Oct 24, 2015 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings

I am sitting with a cup of coffee at my kitchen table on this chilly fall day, listening to the late great Hindustani vocalist, Padmabhushan Gangubai Hangal singing Raga Prabhat Bhairav.  Her voice is raw, uncompromising, full of pain and triumph, and not at all like the very high, pretty, curlicued vocalisms usually practised by classical female singers in India.

And I am in tears.

Here is a woman from the shudra caste who rose from outright poverty and deprivation to the heights of fame later on in her life, a woman who’s sung in front of Mahatma Gandhi, a woman who lost her beloved teacher (Sawai Gandharva), then lost her Brahmin husband whom she served devotedly and supported, who, despite his being a lawyer, lost any jobs he held, and was not financially capable.   Then, she lost her daughter, Hindustani vocalist Krishna Hangal, who succumbed to cancer to 2004.  In 2007, aged 97, Gangubai Hangal passed away after pledging that her eyes, still good, would be donated to the Eye Bank run Dr M.M. Joshi Eye Institute.  Her wishes were carried out by her remaining family.

I have to thank my husband, Warren Senders, for playing this recording, and of reminding me of her.  Here is his post on the life and times of Padmabhushan Shrimati Gangubai Hangal:  In Memoriam: Gangubai Hangal, 1913–2009

Warren is himself a great and impassioned vocalist, musician and teacher in the classical Indian vocal music called Khyal.  (He’s also a jazz bassist and composer of Indo-Jazz fusion, with the group called Antigravity, in which I played guitar — sadly, we don’t perform much anymore, being too caught up in the nowness of our current life, which is full of music at home, and homeschooling our daughter).  He is also a huge and highly informed Climate Change activist.  You can read more about him here, and about the blog he started to further Climate Change awareness (through the use of music from around the world), here.

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Dreamer of Dreams

Tags: #Hindustani classical vocal music, #Warren Senders, Gangubai Hangal, Khyal

Oct 23, 2015 Daily Life

The Last of the Season’s Tomato Harvest

You get a pang when you pick the last of the season’s tomatoes (well we picked them just before that first freezing night — was it last week?).  They languished all this time in two bags.  I sorted them out finally today, after removing all the dried out vines.  (And what a mess they were!)
Even now, so late in the season, they’re so green and red — like jewels, like fat, green Peridots, and plump Oxblood Corals, and rich red-orange Chalcedonies, and Fire Opals, and Carnelians.
Gosh, I’m waxing gemmy!

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Tags: gemstones, green tomatoes, last harvest of the season, tomatoes

Oct 9, 2015 Daily Life

Skunencounter

©October9th, 2015

By Vijaya Sundaram

The day before yesterday, I was inside my house, attending to some trivial task, when I heard The Hod (one of my names for Holly, our nearly two-year old Standard Poodle, barking fit to burst outside in our back yard.

Ordinarily, I’d just yell, “Stop barking, Holly!” and repeat it a few times.  Or (shame on me), I’d yell out, “TREAT!” and a hopeful, wagging, grinning dog would come trotting back to the kitchen door.  The good thing at such times is that, though I use the term as a bribe, I follow it up with action, and actually give her a treat or two (I try not to lie to my dog — the only times I was guilty of doing so were the few times when I felt perverse, and yelled, “SQUIRREL,” which made her dash out into the backyard to lay waste to all squirrels, everywhere — but, of course, it’s all talk and no action on her part).

This time, however, her barking had a frantic, excited edge to it.

Realization and panic flooded me.  I remembered that the previous day, I’d seen a small (adolescent?) skunk lumping across our yard in a sort of busy, distracted fashion, looking at this and that, before proceeding on its mysterious way.  I’d happened to look at the clock, because I was surprised to see it out in the daytime.  And the clock read 5:25 p.m.  In my insatiable need -to-know manner, I’d looked up skunk behavior, wondering whether it might be rabid, and found out reassuring things (I won’t bore you with the details — you can read it here:  http://www.wildskunkrescue.com/skunkbehaviors.htm)  I’d made a mental note to keep an eye on the backyard, because that was Holly’s domain and Queendom.

So, this time, almost instinctively, I looked at the clock again before I raced to the kitchen door — yup.  5:20 or so!  (For someone who hates Time, I manage to do a good job of keeping track of it).

