birdsong

Happy Vishu

Attitude

Happy Easter♥️

Less is more

Capsula Mundi

When I breathe my last, cry no tears for me

Cremate me and scatter me in River Green;

Save me from those crowded churchyards

Where you can hardly stand and pray for me.

If by that time, there are burial pods here,

I’d love to come back as a white magnolia

Like the one near the verdant campus gate,

Whose flowers we picked and smelt daily.

Give away my stacks of favourite books,

The majority of unread ones, if any good,

Discard all my unfinished writing attempts

You can read no sense when hardly I can.

When your time comes join me as a favourite,

To leave a green forest tribe named after us. 

healing

A growing hunger

faith

Twilight

Serendipity

There are times when one is amazed by the kind of coincidences that happen in life like when you think of a friend and she calls you on the phone exactly at that same moment. Sometimes, you crave for a book or an item of food or a object and it appears right before you. This phenomenon is called serendipity.

I have been an avid fan of the concept of serendipity considering the fact that I have been amazed by my good fortune in getting some of my desires granted. The word means a pleasant surprise or a very fortunate occurrence. It is said that Horace Walpole coined in this word in a letter to his friend in 1754, where he makes a reference to a Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, in which three princes main were always learning by accidental discoveries of things. 

Another favourite quote on serendipity has been from Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist: “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. In the novel, Coelho expands on the concept of the Soul of the World, which is supposed to bind all beings together. I guess that’s how Santiago creates the wind and saves himself and the Alchemist from death. 

However, the best description of this process comes from the nineteenth century American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay “The Oversoul”:

The things that are really for thee gravitate to thee. You are running to seek your friend. Let your feet run, but your mind need not. If you do not find him, will you not acquiesce that it is best you should not find him? for there is a power, which, as it is in you, is in him also, and could therefore very well bring you together, if it were for the best… Every proverb, every book, every byword that belongs to thee for aid or comfort, shall surely come home through open or winding passages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And this because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one.”

However, if you ask me whether I live only by this philosophy or whether it is possible to get anything specific with this philosophy, I can only answer in small print like advertisers do : Conditions Apply!

different

Othappu

The Novel Othappu by the celebrated Malayalam feminist writer Sara Joseph has a strong woman character Margalita. Set against the life of Christian Thrissur, the novel depicts how Margalita, a nun hailing from one of the ancient Syrian Christian families flouts all traditions to fall in love with a Christian priest Roy Francis Kareekan. Their love is made intense by the vows of chastity that both of them have to keep and they throw away everything just to be together. But is breaking all rules to be with the beloved worth the trouble? Which is more important listening to your heart's voice or listening to the world? These are some of the questions posed by the novel.

Instead of creating a melodrama out of a delicate subject of love between a nun and a priest, Sara Joseph has delicately handled it but at the same time creating a very strong woman character before whom every other character pales in comparison. She is like a rock in times of trouble and creates her own identity in a society that has divested of all her previous roles- daughter, sister, believer and nun. For her, "love is joy; the joy of love is God; and when you can keep the joy of love in your heart, the whole world will be at peace and the earth will blossom" as she lives a life of sacrifice with Nanu, an orphan child and her unborn baby in her womb.

The English translation of the novel by Rev. Dr. Valson Thampu and published by OUP is also available as Othappu: The Scent of the Other Side 

Summer Love

When we meet again, this summer, after a long while;

We sit once again in our favourite spot near the fountain,

On the pink carpet of blossoms, we make our seat to chat

The serious thoughts about life, the trivial about the world. 

Again the words couple goals make sense to us both,

Who have been lone wanderers in this weary universe,

To dream of the world of delights that we can travel,

To sip from the wine of togetherness till death parts us. 

May be we could dream of watching the nightskies now,

To spend time reading books or chatting for long hours,

May be one might spend time roaming new destinations 

Treading the surprises that this Earth has to offer us. 

