 By Samir Shukla
Sitting on the 12th floor balcony of a high-rise hotel overlooking the Atlantic Ocean on a bright August evening, looking down at the crowds of diverse folks milling about on the sand, bobbing in the ocean, playing with kids, I thought of the carefree conviviality of the hundreds within my view. Some of them are likely deep political partisans, but in these summertime blendings, the ocean breeze mellowing out even the grumpiest grumps, the incoming political season probably wasn’t on many minds. People were courteous and friendly to a fault.  By Samir Shukla
A meeting of musical maestros can create new horizons and genres, essentially new languages. Imagine a day, say some 50 years ago, a jazz guitarist meets a tabla player and later a ghatam player, and a Carnatic violinist. The musicians have informal jam sessions, write compositions, create new musical possibilities and hybrids. They called themselves Shakti and to say this world music combo broke barriers and boundaries is an understatement.  By Samir Shukla
Beep. Beep. Beeeeep. Paging all scientists. Here is something I have been thinking about for some time. This may not be the most pressing dilemma facing humanity, but I’m talking about a logically probable scenario. This could be a possible invisible scourge realigning our brains over the long term, or maybe I’m just trying to justify my own slowly creeping brain fog.  By Samir Shukla
I looked around the room in a half-slumber daze, squinted my eyes and made out the time. It was 3:34am. The music from the concert a few hours earlier still playing in my mind. I got up and made the requisite trip to the bathroom. Shuffling in the night, breathing slow, I rolled back into the sheets, a distant streetlight streaming into the room, the band still playing in my head. I dreamt of timelines along with the music, a slideshow of the journeys of my life squeezed into a long dream.  By Samir Shukla
Digging a hole in the ground one day on land we recently acquired, a tree root and a stone blocked the shovel. The root was wrapped around the lodged stone, both relaying an unspoken notice that I would need to work harder with the shovel in hand to finish the needed hole. I dug around the stone and poked away at the root with the tip of the shovel. Sweeping aside the dirt to pick up the rather large stone, the root, a portion of it shredded by the shovel, held its ground. Who knows how far it stretched underground, the nearest large tree was about 20 feet away. The root didn’t want to let go of its buddy, attaching itself to the thinner part of the long stone. |
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