Stairway to stairwell

Stairway to stairwell

 Enjoyed the Athens porchfest festival is dupehar aur sham. Caught the whimsical early wisps of the hair at the nape of my sky friend in the form of a pinkish blue sunsetting, not on the phone but in my arbitrary access memory. 

Chose wisely today after starting a quibble with my source, that was put out before it could trickle down like the water droplets that together constitute Victoria and Niagara Falls. 

Remembering now the time I excitedly and chillfully fell down the steep stairs of a once haunted home, dropping the green ceramic plate covered with Choo Choos chicken and rice all over the last steps down to the landing. The yellow sauce and rices I had to handsomely clean up but my life was spared by an Act of God, unlike our home's predecessor, who drunkenly lived out her last moments falling down the very same stairs.

Public health announcement: falling down kills more individuals every year than lightning, hurricanes, and tornadoes combined. Most people who are not homeless die in their homes. 

Say what you feel to your loved ones, for no moment is promised. If you know me, I love you, and I wait every mindful moment for the refrain that will bring us home. Om Shanti Om

Tabalchi

Tabalchi, Yours Truly

Throwback to the last time I had the great honour to meet Anindo Chatterjee in-person, touch his feet, with my guru Masterji (Amitabha Buddha), a disciple of Anindo Chatterjee. Through learning tabla and doing my best to return to it no matter how many hours, days, weeks, and even years I may have strayed away from it for, returning to tabla is always a mental-physical psychosomatic health check-up for me, and a spiritual saviour. 

I savour each moment in audience of such Masters of music, men and women who understand the whole life as music, who dedicate their whole life to music- and teach countless students. 

Ever since I went to an Indian reservation near the 4 corners of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona and took home a drum, singing and beating along to "Humma humma humma (ek a ho Gaye ham ur tum), I have been a percussionist (unless you count piano, also a percussion instrument, which came first). 

I wish all the love in the world to all my teachers, be they my friends, my acquaintances, strangers, frenemies--enemies (the one's I learn from how not to be)- I hope you know who ya'll are to me. I never forget a friend and I never forget a lesson, even if time elapses in the interim of my exercising of these lesson. 

Music is universal, compositions plan the way and distill the past into crystallised packages, much like the packages of data sent through the internet protocols. 

How you play music is what matters, with what in your mind, what love in your heart, what feelings in your skin, what beliefs about where to begin? "With what does the Science of Logic [philosophy] begin?" (George Wilhelm Frederique Hegel)

I pose that question to ya'll. Where have you been, tell me, where do you want to go, how can I help you get there, and which pathways will be for the betterment of all? "Via the spectrum road"? - (Tony Williams Lifetime)

signing off...your tabalchi

Sanam Manas

Reflections on 10/18/25

Reflecting on the days events, so far. Today was a good day. A young man and woman of our community got married in peace (I stayed home to watch the Dawgs beat up on Ole Miss- Rebels? that's a little archaic of a mascot, don't you think? Are they talking Confederates or Luke Skywalker? Definitely not the Mujahideen). Educate your young boys not to grow up to be Nazis or Mussolinies or Stalins or Musks or elephant tusk poachers (roll tide!), before it's too late and you're bailing them out of the prisoner of war camps of the Allies. Nuremberg Trial oncoming.
I have great respect for Richard Sherman (shoutout Clarke Middle School!)and William Tecumsah Sherman who said: "I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell."
I've never been a prisoner of war, but I know what it's like to be systematically psychologically tortured (I'll tell you about my experiences at the Tel Aviv airport later one day- "What kind of name is Manas??" they asked me lol [one of a kind] ... "What do you know of Al-Shabab [well I am self-educated, too, you know] ... "why did you come to Israel first if you're going to Ethiopia first??" [clue: the tickets were cheaper that way, sorry, stereotype away!... ~ "You're saying your grandfather changed his name in America to escape anti-semitic racist persecution and discrimination? Since when do Jews get discriminated against in America?"... well I learned a lot about Israel after that point, but not before a month in Abyssinia, the best days of my life)- mind you, I was later in Haifa for a study abroad (HU has a magnificent museum on their campus, btw, check it out!), sponsored by UGA and got the best medical ride home after checking out the mental hospital where one young man ran around like a chicken with its head cut off running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and the other older guy giving me medicine kept telling me in English "I don't speak English!" (Medical translation is important).
All to say, it's good to have traveller's insurance if you plan on getting swept up by the mental health police because you decided to skip class to go on a walkabout (more on that later)..." Suffice it to say, sometimes I am suffused with enthusiasm (why shouldn't I be? Go read my undergraduate honours thesis, and you'll understand. Or just listen to "Hey Jude" (or watch the Youtube live version- I imagine John Lennon was thinking of my father when he was a boy, and soothing his soul with the beauty of the rock and roll) I LOVE CHUCK BERRY! (if you know, you know).
The following were some thoughts I shared with my mentor/mentee: The wise man's greatest challenge is the fool, and the wise man's greatest joy is the wisdom of others, of whatever age or vintage. "The wise man falters the fool, (or is it flatters?) [somebody call Flanders! I need a left-handed version of a record player, ASAP]"
Dha dhin dhin daha
dha dhin dhin dha
na tin tin na
te te tin tin tha
any job offers for a Master of Public Health?