View

The brew

That penetrates into the breeze

Of the little house,

(not on the Prairie)

(Though one wishes it is!)

Fill the air with aroma

And the being with life.

The vine ripe roma tomatoes

Dangle on the bush

Much like illuminations

Greeting through the french window 

(This isn't the view of the Acropolis)

(But feels as magnificent)

Feet up, hair down

Wee thoughts like wisps

Lingering around

Roses in many hues

A few days old, 

Huddled in the ceramic teapot

Donning signs of aging 

With such grace!

Stacks of books,

Sink of dishes to be done

A plush throw that lazes about

Carelessly on the couch.

Frayed ends of the living room carpet

With dander that needs to be vacuumed.

And a to-do task

Ticked off from the unending list

By the virtue of this

Vista point

Of a significantly small life.

 Photo by NourAlhoda Al: https://www.pexels.com

Consider

I suffer from this strange condition - I call it 'choice paralysis' and I wonder/assume at the same time as to how many others among us suffer from something similar. I log into my OTT services and spend half the time of a feature presentation (no exaggeration here) to find the feature presentation I wish to watch, and more often than not, my free time is up and I abandon the thought of watching. Same goes with most other recreational things I do.

For instance I browse through hundreds of pictures to find that one pic that would be a perfect tag along to my blog post and I spend more time than I allocate to blog. On a digress, come to think, why is the picture even necessary right? - Oh may be because we have increasingly become a visual species. We need a pic in tow for everything we speak or say (remembering how I used to click pics of my dish to share it on my iMessage along with the conversation about what's cooking in the kitchen.

Digress over, and back to the condition I suffer from. So during my childhood in the 80s - we used to cluelessly wait for that one feature film on Saturdays, clamor around our modest TVs and consume it with great enthusiasm. Everything followed the circadian rhythm, including the TV sets wherein programs bid adieu no later than 11pm. And then as I progressed into my teens, the channels, the choices, the 24x7x365s made their advent. Do I recollect spending 30 mts choosing a book to read? No. The local library had a shelf of books and I used to grab the one that I didn't read yet and finding that one was a gratification in itself!

When I sit to blog, I have this influx of topics that hit me and I end up aborting the idea of blogging altogether before I choose one. It is a great deal of time drain, come to think of it and then I endlessly ponder about how I do not have time to do the things I love. So what is it that has gotten the likes of me into this condition? Is it the abundance of everything we have right here at our finger tips? Was life simpler and more enjoyable when moderation was the name of the game? Did we collectively shift the energy of the planet into an over consumption mode be it the things we use or the things we get to do?? I can't help but wonder about the rhetorical question. And what's the effect of all this on the quality of our life?

Today I chose the picture before doing my first scroll on the virtual album. Today I typed a title on the top of my head and got to writing without trying to make it some sort of a deep hitting masterpiece. Today I blogged in record time. Today I am trying to find prompt cures to the problems I seem to understand and ponder about.

And see? -  it isn't as hard as I thought it would be.

Photo by Marija Piliskic: https://www.pexels.com

Ponder

I'd have no clue how these words are going to shape shift as I type away - cause if you had known how many times I undid what I wrote, you might take away my blogger card! And as I keep at this, I wonder how the authors out there keep churning up volume after volume of books and get them to be bestsellers and motion pictures. 

I don't know where to place the blame for this stagnation of sorts. No, I wouldn't call this a block anymore - this is a full blown creative rut! I keep searching far and wide for the reasons to blame my stagnation now - instead of searching  for topics to blog about. Come to think of topics, it isn't as if I have a dearth of them. I had been making a list of things I wanted to ponder over. Given the fact that the last few months have been a rollercoaster of emotions, I do have a plethora of things to rave and rant about - but it could be the infamous female hormones that hijack my flow and launch me into a stupor. But excuses aren't a tender as of now, to flake out on the task so here I go blabbering away!

