Brilliant Instances.

I breathed, deep. As the cool night air caressed. there are scattered white clouds in the sky, effectively covering up most of the smaller stars, accompanied by the town lights effect, the stars are not making a grand show of it.

The insistent urging sound, made by a scooter refusing to start, while its owner sweated and sweated, and at last, the noise of the engine whirring fills the almost still atmosphere. i  am happy that it started, it is not desirable that any one should be kept from home any longer than is necessary. 

The night insects are going on with their monotonous but beautiful lullaby, while the few mosquitoes can not be heard but are only felt by me, as i am sitting on the steps of our terrace. Inspiration, comes quickly to me if i am here, witnessed by the treetops, the stars, and the almost navy blue sky. I realise i haven’t been up here often enough these past few months. I pray , i am determined, that i shall never be too busy to get sometime out to talk with my self,  to converse with nature, to converse with God. I promise me this, that i shall always have time for the really important people in life, the near and dear ones, and always there will be reserved moments, for peace and self exploration, to admire the miracles of everyday life.

Have you ever found the night air to be scented, in that oh so subtle way? Utterly romantically beautifully. Amazingly loving is the breeze. I Find solace and comfort in the night, i need the music that is always playing in the night.

Silly me – why didn’t i come up here the first day i got a laptop? Aren’t we just foolish.

Any how....let me become my talkative self, i’ve been on a small trip! As we all know, i love our sudden, unplanned and unpredictable trips. Not to say that all our meticulously planned trips usually never happen , the unplanned ones are the best.

We went to Abu, the hill station, the town, of course, was carefully avoided, and we put our selves in the hands of nature. The arravallies were breathtaking at this time of the year, covered in a coat of lush green, it’s big bad boulders which were formed once by lava, where looking almost timid. Small and big waterfalls intercepted the curving road here and there. The grandfather of Himalayas was looking pretty pleased with everything, what with the green capped by a brilliant summer sky with soft, cotton wool clouds fluttering here and there.

It is not a long story, it is a story of a girl ( so i am 22:P ),her beloved family, and a bear. An Indian sloth bear.

Plus, lots of flowers, and moss, and orchids, and birds and palm civets, and late night stories and history lessons and treasure hunts and lots of fun.

finding clues in the treasure hunt.

rock faces-how many do you see?

shadows shadows,let us play.
as the caterpillars munch away.

moss flowers i call these

beloved

orchid

 

 

 

 

peace

the pretty bachelor.

It is just as well that i am accompanied by the insects and stars right now, down there i would have probably succumbed to sleep by now.

It was me,mom,dad,brother and granny. We reached there at 2:30 p.m. while every one indulged in their chosen past time, i proceeded to fool around with the camera alone, than I and brother went on out usual tracks of exploration here and there, while weaving wild fantasy stories featuring us two, naturally. Took more photos, played treasure hunt, saved a few caterpillars, though not sure they wanted to be. Went to dad and did some more official bird watching. Than went to mom and grandma, talked and talked and worried about the world.ran after dad as he called us orchid hunting, up the slippery slopes and boulders, and found some : ) took some more photos and saw butterflies. Than my brother became sleepy, so I and father set watching the birds go to roosts, in the tranquil  place facing the beautiful lush forest in front.and were joined by mom. We also took turns counting face formations in a big rock in front, i had the highest count, of 10. : )

At night, we went around in a 4 wheel, to may be see a bear, in that still night, as we set waiting on its usual path, slowly a darker spot emerged on the dark landscape, though it was still early in the night. it moved and kept moving towards us. I had seen 3 bears on my previous visit to this jungle, but this sighting was one brilliant happenstance, i had to keep focusing manually on him, as the guide was very particular about not frightening him by any sudden moves/noises and light, so the powerful torch was kept off.but as it inched close, the dim flash light of my mobile, which was on thanks to my brother in the covered back of the car,i was able to keep the focus more accurate. Well, one can’t focus while being perpetually blind! I was leaning out a little, and slowly, and slowly, we came near, or say, he did, he was a young male, around 5 years, just attaining adulthood. searching for more food he happened up to try sniffing under the car a little, and that brought us pretty much nose to nose, only separated by some 3 feet, or  so .I , of course, stopped taking photos, while every one else pressed on me to have a closer look, i tried to lean back inside the car body as i was pretty much out and my upper body in full clear hit able range. He grunted once ferociously, it was something that would make your heart leap, it made my brother drop the mobile, while i just continued to stare at him, he remained in easy reach distance for quite a while, so i did take a few shots, and he very generously provided me with this full front one. I remember thinking at the time that he  was giving it to me because i hadn’t been annoying and hadn’t  taken his photos while he was too near. ( i could have worked with my portrait lens, he was THAT near).

