A word game and an image game. A word game of creating portmanteaus of Greek origin words suffixed with phobia. An image game of finding these phobias in imaginary tales. We live our lives in fear or in search of fear. We look for them in other people and in
I am all. And all is me. This street in an ancient town has killed many and saved many. Don't look for order and justice and goodness. Look only for the dim yellow light.
I was travelling to Konya in late winter on a clear morning. The fields on the sides of the road were light brown. And far off on the horizon, a little house, barely visible. Perhaps, the house of the farmer tending to these fields.
I took the image of the semazen (in the cover) during a sublime performance in a caravanserai.
Photo essay of a journey through forgotten towns. Pictures and words by Mohit Patel, original published on Nov 24, 2019. It takes 2 hours and 5 stories to reach the "village-at-no-place". Some of these stories are told out loud, while some play out in your mind. The words
I do not remember how this poem came to be. I had an image of a gothic veil in my mind. The image is of a dry lake somewhere in India. I took this many years ago.
I will try to address what I have been observing and experiencing in the past few years. Since the complete domination over attention and will was established by the techno-hegemony of social media and its ilk, the act of conversation has either vanished or has taken on a sinister shape
Banyans, and Neems, and Mangoes, and Jamuns. A forest called Northstar. I was once lost in a forest, in a manner of speaking. Dawn turned to dusk in a reversal that came without warning. Aranyaka. What is the point of a forest if it is not enchanted? Where dreams are
A melody, a harmony, a rhythm, and a poem. A Veena called Northstar. A sequence of chapters forms a book, a sequence of classes forms a school day, a sequence of units makes a curriculum, and a sequence of musical notes makes a melody. And when there are underlying notes
A Phantasmagoria of colours, and sounds, and smells. A reverie called Northstar. "Where we come from, the birds sing a pretty song and there's always music in the air..." The dance of the little man from Twin Peaks is a mad, surreal phantasmagoric scene from David
The exiles and the renegades The merchants and the usurpers The givers and the takers The noblemen and the plebeians The brown and the black The stone and the gossamer The Jaisalmer yellow and the Iznik blue The Damascus dagger and the ultramarine dust These pilgrims without shrine. ~mk
education
A lullaby to put us to sleep, so that we may dream. A song called a Northstar. The gesture of sleeping - where does it occur? Head bouncing on the window of a bus; hands folded on a bench and the head resting on it, a class perhaps; a baby
poetry
A tale was once told Of journeys and pilgrimages Of penance and repentance Of redemption and absolution There were many in that wagon to purgatory. A scholar who lost his mind A priest who lost his faith A general who lost his command A consul who started a war A
poetry
I write poems for kids, for trees, and some reflections on the trees. Trees of Northstar. Our guardians. Custodians of memories. Listeners of our tales. They will be here when we no longer are. This is my attempt to share the beauty and grace of our trees. SIRIS A giant
essays
My recent photo exhibit made me think about and revisit some ideas that I have about images and text. Roland Barthes had much to say about text and image. I have been thinking about text as technology and photograph as a medium, alchemical almost, for imagination. The photograph, or the
poetry
The teleology of architecture is ruin. The fate of empires is to lay waste. Those cities turn to dust, By the marauding armies of horses, And elephants, and men in armour. Armour of greed and hierarchy, Of memories of loss. The granite boulders carved into monuments, Only to be ground
poetry
Silent runes and arabesque Tell a story Kafkaesque Of a riverman When the river dried A doorman When the doors closed A clergyman When lies arrived A swordsman When they won A spokesman And lied some more An everyman. Silent runes and arabesque Tell a story Kafkaesque Of found treasures
poetry
I had nothing to give to that old woman. Who begs at the lights, She gave me instead, Embers and cinders; Decay and suffering; A life unredeemed; Infinite infamy and inquity, I have it all She gave me more, and old poem too. Yanked out like a spasm. A poem
essays
There was a time when I found pilgrimages to be an unnecessary exertion. One could find all that is to see within one's self. And perhaps that may be true. But I have found myself to be going on pilgrimages. Sometimes, I know I am going on one.
essays
Like a child has tools and objects to play, I have words, images, and dreams to play. Words and images come to me from somewhere, and I am a mere vehicle. They flow, rarely and spontaneously, triggered by a phantom or a spectre. They come, at times like a neatly
essays
It is perhaps wise to turn to Friedrich Schleiermacher (a German theologian and philosopher) occasionally. He is one of the founders of pedagogy as a discipline. Pedagogy, as it is used and understood in common parlance, is merely the “technic” of teaching. The content of these technics is prescribed by
poetry
Part 2 Or The First Zombie The bottomless pit Of content and horror Deterritorialising My eyes My mind. In the consummate fangs Of the fiddle device Everything is a spectacle A performance, a caprice His voyeuristic instincts Blindingly perverse Not unlike my doggerel verse. Every blade of grass Every drop
poetry
By the will of magick, I found myself in the company of a great old book. Signed anonymously, I decided to keep the name of the book anonymous too, for you, my brother, my sister. One day you will find it too, I pray. In that book was the art