Sorting out things-Family of Man

Posted on August 24, 2008 by prashant bhatt

At the tomb of William Fraser, St.James Church, Delhi
Our walks together...January 2006

This Friday, 22.8 (holiday in Libya) I spent sorting out old photographs, papers, diaries and memorabilia, in anticipation of traveling in the coming week. One more year in Libya is over. I first came here in 2003 to try it out for a year and see. Now it has been over four years of working and learning here, through varied experiences.

 

The Family of Man is large and went through the old photographs and momentoes. My father’s Army Medical Corps Badges. The Arsenal football team bag which Babu had given me last year when we used to train with Carlos and he used to live in Gnata, with a lovely Gulmohar tree giving a scented breeze. I remember how he called me up one night and said the finals of Copa America is coming live and then came to pick me up from Shara Jraba. We had a good time together. But Babu and Carlos are not in Tripoli any more. Things change fast in Libya and there is a constant flux of expatriates. Some stick on. Some go back. Some change their jobs and move to other countries.  A box of pencils of different sizes. Shells and stones collected during the trips to Sabratha and Apollonia.

 

Then I went through the sketches made in the past months. Sketch studies are a great way to enhance one’s knowledge and grasp of things. The sketch studies of “The Battle of Anghiari” by Vinci to the study of composition of great photographs- “The Steerage” of Steiglitz. Vietnam’s photographs of “The Great society” which claimed so many victims and continues to do so. A father’s burden, The Siege of Sarajevo, Brothers. Seeing the energies and tragedies unleashed through the events of the past decades.

 

The books of Taschen series, which were introduced by John of Malta, or going back further, the BhagwadGita presented by Kishan Lal Sabharwal who reads it every day, five minutes in the morning, a chapter a day, for over fifty years. The story of art which has been a study which has given a window into the thinking of other cultures and also to examine more closely one’s own beliefs and practices. The study of various teaching practices, pedagogy, through specific case studies of Mirambika, a school iin Delhi based on the teachings of Sri Aurobindo.

 

Medical books and papers. Research papers. The small pocket book series of 100 top diagnosis. Films of interesting cases. Photographs taken over the past two years in different houses and places visited. Arranged the framed photographs, the children at Lodhi, the Sanchi stups-Gateway of India series, to the Egyptian Pharoahs, Swiss Alps reflecting in blue waters.

 

One box full of diaries and notebooks. The notings of the times gone by. Diary writing is a great way of adding dimensions to your life. Reflecting on works. The attempt to describe or narrate gives an added significance to any event. As a radiologist, I keep describing processes going on in patients and explaining to the treating doctors what is going on inside the patient. It is a  picture-diary of the patient, of the disease. Real life is much more complex and richer. But the processes are similar. The processes of description and reflection.

 

Having lived in the Arab world, working in the private medical sector, as millions of people from the sub-continent do, one reflects on the common realities of the Arabs, Indians, and the west. The layers of interaction, the way they perceive us and we them. What is the life of an Indian who lives here, away from his family?

 

I started keeping diaries in 1983, as a 15 year old, in the year my maternal grandfather died after a prolonged battle with lung cancer. Keeping notes on the jogging done on the roads of Delhi cantonment,  the number of kilometers covered. In 1984, I successfully completed the half-marathon. From diary noting and logbooks, the entries went on to the studies. The books I read in the British Council Library of Delhi. It used to be in the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society(AIFACS) building of Rafi Marg in the early eighties. In two years (1983-85) I read many nice books and also saw many nice exhibitions of fine arts at the AIFACS hall.

 

It was a long tiring day, with many memories coming alive as I filled the boxes. Trips and swimming at the beaches of Zanzour. Jraba parties. Photographing in the mornings at Assai Al Hamra. Lots of interesting memories of the year gone by.

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Walkers at Lullanagar

Posted on August 19, 2008 by prashant bhatt
 
Mornings at Mansa Devi-Haridwar

Mornings at Mansa Devi-Haridwar-June 2003

One Dr.Grant, a cardiologist had a house on top of a hill in Lullanagar. He would go for a run in the morning and evening with his dogs. He was most probably in his late fifties at that time. The sight of this man, huffing and puffing on the road, regularly, without break, even on the days it rained, was an inspiring sight. He was one of the first persons who inspired me to take up road running. I was 11 years old when I first took to the roads. Jogging on the roads of Pune cantonment. Going past Wanowrie and then coming up the Lullanagar hill,following the route taken by Dr. Grant. This man, whom I never knew personally has given me a gift that has stayed over the decades. The streets look very different in the early morning. No people crowding on the roads. No rush. No pollution. The feel of running on the middle of the road of the main shopping plaza of Pune- the M.G.Road in the early morning hour is great.

 

Thanks to Dr.Grant, I came to know what it is like in Sholapur Bazaar in the early morning. One of my jogging friends told me that there is a lady dressed in white, who stands there in the wee morning hours, with a child in her arms. One can hear the child crying. But when one comes close, there is nothing! I never saw that lady or the child. But my jogging friend has seen and heard them many times. 

 

My grandfather came back from Russia in July 1979. He was another great morning walker. He would get up early in the morning and go for a morning walk to Lunanagar, dressed in a coat, a hat and a walking stick in hand. Dressing sense carried through the decades,by the retired Professor of Political science of Banaras Hindu University who did his PhD under Harold Laski in London School of Economics in the nineteen thirties. The walking stick has many layers of culture ingrained into it. Human beings carrying various layers.

