DESIDERATA

Go placidly amid the noise and 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 the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and 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 with your soul.

 With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

 

The Invention of Wings

There were several books that I read last year but the most memorable among them is Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings published in 2014. The book, which was was selected for Oprah’s Book Club 2.0,  is set against the background of nineteenth century Charleston in North Carolina and deals with the story of the Grimke sisters who fought against slavery not just in writing but in practice as well. 

The two sisters Sarah Grimké and Angelina Grimké were famous for their abolitionist thinking to slavery as well as for their fight for women’s rights. In the history of the United States, Sarah Grimké was famous as the first woman to have written a comprehensive feminist manifesto Letters on the Equality of the Sexes published in 1837 and Angelina was the first woman to have spoken before a legislative body. Moreover, they wrote together the pamphlet American Slavery As It Is , which was an anti-slavery bestseller until Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published. 

The Grimké sisters spoke extensively in public against slavery and Sarah even taught her slave to read. However, these women had to struggle hard because they were much ahead of their times in their ideas of racial equality and gender equality. They faced plenty of opposition in the society that they lived in. Sarah even taught her slave Hetty to read and for this both of them were severely punished. 

The novel The Invention of Wings opens with Hetty Handful’s mother telling that “there was a time in Africa the people could fly”. She tells Hetty that this was how they had lived in Africa but lost their magic once they moved away from their homeland. She explains to Hetty pointing out her shoulder blades that these are what is left of the wings that she once had and that some day she will get back her wings.  Through her stories and her cleverness, Hetty’s mother Charlotte , who is a seamstress for the Grimkés instills in young Hetty’s mind, the desire to find her wings. 

The novel alternates between the narrative voices of Sarah Grimké and Hetty Handful. Sarah gets Hetty as a slave when she is twelve years and they bond quickly. Sarah is educated and wants to become the first female jurist but her dreams are dismissed as nonsense as she is a girl. In her childhood, she had a witnessed a slave being maimed and this leads to a speech problem in her. She is banished from Charleston and when she comes on a visit to her mother, she helps both Hetty and her sister Sky escape from slavery. Though it takes her many years, Sarah helps Hetty to find her wings.

Magic Lamp

We all feel good when our wishes turn true at the right time before your heart has given up what it wants. The moment you rub the lamp, a genie appears and all your wishes are granted. It could be material gains, live of the one you want, energy, knowledge- whatever be your desire, may it come to you when you need it. 

Though you grow up and become hurt by the adult world, most of the time we keep with us, a child's perspective and what used to entice us a child. Journeys, adventures, people, books, movies and what not used to thrill us. However, in the adult world, this sense of adventure is diminished for mst of us except for a few who has managed to keep intact the mindset of a child. Growing up, we all recognise the ugliness of the world that we have around us. 

Life is strange and what matters to one person may not be interesting to another. Yet, there is Providence bringing you to what you want. May all your wishes come true when you want it and may you keep safe your belief in all the good things of life. 

#magiclamp

#aladdinmovie

Magic Lamp

 

We all feel good when our wishes turn true at the right time before your heart has given up what it wants. The moment you rub the lamp, a genie appears and all your wishes are granted. It could be material gains, live of the one you want, energy, knowledge- whatever be your desire, may it come to you when you need it. 

Though you grow up and become hurt by the adult world, most of the time we keep with us, a child's perspective and what used to entice us a child. Journeys, adventures, people, books, movies and what not used to thrill us. However, in the adult world, this sense of adventure is diminished for mst of us except for a few who has managed to keep intact the mindset of a child. Growing up, we all recognise the ugliness of the world that we have around us. 

Life is strange and what matters to one person may not be interesting to another. Yet, there is Providence bringing you to what you want. May all your wishes come true when you want it and may you keep safe your belief in all the good things of life. 

#magiclamp

#aladdinmovie

Words

Words leaped out of neatly bound and well-written book a long time back and became miracles in dark nights. Some writer, whose heart dribbled with love set these words on paper, wove them in silence, with infinite longing and pure love.

Though I longed to write with the same magical touch never knew this fire till you came at midnight and peeked in my dreams with a smile. Awake from your dreams, I wanted to tell you, with words like focused arrows on what ate my heart when you were not here with me.

All the words, sighs, tears and smiles were spent on what you meant to me though you were not mine to own or to possess. Like a child with a favourite toy, I try to form with words; different games that might back to me, at least in an imaginary realm.
This heart wants not to please the mob; only to sing about what it remembers the most of a long-lost love. These songs have no art; they speak of the loss in not having you beside me. They have neither rhyme nor rhythm but only a wild beat of words that are quaint to the ear, yet in their own way, fresh-faced.

Words come, with its thousand limbs, entangled meanings and nuances, like a sudden burst of rain that creates ripples in still water, while the great green forest holds watch over with its mighty silent wombs of understanding, from that moment when you came in my midnight dreams.

