Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Eye of Tranquility


your eyes
beauteous
brimming with life and living
compel me to stare in fascination
even as they force me
to continue to live

even as the brimming and surging ocean
calms
to watch you


------------------
Bhashwati wrote:

The tranquil eye

soothes with its gaze
caresses with its touch
moves with its expression
transforms with its beauty
_____________________________________________

The eye of tranquillity ...

does it greatly differ from the eye of a storm? 

One claims to be calm, the other seems to be calm

perhaps only a storm can know the difference.
_________________________________________________________

Extremely compelling image both for the colours and the composition.

Saturday, July 27, 2019

Taj Mahal Hotel, Bombay, 1975


Taj Mahal Hotel, Bombay, 1975

crowning the vast expanse
to the name and the house
it heads: Tata
atop the Gateway to India

Sunday, July 07, 2019

Ba in Old Age



Here is Ba in old age. Time had worn her down, but she still read her prayers every morning. My father was still alive when I took the picture; she never wore jewelry, except for a sacred tulsi mala, after he died.

When Ba died, in 1992, my wife, Nancy, wrote several poems about her. Here is one of them:

     Sorting Ba's Things

Sorting through cupboards in Ba's old room, 
I tugged a stuck drawer open, 
pulled the string of a small cloth bag, to find 
pink and white grins of outgrown false teeth; 
in another, spectacles, blinking in the light. 

And there were her gods and puja implements - 
incense sticks, oil lamps with wicks she rolled 
out of cotton and ghee, small statues of Krishna, 
elephant-headed Ganesh, Lakshmi the wealth-giver, 
the book of slokas she chanted every day. 

Sunday mornings she watched Mahabharat on TV - 
a miracle in every episode - gods' stately progress 
through the air, seated on lotus flowers; 
towering demons with big bellies and walrus fangs 
who laughed "Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" just before 
a hurled fire-discus struck them between the eyes 
and they toppled like trees. 
Sometimes I sat to watch with her, 
and she would say, "Did you see that?!" 

Dear Ba, by the end all the sets of teeth hurt you, 
you wore them only for photographs, 
and the glasses could not make the slokas clear. 

May Lakshmi keep you beside her 
on the silky petals of her pink lotus. 
May Ganesh feed you the sweet ladoo he holds. 
And when you are sated and sleepy, 
may Krishna soothe you with the song of his flute.

-- Nancy Gandhi

Thursday, July 04, 2019

Ba, Reading the Gita


Ba ('mother' in Gujarati) reading the Bhagavad Gita, as she did every morning, with or without comprehenshion. I think of her as I knew her at the end of her life, ailing and grey, living with me, widowed, lost in a city where she did not know the language, had few friends, was cut off from her daily routines and rituals. Seeing this picture, I remember when she was the mother of three children, competent, humorous, respected by women, who sought her advice, the best cook in the world.