Ladies

Ladies
representing different times and moods

Saturday, May 12, 2012

nature and I.

"there is no sorrow that a painted sky can not dispel" - I say. the eternal beauty of an orange,crimson or violet sky is something beyond human suffering, it shall always be there, and in that knowledge lies consolation and joy. it will take your heart in it's invisible palm and toss it,so high that it would almost touch the glory of a setting sun amidst heavy clouds,and that lucky heart will bring down with it such sparkles of instant laughter and awe and breathtaking pleasure- that you can not help but be merry.

after the gold ,orange fiery glory, came the wind, the fast,moving,haunting wind that brings with it the warnings of an impending storm.
there are so many types of winds, In a normal summer's day ,let's count.

In the early mornings,when one wakes up with the insistent robin's call ringing in one's ear, and a smile appears out of no where,as you take a deep breath, the early morning's gentle,cool air fills your lungs to the brim- giving life and hope for a new day. (I haven't been smiling so much as I awake lately, I am rectifying that from this moment,as it is not good)

wake up before 7 for these pleasures.

than between 8 to 9 , you can be sure to encounter the little,frolicsome, colourful wafts of winds , like young maidens in long chiffons,that are alternately cool and a little hot, they play with your hair with so much vigour that  you are angry at them at times but never for too long.

10 sees you trying to keep out of the sun as much as possible, but the wind hasn't become molten lava yet, it will continue on to be a pleasant warm breeze till 2, so if you are in the shade, you can make friends with them- they have enough energy in them to keep you cool enough in the shade.

after 2 pm though, the picture changes, the air has taken a fancy to the sun, their allegiance has changed, you are no longer friends, and the summer's famous "fire wind" starts. it blows at high speed, sweeping up dry,defeated leaves and dirt,round and round it goes, it tries to pierce your skin, if you are unlucky enough to be out in the sun at the time, they fairly burn you- makes it raw and sun burnt, these are the mighty summer winds of the great plains of India. beware O' traveller, you have been warned!

these daemonic winds will only be a little calmer and cooler after 6, when their faithful companion , the sun, is compelled to leave them, they go to rest,slowly, resisting, but they have to give way  again, to the almost pleasant night air, which will grow more pleasanter as the hours grow late.

people have written a lot of our summers and our sun, but never of winds, how can they ignore the winds? a summer is nothing spectacular,if it doesn't have it's winds.

what ever was left of my mood of utter misery was swept away in the storm that followed the spectacular light and cloud formations. No sorrow can hold it's sway against a torrent of fresh rain. sunsets, sunrises, storms and other natural beauties hold the secrets to the simple kind of happiness, which we all strive but do not always remember how to get. they teach the heart to become patient again, to calm down and stop worrying, they do make us understand that we can not hope to understand everything, and to still be alright with it.

Before I left for my walk this evening, I was feeling like a weary old soul, treading on broken feet and with bent back -that had had the worst day of their life- young people feel very old and very wise- that just shows how young they are -so says the author of Anne of green Gables Ms.Montgomery. she is right.

as I exited the gate, I looked up at the trees and the the sky,and in an instant, the world was fairer and I was young again, the spring in my step returned, and I became confident that the pain can not last forever, not when the world was so beautiful. dad was looking at me from the window, and he had to ask , "who are you smiling at so besottedly ?"- "the sky dad, at the sky."  I felt as if the whole display was arranged for me,and why not- it was because nature wants me to be happy. Nature gives to all that want to benefit.






the more I walked , the more lighter became my heart.I walked faster, I was a butterfly just out of it's cocoon and ready to fly.I went to my aunt,dragged her out and showed her the sky,and we went for a walk farther, to talk and and to discover. we set under a fully bloomed golden shower tree, watched the twilight come , and the clouds form, and the lone star that peeked from the side of a fat, round,black and white cloud was smiling at us,twinkling. we made a wish on the evening's first,cheerful star.





phones are good for taking pictures on the go,but it does drag you out of your little worlds of pleasure.it happened to us, and we walked back - And while I was going alone, big,fat drops of water started to fall through the charged air. I made a dash for it,cutting through a shortcut in the dark, under four huge mango trees, not because I minded getting wet, just because of the fun of it. those trees , dark ,unfathomable silhouettes smiled down at me through their mighty branches and leaves, and I felt a new kind affinity with them. they now know that I have grown, In a way, for I now know a new kind of pain, and they always support when there is need for it. I laughed at them, waving them goodbye,they are old,wise and good friends. (yeahh.....sometimes people catch me making obscure gestures in the air- but I usually escape without being noticed)

I ran and ran,Just because I wanted to,and not because I had to, and reached home with bursting lungs, and than,it rained in earnest.