Ah ....isn’t life fascinating?

Tonight the night is not still and silent, tonight is the first night of the auspicious festival of dance, Navaratri. So till the ninth night from tonight, the music and the dance will go on till the early wisps of the light of dawn gathers in the eastern sky. A great tribute will be paid to the forces of nature for nine long nights,the 9 forms of the goddess will be worshipped.

 Lots of love affairs will start as well, as it always does each year at this time. Well, well,well- you know, will all the excitements and late nights and dancing and getting dressed,it’s just natural :D who am i to comment.

One does hope for some splendid raas performances though, why not remember lord Krishna and his late night dances with the gopies and Radha.  My, i do love our festivals, i love everything here. If i were to leave here, i don’t know how i shall do it.

Some one is letting out some pretty evil laugh out on the next road,while the blare of music is rather tiresome, they used to sing better songs in the past.

I sound soo like a granny right now.

Talking of being a granny, my grandma told me about her childhood and how tings have changed since, she was born in 1944, and the English left India in 1947.she used to dream a lot about Gandhiji, as she had a strong desire to meet him, well my grandfather had had that opportunity, i wish i had interrogated him more thoroughly about it when i had the chance, though we had talked about it ,i had just let it slip by. It is a year, this month, since he passed away.

We miss you grandfather. May be you met some amazing souls out there though.

Grandmom told me about the incident with the king of Bhavnagar, and a small farmer, as india was a democratic nation,the first king to merge his kingdom was Krishna Kumarsinhji, of Bhavnagar state of that time. Than he was appointed the governor of madras, so, a farmer, had lost a bullock(most probably it had been stolen),  he didn’t know anything about there being a government now,a different rule, he only knew that if he had a problem, he should go and see the king, he went to Bhavnagar,(being from a small village in that state)found that the king was in madras and collecting the address, went there, laying open his problem. The king did have a mighty time making him understand the situation, but he did it, than bought him a return ticket, also gave him a letter to be given to some staff of his back home, and the farmer was given a brand new bullock for all that freedom the country had. See- we kind of had some great kings. Who actually did something, the politicians seem like a hopeless lot now.

The king of vadodara, the famous Sayajirav Gaekwad,the great patron of knowledge, had made it compulsory for everyone in his state to have basic 7-8 years of studies, in the time before freedom,so even the girls in the most rural villages knew how to read and write.the enlightened kings did do a lot, though, i can not say that there weren’t some pretty weird and odd ones. After all,there were 580 princely states here, they all can’t be good.

She also told me about her trips in a train engine,in the last compartment of a goods train with the guard,and in the ferries that towed the maharaja-a- bhavnagar’s luggage to and fro when he went to his summer retreat on the shiyal island near pipavav, as well as truck lifts used to give chase to buses that left without you, in those good old times when you could trust people,and the khadi cloths induced some respect in people.

A dear friend asked me,not long ago, about the situation between India and Pakistan, the question that seemed to torment his gentle soul being why we couldn’t look at each other in the way the outsiders did,wouldn’t it make things better? Perhaps the people of the two countries should take an outsiders perspective and focus on the their similarities than their differences. 

Well, one wishes to, it is not as if the civilians of the two nations want to keep barking at each other like mad dogs after one rabbit. We have a similar language, clothing, food and mannerisms. Actually, the people, are not so much opposed to each other as the politics would have you believe. The dirty gamer here is the Pakistani government, untrustworthy all around, now that America is learning it too, i don’t really need to elaborate, India had told them- over and over again, to not give such alot of financial support with a free hand, they’ve just gone and snuggled up with China, the dragon that lives to swallow everything up if given half a chance. What did anyone do when it ate up Tibet? All talk, while India still plays a glad host to the Dalai Lama. It has it’s eyes on Indian land, has had from a long time. Honestly, the weasel like ways of China are more worrying to me than the clumsy manoeuvres of Pakistan.Pakistan does have to be more careful about who it befriends.