We celebrate this second bout of love in this midlife,

To weave dreams around a bond of growing understanding.

definitions

Copernicus

He proved that the earth was not the centre
Of this mighty sprawling universe.

Sorry my dear to break your illusions
You are not the centre of this world either.

Journey

Thick like ladies' fingers
I had teased them once
As I held them in mine.

On this long tedious path
I saw you tap your fingers
To the song I was humming.

Through the tedious heat
Though you didn't turn
To look at me even once.

Yet I saw you tap your fingers
To the song that I was humming
All day and night long.

Of the days spent in singing
With eyes that shine bright
With hope that rises again.

After the summer tedium,
After the dreary monsoon
Just in time, for you and me.

Your fingers draw the story
They weave a dream in words
Music, coffee, words and us.

Gershom

I'm a stranger in a strange faraway land,
His heart whispered to him night and day,
While his thoughts are full of a lovely face
That made him forgot all his troubles.

One that filled his solitude with quiet music
One that made him turn time by a few years
The longing for her sweet musical chitchats
Or the craving to bring back her last embrace.

All the while, his friends speak of their plans
He listens eagerly but wants to dream of her
Dream of the day when clad in bright red
And bedecked in jewels, she''ll be his bride.

She is the home he returns to time and again,
The dream that he looks forward every day
Even though his heart whispers to him daily
I'm a stranger in a strange faraway land.

self

The Maddadam Trilogy

Margaret Atwood’s The Maddaddam trilogy that consists of the simultanuels Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood and Maddaddam (2013) explore an extremely common device in popular science fiction- an apocalypse triggered by biotechnological and chemical experiments that destroys the rhythm of nature and produces unforeseen disasters and epidemics such as the Waterless Flood. These novels are called simultanuels (as opposed to sequels) as they co-exist and enhance our understanding of the state of life before and after the apocalypse through the eyes of the narrators Snowman, Ren and Toby.

The strides made in biotechnology such as genesplicing help scientists create new species such as wolvogs, liobams and pigeons with human brain tissue added for intelligence. But the product that starts the epidemic known as the Waterless Flood is an over-the-counter medicine known as BlyssPlus Pills, supposed to provide increased sexual satisfaction, protection from sexually transmitted diseases and to prolong youth. Hidden in the BlyssPlus Pills, is a killer virus that will spread like the plague and wipe out entire continents altogether.

When the attacks begin, radio and television stations from across the world report news of the spreading pandemic. But gradually the stations go dead and cities cease to exist. Gradually, a handful of people survive along with the bioengineered Crakers, who are a gentle humanoid species whose skins have natural insect repellants and whose need for animal protein is minimum. Among the survivors are Toby, Ren, Amands, Zeb, Jimmy and other Maddaddamites who are a group of bioterrorists who were bought by Crake in exchange for the protection of their identities.

The narrator of -awaited conclusion to the Maddaddam trilogy is Toby, who belonged to a green cult called God’s Gardeners. She wonders if there is any future for the human generation:

She’s slipping: she ought to write such things down. Keep a daily journal, as she did when she was alone…for generations yet unborn as politicians used to say when they were fishing for extra votes. If there is anyone in the future that is; and if they’ll be able to read; which, come to think of it are two big ifs (Atwood, 136).

The Crakers and the human survivors together create a new set of babies- Kannon, Rhizomes, Jimadam, Pilaren, Medulla and Oblongata, whose characteristics are yet to develop. But the wonder of all wonders is that Blackbeard, a Craker youth learns how to write and records the history of life after the Waterless Flood and the formation of the new hybrid species from humans and Crakers in the form of history.

Atwood uses the trilogy to express her concerns about the environment, the use of artificially created animal protein, the dangers of biotechnological experimentation, the hidden dangers of medical corporations and the relations between the sexes. She concludes on a note of hope through the creation of hybrid babies who will definitely lead life on earth forward in spite of the Waterless Flood.