In good company

Finally, I found something in common with an uncommon writer, Salman Rushdie

The author remarks,

"There's a writing self which is not quite your ordinary social self and which you don't really have access to except at the moment when you're writing, and certainly in my view, I think of that as my best self," he said. "To be able to be that person feels good; it feels better than anything else."

-- as quoted at close of yesterday's New York Times article, Now He's Only Hunted by Cameras

Six hours to the mountain

Day before yesterday, my feet tingled big time. And the thought which inspired the nerves to go hyper was, boy, oh boy, I am six hours away from the mountain. Bangalore being five hours from Tiruvannamalai. My house being an hour from Bangalore bus station. And that means I live in a space that is six hours from my beloved Arunachala.
Then why oh why am I so concerned with getting the house in order, why do I keep changing the arrangement of the drawing room, why on earth am I waiting for the broadband connection, why don't I get on that bus on which the conductor hangs on the door and yells, Thrvnnamalaai, Thrvnnamalaai, Thrvnamalaai?
Is it time, or is it repetition that erodes vowels out of a word, and urgency out of devotion?

Time travel in Bangalore

The best way to deal with the fatigue, confusion, and excitement of shifting to a new place? Dig out an old favorite novel and forget the utter mess your house is in.

I got this fat book, The time traveler's wife, as a gift from a seeker I met at Ramesh's. One of the most romantic stories that I have ever come across, it has childhood love, wedding, partings (because the fellow time travels to past and future) and, it also has the classic sad ending.

I always wonder, when I read western novels that talk of characters who suddenly meet ghosts, etc., why they don't consult eastern mystical bullshit.

I mean, time travel is not new to our saints, is it?

Here there is a fellow who is utterly at a loss to why he suddenly vanishes and lands, naked, in a past or a future space, he knows not for how long. He is hungry, and to survive he steals, beats people, picks locks, etc. That he also meets his wife, when she is six, is what gives the sweet taste to the otherwise worrisome nature of time travel.

To reduce risk of getting caught, the one thing he does in his everyday life is jog, to keep running fit. Why does he not come to India? Or at least look up some of our exported experts?

Having said that, its beautifully written. I wouldn't even say it is convincing, because I never doubt. This is God's world, not ours. He can beat his own logic, if he so pleases. As Ramesh says, if God can create beings with bodies, he can create them without bodies too. Not a big deal.

What is nice is the expansion of space, of time, the rest, the pause that these thoughts give to a mind on a roll of mundanity.