World Water Day 2022

Confessions of a Shameless Egotist

All these years of book reading has left me kind of dumb, slow to understanding practical things that my friends and my relatives started to view me as a kind of unrealistic idealistic philosopher-like woman who cared not much about dressing up or looking good or cooking that by the time I was twenty I was disliked by relatives who wanted me to be less studious and by friends who wanted to talk about what other girls talked about. 

I don’t remember being welcomed with warmth in any place except with my one friend of years, whom we will conveniently call Anna, who is just my opposite, very practical and good-natured that even without any effort she is liked by whoever she meets while I stare blank-eyed wide-eyed and finally sleepy-eyed at people who seem to give unsolicited advice about studies, cooking, career and God knows what else.

But with all my obstinacy in choosing my life and making my own decisions I never reached any where, nowhere, in fact with all big big words of idealism and rebellion-Love, Freedom and Creativity. In this also there was this mad act of stupid decision making as if the whole life depended on something or the other or someone or the other and nothing else but love mattered but at some point of time all these romantic ideas crumbled and gave way to a kind of stark realism that was even more harmful. 

I wonder is there a relationship between reality and fiction? Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. I never believed it until I saw one day that a person whom I know died in an accident. That single person had caused so much of confusion in the minds of people, quarrels, fights, pains and that too all in the name of God. 

Believe me; nobody can give me what such a small stretch of time has taken away from me. I lost a lot of my original enthusiasm in doing things that I once loved to do and the focus I had regarding what I wanted to become, my belief in people and to some extent my belief in God. I became a kind of recluse who refused to open up to people and tortured myself by considering pleasure and happiness as a sin against religion. 

I was sitting idle at home, doing only household chores when I wanted to do something worthwhile. That’s when I started reading all the stuff that I had written over the years, the chronicle of my life during the past two three years. Since childhood I have found books as interesting and since fifteen writing absorbing. I have never ventured anything beyond a few lines in my diaries. 

Personally I believe that the most controversial book is one truthful journal that you write for yourself. Not only controversial, it can be intriguing as well, for you delve deep into your memory and reconstruct your own life as if you were viewing another’s. These journal entries give some sort of insight into my own nature. 

My belief in God and life has changed. As George Eliot says “Joy is the best of wine”. There is nothing in the world like getting up in the morning happy to see the sunshine peeping through the windows, sipping a cup of coffee and humming to yourself all day while doing chores. That’s where I have stopped, seeing God in being happy with myself and the world. 

World Poetry Day

Spring Equinox

Have a healthy period♥️

"When a little gets her first period, the last thing she is thinking is- let me eat right" says Rujuta Diwekar in her latest book Women and the Weightloss Tamasha. I still remember the day when I got my first periods. I was in the eighth standard and school had just started that week. I overheard a conversation that happened between my mother and my grandmother. my grandmother said, "Don't we have to give her some special food?" and my mother answering in the negative that I might not like the traditional recipe. The result was that I stayed undernourished till the age of 28 when I started putting on weight after childbirth.

Story apart, I was just wondering about the role of comfort foods during periods. We all know a lot about comfort foods during pregnancy as this is something that the popular culture celebrates with special credits to raw mango. Cravings are caused by deficiencies and you can stay healthy if you literally listen to your gut feeling. At this age, I find that I lack that traditional knowledge needed because I was brought up different but at the same time I have grown curious about foods that bring monthlies right on time to foods that keep you happy during that time of the month.

However, from what I have read I am attempting to list out a set of food items that can relieve menstrual pain and give you a healthy period:

Chocolate preferably dark

Fresh fruits

Dry fruits and nuts

Fatty fish

Red meat or iron rich foods

Bananas

Leafy greens

Sweets

These comfort foods help in the production of endorphins also known as happy hormones. Though not in the list of healthy food, it is advisable for women to eat fancy food that they crave during your monthlies.So whatever catches your fancy this month, satisfy your food cravings and have a healthy period!

Have a healthy period!😊

ecofemme pads

Sensitive old soul

You are no longer young and this shows in your bones and how you carry yourself. You do not belong to those who are family nor to any group of friends or community or religious group.

You are like the primeval amoeba floating in the sea of life waiting to meet someone exactly like you. Your thoughts are strange and your actions even more strange, especially to others who do  not understand the language of your world.

You have reached a point where you cannot bear it any longer and all you want is to transmigrate to another form of life that will make you forget all this uniqueness. 

Gratitude

Walking meditation

The storm

My garden

Oneness

Live in the moment

Open mind

The road

Miracles

Gardening

Giving

Arranging flowers

For a sapling

Blog withdrawn

Blog withdrawn 

From your Valentine

The rose is red, the violet's blue,

The honey's sweet, and so are you.

Thou art my love and I am thine;

I drew thee to my Valentine:

The lot was cast and then I drew,

And Fortune said it shou'd be you.

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