CHERISH with HARISH

 8:30 pm, Hyderabad This city has been experiencing massive rainfall. For my international readers, I must inform that 'Hyderabad Flood' is a hot event now. I wanted to stay more in Kazipet, but I had to get back to my work. I actually had to get back to my universe. I crossed all the pleasant clouds, and to my happiness, the sun was out.  All masked up, following all corona preventive measures, we drove for Hyderabad. I realised that the government corona app, also showed me good signs in the rural areas. I had started travelling towards the state's capital. I have always liked travelling more  in the rural areas, but I have always loved coming back to my 'UNIVERSE'.  Now, how do you describe this universe. This universe is a mental zone, which has my own area, my own music, and most importanly my own bed to sleep. This time, this universe of mine was in Hyderabad. I had all of my work lined up in my mind. I was still figuring it out, and I was passing all rocky hi

 9:25 pm, Kazipet. HAPPY AUNT We had come to this town, primarily to help my aunt undergo her surgery. It was my mother's sister. I was just excited about this exploration of this new town.  First things first, my aunt's surgery was successful and yesterday, she came back home, happily. As she returned to her peaceful bed, back home, my instincts of roaming around Kazipet were getting restless.  I have already described it my in yesterday's blogpost, of how I was all set to watch this town. But the rain played spoilsport, and dejected me. But what came in as a huge surprise was the lovely BIRYANI, an Indian dish cooked by my 'Masterchef' brother-in-law. Rain continued till late night yesterday. But I had slept with a hope and a big prayer of watching a clear sky and obviously, NO RAIN! CLEAR SKIES I woke up in the morning, rubbing my eyes, I walked out of my room. I saw this sight and my happiness knew no bounds. I saw the tulsi plant standing upright with no rain i

Day 16th Oct'20, 8:30 pm, Kazipet After spending 5 days in this beautiful town, I told my local relative, my brother-in-law to take me around the town's natural places, which he thought could be tourism centres.  I told him, not to take me to malls or buildings, but to places, which he had described to me with so much of interest, last night. This included a natural spring of water, which had huge fish. It had lovely, green fields, and such beautiful things. I was excited.  As a result, this little town of Telengana, I was pretty excited to go around, watching it. I had taken an early bath, had a quick breakfast, and was all set to go out. And then arrived the spoilsport...the rain! It came in and  started killing my day's plans of watching the localities!  I was trapped in my room the whole day. I did not want to waste the energy. I started browsing about the town and then, I started clicking pictures from my room, of what was visible to me. I was bored! I started reading

 12:50 pm, Kazipet I am loving this non-stop rain, I am loving the Non-stop- travel... I have not been staying at one place for the last one year or more. Currently, my journey started in Delhi. I reached Hyderabad, and spent a lovely week there. Not preferring a hotel vacation, I lived in my nice room, on the terrace From there, we got a news of my aunt's surgery in this town of Kazipet. So, I packed my backpack to this lovely town of Kazipet. My parents were with me in all this travel, which is amazing always. After two days of reaching this brilliantly simple town, I shot my weekly episode of TRAVELLING WITH HARISH, my youtube channel. I have started enjoying and writing in these non-stop rains. The rains have always pushed me into self-introspection and hence, my stupid work! In these green confusions of Corona and Telengana, I have been experiencing some amazing greenery, and hence, this writing! I sit in this little room in Kazipet, with lot of rain outside, which is pushing

 Till very recently, I did not know that the Harappa culture, did not have 'temple' buildings during their time. They did believe in the concept, but it was very personal. They believed in the sun God, the trees, the nature, the skies and similar things. It was quite later, that the temple buildings were built. More about this, I spoke in my latest episode on my youtube channel, Travelling with Harish. The episode is called, 'LESSONS FROM HARAPPAN SIMPLICITY. Do watch and if you like it, please share. Also, if you want to listen about any topic, write it in the comments. I will do my research and present an episode for you guys. :)

