In Limbo 2

sailboat made with upcycled plastic   basket woven with throwaway plastic  .                        . . .and more From being a tax officer with the commonwealth of Australia to an ocean/beach comber to a pioneer artisan in upcycling of multilayer plastic: that in brief encapsulates the journey my brother Satyajit has taken in the last decade. The latter part of it started with COVID-19 and the sudden acquisition of that precious commodity which on normal days is hard to come by: gargantuan chunks of free time! Being an avid swimmer with a childhood love for the ocean, it didn't take long for the boy in 48-year-old Satya to re-emerge. And, there he was on deserted beaches which were once abuzz with tourists,  wrestling not only with the waves, but also with trash strewn across the sands.  Soon a whole bunch of stranded backpackers from around the world and like-minded people had joined hands to clean up the neighborhood beaches .  From collecting, sorting , rinsing with soap and dr

The old man wrapped waist down in blue loincloth, staff in hand, walks amidst the tribe of goats. No urgency tethers his gait. A song stalks him, rising out of the golden dust of some living past. An earth-bound spirit, he possesses the air of a renunciant, an adventurer, alone and naked.  The incoherent rhythms of the modern world bypass him. I want to stop and say hello, greet him with a smile, but am afraid to intrude upon his world, and in return shatter my own. I don't think I fall within the periphery of his thoughts, the way he falls within mine. We don't speak the same language or live in the same neighborhood. Our worlds don't intersect except during my morning and evening constitutionals when he can be seen herding his goats through the open field in our backyard. At times, he stands there, supporting his weight on the crooked staff..watching and not watching. His eyes rest lightly upon the green of the grass. The sound of birds, breeze and the goats' chompin

After a couple of maniacal storms that rolled in last week, bringing down some mighty trees and power lines with them, a serene repose has fallen in our lives. A quiet stretch where shadows come and go as they please, like those consenting geckos behind the neatly stacked bookshelves. For more than two days, we remained without electricity...and resultantly fearful of what might happen when our overhead water tank exhausted its supply. We battled the heat and humidity, even as the food stored in the dwindling coolness of the refrigerator presented a dire need to cook and eat more than is our wont.  In between cooking and eating, everyone kept calling the lineman of the area but to no avail. We were left not only at the mercy of nature, but also that of an under-staffed and overwhelmed municipality and electricity department. Without television and internet, we felt marooned. The birds swung on glistening branches, chattering non-stop. The excitement was palpable. They had so much news