I wish the next morning is beautiful,of course it will be,in it's own way. I wish that everyone can see the beauties of life and delight in them, I wish that everyone will keep dreaming and hoping and believing, no matter how disillusioned they feel or how cruel life's odd phases may be, and I wish the same for me, for I will always be me.

p.s. a formal introduction to the two little calves who visited me few days back.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

The golden shower trees have collaborated with the scorching sun and are giving scrawny, spidery shades after having shade all their foliage, that too, when their cooling shade is most missed. SO, folks, our Spring, fall and summer- is here.

Soon the trees will be covered with huge oblong chandeliers formed of dazzling yellow flowers, and the road will turn in to my “golden walk”-that’s what I call the road at that time of the year.it seems as if it was raining gold. the air would be rife with their pleasant, subtle perfume, bees and insects will contribute in the ever growing waves of the music created by the wind swaying in the boughs, it will become one of those magical pathways.
What do you see when you wake up early in the morning on the terrace? That the leaves are taking individual shake dance lessons, have you seen the ways trees prime themselves to face the new day? Each leaf shakes , you know, how you wave your hand, just that way but downwards, is it just the wind being naughty  ? or are they performing some sacred ritual? I asked the birds but they just went on chirping without bothering to translate.
Sugar-cane Juice! Ah, that sweet glass full of potential sugar. I do love it from time to time. Though , with the arrival of spring, also comes the 9 days of drinking one of the bitterest juices in this world, the neem juice. When the neem tree (Azadirachta indica) is flowering , people take down a few twigs with blossoms and make juice out of those, it is amazingly , numbingly bitter. So , most of the younger generation refuses to be coaxed in to drinking it,while it IS wonderfully good for a body.
Happy to report that Vidur is also as determined as Me to finish his 9 morning long bitter drink challenge. It really isn’t too bad, after you get over the first shock.
Whatever remains, including the crush, we sprinkle it in the garden ,it works as a fertilizer and keeps any kind of infection away from the trees too.
Spring also brings with it the magical fragrance of the queen of night (Cestrum nocturnum),Raat Ki rani in Hindi.It has this enchanting,unearthly perfume-When the night air is full of it's perfume,I feel like I am not stationary at all,may be it is my spirit that is floating on it. It is a smell that can transport you any where over the fabric of time,it makes me very creative,but also a unshakable lethargy steals over me at the very same time,so I can not exactly work on any thing.may be that is why it has been connected with love in our ancient texts.



There is a coppery spider who lives under a leaf in my garden, she is there, every morning and throughout the day – I just feel that it is a she and not a he, and we’ve made friends,but she is still a little camera shy, but we’ll get around to it i am sure. Of course, i am not betraying her trust and telling you all her home address, because, there are any number of leaves in the garden, you can go on and search each one of them.

Then there is the petite little she dog - she is always walking about on our little partition wall,watching me at work, drinking from the little water pot and sniffing around, she has such beautiful eyes-doe like, really.she is a beauty.the poor thing is so thin,but she seems to not want to eat all that much, even if you give her more,and she would eat so daintily,she puts me to shame sometimes with her infinitely tiny bites,I never take big bites but sometimes I can't take tiny ones, so now I call her miss World.she is a dear really,she never enters from the kitchen door if it is left open,a real lady, she would want to come to you and snuggle if you are sitting somewhere near the floor, and she loves to climb in to someone's lap.though, she is a stray. a rather bleached blond colour she has, I remember how she happened to come to this area, a wee puppy of a week,stumbling ,bereft and motherless, we all helped together and she grew, and than went away for about a year.
she is a free dog.
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so It has been a while since I was last trying to write. lots of inner turmoil and lots of real,tangible work prevented any more tries, though, the Little write in me is Always noting up small things in the back of my mind ,which ,it hopes,it will be able to retrieve when I can get around to writing again.
Last night I did a sketch,and I call it "the little mermaid's dream-too colourful to be true"

well,sometimes it is true.

"Talents are given for a reason. Don't ever feel discouraged." - so Says Hugh Jackman, and I am sure,he knows. reading that line somewhere made me want to write again today.

soo....how have the little bookworms been?


again,I Have been doing lots of NEW things.
life will never run out of new things to do,feel and learn, when it does,well,it means that you are dead. someone once cautioned me,at my expecting new and amazing things to happen all the time, with the best intentions of course- so that I might not be hurt or disappointed or sad when they failed to happen. But I mean to make them happen, I mean to keep living. I also mean to keep an open heart, as I have said before, an open heart is the most powerful one too. 

great things stop happening exactly when you stop expecting them to happen.


well, my new happenings are small,but delightful.

1) got a "rat rani" sherbet - (Cestrum nocturnum).so now I can taste it as well as smell it.

