from Uric Hubert Rainard to me , yes, but to the community we have created around this blog. I cannot say my blog, because if your do not read, I do not write. That is the true sense of the new way of Media, the end of Iconism as we know it, but the beginning of Iconism as a fulcrum around which the community develops and then the Icon itself dissolves into the community.
As I was struggling with my first challenges with fame, I took a local train in the ordinary class in Mumbai. At rush hour its an experience that defy’s your sense of individuality. Your are just part of sweaty bodies exchanging breath . Your existence just an extension of the other. I started my first poem that to this day has remained unfinished :
Give me the courage
my friend,
to be ordinary ….
Amazingly fame created not a sense of strong identity but a loss of identity. Now of course I have gambled with fame long enough, like a game of dice, up one day and down the next, to know that life’s lessons compel you to be ordinary always, but extraordinary through the path of humility that life enforces upon you. So now the only thing I have to add to the poem is the line :
lost in humility ..
Uric’s letter :
Dear Mr. Shekhar Kapur I am not totally amazed that you are just as accessible as you were three years ago, and just as adroit and wonderful a host, as you are, who is always available in the sense that it is here that you share your world and that we as your guests are welcomed to be ourselves respectively. It is a deep honor and I came by accidently because I looked up my name on the internet search, and a comment I made when i was last here came up. It was when Anthony Minghella passed away… sorry for your loss, then… and I remember being moved by the great array of your blog… it’s total open-ess. I was also present to read and be a part of the wonderful hopeful gifts of support, when Heath Ledger passed away and the strength of spirit, that must have taken. You are just amazing and I say that because _In every way I feel the very expanse of knowledge that surrounds you. I presume you travel so easily, by this heart that is your foresight_ that you are always prepared, because you live in the immediacy of Now. I can feel it as I write. I used to blog a lot, but I have not for awhile, except to blurb on the Facebook, but this year I will be re-creating my attenuation to the great orb of consciousness, because I believe the existence of true wonder is to be found in our natural selection and cultivation of honored friendships. I hope that you and all of your most honored guests have a most wonderful New Year. Ulric(seattle)
Thank you Ulric, from me on behalf of the community that urges me to host this blog.
Namasthe Sir,
Being impulsive and keeping my hesitations aside, I decided to leave a note here thanking Mr.Ulric for the wishes and you for keeping this beautiful blog.
I started visiting here and read the blog because of a very special ‘person’ and the kind of proximity and friendship you shared with Him. And it has been a very rewarding experience to read the blog just because it took me to a different world every time and forced me to reflect upon things I didn’t care.
Thank you Sir.
Beautiful ! and so Authentic !
Now, this is Success , isn’t it ?
That another person is able to Recognize and Appreciate and Connect Immediately with that which is Honest and True in you !
continue to Simply BE you !
🙂
There is a sanskrit word – ‘Sabha’ , which roughly means ‘ Assembly’.
Blogs can be modern day ‘Sabha’ s , provided people Learn something new or the Blog is informative to both the blog creator as well as the contributers., and is attracting contributions from more educated , better thinking , more insightful people.
The quality of a Sabha is known from the type of people it attracts. In asmuch as it has attracted me just enough to contribute once a while, I congratulate Shekhar on his unbelievable good fortune 😉
Just joking !
Shekhar,
‘Beautiful Letter’ , because it praises you. Would a letter become ‘Ugly’ if it criticised you ? 😉
Shekhar , For a NEW BLOG : This is from Shakti Salgaokar about the UID :
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After much procrastination, we as a family decided to go and get ourselves the Aadhaar UID card. We got hold of the forms, filled them out and armed with the necessary documents, made way to the UID registration centre in the Hindu Colony Municipal School. Upon reaching the centre, we were told that their schedule was choc-a-bloc and they would only be able to accommodate us after 25th December. So we went back on the 26th, we were told that the Post Office forms that we managed to fill up were invalid and they needed us to fill out the form meant for their centre. We managed to get an appointment for 10am on the 29th, which we could not make. We were told to come on 30th.
On the 30th we arrived at 10.10am and were faced with a reluctant Mr Gorakhnath R, an employee of Tera Software Ltd, a Sewree based firm. Busy playing a game on his phone, he asked us to wait. The line didn’t budge an inch for almost 45 minutes. During these 45 minutes, I met a disgruntled gentleman who had already invested four days in fruitlessly chasing his UID, “How many times do I bunk work for this?” he found himself asking just as a couple of college students were denied an Aadhaar form without a valid reason. When the line did not move after almost an hour, we expressed surprise. A seasoned UID chaser told us that the person who handles the equipment, disappears for hours on end each day, halting the entire process.
We were left with no choice but to confront Mr Goraknath about the wait. We told him that it was unfair to give out appointments if they don’t have the equipment to accommodate more than one person at a time and that we would take up his reluctance with the authorities. Even so, he continued to play his mobile phone game and said, “Go to any authority you want. You have to wait.”
This leaves me with a few questions. Firstly, why is the form for enrolment different for different centres? Secondly, what measures are in place to identify the inefficient vendors on contract to process UID applications? Who do the citizens go to if they know that the staff at their centre is slacking off, being rude or uncooperative?
Getting anything done through a government channel in this country is a struggle marred with unnecessary red-tapeism, confusion, ambiguity and hence, corruption. Try getting a Driver’s license without an agent at an RTO. Or for that matter, try registering for a Voter id card (it took nine visits for me to get that sorted a few years ago and it still bears a wrong birth-date and a wrong address). The individuals in charge at government undertakings make you run from pillar to post, without adequate information, until you’re so frustrated, you don’t care for your right to vote or your privilege to drive.
And for a system put in place to empower the people of this country, to leave them feeling helpless and frustrated during the registration is the biggest failure of Aadhaar.
PS: The people we encountered at the centre did not want to be named for the fear of being identified by the personnel.
self doubt and chaos haunts, but to see a person of your strature so honestly accepting that it is a part of creativity, as i guess it is, sounds assuring, gives energy to spend me my own way.
yes… the great gift of being with like minded … who keep inspiring us in our finest …in the humility of our shared humaness … beyond the illusions of praise, fame and judgments… on how things ought to be… … challenging us in each moment…
Dear Shekhar Kapur,You are true – while talking about the blog.I am not really a follower or a friend of you but few days back I got a chance to read your – True Grit : Encounter with a US War Vet in Grand Rapids- Thanks for sharing an inspiring real life experience and then i started following your blog-I love to watch DISCOVERY channel and now one more addition to my hobby – and now I am eagerly waiting to read your postings-You are simply wonderful in narration of the present with your past -the selection is also superb- Few weeks before i got a chance to watch your interview with sadguru jaggi vasudev-I am enjoying -Thanks a lot
This is such a lovely letter, written from the heart. Thanks for sharing.
Now about that poem, I have a nit– humility is intrinsic if its really real. Else its a show.
Does the sky say about its colors, look now I’m peach and gold?
Just being my nasty self 🙂