This would not make sense without the original note from Mike, a dear friend of mine, who I was responding to. Mike, in turn, was responding to my sharing of a paper in which I and my main blog Engayging Life was referred to in a research paper titled "Queer Blogging in Indian Digital Diasporas A Dialogic Encounter" published in 2008.
Maybe I can intersperse the usual appellation with BHGG (Baywatch Hunk Gone Gay)! wow, you are really famous as a trailblazer! I see that this is a 2008 paper, long before I knew you, so your fame is longstanding.
A very interesting paper -- although plenty of sociological jargon -- which makes some great points. How things have changed from 2008, 14 years ago, and yet the performance stays essentially the same but with more complex and/or explicit visuals.
I read it on the flight back from Houston -- I had a business meeting there, it was nice to be back in 22 degree weather there for a while (it's warm here today too, up to minus 8 degrees). I was just on a Zoom with Cape Town this morning, they were complaining about a sunburn epidemic, and I had to note that right now, we were concerned about a frostbite surge!
I'm working on a car booking for Iceland, putting pieces together. Just submitted a paper to it on our work on transwomen in Dar es Salaam. And going through your photos from previous messages, I love re-seeing them.
Here is a paper that we did in Kenya that might interest you. We did it as a photovoice as well (still writing that one). Plus a picture out the back door! Ganesh in his winter attire.
I like the idea of looking at the same blog phenomena in SSA -- maybe Kenya and Tanzania. We couldn't use actual handles, though. Much love, Mike
Am I relieved to hear from you! My mind has been working overtime with scenarios as to why you haven't yet responded, and J has been a pacifier of sorts. I'm glad that I have been proven wrong yet again.
Even though I have been told to never apologise for length or girth, I think it is only fair that I do for at least the former of my response. :)
We are in ABG for a longish weekend--probably the last one for this season. We rode to ABG on Friday morning on the bike pair (my friend has left his with me for a few weeks as he's visiting his hometown at the passing of one of his grand-aunts).
We have been having a few good weeks/weekends on a stretch with fews squabbling episodes. This is indeed a welcome phase of comforting stability, and I'm not quite sure what triggered it. The single-motorcycle ones initiated the change, but all the good was eroded by the discomfort that J has while riding pillion. I have always suspected that he exaggerates the discomfort, but the whole experience, with or without the exaggeration, was not conducive to us building on the good.
We also have upped our physical activity game. Yesterday morning, around the same time that I find myself writing to you this morning (7.30 am), in an excited/frantic/relieved headspace, we had just started the foot leg of a trek to a temple on top of a hill.
The base of the trek is about 15 min from his house, and the elevation is 900 feet (ca. 274 m) above sea level, and the climb has about 700 steps. The Wikipedia page, which has an obviously inflated value, lists the elevation as 5000 feet (ca. 1,524 m). Below I’m sharing a link of some Google Photos albums so you can get a feel of these.
But the most fascinating aspect of the trek was not the trek itself or the gorgeous surroundings! As soon as we parked the bike at the base, we were greeted by a black pariah dog (it’s a he who we referred to as Blackie), who seemed excessively friendly to us but was mildly aggressive toward another stranger. To our utter surprise, he followed us up the first few steps, and I found myself telling J that I have never had a dog who would lead the way on walks or treks.
As if on cue, he went ahead and started leading the way. The surprises didn't end there, however! At the first big clearance on the way up—which is where we ended our mini-trek (about one-fifth of the way up)—last weekend, we were joined by his friend—a pastel brown, golden Indian pariah (it’s a she who we referred to as Brownie) with a collar.
After the initial physical pleasantries exchanged by the quadrupedal duo, the leadership role was elegantly, almost deterministically, taken over by Brownie. She led the way, often 50 paces ahead of us and often 20 paces ahead of Blackie. They would climb up and rest at a landing waiting for us until we slowly made our way, thanks to photography and sufficient periods of breathers for Jehangir.
Brownie was the quieter, more elegant one, and yet she was a hunter. Once, she veered off the path, and in a minute or so, we heard a rustle of the drying bushes. Soon the soundscape of the forest was overwhelmed by the cacophony of strange cries, which I thought were from a large bird.