A part of this confidence to blabber perhaps comes from the comfort of talking to myself I guess. For all practical purposes, this space feels like an abandoned castle in the middle of the woods, that kids from nearby neighborhoods discover and make hubs out of! I swear I heard a friend (from Scotland) telling me that he and his brothers used to haunt the nearby abandoned castles and play away - I think some of those have become heritage sites lately!

And then, a gingerly caution creeps in. What if someone is going to stumble upon this place and find all these scribbles? I mean, imagine the horror - or may be don't imagine it! If we are to dance like no one is watching, why not write like no one is reading? Anyway, I don't think I have any hopes for privacy when a thought/ place/ product that crosses my mind manifests into my feed in a week or less. Privacy is a dinosaur. Extinct!!

So yeah, the diverse and intense few months I had in 25 so far did leave me with a whole clutter of thoughts to ponder upon, only if I found the peace to look through them and pick one at a time. And that's exactly what I am trying to do as I aimlessly type away.

To be continued....

Photo by Gül Işık: Pexels

Tribute

Her hair was lush

Falling like velvet curtains

Drawn to the sides of her face.

She was quiet but her presence was strong

Stealth strength - Her spirt!

She concealed such pain

Inside her radiant existence

She fought with time

And tamed it to her side.

Petite, pretty, and Prudent

Just as her name suggested!

She had the spirit of a warrior

And the grace of a saint.

She lived all in, drunk on life

Nothing limited her, nor confined her light!

Gentle and kind,

Armed with a shining smile

She lived to the fullest

Redefining limits, busting limitations,

Transforming the struggle

While juggling with fate.

Words would fail to grasp her soul

Nor would they reflect

Her essence in whole!

Like a dream she drifted

Lingering around in memories Profound.

Godspeed my friend. Soar high!

Spread your luster from above,

Until we meet again.

Photo by lil artsy: https://www.pexels.com

Unnamed

I meander about

In the grey caves

With a begging bowl

Unbeknownst of the folly

Or perhaps, acting knowingly unknown

Like we often do in the course of this frenzy

Called life!

I understand the drill

But go against the grain nevertheless

That's supposed to be the trope

To the billions wandering alongside

So lost in the mirage,

Chasing the illusion.

I ponder like I wander

In useless wordage

Insisting that I blindfold my eyes

And complain of the darkness,

For the solace that I find 

In the pity party of

Parading around like a pauper.

 

But underneath lies

A bottomless bowl 

 

In the depth of the eyes within -

Like unlocking the key 

To an undiscovered affluence.

For a fleck I am

In the stardust above

And I better shun my theatrics

And draw the curtains down on the drama.

I bow humbly before the cosmos

With joined palms

Seeking Grace

So I stay anchored in the nothingness

Of the Omniscient.

 

Re-Verse

 

Block is real somedays.

Blockbusters aren't in the offing

So off I go

Without blogging!

Photo by Melike - Pexels.

Kick in the rear

 

Upon logging into my blog recently, I realized I'd not been this way for a while now - and in the meantime , the earth took almost another rotation around the sun. I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that I'd shunned this thing - this space, this cocoon (insert shock and horror emoji) and I solemnly vowed to.... (I won't divulge what I vowed to do, lest I jinx it!)

While I looked here and there for inspiration to kick start the continuity of the banter, I found this insight delivered right to my inbox.

"Work hard on what comes easily"

I did my usual skimming through the text and had to pause and do a slower reread.

"W o r k    h a r d    o n   w h a t   

c o m e s   e a s i l y"

Bingo! And my block was busted and how. A lot of things come easily to me lately and most of them don't seem to be of the pleasant kind. Ask any soul trapped in a mid-aged woman's body and you' get your earful of what I mean when I say I get a truck load of things that come easily to me. 

But then, my experience renders me this much wisdom - that the wise have a fetish for the subtle. They would never say anything explicitly when they can imply layers and layers of information in this sort of brevity (or elaboration) only the wise can think of. 

