...no write. Yes, I know. When I started this blog, I was working full time, newly managing a home and trying to deal with a lot of emotional fallout from life at the time. Today, not working except from home, not doing much because everything I do has been ruthlessly organised and happy with it all and having the time to do more, I am not able to find the time or the leisure (call it 'mindset' if you will) to write a blog. Or maybe I believe I have nothing much to say, which is indeed the case, oddly enough. Life settles into a kind of peace sometimes and you don't want to say anything that would conceivably disturb it, I think. And I think I have found that place in my mind and soul to be at peace...at last.
I went to see a kind-of-friend of mine recently. He is an artist that is on my sms-list and is pretty well known and respected. I first interviewed him for DNA, the newspaper I once worked with, some years ago and just liked him and his earnestness, as well as his passion for his work and his inspiration. The fact that he was young, articulate, wrote well and was a fabulous artist helped, of course. So when Times Crest asked me to speak to him about his latest show due soon in London, I agreed, without any hesitation. Talking to Jitish Kallat - yes, it was him...he? - is always a delight. He challenges even as he is challenged, to think, to analyse, to put in words, whatever it is that we are speaking of at that moment. Best of all, I rarely need to explain what I am asking about - a few words, even incoherent, and he leaps in with his interpretation. From there, the conversation inevitably travels to points not even thought of in my brief to myself when I planned the interview. And more comes out of the time spent in his company than I would ever have expected. Which is the best aspect of the meeting, and my acquaintance with him.
Another friend - and this one is firmly classified as one, since the bond is not just mutual, but long-standing - was in the city recently for his show, this time of photographs, a kind of documentary of a disaster some years after it happened. Samar Jodha, well known in both commercial and artistic realms as a photographer of much note, has been a friend since we met again serendipitously many years ago in Delhi. We first came across each other when I talked to him for a feature about a book on Jaipur that he had collaborated on and then again when I was asked whether I wanted to be involved in a book on India. In Delhi, we talked some, spent lots of laughter-time together and made friends. This time, the chemistry had changed. It was far more serious, perhaps the fallout of growing up, sometimes taking the hard route to there. We spoke of his work, his need to do more, his possible future and, as will always happen, the past, the history that had brought us both to the point where we sat across a table from each other and saw ourselves as responsible adults with definite directions and goals. It was new and exciting in its own way, even though I mourned the passing of a time that was sunnier, happier, lighter and in a way more fun.
And since then, I have met new people, rediscovered some I had almost forgotten and felt the new excitement of anticipation, to see what they are all about and how they could fit into my life as it is now. They could be friends, some were once friends, colleagues, classmates, those who were part of my childhood. Now, as a grown-up, how do they matter, where do they link in, who have they become? A new adventure, a new sense of knowing, a new joy, perhaps? Who knows! As the cliche goes, only time...and space, of course...will tell.
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