Surrender...

मैंने तो तेरे, तेरे उत्ते छड्डियां डोरियाँ 

I have left all the strings to be taken care off by you

(lyrics: Highway song Patakha Guddi , composition AR Rehman)

Much has been discussed intellectually about surrender and 'going with the flow', personally, but when it comes to practice, who hasn't struggled; unless you are a realized soul , of whom, i have met very few!

Life is actually like Rainbow Grey these days... =) can't decide whether i'm moving in THE direction, but i'm moving in some direction nevertheless! who knows what awaits next? A paradigm shift is happening. there's this happy kind of confusion and chaos... not the the one i used to feel uncomfortable in, but one that makes me feel there is somewhere where I 'belong', so why so much resistance and struggle and anger at the Universe? What for? 

Who am I fighting anyway? What am I trying to prove anyway?

It's a strange comfort to be studying what you like and liking what you study! I certainly am... and all that evades is a slight smile to all the wonderful batch mates cribbing and whining about how much they feel discontented. I don't know what I'm going to do with art, theatre and psychology; but surely it's a new space i'm entering and exploring. I belong everywhere and nowhere! It is nice to discover and Accept own paradoxes before reaching out to anyone else (if that is meant to!)

Not that I don't feel unsettled anymore, but learning to "hand over to the universe" to take care of the 'results' and 'circumstances'. Life has a funny way of teaching you things. Bringing back old people, starting where you 'lefted it'  or gifting you with new moments, a speck of dust (tinka) that doesn't pinch in your eyes anymore, but settles somewhere, finds its own place with time...

Thank you...

Sharing a beautiful lullaby i'm stuck to these days, some beautiful metaphors at work. Gonna surely sing this to my kid in future! (or already am?!)  :D

Song: Sooha Saaha

Movie: Highway

Music: A R Rahman

Lyrics: Irshad Kamil

Singers: Zeb (of Zeb and Haniya), Alia Bhatt

Maina ne sooha saaha le jaana khoye ki

Meethi meethi kheti mein khelan ho..

Totaa bole pedon pe, ped se, poodi se

Sooha saaha neendan mein okha na ho

Sangi saathi, hang soone thaare ho na ho*

Sooha saaha, amma ka..

Sooha saaha, amma ka..

Sparrow will take the red rabbit to play 

in the sweet farms of milk solids..

parrot speaks on trees, to tree, to poodi,

that the red rabbit shouldn't be finding it hard to sleep..

maybe there are your friends there or not,

the red rabbit of mother..

the red rabbit of mother..

Raina...

Kaare kaare koylaan si raina

Neendi tola, tola si lai na

Taaron ka bichhona.. chain se sona

Night,

night like black coals,

Take (gold like) small, small sleep.. 

[tola is a traditional measurement of gold, almost 10 grams]

bedding of stars, sleep with peace..

Gota gota gudri mein ghoomega ghaamega

Sooha saaha maina ne le jaana ho..

he'll roam wearing shiny patched clothes,

red rabbit which the sparrow has to take..

Toota.. taara sa

Chhota sa, taara sa.. toota re..

Poochhe wo dekhun teri baari

Kyun na soye, kyun tu roye

Kyun tu khoye yoon pardes mein ho..

Broke, as if some star,

small one, some star seemed to break, [shooting star is called breaking of star in Hindi]

It asks me if I wait for your turn..

Why do you not sleep, why do you cry,

why do you get lost in foreign land like that..

Kyun tu rootha, kis se rootha

Kya hai chhoota tera des mein ho..

Why are you angry, and angry with whom?

What is left of yours in (our native) country?

Jo bhi hai rookha-sookha

Mann mein wo bolo toh

Kholon raahein baaton ki, baahein ho..

Whatever dry you have

in your heart, say..

open the paths, the arms of talks.. 

(source: Sooha Saha )

Pyasa 1

Up early morning today.. it is 5 am. 24 hours of power cut at home. some problem in wiring and fuse at home. This means that the inverter dragged itself beyond its capacities and ultimately went off at 2 in the morning. This also means that I haven't slept at all for more than 24 hours. Not tired yet.. Used to it..but by choice..not with so much of distraction and discomfort to accompany it. Anyway, i decided that i'm not gonna waste my time anymore (since i already wasted the night lying on the bed and staring at the fan). I have been thinking of writing the following post since a long time now..