So, onto hither I come, to work hard on what comes easily. And yes, I took a detour from the laundry list of the easily attained woes my mind, body and spirit has been through of late, such as 'plantar fasciitis' for instance. When in the frenzy of packing numerous bags upon the completion of the very long summer vacation, I frantically walked across the length and breadth of my expansive stay that I developed an acute heel pain that now upgraded to the status of chronic. And who thought that there's a fancy name for this condition, whose mere sound makes me pause, sub vocalize and mispronounce the same? 

But I come back again to the 'what comes easily' part without getting too pessimistic and spiraling down the self pity hole. 

There are nicer things that come to me easily - like words for instance. I can write away into oblivion, all the things that I don't even properly form a thought framework of, when I begin to write. Expression comes very easily to me, especially when delivered in black n white. Hence I write away and call it a block buster - as in the buster of the writer's block! 

Work hard on what comes easily - we all are born with an innate prowess. Let's unravel it and rock on.

pic courtesy - Pixabay, Pexels 

Ponder

 

I didn't quiet process how much I love coffee. Or how taken for granted this beverage is for me. Kind of like how much I loved my aunt and how taken for granted her presence was in my life.

There was a magical time in my childhood - a honey tinted translucent trinket box - giving a peek at its contents. It was two tier, housing a collection of sparkly things. Mostly earrings and random bead necklaces. The bling lover was born then, looking at the box and what it held. Babattha owned it, like she owned me when she let me sort through her box and pick those sparkly dainty studs to wear. She was my subconscious fashion icon - the way she draped ethnic silks and modest cottons. Her two fabrics for life became mine as well and shaped my love for understated chic. Her love for sarees inspired mine in the process. 

The numerous 'Scholars English Grammar and composition ' books she sourced for me from her school supplier was a story of the legends. I somehow felt that this book was the only Bible every language student needed and wanted one for every kid I taught. She knew what I would ask for even before I did."Guess what? I sourced two more copies for you" she would exclaim in her enthusiastic voice, long after the books went out of publication.

Attha was petite and svelte. She was in my periphery since the day I could perceive the world around me and used to visit us so often, owing to the nature of her job and her husband's. As I grew up, she became my bestie. It helped that she taught high school English and used to animatedly talk about the Shakespeare drama she was teaching that year. We were very different on the surface. She was the poster child of extroversion. She had her phone buzzing like she worked in a call center and her friends list? Unending! She loved the outside and always found reasons to step out and explore the world - especially on shopping trips and periodically on travels.

She and I were very alike inwardly. She hooked me on to coffee and successfully  converted me to a caffeine junkie long after I had my first born. Our meetings were punctuated with copious amounts of filter coffee and endless conversations  about travel plans, handloom sarees and bygones memories of my childhood. I knew a lot about my baby and toddler years through her memories and accounts of me. 

Attha was known far and wide for one thing - her personality quirk to get things done on a war foot basis - she was borderline restless, buzzing around like a bee, always looking to wrap up the next thing on her to do list. She accelerated  almost everything she had to do. She couldn’t and wouldn’t sit still, not until the last few days of her miraculous existence.

Attha took my sister and me on our first real-time  vacation, to her illiidc  little town in a land far from home. She got me my first lipstick and a pair of ballet shoes and a royal blue middy skirt with a white mega sleeved top. My joy knew no bounds as I slipped into my cinderella shoes. She was always there for us and for her siblings. Her love for my dad is worth its own chapter in her biography. There were so many things I picked up from her - and I probably picked up her trait to love in my DNA that I am so proud to jointly share with her.

As I sit here and pour out my tribute, I realize how prominent her presence was in my life and how she had the unconditional motherly love for us. It is near impossible to think of one milestone in my life without her in the background.

She faded on a warfoot basis. Sprinting around getting things done till the day she took ill and visited a realtime hospital. Her exit was sudden, almost abrupt - like she was in a rush to get to the last item on her to do list. All that remains now is the timeline of our virtual conversations and the realization of how the smallest, most taken for granted of things in my daily life are strangely related to her. The cup of coffee I make in the morning, the teacher's copy of The Merchant of Venice she gave me with her scribbles in the margin, the silicone hot pack she got me for my menstrual cramps and a cupboard of eclectic sarees I grew a taste for, (thanks to her influence), the rhinestone stud earrings I collected over the years to recreate the magic trinket box of my childhood - every ****ing thing in my life seems to be a trace of her that she'd left behind.

