1-Aug-20
7:34 am
Kolkata
Morning walk over, we are sitting on our red couch in the living room. He just finished his morning zoom with RI, RV and J. I videotaped a part of the conversation. He discussed with them about what he should do with his return ticket to Newark on 14th August. He seems reluctant to travel in August because of existing restrictions and the obvious risk of contracting Covid on a long flight. Only repatriation flights are currently allowed in and out of India. His friends in US want him to fly back, they have been away from him for the longest time. Let’s see which way the wind blows, and where life takes us! I am unable to project any future scenario at the moment, nothing is conjuring up in my head. I don’t have a clue! But I am beginning to see that I cannot be resistant to whatever happens. Trying to force my ideas onto a living situation is the source of sorrow and conflict. Seeing how he operates even in challenging situations, and understanding that no one can control or influence the dynamic flow of the moments of life, helps me find a stable grounding inside. Power does not lie in being able to control one’s life, it’s a stupid illusion, a futile effort.
***
1:21 pm
I finished cooking dal and rice, we watched Fargo on Netflix, then he felt sleepy. Half an hour later he got up and went to his room to lie down, I came to my room. Slept for a while but I still feel sleepy.
G is loving Fargo. I think it’s an example of the brilliant American movie making. We are glued to the screen when it runs, we discuss the plot intently and keep watching it all day except when we are cooking, sleeping, singing or out walking.
My periods now happen once every 2.5 or 3 months. This trend started since the lockdown began. The cycle has changed completely. I don’t care or keep track of it.
***
9:52 pm
None of this can actually be my worry – the plight of humanity, the poverty, the wars and the diseases. I am so insignificant that to even think I can do something about it, would be a myth far removed from reality. I can’t do anything about anything.
My ideas about myself is the “me”. It is like my reflection on the mirror. Without the reflection, how would I know how I look? Without the ideas, how would I know anything about myself? Whatever this “me” experiences is through the filter of its ideas, and the feedback from such experiences keep adding more muscle to it. Eventually, this process cuts me off from the actual movement of life. It has now gained enough momentum to run a parallel mental existence. It cuts a wide channel into the body’s energy reserves and sucks from it incessantly, covering the waking, sleep and dream states. It’s a relentless dissipation of energy to keep a wasteful process going.
2-Aug-20
5:19 am
Finished coffee, he is getting ready to go out for morning walk. I am ready. Just now I found a Hindi translation of the Tagore song he nikhilobharodharano and he had great fun with it. That’s enough fodder for him to make his friends roll with laughter during zoom later today.
***
7:12 am
Came back from walk dripping with sweat, bought 2 bags of vegetables and a few mangoes. Carrots, eggplant, pumpkin, coriander, raw papaya and beets, our usual harvest.
We went a little early to the Lake today, hardly any crowd, cloudy.
He is talking to RI, RV and Julie on zoom. “I say serious things jokingly, and very serious things seriously. I can’t bullshit. But you cannot pay attention to me if you are not entertained to some extent, it is not possible.” RI and RV interjected saying they prefer his talks over all entertainment. He replied, “You don’t see it. A part of your brain has to be entertained. That’s how the processes in the brain have evolved for its own need. In other words, there must be a sense of getting a reward, when it is attracted to certain interactions or activities. For example, taste is a reward for eating food in order to meet the body’s energy needs. So, I am not saying entertainment is bad. I know the landscape of the human mind inside out. I reflected deeply on these aspects. Can you cook without getting little burns here and there? Can you learn swimming without gulping water, which has piss sometimes?!” That cracked us all up! “That’s so gross”, we said. Incidentally, G taught RV, RI and me, all three of us, swimming last summer in Julie’s pool at her farmhouse.
***
8:14 am
A drowsiness is coming over me, a deeply relaxing feeling in the head and the whole body.
***
9:44 am
I am intoxicated still, my eyes want to stay shut.
I now understand. If the mind is not troubled and the body is not in any pain, we are actually peaceful and harmless, like the rest of the life forms.
