Prashant Bhatt's notes

Year end notes-2022

Posted on December 31, 2022 by prashant bhatt

Thinking places expanded this year to New York State as Sagar shifted there. However, Brant Street, Burlington and the surrounding areas remain one of my favourite thinking places.

READING JOURNALS

Did some readings around Pickering. This evolves many lovely walks around Old Mills-on the Humber. This year, one of my mentors passed away physically. He taught us how to view literature through the post colonial lens. Prayed and remembered our many discussions together at the Tripoli cafes around the Libyan chapter of the Arab spring.

SPIRITUAL JOURNALS

Looking back at some of our thinking places, and the many energies, memories associated with them.

Newark airport notes: July 2022: After leaving Sagar at his new place in NYC, I spent a few hours reflecting on past journeys. Remembering the first time they came to Tripoli from Delhi on Feb 25,2004 and Malta from Mumbai on Sep 24,2010 . Airport diaries are a part of a separate special notebook which I keep. This year, Mehran Karimi Nasseri, passed away in November. Nasseri spent many years stuck at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris . As a person who has spent many lonely hours in different terminals of the world, I could identify in with Nasseri in a special way.

UNIVESAL ENERGIES

Connecting with the universal energies. One of such places is Algonquin

Algonquin-July 2022

Manresa-May 2022

REMEMBERING PAST YEARS-AND GENERATIONS

One of the meditations, reflections I did on my elder son Sagar leaving for New York was the India of 1960s when his grand parents first left their homes. My father PNB left Delhi to serve in the North East after his graduation. He returned to those areas again in 1970s-1980s, and I remember him sending us first day covers, leaves, butterflies from the North East-Nagaland- which were not seen in the Western India Sahyadri area or the Northern India Shimla Himalayas areas.

My father-in-law- (Sagar’s Nana ji) left Karachi when British India became India and Pakistan. In the early 1960s he joined Nirlon, Mumbai. He describes his struggles of those years.

These are part of the family memories and legacies which Sagar will carry with him on the next phase of his life. I remembered my own years when I first stayed away from home in Delhi in 1980s. The associations with the campuses of Delhi university and the walks in Firoz Shah Kotla, Lodhi gardens areas. Leaving India in 2003-made me discover Northern Africa-Libya and we later stayed in Malta for two years.

Remembering Gozo Walks- Gozo -Malta-

BEST OF 2022

Posted in life | Tagged Canada, Diary, Family, Indian Diaspora, Libya, Tripoli Reading Group, Walks | 2 Comments

Some lists and readings-Port Credit

Posted on November 27, 2022 by prashant bhatt

One of the ways to build a personal reservoir of resilience is to build personal connections with thinking places, make time and go there to refine one’s thinking. Lists, Letters, Libraries as a personalized growth plan were some of the values my parents, family elders imbibed in me. On listening to an incomplete letter to one’s family, by a close friend, who read it aloud and wondered how to end it, I recalled letters to a loved one who has passed away- an exercise I have done over the years, which has deepened my understanding of life, cultures, civilizations and journeys taken by our family.

Thinking Places: Port Credit-Jack Darling and Rattray Marsh: November 2022

Around the midweek, I met a close friend- at Jack Darling parking and we went walking on the Lakefront. One evening before, I had texted him that it is going to be zero degrees and suggested we just meet at a Tims’s coffee place. He texted back that he walks even at Minus 20 degrees. My Canadian-born friend inspired me to take a walk by the Lake and on doing so, I realized that once we get moving, and if it is not raining or windy, then the walk is very invigorating. Jack Darling Memorial is one of my thinking places, as have other parks in the Port Credit area of Mississauga. Lakeshore has had some interesting ways of teaching.

Remembering Yester years: Bradley Museum at 50 (2017)-Canada 150

Toronto parks- Wilket Creek-2014

Gozo-walks-2016

Gozo Cathedral: A place of worship for millennia (Remembering Malta years-2010-2012)

Walks on ramparts of Gozo Citadel

Lace

Museums, parks, waterfronts were some of the thinking places which my parents would take me to, to renew and refresh, deepen perspectives of our contexts

Remembering some yesteryears and some mountain meditations

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Walks in Fall-2022-Stratford and some discussions

Posted on October 30, 2022 by prashant bhatt

Remembering the walks in Fall 2022, I remembered the drive to Stratford to see Hamlet.

UNDERSTANDING SHAKESPEARE

In the morning, we had briefly gone through the great lectures on Hamlet and revised the tools of Drama of Ideas, Arch of development of characters, Stage craft which Professor Marc O Connor has illustrated through indepth studies of the historical plays, the tragedies and comedies of Shakespeare.

PREVIOUS TIMES

We remembered watching a modern adaptation of Othello at Riverwood in 2017. There was not much stage craft there and the characters made a lot of effort, but the modern day adaptation was forced. The character Iago ,adapted for the play reminded me of what an English teacher once told me, sitting in Khadra area of Tripoli “There is no character as diabolical as Iago in all of Shakespeare”.

Sahil had gone to Stratford in 2016 on the four centuries of Shakespeare and watched Macbeth.

On the 400^th anniversary of Shakespeare we had gone through the characters of Prince Hal and Shylock and seen the range of human experiences conveyed through them.

HAMLET AT STRATFORD

The energy of the production was very intense, the lighting, stage craft, and spirited performance of the actors gave a different life to the play.

IDENTITY AND HAMLET

Dr.Connor writes in his guide book

“The first scene of Hamlet is one of the great scenes in world drama, and we won’t even meet Hamlet until the second scene. The very first words of the play—“Who’s there?”—introduce the great question of the play, the great question of Western literature, the question of identity: Who am I? Who are you? The response only deepens the mystery: “Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.” To the question of identity, the answer is refused, and then the question is posed again, but in a fascinating way: “unfold yourself.””

DISCUSSIONS OVER YESTER-YEARS

We have discussed some characters of Shakespeare, during our walks in Port Credit some like Falstaff and Shylock have broken beyond the confines of the play and talk to us across the centuries.

FALSTAFF

The Immortal Falstaff- Remembering Shakespeare Part 1

SHYLOCK

Shylock-Reverberating through Centuries-Remembering Shakespeare Part 2

LESSONS THROUGH HAMLET

Identity through the specific play Hamlet and how a live performance, the energy makes us view our own humanity beyond the routine day-to-day life are some things which stayed with us through that visit to Stratford.

Meditating in an Apple Farm in Southern Tier New York-near Binghamton, I remembered some of museum tours, some plays, the joint energy of these trips.

Near Binghamton-New York State-2022-Oct 23: A time to reflect on the times gone by, the home libraries and our journeys together. We drove to Binghamton to meet Sagar who came from New York City; we went through some family albums, refreshed old memories and made some new ones

OTHER PERSPECTIVES

Musings in Toronto Zoo-2016-july -six years ago

Remembering Kader Mia

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Prashant Bhatt's notes

Year end notes-2022

Some lists and readings-Port Credit

Walks in Fall-2022-Stratford and some discussions

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