Mehndi

Every time I put henna on my hands I hum that song

Where I write your name on the palm of my hand,
Hidden in the intricate shapes, curves and designs
The story of the day we met or the day we spoke.

We have walked countless times around the fire

We have uttered so many different sacred chants
Of holding a bond so close just by keeping it safe
Deeply tied to the sense of our sacred silences.

We have celebrated in rhymes, absences felt,

The emotions that run wild and the colours
We have sang of the endless days we wandered
Listlessly, aimlessly and perfectly in silence.

Yet when I put mehndi on these hands of mine,

You smell them, as if it’s our first time together.

Diary of a female quixote

Dear Sean,

The summer we had together is the most perfect part of my life history. I cannot recall anyday or any hour with more clarity though with the passing years I have lost control over my memory. Yet, the days with you stand out clearly etched against the monotony of this latter life and I remember how you were like magic to me. Your ways with words and your gentleness were additions to this quiet magic of sweeping off my feet time and again.

Yours truly
Berry

The Unsent Letters

The Unsent Letters

The Unsent Letters

The Unsent Letters

The Unsent Letters

The Unsent Letters

The Unsent Letters

Alohari Anandam

“Remember the Frenchman who asked his grandmother at what age we get free from the temptations of love. The old woman said she didn't know” The Doctor’s Dilemma, GB Shaw.

Sarah Joseph’s Alohari Anandam ( Per Capita Happiness) explores the winds of change that perplexes and confuses a Syrian Christian family in Kerala. Published in 2013, the novel deals with controversial themes such as loveless marriages, marriage of senior citizens and lesbianism. Joseph’s characters liberate themselves once the yoke that they carry become too much for them. 

Emma and John Mathai are the senior citizens who decide to get married with the support of the young generation and Paul. The typical reaction to a couple who decides to get married so late- a widower and a spinster- are jokes laden with obscene humour. However, Joseph treats the theme with much sensitivity and her Emma is a lovely bride who rejects all makeup and finery on her wedding day that her niece Ishana has designed for her. 

Ishana is the designer in the family who runs a funeral parlour and a beauty parlour. Joseph satirises the way in which all church rituals have become focused on clothes, jewellery and the aesthetics involved. On the occasion of a baptism, Ishana’s thoughts are entirely on the stone-vessel that she chose for pouring the water. She represents the new generation who sees marriage as a trap set to limit individual freedom. 

The lovers in the novel Paul and Anu carry the burdens of their marriages. Paul is married to Teresa, a lesbian who is forced to marry him. Anu struggles to bear the weight of her loveless marriage with Cherian. When the idealistic Paul meets the dreamer Anu, they feel a strange comfort and are drawn towards the lovelight that they see in each other’s eyes. As Paul says:

“There are people who become happy with the little that they have...both among men and women. Not just that, the majority is like that. They try to unravel the knots of this world. Small achievements make them happy. Small losses hurt them a lot. Their longings for love are of a shallow nature. But there are people who seek themselves in their mates. They need a life of deep love. For them, marriage is a failure, if the lover doesn’t complement their mind, body, intellect and emotions. It is not necessary to have such a relationship within marriage and that’s when you seek another relationship” (Free Translation). 

Joseph's novel Alohari Anandam, celebrates the joy of living and individualism. Through her beautiful and lyrical evocation of the Song of Songs, she recreates love as a Garden of Eden shared by those who want to experience the happiness of being fully alive, emotionally, spiritually and physically. 

The Unsent Letters

The Unsent Letters

The Unsent Letters

Green Thumb

Dreams in Prussian Blue

Dreams in Prussian Blue

Dreams in Prussian Blue (2010), a popular novel by Paritosh Uttam captures the life of some Fine Arts students in Mumbai. The film portrays how love blossoms between Naina and Michael and how they decide to come together in life despite of obstacles that lie in their love's path.

