Nitya Newsletter: Vol XI
VOLUME XI
Hello, and welcome back to another edition of my very regular newsletter!
On a family trip many years ago, we were driving idly around the hilly roads in Coonoor, when the discussion turned to a bottle of homemade wine that lay in the liquor cabinet, whose label read, "Beulah Farms, Coonoor". Somewhere along the way we decided to go looking for the farm, and our aimless drive suddenly was fuelled by a purpose.
Beulah Farms was run by an elderly gentleman, weathered by life and in love with his garden. There was a sort of sorrow that hung about him, yet there was so much joy radiating from his farm. He gave us the grand tour, and we returned energised, and clutching clippings of spearmint, apple mint, horse radish, and bottles of homemade wine which would lie in the liquor cabinet for many years after that.
We went looking for something rather inconsequential, just for something to do, and ended up with a great experience. I love the term 'Arbitrary Stupid Goals', from which: They stopped trying to accomplish anything. They just put a carrot in front of them and decided the carrot wasn’t that important but chasing it was.
There was this story that my Aja had told us when we were kids. There was a king who asked his three daughters, "How much do you love me?"
One said, "I love you more than gold and silver"
The next one said, "I love you more than diamonds and all the jewels in the world"
He looked at his youngest. She said, "I love you more than salt". Enraged by being compared to something as common as salt, he banished her from his kingdom.
One day, many years later, the king got lost while hunting in the forest. After wandering around for a long time, he stumbled upon a house. The couple who lived there welcomed him in and served him food. He started eating it, but something was wrong. "There's no salt in the food!" he said. His host just smiled. He realised then that the woman was his youngest daughter, and also realised how important salt really is. And so he asked for her forgiveness, and she returned to the kingdom, and they all lived happily ever after.
Things currently do seem a bit... saltless, to say the least.
There's a line from a song called Ochintu Koi Mane by the Gujrati poet Dhruv Bhatt, that really stuck with me, and this is a rough translation: the coastline keeps account of all the high tides and low tides, all the bad times and good, but to the ocean it makes no difference.
A bit of stoicism goes a long way right now, when we're keeping time from one sanitiser bottle to the next, rather than months or weeks or elastic days. All we can do is keep reminding ourselves to be like the ocean.
On a lighter note: this is a gem from the Films Division of India, an instructional on Good Manners.
In Shillong, 24th May is celebrated as Bob Dylan Jayanti. Local musicians and Dylan fans gather for a tribute concert. These are some covers by Lou Majaw, who is a musical legend in Shillong, and who began this tradition in the '70s.
There is a village near New Delhi that supplies the national capital its bouncers - in Asola-Fatehpur Beri, bodybuilding is a tradition, and also a means to keep young men disciplined.
Good Manners by The Films Division
What are well-known facts that you learnt embarrassingly late?
For me, it was that Om Puri and Amrish Puri were not brothers,
that the Sistine Chapel doesn't come between the fifteenth and seventeenth chapels,
that the moon doesn't always rise in the night and set in the morning.
I'd love to hear facts that you discovered later than you should have. Reply to this email to make me feel like I'm not the only fool.
And lastly, my lockdown labour of love: Songs From The Almirah is a collection of three songs each told from the point of view of three women from different time periods. I recorded and mixed in my bedroom, so would recommend listening with headphones. The beautiful artwork is by the very talented Ms Pranjali Dubey.The entire process has been so much fun, and I'm very excited to share it!
You can follow my music project, Milta, here.
I'm going to sign off with a little excerpt from Zadie Smith's Intimations:
"Out of an expanse of time, you carve a little area that nobody asked you to carve and you do "something".You carve it out, the time you need, after much anxiety and debate, and look between your hands and there it is - nothing. An empty victory. Ottessa Moshfegh wrote this line about love: "Without it, life is just doing time". I don't think she intended only romantic love... it's Love with a capital L.
Without this element present, in some form, somewhere in our lives, there really is only time, and there will always be too much of it. Busyness will not disguise its lack. Even if you don't have a minute to spare- still all of that time ,without love, will feel empty and endless".
Hoping you have enough salt in every meal,
Nitya
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