Contemplations and Ruminations

(August 19th, 2020) What started out as a school assignment to involve family members in a group activity has now become a favourite lockdown activity. I have two left feet when it comes to dancing, but Caleb Marshall, our (lockdown) fitness dance guru makes it look quite easy and dancing to his fitness videos has become a fun ritual every evening. He has brought a lot of joy during this quarantine phase; his energy and enthusiasm is infectious and we’re grateful to Fitness Marshall and his team for all the fun memories we’ve made dancing through a pandemic year.

This picture was taken circa 1990 when the mountain gods (the western ghats) with their gentle song were all we could see everywhere we looked. Check out the mud bound road and the half-saree clad higher secondary students (akkas then)... life was amazing here, it took me years to realise that. Here I am at one of the mountains thirty years later, just soaking in nature and contemplating how far I've come from that little girl who hated this village and couldn't wait to leave. Life always surprises you in the most beautiful of ways when you learn to go with the flow. You may not get the view you were hoping for, but you will be rendered speechless by the view that awaits you, it will be something you never thought could exist and yet here you are... reveling at how the universe has always got your back.   This is one of the pristine beaches back home... the sun on one side, moon on the other.  I sit here typing all this as the rains fall outside while I sip on warm...

So this happened...      I presented and defended my doctoral thesis titled "An Exploration into the Resilience of the Human Soul and Evolution of the Human Self: A Study of Select Autobiographies of Artists and Statesmen"  at the university and I can't believe it's over. It's actually... overwhelming to think of how I got into it in the first place. I had to quit my job cause I was in and out of the hospital, those were the dark years as I call them. I wanted something to do, and since I'm in the habit of devouring books, I thought why not get a Ph.D. in it. So started foraging for a university, a guide and after all that fell in place, the topic had to be decided. I remember Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt was quite fascinating in its various aspects and I thought why not work on such real-life stories that make you feel... that pull at your heartstrings. So got together with my guide and her guide who is a colossal giant in this field and we discu...

Videos of our 2017 trip... looking back at them now, I'm speechless and filled with wonder. Let's see how it all feels when I scroll through these pages when I'm sixty years old... gratitude filling every fibre of my being. From Pisa, to Rome to Florence... exploring Italy. Road trip to France... Our trip to Barcelona, Spain.. In Geneva... 

Can't believe I haven't posted here in a long long long time, but that's how busy the year end/beginning transition always is. There are decorations to think about, cards to make, cakes to bake, tickets to book, friends to meet, family to see and shopping that has to be done... one can never get enough of this time of the year. Christmas was fun in Chennai with friends, family and all the Christmas shopping/outings and diy's. This year Tiana (my baby niece) had just started walking, so the Christmas crib was kept in an enclosed tiny space above her reach. It looked quite pretty with all the cut out stars and lights... The wreath I made ages ago A small video leading upto Christmas... all the diy's and stuff. A small video depicting Christmas fun at both my homes with family and friends. Christmas becomes more meaningful and poignant each year in Madras as we (me and Jen) discover new Christmassy things to do in Chennai. The caroling in MCC gr...

Home is never home without copious amount of fish frolicking in rivers or lakes nongu sarbath (a palmyra fruit drink) being immersed in nature the ocean breeze Mathew's cake from Trivandrum digging for treasure at the platform book shops in Trivandrum coconut groves  long walks in the colony with friends mom's fun church/walking gang awesome mango + tender coconut shakes (with mangoes and tender coconuts from the farm) fun at a cousin's wedding invariably running into teachers from school  visiting school friends, getting all nostalgic, laughing, crying and hugging tacky multi coloured lighting at church festivals invariably receiving the good karma of lower berths on train journeys A slideshow of home

And when the earth fades Falls from my eyes And you stand before me I know You love me I was in church with Jen yesterday when they started singing this song and immediately we glanced at each other and smiled. It is one of the songs we sang when we were in the choir and whenever I hear this song, this stanza makes time stop for a few minutes. Nothing that is happening around seems to register as I am suddenly transported to a moment between two worlds. That moment when the earth fades, you wonder how it will be... you wonder what comes next. There are a number of books we can read, stuff we can research to try to know what happens after we breathe our last breath... but I don't think anything can prepare us for the final event. It will be good, of course, no doubt there... life gets transformed, but still, that point, that exact moment when the earth fades... it's just too big to put into words, it always leaves me pondering, hoping that it will be as beautiful as my hu...

Celebrated Holi yesterday and it was pure madness... random people coming upto you and rubbing colour on your cheeks was a little disconcerting at first, but after a few minutes you get the hang of it and it's crazy fun after that. I've always wanted to be part of the colourful Holi celebrations, like the ones we see in movies and pictures of India... that look so captivating and brimming with energy. This was exactly like that, and despite the rainbow hued aftermath that followed, I know I want to do it all over again next year with better protection, now that I know what to expect. Play mostly with kids and people who give you the good vibe, ignore the rest and go with a bigger crowd. Here's a slideshow of the pictures we took (use the link if the above video doesn't seem to play)...

So where do I start.... January was fun, been so buried under books, didn't really find time to jot down stuff here. January started off on a fun note; after a midnight mass under flashing lights that were really giving me a headache, yeah, my church in the village is really big on tacky lighting... it's almost like a contest here. The more tackier and multicoloured the lighting the more it depicts your devotion I guess, and every religious establishment takes this rule dead seriously. I'm not kidding, I even went and told the guy in charge to please switch off the flashing lights during the service and he had the audacity to tell me to go inside the church and sit with the humongous crowd. Anyway, I went back to my place and whispered to my brother in law about the lack of etiquette in church festivals, and my sister glared at us and asked whether we had any ourselves...  The church with the flashing lights and multicoloured stars... After the midnight mass, we ca...

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...

So we (me and Nam) visited Gruyères (grew yehr) one day and we didn't want to come back.  Gruyères , a tiny village perched atop a hill is about two hours from Geneva and this place looks like it jumped right out of a fairy tale book.  So we get off the train and this is what greets us...  A cute little chapel in idyllic surroundings...  We keep walking and come across this...  Typical Swiss countryside with cows happily munching away... Needless to say, me and Nam were having some serious Maria moments ...  The path that leads up to Gruyères... A beautiful house on the way... The cows below...  Another small chapel on the way... And this is the small village of Gruyères... The landscape below... This girl made us some crepes for lunch... My jambon (ham) crepe... Looks like an old chapel, but now it's a workshop or something... Cute kid... Even the restroom looks cute here......

So after the evening mass on Sunday,   we climbed up the 284 winding steps...  Of the Arc de Triomphe, here she is lit up at night... And from the top of the Arc, this is how the Eiffel Tower looks at night... It sparkles a few minutes every hour... and then people start kissing on top of the Arc. It was cute until this one teenage guy almost ate his girlfriend's face, licking and kissing with so much ferocity, she almost looked like voldemort when he was done. But everybody else was cute and the whole atmosphere up there on the Arc was pretty exciting...  Pretty neat huh...  Champs Elysees Avenue as seen from the Arc... we went strolling along this avenue on the way back. You'll find many street performers on this avenue... The next day being our last day in Paris, the guys decided on a Seine cruise and I learnt the reason for this later on. They didn't want to walk and so they made sure I was stuck on a boat, this way I could...