Thursday Challenge – 5

This post is for the Thursday Challenge. The theme for this week is “MOVEMENT” (Shaking, Falling, Bouncing, Jumping, Curling, Sagging, etc.)

This pic was taken by a colleague on our work trip to Mumbai last year. I have always loved flights, and the wonder of flying amidst the clouds never seems to wear away for me! Naturally, I loved this pic! 🙂

Wordless Wednesday 9

Image Source: Here

Isn’t that grand?

I HAD to share this pic. 🙂

It would make quite the perfect cake for my birthday, me thinks. Anyone listening? 😛

Poetry Corner: Auguries Of Innocence

I read this poem called Auguries Of Innocence on Ava’s blog, and have not been able to forget it ever since. OMG! It is just so simple and yet, so lovely and touching and TRUE!

Auguries Of Innocence

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage

Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill'd with doves and pigeons

Shudders hell thro' all its regions.

A dog starv'd at his master's gate

Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road

Calls to heaven for human blood.

Each outcry of the hunted hare

A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,

A cherubim does cease to sing.

The game-cock clipt and arm'd for fight

Does the rising sun affright.

Every wolf's and lion's howl

Raises from hell a human soul.

The wild deer, wand'ring here and there,

Keeps the human soul from care.

The lamb misus'd breeds public strife,

And yet forgives the butcher's knife.

The bat that flits at close of eve

Has left the brain that won't believe.

The owl that calls upon the night

Speaks the unbeliever's fright.

He who shall hurt the little wren

Shall never be belov'd by men.

He who the ox to wrath has mov'd

Shall never be by woman lov'd.

The wanton boy that kills the fly

Shall feel the spider's enmity.

He who torments the chafer's sprite

Weaves a bower in endless night.

The caterpillar on the leaf

Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.

Kill not the moth nor butterfly,

For the last judgement draweth nigh.

He who shall train the horse to war

Shall never pass the polar bar.

The beggar's dog and widow's cat,

Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.

The gnat that sings his summer's song

Poison gets from slander's tongue.

The poison of the snake and newt

Is the sweat of envy's foot.

The poison of the honey bee

Is the artist's jealousy.

The prince's robes and beggar's rags

Are toadstools on the miser's bags.

A truth that's told with bad intent

Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so;

Man was made for joy and woe;

And when this we rightly know,

Thro' the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,

A clothing for the soul divine.

Under every grief and pine

Runs a joy with silken twine.

The babe is more than swaddling bands;

Every farmer understands.

Every tear from every eye

Becomes a babe in eternity;

This is caught by females bright,

And return'd to its own delight.

The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,

Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.

The babe that weeps the rod beneath

Writes revenge in realms of death.

The beggar's rags, fluttering in air,

Does to rags the heavens tear.

The soldier, arm'd with sword and gun,

Palsied strikes the summer's sun.

The poor man's farthing is worth more

Than all the gold on Africa's shore.

One mite wrung from the lab'rer's hands

Shall buy and sell the miser's lands;

Or, if protected from on high,

Does that whole nation sell and buy.

He who mocks the infant's faith

Shall be mock'd in age and death.

He who shall teach the child to doubt

The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.

He who respects the infant's faith

Triumphs over hell and death.

The child's toys and the old man's reasons

Are the fruits of the two seasons.

The questioner, who sits so sly,

Shall never know how to reply.

He who replies to words of doubt

Doth put the light of knowledge out.

The strongest poison ever known

Came from Caesar's laurel crown.

Nought can deform the human race

Like to the armour's iron brace.

When gold and gems adorn the plow,

To peaceful arts shall envy bow.

A riddle, or the cricket's cry,

Is to doubt a fit reply.

The emmet's inch and eagle's mile

Make lame philosophy to smile.

He who doubts from what he sees

Will ne'er believe, do what you please.

If the sun and moon should doubt,

They'd immediately go out.

To be in a passion you good may do,

But no good if a passion is in you.

The whore and gambler, by the state

Licensed, build that nation's fate.

The harlot's cry from street to street

Shall weave old England's winding-sheet.

The winner's shout, the loser's curse,

Dance before dead England's hearse.

Every night and every morn

Some to misery are born,

Every morn and every night

Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,

Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie

When we see not thro' the eye,

Which was born in a night to perish in a night,

When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,

To those poor souls who dwell in night;

But does a human form display

To those who dwell in realms of day.

I hope you guys love this poem as much as I did.