I have been talking about how has this phase of the lockdown pushed me back into getting to know my culture and in turn, know me! But in this Saturday's latest post, I will be analysing about what was this whole idea of 'MY' culture. As a class 6th student, I was very excited when I read about the the Indus Valley civilisation or the Harappa Culture  for the first time in my history book. I was so fascinated by listening to stories of Mohan Jo-daro and Lothal. I always wanted to know more about that culture, which I thought was lost.  I thought I will read more about  history, as I grow up. But my society did not want me to take up history after class tenth. All my teachers and counsellors said, that I was a so-called 'BRIGHT' student and they pushed me into taking science with maths. I liked Biology too. So I went with the flow.  I finished class 12th and got my engineering seat and the dental seat, but that was definitely not my dream (I must be honest here, I co

Hyderabad,  August, 2020. When he was born, he was the younger brother. So, his parents named him 'Chhote'. Even his younger siblings called him 'Chhote' bhaiyya (younger brother). My chhote mama recently passed away because of Covid. It is painful, because it happened very soon, and from a man who was walking freely, to a straight pan dead body! I don't want to cry now, because I have admired my Chhote mama's (uncle) positive patience, always from a very young age. It is one feature of his personality which I had admired.  I am sharing some of the memories, which I have cherished all my life, some memories, which are pretty clearly imprinted on my mind, some time I had spent with him alone. Let us begin: MEMORY-1 Secunderabad, 1994 I was little! My mama had come to our place in Trishul Line, Secunderabad. These are some very clear visual memories of Trishul line. Our house was on the ground floor. He had come home.  He asked me, "Do you sleep outside?"

As an Indian kid or as a student, I started knowing about the universe. The only source for me then, was what my western textbook taught me. Science or physics taught me about the infinite universe, the planets, the stars and everything related to that. Every evening, I would stand in my balcony and get awed by the evening sky. It was absolutely amazing to see the stars, and imagine that someone on those stars could see me too! This was one of the reasons of me getting lost into the stars. I would spend a lot of time looking up and imagining that where did God exist, above all this? But back home, I would listen to some Hindu astrological news which I really did not pay attention to.  I could not pay attention to that definition of God.  This is how it looked like: Though they were different schools of thought, but there was something interesting they showed: AMAZING DARKNESS! I got into my studies and forgot about the darkness, till recently. Due to the Lockdown

Ahmedabad, 12:20 am. It is late at night. Before I sleep, I thought I should take out all this which is stuck in my mind. Here we go. I had just returned from my stay in Bajju, a small village in Rajasthan, to Mumbai. I had lived in the village for 6 months and wanted to explore a new place. There was no option better than Mumbai, where I was entering for the second time, not as a tourist, but for bigger plans. These plans were not to make a grand movie, but to start an initiative which was unknown. I had known Mumbai pretty well, but I knew only the more famous parts of it, as I had only stayed there. I had a friend from NID, Archana Chandrashekhar. I did realise that she was one with an honest heart, something which I had loved in people all my life. I liked people who were no-nonsense attitude. She was definitely one of those. We randomly met at a coffee store in Ghatkopar and decided that, why don't we start a film club in Thane, which had a lot of educated peo

10:04 am, Mumbai As I sit on my bed, I realise that I have not been talking to many people. I like this experience. I have stopped using my phone (for calling) and I have been liking this phase. I have also disconnected my facebook account, and luckily I have not gone back to it. And the best part of this period is that I have been trying to find myself. I just realised yesterday, that this is very similar to being a part of a very famous course called, 'VIPASSANA'. Is this my discovery of myself? Is this my  Vipassana? I have no answers. I am just silently listening all the suggestions coming my way, and doing what my heart or mind say. I have always taught in my theatre sessions 'MEDITATION', with special focus on 'Breathing'...and interestingly, I have got more into it. I am actually getting clear answers about my existence. I have still not figured out everything, but the search is on. Another feature of this phase is that I have started taki