Naina Trivedi, a fresher at Fine Arts College meets Michael Agnelo and his friends Abhinav and Ruchi. Michael’s passion for painting and his charisma sweep her off her feet and she realizes that she has fallen in love with him. To the dismay of her conservative Brahmin family, she leaves home to have a live-in relationship with Michael. The initial plan is that she will write and he will paint. But when they start living together, the responsibility of running the household falls on Naina as Michael does only what he is promised to do- to paint and nothing else.

Caught up in a situation from which there is no turning back, she creates a website for his paintings and calls prospective buyers and art galleries. Michael refuses to turn up for one such meeting with the owner of an art gallery and Naina calls and threatens him with a break-up. Unfortunately, Nicheal meets with an accident on the way and loses his eyesight. It is Abhinav who helps her with the bills and with Michael.

Abhinav and Ruchi live the middle class dream of a secure job, a posh apartment, plans for starting a family and having a car. Naina is distraught that Michael who used to be the best of all has come to nothing while the others are thriving. Inspite of his blindness, Michael continues to paint and she has to work hard to pay the rent and buy new canvases and paints. Abhinav advises her to give Michael used canvases and gives her a box of Prussian Blue that was there at his house.

Michael finishes 24 pictures that depict the history of painting and his exhibition draws people because of the publicity that is given to his blindness. However, Abhinav’s deceit does not stop with the Prussian Blue and Naina is caught up in a fix because of her love for Michael and gratitude for Abhinav. Will she be able to fix her strained relationship with Michael?

#artistfilm
#paritoshuttam
#dreamsinprussianblue
#maritalinfidelity
#adaptation

Positive Affirmations

In the infinity of life where I am, all is perfect, whole, and complete. The past has no power over me because I am willing to learn and to change. I see the past as necessary to bring me to where I am today I am willing to begin where I am right now

to clean the rooms of my mental house. I know it does not matter where I start, so I now begin with the smallest and the easiest rooms, and in that I will see results quickly. way I am thrilled to be in the middle of this adventure, for I know I will never go through this particular experience again.

I am willing to set myself free.All is well in my world.

ON TALKING from "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran

And then a scholar said, Speak of Talking.

And he answered, saying:

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;

And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.

And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.

For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.

The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.

And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.

And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.

In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.

When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.

Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;

For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered when the colour is forgotten and the vessel is no more.

¶p

Abhimanyu

It is because my mother slept off while my father was explaining the war secrets of breaking a chakravyuha, that I was born without complete knowledge of the code. I wanted to be like my father and to fight valiantly like him. Yet,when surrounded by the mighty enemies within the chakravyuha, what I felt is that I do not have anyone and that I have to fend off the enemies till the moment I breathe my last. So, no giving up the fight till this breath becomes part of the world of souls. 

Happy Dhanteras

The Unsent Letters

Maa Tujhe Salaam

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

Kisa had a baby but the baby died

Goes to the villagers says my baby’s sick

The villagers shake their heads and say to her

Better bury your baby in the forest quick

Kisa went to the mountain to ask the Buddha

My baby’s sick! Buddha said, don’t cry

Go to each house and collect a mustard seed

But only from a house where no one has died

Kisa went to each house in the village

My baby’s getting sicker, poor Kisa cried

But Kisa never collected one mustard seed

Because in every house someone who died

Kisa sat down in the old village square

She hugged her baby and she cried and cried

She said everybody is always losing somebody

Then walked into the forest and buried her child

Recompense

For every word of harshness that you hear,
You have a word of love to cure the heart;
For the darkest hours of a wakeful night,
You have a beautiful dawn to shine bright.

For the loss of innocence of childhood,
There is the growing maturity of years.
For the loss of a life near river green,
There is lot more sunshine to balance.

For the trenches that this life fell into
There are the new scales that it climbs.
For the years lost in search of dreams,
There are these words on a virtual page.