While, it is not honestly possible for us to not look askance at Pak. Just consider- at this moment, right now, a  gun battle is raging on between our army and 2 remaining terrorists in Kashmir ,came over from Pak, of the total gang of 7.they have taken a huge chunk of Kashmir under them, and we’ve not taken it forcefully because we seem to be the only ones who listen to what UN says.with all the wars in the past, and than the dirty terror tactics that keep turning up everytime India initiates peace talks, really does make it easy for us to take any milder perspective on the situation. The thing is this, we are not out siders,we live as their neighbours. It does give you every first hand information which is never on international media, the millions of fake rupees that are inserted in to our economy each year by them, the fisher men captured from the shared ocean borders and kept in inhuman conditions in their cells, not to mention their almost blatant support to terror groups which constantly keep harassing us is not something that will induce any sort of liking for them. As it is out cities that are plunged in to upheavals, it is our solders that die in gun battles each month. Those are Indian kashmiri girls who are threatened on way to their schools to leave studying or they’d be killed, rape, murder and plunder, it is all happening to our people. It is not just some brief line in some news.

I have all sympathy with the Pakistani people, actually. India helped Pak, in the recent flood situation, and it keeps trying to solve things out, though their cosy ing up with china is ominous-i do not care for the amount of nuclear power there between the two, who didn’t notice the Pak nuk scientist’s letter to his wife in Sweden in news today?

They are banning Indian films there, saying it steals all of their profit and makes people neglect watching their own movies. I have sympathy for that, i understand that they have a rather valid reason and it can’t be held against them,though they could have asked for some sort of a fee and prevented the drastic measures . as the people of pak protest saying the only  other outside entertainment is eating out, why they should be prevented from watching good movies, (their words not mine) as the pak film industry doesn’t sprout up a good enough movie in anything less than 10 years.

The point is, we are not against everything that is Pakistan, we are against all that is Against India, that wishes it harm, and no , it is not possible to take an outsider’s view on the political situation, as long as greed is there, there will be conflict. Some might hold the impersonal opinion that if India gave up Kashmir,everything will be solved, no, it won’t be, it will just make us look weak,and they’d keep wanting more, after all,India doesn’t have to behave like the most nicest boy in the school, doing just right and not making any one sad. Well, they always said- in each war- that they’d reach Delhi by the next day..hello.. yeah,like  we’d let you.

But, personally, i hate wars.

So, can’t they just stop turning beautiful Kashmir in hell, and make it an amazing tourist destination and split the earnings! Yey!

Err... sorry,..... just that, i shouldn’t get started on politics, i have a big opinion about everything.

I hope you enjoyed the different tones of this post. Now back to worrying about those exams!

Good night people : ) a bat is shrieking out side.good luck to every one, including me.

Drunkenness and headaches.

Here are black words, sprouting from God knows where on this silly white fake page.. err,, or can it be called real in  some awesomely horrid way of thinking?

I probably don’t agree with myself here.

Hello! People! Hullo!

There, there.

I am drunk.

Drunk with happiness.

Yeah

You can be drunk,

Even without having consumed a drop of alcohol.

It is easy really,

What is drunkenness any way?

An oblivious and utterly happy state of mind and disposition,

Which keeps you in paroxysms of bouts of laughter and joy.

I have to say, that my brother is the best travel buddy,

If he ever went on dates, the poor girl with him would probably fall in love at the first go. :P

Or it is just me who makes him as crazy as me.

So let’s make it a bit clear,

It is , as i said, easy to be in a state which can be called drunk,

Though not necessarily with alcohol.

We all become drunk after a wonderful Sunday lunch,

You just have to look in on us, you will be assured of it.

 This  time it was a light dinner, some disgusting coke, and a yummy and last scoop of ice cream , vanilla+strawberry , shared between 5 – and mostly between two, two on their best drunk behaviour.  Licking the spoons and ogling cops that looked with wonder at us two. it would be more like acting akin to some 10 year olds who got hold of a full ice cream van. jostling each other a little, with steps that fell out of line, ice cream was never more satisfying. It is a great thing that it was the last cup, added some beauty to it.

(i don’t know what is there to be liked in a coke! )

Oh , did i mention? The light dinner had followed a wonderful water and laser light show at the gandhinagar Aksherdham temeple.

Gosh,i am overcome a by a sudden need to drop dead,

Or erm that is to say,

To go to sleep.

I seem to be passing out!

Alright, i have no clue what came over me,i know i was pretty  much tired,and very very very happy.

So does happiness exhaust one? So much so  that I couldn’t even control  my self. I don’t remember being so tired that i fall asleep so fast,and slept like a log the whole night, getting up at 8:30 am!

This doesn’t happen even when i am climbing in the Himalayas!

Enough said!