All this happened in split seconds, you understand.  I looked out the door, and there, on the planters on the retaining wall of the backyard, stood Holly, barking excitedly and dancing aggressively in front of a small, frightened, brave, snarling little skunk, who (the Gods be thanked) was still facing Holly — but whose tail was lifting dangerously.  In seconds, it would turn and take aim.

I SCREAMED at Holly in a voice I didn’t know I possessed.  Holly, Holly, HOLLY, COME BACK!

And, thank the stars!  Holly looked at me, fought her impulse to kill the creature, and came back to me.  I grabbed her by the collar, and took her into the kitchen, and slammed the door shut just in time!  The skunk sprayed the back wall of the back yard, and left, probably freaked out of its little mind.

I have to hand it to the skunk.  It was so small compared to my big poodle, and it was so brave.  I felt sorry for it, and was oddly proud of it.  I even wondered briefly whether it was orphaned, and whether I could adopt it.

But I have NO wish to have a skunkified dog stinking up my house.

I am now VERY vigilant when five o’clock comes rolling around.

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Tags: #Dog, Backyard encounter, Courage, Skunk

Oct 7, 2015 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings

Today, while walking The Hod in the woods, I came across:

1. A squashed garter snake in someone’s parking lot, before I reached the woods, and I was sad.
2. A robin, which hopped away.
3. A couple off-trail with a dog on a leash, which woo-woo-sang nervously at Holly, who was off-leash — so, I put Holly back on the leash, a courtesy, for a little while, until we were far from them.
4. A man aiming his camera to shoot autumn leaves on a tall tree, with sunlight filtering through — surely, the best kind of shooting to do in the woods.
5. A man sitting at his easel on a rock off-trail, painting the scene in front of him.
6.  Lots and lots of dappled sunlight filtering through green, and gold, and red and brown leaves
7. Millions of cushiony pine needles on the forest floor.
It’s a beautiful fall day in New England, and the air sparkles.  It’s a good day to be alive, as someone said, somewhere, I don’t recall where, or when.

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Tags: beauty and sunlight, Fall leaves, life and light, Walking in the Woods with my dog

Oct 2, 2015 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings

So, after a long, long spell of dryness and crackling heat and dust, we’ve had a spell of three rainy days.

And it’s darker and darker earlier and earlier outside.

Usually, I have ambivalent feelings about autumn because of that, but I love that frisson in the air when it’s colder, and the leaves get golden and red (as they’re starting to do, finally).

This fall, I’m thinking of planting ginger and curry leaves indoors, in our downstairs bathtub-converted-into-a-grow-space-with-grow-lights-and-planting-containers.  I hasten to assure you that I didn’t convert the bathtub into a grow-space, lest you gasp at my imagined multitude of skills — it was my husband, the amazing handyman at home, who did that.  And outside, in our various beds in the front yard, I plan to plant the following fall crops:

• Beets
• Garlic
• Turnips
• Radishes
• Carrots
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Kale
• Mustard greens
• Swiss chard
• Cabbage

We’ve grown so much this summer already — heaps and heaps of tomatoes (which are still growing, but not as lushly as half a month ago), heaps and heaps of green beans (and those are still growing), broccoli, cabbage, some not-as-prolific green peppers and eggplants, and lots of green and chillies!  We do not really want to spend grocery money on store-bought veggies, which cost more for less.  We like our food fresh from the vine or bush or plant.  It tastes like one’s own heaven on earth.  Our front yard, and garage-top container vegetable garden (also created by my beloved) is tight in terms of space, and our home is on a small, small plot of land in an semi-urban setting, but this garden does its job with pride and purpose.

I also want to plant bulbs before October goes — daffodil and tulip, crocuses, iris, narcissus.  This weather is helpful.  I neglected the fall flower-planting aspect of the garden for the past few years, and when spring came, our garden looked sad, with a few straggly tulips and daffodils here and there.  The summer was much better, and things looked prettier.  Vegetables always do well, but flowers?  They require a lot of care and thought, and I hadn’t had the time for that.  Now, I shall.

Fall is here, and it’s filled with hope: I shall plant, and I shall sing, I shall write, play music, and cook delicious food, and I shall learn to bake nice things for my family.

I thank the forces in this universe that aligned just right to make this time of freedom open its doors for me.  From having lived long enough and seen some poverty and sadness, I know that things can change rapidly, that times can be replaced with bad in the blink of an eye, and one cannot rest too easy on one’s happiness, and yet … I am happy.  If things go bad, I will remember the good times, and when things are good, I’ll focus on keeping them so, and sharing them.

