to new beginnings ..

The winter morning sun, apart from warming the chill in the bones, is good for one more thing - 

It makes everything so bokeh-licious !

Wish you a Happy New Year !
May you shine forth. Always.

its time..

A new morning, 

.. or a new year. 

Its time to shake off the dew from your wings; and fly off to something new.

buenos dias

Some beginnings are worth waiting for; worth waiting through a long, dark night ...

more keede

.. of the non-kitaabi kinds.

neighbors

The good old beings I share the garden with ..

softly,

and slowly, because while there still remain many mysteries to unravel; the secret is to linger awhile, to experience the soft touch, inhale the light fragrance, and truly savor each moment before moving on to the next.

Just sometimes, the tortoise does win the race.

i was here

What today's route lacked in butterflies; it made up with dragonflies.

augmented reality

What I actually come across on my morning walk:

What I make believe I am seeing:

Wish I could do the same non-linear transformation on my resume too :D

The walk does have its moments though. 

Like the feel of the morning dew on your bare feet.

Like the air laden with the smell of wild shrubs. You don't get it in manicured gardens, and I don't know any other way to describe it.

Like the moment when you realise the gardener in a public park has seen it fit to raise papaya trees in a bed of roses.

:)

migration

So it's time for a change of seasons, and it's time for you to fly back to where you started from.

Back from a place you loved, to a place where you are loved.

But the memories will call, and soon you'll be back - for another season.

Bon voyage, mon ami.
For this journey and for the many more to come.

from the archives

Memories- its what they do. fade away...

Then again, why do they still keep tugging at the strings ?

It's a little trickier to bask in thoughts of things that were; than to miss them for the fact that they aren't ..

a repeat

Because out of every three readers of this blog, one is not on my facebook. (Those are numbers, not ratios :D but there's a nice saying about lies and statistics)

Because this is cross-processing and sepia time and general old memories time; even though the pic itself is just a week old.

Because its raining again.

i love

Is it just me, or can you also see the sky-heart in the pic ?

The first thing you notice as you ride out past the township wall is that suddenly there are very few people about; even among those that go by, hardly anyone is on a motor- vehicle. What you see instead, are butterflies: small, quick, bright yellow ones, large slower orange ones, orange ones with white stripes, orange ones with black spots, black ones with white spots, mousy-grey which seem most ordinary till the sun reflects off their wings...  If you go slow they tease you, flitting about your handlebars, promising to land if you just held out your palm...
That's probably all the movement you get to see. Absolute peace and silence reigns.

You are immersed in a whole cacophony of green; a long time of admiring well-laid out gardens and orderly conifers in temperate woods had quite blurred my memory of how wildly diverse the sights and scents of a monsoon fed forest could be! There's the bright green of paddy fields in which rice has been just transplanted, the dark green of the Sal, and all the in-betweens contributed  by a hundred other species of tree and shrub and bush and creeper.

By the way, did I say silence ? I mis-represent facts.

The crickets are still chirping at noon, each contributing its own note to the general rhythm. A couple of birds call out to each other, you can hear the knock-knock-knock in the distance of what might be a woodpecker or a wood-cutter. The silvery tinkle of a bell tips you off about a herd goats passing by somewhere in the undergrowth, a deeper tong-tong-tong gives off the position of the herd of cows. From further off, the breeze carries the gurgle of the swollen stream, jumping off the rocks, exuberant with its monsoon bounty.

The Indian jungle has a music of its own.

center of attraction

Yes, what you see there is dew.

Not rain.

It feels like a year since we have seen a good sunny day around here.. Days upon days of blinding curtain rain and steady-as-Dravid rain and looking as if it is certainly going to rain and a faint misty rain and - you get the drift. You name the type of rain and we have had it, and have had it again for a second, third and fourth helping. In a country which is reeling under drought, I bet there are a lot of exasperated people out there saying "Its not fair! Why, of all places, only in that little industrial town in the middle of nowhere ?"

I certainly echo the same sentiment.

So it feels really nice when little Johnny can go out and play, even if its for only one little morning.

on the japanese bridge

Do you know why the path was left untrodden ?

Well, so do I.

look - Arundhati !

This is in reference to a scene from Devdutt Pattnaik's book - "The Pregnant King"

A big part of the book was about the king trying to conceive a heir; and there were comparisons about "ownership" of women in a marriage which would frankly be outrageous in today's context. However, looking beyond these, the dialogues on "duty"- to everyone around - parents, ancestors, subjects, children, could set one thinking, as also the sections on the difference between right and wrong, given the context. How easy it is to imagine that there could be absolute rights and wrongs - that it would be easy to take decisions in life that could be viewed as either black or white, and not "depends" !

This scene was from the earlier pages of the book - when the difficult decisions had not come into picture yet. There were no promises to pluck the stars either, just the heady phase of strutting off, of exploration, of getting to know.

One way to look at it is Charlie's way: the fewer promises you make, the fewer you would need to break.

too good, too bad

Watched Devdutt Pattanaik's TED talk on youtube. 

Though I do not agree with all his views on how "systems" are anathema to the Indian psyche, I quite liked one quote on impermanence.

(wrt the eternal cycle) :  According to Hindu belief, nothing is permanent. Not even death.

Which does make a case for making life a little more care-free, and not really keep checking for the end.