I know I cannot take her shopping to get her the silk sarees I promised to get her, or have her over to attend my first born's graduation ceremony but she'll live on a lot more vibrantly and intensely in my memory and lifetime.

I don't take my coffee for granted anymore. The waft of its aroma wakes me up to the things that need celebration.

pic - From Pexeles, by David Bares.

Swan is the ride of Goddess Saraswathy, my aunt's namesake.

  

Mountains or Beaches ? - Writing with the kid #3

 Where are we to stroll if given a choice between mountains and beaches? The prompt that's worth its weight in words looms over my head as my nine year old and I plonk in the couch and write away! 

Long back, in the kingdom of Vijayanagaram, lived a wise and just king named Krishnadevaraya. The said king was a super hero of sorts - He did everything. He slayed the enemies by the day and by night, he swooned over the literary prowess of his prized eight Poets - called as the 'Ashtadhiggajas" Meaning the eight powerful Elephants. Now each of the eight had their claim to fame with their illustrious  works, but one of them inspired generation after generation with his wit, humor and extraordinary spontaneity.

Legend has it that Tenali Ramarishna - fondly know as Ramakrishna Kavi in the court of Vijayanagara, was once approached by the Goddess almighty herself and was offered a choice between picking enormous knowledge  or copious wealth. The catch, mind you - was this or that! And our mischevious hero, asking to see the symbolic elixirs of weatlth and wisdom upclose, mixes them both and gulps them before one could have blinked.

The flustered Goddess was perhaps charmed by his sly, but outwardly blesses - curses him to be a Vikatakavi - a Palindrome - of a title that is supposed to keep Ramakrishna kavi in a seesaw of the aforementioned boons of wealth and wisdom.

I know, I drag RamakrishnaKavi out of nowhere into a subject matter that is supposed to stroll along a seashore or a mountain trail. It is probably because the nature lover in me cannot choose one over the other. I'd take the trail and tread down gently from a higher altitude while admiring the view and reach the beach to find some seashells and enjoy as the tepid waters lick my barefeet.

Mountains raise my spirits and make me soar in spiritual highs while the beach grounds me and anchors my human turbulence. How am I to choose one?

This n That (Writing with the kid #2)

Last December, I made a work trip to India. I swapped staying for Christmas with family for a work trip and went all the way to be a part of the workplace I so long to be a part of. The added perks were to fend for myself and myself alone and to live the life of a loner. "But loner sounds so doom and gloom" One might argue. To the closeted introvert, the word is music to the ears. 

So on one such alone trips that was anything but lonely, I met this man from Kashmir. I am a die hard fan of everything Sufi, and to Sufi fans, the name Rumi might be more music to the ears. So when the shopkeeper said "Hello Sister, my name is Rumi" in his sing song voice, I was held captive at the sound of the name. "And may I show you some exclusive pieces all the way from Kashmir?"

I didn't have time. I was just browsing through the isles of a local handicraft hub that is a Mecca of sorts for me - especially during those single work trips I make to my Motherland. And I very well knew how these shopkeepers had a trick or two up their sleeves to convince customers like me to buy things they don't really need with the money they don't really intend to spend. 

I knew it was a slow day. Besides, I was promised the dekko of some intricately hand embroidered shawls. Now shawls and I are an extension of one another. Stoles, scarves, shawls - no matter what I choose to call them, one of those thingies coiled around my neck feels like a mother's hug, and a daughter’s caress. And any self respecting art lover worth his/ her salt would pay some homage to handcrafted goods - won't they? At least  by taking a pause and smelling the proverbial roses on the busy hub-dub of the daily grind.

