The Essential Me

Happy Diwali!

2011-10-22T21:24:00.000-07:00

evening songs

between the breaths

hearts of light

‘Let there be light’ ~ Happy Diwali to you all!

Photo courtesy: as per original copyright at:

http://craftsfromindia.gyanin.com/2010/07/08/clay-terracotta-craft-india/earthen-diyaslamps-lit-during-diwali/

Carpe Diem ~ A Verse & Some Thoughts

2011-09-02T22:40:00.000-07:00

Carpe Diem!
their T-shirts read as they streamed
to the centre-stage of life
but if I were to trample over another’s dreams
to seize the day for myself
didn’t I say
I would rather be in the margins
and watch you live your dream
this day, and then, day after day
for then I’ll be living mine too-
not exactly, but somewhat so
and I say again, that’s enough!

‘Carpe Diem’ - meaning ‘seize the day or ‘pluck the day.’ I came across the phrase in school in 1982, when on a class-tour we happened to see a theatrical group perform a play on the theme.

The phrase comes from a Latin poem by Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus; December 8, 65 BC –November 27, 8 BC); the phrase being part of the longer Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero – ‘Seize the Day, putting as little trust as possible in the future.’

The poem is copied here:

Ode I-XI “Carpe Diem”
~ Quintus Horatius Flaccus

Tu ne quaesieris—scire nefas—quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoë, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. ut melius, quicquid erit, pati!
seu plures hiemes, seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrhenum. Sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

Ask not—we cannot know—what end the gods have set for you, for me;
nor attempt the Babylonian reckonings Leuconoë.
How much better to endure whatever comes,
whether Jupiter grants us additional winters or whether this is our last,
which now wears out the Tuscan Sea upon the barrier of the cliffs!
Be wise, strain the wine; and since life is brief, prune back far-reaching hopes!
Even while we speak, envious time has
passed: pluck the day, putting as little trust as possible in tomorrow!

But, for me ‘plucking the day’ or 'seizing the day' would and should never mean plucking someone else’s dream. Killing someone else's spirit; however, good or bad it suits you.

And, my participation in life essentially and quintessentially is of an observer – of the world around me, and of my own mind’s workings in respect of it....and may be to write it out and empty myself from time to time...

Perhaps I go with the saying: ‘To think and to be fully alive are the same' ~ - Hannah Arendt

Well, many would disagree saying life is ‘living’ it to the fullest….Even I believe it so, and in ‘real’ life, I live it to the fullest, to the best of my ability. My personal life and its tidings are less a subject of my blogs - though off and on it appears, the blogs are full of my thoughts, and much comes from my engagement with life, my readings, my observations ~

Ah yes, coming to the point - there is a virtual reality, which we are all part of, that which is different from real life, but which nonetheless has become part of our lives – like it or not. And there, Thoreau’s Walden perhaps explains it better. When things are better said by someone else, why struggle to say it our terms –

~ “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan- like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever." ~ Henry David Thoreau in ‘Walden’

Haven’t we had it all enough?

Living, not living, dying, dying before living, sucking the marrow out of life, reducing life to the lowest terms – giving accounts of it; and critically varying accounts of it, creating devil and god out of one and the same thing that we call life/non life ~ some glorifying God, some glorifying self, some glorifying humanity, some glorifying nature, and some glorifying nothing ~ and perhaps all rightly so, because as Albert Einstein said: 'There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle. ~

Isn’t the place of our thoughts and dreams a much better place to be? And is it not important to see others live their dreams ~

as for me, I think it is!

ask me, what mine is ~ to read and write to my hearts content~ though I have little time to pursue my interests as I would wish to ~
But, am i at someone's mercy to do that?
is anyone at another's mercy here?
why then do we get that feeling, or maybe given to feel so, now and then?

ps: This is a post long-due; and ofcourse there is a background and a reason to it....but let that remain with me!

Photo courtesy: as per original copyright at:
http://tradingphrases.com/simply-words-carpe-diem-wall-decals.html

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T21:04:00.000-08:00

Wish you a happy and prosperous 2011

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Photo courtesy: Tim Hamilton as per original copyright at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bestrated1/341866875/

Borges - On the Essence of the Art of Poetry

2010-08-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

"I think of him as a very fine poet, a very fine poet. I don’t admire him as a man, I think of him as a very mean man."

It was not this statement by Argentine poet Borges about Chilean Pablo Neruda, whom I regard highly, that spurred my interest in the former. Meanness, as beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. What one may consider majesty could be meanness to another. Moreover the national and political differences between the two....

And it is common place to talk about good writers as bad men...

But, when I turned to Borges’ biography and works – it was altogether different.

Yet, this post isn’t about how his life or works, or his thoughts, influenced me. Of course his poetic consciousness and his ideas of the circular labyrinth of time have had their impact on my thinking.

But, there is one poem that kind of explained to me the essence of my love for art and poetry, more than I myself could ever. It said of my idea and ideology of art and poetry, as being directly linked to nature- it was about gazing, feeling, seeing….reflecting, validating and identifying oneself with nature and its elements – finally coming face to face with oneself…

It said to me about how humbling the experience of poetic creation is, and should be….

I give the poem below. And keep it for an other occasion to talk more about my readings of Borges…of course there is more to talk about.

The Art of Poetry

To gaze at a river made of time and water
And remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.

To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.

To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.

To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadness--such is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.

Sometimes at evening there's a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.

They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.

Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.

Jorge Luis Borges

*************

Photo: As per original copyright at: http://pages.prodigy.net/johnmariani/041010/

PS: My break continues….I’m into some projects requiring more of my time…And I won’t be able to spare much time for blogging and commenting, until at least October. Will be posting only once in a while,

So, Happy Blogging!
As always, will be reading and enjoying your works :)

wishes,
devika

Hazarika - It's Music Time

2010-04-21T22:35:00.000-07:00

There are some songs that I would get back to. Like the way, I get back to some books, some scriptures…

Of all the songs, there is one that I frequently get back to….in those dull un-inspired moments, to gain some energy….even if its to get into the routine daily chores or to get 'working' with my writing work…yeah most of us know the feeling.

So as the pencil cutter said to the pencil…lets come to the point? :)
[idea courtesy: Paulo Coelho]

Yeah, the song is Bhupen Hazarika’s GANGA BEHTI HO KYUN? (Ganga, why do Flow?]