Thanks for reading!
~Dreamer of Dreams

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One of my favorite poems of all time by John Keats:

Tags: #Autumn, #Contentment, Beauty, fall, Family time, flower and vegetable garden, memories to store, season of mists, time of happiness, time of plenty

Sep 30, 2015 Daily Life, Writing 101

Homing Instinct, or: The Long Way Back

©September 30th, 2015

By Vijaya Sundaram

So, I’ll keep this brief.

I was about five years old and completely fearless (except for my irrational fear of Dracula and Mini-Cula, a character made up by my uncle who told us scary stories which made me whimper at night).

I was at school — Hutchings High School (which, despite its name was a k-12 school) in the city of Poona (now Pune), India.

I was up in a tall tamarind tree, gorging on tamarinds.  Everyone who knows tamarinds knows that they are sour, but the unripe ones are green and even more sour than you can imagine — they make your taste buds squeal in squirmy ecstasy, like someone tickling your toes. I loved plucking them and sucking on them, screwing up my little face into a rictus of comic joy, no doubt.

Other children were there too, on different trees, but I don’t remember them.

Lost as I was in sour bliss, I lost track of time.

I noticed after a long time that the whole playground had suddenly gone silent.  I came to myself, and looked around.  There was no one there, not even my elder sister, who would usually wait for me (I shall ask her tomorrow why she didn’t), and remind me to do stuff.

Panic must have stricken me.  I don’t remember.  All I remember was calmly thinking about HOW I was going to get home.  We had no telephone.  My family was of modest income at the time.  Home was quite far away.  My father would have no idea of where to begin looking for me.  I think I worried more about them than about me.

So, I thought rapidly.  The mists of late evening had fallen.  I remember the darkness pressing down on all sides.

I thought and thought, and light dawned on me.  I knew what I’d do!  I’d take an auto-rickshaw home.

Now, those of you who know the city of Pune know that it is the proud home of Bajaj Autos and of scooters, motorcycles and the like.  I imagined my route home.  And I knew I could make it there.

I hailed a rickshaw.  I don’t remember anything about the driver of it, except that he was kind and patient.  In rapid-fire Marathi ( a language of which I do NOT remember anything now), I outlined my situation to him.  I told him confidently that I knew the way home, and that he should take me there, and that my parents would pay him when he delivered me.

He must have smiled to himself, but he was very nice.  And I led him through a torturous route, which he followed patiently (I could not remember addresses and such, but I knew how to get home).

A rickshaw ride that should have taken about fourteen minutes took about an hour — but he took me home, and delivered me to my thunderstruck and frantic parents.

Now think for a moment about this.  In a world where children are routinely abducted, sold into slavery, molested or killed, I made it home safely.  My driver was a good man.  I bless that man, and wish him well, if he’s alive.  May his children and grandchildren grow and prosper.

For he was a trust-worthy man, and I trusted him.  We always have to trust in the kindness of strangers, but in today’s world, it’s better to verify as well.

My mother must have wept, my father must have laughed in relief,  my sister must have sobbed ((I have no memory of their reactions).  The rickshaw-wallah reassured them, then laughingly told them something that my parents reminded me about for a long time, and which I still remember:  I had led him home on the longer, slower school-bus route, and had pointed every house, every pole and every landmark along the way.

Perhaps, that has been my route in my life, too.  I have always taken the longer way —  it’s not always been efficient, but I’ve met good and wonderful people, and it’s been fun.

It still is.

I was plain lucky.  And I had an unerring homing instinct.  I still have it.  Put me down anywhere, and I’ll make it back home.  I have the map of my world imprinted on my nerves, I think.

And I love coming home.

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Tags: homing instinct, Hutchings High School, North Indian Classical Music, Parvati Darshan, Poona, Pune, rickshaw ride, rickshaw-walla, school-girl's odyssey, tamarind tree, the kindness of strangers, the long way home, trust, trust but verify

Sep 29, 2015 Daily Life

The Woods, Waterless

©September 29th, 2015

By Vijaya Sundaram

Today, when I walked in the dull-green woods with The Hoddles*, brown leaves rustled underfoot, dry and disgruntled, crackling like the promise of flame without hope of moisture.