NID, A-Hostel. Today, it is 50 years of the LGBT movement. It was July 2009. We had just had our dinner. We used to go to the hostel terrace for our post-dinner discussions. These used to be easy and laid-back. These post discussions used to be like the night breeze. There were no deadlines, no tensions, just the victorious feeling of the breeze entering your hair. There would be no questions , only answers. I used to love this part of the post-dinner conversations. We were a group of 3-4 young men and we had just started getting to know each other, through these discussions. We did not know that these conversations would make us the men we would be after ten years. It was one of those nights, and it seemed everyone was busy in the studios. Not many people had come back. It was just a friend of mine who had come to the terrace for the breeze. We continued talking and out of nowhere, he said that he is gay! I was shocked because I did not know hoe to react. I was straight and

Bajju, Rajasthan. 9 pm In Bajju, every morning I wake up for chai and smile at strangers, who break their 'Being strangers' tag with that beautiful smile. In a similar way, there is a 'Good-morning' which breaks the unwanted ice, in the rural area across India . People living in Indian cities don't know this concept of wishing strangers, early morning. Coming from an urban Indian background, I also thought that this is a very western concept. I realised its importance when I spent days travelling with my foreigner friends. It would just be a smile, an acknowledgement to a complete stranger. But my recent shift to rural India made me realise that it is much more common here to smile here than anywhere else. When we look at the bigger picture, we always think that the villages have things to learn from the cities, but now when I look at the micro-level, I realise that the villages are any day more 'advanced' than the so-called 'modern' cities.

7:30 am, Delhi It was early morning and I was still on my bed. Up, but still not awake. There was a watsapp tone which shook me, but as I checked my phone, I saw that there were more than quite a few watsapp messages. It was a series of messages from different places which questioned my existence in a time-space dimension of 'X', 'Y' and 'Z'. I had recently shifted to this new village inside Delhi, but my cousins were in Hyderabad, sending me images of the Biryani party they had celebrated, but what was bigger than the taste of Biryani was the long and interesting chat which followed. But before I could read the whole thing, I had a very dear cousin of mine visiting Europe, sending some amazing images. Heaven she was in with the brilliant architecture. But before I could gather myself, I heard a cock crowing. This was surreal. It was straight out of a Salvador Dali painting in the surreal era in Notre Dam, as most of the readers won't believe that th

11 pm, Gurgaon. Was a lovely workshop. So, I had a lovely time with the senior citizens of an organisation, which had called me to take a theatre workshop for them.They had called it 'HAPPINESS THEATRE WORKSHOP' and my idea was to make them play some games, which made them happy. I ended the workshop and while coming back home, this idea crossed my mind. The idea, I would like to call 'Circles'! May be it would be clearer if we call it 'LOOPS'. Our life is full of so many loops. When I looked at these older people, I realised that our lives are a combination of loops. To explain it further, one loop is the 'day'loop: We get up every morning, get ready for work, do our work every day, have coffee time every day, have lunch every day, come back in the evening, have dinner and we sleep off. And when we get up, the same music begins again! There is nothing wrong in it. May be I had a problem with it, always. I have so many of my friends who are wor

I was working on my play's direction and I got a message on my phone to meet up. It was not a wedding, not a function. It was plainly a 'REUNION' and I liked that fact. I love it when we meet for a reason and not mix it with another meeting. It sounds a bit idealistic, but it's fun not to mix meetings and cover a lot of things. I don't believe in the idea of a 'World tour', where you just go to a monument, just touch it and come back. I would like to read about any place and then see it thoroughly. Similarly, I don't like mixing meetings. I love it when I go there for only one reason, TO MEET. This might be one of the reasons that I sub-consciously hate weddings. I am sorry to all my close friends whose weddings I have missed in the last few years. I always prefer meeting in a somewhat 'isolated' reunion and talk about MEMORIES. I love that journey to the past. So after my tiring rehearsal, I left for the 'RE-UNION'. I was early and I