Its is an Assamese song…and I didn’t know the meaning for a long while…it was just the music that worked for me. But recently a friend of mine gave me the lyrics with an English translation….I love the song even more:

Here’s the link to the song and the lyrics, translation in blue ink. Hope you too find it enjoyable:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzWa6yuLX2A#

GANGA BEHTI HO KYUN? (Ganga, Why do you Flow)

Bisterno varorey, afankhya janore, hahakar sunio nisabdth nirovey,
Bhural *** tumhi, bhural *** bura ki aur……….

Vistar hai apar, praja dono par, kare hahakar ni sabdth sada,
your expanse is unreachable, the public on both sides is wailing silently
Oh ganga tum, oh ganga behti ho kyun?……………..
O Ganges, why do you flow
Vistar hai apar, praja dono par, kare hahakar ni sabdth sada,
Oh ganga tum, ganga behti ho kyun?……………..
your expanse is unreachable, the public on both sides is wailing silently
O Ganges, why do you flow

Naitikta nasht ***, manavta bhrasht ***,
morality is destroyed, humanity has been corrupted
nirlajj bhav se behti ho kyun?……..
why do you flow in this shameless way
Itihas ki pukar, kare hunkar,
the call of history is roaring
oh ganga ki dhar, nirbal jan ko, sabalsangrami, samagrogrami, banati nahi ho kyun?…………….
Oh flow of Ganges, why don't you make the weak people stronger, make the villagers unite to fight for their rights

Vistar hai apar, praja dono par, kare hahakar ni sabdth sada,
Oh ganga tum, oh ganga behti ho kyun?……………..
your expanse is unreachable, the public on both sides is wailing silently
O Ganges, why do you flow
Anparjan, aksharheen, anginjan, khadyoviheen, neatravhiheen, dikshmon ho kyun?
innumerable people are illiterate, letterless, without food, blind,…….
Why are you not teaching them the path?
Itihas ki pukar, kare hunkar, oh ganga ki dhar, nirbal jan ko, sabalsangrami,
samagrogrami, banati nahi ho kyun?…………….
the call of history is roaring
Oh flow of Ganges, why don't you make the weak people stronger, make the villagers unite to fight for their rights

Vistar hai apar, praja dono par, kare hahakar ni sabdth sada,
Oh ganga tum, ganga behti ho kyun?……………..
your expanse is unreachable, the public on both sides is wailing silently
O Ganges, why do you flow
vayakti rahey, vayakshti nirvighn, sakalsamaj, vayakshtitva rahit nishpran samaj, upbhoktina kyun?………..
people stay without sufficient income, the entire society is economically challenged

society is lifeless, why are you unaware / unfeeling of this?
Itihas ki pukar, kare hunkar, oh ganga ki dhar, nirbal jan ko, sabalsangrami,
samagrogrami, banati nahi ho kyun?…………….
the call of history is roaring
Oh flow of Ganges, why don't you make the weak people stronger, make the villagers unite to fight for their rights

Vistar hai apar, praza dono par, kare hahakar ni sabdth sada,
Oh ganga tum, ganga behti ho kyun?……………..
your expanse is unreachable, the public on both sides is wailing silently
O Ganges, why do you flow
Tejasvini, kyun na rahin,
why did you not stay full of glory
tum nishchay, chintan nahin,
you are decided, no worries
prano mey prerna deti na kyun?……………
why don't you give inspiration to life
Tum madhyavami, kurushetra grami, gangey janani, navbharat mey,
hismarupi sutsamrajey, janati nahi ho kyun?………….
you are flowing through the middle, seen the villages of Kurushetra (where Mahabharat took place), mother of Bhishm (great uncle of Pandavs & Kauravs),
in this new India why don't you give birth to sons like Bhishm again?

Vistar hai apar, praja dono par, kare hahakar ni sabdth sada,
Oh ganga tum, ganga behti ho kyun?……………..
your expanse is unreachable, the public on both sides is wailing silently
O Ganges, why do you flow

Vistar hai apar, praja dono par, kare hahakar ni sabdth sada,
Oh ganga tum, ganga behti ho kyun?……………..

Vistar hai apar, praja dono par, kare hahakar ni sabdth sada,
Oh ganga tum, ganga tum, ganga tum, oh ganga tum, ganga tum, ganga behti ho kyun?……………..

Ganga behti ho kyun?……………………………….

****************

Photo: As per original copyright at: http://www.belarusguide.com/culture1/music/Instruments.html

Happy Easter

2010-04-02T06:39:00.000-07:00

Happy Holy Easter to You All! :)

best wishes,
devika

Picture: http://www.brothersoft.com/30-happy-easter-riddles-screensaver-84369.html

Kahlil Gibran – Kindling the Spirit

2010-03-12T23:28:00.000-08:00

Poetry is that which kindles my spirit every time I feel exhausted, doomed…..If music soothes and appeases the soul, poetry activates it…And, I find myself more comfortable in the dynamic state, than the static. There’s something about poetry – about words-- that sets the mind into motion…then it’s a restiveness that takes me through the day…spirited.

Since the time I’d identified it, I’d tried to understand my love for words, poets and poetry…Never found a clear answer…Just knew it was there, as a constituent of my soul, to live in me…

Then, I came across Kahlil Gibran’s 'The Poet,' which kind of reasoned it out to me… It defines the persona of a poet, and there were many elements that I could relate… Though I seldom dared to call or consider myself a poet, many aspects seemed to match, an inimitable likeness…

‘The Poet’ is one which I read, and reread, when I need to rekindle my spirit on dull and boring days. It takes me to a world…a beautiful world, where my classical and romantic ideas come alive, a place I love to be. Many would have read it, might know it; for those who haven’t come across, it is here:

THE POET

He is a link between this and the coming world.
He is
A pure spring from which all thirsty souls may drink.

He is a tree watered by the River of Beauty, bearing
Fruit which the hungry heart craves;
He is a nightingale, soothing the depressed
Spirit with his beautiful melodies;
He is a white cloud appearing over the horizon,
Ascending and growing until it fills the face of the sky.
Then it falls on the flowers in the field of Life,
Opening their petals to admit the light.

He is an angel, send by the goddess to
Preach the Deity's gospel;
He is a brilliant lamp, unconquered by darkness
And inextinguishable by the wind. It is filled with
Oil by Istar of Love, and lighted by Apollon of Music.

He is a solitary figure, robed in simplicity and
Kindness; He sits upon the lap of Nature to draw his
Inspiration, and stays up in the silence of the night,
Awaiting the descending of the spirit.