***
10:17 am
He is talking to RV. She praised him for something and pat came his reply: “I do not give or take credit where it is not due. I don’t accept anything that is not appropriate. ”
We had a zoom evening call and lots of people joined. He had asked Radhika to make a slideshow of Carol’s collection of 42 paintings. She did a fantastic job of it, using Venky’s solo tabla recital as the audio track. All of it was G’s idea though. I got a last minute idea to request Karan and Rahul to each read a poem of G’s in English. Karan read Premature Death and Rahul did Existence. I requested Sanjiv to read something from his diary, which he wrote in 2015 during his first trip with G to Kerala, and he readily agreed. His writing is powerful. Kishor is a great photographer. He has designed some beautiful slides with G’s photo and quotes. Each one is strikingly good.
***
I had a sinking feeling all day today. I slept a lot through the day but still kept feeling sleepy, as if some powerful intoxicant got mixed in my blood. My solar plexus region started burning after we had breakfast. The burning became intense and mildly painful so I had to skip lunch. I didn’t want to eat till I really felt hungry. G said I should eat a little dinner, so I did.
3-Aug-20
7:31 am
Kolkata
Came back from walk, was extremely muggy today. He is getting in to his morning zoom with RI, RV and J. He kept himself on mute and kept talking, joking with them.
He said, “Perpetual enslavement by ideas! What you need and what you think you need are two different things.”
***
9 am
He just played a song Anjana sent him. He said he had to listen to it with RI, RV and me. She sang a piece from Geet Govinda that describes the erotic love of Radha and Krishna. She has a beautiful and nuanced voice, she is well trained in the Carnatic style. It is strange how musicians turn up at his doorstep. He is so fond of music. He told Anjana that all she needs to do is sing, nothing else is necessary! To Venky he said, “Playing tabla is your only meditation. You have to practice daily for an hour at least.”
***
He has decided to postpone his ticket and stay the whole of August in Kolkata. He told Julie he feels comfortable here and feels no hurry to travel anywhere.
***
12:27 pm
My food intake has reduced further after the big abdominal sqeeze. I feel full most of the time.
***
10:55 pm
Just finished watching a gory, murder movie in which the murderer streams the killing live on internet! Before closing his door he did his usual gig with me, “Prepare to go to Mukundapur!” I said, “Gimme one good reason why I should stay away from you! Don’t you send me anywhere old man!” He said, “Call your mommy and ask her to give you a good reason why you should go back to them” and started giggling like a kid. Then he said good night.
***
Today’s evening zoom was high on fun. He cracked jokes, did mimicry, danced and got all of us so high! A joyous current was overflowing from him into the surroundings. Boy! I couldn’t stop grinning! RI read her long poem about her life, it is very well written and sounds like an epic in many ways. Rahul read his new poem and Karan read his latest rap! Everyone was on a roll! I read a piece from my corona journal which gives an account of a typical day with G during the lockdown. G told the friends, “Tanusri is keeping a daily journal. She takes notes whenever I say something important on phone or zoom to anybody. This is the real Commentaries on living, unlike what JK wrote describing the beauty of Gstaad while he was in Ojai. She is writing down things as they happen here.”
***
His body is relaxed almost all the time. I believe that’s the reason it looks so graceful. His movements are fluid. When he sleeps, he is a picture of perfect repose, if I can call it that. His body turned on one side, with his legs curled up, one hand beneath his head, the palm of the other resting gently on the bed, it’s a beautiful sight.
***
I don’t remember if I wrote about the iron guy before who has a makeshift shop next to our building. His name is Vinod. He irons at his shop all day and sleeps there at night. This ever-smiling gentleman is from Bihar. His family is poor and have no land or other means of income in his village. They depend solely on his meagre earnings. He makes six rupees out of each piece he irons. His income dried up the day the lockdown started. I remember G wondering how this man was going survive without any money. G gave him a few thousand rupees to start with. Vinod was astonished. For the next three months G gave him hundred rupees or more every single day. He told me one day, “Vinod is my neighbour, how can I see him starve?” His wife delivered a baby girl a couple of weeks back. When G got the news he gave him a thousand rupees. Vinod will do anything G asks him to, in fact he looks for an opportunity to do something for G. He is happy to run to the market for vegetables or run any other errands.