Emotions in Clouds-Tripoli-Libya

Emotions in Clouds-Tripoli-Libya-July 2006

SOME WALKS….(Click to enlarge image)

 

He walked through the campus of Allahabad university in his college days. Or through pre-partition Lahore in the initial days of his career as a teacher. On the hills of Sagar University of Madhya Pradesh, where he founded the department with the first Vice-chancellor Hari Singh Gaur. His photograph and name are inscribed on the walls of that university department. A legacy of education. And a legacy of morning walks. With him I started having my first conversations in the mornings. Civics and life. The construction of society. And also came to know some first civilian friends of his, amongst the morning walkers.

 

One of them owns a sports-goods shop on MG Road. He never charged me anything for repairing my football. Walking in the early morning rain is a great feeling. ” You will fall on the slippery stones” some well-wishers told him. But he would not listen. And with him I walked up the hills in the rain. Over the slippery stones. But with that wet walk came the joys of the scent of wet mud in the early morning hour.

 

 People put on many scents, and creams and after shave lotions. I even came across perfumes with exotic names on the ancient Egyptian Pharoahs in the bazaars of Cairo. Rameses and Nephretiti. But is there a perfume which can match the scent of wet mud after an early morning shower. I have not yet come across such a scent. These early morning rain-walks also introduced me to the joy of  looking at the clouds and the dance of the early morning sun rays piercing the clouds. Purple red skies on an early rainy morning. And the joys of a rainbow on a hill.

 

On the hills of Lullanagar, I came across my first poet-performer. Over the years I have seen many theatre performers. But the first performer I came across was not in a theatre but on the hills of Lullanagar on morning walks.

 

He had a poetic name. But some people called him “Gabroo”.He used to write poems on the recent happenings in the country. He would put them down in verse and recite. He would recite about the snowfalls in Lahaul which have cut them off from the rest of the country.Or the recent politics of the country or city. At around 12 years of age, I was first introduced to the live form of this expression of events in society, through poems and words, verses and rhymes,all composed beautifully by this sweet man, whom people called ” Gabroo”,

 

One man would run with a hockey stick in his hand. He would be running before we came and would yet be running when we would leave after doing some stretching exercises or “Surya Namaskar”. Lullanagar in the mornings introduced me to yoga too. The thing that intrigued us is why does he have that hockey stick in his hand. Running on and on, with a hockey stick in his hand. Does he see any goal post? Does he see any field formation of the game? Is he a former hockey player at the national level? We never asked him. He kept jogging on the hills, with hockey stick in hand. Round and round, without any goal-post in sight. But in that man, running with a hockey stick with no goal post, a question came to my mind. How many of us are like that? Running through the chores of life without any goal-post. What is your goal-post in life. What is your goal-post for the coming year? Or are you just going to keep running with the hockey-stick of life without any goal in sight?

 

Through these walkers of Lullanagar, Pune, I came across the first club of my life. The morning hour on the hill first introduced me to people from different walks of life, with different orientations and backgrounds.The hill in the morning was our common ground. Cardiologists, teachers, poets, shop-keepers, children collecting stones. Hindus, atheists,professionals, Christians, Parsees, hockey-players,runners,dreamers…Students, priests, chanters of Om.

But most of all these were people who loved the magical morning hour when

 night blends into day.

 

My father and I would go for morning walks in the hills of Lullanagar. And that wonderful gift of the morning hour, which my father gave me, lives on. Through these walks I have come across wonderful people and many lovely hours sitting on hill tops, becoming one with the universe.

 
 
 
Morning Calm-Green Mountains-Eastern Libya-October 2006

Morning Calm-Green Mountains-                                 Eastern Libya-Oct 2006

 
 
 
 
 
 
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Flowers for all occasions

Posted on August 19, 2008 by prashant bhatt
Nature's best communicators

Nature's best communicators- Gozo, Malta March 2007

Flowers are described as a symbol for supramental invocation. They are nature’s best communicators.A flower for every occasion.

  

In birth. In death. In marriage.In celebration.

 

The first flowers I remember are the small white flowers on the hills of Pashan, Pune-where my first school Loyola was.

 

I once gave a small flower to my father. He kept it in the book which he studied for his exams. That flower dried up and became a symbol for many nice times and an inspiration for studies. It was this prayer in the flower which blossomed into many nice times. Even today, after over thirty years, that flower lives on. In one forgotten corner of the world our dreams come to life.

 

My son Sahil gave me a bougainvillea flower, picked up at Observation post, Mumbai. I keep it in the book of differential diagnosis which I read everyday. Opening those pages and going through that purple flower, inspires and directs.

 

One day I went to the Greek Church of Tripoli with a friend. To light candles for her brother who died recently. St.George, established in 1647, has been many things over the centuries. A Turkish prison. A school. Today we went there and prayed silently. The past five years have been tough. Parents gone, one year after another.

 

The elder brother died of cancer.”Take care of your sisters” he said. The younger one died in his sleep, the next year.

 

Silent tears of memory, amongst the scent of flowers.

 

There are flowers for every occasion. Nature’s greatest communicators.

 


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