2) gave the ILETS exam- and received 8 bands, and got a lift on a bike from a fellow student from Ahmedabad to Gandhinagar- that was a first too.

3) worked in a show for the first time :D which was huge fun.so meeting lots of new people and understanding how the whole process works was interesting,before this it had been news interviews and interview by a documentary maker- a lot different with one hand held camera, this involved a lot more effort than just being honest and natural with my expressions and talk.
got to eat some new dishes, Including cheese fondue, oh THE cheese fondue, I am taking my loved ones to that restaurant with the money I won through the show _won something on TV for the first time too!

links to the show - 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxy1aL7Xl74&feature=share%27%2C%29
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDpsMqzWwrE&feature=share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJmoqsl_o6o&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4CSciRVIKs&feature=share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=896p4HbG6bo&feature=share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZV1Hra8lZk&feature=share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnHPI_4uNYM&feature=share


4) saw a cow giving birth for the first time.

5) attended open air ,classical music concerts for a week (jan)which were amazing, Including the fusion one. got myself some autographs from lots of great artists.

6)sold two more pictures.

7) working on my first thesis :P ...first time for sure-but designing  a natural history museum in all local stone masonry is something that I am loving.

8) reading Oscar Wilde for the first time and liking it.

9) found out that I totally connect to the "Anne of Green gables" books, it is a good feeling.

10) saw a real ,original Van Gogh painting by my very eyes! without having to go to Europe :D  this should come under "visited the Baroda Museum for the first time" but just can't :D I also saw a real - mummy for the first time.

- I wanted to stay the night in the museum and just wander and wander and wander.
it has such a delightful collection of art,artefacts, jewellery,cloths,lifestyle things,stones and shells,architectural interiors, bones,skeletons and animals,it has EVERYTHING.

11) I believe I will find my self studying botany again, after leaving it after high school,at first year college level, and will have to learn Forestry (I believe I shall like it too)- my forest ranger uncle (he is most interested in this) informs me that, considering my inclinations, these two are the ones that I should take up as my subjects for my examination - well- here is one leap in the dark,because ,I left conventional sciences 5 years back and took up designing, so.....it is like "why don't you give the "India forest services" exam, till you decide on your Masters in Architecture- which I am only going to do if I can get in to "sustainable planning". We are considering out options, so I filled the form for IFS yesterday.

I can't honestly say that I don't like the idea of work in the forests- I love it, but what than, of my own field? -supposing that I even pass it :P of course there is a HUGE competition and I don't exactly have high hopes - as the exam is scheduled in sometime in July, so is my final jury for thesis, I will have my hands full work on my architectural studies at the time.

12) I learned my first "Tarana" - mom and I are the first students to master it from the whole music class, as others are quaking in their boots just by looking at it's structure and are missing out on it's beauty, it is very simple really, we just let it's beauty sweep over us, and Voila` - there it was, on the tips of our tongues, all that we had to do after that was polish off some rough edges, still working on a few edges but it will be great.
I will have to record and put it up somehow, any ideas?
(a tarana is a song,sung in hidden words -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarana)
it doesn't mention it here, but it was invented because Aurangzeb - the great and the worst Mughal emperor didn't want any one singing prayers to Hindu Gods. of course,he was the enemy of all arts and culture- the radical extremist. so they invented the taranas, they,apparently, have no meaning at all, but if you know what each syllable is supposed to mean, than it is usually a prayer of lord Krishna)
13) I wrote a long letter that made me cry- hmmm.... not a first :P I am always so in touch with my words that all good books and good letters can do that to me, but the content was something new,so that kind of counts.

14)Met a friend from Korea.

15) the feeling of "oh I'll be over with my college soon" is building and is something very new.

16)saw my cousin jump off an aeroplane and do his first sky diving! that was when I was shouting and cheering on this side of the screen too. I want to do that.
17) had my first farewell party,and wore roses in my hair and a red sari.COUNTS.
18) saw this huge caterpillars in our garden, they were longer than my palm, and had a unicorn like horn- they were beautiful.
19) was boasted to about wealth by a wet eared youth (though he must be my age atleast),  who thought having expensive cars and advertising that fact was brilliant.

20)saw and touched a read Saint Bernard dog - that was exciting. my only question being, how did the poor creature feel in this horribly hot climate?

21) baked my own pizza base and pizza in the solar cooker.

ok ,enough of counting things, let's just see some little delightful things shall we?
a few pictures from the show shooting,and the restaurant that I chose.






and some other nice things.



 
the college corridor decorated by students.






and http://www.videofy.me/v/483850 something to make you smile.

don't you wish sometimes that we could talk to animals?

"What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected."
~Chief Seattle

over and out!