There’s another young man who comes daily to pick garbage and sweep the streets. He is part of a group of workers employed by the municipality. We leave our garbage bag outside the staircase door for him to take away. He wishes us good morning and G gives him money everyday.
4-Aug-20
5:35 am
Kolkata
A strange incident happened in the last week of May. This was after the cyclone Amphun had hit Kolkata. Our neighbourhood was strewn with giant fallen trees and heaps of branches and leaves. Those days we would walk on Southern Avenue as the Lake was closed. The mango tree next to G’s bedroom was full of mangoes and he had been thinking of making a contraption using a long and sturdy branch or stick, which would allow him pluck the mangoes without damaging them. As we would run by heaps of fallen branches on the streets, he would slow down to see if there was anything he could pick from there. It was funny seeing him slow down every time he saw a pile of branches. I would mimic his running then slowing down and show him! This continued for quite a few days, he found nothing suitable. One fine morning on our usual jog, as we were running by the Ramakrishna Mission in Golpark, we overheard two men who sat on the road discussing something. “What am I supposed to do with this long contraption now? I brought it so I could pluck the ripe jamuns but the branches of the tree are all broken. What should I do now?”, one of them was lamenting. We stopped to look, and lo and behold, there lay on the road in front of the two men, a most magnificent, long bamboo pole with a hook at its tip, a tailor made fruit picker! G told the guys, “I can rent it from you right now and give back to you after a couple of days”, and he pulled out a 500 rupees note from his pocket and stretched out his arm to offer it to them. The men looked startled, they said he could take it just like that, he didn’t have to pay anything for it. One guy said, “I know where you live, I will take the pole to your house soon.” G said he wouldn’t touch it if they didn’t take the money, so they agreed. We finished walking, went back to our apartment, had breakfast and got busy with stuff. Around noon we remembered the pole guy, he hadn’t come yet. In 30 mins we heard a knock on our door. It was the pole guy! He gave us the pole and a bagful of ripe jamuns! G was beaming with joy! The jamuns were sweet and juicy. He said they were the best jamuns he had in decades. He ran to the balcony to test his brand new contraption, after a few mins of tugging at the branches, he emphatically declared he couldn’t have asked for anything better! In the evening he told his friends on zoom that this was the most exalted spiritual experience of his life! He wanted something for plucking mangoes and Nature brought the perfect thing right to his doorstep!
***
8:26 pm
G is working with RV, RDG, KS and RI to do some stuff for my birthday tomorrow. He has been coordinating with them since afternoon. All of them are high because he is talking to them a lot today! He just spoke to Rahul about some changes in the video he is making, Rahul was giggling with excitement. Anyway, after the call ended, G said, “These kids understand pure affection. If there is no jealousy, then it’s pretty simple. Jealousy is what comes in the way.” I bowed down to him and prayed, “May my jealousy, may all that go away in your presence.” He smiled and said, “That’s it.”
We finished dinner. I made a lightly spiced mix of rice, quinoa and vegetables. He is now talking to his psychiatrist friend from US. His mother passed away recently and he has been feeling low and depressed since then. He used to be a seeker before he met G. He was a Ramana devotee and used go for satsangs and meditations. He had to give all that up after coming in contact with G. Now he says he feels miserable with no interest in anything and nothing to look forward to. He has a big job at a state hospital. He calls G for inspiration. G listens to him patiently, never tells him everything will be alright. Sometimes he tells the guy to take one day at a time without projecting his present misery into the future, and to find some activity with which he resonates.
***
10:55 pm
G is on a late night zoom with RDG, KS, RI and RV! They are ecstatic! He is showing us the video Rahul made (amazing work by the kid!) and another video Radhika had made in 2019 after my first 6 months in US. It brought back such memories for me! It’s almost like a pre-birthday bash, nobody wants to leave the meeting! We are rolling with laughter and real joy! The friends said we should continue the meeting till after midnight so that they can wish me happy birthday! Looks like it’s going that way!
