SOULspace

I feel happy that my daughter is part of a schooling experience that really exposes her to different communities and cultures. I may have many other cribs about the school, but The Kendriya Vidyalaya schools have one thing that they offer children, an exposure to India and the essence of living in a cultural Pongal Pot(Pongal is a kind of Khichidi, or a rice and Dal mixture)!! They have inspection days, basically days when the children yet again don't study but prepare cultural shows and programs. Don't harangue me, but sometimes I think they do nothing else, so that is my crib! I cribbed about getting her dressed up yet again, just to stand there for the arrival of the chief guest.Yet she loves this, so ok, but please dont agree to every get up the teacher assigns to you, I told her. "Mean" you may think, but I have to draw the line somewhere, otherwise I will be stretching my creative abilities. She had to go as a Maharashtrian girl. So some running around and ...

Don't berate me on the quality of the pictures, but I just wanted to capture what my daughter and I landed up making after I saw these lovely Yarn Paintings. Yarn Paintings are part of North American Culture or so I am told. These were actually illustrations for a story "The Journey of Tunuri and the Blue Deer" reviewed in Saffron Tree, as a part of their on going Book Review Festival. You can follow this link to see that story review, and many others...click here It is extremely simple and my daughter who is the creative one, really loved the idea. All you need is some yarn, wool in different shades and gum, paper. If you twirl the yarn around into concentric circles, it really looks good. I guess art is all about doing and experiencing. She could not complete it and Sunday morning, she was at it without even brushing her teeth!! The one above is hers, and the one below is mine.

I love this world of blogging. I want to personally kiss and hug every person who I have read and identified with. (Or show them any other permissible form of affection!). I can see so many of my passions mirrored in others, so many thoughts that are similar, and so many life situations that are same. It energizes me to see such thoughts and ideas bouncing back and forth within this electronic media, connecting people, connecting lives, connecting visions and dreams. 8years back, I remember raising my baby in isolated misery. Now I look at all the forums and blogs on babies and child rearing and amaze at the kind of information that is available for every one to see and share and learn from. For all those who may ask whether I could not have accessed all this 8 years back. I don’t know. We had a computer and I remember my husband using it…but I kind of used to relegate it to his domain and never ventured too close. I really don’t know if internet was all that friendly, even 8 years bac...

    Here is the Ganges. Serene, and peaceful, she is the narrowest here. I believe she is only 20 metres deep here. This place is called Bithoor, about 30Km from where we live in Kanapur. It has one of 3 temples to Lord Brahma on it's shores. If you expect a beautiful temple, it is disappointment time. There is a small shrine which says, Brahmesvar that's all. It is dirty in parts, more muddy than dirt. I would say it is much cleaner than what I expected. A lot of effort is being put into keeping the Ganges clean especially in these parts. There is one organisation called "ecofriends" here, that is doing a lot of work on the Ganges. There is not much to see, but one can do some boating here. We got into one. It is fairly a medium sized one and we did a peaceful turn of the Ganges. My husband was asking for the Mae vests..(hahah..Traveling abroad does that to you!!) It was quite thrilling for me to see the river, as I imagined the many Kings and Sages who had touche...

He stared at the ocean with unseeing eyes. There was no other place to come, but here. No where else would he be able to synchronize with the roar that he felt within his heart. They beat in tandem. The waters beat relentlessly against an indefinite shore, while his heart beat within unable to break free. So many thoughts and feelings confined within his mind begged for release but he refused them that relief. He held back the tears, the feelings, the emotions. How many times had he come here with her? How many times had he run circles around her on this very same sand? Sometimes tickling her with his humor, bringing a smile to her face (Oh, how he loved to see her smile), and sometimes irritating her with his incessant words and queries. She never let him out of her sight. Yet her control was not blatant, just a little subtle, as she constantly challenged him and his immature view of the world. They had a bond that not many shared, nor could understand. A relationship soaked in ma...

People inspire me to write more than things/objects. I am that way. The events and circumstances, personality and thought processes that go into making an individual fascinates me. Their history, their lifestyle, their individual preferences,problem solving abilities... There are some people I revere, am in awe of. Some are my closest confidants. Some I keep my distance and then there are some others, who I would like to emulate, just try to be like them, but something basic called "my personality" comes in the way! I talk with one person in mind specifically, it was this person's birthday today. Not being a computer geek, she will not know I write about her, nor am I going to tell her. Please don't think I am going to belittle her, in fact today I am doing the opposite, I want to take time to describe her to all of you, and make you the judge. These are souls,(I cannot call them human beings because they have transcended to a greater level) who touch every one with t...

It’s about burning bridges. I don’t want to bore one and all about my past, my history, but I have this chronic problem that I land up burning bridges… Please don’t think I am some naxalite… The bridge I talk about is the one we create when we pass from one phase in our lives into the next. I can very clearly de-mark things into neat categories. Every category has a bridge linking it to the next stage, and these are the bridges I am talking about. Bridges are great as it marks a mental spot where and when we make a paradigm shift in many ways. A shift in perspective or a shift in maturity, a physical move in terms of space, or a mental move in terms of feelings/thoughts/insights. I like bridges. For me these bridges, that I can so clearly visualize, were gigantic in terms of dimension and depth. I look back and literally see how I changed and altered at every such bridge… But the people who I met and who were such integral parts of every phase are no longer any part of me. That is ...

I am really bugged and irritated. Why is it that whenever I expect something I am disappointed? I believe He gives every one a fair share of negatives and positives. In that I have been given an overdose of tolerance and patience.How I detest being known as the patient one( though this status did change moderately post marriage), that aspect of me (impatience) was reserved for my family to see. So for the general public, I was still the "Patient one". Can I get it exchanged? Please tell me where I can borrow and internalise some intolerance and kick ass attitude... I want to scream and shout and yell and hit. Why should I bear stoic face and say that it doesn't matter and there must be a logical valid reason, why? why??? Ok that feels better... The feeling for all this came from this: I volunteered to do a puppet show, for the Ladies Club, as it was Navarathri time and I have this nice story on Mahishasuramardhini. So far so good. As the date of the show neared, I fell il...