post - makimono

Less than 2 miles from where we live in Palo Alto, there lies the world renowned Stanford University. Even just stepping onto the campus you feel the warm welcome to the creative and innovative environment under the California sun.

The past weekend, we spent more time at Stanford than home. We had the fortunate pleasure of attending two remarkable concerts and a symposium all under the topic of "Singing Religious Poetry in North India" presented by the Center for South Asia Department of Religious Studies, Department of Music & Stanford Humanities Center". We had a soul cleansing and enriching experience listening to top class scholars speaking about 15th century poet-mystic-iconoclast Kabir, enjoying the tunes or Kabir's oral traditions performed by Prahlad Singh Tipanya ji and Baul music performed by Pravathy Baul. We were completely transported into another time and world for two and half days.

The highlight was Tipanya ji's performance where he had us deeply engaged with the spiritual and social thoughts of Kabir. Later on we found out that Tipanya ji comes from a village not too far away from Maheshwar, where I have visited in Madhya Pradesh, central India, for our cotton collection.

Parvathy Baul at the end of her energetic performance

Will sign-off with a poem from Kabir - The Word:

Find the word, understand the word,
Depend on the word;
The word is heaven and space, the word the earth,
The word the universe.
The word is in our ears, the word is on our tongues,
The word the idol.
The word is the holy book, the word is harmony,
The word is music.
The word is magic, the word the Guru.
The word is the body, the word is the spirit, the word is being,
The word Not-being.
The word is man, the word is woman,
The Worshipped Great.
The word is the seen and unseen, the word is the existent
And the non-existent.
Know the word, says Kabir,
The word is All-powerful

eventful weekend