He is a sower who sows the seeds of his heart in the
Prairies of affection, and humanity reaps the
Harvest for her nourishment.

This is the poet -- whom the people ignore in this life,
And who is recognised only when he bids the earthly
World farewell and returns to his arbour in heaven.

This is the poet -- who asks naught of
Humanity but a smile.

This is the poet -- whose spirit ascends and
Fills the firmament with beautiful sayings;
Yet the people deny themselves his radiance.

Until when shall the people remain asleep?
Until when shall they continue to glorify those
Who attain greatness by moments of advantage?
How long shall they ignore those who enable
Them to see the beauty of their spirit,
Symbol of peace and love?
Until when shall human beings honour the dead
And forget the living, who spend their lives
Encircled in misery, and who consume themselves
Like burning candles to illuminate the way
For the ignorant and lead them into the path of light?

Poet, you are the life of this life, and you have
Triumphed over the ages despite their severity.

Poet, you will one day rule the hearts, and
Therefore, your kingdom has no ending.

Poet, examine your crown of thorns; you will
Find concealed in it a budding wreath of laurel.

- Khalil Gibran

Photo: as per original copyright at:
http://friendsofgibran.org/html/biography.html

On the Risk of Heartlessness - AK

2010-03-06T09:22:00.000-08:00

“………………………………………..Yes,
To keep it cool when strangers’ children hiss

As if they knew what none could know nor guess
At the bottom, of all this bottomless
Enterprise to keep simple the heart’s given beat,

The only risk is heartlessness”

I came across these lines in a handwritten note left by some unknown reader, between the pages of a book borrowed from the American Centre last year, here in New Delhi. It was a book on Sociological Jurisprudence – and this note was sheer poetry. I was stumped…I kept the note with me, inside me journal, wondering if it were the reader’s own thought or if it was quoted.

The words often came back to me….in striking objective correlative…

Then suddenly one day it struck, to do an Internet search – and yes, I found it was the closing lines AK Ramanujan’s THE HINDOO: the only risk. I had read about Ramanujan, a Tamil poet and a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Chicago, in many contemporary writings on Indian poets writing in English…and some of his poetry also appeared in magazines at the time of his death (in 1993).

‘Apolitically political’ – that was the impression I had, at the time. Political poetry does appeal me…but then, for some reason, it didn’t evoke much interest in me, so as to source his books.

But here were some lines, which compelled me to search more about his works, and finally I got it. His ‘Collected Poems’ and on getting the book, I rushed through the ‘Contents’ to find “THE HINDOO:”, first. And then to read the others…Many poems worth mentioning – dissecting and displaying the interconnections of human body, nature and culture in diverse situations – a visionary quality, mixing realism with mysticism….well, much to talk about….

But since this blog isn’t about review, but the influence of artist and poets on my mind, I shall only present that. And “THE HINDOO: the only risk” still remains the most significant for its first impact. I reproduce it here, for you:

THE HINDOO: the only risk

Just to keep the heart’s simple given beat
Through a neighbour’s striptease or a friend’s suicide
To keep one’s hand away from the kitchen knife

Through that returning weekly need
To maim oneself or carve up wife
And child. Always and everywhere, to eat

Three square meals at regular hours, suppress
That itch to take a peek at the dead street-
Dog before the scavengers come. Nor to be caught

Dead at sea, battle, riot, adultery or hate
Nor between the rollers of a giant lathe. Yes,
To keep it cool when strangers’ children hiss

As if they knew what none could know nor guess
At the bottom, of all this bottomless
Enterprise to keep simple the heart’s given beat,

The only risk is heartlessness”

That seemed a critical perspective on the life of an average Indian of his times…my times, the present times…and possibly into many generations to come….

As for me, I have always felt the need to shake myself off from things that seem to lead me into heartlessness, invariably almost every day since the time my social and societal interactions began as a young woman...Not as a Hindu, or as a Hindoo as Ramanujan describes, but as a simple, responsive human being…

And, the poem confirmed the need to.

And, that is the relevance and influence of A. K. Ramanujan on my daily life. He will not be forgotten; rather, he will be remembered every time my heart would miss its given beat!

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Photo : as per original copyright at:
http://www.eng.auburn.edu/~prasaps/kan_authors.htm

Greetings

2009-12-23T06:47:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

May Peace and Joy be

Yours in Days to Come….

I am off from blogging for a while…

An Existential Essence…

2009-12-05T07:32:00.000-08:00

‘What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain knowledge must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. ... I certainly do not deny that I still recognise an imperative of knowledge and that through it one can work upon men, but it must be taken up into my life, and that is what I now recognise as the most important thing.’ ---

Søren Kierkegaard in a letter to Peter Wilhelm Lund

Inspiring words that once led me to explore, even further, to find my truth- the truth that endures in me…

I was not very young when I read that - in my late twenties. I quite knew it wasn’t the quest for knowledge or even understanding the self- it was perhaps the quest for happiness….and I had quite outlived the happiness that materialistic pleasures offer me….

The exploration still continues….But now, I know that the only idea I find true, and the one that endures in me is Love!

It wasn’t easy ever…and I quite know it will never be... Yet, love remains the only idea I chose to live and die for…

************

Photo: Søren Kierkegaard, as per original copyright at:
http://www.kierkegaard-kultur.dk/pressesksygdomdod.htm

PS: This post was inspired after a reading a poem by Carlos Gesmundo:

http://blueposts-by-agcarlos.blogspot.com/2009/12/unfettered-wind.html

Pablo Neruda – Unfinished, Yet

2009-08-08T05:03:00.000-07:00

If someone asked me who I consider the father of world poets, it’s Chilean poet Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, alias Pablo Neruda, without doubt. And that is essentially for his remark upon receiving Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971:

‘I never found in books any formula for writing poetry and I, in turn do not intend to leave in print a word of advice, a method, or a style that will allow young poets to receive from me some supposed wisdom.’

As a lover of poetry, who attempted writing it at times, that was a license…a fatherly license to choose my words, form, rhyme and meter in whatever I write in the name of poetry.

It was during the undergraduate years that I heard Neruda’s poem for the first time. A classmate was reciting ‘Tonight I Can Write’ in a distinct arduousness; and me, a hopeless romantic at heart, was instantly drawn into the melancholy so much that the next few days found me soaking in the lines of Twenty Love Poems and Song of Despair.

