It's definitely autumn now. In fact, onto the distinctly wintry side of autumn even. There are still the occasional sunny days, but the sun has taken on that light-only-no-real-heat sort of persona :/. This is usually the time of the year where I begin to find life a bit difficult. The rapidly shortening hours of daylight has most to do with it I think. Vitamin D tablets can only do so much to be honest.
So it was nice to have more visitors! The parents-in-law stayed over for a week and a half and we had a pretty fun time together! It feels a bit surreal that it was just over a year ago that we found this place, and now both sets of parents and several siblings etc. have come and spent some time with us here :). Extra space has definite upsides.
We made the most of the sunnier days to go walking in the vicinity and also made a couple of forays into Oslo! We took the opportunity to have a look around some places we hadn't in the past, despite meaning to, and some we had! The new Munch museum and the National museum were, I think, the highlights!
When the new Much museum appeared on the Oslo waterfront some years ago, the way the eventual prize winning "lambda" design translated from renders on marketing material to the real thing left more or less everyone rather miffed :|. I definitely was on the miffed side of the general public opinion spectrum. But seeing how we had a compelling reason to explore the art within (namely my mother-in-law), it seemed a good time to ignore the outward appearance and venture in.
It's actually a pretty awesome experience! It's possible to gain a progressively elevated view of the city as one climbs up the twelve floors, providing a unique perspective. The buildings and roads very familiar from ground level take on a rather different, and grander, character. And then of course there are the many many galleries :).
I'm not exactly an art person. I mean, I like spending the occasional day or a few hours in galleries every now and then, but I'm not sure I have strong opinions beyond things I like more or less. Munch seemed to leave a particularly strong impression. Was it because I was accompanied by people who understood more of what was going on?
Who knows, either way, I was struck by the particular way in which the artist's thoughts seemed to come through in the paintings. Particularly the way in which a completely still scene could convey so much movement, physical and otherwise! It was a fun evening.
Then there was the annual Oslo culture evening which we had been to this time last year. We decided to limit the walking, and focus on the Parliament - National theatre - town hall area. There were open air bands, brief forays into student photography exhibitions, a look around the Nobel Peace centre and finally a chunk of the evening at the National museum. The last being the only thing we repeated from last year :).
Otherwise, I feel like it's been a quiet month. Went cycling once, but this last week it's started getting properly cold in the mornings. Not quite freezing yet, but definitely frost territory, and it's still only September! Just about :).
This month's book club book was of my choosing, and instead of focusing on fantasy or sci-fi, I went with authors I have some personal connection to. Ended up reading Hema Sukumar's Minor Disturbances at Grand Life Apartments again :). I feel like, having known the story (and remembered most of the significant plot points) let me enjoy the atmospherics of the writing even more :).
It was, as with the first time, a very nostalgic read for me to be honest! A sense of familiarity in different ways. But equally, an odd sense of looking in from the outside, which form me came across particularly in the characters of Jason and Laxmi. And I suppose Karthik to a limited extent.
It's an interesting half-in half-out existence, that of growing up in a country in the midst of significant social and technological change, and then spending the rest of one's life figuring out how to fit into another culture, set of social norms and expectations. Also, weather. Weather's actually kind of a pretty big part of life, which isn't often obvious till one moves somewhere with very different weather :).
I also started reading one of my other suggestions that didn't get picked, Srinath's If It's Monday It Must Be Madurai. So, confession time, this book came out over a decade ago! And I actually was in touch with Srinath at the time, albeit sporadically. I distinctly remember creating the Goodreads page for the book :D. (Yes, they were simpler times, any logged in user could create or even in many cases update the details of a book. Now you have to go through a whole moderation process. Which is a good thing, I think :).)
But then I never read it. Until now. Is it the passage of time, and the greater distance? Not sure, but I'm really really enjoying reading this. Occasionally I find myself even reading it in Srinath's voice in my head, imagining his facial expressions at particularly hilarious or ironic moments :). I'm a bit over halfway through, and looking forward to the rest of it.
Looking out to the thin slice of the Oslofjord that we can see, I feel an odd sense of layered reality. This particular view, with it's treed hills folding into blue-grey water, punctuated by pointed evergreens in the foreground and with the hills in the distance fading to blue, is actually really new, but already feels so familiar. Beneath it though (or beyond, it's hard to find words to capture the feeling), I see the waving trees in the middle distance outside the living room windows of the flat in Asansol. Somewhere in-between there are the ever-changing expanses of water seen from the various decks of the various ships.
Maybe I'm working on assimilating all the different normals of the last fortyish years, and these books are bringing back oh so many memories. Or maybe I'm just feeling the end of summer blues :).
