Thunderstorm

The tiny yellow leaves in his hair made me feel a strange tenderness for him. It created in me a strange desire to run my fingers through his hair and to experience an intimacy that beckoned me like a forbidden dream. This need hit me like a thunderstorm, the first time I had gazed deep into his eyes. 

May be it was because he was waiting under the trees, may be because though he said he didn't wait much, but his eyes flickered with a strange delight when he heard my footsteps. It was as if he had missed me every moment of the weekend and his eyes might devour me with their hunger. 

Every time, I looked into his eyes, it was as if I I could hear the roar of the thunderstorm. For me, whose ears long for his words, whose eyes thirst for his gaze, whose heart longs for his embrace, whose skin hungers for his touch, the reality steps in and mutters that it is enough to hear this roar of the thunderstorm every single day.

Positive Affirmations

Positive Affirmations

In the infinity of life where I am, all is perfect, whole, and complete. I now choose calmly and objectively to see my old patterns, and I am willing to make changes. I choose to react as though I have found a treasure when I discover something else to release.

I am teachable. I can learn. I am willing to change. I choose to have fun doing this.I see and feel myself changing moment by moment.Thoughts no longer have any power over me. I am the power in the world. I choose to be free. All is well in my world. 

Chance

Flow with the tide, not against it. When you feel that change is necessary, be willing to change and do not try to resist it. Be very flexible. Keep open, and never let your attitude be 'What was good enough for my parents is good enough for me.' Change will never come if that is your attitude, and changes must come. The new cannot fit into the old mould because the new has outgrown the old and needs more room. Give it more room by expanding with it. It need not be a painful process when there is no resistance. When a plant is pot-bound, it needs to be repotted to allow its roots to expand. When your consciousness has outgrown the old con ceptions, it needs to be allowed to expand into new realms. This process can come about very naturally; there need not be any stress or strain. Simply let go, relax and feel yourself changing and expanding as naturally as breathing, moving out of the old into the new.

We Are Free to Be Ourselves

In order to be whole, we must accept all of ourselves. So let your heart open and make plenty of room in there for all the parts of yourself. The parts you are proud of and the parts that embarrass you. The parts you reject and the parts you love. They are all of you. You are beautiful. We all are. When your heart is full of love for yourself, then you have so much to share with others. 

Let this love now fill your room and permeate out to all the people that you know. Put the people you want in the center of your room so that they can receive the love from your overflowing heart. From your child to theirs. Now see all the children in all the people dancing as children dance, skipping and shouting and turning somersaults and cartwheels, filled with exuberant joy. Expressing all the best of the child within.

She

Mom

All I wanted was a book of recipes like yours
Like the one you kept like a hidden treasure,
On special occasions, you'd leave the kitchen
Smelling of spices, roast chicken and plum cake.

The wild shopping spree just before Christmas,
The cake-mixing at midnight done together,
The written recipes followed to the last line
The spontaneous tweaks to the plans that I make.

This book of magic is abandoned after this loss,
Though the Christmas flavours linger in the air,
Goodwill, happiness and merriment-the first time
I had celebrated Christmas with flavours at home.

The secret recipes, the love of wine and laughter
All are lessons that I have learnt from you, mom.

Anam Cara

Sometimes, the answer comes late for some seekers. The lonely roads may wear you out; the skies might turn bleak and hostile; the days might spent without ever having a soul to breathe your worries to. 

There is always this desire, the need for warmth, for compassion, for meaningless chatter and meaningful silences yet the road is quite lonely. 

Much later at a turnstile, you might meet a traveller in whose eyes you might see eternity, in whose warmth all your wanderlust might be kindled again, in whose extended hand you might see a soul connection. 

There might be others who have gone ahead and reached their destinations long ago but your blessing is that you value the wisdom taught by the lonely roads, the weary feet and the warmth of your long-desired for companion. 

Photo Courtesy: flickr.com

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.

1

Diya P Na

Dear Diary

The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad

The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad by Twinkle Khanna

When I was reading Twinkle Khanna's The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad, what I found is that the writer shows an amazing perception of the character's needs without being so obvious about it. But googling about the work, what I saw is a kind of patronising attitude to a writer just because she is a celebrity daughter and wife apart from being an actress. However, the short stories are quite readable and the story that I loved tbe most in this collection is "The Sanitary Man from a Sacred Land".

The first among the four stories is "The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad" is about Lakshmi who wants ten jardalu trees planted for a girl child so that the child's future is secure right from her birth-"ten trees like the ten fingers which we women can hold our own destinies firmly in our hands". Thus begins the ritual of the jardalu, which is celebrated in her village with the birth of a girl child, when people from any caste, even those with no land of their own can plant trees for their daughters.

The second story "Salaam, Noni Appa" is about love that transcends all barriers. Noni Appa and Binny are two elderly women who live a life of seclusion. The elder sister Noni Appa is rather sweet on their yoga teacher Anandji. What starts as an eagerness to meet him, ends up as her sole reason to live. When Noni Appa is ill, Anandji leaves all his business aside, packs his luggage and comes to live with her. This story is very touching for one remembers the ambience of love that breaks all rules though the other stories are much more conventional.

"If the Weather Permits" begins in Kerala and is about Elisa Thomas, hailing from traditional Malayali Christian household. When forced to get married, she marries a photographer friend of hers but is disappointed when the bridegroom turns suicidal. Divorced, she gets married to Chacko, from a wealthy Christian family and shocked into a sense of deja vu. All she wants to know is whether she has to return to her ancestral home that smells of fish moilee.

The fourth story, according to me, is the best story of the collection. Ms. Khanna has based this story on Padma Shri Arunchalam Muruganantham who is a social worker who works hard to remove the taboos associated with menstruation. Bablu Kewat loves to bring surprises for his wife -"four bangles, a packet of orange bindis, a 5star chocolate". Saddened by the rag that she uses for her monthlies, he brings her pads and new kinds of experimental pads that are made of absorbent material. He questions the women of his acquaintance about their monthlies and this earns him the name pervert. His friends tease him that he should have been born a woman so that "it would have been so much easier to just test the pads yourself". But his determination wins and he becomes the inventor of the low-cost sanitray pad making machine.

The stories are varied in their themes but very endearing to the reader. What I feel is that the last among them is the most touching, of a man who wants to bring happiness to his wife and ends up being a hero to many Indian women from the nearby villages.

 #TwinkleKhanna 

#thelegendoflakshmiprasad

#love

#divorce

#geriatriclove

#menstruation