Carol read the Corona Diaries posts on my blog and wrote a long email to G. G just read it out. She wrote she couldn’t believe what I wrote, and how it was so simple, and that I had let the secrets out!
***
11:33 pm
He is now talking about the dream state, how it is a part of what we know. “Brain doesn’t understand time. Time exists through thought. In other words, thought is time. The time that exists when you act when a stone is thrown at you is different. The way a tree grows to be a thousand years old, for it there’s no time. Similarly your body does not understand time. So memories have no time tagging. Memories from different phases in life sit in the brain in the same way, they do not have different time tagging. It does not understand the difference between the memory of something that happened ten years ago versus something that happened yesterday.”
5-Aug-20
6:22 am
Wishes started coming in from before 5 am from RI, RV and KS. RI sent the Shilpa Shetty song that we had so much fun with yesterday night! RV made a beautiful slideshow and Karan sent a couple of cute Gifs!
Then RI called and he was telling her, “You till the land, pull out the weeds, throw out all the trash that the sun has burned, then you sow the seed. You then water it and make your nice little garden of flowers.”
***
10 am
I just sang and recorded my favourite Sabyasachi Vandana, which I had plagiarised from a famous Ram bhajan of Tulsidas, when I was in US in May 2019. Today is the foundation laying of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. It’s a mega event by the Indian government. The propaganda and hoopla are sweeping the country, people say. But I am oblivious to this hysteria, spinning furiously with high “enerG” around him. No external disturbance can penetrate this sacred, life-abiding space.
My parents had called a while back to wish me and they seemed ecstatic about the Temple event. I didn’t say anything to contradict their feelings, it’s their functional reality after all. G told me, “Your parents are more happy about the temple than your birthday!”
G was talking to RI and me just now about the mass religious hysteria in India. He said, “What will you take, something that a huge number of people believe in or something that functions in you? Both are illusions though” We said, we will take the one that functions in us, as individuals. Then he asked, “But there must be something, some truth in that, which so many people believe in, no?” I said those people have been brainwashed to believe that there is some truth there, but actually there’s no functional aspect in it. He added, “Giving into mass hysteria, and following what a lot of people follow, is to give up one’s discrimination, that’s what the religious people want you to do. Actually these beliefs are a sign of inner poverty.”
***
12:04 pm
I am cooking lunch and he is resting on the couch, half asleep. He is in constant touch with Venky. Venky’s entire family has tested Covid positive. The government has forced his uncle, father and grandfather to get admitted to hospital. His father is serious, he has COPD, and the doctor told Venky a while back that the disease is progressing rapidly and he will need to be put on ventilator soon. He actually contracted the virus at least ten days back, but ignored the fever and did not maintain social isolation. He kept up his routine of visiting his family temple twice a day. This is what religion does to simple people.
***
12:57 pm
I just finished shower and came to the living room. He is not out yet. I have been writing a lot since a few days, noting down incidents, conversations and his utterances.
Before going for shower, he told me with a naughty grin on his face, “You could have easily gone to Mukundapur to spend your birthday with your parents. Your mom would have baked a cake and made other delicacies! You would have been happier there!” He has such an amazing sense of humour, there never ever is a dull moment around him! I couldn’t stop laughing! “You have gone crazy”, he said.
***
G invited a lot of people to my birthday zoom at 5:30 pm. He planned the whole thing. The two little girls Dibyashree and Rohini made beautiful birthday cards and also did poetry recitals. Karan wrote a rap using events from my journal. There were songs and more videos and stuff. G was the driver of the boat and the motivation behind everything.
6-Aug-20
4:59 am
We are having our morning coffee and it’s raining outside. He said it rained all night. I am feeling ecstatic just seeing him. I sometimes wonder how did nature make something so real, so beautiful? Seeing me so happy he said, “How can something that ruthlessly burns and demolishes the ideas, and eventually the sense of self, be so gentle and tender, that it won’t even hurt a fly?!” This reminded me of a few lines from Blake’s poem Tyger:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
He said, “The jaw that crushes the skull of a huge buffalo, wouldn’t even scratch its newborn babe when lifting it.” In 20 mins Rahul made a video out of G’s morning sermon!
