Birds of the Ana Sagar lake.
Suddenly, I remembered Rajasthan and thought of sharing a photographed instant with you.
Migratory birds at the Ana Sagar lake. Ajmer, Rajasthan, India. January 2021.
Kali in the dog’s mouth.
It’s a blue day, sunny, after the rains and everything is shining. And it is hot.
From my balcony on the first floor that is high enough to feel like the second floor, I see a beautiful black dog pass by on the grassy road underneath. His tongue is out as if he is carrying it somewhere. And the tongue, the glittering wet tongue, it is incredibly red—
—it reminds me of the goddess Kali, in her angry incarnation of Durga. She is dark blue and her tongue red like blood.
I saw Kali in the black dog’s mouth as he walked past my house.
Goals for the next two years.
- exercise every day — get fit and get ripped
- make a blue book out of this blog
- don’t be a lousy idiot, no bad habits
Bleeding mountains.
The mountains of the Himalaya are sliced without their permission to make roads upon which ugly vehicles will pass. Where they are cut, sand along with little rocks spill out continuously.
Those who sliced the mountains are also tasked with keeping the roads clean. The sand is cleaned off every day, and every day more sand arrives on the road quietly.
The sand is not sand but blood — golden-yellow and rough. The mountains that have stood here for centuries are now wounded and bleeding. They are no longer themselves.
Excessive individualism is ruinous for both self and society.
Hello, Tso Moriri.
I’m on my way to the cold desert of the Spiti valley and thinking of my trip to another cold desert last year: Ladakh.
Look at her beautiful lake. Look and keep looking.
Tso Moriri lake, Ladakh, India. September 2021.
God’s plan.
An emerald green beetle flew into my balcony to save herself from the pouring rains and landed upside down on the balcony floor — low visibility, poor landing.
I was about to help her turn back up but God had ensured she wouldn’t need any. He has a plan for everyone, for everything.
After attempting for about nine times, she turned herself up and started walking about, drying herself.
Walking with a firefly on my balcony.
On the night before my last night in Uttarkashi, as I’m walking about on the balcony of my room, I see a firefly on the ground. He is walking around here and there, walking and glowing at the same time. It’s the first time that I’m seeing a firefly walking around and glowing. His light is blinking exactly like that of a plane. It is as if I’m on the airport control tower and watching a plane walk from the terminal towards the runway for takeoff.
A little plane, warm yellow lights blinking, looking for the runway in my dark balcony.
Suddenly, the firefly takes off and flies towards the grass and flower plants outside the balcony. Takes off without the runway and without having to run on the runway. Takes off like a helicopter, with lights blinking and in complete control.
A little plane blinking and flying over knee-high flower plants.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
A beautiful coincidence happened three days after I wrote the above in my drafts. As I love coincidences and think they are one of the most beautiful and magical things in life, I will always share them here, even if they look insignificant or dull to others. So here it goes:
Three days after I wrote the above, I was talking to my dearest friend Anjali about anime and Ghibli films (she loves anime), and she asked me to watch Grave of the Fireflies, made by Studio Ghibli in 1988. I had seen two Ghibli films before (Kiki’s Delivery Service and My Neighbour Totoro) and loved both deeply, but somehow never got around to seeing more of their films.
The very same day I finished watching Grave of the Fireflies. While watching the film, the following scene reminded me of what I had written three days ago. This is the scene where the teenager Seita and his younger sister Setsuko go for a pee and see a kamikaze plane blinking overhead.
For context, they are living in an abandoned bomb shelter near a pond surrounded by greenery and fireflies. They had been playing with and catching fireflies before this scene.
Screenshots from the Studio Ghibli film Grave of the Fireflies, 1988.
Such beautiful imagination, isn’t it? I find certain affinities between Ghibli films and myself, in our ways of seeing and dreaming life. Setsuko saw a firefly in the kamikaze plane in the sky (in 1988), the way I saw a plane in the firefly walking about on my balcony before taking off (in 2022).
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
None of this would have happened without the coincidental meetings of many people and things across time. None of this would have happened—
- If I had not met Anjali, which was another wonderful coincidence that I will forever cherish.
- If I did not go to Uttarkashi, and did not walk around on the balcony on that night.
- If the firefly did not join me for a walk on the balcony.
- If Studio Ghibli did not exist.
- If Grave of the Fireflies was never made.
- If Anjali and I did not talk about anime and she did not recommend this film.
- If I did not watch the film.
- If I watched the film but wasn’t smart enough to make the connections.
All of the above, and many more things, were necessary for this one coincidence to come into existence — how marvellous! This is why I love coincidences. I believe everything in life, including life itself, is coincidental. Here is to many more.
A dog, a snow leopard, and you.
A dog barking past midnight somewhere in the mountains of the Himalaya is a sign of life, as much as a snow leopard sneaking behind the dog is a sign of life. Life is only until it is and you must find a way to live it the way you want before it comes to an end — it was.
Like how the dog lives his life by barking at the nothingness of the night before perhaps getting devoured by the snow leopard. Like how the snow leopard lives his life by stealthily sneaking around before perhaps starving to death.
Such is life and it is not forever. So you must live it fully and happily, you must make it as extraordinary as possible. You must be open to it completely and truthfully, and never turn into a rock.
As Aeschylus put it so beautifully in the 5th century BC:
Why grieve in advance? Whatever turns
up, I hope it’s happy—
— Aeschylus (from the play Agamemnon; translated by Anne Carson)
Never grieve in advance, never be frightened.