Beauty and the wrath - in the beautiful lands...

Have been reading reports of the floods in Uttarakhand over the past 15-20 days. I had been there last August and a week or two before I went there were flash floods. But I never imagined the magnitude of floods to be as it is now.

While I was there I had seen land slides, fallen bridges, the tar of the roads swept away by rains make the rides bumpy. Had experienced the perils of driving in the rainy weather on the winding narrow roads sitting next to the driver in a small bus. On one side was a mountainous “wall”, that could give way anytime and rain boulders, stones, pebbles and soil, and anything that the loosened earth from the rains had in it, which was just yielding to gravity. On the other side were the deep valleys, beautiful for an onlooker but if the vehicle lost control, hardly anything recognizable could be retrieved.

Can you spot the road there?!

Rubble from a land slide...

Life there is not easy like in the plains, everyday is an adventure if you think about it. The most beautiful picturesque river can wash everything in the way if the rains persist. I remember so distinctly sitting on the banks of river Ganga in Haridwar, just keeping my legs in the water sitting on the steps – that itself kind of scared me, because the current of the river was so strong and just the immersion of a few centimeters of myself was enough to make me feel like being carried away by the mighty river. I am talking of the calmer times of the river when the river was flowing well within the danger limits. Imagining the ferocity of the river during the floods is plain scary.

A bridge view of civilization on the banks... 

Some say the calamity is man-made, deforestation loosens the soil, the washed away soil increases the level of the water in rivers, the rivers gets ruthless almost to the extent of wiping out the very civilization it had created around the banks.

My sincere wish is to preserve the forests, rivers, valleys, lakes and mountains of Uttarakhand, it is the land of a lot of the most beautiful places on earth. 

Engulfing beauty - a blissful feeling!

I have had spiritual experiences just looking at the wonderful natural wonders here. May peace and green prevail.

Picturesque journeys, happy memories! 

Camera!

My room was getting painted and my dad told me that he found his old camera in my cupboard. The description did not ring a bell. When he described it, I said that was the one I played with as a child. Turns out that it is a German made camera which is not a toy - and I and my sister played with it as if it was one! The Agfa click 3 model was bought by my dad in the early 1970s it seems. I happen to own a cool old camera! :)

The black thread around it was tied by us when we were children!

Raincoat...

One of my favourite hindi movies is "Raincoat", inspired by a O'Henry story. I like the backdrop - Kolkata on a rainy day. The protagonists played by Aishwarya Rai and Ajay Devgan suit the characters and the pace of the story and the way the story unfolds with flash backs from the past every now and then is quite engaging. The tender affection that remains and the sparks of the old romance flickering often during a rainy afternoon that the protagonists spend with each other is subtle and moving. 
Watched it again today. Enjoyed.

Poochampalli sarees...

As a kid I was fond of one of my mothers silk sarees because of its patterns. As an adolescent I got to know that it was called the Poochampalli design.
Usually silk sarees have the patterns done in gold color threads but the silk sarees with the Poochampalli seem more vibrant and patterns are in several colors. Poochampalli designs are also available in cotton and other kinds of sarees.
I like the angular patterns and it is my favorite among all the other kinds of sarees.

My pencil sketch of a Poochampalli pattern:

One of my mother's Poochampalli sarees:

Father's day!

Happy father's day!
There are somethings in life only a dad can teach, by example. My dad enjoys work. I remember one incident from childhood vividly. It was a bundh and my dad could not go to work that day. He is not used to sit idle. He cleaned up the whole garage from morning till noon. Then refreshed, had lunch and spent the rest of the day with us. He doesn't believe in a free lunch! :)

The story of my silver rings...

I was in Chennai for a few months in late 2008. I had been to a jewelry store that had an entire store exclusive for silver jewelry. One, I like the silver colour more than gold and two, there was an astrologer who would help people choose their “lucky” stones, three – rings are my favorite jewelry. I have always had an inclination towards astrology, palmistry, tarot cards etc. The thought of knowing and predicting the future amuses me. So, there I was in the perfect place of culmination of my likings and surely, I bought two rings, one for each hand – a coral and a turquoise.  I was very pleased with myself.

There have been three instances where I thought I had lost the rings and found them. They do not fit my fingers exactly. The silver smith suggested I could get it altered for no extra cost, but I did not want that clear mark of a cut and weld job. I do not put threads around them to fit better. I somehow seem to believe now they always find me back! It makes me smile.

The very first time after buying those rings when I was traveling for a visit to Bangalore, by the time I reached home, I did not have the coral ring. I wasn’t sure when was the last time I had seen it. My mother insisted I should look in my hand bag, but I told her, it could have fallen anywhere and did not look. My mother was convinced it would be in handbag and looked for it, she actually found it!

The next time it was in Minneapolis. It was a snowy day and I was wearing my gloves. Along with the gloves I had removed the ring and put the gloves the side pocket of my bag pack. I had removed the ring with the gloves several times, so I checked the gloves when I realized my torquoise ring was missing.It wasn’t there, so I assumed I had lost the ring. Several days later when I was looking for something in the side pocket I found the ring!