Any how, question, why do Americans always say “may God bless America?” and don’t include the whole of the world?

Anyhow, so the stories i wish to tell start from the day before yesterday.

I was working –or meaning to work hard, on last Saturday, and then around 4 just HAD to take a nap, i had a dream, a rather fantastic dream, which included parts of the natural treasures of India,Africa, northern Europe and Australia, (don’t the biologists WISH! )

I was around 14, my brother was a small mite and my favourite cousin brother was with me,i was lecturing them on the beauties of nature , flora and fauna, of our surrounding region as i always do when ever i can get my hands on those two, ( they are  scared of my that form at times yes) –considering that it was totally new area for me, no reliable information can be found on the reliability of my knowledge and account at the time, poor dears. (see, we were in the Australian hills. If there is  such a place, dry, taller trees than the ones found in Gir area, and deciduous )-so in short we were talking- me talking they obediently listening- and this sort of whistling + drumming noice started. Some type of warning signal, i looked and there emerged a feeling in my heart alike the one that a scientist must feel while observing something pretty horrendous but new. There, on the slop of the hill next to us, came a moose at a run, pursued by some bloodthirsty, football fanatic kangaroos, there also was a graphic scene of the moose falling down, it’s eyes bulging almost out of their sockets, and the kangaroos, performing their score kicks on it’s long neck, than it jumped back on it’s feet and continued running through the parched wood, they were followed by more bloodthirsty hyenas, the stripped Indian ones, teeth clinking, salivating and furious ,both at the moose and the kangaroo, and this whole procession, interestingly, was followed by a bunch of Australian aboriginals, with long spears in their hands, and an oddly African attire and makeup – the war make up of course. they even looked like the bushmen, but a LOT bigger. This whole crowd was dotted here and there by Aussi forest guards, trying to disperse them, or fight them off. The kids with me were scared, i told them that, it was just a show, a part of the resort’s amusement based on their forest culture (?),the resort, btw, was on top of the hill, on which we were holding our meeting. Seeing the aboriginals procceed to kill some of the forest guards and the running animals (as they all seemed to be running from them, as well as trying to kill each other at the same time), my opinion changed drastically, and than it dawned on me that the aboriginals has rebelled, they wanted their land back, it was their time again, and they’d probably want to roast and eat each and every none-aboriginal bum on the land.

 I bravely cried, “ run children, RUN” and i made sure they did by dragging them along by hands, we needed to reach the main hall, (why not our room? ) and meet the others there, as it was barricaded, but the time was short, i could almost feel those cannibal, African Australian aboriginals in their war attire at my back, we ran and ran,.... than my brother came to wake me up, i had told him to not to let me sleep more than an hour!

Well, i’d have liked to see the end of that particular dream. So interesting was it.

So, there goes the hope of dreaming up grand elevations for my apartment project. When i was supposed to be working on that, i was busy dreaming of 3 different continents  and was being invaded by all the savagery at leisure.

The next day saw me in ahmedabad. Happy, chatty and in high spirits, i am usually in high spirits, or i am blazing angry :P take your pick. May be that is what has made me this tired again today.

I almost dropped dead right now.

It is becoming a challenge, i have almost been an online “no where to be seen” too ,from the last two days.

Well, foot ware, a passion, an obsession, a compulsion, err, nooo,, not necessarily, not unless they were something utterly unique, & i found something utterly unique, it is something that i have had a photo of as a desktop picture for almost a year or a two. It is a white satin, tie up shoes. I tried, honestly did

Can’t any more, i have to go to sleep, more will have to wait till tomorrow, good night

As   i was saying last night, i honestly did try not buying them, those wonderful, white satin tie ups, will a 1 and a half inch heel. Not bad! I said i wasn’t interested, when the shopkeeper said that the only remaining pair was my size, i looked here and there, and said no i had enough shoes for the time being, and no more should i keep. I walked out, out of the store and out of that particular street, resolute that it will not be bought. Than mom asked me why i looked so downcast, and i said it was the design that i had been searching for from ages. That one beautiful dream pair- almost- but simply couldn’t buy them, how many shoes does a person need? 

All she did was to walk back all the way and get it, wrapped in a news paper as i am particular about not ever taking a plastic bag.

Don’t I love her! 

I wish monsoon rains will now be over, and that winter will start, not that rains are not lovely, but you know, we’ve had them , and now we again want out sun, and with all the water and mud gone, i can wear all the new shoes that i have and am not able to wear, i am still wearing some absolutely old, tattered pair, because of the spoiling effect the monsoons have on footwear. 