Of all ‘I like for you to be still’ strikes a deeper chord….especially as I read it again and again:

‘I like for you to be still, as though you were absent
Distant and full of sorrow, as though you had died
One word then, one smile, is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it’s not true’

As my reading and understanding of poetry and politics grew in the subsequent years, I went back to read Neruda again, who was also a Communist political activist and to my great surprise a supporter of Joseph Stalin. While I wasn’t fully convinced of his esteem for Stalin, though it was mainly for Stalin’s role in defeating Nazi Germany, that Neruda called Lenin the ‘great genius of this (the past) century,’ was quite inspiring as Vladimir Lenin was on top of my list of world political leaders too.

Reading Neruda’s collection of poems again, I was quite gripped by his passion for politics, his unremitting engagement with the people of his land and his nation more than with himself….Reading ‘I Explain a Few Things,’ ‘Autumn Testament,’ ‘Canto General,’ I was amazed by the power of poetic words – simple words with the power to write and rewrite the history of a nation and its people.

‘Nations are born in the hearts of poets, they prosper and die in the hands of politicians’ - Allama Muhammad Iqbal said.

But Neruda showed how a nation and its destiny could shape itself in the hands of a poet. And Neruda was officially acknowledged ‘for a poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent’s destiny and dreams’.

It was fascinating to note that Neruda always wrote in green ink as it was the colour of Esperanza (hope). So fascinating was his love for silence and solitude despite his constant engagement and communication with society…it bears a certain contradiction, but relatable to a sensitive mind when he says, ‘There is no unassailable solitude. All roads lead to a same point: to the communication of who we are. And we must travel across lonely and rugged terrain, through isolation and silence, to reach the magic zone where we can dance an awkward dance.’

As for me, I will never be over with a note on Pablo Neruda….Unfinished it is, yet I feel an urge to leave it here…

**********

Photo Source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic-art/409558/13203/Pablo-Neruda

Anton Chekov -- Some Thoughts

2009-06-01T00:31:00.000-07:00

Anton Chekov has been my fellow traveller for long – I have read almost all his major works while shuttling between my work place and home. The first journey that I had with him was when I was 21. Just out of college and on my way to join my job about 300kms away from my home. It took a neat five hours and I had his collection of short stories with me – a gift from my brother’s friend.

The stories seemed snippets straight out of life, exuding a timeless humanity…His characterisations seemed so unique, yet the universality of his observations, the tragic-comic romances, the subtle satire in his outlook on social institutions like marriage, and above all his strong sense of social duty, took me off guard….and he became my chosen friend who would accompany me in my journeys making me smile, while thinking of the nuances of day to day human life.

But I should say, in that first journey I was kind of overwhelmed to read a story -- a satire on the development of rail-road facilities, which humorously described a bogey rolling downhill having lost its connection with the train. Though there were no hills en-route and despite that I was in one of the middle bogeys, all through the journey I was imagining the possibility of my bogey rolling down a hill and the funny risk of travellers and luggage rolling one over other.... Even today while journeying in train, I have the image of a bogey rolling downhill, returning off and on in my mind.

And then, during the course of that job I had the chance to supervise the final stages of construction of a theatre for the Kerala School of Drama, where I made friends with some of the most talented and promising dramatists, who in turn introduced me to some of world’s best. It was from one of them that I learned about ‘The Cherry Orchard', said to be Chekhov's prophetic song.

A literary response to social development, The Cherry Orchard presents many subtexts around the central theme of the sale of a family estate – the downfall of the land-owning Russian aristocracy, the greed of the rich, the soulless middleclass, rising commercialism/materialism alongside a dying romanticism….

While at that time the text seemed to be a tragedy of sorts, the subsequent readings helped me understand the play and optimism that Chekov envisioned for Russia though the undying spirit of idealism, symbolised in Peter Trophimof, ‘the perpetual student,’ and Anya, the young daughter of Madame Ranevsky, who owned the orchard.

There’s a conversation between the two young lovers – who have freed themselves from both commercialism, as well as their aristocratic traditions -- that rings in my ears when I think of Chekov….and of the community I live.

ANYA: Why is it that I no longer love the cherry orchard as I did? I used to love it so tenderly; I thought there was no better place on earth than our garden.

TROPHIMOF: All Russia is our garden. The earth is great and beautiful; it is full of wonderful places. Think, Anya, your grandfather, your great-grandfather and all your ancestors were serf-owners, owners of living souls. Do not human spirits look out at you from every tree in the orchard, from every leaf and every stem? Do you not hear human voices?... Oh! it is terrible. Your orchard frightens me. When I walk through it in the evening or at night, the rugged bark on the trees glows with a dim light, and the cherry trees seem to see all that happened a hundred and two hundred years ago in painful and oppressive dreams. Well, well, we have fallen at least two hundred years beyond the times. We have achieved nothing at all as yet; we have not made up our minds how we stand with the past; we only philosophize, complain of boredom, or drink vodka. It is so plain that, before we can live in the present, we must first redeem the past, and have done with it.

ANYA: The house we live in has long since ceased to be our house; I shall go away.

TROPHIMOF: If you have the household keys, throw them in the well and go away. Be free, be free as the wind.... I am hungry as the winter; I am sick, anxious, poor as a beggar. Fate has tossed me hither and thither; I have been everywhere, everywhere. But everywhere I have been, every minute, day and night, my soul has been full of mysterious anticipations. I feel the approach of happiness, Anya; I see it coming ... it is coming towards us, nearer and nearer; I can hear the sound of its footsteps.... And if we do not see it, if we do not know it, what does it matter? Others will see it.

And, that is something I often repeat to myself, when I feel helpless and hopeless. Especially, when happiness evades, despite the nearing sound of its footsteps many a times:

‘And if we do not see it, if we do not know it, what does it matter?

Others will see it.

***********

Anna Akhmatova – An Esteemed Soul-Mate

2009-03-22T04:59:00.000-07:00

Claiming Akhmatova as a soul-mate would sound a bit too high for a naïve reader like me. Yet, that’s what I feel when I read her poems.

Before knowing her or that she hated the word ‘poetess’, I had loathed the idea of gender distinction in poetry. And, when I saw the first sentence in the Introduction of her Selected Poems by D. M. Thomas – “Akhmatova hated the word poetess,” it was an instant connection with a poet, whom time placed before me to learn. Learning slowly had grown into a kind of leaning on her, during times I wanted a sharing.