The air was still, and the sudden call of a bird or two only made the stillness more oppressive.  There was no sign of life.  The soil was loose, and only the entwining roots of trees held things together.  I felt the panting desire of the whole place for water.  Insatiate need and blind yearning were all around me — in the air, in that sudden bird-call, in the soil, in the leaves and dry underbrush.  And yet, in all this dryness, the woods were beautiful — because these woods, my woods, are always mysterious and green, be it a lush green, or a desiccated, thirsty green.

As Holly and I climbed the rocky, root-twined slopes up the side of the hill (our usual route), a sudden rustle stopped me.  I looked, and to my pleasure, saw a sinuous, beautiful jewel-green-and-black striped slim snake (a garter snake, I think) rustle amongst the leaves, pause, taste the air, and move on, like a trickle of water in the dust.  Then, quick as a flash, it vanished.  Holly, to my surprise, didn’t evince any interest, and indeed, looked the other way.  Perhaps, she smelled a deer.  In any case, I’m glad she didn’t notice it.

I don’t think of myself as a reptile-lover, but I loved this snake.  Shy and sweet, dry and probably soft, this snake moved like a liquid jewel.  She made me think of this beautiful planet, our earth, our host, our mother.

And I was sad.

For the earth needs us.  Climate Change is real.  If we listen to those ruled by greed and denial, we will drown in the rising seas around us, or in the dry deserts that will overtake our planet.

So … plant things.  Plant trees and bushes.  Drive less.  Walk more.  Consume less.  Make things from existing things.  Let animals live and thrive.  Help your friends.  Share.  Give more.  I know it’s too late, and we’ve gone beyond the tipping point, but still …  I hope.

And I want to work towards another future — the one in which we might yet have a chance.

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Image from http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/eastern_garter_snake.htm

*(Holly, my dog — to those who are befuddled by my reference to The Hoddles)

Tags: #Hope, Beauty, Climate Change, consumption, Garter snakes, Holly the dog, music is life, planting trees, The Earth, The Woods near my house

Sep 24, 2015 Daily Life, Writing 101

Sorry, I had no time to re-create a day today — so I cheated (sorry!) and am re-posting an old “day-in-the-life” post of mine) for this assignment

Meditations Upon Walking on Solid Water

(Reposted an earlier post from my other blog, which is now private)

©By Vijaya Sundaram

January 25, 2014

 I had never walked on water in my entire life.  Today, with quaking heart, I did.

It wasn’t too bad.  It was lovely, in fact.

To think that there was a pond filled with water which teemed with possible life, which would, in springtime and summertime, have ducks and geese, and frogs and fish, which now supported my weight, and sang it’s safe, it’s safe to my internally trembling self!

(I was fine on the outside, although I wanted to get on it, go across and back as quickly as possible.  For, despite all the assurances and reassurances by my husband, who said, “I grew up near a lake, don’t worry, this pond is frozen solid, look!” and jumped on it, all my cells shrieked, No!  It isn’t.  Don’t!)

My daughter, intrepid and impatient with me, said, “Come on, Mom!  It’s great!  See?  And she walked on ahead of me, following my husband.

I knew that she was anxious for me to enjoy it like she did.  So, I put on my brave face, and squared my timid shoulders, and did.

Something interesting happened then.  I wasn’t afraid, anymore.  I put my trust in my husband and my child, and walked on solid water.  Ice is interesting.  It has personality.  It has stillness.  It is mysterious, a presence that could be either kind or cruel.  It was kind to us today.  No betrayals lurked beneath its opacity.

Then, we went back to the main trails in the woods where we were walking.  We walked in companionable silence punctured by occasional inconsequential chatter in the dark stillness of the night-time woods, lit by snow.  We heard the creaking of an occasional tree, as we wound our way up to the very top of the hill in the woods.

There we stood on snow-covered rocks, and looked down on the intermittent shoals of cars, exotic fish of gold and red streaming towards us and shimmering away from us on the highways far below.  The lights of the city gleamed jewelline in the winter night.  A faraway airplane took off, glittering into the sky, from the distant airport.

Our daughter is a child of winter, and a child of these woods.  The woods are hers, that hilltop and its tower belong to her alone (also to us, by extension), and that pond we walked on has been part of her consciousness since she was about twenty-two months.  She gazed around and exclaimed over and over, “It’s so beautiful here, isn’t it?”  And she sighed and sat on a snow-covered rock, gazing into the night.  My husband and I murmured in agreement, as we stood and gazed out, eyes saturated with the lights of the night.