****
We had a morning zoom with RDG, Venky, RI, RV and J around 9. G played some videos from the birthday zoom as Revathi had missed it due to a bad headache. G spoke about SSFR and subjective logic of humans. While wrapping up, he mentioned the incident from his first meeting with UG on 13th Dec 1995, when UG told him after a few hours of intense discussion that they were just two dogs barking at each other. We knew this incident very well, but what came next was a surprise. He said, “It is two dogs barking at each other, but only the two dogs know what they are communicating, no one else knows!” This blew everybody’s mind! G was looking at Venky while saying this. Venky is going through a tough time with his father in hospital. G is thinking about him all the time. Today morning he asked Venky his father’s age. He is 63. G said, “63 is a crucial age. It reminds me of my Father’s death when I came from Bangalore to Kolkata on a hunch, without knowing he was actually unwell. He was ailing for sometime and died. But your father’s constitution is good. He should live.” I quipped, “Now that it fell from your mouth, he may.” In a week’s time Venky’s father recovered and came back home.
***
The rains held up for sometime so we got a chance to go to the lake at 6 am. It was so lush and fresh. We did about 2.8 miles singing Tagore songs all the way. When he sang he nikhilobharodharano, two dogs came happily running towards us, he said they were his friends! Then I started singing hridoy amar nachere and he joined me, he made a dizzy video of the trees and sky and water logged road as we sang this one! Intoxication filled everything! It started drizzling lightly so we walked back to our apartment. He said a hot shower would be wonderful in this weather and went to his room. I did the same, I had some clothes to wash too.
He asked me to call Air India to postpone his ticket. They said he can use the same ticket anytime till December 2021. So, we din’t need to do anything as of now. I told him, if he goes to America in September, I will go too. I pleaded with him, “Take me with you wherever you go. I can’t stay without you. I have nothing else to do and nowhere to go. You know, yesterday night I tried to imagine a scenario that I am away from you, but my brain expelled it instantly, it wasn’t allowed to stay!” He found it hilarious!
***
10 am
I plagiarised a traditional classical bandish in raga Kedar and replaced Krishna’s name with Guha’s. It goes like this …
Guha re Manu nandan
Paramniranjan
He dukh bhanjan
In English the meaning is: Guha, the son of Manu, is absolutely blemishless, the one who destroys sorrow.
***
4:11 pm
We slept at 12:50 pm and got up around 1:45 pm to eat lunch. Then we watched a movie called Lost Girls.
***
6:50 pm
Venky religiously practices tabla sincerely and sends a recorded recital or two everyday to G. G goes into samadhi listening to them. Venky is a talented guy. His guru Shubhankar Banerjee is the current numero uno in tabla in India. He doesn’t take money from Venky. G pushed Venky to resume his classes with Shubhankar to fine tune his art to the best of his abilities. For Venky, G’s word is final.
8-Aug-20
9:17 am
Had a fantastic morning zoom just now. He started by playing the Bengali “Maddie song” I wrote on 17th June. It goes like this: I became mad because I found a real maddie. I adapted it from a famous Baul song of Bengal. Towards the end of the call, he said, “A big tree bears fruits and birds come and eat them. Does the tree charge anything from them? In fact, the tree wants the birds to pick the fruits. But you are always compartmentalising things. Nature doesn’t work that way. You have unfulfilled desires that you want to vicariously fulfil through me.”
***
4:28 pm
Today is lockdown day in West Bengal. We went to the terrace in the morning. I was feeling light a grasshopper! I jumped and ran around him non-stop! I was unreasonably ecstatic! I felt I could jump high enough to touch the sky. What a lightness! He looked supremely beautiful as he paced up and down and stretched his arms and legs to loosen up his body. What a graceful presence! What a mammoth source of joy in my life! The solution, the living order that is constantly working in him is readily available for anyone who is really interested. He gives it all like the rain that drenches every speck of dust on earth.