When I touched the book, for the first time at DC Books, Trivandrum in September, 1996 – I instinctually knew it had what I wanted. That was the time, when my parents were pressing for a marriage when I was hopelessly committed in love to someone, who had left me already…and the first poem “from Evening” proved me right:

The pillow hot
On both sides
The second candle
Dying, the ravens
Crying….

The backdrops obviously were distinctly disparate, yet the lines came as a shower to me, in which I soaked myself. And then, it became an addiction– a kind of psychological dependence– to read her in times of sheer hopelessness and confusion, as the Russian poet became a kind of a real life friend and guide taking me through uncertainties.

‘Who can refuse to live his own life’ – Akhmatova once remarked to someone’s expression of sympathy. Her aversion to sympathy and the strong voice of renunciation in her poems are aspects that have influenced me in distinct ways – aspects that have seemingly gone deep into my personae.

I have been reading her again in the recent times , though it started as a writing project in January for a client who wanted a review of her life and works. While Requiem – which honours the dead as it honours poetry – and Poem Without a Hero are my favourites, I find very striking one/two liners and stanzas in several poems, which keeps coming back to me during those times I reflect upon the ways of our world…a world so different from the Stalinist era she lived in, yet not… I give below the most remembered ones:

There’s nothing to be sad about.
Sadness is a crime, a prison.

Because your lips are yours
I forgive their cruel joke…

I have written down the words
I have long not dared to speak

Change has made me weary
Fate has cheated me of everything

I came here in idleness
It’s all the same where to be bored!

Nobody came to meet me
With a lantern
Had to find my way up
The steps by weak moonlight

I won’t beg for your love: it’s laid
Safely to rest, let the earth settle…

So many stones are thrown at me,
They no longer scare

Why is our century worse than any other?
Is it that in the stupor of fear and grief
It has plunged its fingers in the blackest ulcer,
Yet cannot bring relief?

There are more, many more – worthy of mention and touching the deepest chords within me. As Thomas puts it, ‘She did not make poetry out of the quarrel with herself. Her poetry seems rather to be a transparent medium through which life streams.’

And reading Akhmatova is beyond a plain appreciation of poetry into knowing the mind of a poet, and a woman, who had lived bravely through Stalinist era – described as a ‘the most monstrous epoch in human history’. The transparency of her words and the profundity of understatements in her works do not render as a complete reference to her life, though.

Lastly, when I read “Muse” – her wit amused me of all-- a feature I could not see much in all her other works. I give the poem in full here and I am sure at least some of you would be able to appreciate it as much as me:

When, in the night, I wait for her, impatient,
Life seems to me, as hanging by a thread.
What just means liberty, or youth, or approbation,
When compared with the gentle piper's tread?

And she came in, threw out the mantle's edges,
Declined to me with a sincere heed.
I say to her, "Did you dictate the Pages
Of Hell to Dante?" She answers, "Yes, I did."

***************************

Photo Source:
http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/22/5422-004-1EA09890.jpg

On a Break

2009-02-07T00:49:00.001-08:00

Hi!

I am not well and on a break from blogging.

I am disabling comments for such time, and I may not be able to visit others. Hope to be back in a few days.

Happy Blogging…

Wishes,
devika

Jackson Pollock: An Artist of Influence

2008-12-15T10:50:00.000-08:00

Jackson Pollock: An Artist of Influence

Jackson Pollock, the first ‘all over’ painter as he is known, became known to me when I was writing an art critique for an American client three years back. The work on review was Lavender Mist, yet I was to write on the artist and his technique more than his art.

At first, the American artist seemed a personification of all eccentricities representative of painters, especially artists of the 1940s and 1950s. But then, reading about him online and at the American Resource Centre Library, he soon became a kind of an inspiration -- a flash that burnt all other realities, binding me to him and his works. While I could have finished the article with a two-three hour search on the Internet, I explored the Web and Library for all I could get about him. Not for any other reason – just to know more of him and the creative passion that he held while at work on his so-called ‘action’ paintings.

His paintings were all about ‘action’. He abandoned all the traditions and conventions in abstract expressionism, pouring paint on the canvas rather than using brushes and a palette.

‘The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through,’ he said. Walking around the canvas, working from all four sides, and even ‘being in’ the painting, he lost himself in his patternings, dripping and dribbling –yet with absolute control.

Lavender Mist done on a 10 feet canvas was the work I reviewed, and also the one I liked most for its open and sublime, yet vibrant composition-- An arrestingly live atmospheric painting of scribbles and striations in grades of black, grey, green, yellow and white tones in umber and dusty pink.

Lavender Mist (Jackson Pollock, 1950)

It was fascinating to learn that Lee Krasner who married Pollock in 1945, was the one who started the process of covering the canvas with the flurry of marks—which Pollock would later work on, fulfilling her vision with an astute sense of integrity and internal cohesion.

And Krasner’s Cobalt Night, done on 13 feet canvas, in 1962 after Pollock’s death in a 1956 car accident, was even more striking to me…It seemed to me, she was fulfilling Pollock’s vision – with rather higher degree of integrity and cohesion…

Cobalt Night (Lee Krasner, 1962)

While many questions about Pollock’s background still remain unanswered, the very name of Jackson Pollock arouses a passion in me – Not for Art, But for Life…the Act of Life

***************************************************

Photo: As per original copyrights at:
http://www.artinthepicture.com/blog/?p=120
http://www.harley.com/art/abstract-art/pollock1.html
http://www.nga.gov/feature/pollock/artist15b.shtm

Kate Chopin – A Remembrance

2008-11-28T19:11:00.000-08:00

Kate Chopin – A Remembrance

Kate Chopin – the ostracised American woman writer, who survived the illusions of friendship, romance, marriage, and even motherhood….to recognise the existential solitude of all human beings…

I was introduced to her much late …in 2003. It began with reading The Awakening. But while studying about her life and evolution, when I came to know that she was essentially influenced by the very same words that influenced me in my mid-twenties, she became a kind of fervour in me…

The words --which she had translated for a St Louis magazine in 1895- were from the story by Guy de Maupassant called Solitude---

"Whatever we may do or attempt, despite the embrace and transports of love, the hunger of the lips, we are always alone. I have dragged you out into the night in the vain hope of a moment's escape from the horrible solitude which overpowers me. But what is the use! I speak and you answer me, and still each of us is alone; side by side but alone.” (Maupassant, Solitude)

I am a little too jaded to write a fervent accolade for the writer, whom I hold so close…Yet, one of her stories --- Regret -- has been haunting me again and again, demanding an eviction.

