The event

The cameras show us a person, a man in his twenties jumping into the area where Guru Granth Sahib is being recited from. We are in Amritsar. Darbar Sahib. TV channels say Swarn Mandir. Golden temple, because it has gold on it.

Circulation of whats app messages start showing a man jumping in and maybe saying something and picking up a Shastar, a Kirpan. He is dragged out.

Tears….tears flow out of my eyes seeing this. A day later when my mother in her 70’s witnesses the same. I see tears. Where and how these tears came from? how do these emotions build up?

It must be because we hold this place as sacred. Where The Sikh Gurus played Gurbani and recited kirtan and where now, the Guru resides in the form of a holy book.

Dahanu

I, on a personal note, am connected back to Dahanu after a period of 5 months of pain and healing. The story and chapters of Dahanu reopen. Dahanu is a place 180 km away from mumbai. It is a placed filled with tribal people. tribal people live different lives than us. We, is me, some one who lives in the city and thinks like a city person.

Goa

I am heading to goa now. In some time I will board the flight where I let the automated system of the airline pick a seat for me. 25 D, an aisle seat. I always pick and this time i let chance play its part. I have to prepare my baggage with the right book to read, the right pens to draw with, the right sketchbook to carry with me and the right readings on my laptop. everything should be right. The right time to get to the airport, the right ID to show to the security guard, the right lane to enter to check in and the right way to approach the conveyor belt to unload my luggage so that i pass security the earliest.

All so that i could get to my seat and sit in the right way, to manage 2 hours and 40 minutes of travel time. I should be comfortable and not develop gas in my belly, which if it accumulates will lead to a head ache. I should be mentally and physically keep well. Everything should be right. You know I am inside a day and the day is not inside me. Just like how there is something inside a box, or how i live inside a home, i am also inside a day. And I have to manage all the activities of the day just fine. It seems like I am going some where but I am managing a day in which I am inside of. We all are inside a day.

That day ended within few minutes for the youth who decided to jump in. Just few minutes is all it took and life ended. It seems he could not manage his day properly. And i could not manage my decision makings when i visited Dahanu in june 2021. I went and it was only I in the end. Only I and so I came back to delhi with a confused state of mind. I did not make sense to I. And I thought I made sense. No, I did not make any sense but I went. Because I decided to go. I could not go beyond I.

In December, pain and healing occurred and Dahanu was restored to some extent with a second chance to visit the town. D is for Dahanu.

Goa also needs healing. Healing from both sides as that will lead to a solution and we can move on and live inside a day peacefully. A day constitutes a lot with what we are seeing.

Detection

Detect means to do investigation, to know what is happening and why. In this case, the troubling case of my mother with high BP. Touching 170 – 180 by 70/80/90 and creating panic, anxiety, rush to consult doctors, stress, mood upset, uncertainty, thoughts of death, hospitalisation, emergency and uneasiness. All of these are happening inside a day. A day has a life span of a day. which is theoretically for 24 hours. Because this day has a night as well. But its part of the day. The day has no face, head or a end or a tail but it does have a beginning and an end. So I have to manage this problem of the BP in the day.

detection is on. detection is active in everything. to detect is to know because this is unseen. I can see that i am going to the airport through the google maps but i can not see the underlying reason for high BP. Is it excess salt, stress, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, heart or lung issues, gas, old age, polluting air, too much cold. We don’t know because it is underlying. And high BP grows and grows till it fatally injures you or kills you with a stroke. So there is fear of what can happen. So to detect is to know.

Whats app

whats app is on. it is a messaging device where i have to write to ask, share and respond, reply to messages and wait for replies. It is an add on burden along with facebook, instagram and online new channel reports and further pages which i open up to read. Whats app is updating me if i will get water in the colony or trees are being pruned and how many cases of corona in a day or any emergency which is in the city. It has groups to share information. It is another mental world. It is another layer of communication and complication. Its a burden. Whats app is Whats my burden, whats your burden ?

So we in this day, which we are inside have devised a way to keep communicating with each other, with humans. ( animals do not use whats app). we love to communicate at all times, to ask, how are you?

ironically for me, it does not end here. i have to enter a movie. a movie a night, in the same day i am inside. i have to enter a movie which takes me inside another day, a series of events which trigger something in my brain to put me to sleep. I am inside a day where i again go inside the visual brain of a director who creates imaginary, fictional characters which i can watch. I can see. This has a story and a time line. What is there to detect ? that something is happening and i will only know in the end what happens. I should just keep seeing or another word used is not seeing a movie but watching a movie.

Then I have you tube as well. You tube is not fictional watching but seeing or how things are detected. How a DAM functions or how a space ship collects material from a asteroid. It is seeing how things function. There is a lot packed in a day.

Artist studio

I sit as well, in an artist studio space to create art. Now this is also inside a day. I dont know anything outside this day. Outside this say is as per ISI . India Standard Institute the realm of spirituality. Here as i rested my aching lower back against the pillar inside a gurudwara, the mind tipped into, fell into sleep. I needed coffee or engagement with my phone. I closed my eyes and it tipped into sleep. It has a switch where it goes into sleep mode when there is no activity.

But in the artist studio mode, i don’t fall asleep that easily. I don’t tip into sleep unless if i am tired. If i am tired i go into the sleep mode. My neck turns towards the ground, automatically shutting my eyes. In the artist studio mode i visualise. I sit back and visualise in 2 d and 3 d and moving images mode. I do what people like me do, I THINK AND DRAW.

Think and draw

how is this space any different than anything that i have written above may not be of much concern. The central line running through all this is that is me who is functioning, responding, doing, seeing, watching, experiencing all this inside a day. Its me and my experiences. Me, my mind, my body, senses all going about inside this day. Day in Day out.

And Drawing ? what and how do we understand its functionality, its relation in all this?

For one, drawing is secondary, since i take authorship of what is being drawn as the drawer. Yet drawing is an activity because i see it happening. It is not Draw, drawn or to draw something. It is being experienced, being processed as i draw. So DRAW-ING. DO-ING. EAT-ING. SLEEP-ING. It is the ING which is happening. I am SWIM-ING.

It maybe the only time where there is more than just a line being drawn. And this line maybe at the junction of something which is inward yet outward. It is doing and thinking at the same time.

The end. ( 6 – 8 am writing ).