***
A gentleman from Canberra had written through the website that he wanted to meet G as soon as the travels restrictions are lifted. G had replied to him through Revathi that he didn’t mind talking to him on zoom. So, right now he is in zoom with that gentleman. They are talking. G is telling him, “I did not want to be governed by external influences. I wanted to find my equilibrium with myself and with Nature. The result of such an equilibrium can be called peace, because the system has addressed its own conflicts.” The guy is saying he has tried all kinds of meditation, reiki, art of living, vipasana etc. Then he read UG and was upset that all his effort for attaining effortlessness added up to nothing. G adds, “Psyche is how you respond to information. Your daily social dynamics.” The gentleman dropped off after an hour and the zoom continued for another two hours! How time flies in his company, there’s not a moment’s gap to stop and ponder. His vast presence accommodates and envelops everything.
9-Aug-20
5:14 am
We are sitting with our early morning coffee. It is so quiet I can hear the murmur of foam in his cup. He is sitting cross-legged and reading something on his phone, swinging his right leg gently. The whooshy sound is stirring music in my ears. The fullness of the moment is so heady and potent, there is no room for distraction. Any food for thought, whether sublime or ridiculous, is detrimental to this stability.
***
9:45 am
I am making breakfast. The same food tastes so good everyday.
We just finished our extended morning zoom with the usual suspects. G was telling stories about UG. It reminded me of something I have experienced in his presence. His system has a tremendous sense of dignity about itself, which is not a superficial gravity or self importance. The self-sufficiency of his system is of such a high order that it reminds me of the Sanskrit word Swayam Sampurna. In my experience, his personality and his own take about his functioning are so deep and grounded, that it creates a sense of awe in the minds of people around him. There is a mysterious boundary that even his closest friends dare not cross when engaging with him. He cannot be taken for granted or disregarded even for a moment. His presence demands tremendous alertness and focus.
10-Aug-20
8:30 am
We were discussing the Sanskrit sloka:
vedāhametaṁ puruṣaṁ mahāntamādityavarṇaṁ tamasaḥ parastāt |
tameva viditvātimṛtyumeti nānyaḥ panthā vidyate’yanāya ||
The great Purusha, who is effulgent like the Sun is beyond all darkness.
Only by knowing Him can one overcome death, there is no other way to severe the cycle of birth and death.
He wants me to sing this sloka. He suggested I refer to the track from Peter Brook’s Mahabharata to learn it.
***
8:09 pm
What an exquisite intoxication! Can barely keep my eyes open. I feel so high all the time around him.
11-Aug-20
Kolkata
12:31 pm
He is taking shower and I am writing my diary. I just made some Pad Thai noodles for lunch. I am waiting for the apartment owner who is coming to collect the rent for August.
A dear friend of his from Denmark had called a while back. She had stayed with us for three weeks in Kolkata in this apartment November 2019. When she came she was desperately looking for a job after being out of work for over a year. She went for tons of interviews but nothing clicked. When she was here in Kolkata, she gave an interview with a non-profit and they offered her a job! G had an explosive impact on her. She told me, one day as she was sitting in the living room opposite to him, she felt a huge force coming from him and exploding on her. I was her room mate. At night she would toss and turn in the bed. She was unable to get up if I didn’t wake her in the morning. She told me she was neither asleep nor awake, it was a strange state, thoughts and images would continuously roll in her head and make her head go crazy. Often she would sleep for long hours during the day. After going back to her country, she chatted with me often asking about G. She had started with a new job and the work was demanding and stressful. She was finding it hard to cope. Then she went through a difficult phase and started exploring alternative faiths to see if it could ease her conflict and pain. She thought faith could heal her. Because G gives no methods or disciplines, nothing to hold on to, it is a precarious situation for the sense of self. He warns us, “It’s the tendency to chicken out that makes you fall back on the things that never worked for you in your life. Like someone could use UG as a shield to defend oneself against what I am saying.”