I bring out the story here. Were the story scenes from my life? It happens so often with me, I do not remember it all so well…. But I don’t keep a pet dog…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Regret

Mamzelle Aurélie possessed a good strong figure, ruddy cheeks, hair that was changing from brown to gray, and a determined eye. She wore a man's hat about the farm, and an old blue army overcoat when it was cold, and sometimes top-boots.
Mamzelle Aurélie had never thought of marrying. She had never been in love. At the age of twenty she had received a proposal, which she had promptly declined, and at the age of fifty she had not yet lived to regret it.

So she was quite alone in the world, except for her dog Ponto, and the negroes who lived in her cabins and worked her crops, and the fowls, a few cows, a couple of mules, her gun (with which she shot chicken-hawks), and her religion.

One morning Mamzelle Aurélie stood upon her gallery, contemplating, with arms akimbo, a small band of very small children who, to all intents and purposes, might have fallen from the clouds, so unexpected and bewildering was their coming, and so unwelcome. They were the children of her nearest neighbor, Odile, who was not such a near neighbor, after all.

The young woman had appeared but five minutes before, accompanied by these four children. In her arms she carried little Élodie; she dragged Ti Nomme by an unwilling hand; while Marcéline and Marcélette followed with irresolute steps.

Her face was red and disfigured from tears and excitement. She had been summoned to a neighboring parish by the dangerous illness of her mother; her husband was away in Texas -- it seemed to her a million miles away; and Valsin was waiting with the mule-cart to drive her to the station.

"It's no question, Mamzelle Aurélie; you jus' got to keep those youngsters fo' me tell I come back. Dieu sait, I wouldn' botha you with 'em if it was any otha way to do! Make 'em mine you, Mamzelle Aurélie; don' spare 'em. Me, there, I'm half crazy between the chil'ren, an' Léon not home, an' maybe not even to fine po' maman alive encore!" -- a harrowing possibility which drove Odile to take a final hasty and convulsive leave of her disconsolate family.

She left them crowded into the narrow strip of shade on the porch of the long, low house; the white sunlight was beating in on the white old boards; some chickens were scratching in the grass at the foot of the steps, and one had boldly mounted, and was stepping heavily, solemnly, and aimlessly across the gallery. There was a pleasant odor of pinks in the air, and the sound of negroes' laughter was coming across the flowering cotton-field.

Mamzelle Aurélie stood contemplating the children. She looked with a critical eye upon Marcéline, who had been left staggering beneath the weight of the chubby Élodie. She surveyed with the same calculating air Marcélette mingling her silent tears with the audible grief and rebellion of Ti Nomme. During those few contemplative moments she was collecting herself, determining upon a line of action which should be identical with a line of duty. She began by feeding them.

If Mamzelle Aurélie's responsibilities might have begun and ended there, they could easily have been dismissed; for her larder was amply provided against an emergency of this nature. But little children are not little pigs: they require and demand attentions which were wholly unexpected by Mamzelle Aurélie, and which she was ill prepared to give.

She was, indeed, very inapt in her management of Odile's children during the first few days. How could she know that Marcélette always wept when spoken to in a loud and commanding tone of voice? It was a peculiarity of Marcélette's. She became acquainted with Ti Nomme's passion for flowers only when he had plucked all the choicest gardenias and pinks for the apparent purpose of critically studying their botanical construction.

"'T ain't enough to tell 'im, Mamzelle Aurélie," Marcéline instructed her; "you got to tie 'im in a chair. It's w'at maman all time do w'en he's bad: she tie 'im in a chair." The chair in which Mamzelle Aurélie tied Ti Nomme was roomy and comfortable, and he seized the opportunity to take a nap in it, the afternoon being warm.

At night, when she ordered them one and all to bed as she would have shooed the chickens into the hen-house, they stayed uncomprehending before her. What about the little white nightgowns that had to be taken from the pillow-slip in which they were brought over, and shaken by some strong hand till they snapped like ox-whips? What about the tub of water which had to be brought and set in the middle of the floor, in which the little tired, dusty, sun-browned feet had every one to be washed sweet and clean? And it made Marcéline and Marcélette laugh merrily -- the idea that Mamzelle Aurélie should for a moment have believed that Ti Nomme could fall asleep without being told the story of Croque-mitaine or Loup-garou, or both; or that Élodie could fall asleep at all without being rocked and sung to.

"I tell you, Aunt Ruby," Mamzelle Aurélie informed her cook in confidence; "me, I'd rather manage a dozen plantation' than fo' chil'ren. It's terrassent! Bonté! don't talk to me about chil'ren!"

"T ain' ispected sich as you would know airy thing 'bout 'em, Mamzelle Aurélie. I see dat plainly yistiddy w'en I spy dat li'le chile playin' wid yo' baskit o' keys. You don' know dat makes chillun grow up hard-headed, to play wid keys? Des like it make 'em teeth hard to look in a lookin'-glass. Them's the things you got to know in the raisin' an' manigement o' chillun."

Mamzelle Aurélie certainly did not pretend or aspire to such subtle and far-reaching knowledge on the subject as Aunt Ruby possessed, who had "raised five an' buried six" in her day. She was glad enough to learn a few little mother-tricks to serve the moment's need.

Ti Nomme's sticky fingers compelled her to unearth white aprons that she had not worn for years, and she had to accustom herself to his moist kisses -- the expressions of an affectionate and exuberant nature. She got down her sewing-basket, which she seldom used, from the top shelf of the armoire, and placed it within the ready and easy reach which torn slips and buttonless waists demanded. It took her some days to become accustomed to the laughing, the crying, the chattering that echoed through the house and around it all day long. And it was not the first or the second night that she could sleep comfortably with little Élodie's hot, plump body pressed close against her, and the little one's warm breath beating her cheek like the fanning of a bird's wing.
But at the end of two weeks Mamzelle Aurélie had grown quite used to these things, and she no longer complained.

It was also at the end of two weeks that Mamzelle Aurélie, one evening, looking away toward the crib where the cattle were being fed, saw Valsin's blue cart turning the bend of the road. Odile sat beside the mulatto, upright and alert. As they drew near, the young woman's beaming face indicated that her home-coming was a happy one.

But this coming, unannounced and unexpected, threw Mamzelle Aurélie into a flutter that was almost agitation. The children had to be gathered. Where was Ti Nomme?