Permanence is an illusion, I know, but I like to think that these words and that pond are part of the permanence of her memories.  I want for us to build a universe of memories.  These will sustain her (and us) through what is sure to come in the future, because the future is always jealous of the present.

And the present is our gift from the Lords of Time.

____________________________The End___________________________________

Tags: A Day in the life of ..., Family time, walking in the woods in the winter, Walking on ice

Sep 10, 2015 Daily Life

Blazing heat. Muggy, too. Awful day. Didn’t do very much. Made lunch and dinner, but that’s usual. Wrote. Did laundry. The usual stuff. Dropped off daughter at friend’s place. Picked her up. The highpoint? Watered the garden, always a satisfying thing to do. Holly objected and woofed, because she wanted watering too — a true water-dog, she is! She loves to bite at, and eat, the water that jets out of the hosepipe. I indulged her a bit, and she was ecstatic. Continued on with the watering. Picked a bunch of vegetables.

I find myself loving beans on their vines. They’re shy. They hide. Then, when you lift the vine, you see them dangling there, rich and green. They reveal themselves gradually to the discerning eye. Here they are, along with the usual show-off tomatoes and a couple of small green peppers. Pretty, no?

Growing things make me happy (and growing things makes me happy).

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Aug 18, 2015 Daily Life, The Daily Post

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “In the Summertime.”

Summertime and the Livin’ is Easy

©By Vijaya Sundaram

In the summer, all bets are off.  There are no strict rules, just hazily outlined guidelines for being, which we trace, or retrace, or erase, day by day.  The days are long and sunny, sometimes boiling hot, (unless you’re at home with all the fans going), and cool in the evening, when our panting dog ceases her panting, and breathes evenly, gratefully, a flopsome, relaxed canine at peace with her world.

When we aren’t visiting her friends or going to museums or zoos, our daughter sits in her room, reading book after book, until it is time for me to read to her (our special treat), or until it’s time to take a long, rambling walk around our neighborhood, and come home for dinner, which she concludes with a delicious mango or lime popsicle.

On other days, we are at the local pond, surrounded by trees, and my daughter splashes in joy, while I sit sedately on the shore, reading, or gazing up at the sky through interlaced branches, entangled in a glowing, sunlit mesh of emerald-green.  Sometimes, we’re off at her friend’s place, at the local swimming pool in the neighboring town.  While the mothers chat about this and that, four young girls, all between ten and twelve, splash and play games in the pool, and I say to myself, “May this innocence and sweetness last forever, even when adolescence hits.”

My husband is busily building her a “tree-house,” although it’s more like a tree-platform (we have a smallish back-yard), with a (promised) soon-to-be-installed corrugated roof.  This tree-house is glorious and abuts the Japanese maple in the back yard.  Big enough to hold two girls comfortably, and four girls wedged together, it is a promise my husband made to our daughter a year or two ago, and now it’s taking shape.  When he isn’t teaching music for a living, he loves working with wood, and wood responds to him — there’s a meditative interplay between him and the inanimate sun-captured pieces of lumber he engages with, and it’s beautiful to see that.  To top it all, he’s a loving father and a devoted husband, and we love singing together in the evenings, all three of us in our little family, while our dog sprawls contentedly, secure in her place in our pack.

In the summertime, bees seem to drown themselves in ecstasy in the cool waters that fill our tomato, basil and eggplant planters, then rise, buzzing and whirring like helicopters, careering away from me, without harming me, when I come close to water our garage-top planters.  These bees are friendly, and belong to our neighbor two houses down.  (He’s an avid bee-keeper, and a brilliant gardener/landscaper by avocation, and we’re fortunate in knowing people like him.  Bees need our help!  When bees die out, so will we.  So thank you, A!)

Our summer days are hot and hazy, and nights are cool and lazy, and my family and I feast on tomato salad and pasta with pesto made from our own basil growing joyously and luxuriantly everywhere in our front yard.

Madrigal singing en famille, reading books, writing, walking the dog … this is what I’ve been doing for the past week, although it was hectic before that — but who needs stories about hectic lives when the Summer sits outside our window, splashing heat waves around in happy abandon?

Does this mean that our lives are this lazy and happy all through the year?  No, we have our ups and downs, like anybody else, but mostly, it’s happiness, because we choose it.

After all, happiness is a choice (unless we’re talking clinical depression).

It’s summertime, and the livin’ is easy.

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Tags: In the Summertime