Contemplations and Ruminations

I saw this movie recently while travelling to Chennai in the train and before I knew it I was transported to a sleepy little Italian village on the coast where beauty abounds in every frame. Beauty herself forms a major character, she is everywhere you care to look and that's what the protagonist Mario (Massimo Troisi) discovers after he interacts with a well known poet in exile, Pablo Neruda. The Cuban poet, Pablo Neruda (portrayed by Phillippe Noiret), arrives in a small island in Italy after being exiled for his communist beliefs. And Mario, a reluctant fisherman, longs for another job and when the necessity of a postman to deliver mail to the most famous person on the island arises, Mario lands this job. He hesitantly starts befriending Pablo and reading his poems, this awakens his soul to the beauty of being, of observing, of existing. As I sat there on the upper berth watching this movie while everybody was fast asleep, I was moved by this fisherman who found magic in meta...

I've written lots about my hometown, Nagercoil , in this blog... about how every trip home is like being embraced in earth's bountiful bosom. So you can imagine my surprise when for the very first time in my life, I felt bereft and speechless at her decrepit state. The past few weeks were exactly like the earth in Interstellar, a dust bowl, that's the only way to describe Nagercoil now. All her roads and mudukku's have been dug up, vehicles ply over these pathetic roads leaving a trail of dust in the air. There is a fine coating of the characteristic red mud on every visible surface... and amidst all the dancing and swirling red dust, people go about their daily lives, unfazed and undeterred, patiently waiting for their little town to go back to it's former glory of quaint roads and angel rays that flit and float through tree branches, playing shadows with the ground below. I was pretty much covered up like a terrorist there, a duppata covering my entire face ex...

Christmas turned out to be wonderfully surprising this year. After the midnight mass I ended up having Irish Bailey's and plum cake with nuns in the convent. Clinking our glasses to Sláinte! (the Irish version of 'Cheers' or 'drinking to your health') we sat around the dining table swapping stories. For a person missing her choir friends from the church back home, these friends from the religious fraternity made Christmas night pretty memorable. New Year's was pretty exciting too, it was great being back with family and friends... meeting the shepherd boys of 2006 ,   those small little boys who now tower over me... hanging out with the choir girls after mass, baking and eating the rum cake, and drinking bacardi while being extremely glad for a wonderful 2014 and hoping that the years to follow will be filled with good memories, exciting times and a lot more adventures... this is what I wish for all you readers too. Today being the feast of Epiphany or the...