Yonder in the shed, putting an edge on his knife at the grindstone. And Marcéline and Marcélette? Cutting and fashioning doll-rags in the corner of the gallery. As for Élodie, she was safe enough in Mamzelle Aurélie's arms; and she had screamed with delight at sight of the familiar blue cart which was bringing her mother back to her.

THE excitement was all over, and they were gone. How still it was when they were gone! Mamzelle Aurélie stood upon the gallery, looking and listening. She could no longer see the cart; the red sunset and the blue-gray twilight had together flung a purple mist across the fields and road that hid it from her view. She could no longer hear the wheezing and creaking of its wheels. But she could still faintly hear the shrill, glad voices of the children.

She turned into the house. There was much work awaiting her, for the children had left a sad disorder behind them; but she did not at once set about the task of righting it. Mamzelle Aurélie seated herself beside the table.

She gave one slow glance through the room, into which the evening shadows were creeping and deepening around her solitary figure. She let her head fall down upon her bended arm, and began to cry. Oh, but she cried! Not softly, as women often do. She cried like a man, with sobs that seemed to tear her very soul. She did not notice Ponto licking her hand.

**********************

Story Soure: http://www.americanliterature.com/Chopin/ss/Regret.html

REAL IS SO WORTHY

2008-11-02T07:14:00.000-08:00

REAL IS SO WORTHY

Looking at the ways of the real world and the virtual world and my role in the two, I feel REAL as far more WORTHY than the VIRTUAL. As always it is my personal opinion and except others to let me have my choice in my personal matters. NO! No, Awkward questions, please…unlike anytime before YOU will have NO reply from me…

At least for the Time-Being, I need a Break…

I, if I say based on my experience of knowing me, could be back anytime even as early as tomorrow morning…but may be as late as never. I do not know anything of anybody at anytime….I just wrote of what I felt…was just trying to empty my INSANE mind. But now it’s heavier than I can hold…

Let me TAKE a BREAK!

Visitors and Comments as always ARE welcome.

If any thing remains VALID in ME, or the COMMENTS, when would I come back, if at all I do, it shall be replied duly.

For all those who have already reached me in a period of extreme distress – I ‘AM’ ALWAYS THANKFUL… & I shall be taking my round in My Corridor, with no song to sing, feeding my INSANE mind with what it needs…for each second of the hour….

Rest….some rest is all I need ;-)

This is being posted at all three simultaneous as I have chosen to be THE REAL ME…. for Time-being

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Photo CC: As per original copyright at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthieu-aubry/237736135/

‘I’M BORN AGAIN’ -- A Song that Keeps Revisiting

2008-10-26T11:08:00.000-07:00

[This definitely is going to be an exposé, but I do not mind! ;-)]

‘I’M BORN AGAIN’ -- A Song that Keeps Revisiting

I love music, as men love their wives. I am no authority on men -- so much less on husbands. Yet, I feel it is that way.

I like music running (in) the house, when I am at work on my home computer. I need it when I feel low in spirits. I don’t mind it when I am in my own world, and I hate it when it pesters me with its squeals… I love music for its melody.

While that says about listening, I rarely sing myself. Except humming a few that appeals me with their lyrics or some musically tempting ones that just declines to leave me for a while, dancing to their own tune on my lips. Yet, they all leave me as time pass. But one song, a very old one that I heard in my childhood, has returned to me – my lips --many a times revisiting my soul in its spirited rapture.

The song is ‘I’m Born Again’ (1979) from a Boney-M album. Saying of the song, Liz Mitchell, who sang it, has said that while she is known as a 'disco queen', there was a prayer behind the songs that she sang with Boney M. And looking at it in the context of Jesus’ words that we must be born again of His Spirit if we are to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, the song has religious underpinnings so to say. For those who may not know, the first lines of it:

‘I’m born again,
I feel free
No longer alone
A bright light is shinning
And shows me a world that I own
I can see my way through
I know I will walk beside you
All those prayers of mine weren’t in vain
I’m born again’

As a teenage girl, when I sang these first lines --immersing myself it in all its spirits-- my friends and sisters used to giggle at me. The reason – hey! should I say??

As a young lady, when I sang it, I had seen my young brother trying hard to hide the smile in his eyes, and a few years later in my late twenties when it came back to me forcefully, I remember my father telling my mother: “she seem so happy that ‘he’ is back….” (NO, no awkward questions please ;-))

In the first days of marriage, when I hummed it– I felt my husband’s hands that held mine getting a bit tighter…its still there, as tight as ever..

Yet, the song left me for a while…

And now in one of these days it came back to me again, a very peaceful comeback. Like a shadow across a blue corridor. And when I look at myself ---

I see myself walking through a long corridor…a corridor across the world, a world that I own….i see many rooms on either side, rooms lit-up in spirit and wisdom…faces there look up at me, as I pass by…we greet each other as we pass…a very kind few reach out to me to greet me at my corridor...I knock some of those that remain closed, and move on ..

And I’m humming those lines, in the most spirited joy…

I feel I’m born again…. I feel free…. I own my world, my corridor across the World, if not the World itself…. A shining bright light leads my way…I can see my way through…and I know all those prayers of mine weren’t in vain…

BUT, as it was always the case, What I do not know for sure is -

Who’s beside me? whom am I walking with??

Do I call him God?

But Now, more tangibly, to me—
it is YOU, who is reading me here, in my own corridor!

.................................................................................................

PS: I’m posting this both at ‘Certain Kind of Woman’ and ‘Essential Me’ simultaneously…just for the reason that I do not want any of my reader to miss this…
That is as much as I can do about it. Rest, any post will have a destined reader, as any man will have a destined life…

The full lyrics of the song ‘I’m Born again’ are available:
http://www.lizmitchell.com/lyrics/im-born-again.htm
And you may hear the song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1vlAuwOaDg

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Photo: As per original copyright at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aclorrain/456612282/

Writers of Influence

2008-10-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

Virginia Woolf – An Inimitable Influence

At forty, when I look back there are many writers who have influenced me ever since I started reading –Lewis Carol, Mark Twain, Thomas Hardy, Dostoevsky, Maxim Gorky, Jane Austen, Walt Whitman, Hemingway, Kafka, Camu, Neruda, Amrita Pritam, Kamala Das, Anand, MT, ……the list is long, and I may write my tribute to them each one day as they occur to me....

