure ‘life’ comes up often. In discussions. In thought.

Measuring it in ‘time’ is pointless because 2 people can live for exactly 50 years yet both would have lived to different extents.

So then is it number of ‘experiences’?

or number of ‘varied’ experiences?

or number of ‘life impacting’ varied experiences?

or number of life impacting varied experiences that ‘trigger personal growth’?

This definition seemed complete enough.

But of late I am beginning to think about this topic again.

Too often – on a taxi ride of less than 5 minutes – I find that I have lost track of time and have no idea how much time has passed – and the reason is that I was deeply engaged in long trains of thought.

So should life be measured instead in terms of the number of thoughts that we engage in?

At this point, it certainly seems like the most fitting measure of life. Because it is only through thoughts that we traverse distances in our minds. And it is only through thoughts that our personalities evolve. And it is only in thoughts that he passage of our whole life is completely contained.

And so, if life is a passage of thoughts rather than time, then there is no cyclical periodicity (such as the earth coming back to the same spot periodically) – there is only a monotonic vector flowing forward – so then is there an annual reason to stop and blow candles?

*

When I came across deep discussions and contemplations about age “40″ and age “50″, I wonder why the world is fascinated by these specific numbers. What is unique about the 40th compared to the 39th or 41st or 68th? The only significance is that now the human body will begin to enter a new phase. If at all any date is relevant, then it is the date of the onset of these changes. Not some arbitrary number like 40 or 50.

And this year did bring me my daily pills for chronic ailments that I had reserved for grandmas! Now that I have my own little pill-box, I have arrived!

*

Finally, the single factor that has alerted me to the fact that I AM growing older, is mushrooming growth of my children. From being tiny packages of 3 kg each, they have all grown into large humans that tower above me ….they now earn and have their own teenage soulmates …..and make sound decisions …..in short they are themselves adults. This is an alarming development especially since it seems to have happened overnight with no advance notice!

And then using inductive logic, it is easy to see that the mother of these three grown ups, must herself be of significant age! Strange how there’s so much on the ‘to-do’ list of life that measures like age seem as trivial as the length of my hair!

*

Excerpts from an inspirational Hindi Poem  by Harivanshrai Bachchan (with translation) that I heard 25 years ago ….

“Mainey jeevan dekha jeevan ka gaan kiya

Main kabhi kaheen per safar khatm kar deney ko taiyaar sadaa thaa

Is mein bhi thi kya mushkil

Chalnaa hi jiska kaam rahaa ho duniya mein

Har ek kadam per hai uski manzil

Jo kal per kaam uthaata ho woh pachtaaye

kal agar nai phir uski kismat me aata

Mainey kal per kab aaj bhalaa balidaan kiya?

Mainey jeevan dekha jeevan ka gaan kiya

*

Kaali Kaaley keshon mein kaala kamal sajaa

Kaali saari pehney chupke chupke aayi

Main ujwal mukh, ujaley vastron mein baithaa thaa sustaaney

Path per thi ujiyaali chaayi

“Tum kaun?” “Maut”

“Main jeeney ki hi jog jugat mein lagaa rahaa”

Boli: “Mat Ghabraa- Swaagat ka merey tuney sabse acchaa samaan kiya hai”

Mainey jeevan dekha jeevan ka gaan kiya

******

ROUGH ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

“I have lived life and celebrated life.

I have always been prepared to end the journey at any point in time and place

Where was the difficulty in that?

For one whom the journey itself is the goal,

The destination is found in every single step

Those who put off until tomorrow, will regret

in case the next  ‘tomorrow’ s not written in their destiny

But I never did sacrifice my today for a  tomorrow

I have lived life and celebrated life.

*

Kali, draped in black hair, with a black lotus adorning it

Wearing a black sari stepped up to me silently

I, with a shining spirit and shining demeanour lay resting,

On a path filled with shining light

(I asked) “Who are you”,

(She replied) “Death”

(I replied) I  remained so busy in living life (that I forgot to prepare for your arrival)

She said: “Don’t worry, you have prepared for my arrival and welcomed me in the best way possible”

I have lived life and celebrated life.

*******

jm

august 2011