Rumi pulled a little cabin-bag  to his side and sat down on the cushioned floor of his shack like store structure. He paused, opened the zipper and looked up at me with a smile. "Sister, you are going to catch your breath looking at these pieces. Each one is painstakingly done by old and experienced gentlemen and ladies who are experts at this craft"

I was already transformed into the mountains - Glaciers in the background, grazing the clear teal skyes and birds chirping away while old men with long, cotton like beards and kind, soulful eyes would look down into their emroidery frames, sewing magic with their nimble fingers. 

Rumi kept whipping one out shawl after the other, with reverence, and opening them like he had held the most precious thing known to human race. "Look at this piece" - he unleashed a full size shawl before me, holding on to the edges and gently tossing the delicate garment out - where in beautiful and stunningly arranged colors burst out on fine cashmere in assorted florals and avifauna. And at that very moment, I felt not just the holding of my breath, but a feeling akin to falling in love. My gut felt fluffy like little critters were prancing around inside it and my heart raced like a gazelle. 

"How much is this one?" I asked, like I had found the one and am not interested to look further. At this point Rumi insisted that I went through his whole stash and I did. Only to flip the stack back and look at the one that caught my attention.

What ensued was gasps, horror, insistence of how pretty the artwork is and how not a millionaire I am to fund such purchases. 

Rumi persisted. Or may be the glaciers and the old artisans persisted, or may be the art lover in me persisted. Or it probably was a meant to be moment. 

I came home with the shawl tucked into my tote with utmost reverence. I opened it, clicked pics, flaunted it to close friends and folded it back into a neat rectangle and tucked it into a soft kora garment bag - and I don't recollect carrying any material possession  as carefully as I had carried home the shawl. One day I dream of a great grand kid that would hold an heirloom shawl in his/her hands and wonder whether he/ she should wear it, preserve it, or frame it and hang it on a wall - so it blesses everyone that passes that way with a viewing!

And that perhaps, would be the best thing my money bought so far, unless some other Rumi in some other handicraft hub would indulge the unassuming me into thinking that by buying the work of art, I'd made the universe smile, and an artisan live and let their art go on to posterity  

Cause I had to write..

(..Otherwise my child wouldn't)

Recently I read something. 

Someone asked Stephen King how he writes so much, so fast. 

His response was simple. He said he aims to write six pages a day, done and dusted. So if he was to write a 200/ 300 page novel that would be like finishing a novel in matter of weeks. 

That makes absolute sense. Doesn't it? Except procrastinators like me sit and wile away day after day, week after week, that runs into decades to end. 

So what's it with revamping our procrastination profile? Lately, when I work and see how the world works, I see that it is more common than we think - this habit to procrastinate. Another genius modern thinkers of our time - Robert Greene - opined that we need to have a sense of urgency to tackle life and what we intend to do, because life zooms past before we know and we also never know when we are called back.

As we speak, I sit here with my 9 yr old, trying to make her do what I had been absconding for a while now. "We need to write everyday" I tell her, It is very important to keep our commitments to learning. 

We were supposed to write about making our lives into a movie, with the plot intact, but add characters from fiction to enhance our plots. 

Like I would want Harry (potter) to be my best friend. Well, I wouldn't assume the role of Hermione. Let's leave her alone and not water her down. And may be I'd want Albus Dumbledore to be my mentor. Would it be safe to say that I'd want JK Rowling to write my life plot?

Oh wait - Let's approach Mani Ratnam. And make him sprinkle his leading men (and ladies) around me to enhance my procrastination laden excuse of a life. 

No - I should loiter around Imtiaz's characters. Aditya, Sejal, The Matargasti duo - forgot their names. I remember someone telling me that they would want Murakami to write their life story. Speaking of Haruki, I have to confessions  to make about my 'to read' hall of shame. I commence and re commence to read him and I stop around chapter 3 - like one would let go of the gym and eating healthy resolutions made on Jan 1st right around the time valentine’s day approaches. 

Yeah right. Write!

And read.

Life - is too short, to even be little!