If I take a book to read, it’s often my habit to have an auto-biography or biography of the author. So Virginia Woolf had introduced herself to me when I read ‘Mrs Dalloway’ some few years back only. But soon she became my all time influence ….

The influence could be well understood when I say, contrary to my second nature of leaving things half way -- many a time for lack of time, at times lack of further interest, at times for being too complex for my veins and brain-- I almost read everything that I could place hands on by and about her. There could be posts and posts on her alone…

The woman writer, who killed herself in 1941, after attempting suicide more than three times, at age 59! Her final act of suicide at 59 puzzles me ever– to me that seemed an age when any human sensitivity would be ironed to take life as it is…..

She continues to influence for many reasons – do I reveal all? I shall reveal the most crucial influences:

Of her as a writer, a woman writer:
Her experiments with her writing --- the forms, techniques, themes, expanse of life in seemingly simple statements… that influenced writers including Sylvia Plath…and ‘me’ ? ;-)
Her view of writing as a therapeutic exercise - the making of ‘order or wholeness’ out of the shocks in her life…
And above all, her idea of the ‘Common Reader’ who may have ‘a say in the final distribution of poetical honours,’ and hence would need consideration by a writer:

“He reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others. Above all, he is guided by an instinct to create for himself, out of whatever odds and ends he can come by, some kind of whole—a portrait of a man, a sketch of an age, a theory of the art of writing. …… Hasty, inaccurate, and superficial, snatching now this poem, now that scrap of old furniture, without caring where he finds it or of what nature it may be so long as it serves his purpose and rounds his structure, his deficiencies as a critic are too obvious to be pointed out…”

Of her as a daughter, wife and woman:
Her love for her parents, her siblings and all whom she held close
The divine goodness she saw in her seemingly strict husband…
Her love for the trivia of life, the fun-loving aspect of her, ‘letting drop every day in corruption, lies, chatter’
Her view of life as a solitary excursion …
Her urging to mankind in Between the Acts – Let us retain whatever made that harmony’
Her suicide note to Leonard, her husband – while I may not write a suicide note for my love of life, my death note to my husband will resemble something of that sort, I believe…

Of late, her incessant preoccupation with death…
And then her vision of an individual life in The Waves, which prompted James Hafley to explain it as:

“the individual life is a wave, and life itself the sea; to look at oneself as one wave is to perish when the single wave breaks, but to see oneself as an indivisible part of the sea, composed of innumerable drops of water -- as part of wave after wave -- is to gain immortality”

You are Tagged, said Mirage

2008-08-30T01:02:00.000-07:00

I was tagged for the first time by mirage last week. The card there asked me to jot down 5 quotes that I like from the favorite books I have read or came across...Infact I never new what ‘tagging’ meant! Did a bit of a research to understand that.

Anyway, I too liked the card, Mirage though the job wasn’t easy. I have stacks of quotes with me, and choosing five favourite seemed too hard. I postponed it to the weekend, to give myself enough time to choose. But that didn’t help. I seemed in a maze of wise words...

Until finally I decided to chose at random. Some from my list, some jotted elsewhere

Here are a few quotes Mirage, and all those who read me :

"Be like the flowing river
Silent in the night
Be not afraid of the dark
If there are stars in the sky, reflect them back.
If there are clouds in the sky
Remember, clouds like the river, are water
So, gladly reflect them too,
In your own tranquil depths "
- Manuel Bandeira, quoted as a prelude to Paulo Coelho’s ‘Like the Flowing River’

"What man of you, having a hundred sheep,
If he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety
And nine in the wilderness, and go after that
Which is lost, until he find it? "
- Luke 15:4

"It is good to have an end to journey toward;
but it is the journey that matters,
in the end. "
Ursula Le Guin, quoted by a student in an essay

"One who know how to win will never compete"
-- Chinese philosopher Tao Te Chng – recently shared by a blogfriend
“For this is Wisdom; to love, to live
To take what fate, or the Gods may give.
To ask no question, to make no prayer,
To kiss the lips and caress the hair,
Speed passion's ebb as you greet its flow
To have, - to hold - and - in time, - let go!"
-- Laurence Hope

Richly Blessed

2008-08-09T22:00:00.000-07:00

As a young girl, I was always interested in quotes. Quotations by the famous and the not-so famous about love, friendship, character, wisdom and the whole act of life were registered in separate sections of a note book and read over and over again. They were my windows to the world of great minds, offering insights that shaped my thoughts and outlook…

My fascination for quotations still remain, though now I just revel and relate the essence of the saying with my experiences and move on, without caring to register it ad verbatim anywhere—for a more worthy experience, a deeper reality, a deeper understanding.

Yet, a few lines by an anonymous writer in a not-so-old, but yellowing, flaky pages of a small book, an anthology of prose and poetry titled ‘Something Understood’ struck me hard, straight at the core, as I impulsively took my pen and notebook to note it down…

Perhaps I was trying to write it all my life, and it was all there….written for me!

I reproduce it here, reflecting a congruence I share with the unnamed writer.

........................................................................................

I Asked for Knowledge

I asked for knowledge – power to control things;
I was granted understanding – to learn to love persons

I asked for strength to be a Great Man;
I was made weak to become a better Man.

I asked for wealth to make friends;
I became poor, to keep friends,

I asked for all things to enjoy life;
I was granted all life, to enjoy things.

I cried for Pity; I was offered Sympathy.

I craved for healing of my own disorders;
I received insight into another’s suffering.

I prayed to God for safety – to tread the trodden path;
I was granted danger, to lose track and find the Way.

I got nothing that I prayed for;
I am among all men, richly blessed.

The Essential Me -- A Prelude

2008-08-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
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You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,

You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
-- Walt Whitman

Even as I project my socio-political self and the ‘certain kind of woman’ that I remain, I feel the need to present, rather represent, my essential self that keeps popping up, with its unbridled urge to reveal itself, its interests in:

Books and authors- old and new

Art - fine and not so fine

Movies -classic and otherwise,
Music – melodious and not so melodious

The air and all that it holds;
The sky and its myriad patterns,
The sea and its ever-changing hues

The earth and its endless shades

The void and the valid
And all those fine aspects of life
That reveal
‘My Essential Self’

Hence the blog!

As in the logosphere, so in the blogosphere
This space remains a sanctuary to me
A safe heaven where I shall keeping
Visiting to spend time with myself
Know more of me….

As I know more of you!

Because you are as much me,

as I am, so much you.....