Which brings in daily strange comfort,
For every friend lost, that of strangers.

patience and time

Terminator 2

The Unsent Letters

Dear Sean
After you, I never thought I would love again. For I was quite naive when I met you and fell in love with you. In the long years we were together, I never thought of a life without you. Each and every thought was spent in how to make life more worth living with you. After you, I knew the pain of not being able to getting close to anyone, the insecurity that comes from not being able to trust anyone completely and the angst of existing yet not living. I thought of telling you this day, when we would have celebrated our anniversary of togetherness had we been together.

Love
Berry

Friends Forever

Desiderata

GO PLACIDLY amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Akashdeep

Sunny

Sunny:A Review 

I think it is quite fitting that the Corona times require a story that is inward drawn and focuses on the tribulations of a single character. Reflective of the times that is quite marked by social isolation despite of high social media use and attempts to while away the slow-paced time, Sunny focuses on the landscapes of the cloistered Corona life. 

In the initial part, the story poignantly captures the despair and angst in the life of the protagonist Sunny. His addiction to alcohol is clearly drawn, so is his slight mental imbalance, which had become very common in these times of social isolation. He struggles to see another day during his quarantine at Hyatt Hotel in Cochin. 

There is despair as well as hope as he tries to speak to the police inspector, to the girl who stays on the floor above his or the psychologist that the police inspector recommends. An interesting scene is where he feeds sugar to the ant slightly reminiscent of Katherine Mansfield's The Fly, where however the protagonist kills the fly just for fun. His isolation compels him to come to terms with himself and to face life courageosly. However, what is striking is the message of hope that is given inspite of the ordeals faced by the protagonist to come to terms with his alienation.

Living Corpses

There is a story about Dudjom Rinpoche, one of the greatest meditation masters, mystics, and yogins of recent times. One day he was driving through France with his wife, admiring the countryside as they went along. They passed a long cemetery, which had been freshly painted and decorated with flowers. Dudjom Rinpoche's wife said, "Rinpoche, look how everything in the West is so neat and clean. Even the places where they keep corpses are spotless. In the East not even the houses that people live in are anything like as clean as this."

"Ah, yes," he replied, "that's true; this is such a civilized country. They have such marvelous houses for dead corpses. But haven't you noticed? They have such wonderful houses for the living corpses too." Whenever I think of this story, it makes me think how hollow and futile life can be when it's founded on a false belief in continuity and permanence. When we live like that,become, as Dudjom Rinpoche said, unconscious, living corpses. Most of us do live like that; we live according to a pre ordained plan. 

We spend our youth being educated. Then we find a job, and meet someone, marry, and have children. We buy a house, try to make a success of our business, aim for dreams like a country house or a second car. We go away on holiday with our friends. We plan for retirement. The biggest dilemmas some of us ever have to face are where to take our next holiday or whom to invite at Christmas. Our lives are monotonous, petty, and repetitive, wasted in the pursuit of the trivial, because we seem to know of nothing better.

Mercury Retrograde

8 September

Let me work in and through you. Let My love and light flow freely in and through you out into the world. Realise that this is as it was in the beginning, when we walked and talked together, and that you have gone the full cycle and have once again returned and become one with Me, the Beloved. Do not dream about it; do not long for it to be so; simply know that it is so now and that no longer is there any separation. No longer do you have to wander in the wilderness lost and alone, not knowing which way to turn. Realise that your every step is guided and directed by Me, and that as you become more and more aware of Me, of My divine presence, you can never again lose your way. So give eternal thanks and let your heart be so full of joy and gratitude that you express it at all times, and your every breath says. "Thank you, Beloved."

Recharge your soul

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

An interesting book that I recently came across is the spiritual classic   The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. It is quite rare to encounter books that offer you spiritual wisdom that helps you come to terms with two tough realities; life and death. Here, Sogyal Rinpoche offers you words of enlightenment that helps  you see both life and death in a new light. 

Sogyal Rinpoche is one of the enlightened leaders of Tibetan Buddhism and was born in Kham in Eastern Tibet. He was recognised as the reincarnation of Terton Sogyal Lerab Lingpa, teacher to the thirteenth Dalai lama. His lifelong effort has been to make Tibetan Buddhism understandable to the common believers across the world.