Do let me know of more such beautiful poems! 🙂

Malgudi Schooldays

I have Sathej to thank for suggesting that I read RK Narayan’s Malgudi Schooldays. I used to watch Malgudi Days on good old Doordarshan and was a HUGE fan of it, specially the title track. I somehow never thought of picking up the book, till Sathej suggested it. The book lay and lay and lay and lay in my bookshelf, untouched, till I suddenly got inspired to pick it up some time back. And, am I glad I read it!!

It is one of those books that make you feel satisfied from within, that make you smile as you finish one chapter after another, and sigh at the end of it all and leave you wanting for more. I don’t know if it is because of watching Swami so much on TV, but I totally adored the book and fell in love with the cute dreamer that Swami is.

Malgudi Schooldays traces the life of Swami in the small town of Malgudi – his (mis)adventures at school, his friends, his family, the way he approaches studies, et al, not to forget his Monday blues. In course of time, I could feel the way Swami sees Malgudi.

It is an extremely well-written book, a cosy, comfortable read and a totally engrossing and entertaining one at that. Highly recommended!!

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My rating: 5 Stars

I read this book for the Orbis Terrarum Challenge ’10. The stopover was India.

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For all the Doordarshan lovers out there, this is for you:

Poetry Corner

I read Thursdays With Tagore at Kals’ blog and loved the concept. It made me realise that I have almost forgotten how to to read poetry. It made me long to make a fresh start with poetry, and so, here I go with a slightly modified version of Thursdays With Tagore, with due permission from Kals.

I will be posting a poem every week under the heading of Poetry Corner, something that I read and liked enough to discuss and bring to the notice of my blog friends. I will try to feature a new poet every week.

Suggestions on what poems to read are most welcome from all of you.

For today, I’ll go with a beautiful poem by THE Tagore (something that has been on my Gtalk status for a while now):

When I bring to you coloured toys, my child, I understand why there is such a play of colours on clouds, on water, and why flowers are painted in tints – when I give coloured toys to you, my child.

When I sing to make you dance I truly know why there is music in leaves, and why waves send their chorus of voices to the heart of the listening earth – when I sing to make you dance.

When I bring sweet things to your greedy hands I know why there si honey in the cup of the flower and why fruits are secretly filled with sweet juice – when I bring sweet things to your greedy hands.

When I kiss your face to make you smile, my darling, I surely understand what pleasure streams from the sky in morning light, and what delight that is which the summer breeze brings to my body – when I kiss you to make you smile.

~ Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali

Isn’t the imagery just lovely?

Do join in and tell me what poetry are you reading this week.

Image Source: Wikipedia

Sometimes, social networking site gyaan is beautiful….

… like this piece I discovered today.

A  successful relationship requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. Always with the same person, but deeper and deeper every time. Each time on a whole new level you together open in love and discover the truth of your beloved anew. There is no limit to the beauty of your beloved. If you think you’ve reached the end, stop generalizing.

I can SO relate to this. It’s an amazing feeling peeling off a person’s nature layer by layer, and slowly getting to the core underneath.

Kinda heart-warming, no? 🙂

Image Source

Diu flashback :)

Check out some pics from the trip.

Will be back soon with some beautiful memories about the trip! 🙂

Till then, I leave you with these beautiful lines by Tagore that I just discovered:

Unending Love

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it’s age old pain,
It’s ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the hear of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers,
Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting, the distressful tears of farewell,
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

The little pleasures of life today…

….. Having a cutesie kid give me a huuggggggggggeeeeeeeee grin for no reason at all, early in the morning

….. Finding no traffic at all on the way to office, instead of the usually crazy jams every day

…. Watching guys and girls sincerely interested in each other, making an honest attempt at impressing and knowing each other

…. Being buzzed at work by the better half just like that, to have a vetti conversation, just like the good ole times

…… Talking to an ex-colleague and knowing that the work I did at my ex-office is still valued

….. having lunch on plastic tables and chairs underneath a canopy made of plastic on a beautiful terrace garden, watching pink flowers float in the bird-bath full of water, the plants all around you smiling as the heavens open up in a sudden mid-afternoon spate of heavy rainfall and wash them with love, feet lifted up on chairs to make way for the water flowing beneath the table, feeling as if I were on a boathouse in the midst of an extremely pretty lake

…. Watching the sky darken and darken and darken from the window at work, working and looking forward to the 3-day weekend ahead and soaking in the relaxed atmosphere at office

Enough to make my day! 🙂

Have a great weekend, folks!

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Song on my mind:

The Zahir

After Bridget Jones’s Diary, the next book that I picked up was ‘The Zahir’ by Paulo Coelho. The book had been lying unread on my bookshelf for nearly 2 years, and I picked it up on a sudden urge. I did take my own sweet time to read it, though!