Today I realized in the noon that I forgot my turquoise ring. I thought it would be at the usual place where I keep it before taking a shower. Back home, I did not find it there. Even without an iota of doubt I knew it was in my handbag. I was not even sure I had worn in the morning, but I was damn sure I will find it. Voila, and there it was! I am still smiling!

Small life..

I scribble my thoughts here and there, and now am doing some cleanup as I am about to step into a new change in life. I found this and felt like preserving it - "I feel I have a strong need to create a purpose, a task, a kind of commitment that takes my time, my energy and in turn gives me more energy and zest to live life. " And I had curiously titled it “small life”!

Hazelnut coffeeee…mmm

Was feeling drowsy in the morning. So just went to have coffee and after many days I had hazelnut cappuccino(and also coffee for that matter) and it brings back some fond memories! I like the hazelnut flavor the most!

Festive feeling

I used to have this strange inertia towards festivals. I used to like the buying new dresses, wearing them and feasting part of the festivals. But getting up really early, taking oil bath, sit through the long prayer session with my mother reading mantras from one book after another. And not having breakfast till the pooja is over - this again depended on when the Rahukaala(not auspicious time) fell on that day. There is something about doing the rituals that makes me slightly uneasy.

Today I celebrated the Gouri Ganesha festival here. I woke up early, that is for a Sunday! I could have brushed and had cereals. I chose to take bath, wore a chudidar and started making neivedya(some sweet as an offering to god). Made akki payasa(rice pudding), did pooja, just said a prayer, burnt incense sticks and played ganesh bhajans on my laptop. Offered some fruits and the payasa to god and had brunch feast - pulav, curry, payasa. The whole thing was just my way of celebrating a festival and I liked it, terms and conditions were bare minimum. Liked something about the whole thing and had a great feeling about the festival.

There is one thing about Ganesh Chaturthi that I remember from childhood. On the festival, one should not see the moon. The story goes that when Lord Ganesha was going on his vehicle-rat, the Moon laughed at the sight since he found it comical. Lord Ganesha became angry and cursed him that on Ganesha Chaturthi, if someone sees the moon, that person will get blamed for some kind of theft that he did not do. So one should not see the moon on Ganesh Chaturthi. Incase you do as a redemption you need to listen to this story, this is what is believed. In my neighbourhood, the story used to get read later in the evening so that all the “sinners” who watched the moon get to attend this session. It used to be really long. There was one mischievous boy in my locality. If by mistake he saw the moon, he would make sure every kid in the street saw the moon, so that he had company to hear the story! I used to warn myself, not to see him rather than the moon on Ganesh Chaturthi! Now when I look back it makes me smile.

Oooooops!!!

When you look back at some of the "blunders" you did, you probably end up laughing at them.We were doing our final semester project in IISc, Bangalore. We had to test our equipment ona vehicle and the prof under whom we were doing the project had a research person under him,who would help us by lending his car for a few times for our experiments. It so happened we needed a CRO for measurements and we took one, we used an UPS for the power supply. We took it all from Tumkur, and after getting into his car and getting our sensors set up, we realised we had not got the cable to connect the CRO to the UPS. Hell broke loose.The person probably thought we were just a bunch of careless youngsters fooling around at IISc and and gave us a sound blasting. When things got better, and we showed some good progress in the project,we became good friends is all together another matter. But that day me and my friends were shell shocked and thought that was the end of our project there. But as it turns out i have a good laugh whenever I remember it!

So why did I recollect all this today... I had made kesari bhath and had kept it to warm for a second serving. After serving myself, forgot to switch off the stove! I went out and came back after 20 mins to see it all black! Oh my god, how very careless of me, what if a fire had started, what if...Thank god for it.Right now I am somewhat shocked at my doing. You should have seen the container to understand. It was pitch dark inside. Hope I can laugh at it someday...

High school highs...1

I always wanted to be working when I grew up. I had made the assumption. Probably a teacher, but none the less a professional. I was probably in class 8. There was this debate in class(We used to have many at the time). The topic was "Should mothers be working?" or something on similar lines. I remember the teacher. Her first name was "Aktar". I have always liked this name. It sounds sweet when said. There were many participants as usual. But none of us wanted to argue saying "mothers should work". The teacher asked me to argue for the topic. I reluctantly agreed. Some of the arguments were so callous, like "If they are so interested in working, why should they even start a family"!!! Deep inside even I felt the same(ok I know, but its true). When you agree so much with your "opponents", to express disagreement convincingly is difficult! I, like most of the class was just thinking "Would I be liking it if my mother started working?".

I was not even liking the idea of me going home after school to an empty house. Then waiting for my mom to come. It was nice as it was. She waiting for me, and asking me how my day at school was - and me giving her every detail I could remember, right from whom all I quarreled with to what interesting thing I leant that day.

I argued saying "If women are talented and educated it will get wasted if they do not work. Even they have dreams and aspirations, so they must be allowed to work". The very tone I adopted made it obvious, I never saw myself in that position years later!! And I had not seen our teachers in this light! Most of them were women and many of them were mothers! All of us had let our teacher down. When she shared her thoughts we realized we had said all these things before a “working mother”! She was saddened by the way we thought - how possessive we were about our mothers and how selfish, how shortsighted.