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Goodbye!
It has been a revelatory ten years and to be honest, this is the space that draws out the most creative and honest energy out of me. I mean it. I feel it this very moment as I type these words out. Because it is here on Livejournal that I learned to write - for myself and for others. But mostly, for myself. And I realized that if/when I wrote for ( Read more... ) -
Change creeps in... no, glides in, graceful and strong
You know that feeling when an old lesson suddenly makes complete sense? Back in the day, you heard/read it and nodded because you had to. There was no 'A-Ha!' moment, so it all felt boring. And then one random day, it made sense. Don't you love those happenings? These are no serendipitous occurrences; they fit perfectly into life and experience and ( Read more... ) -
Oh Lord, My Best Friend
Mahabharata is a tale I have read a million times. On my last reading, I wondered briefly what it meant to be a friend to Lord Krishna. Can an enlightened person have friends? What does friendship mean to one who is dispassionate, soaked in Vairaagya? I couldn't figure it out. I stowed the question away as one to be asked to Gurudev. But I also ( Read more... ) -
It's all about your Teacher
Yes, the one who patiently held your little fingers and taught you to write the alphabet. Who shaped your 'A' and 'P,' showed you how 'p' and 'q' were distinct from each other. The one who taught you to read time by waving her arm in the air, clockwise. The one who introduced you to the joy of Algebra. Then the one who taught you Sanskrit. The one ( Read more... ) -
Another Christmas rolls by
Did I ever mention (I must have) that I landed at the shores of this country (at the airport, obviously) exactly nine years ago? As with any other Christmas Day, it was a gloomy day, the roads deserted of people and traffic, my mind bereft of all positive emotion. We drove home in silence. The home was cold, small and bare. No furniture or very ( Read more... ) -
No More Guilt
How annoying is the guilt that follows a leisurely afternoon movie. "How can you sit back and watch a movie in the afternoon when the rest of the world is working hard, hunched over their laptops and devices, downing cup after cup of coffee (or can after can of Diet Coke)?" So bugging when you mentally begin to justify the hour or so that you ( Read more... ) -
A Poem for You
Sometime in the late 90s, I got myself added to a daily mailing list run by a trio that loved poetry. Every day, they sent out a poem to their thousands of subscribers (hundreds, maybe) with a little personal note, a critique, some notes. The Wondering Minstrels mailing list is long dead but the poems have been archived at The Wondering Minstrels. ( Read more... ) -
Passion for Fashion, A Sense for Style!
Growing up in Bombay, I was what you could call "hip." I wore trendy clothes, combined traditional prints with artsy jewelry, wore kurtas and kurtis with jeans, had the whole 'cool-traditional-modern-hip' vibe down pat. After I moved to the United States, I was at a complete loss. Somehow, my usual style of combining Indian fabrics and prints with ( Read more... ) -
Days of Sunshine Flying By...
We are so lucky in this city that we get to experience the golden-sun, blue-skied brilliance of winters. It is a magical time of the year and an integral part of it is the holiday season. It feels like a few precious days before the clock strikes twelve on the night of December 31. January 1 is a very quiet day, mostly. People are sleeping in, the ( Read more... ) -
My feet are cold...
As determined as I am to not transform my journal (doesn't that sound a lot fancier than 'blog?') into a 'this-is-what-I-had-for-breakfast' and 'here-is-how-my-weekend-turned-out' kind of a place, the subject line has the exact same feeling to it. But yes, my feet are cold. I am wearing socks, yes. I think I should wear knee-length socks ( Read more... )