Month: January 2023

Street of Typewriters. Street of Scribes. Mysore
Typewriters! The rhythmic cheerful metallic rat a tat tat audible even above all the street sounds…
mostly the persistent smog whirr and hurtle honk of circling rickshaws
there is something curiously satisfying about redundant technology … these mechanical contraptions of yore …
a collaboration of type set metal, set on sticks… then the reams of blueBlack ink and smudge carbon paper
these typists were down a side street near Mysore palace, towered over by Raj era, slightly pompous indo saracenic (sarcastic?!) buildings, likewise relics of a bygone epoch
Not the best photo, indeed, just a snap in passing… I half remember(?) exactly the same scene from when I first came here back in the 80s
I loved the way the customer, he with the scooter helmet, mobile phone at his side, was animatedly explaining what he wanted, whilst the typist alternated between earnest attention and that faraway stare, almost rapt, as he typed away
composition as collaboration
Fascinated, the next day I returned to chat with Ramesh… balding, gentle natured, a mild beige shirt, seemingly old, but in truth probably 10 years younger than I… He proudly told me he had been working here 25 years, his only ever job.
I blurted out the obvious ‘but but computers!!!’ he explained that 15% of Indian written communication was still done in this way! people preffered it… mostly the job was translating official-esque documents from Kannadian (language of Karnataka, with its beautiful curly wurly alphabet) into English… depositions, legalese pleas… and yet, and yet, I am sure he would sometimes turn his skills to writing the occasional purple prose of a love letter… wringing emotions into ink, codifying the heart… it was ever thus for scribes
I think, in another life, I would have happily been a scribe, mbe at the court of Tipu Sultan, the late 18th century, with a beautiful coloured turban, sniffing a Rose (a frequent motif), gnawing on a florid ink besmirched feather quill, concocting love letters for a customer… like something from Orhan Pamuks ‘My Name is Red’

Sri Ranganatha Swamy Temple, Srirangapatana, Karnataka
quite the clickety clack tongue twister for my anglo saxon mutter utterance
I love to be at an ancient South Indian temple just before sunset
enter through the gate under the majestic gopuram,
pass through the halls, each pillar uniquely carved, centuries before, with a flower, animal, dancer or god…
black stone daubed with splahes of colour… pink, red, saffron… slick with ghee, the bright blooms of offerings of flowers
richly sensual
ONWARD, DEEPER, a bell is rung, onward, deeper, following the swish of sari, onward, deeper, following the swish of moustache, onward deeper, plumes of incense, ONWARD, DEEPER
finally coming to the inner sanctum, before the shrine itself, here Vishnu reclining with a five headed snake (Sheshnag) forming a potective canopy over his head, dreaming the world into being
it is not my religion, i have no real notion what is going on… but just stand quietly, feel whatever it is that there is there for you to feel, heart open, as source bubbles to surface…
spirit is spirit, wherever you find it… be it in the astonishing beauty of nature… a country church in winter at dusk… the shrine of a sufi saint… else somewhere like here… where people have chanted together down the centuries
the old warmth, yearn, the pull of beyond… a solemn exuberant place

no photos obvs

this temple dedicated to Vishnu on the banks of the Kaveri river is at least 1000 years old, a pleasant stumble upon after visiting Tipu Sultans Summer Palace, it didn’t even make the Lonely Planet(!), a major Vaishnava pilgrimage centre
one of the many treats of india, the minute you amble but a nano hair off the beaten track is the air of minor celebrity acquired
everybody wants to chat and have their photo taken with you… as a lover of natter and selfies this suits me right down to the ground
i always ask them to take one for me, photos of people are my fave and this way i’m not intrusively shoving a camea in a strangers face
these youngsters , Rashika and Arun, were paricularly sweet, the baby was at that teeter topple toddle phase lurching cheerfully hither and thither, practicing waving (bye bye / ta ta) … i’d just had an amusing exchange with a couple of smartly saried , very posh, biddies ‘my son he lives in california, he has a succesful health food company, maybe you know it?’, after that selfie they too came over for a snap and a chat… afterwards, waving goodbye, they disappeared around the corner, then retuned a minute later bringing me some prasad, sweet treats blessed by the shrine, to tell me that it was Rashikas birthday… cue ‘Happy Birthday toooo youuu’

i also like the fact that the brahmin priest, bare chest, paunch and slightly balding, he wafts the flame, takes the donations, moves those overtly fervent along… yet in quieter time, boredly flicks through his mobile phone… we all do… what i’m doing just now, you too? where does he keep the phone tho, a mystery, in his lunghi?

lucy: Heading there in around 1 week 

Namaste! Hullo… Been enjoying your photos… If your there deffo recommend the temple around sunset… Doesn’t have the size and extraordinary vibe of some of the Tamil Nadu ones (Madurai, Tiruvannamalai) but nearby… And a human scale… India without cars, everyone in a cheerful mood! xx