We were to meet my mother’s two girlfriends there, we all came back home in her car,it was a fun time at home, we all inspected our small garden, made some yummy snacks and induced dad to eat in the afternoon, went to inspect my door at the temple, and so on, finishing with the customary photoshoot. a shoot that included some bulls and flowers as well as us.

Than the water and laser show comes in to the picture, I and brother sat in the front row, pretty much near the place where it all went on, and slowly, almost magically, the mists were let out, and similarly, a green jet of laser light was shot through, making the mists become wavy plains, everything became almost 3 dimensional,  and after that, the show was awe inspiring, all the colours of the rainbow could be found , the shimmering plains, floating high above your head, and you wonder, what would happen if i could just touch it? How would it feel? While you know that it is jus water particles pierced through with light, photons and H2O is all there is, you fully expect something more than just dampness. You expect there to be a woolly fuzzy feel, something solid, like a loving granny’s hair.  You also expect magic, you expect that- if you could some how get your hand in that wave of shimmer, you will probably be able to retrieve some pixie dust. I understand that i probably won’t be able to describe how beautiful the show was, (well there was a story interwoven , of nachiketa, well you can not help it, it was made by a temple after all- if it were in science city, than it would be another matter)not that i mind the story, that particular story is very true. As far as philosophy goes, i like it. What i didn’t like much was the brainwashing they do in the end, for their Swaminarayan cult, but any how, they are hosting it so.

There were bolts of fire and jets of water, and an almost full moon, and from where we were perched, we could almost assume that the glorious, colourful and shimmering water jet , with all it’s intricate designs, would hit the moon from below and sent it shooting through the stars, and i and brother would gasp when ever it hit the moon. The fountains, were almost like the dancing fountains show at the science city (almost as awe inspiring – i love it) but they had the lasers to accentuate their beauty, actually, here, the fountains weren’t that brilliantly made, but it was all about the mystic environ created by the water mist and the laser and light that profuse it with tints and shines, with colours so brilliant and vivid, that you almost feel  spellbound.

So, as the lasers and fountains danced, shrouded by the mist, i could almost fancy that i was on the north pole, witnessing some brilliant plays by the aurora, or that i was some where far out in space, seeing a black hole suck up all the light, or seeing a start, a galaxy being made. You could imagine any of those ,& you will feel that you were just there,  you only have to cut out all the people ..

Than came dinner, it is a nice place to dine, but it goes on for only about 45 minutes and than they close down, the whole campus seems deserted, the departure of people is so fast,every table was full, when i and brother went to get the ice cream, and when we returned (after having the outlet doors being shut on our backs) the whole place was occupied by us and one another family. So, than we walked out, on the main walk, lighted by dim lights low on the side pavement, behind us the huge temple stood, it’s big spot lights which render it wholly golden now shut, in the shroud of night, only gleaming a bit in the moonlight, we, two utterly happy children of our parents and the earth, went about without breaking in to a song, because we were licking ice cream off our spoons, the three friends walked ahead, a bit more sane than us i suppose, and we proceeded to give ice creamy smiles to all the security guards as we passed out of the great doors.

Those three, were going to be driven about in the big car by the chauffeur, and of course, we didn’t care for that, not when we had the scooter! Yey!

I said i’ll be taking the most deserted road , the one that wound out of the town and circled it, with the big nature park sprawling on it’s side, a beautiful road, more so on a night like that. Well, you can not compare anything with on scooter chats under a full moon, while the car chose to go a bit ahead of behind us,  the road, though perfectly safe, is rather lonely. Well, it only gave us a sense of having a sort of a royal body guard he he..

So,, thus a beautiful night ended.  I am angry with my brother at the moment, but he is still most wonderful and lovely to talk with on a scooter.

·         I would also like to add, that , my birthday gifts are still trickling in slowly, a book by my cousin, “johny gone down” a very interesting book that i haven’t read much yet.  A wand, from Warner bros, Harry’s wand that is- i Love it- from a friend, and a beautiful, beauuuutiiifull pearl bracelet from my friend. I adore it. I love pearls  and stones. 

    and yes, how can i forget to mention, my beautiful, lovable, and sleek laptop? it's cherry red and it's awesome, though, not a strict necessity,  but i've had enough bouts of guilt about it. my professors just HAD to see the stuff on my laptop, requirements are sometimes quite futile,

any way. i adore it.

 

I guess i shall finish this now.