So today I'm going to highlight the principle of Classical Conditioning. Every psychology student is well aware of this widely used, tested and applied learning principle .

However, today I'm not going to explain it the traditional Pavlovian way of experiment involving a dog,bell jar and measuring the salivary responses, but i'm just relating it to a recent observation in my daily life.

These days dad and i have split our duties to water plants. Dad waters them 6 in the morning and I, 6 in the evening. It has become a routine now.. 6pm and i'm up on the terrace religiously fulfilling my duty to 'recharge' the plants. However, it is not JUST the plants that i recharge. As days went by, i noticed a routinely visit of crows on the earthen pot kept there to satiate 'their' thirst in the scorching heat. ['their' applies to the bird kingdom, flies and squirrels, however crows seem to rule the 'water supply' in this case]

Classical Conditioning is a basic form of learning in which an original, neutral stimulus by repeated pairing with a stimulus that normally elicits a responses comes to elicit a similar or even identical response. In this, 2 stimulus events become associated in such a way that the occurrence of one event reliably predicts the occurrence of other.

I noticed that as soon as i refill the earthen pot, the crows start lining up on the railing of the balcony and near the pot to consume water.

That gives us our first phase, Before conditioning which can be represented as:

Unconditioned Stimulus(UCS)    --->     Unconditioned Response(UCR)
water                                                    thirst/ [since we can't measure, i'll take it as lining up of crows].

As I decided to observe the behaviour of crows, I made a loud screeching sound of the terrace door near the water area and then shortly after presented water in the pot. This brings us to the second During the conditioning wherein the CS is paired with USC to elicit the UCR:

Conditioned stimulus(CS)  + Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) ---> Unconditioned Response(UCR)
screech of the door                            water                                             lining up of crows

On repeated pairing in the second phase(as shown above) I observed that the crows started lining up for water just on hearing the screeching sound even when the water was not presented. This shows that learning in behaviour has taken place After the Conditioning phase.

 Conditioned stimulus(CS) ---> Conditioned Response(CR)

 screech of the door                         lining up of crows

Well thanks to Classical Conditioning, I made new friends... It's nice to see them drink water! =)

Pyasa

 Watch the original experiment of Classical Conditioning by the Behaviourist Ivan Pavlov.

[ wrote it on May 21st, publishing it today.]

Happy World Environment Day! Please love nature! =D

Color Mixer

For the art aficionado that i am, this past week has been truly amazing for me;full of art events, people and activities. From an intriguing discourse on Public art and installations by Ma'am Shukla Sawant as part of my art appreciation course, attending a solo exhibition by my art 'teacher' Ma'am Kanchan Chander, a solo exhibition of performance artist Ms Manmeet Devgun, a theatrical performance of my directorial venture 'A World of Scarecrows' a mental health awareness stage play at one of the Hospital's medical conference...to watching Ingmar Bergman's Persona! All in all,  a visual treat!

sigh

As i look back and introspect and retrospect today, i feel a sense of satisfaction, entering the art world and yet maintaining my headbent decision of studying psychology, and integrating the two worlds where ever possible. Well, i realized that the two are inseparable. There is art in psychology and psychology in art! It is a kind of symbiotic relationship!

As much as i'd wanna share more and more, time is running out! So its now the time for The Rabbit to run!

Burnt in the ashes of time,

tasting the soot of happiness.

Rubbing against forehead as mark of resolution

The Reign of dilettante shall not be a delusion!

The 'i-ye imagination' shall burn with a fire of passion

in thousands of hearts, with thousands of ambitions...

untitled. poster colours on paper. 2011 22''x15''

untitled coloured ink on paper. 2011 22''x15''

untitled  coloured ink on paper. 2011 22''x15''

PS:
To read more:
> Kanchan Chander solo

>  manmeet devgun

>and i recommend all those who like to carefully study theatre,film,psychology,silence,truth,love or are simply the explorers of self to watch the film Persona by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman! (i shall soon write more about it)

Stay Happy!