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.
Friday, April 08, 2022
From Your Valentine 1
The month of February is the month of festivities,
the time when birds find their mates and that of the Lupercalia, the festival
of the god of fertility. For Rome, this is the time when the mobs crowd the
streets and there are festivities everywhere. Yet for me, this is the month
when I have experienced the optimum happiness in my life with a tinge of regret
especially when I have to come to terms with the fact that my days have become
numbered.
It is very cold and even my bones can feel the
chill of this night. I don’t know what hour it is. But the little glimpse of
sky that I view from my barred window, it looks dark blue with a glow. Looks like
it must be three hours past midnight. Not that I was a reader of the skies but
judging from the months of captivity and the hours when the watch changed in
the tower, I think I have become adept at it. But there is something very
special about this day as it might be the last one I might see. This day I go
to face my death in the gallows before the huge crowd gathered for the
Lupercalia this week.
There are occasional shouts and celebrations from
the streets. Just like every year, this year too many young men will prove
their valour in the competitions held before the emperor. The women will be
showered with the ceremonial blood from the sacrifice of animals before the god
of fertility near the caves of Romulus and Remus. Then, there will be the
choosing of one’s bride from the urn of good fortune. Julia will also be chosen
by some warrior or the other. Even the thought makes me angry as it brings to
my mind a very unpleasant memory of having to tend for her for days on end and
then having to leave her side on new orders from the Emperor.
Thursday, April 07, 2022
Summer Tedium
The summer heat sizzles and burns, while one longs for the rain. On the way back from work, I look at the water drizzled in the orchards and dream of soaking myself in the river back home, in the village that I grew up in.
On the roads, one looks at the heaps of green and ripe mangoes, watermelons and ripe guava. In the lazy evenings, you smear sandalwood on your body to cool you down and drink tall glasses of spicy buttermilk to quench your thirst.
My heart reaches for you in these eons of absence with a longing that I have never known before, dreaming of the times when our love was a constant source of happiness. Like one longs for the rains in the scorching heat, one longs for your presence in this long summer tedium.
Sunday, April 03, 2022
Perfect
That day since we took a quiet walk of togetherness,
Though it is as though we have always belonged
To each other across the ages in a sacred sense.
Coffee kisses, pasta lunches, candlelit dinners,
Shared moments of togetherness well-cherished
The perfect wine that we tasted last and so deep,
Not first love nor the first riot of purple passions.
There might have been others before you and me
Countless love-stories that taught us heartbreaks;
The many roles that you and I played across lives,
The sense of having known each other all along.
But I do remember us walking around the holy fire
Quietly chanting mantras of eternal togetherness.
Thursday, March 31, 2022
Hiraeth
It was as if a long-forgotten dream had flashed right in front of my eyes that evening. A glimpse of that last day in December when you I saw you last, the day we spent hours at the bookstore just because you wanted to buy me a book, the last time you had held me close and the day you left so as to make our dream true.
What I saw was none of these but an opulent durbar, the dancers and the audience who were screaming praises of my own name when I looked at my demure queen with a quiet pride knowing her to be mine only. There she was, smiling at me. Though veiled, the silhouette of her cheeks could be seen against her red veil.
As we walked side by side, the crowds roared. We climbed those ancient steps and looked in the huge mirrors as if it was part of an old dream, as if two broken pieces were put together in a perfect shape for an instant. With a strange wonder, I recognised an old home, a place of no return, one that I lost long back return as we stand chattering inside a palace that gives a strange sense of having lived here long before.
Tuesday, March 29, 2022
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.
Monday, March 28, 2022
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.
Thursday, March 24, 2022
Reading Meghadutam
May be it was the shape of his beloved's favourite beast
Bent down to butt a riverbed that inspired him to poesy.
May be it was the memory of his lover's sandalwood body
Or the grief of separation from her that made him sing so.
Whatever the reason might have been for him to compose,
He thought of her long hair without adornments or flowers
Drawn together in a single sweep in the long absent months,
He sang this musical erotic message promising rejuvenation.
He thought of her beauty that made him err in his daily duties,
The early hours of the morning when he spent hours with her,
Which he didn't want to forsake and plucked the holy lotuses,
Which he plucked before time to get punished for a long year.
When the rain bursts on her, he wants her to remember him,
Who in the eight months of absence longed to be with her!
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
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.
Tuesday, March 22, 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.
Monday, March 21, 2022
Sunday, March 20, 2022
Wednesday, March 02, 2022
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!
Saturday, February 19, 2022
Sensitive old soul
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.
Friday, February 18, 2022
Sunday, February 13, 2022
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.
Saturday, December 11, 2021
Friday, December 10, 2021
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 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
Friday, December 03, 2021
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.
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