sent us mesmerized and maybe rocking as well

After a month or so, a time to look back at some musical experiences.

Four weeks back on a weekend like this, a Sushila Raman concert at Dunes. A different world of black magic rendered not only in the richness of Tamil Voodo music but the symbolically rich attire of singers and accompanying musicians so central in creating the effect. A trip to Mumbai last week made it impossible to attend her next one at the Dunes, this one again bringing a fusion of sorts with Baul singers.

Three weeks back was Freedom Jam. A treat to watch if you are in Pondicherry. On the beach road five concerts happening together. A south indian violin jamming with western guitar, a Rajasthani musical cum folk play, American country music with a guitar and mandolin, a bangalore band desperately trying to get a 'Doors' song right. We finally settled for a French rock band. A French rock band looked like any other rock band except for the brilliance of a pipe instrument player. He played the flute, clarinet, horn, basson and what not that day and sent us mesmerized and maybe rocking as well.

regurgitated thoughts, or just impulses

Two cities in one – the cliché of a statement about Mumbai

You gape, what stops them from running with their crockery as weapons

From the adjoining slums to those concrete structures, the buildings

Banging the air-conditioned people out and taking their money away

What stops them –

Civilization, honesty, integrity, humanity…

Politicians, Media, NGO, Police, State

Du Mont, Gramsci, Gandhi…

Maybe “Absence of Realization that they can do it”

People who call them out to do it, their intentions

Such interrogation of intentions ends up in a confession

Solving the personal problem through political means

Sad, Sad, Sad, Sad…

Revolution, Mediation, compromise…regurgitated thoughts, or just impulses…

I could only tell about them, their problems

Wrapping up our field studies

We met her, almost by chance

Somebody said, she cooked for flood victims

It’s a walkable distance, another suggested

A Sunday afternoon,

Third Day of

Heat and Pollution in Mumbai

We crossed a garbage pool

And then came drains choked by plastics

Undulating pathways, cesspools greeted us

We negotiated them, also an oath from an elder ragpicker

We came to her settlement made on earth

Separated from a similar settlement by plastic, polythene and tarpaulin sheets

A lotus in bloom she was

Arms folded

She smiled

She offered us water

She told us to mind the ceiling fan

‘It is low, you might have an accident’, she said

‘Tell us a bit about yourself’

I am Lakshmi Mote

I do not believe in Hindu-Muslim divide

I am a Muslim married to a Hindu

Of my two children, one has a Hindu name, the other a Muslim one

My basti people are a smart lot, they also do not believe in such divides

We are poor, we cannot afford it

We do not have cards but does that mean we do not have a right to live

‘How she cooked food,’ we asked, ‘during those hard times’

As cooking always is

We got clean water, We got firewood, We borrowed cylinders

We got money, We got the vegetables, We cut them and We boiled rice, We had food

Somebody asked ‘any new design or technology solution

That might have helped you then’

She is pensive for a minute

Somebody else says 'our unity is enough'

She replies

People said we could put some things underground

Flood will come and go,

The things will remain; they will not be washed away

As she cooks tea for us,

Somebody tells her to narrate to us her WSF experience

She smiles, and then sighs

I notice the golden ring on her ear lobe and on her nose

She says

I went to Nairobi to tell them about us, our problems

Seeing the condition there,

I could only tell about them, their problems