It was a humid evening in Delhi. As I was working on my desk, I got a Whats-app message from a cousin, who does not message me often, but she does it more than any other cousin. She stays in Colorado with her husband, but had come to India for some work. She told me that they were laughing with her elder sister were talking about me and laughing out loud thinking of my 'STUPID JOKES'. Age-wise, I fall in between both of them and somehow, but our frequencies match as if we were the same age. Again, we don't meet often, but whenever we meet, we talk as if we had met yesterday. I smiled as I read the whats-App message, that there is someone in the world thinking about me. I asked the younger one (the Colorado resident), till when is she in India. She said the date and she said, "...if you are not busy, please come!". This was good enough for me to plan for Hyderabad and meet them. I had somehow finished my projects and I was on a break. It happened so fast tha

It was a tough decision, or may be I thought so it was! But now, when I look at it, we are so connected now that we should make sure that none of our 'CONNECTIONS' should become an addiction. Though I had left Facebook a couple of times earlier, but that was more like a kiddish abandonment. This time, I realised that I have so much of work around, do I really need to be so public? Probably not! I will have Kamaan's website soon, and a play coming up too. I am loving the process of 'Getting to know myself' more. I am not stopping poetry. I will be writing more more stuff here. May be it would be more frequent now. I see myself free now! Good wishes to Mr. Zuckerberg :)

I am fine now and I am back again. Though I am still on pills but I can run and catch up my dreams. At least I can try to, if not do it! After finishing a book, I am enjoying the phase of Teaching as a Guest lecturer in MICA and NID. Now when I look around I see various opportunities which need to be caught and worked up on. I was always interested in this process of 'SHARING', which I guess the world misuses as 'TEACHING', which is old-fashioned for me. The formal meaning of the word is where one person gives the 'Lecture' and the listeners learn from it. But, I believe I have been learning a lot from all my sessions I have been teaching. In fact, sometimes, I guess I am getting this opportunity to LEARN, UN-LEARN and RE-LEARN. I am clearing my own doubts about human psychology through different minds I am coming across.Hence, I call this brilliant process SHARING, where both the sizes share each others' stories and learn. Brilliant this is! Now

National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, 2009. It was 1:30 at night and after a tiring KHEL session, I was sitting with Sambit at the Faculty lounge talking about a play which my friends in my graduation college (MBICEM) had performed. I had written and titled it 'YANTRA', but I was sad that I could not see it. Nishtha Paliwal had directed it with some friends and I was sure that it would have been nice, but I always wanted to see my upcoming 'PRODUCT' live. That silent spring night, Sambit, like a good listener asked me what was the play about. So, I narrated the whole idea of the play and he liked it and the first reaction he gave was that as it was a rural story, and it should be called 'YANTAR', and not yantra, which was a pure form of the Sanskrit word. I liked it and with those thoughts we entered the NID NIGHT-MESS and had chai. With time, I came up with more plays and films and other assignments and as I moved ahead, the play was shelved but I kne

It had been a year since our group Kamaan had performed a 'Stage' play or a proscenium form of theatre. We had been doing a lot of street plays covering a major part of North India travelling and exploring area we would go to. As Kamaan (my theatre troupe) went on performing, I went on recovering from my long-let's-forget-it-illness. And he were all set, all fresh to begin a new play. In the time I spent, my liking for writing turned to sheer love for it or may be more. This is the time when my 15 minute play 'Dustbin' slowly and gradually turned into a one and half hour play. I was discharged from the hospital. Though I was loaded with all the terrible/terrific (!) pills, but I was extremely happy to be back on the stage I was not in touch with. I was happy to be back with Kamaan. I started doing what I love the most. I started directing the play. This is a process which gives me immense pleasure. The thrill you get when you see characters in action...Char