By the time we caught up with the duo, we realised that the source of the cries was a tribe of rhesus macaque monkeys (we couldn't quite see them, but this is the best guess that I have) being chased by Brownie, being tailed by Blackie. Eventually, they joined us at the trekking path, taking a route that no human could comfortably take.
At the top of the hill, there indeed was a temple, with a small village. The duo were greeted by a dozen dogs of varying sizes and colours, clearly communicating displeasure and discomfort of the perceived invasion. We went past the standoff--the only time when we were able to overtake the duo--and explored the temple for a few minutes.
At the top, apart from the dog party, we found ourselves in the company of a handful of visitors, a couple of priests who work at the temple, vendors at shops that were open at the time, and a buffalo. Considering the tense standoff between the dogs, which was not welcome by the visitors, we decided to pick up a few tiny packets of Good Day biscuits and head back down.
This is where we evidenced how the duo had naturally assumed their protective role for us two, with Blackie holding the offence line as the others receded, with both us encouraging the dogs on either side to calm down. After a brief phase of dorsal piloerection and baring of the canines from Blackie, which was dissuaded by the sudden appearance of Brownie from the flank, we were able to start on our way down, leaving the village and its inhabitants behind.
On our way down, we stopped at the first clearance to have the biscuits and the black coffee we were carrying in a small flask. Blackie gorged on the share of biscuits we offered, while Brownie was softly indifferent. Both were however more equitable in lapping up the water that was poured in little chalices that we made with our hands, especially mine, which seemed like an insubstantial, yet practicable, repartee of fluids in response to the salivary offerings of Blackie, mostly to my face. You’ll find evidence to this in the pictures in the albums!
But that’s not the only thing we ended up doing this weekend. We were at the beach both evenings playing Frisbee, which is a passion of mine that I have not been able to nurture enough in my adulthood. Jehangir, who seems to have been given a new lease for life with the motorcycle, surprised himself and me by turning in hundreds of strong throws, albeit aided by the breeze at the beach. I caught these with some nimble footwork, which was hardly needed because of the throwing precision. My loopier, less meticulous responses were greeted by less sporting attempts at catching.
Apart from physicalising, over the last couple of weeks, we have managed to spend time with J's father/wife as well as his uncle/aunt. These experiences have been joyful, yet painful, because of the inevitability of their prospective paucity.
Now shifting back to our usual correspondence style.
“BHGG” is indeed an acronym that I could live with. The discovery of the article has given me an impetus—one of the many that I have had in the past few weeks—for approaching my writing with more seriousness. That has manifested in more frequent writings on my blog (Engayging Life), which I realise that I should have never neglected, considering that it used to an avenue where I could present my creations that could move people.
This last realisation has been consolidated by some kindness offered by Jehangir after I shared the paper with J. He wrote me something that was extremely poignant and reassuring.
“I’m so proud that your work moves people in such diverse walks and fields. You have a voice and a fire in you that is so relevant and sensitive.”
Your encouraging words do have the same effect, and I am deeply grateful for them and your presence in my life.
As you might have noticed, my writing to you in this detail is a humble attempt to incorporate the acts of drafting routine correspondences as a means to hone the craft of writing. In fact, I have been documenting the best excerpts from these on a series called Correspondences (#1, #2, #3) on another blog (Neverlast) that I have been maintaining. I truly hope that I am able to sustain this rekindled passion, with the eventual goal of writing stories and books.
Your shuttling—both physical and via correspondence—between extremes of weather are quite remarkable. I’m certain that thematic/linguistic analyses of letters written in the early to mid twenty-first century would provide conclusive evidence of how real the anthropogenic climate change is in the lives of commoners.
I have read the abstract of the paper. I have the long form open on a tab, and I’ll go through it later this week. Please link me to the photo voice piece when it comes out. Needless to say that I long for collaborating with you in the manner that we did a couple of years ago. Please let me know if we can make that a reality soon.
I’m cautiously optimistic of making it to Iceland this summer. There remain several moving parts in my life—one of which I will only be able to tell you in a video/voice conversation—that need to align for this to work out, but I will promise that I’ll do my best.
I love the photo that you shared, and I hope that you will enjoy those that I’m sharing with this note!