Today when she called, G started talking as if nothing had ever changed, although it has been months since she spoke to him last. He started by saying, “You see I can be a Sufi too. Did you see Tanusri’s birthday video which has me dressed as a Peer?” She was delighted! Then he talked about the life of Prophet Mohammed (she is a muslim). He knows more about that guy than even devout muslims do. I could see she was hooked, her face and eyes changed and softened, she became focussed. I thought, “This is what he does. He uses information in a way that helps a person focus on him. What value does information have otherwise?” After the call was over I told him this and he smiled and agreed. “Information by itself is nothing. I had to speak to her in a way that could get her attention. Focus does something, it has some quality, otherwise information has no purpose for me.”
***
6:26 am
Yesterday around 9:30 am a friend shared Hindi song “Yeh Dooriyan” from the film Love Aaj Kal with me. I used to enjoy the haunting melody and strange melancholy of this song when it came out eight or nine years ago. I used to listen to it over and over again. The song is about the pangs of separation a lover feels when away from his beloved. I told G about it and he asked me to play it on speaker. As soon as the music started, I saw his eyes change, as if they were sinking within in samadhi, although open. An indescribable softness and grace enveloped his face, the fingers of his hand started forming mudras. In a flash I picked up my phone and started videotaping him.
***
His smokeless fire on evening zoom … blasting away at our age-old layers of conditioning about God, fear and love.
Later, he got RI, RV & RDG on zoom again to show them the “Yeh Dooriyan” video I shot of his samadhi. Everybody was spellbound. I described to them how the video happened.
12-Aug-20
8:29 am
He just finished a short zoom call with the usual suspects. They were beyond happy to see him. After logging out of the call, he wondered aloud pointing to his head, “How do all these words come out of me?! What to do, this brain functions in a different way, it’s not me.” I feel like saying poetically, From the eternal fountain of life within, spring his words that strike down conflicting ideas and bring succour to our minds ravaged by sorrow.
13-Aug-20
Kolkata
During our morning walk he explained to me the meaning of the primary verses from Svetasvetara upanishad and showed their connection with the prayer of the Vedas Asadoma Sadgamaya.
14-Aug-20
Kolkata
Today is Venky’s birthday. We are prepping for the evening zoom party.
***
12:31 pm
He just said, “Fame and freedom do not go together. If you are famous, you have to behave the way culture dictates. The image people have about you, if you can reinforce and work to maintain it, your fame will continue. The moment those images begin to crumble, you will be defamed.”
***
6:09 pm
He hasn’t taken calls since afternoon today. Some friends checked a few times with me, but he didn’t wish to respond.
16-Aug-20
7:04 pm
Been sleepy all day. Have a mild headache now and can’t keep my eyes open. There’s a zoom going on, RI and SC read from their diaries. G is saying, “Honesty does not exist, it is false. The brain takes in information as it is, but the reporter is convoluted to begin with. What you say is what you can recall and what you feel at that moment. So, honesty is at best a policy.”
Felt I would pass out while walking by the Lake in the morning, so he said let’s go back. Came back and got knocked out for over an hour. Woke up to find him working in the kitchen. He was making preparations for breakfast. I joined him and finished the remaining work.
18-Aug-20
We went to a shopping mall for the first time in four months since the lockdown began! It was completely empty and clean and shiny like never before! We roamed around gleefully like kids in a candy store!
20-Aug-20
Kolkata
8:55 pm
Haven’t written anything for sometime. Feel no urge or impulse to write. He had a headache so we retired early. I translated his Bengali poem Anidra to English today.
22-Aug-20
He had a vivid dream of UG yesterday night. He felt restless, his throat choking, and couldn’t sleep until 11:30 pm. He is narrating it to Julie now on phone. Mahesh, Chandrasekhar and Louis were there in the dream. He was moves around with UG and UG was acting silly, he looked very frail. Then they came to a tea stall and UG grabbed a cup of tea or juice from an urchin boy and G was settling the dues with the shopkeeper, when UG suddenly vanished. He had a dream after a very long time. “I thought I didn’t dream at all, but that’s not correct! I am really surprised. I don’t know what all my head contains!”, he said.
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