All I can say that it was good while it lasted.

team building conversation

As usual, the boss was late. Held up by a meeting definitely more important than the project party. 

"Aha ha ! Lovely ! So what do we have here ? Starters ? Capital, capital! What else ?"

"We've had starters, sir; we have drinks coming up. Also, there's pool and table tennis in the room over there. Also, sir, the dance floor opens up in 20 mins!"

"But what are we doing as a team ?" The question was plaintive, almost urgent.

"Oh, we all played volleyball, sir."

"Excellent !"

I've never felt a simple game turn distasteful quite so quickly.

another, memory.

It turns out that some of them understood  a certain four letter word much better than I ever did.

somwhere in Wales

What would you call it,

Unspoilt, hauntingly beautiful ? (original here)

Or, cold and lonely?

It definitely feels to be missing something .. even after I added some lilies to make it more cheerful ..

8"x6" on Canvas. Quite enjoyed experimenting on the new surface, also had fun adding some oil to it . The only problem is it takes forever to dry !

who would've thought of it ?

From the BBC Sport page:

"They said he was finished, they said he was washed up, they said he was old, they said he was past it. Turns out they knew nothing about Federer at all."


what a day :)

 Btw, with the coming of the roof, is it the end of the "open" era ?

when its too little and too late,

What is it so good for ?
Absolutely, nothing.

8"x8"

again ?

I have not been much the one for poems, but here is one I came across recently

http://ideasmithy.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/love-has-left-the-building/

have feet

somehow .. the dancing doesn't seem to come quite so easy any more ..

OPs

The operating word for the past few days has been, trees.

Ridiculously difficult I should say, in spite of all those made-easy tutorials.

Or maybe, that's just newbie-talk.

I drew one that was afflicted with obesity.

its that time of the year again.

The season of mango chutneys.

And mango with puffed rice, and mango with rice. 

And raw mangos with salt and chillies, and ripe mangos with nothing else to distract you from the taste.

And mango shakes. Not as sexy as the aam-sutra variety, but definitely much tastier.

Maybe because they are just shaken, and do not leave you stirred ?

Its the time of the year to remember noontime games played in shade of mango groves. 

pencils. and crayons. only.

sunday

.. was spent looking at a piece of European design in the heart of Bangalore. And trying to capture it on paper.

Sleeping in on a Sunday is always nice, but being up and about to discover these tucked away treasures during the most traffic-less time of the week, is even nicer.

Glad to be staying with people who push you to do the latter rather than the former.

you grow on me ..

.. softly.

Like a dewy blade.
From a velvet field.

Like whispered notes.
On the morning breeze.

This week was spent re-discovering Manoj Das. Doesn't take too long to turn you into an addict !

alone..

.. but not lonely.

Not when there are all those memories to keep company.

And when memory fails, you can take a nudge from a store locked up conveniently in your smartphone: Tiny bits of life preserved and time-lined in the zeitgeist of snapshots.

That's what this is all about, too. Being a Pensieve.

But really, at this place, you need none of that. It's just too easy to be aware of His presence, all around you.

This place = any of the hundreds of NJ campgrounds by a lake. In early spring, featuring more birds and less people.

sunsets

The negative about them, is that they last for such a small period of time ..

The plus though, is that they come everyday..

Whats the last time you went to office and saw a sunset on the same day ?

Summer +1, Winter 0

the road not taken

Of all the beautiful paths in this world, there is none so alluring as the one that smugly declares - that *you* are not welcome. No grass so green as the one that you are not allowed to tread upon..

I thought I wanted this change. For so long. Now, when its forced on me - why doesn't it seem quite so sweet ?

Middle age comes quite early in life :). If you don't know what I mean, you haven't read the unrest cure by Saki, and much the poorer for it ! ;)

Also the question remains - what happens once you decide to skip past the stop sign ? Is the path so green any more ?

them Amish

In which other country would you find a town named Intercourse ?

the soul wants

Standing on the top of that wall, what would you want ?

To take wings .. and soar like a bird ?

To dive in .. and swim like a fish ?

Ah, me, all I want - is to spread out the lazy chair and be a beach bum.

one in hand ..

.. is definitely better for photographing than two hiding in a bush.

No, this one was not pulled out of a hat.

But, its still a little bit like magic.

The bigger picture

.. compared to the one on facebook, that is.

This is rural America, Amish country.

While you do see the horse drawn buggies and wide rolling fields, that charm you into thinking you are in another era, you are never far away from a reminder that you are still dangerously close to reality.

Over-impatient cars on one lane roads, for example. Who have no room to pass, and have no intention of gazing on the golden light glazing the frost tipped grass ..

Still, when civilisation is that what brings in amenities like the Rainbow dinner theater, you are inclined to forgive it for a while. Not because of the farce of a play; but because of the divine lunch they serve and call dinner. Absolutely best American fare I have ever had in my life. Crunchy red beets and green and golden beans, with just the right amount of butter. And mashed potatoes smooth as silk, with the most gorgeous gravy ever. Turkey with delicious cranberry sauce and stuffing, and breaded tilapia baked to perfection, with I assume magic ingredients. Don't even get me started on the pecan pie !
And nothing was killed with a smothering of cheese, either.
After that, you could be excused for sleeping through a broadway production.

Oh, and not to forget, civilisation is sometimes also adorable - when it grows older ! Sample this old mill: