23:29 IST
Parents' Room, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

Day 7

A sequence of thoughts for a story-of-sorts for the screen?

The story attempts to reconstruct Dadi's life through her own words.During the process, the storyteller attempts to draw commentary on the concepts around time, memory, the pointlessness of existence, loneliness, the strive to give purpose, how the right and wrong is decided upon etc.

1. [Disclaimer]: All characters appearing in this work are real. Any resemblance to other real persons, living or dead, is a happie coincidence.

2. [Papa's pearls on motion, time and space]: Time is motion. Time is inextricably linked to motion and space. An animal is unaware of time. Doesn't understand the concept of future... (his image will come in flashes of black and white)

3. Papa's VO will be accompanied with Johnny Ripper's track Some Things Last a Long Time.
Images/video shots - Papa flashing, lower-half-face of a girl in the mirror changing expressions in time to music, dadi's ring's reflection in the car window, dadi's wisps of hair flying while she sleeps, curtains, Surabhi's nailpaints, old photos, [some more], random streets of Ferozepur

4. Slowly fade away the song and the visuals....focus in on Dadi's black-n-white narration of the house of Ferozepur. Pick up points.

5. Zoom in on the Ferozepur trip. Select footage and voice-overs in such a manner that there is no real clarity on finding the right place.

.....to be continued

01:13 IST
Downstairs Room with Table Fan, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

Tiring, pointless, day. Someone told me once that a point does not exist. So pointless in itself doesn't make much sense, does it? Kunzum. Social media updates. Coughing. Chatter-patter with the marketing guruji. Cough. Wait for the boss. Cough. Sister arrives. Trundled to the puny-parantha-maker. Placed order. Sat on chairs. Discussed plans for the day. A girl walks towards me and stops in front of me. I recognize her but can't recall her name. Introduce her to sister as my friend from Kunzum then look at her and apologise for not being able to recall her name. She looks upset. But tells me it, and lunches with us. Phew. Trundle back to Kunzum. Say hello to the work people. Begin transcribing one of Dadi's interviews. Love the process. One of the tech bloggers comes to visit. Asked him about good editing laptops. He suggests Thinkpad over Ideapad. And an Air over everything else. He's an Apple freak. Nothing to do with those round, red, juicy, nutritious things mind you. Boss comes. Boss goes. No talk. Stupid. Walk till bus-stop. Bus arrives after exactly five minutes of wait! (small joys) Home. Dinner. Lots of gossip with the sisters. Talked to boi. Read about Time and am thoroughly confused. What the fuck is it!?

Goodnight. Love.

02:45IST
Downstairs Room with Table Fan, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

The day started with a film viewing - 1947 Earth. The film, a narration by a seven year old Parsee girl was a story set in 1947 in Lahore. She told a tale through her grown-up voice overs of her nanny, her two lovers and their circle of friends and the entire community. People identified themselves by their religion first. It depicted a time of communal tension, where friends became enemies simply for belonging to a particular religion. Lovely film, beautiful score, vivid acting.

Then sleep took over. 8am came. I got and decided to snooze. Mom came to wake me up. I shooed her away. Dadi came to wake me up. I shooed her away. She called me 'pagal' and went away in a huff. I giggled. Got up, got dressed and heaved and panted and wheeled to Kunzum. We had seven annoying shoots today, where my job was to be the windmill. It is a job assigned to utterly useless people. They look at the time and flail about their arms after a certain specified period. In this case it was 10 minutes.I thoroughly hated it. Got a bus home. Had food. Delicious hot chicken soup. Came downstairs. Procrastinated. Wrote a food review. Talked to the boi. He gives me so much hope :) hugs. Began watching Fire. It keeps stopping. Will probably sleep now. Nighty night lovely bloggie.

22:07 IST
Downstairs Room with Table Fan, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

Day 6

Dadi burps a lot. Not tiny sounds erupting from the throat, but large ones, that originate from the stomach and gurgle up the oesophagus, where on the way they make the upper part of the esophagus vibrate, creating that resounding dull sound. In dadi's case it is a long drawn dull bell-dong. And it occurs repeatedly, and it happens pretty much all the time. It is a mixture of the medicines she takes, along with her problems with indigestion perhaps.

Dadi makes a trip to the roof and downstairs on the ground floor at least once a day. It is part of her routine.