I read this book for the 4-month Challenge – under the 15 points category: Read a book by an author born in June, July, August or September. Paulo Coelho, Wiki says, was born in August. 🙂

And I am here to ramble about the book.

Note: Plot partly revealed

The Zahir is the story of a writer and his wife Esther. It is Esther who goads him to persuade his dream of writing a book, which makes him very rich and famous. It is Esther who, some years later, leaves him all of a sudden, without even saying a goodbye. Just like that! Gone without a trace! It is Esther’s disappearance that forces the writer to take a long, hard look at himself and his married life, and realize what he has been doing wrong. He goes in search of his wife, and discovers a lot of things on his long journey, transforming into a changed man when he finally reaches her. That part – the transformed protagonist going to the very end of the earth to win back his wife – appealed to the romantic in me.

The book says that it is ‘a novel about obsession’. It’s about how a man becomes obsessed with something, his Zahir, to the point that he can think of nothing else but that one thing, and does all he can to obtain it. In this case, the protagonist’s wife Esther turns into his Zahir. And he puts in all of himself to find her. I found the story to be all about marriage and relationships – what you have to give of yourself to keep a relationship beautiful and healthy forever.

At places, I found the story stretching and lost interest. I also felt the author dwelling a bit too much on the subject of magic and signs et al. But in terms of overall reading experience, I enjoyed reading this book a lot. It left me feeling good from within. I found this book comparatively simpler than other books of Paulo. Though The Zahir has intense ideas too, I didn’t have to tax my brain much to feel what the protagonist is feeling. One more thing – I strongly felt at places that this is the author’s own story; the way in which certain things were described made me feel that. I felt that when I was reading The Bridges of Madison County too. I don’t know if it’s just me, though!

Overall, for The Zahir, I would say the same thing  I said for Eleven Minutes – it is a novel best felt. I loved how the book made me feel. My rating would be 3.5 stars.

I leave you with a few things from the book that left me pondering:

• Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose – and commit myself to – what is best for me.
• All you have to do is pay attention; lessons always arrive when you are ready, and if you can read the signs, you will learn everything you need to know in order to take the next step.
• I understand for the first time that all the frustrations I felt about previous love affairs and marriages had nothing to do with the women involved, but with my own bitterness. Esther, however, was the only woman who understood one very simple thing: in order to be able to find her, I first had to find myself.
• A book – and we could be talking about anything here, a film, a piece of music, a garden, the view of a mountain – reveals something. ‘Reveal’ means both to un-veil and to re-veil. Removing the  veil from something that exists is different from me trying to teach others the secret of how to live a better life.
• No one is alone in their troubles: there is always someone else thinking, rejoicing or suffering in the same way, and that gives us the strength to confront the challenge before us.
• God does not play dice with the universe; everything is interconnected and has a meaning. The meaning may remain hidden nearly all the time, but we always know we are close to our true mission on earth when what we are doing is touched with the energy of enthusiasm. If it is, then all is well. If not, then we better change direction.
• He died while he was still alive.
• When the Unwanted Guest arrives… I might be afraid, I might smile or say: My day was good, let night fall, You will find the fields ploughed, the house clean, the table set, and everything in its place.
• The most satisfying encounters do not always happen around elegant tables in nice, warm restaurants.
• People always believe what they want to believe.
• It is not life that matters, but the journey.
• I was not I, I was nothing – and that seemed to me quite marvelous.
• We need to forget who we are in order to become who we really are.
• The fundamental questions of life will never be answered, and we can, nevertheless, still go forward.
• The invisible world always manifests itself in the visible world.
• Pray that your horizon may always be wider than you can see.
• Love had spoken to me:  ‘I am everything and I am nothing. I am the wind, and I cannot enter windows and doors that are shut.’
• I’ve waited for you in so many ways.
• ‘You must have heard a voice telling you to walk on the ice,’ he says.
  ‘No, I heard no voice.’
  ‘So why did you do it?’
  ‘Because I felt it needed to be done.’
  ‘That’s just another way of hearing the voice.’

Ponderism

Something caught my attention in an M&B some time ago (yes, even M&Bs can be enlightening AT TIMES!!!) and has been with me ever since. I finally dug it out, and here it is:

Climbing, hiking, camping–those have been an important part of my life ever since I was a boy. They’re at the heart of my work, because whatever I’ve learned by my ventures into the mountains affected my professional vision, too.

I tell myself I should be grateful for having had all those years of physical freedom. That adjusting to the damned wheelchair is just a matter of learning to explore the world in a different way.

~ From ‘A dance on the edge’

Something I am feeling very strongly about of late…