In this book, he expresses with clarity and eloquence, the ancient wisdom of Tibet that has survived the test of time. He speaks of life and death with the same importance and describes how the Tibetan monks accept both with simplicity and open-mindedness. Despite of cultural differences, a reader might be interested in the Tibetan practices of life and death.

The preoccupation with death is a common theme in spiritual literature. However, in this book, Rinpoche speaks of death as an ultimate reality that everyone had to face and the ways in which we can prepare for our death, just like changing your clothes when they are worn out, as His Holiness the Dalai Lama says in his Foreword to the book.  The writer speaks of the ways to understand the meaning of life, how to accept death and how to help the dying and the dead. 

According to the Buddhist belief system, you will be reincarnated based on your karma and your state of mind at the time of death can influence the quality of your next rebirth. One tradition the Buddhist have is to achieve a peaceful death and help others achieve a peaceful death. Usually, death is treated with disdain in many cultures but the Buddhists embrace death with equanimity. However,the book reinforces the need to offer spiritual help for the dying so that they can die peacefully and in a state of contentment with life. It also helps one to live with mindfulness and compassion. 

Twinflame

May we recognise that we are not separate but whole even though we might not have even met. For you were always with me in each and every birth of mine and someday I might recognise you from the smile on your lips. 

May we meet someday somewhere and form an effortless harmonious bond. May we escape from the usual trials and tribulations that follow all twin flames. May our true love that spans several lifetimes set a path for us to be in harmony with each other. 

May we be fortunate to experience each other in all lifetimes, fortunate enough to feel the hunger of the flesh, the thirst of the soul and the comfort of the heart. May we remember with accuracy the touch of each other's skins, the smell of each other's bodies, the taste of each other's lips and the tone of each other's voices through eternity. 

May we be always together and in harmony with each other savouring each and every moment of this life together. May we always feel synchronicity and enjoy the paths that life sets in store before us. May we live together till the last breath lives from our earthly bodies to settle down in other realms of existence. 

May we love each other throughout all ages and all lives forever. May we learn unconditional love quite early enough so that we know each other's strengths and weaknesses and accept them open-heartedly without being judgmental. May we love, adore and cherish each other in our hearts. 

#twinflame

#reunion

#twinflamereunion 

#reunion

#improvisedtwinflameprayer

Twinflame

You are my twinflame, my other half, whom I have recognized from all the previous births of togetherness. It is not that we may have enjoyed the bliss of marital togetherness in all these births but have been connected together in a mysterious way unknown to human imagination.

When we first met, from the first moment our eyes locked, I have understood that there is a chemistry that goes beyond words, a bond that transcends all the existing barriers that human society makes. May be we are one though we have different names, faces and identities and have known each other well so deeply because looking at you is like staring into a twin mirror.

This life, we were torn apart for unknown reasons but in the next one, may we form an understanding that there is no me without you and no you without me.


May we recognise that we are not separate but whole even though we might not have even met. For you were always with me in each and every birth of mine and someday I might recognise you from the smile on your lips. 


May we meet someday somewhere and form an effortless harmonious bond. May we escape from the usual trials and tribulations that follow all twin flames. May our true love that spans several lifetimes set a path for us to be in harmony with each other. 


May we be fortunate to experience each other in all lifetimes, fortunate enough to feel the hunger of the flesh, the thirst of the soul and the comfort of the heart. May we remember with accuracy the touch of each other's skins, the smell of each other's bodies, the taste of each other's lips and the tone of each other's voices through eternity. 


May we be always together and in harmony with each other savouring each and every moment of this life together. May we always feel synchronicity and enjoy the paths that life sets in store before us. May we live together till the last breath lives from our earthly bodies to settle down in other realms of existence. 

May we love each other throughout all ages and all lives forever. May we learn unconditional love quite early enough so that we know each other's strengths and weaknesses and accept them open-heartedly without being judgmental. May we love, adore and cherish each other in our hearts. 

#twinflame 

#twinflamereunion

#loveforever