I was reading City of Djinns today. The book, from the outset, feels a bit exaggerated. The book isn't fiction. The book is a perspective on the history of Delhi. Mr. Dalrymple has narrated a number of true stories of real people - some were affected by partition, some by the 1984 riots, some by the emergency in 1977. The stories are also backed by paraphrases from other history books, and press clippings, giving events a backbone of support. But the stories of the people themselves, they seem a bit exaggerated. There could be several reasons for this:

1. The memory of the people interviewed. As I am learning from Dadi's project, memory is a strange thing. I don't think a person ever remembers a blow-by-blow sequence of events of an occurence. Memory is perhaps visual, and one remembers things that leave the deepest impression. One weaves a story around that impression. It may not make sense. Also, while telling a story to an audience, there is an instinctive desire to exaggerate. I feel that. It leaves an impression. The WOW factor. Perhaps that also plays a role.

2. Mr Dalyrymple's own interpretation. I don't mean to be a racist, but Mr. Dalyrymple is Scottish, with western sensibilities. He isn't used to loud voices, a generous spirit, gesticulation, highly-charged emotions. For him, the characters could very well be aliens. Hence his perspective would be different from the perspective of an Indian observing and asking stories of our past. For him, these are new sights and sounds, very different from the cold, bland, dry (though wonderful) British sensibilities based on logic and reasons. His interpretations would thus be an exaggeration as well.

Combining the two, it is safe to suppose that the accounts are colourful, though not entirely reliable. As Julian Barnes says it so perfectly ' History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.'  (who's memory?) It is thus a combination of the two.

A great exchange between a history teacher and student in a history class on history (from Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending)

'...historians need to treat a participant's own explanation of events with a certain scepticism.It is often the statment made with an eye to the future that is the most suspect.'

If you say so, sir.

And mental states may be often be inferred from actions. The tyrant rarely sends a handwritten note requesting the elimination of an enemy.

If you say so, sir.

Well, I do.

A person's own narration of events of a past may not be factually entirely correct, or the way they happened. Subjectivity is a vice/virtue of all humans. But once we know that, we can thread a story around the nature of the person's narration of events. Find a pattern. Find the personality. Weave a story around that perhaps?

00:35 IST
Downstairs Room with Table Fan, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

I need to tell my boss that I need time to make the documentary. I want to offer working part-time with him. What if he refuses? I still need to tell him. It doesn't feel right not doing it. He is a nice, honest man. As honest as the tiny black ants marching home. Let's do it. Met the big boi today. He's a big beefy man with light, brown eyes and a flop of hair that falls on his forehead. His eyes are as still as the calm before a storm. When he laughs, they disappear. Tiny slits appear in its place. I really like his company, and I love my tiny hand in his big, warm hand. Makes me feel safe.

Hugs. Good night :)

23:34IST
Downstairs Room with Table Fan, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

Kunzumed again. I quite hate that place now. Not just the pointless tasks, it's the routine of waking up every day and getting ready to wheel the rickshaw to the same place every day. The same thing, day after day. The routine of life. Boredom. Death. If only I could get hold of ONE freelance opportunity, I could easily ask Ajay to go part-time with Kunzum. Makes life a lot easier. Transcribed a bit of Dadi's conversations. I'm still not able to grasp the essence of her talks. No big ideas. Just descriptions of events, places seen, people seen with. People are extremely important for her. I don't know what I'm going to do with this. :/ What have I started?

00:41 IST
Downstairs Room with Table Fan, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

The day passed by as days pass by. The sun came up while I was sleeping. Up at 7am. Snoozed till 10am, the usual affair. Today was slightly different than the rest, because today was the day we voted. Delhi state elections covered a major part of the day today. I went to a school to cast my vote in a big ballot machine, punching a bright blue button with the symbol of a broom next to it. It belongs to Aam Aadmi Party. A brand new, nine month old party, with big and beautiful ideologies. They deserve a chance. Hence the vote.

Autoed till Kunzum. Wanked around on social media for a bit. Was about to start transcribing when in walks the big boss with his troupe. He stayed on till silly 7-o-clock and I got nothing done. Boo.

23:43 IST|
Downstairs Room with the Table Fan, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

My last post was on October 31. Today is December 3. A whole month and two days, nothing written here. It is all a blur. Fragments. Today was a pointless day as usual at Kunzum. Felt sleepy and agitated throughout the day. Wanted to start work on transcribing the various random interviews with Dadi. But was not seated on the right system. Smoked three white little sticks of death. Thought about the pointlessness of my work. Felt lethargic and fat. Saw clips of a brilliant episode on monarch butterflies from BBC Life. I'm quite messed up at the moment. Life is slipping by again. And I feel I have no words to describe anything. I forget it all.