A painting and a poem ....

Words of wisdom ......

 GYPSY

I asked a gypsy pal
To imitate an old image
And speak old wisdom.
She drew in her chin,
Made her neck and head
The top piece of a Nile obelisk and said:
  Snatch off the gag from thy mouth, child,
And be free to keep silence.
Tell no man anything for no man listens,
Yet hold thy lips ready to speak.

~ Carl Sandburg 

The painting called "Gypsy Woman" is by the Russian artist Nikolai Yaroshenko. I found it by google search and wished to share... Isn't it lovely ?

Hello there !!

This week I did not blog at all... It is extremely hot here in Chennai and nothing looks inspiring enough... the heat has cramped my brain and is on the verge of numbing my senses... it is difficult to think beautiful thoughts when the weather is this bad... so i have been desperately trying to keep my mind off my immediate surroundings... Husband and friends are trying to help... courtesy them i presently have three new books on my book shelf ....

When We Were Roman by Matthew Kneale

Manik Bandhyopadhay Rochonashomogri: 9 (A collection of Short stories by Manik Bandhyopadhay) 

A Mercy by Toni Morrison

I had read about the first in A CUP OF JO and had been eagerly waiting to own a copy of the book. Husband couriered it recently.. (Smiles !! I love him so much for spoiling me this way.. heeheehee) and these days it  is my favourite bedtime companion !!  The second one, a friend recommended and lent... It is a collection of short stories in Bengali and I read this one when the heat is making me impatient and i want the know the end right away..... (simple short stories can treat my impatience just like that !! ) The third one I am yet to begin... I saw "the Toni Morrison" on a book-shop shelf and could not resist purchasing it. love its cover page !..... But right now my hands are full... so i guess it will have to wait  awhile !!

So how is the weather at your place ? I hope it is treating you well...  and
which are the new books that you have recently purchased...  what are you reading these days  ??

Happy Monday Morning...

Sunday morning was glorious ! There was rain and sun and the last flowers of spring still clung obstinately to the trees. I chanced on them on my way out and had to go back again to get my camera. I think I had a smile on my face because a neighbor offered to take a picture of me with them. Hope the weather at your place was also great and you had a wonderful weekend ....

Now off to my working desk ... Have a nice week !! Happy  Monday Morning !!

Have you really loved a woman ....

I do not know for sure if it was that summer that my little brother had fallen in love ... but when he came home for the vacations there was one song he played on and on and on....  till it filled his room and mine too... my room which was adjacent his ,... and soon enough it became one of our favourite songs.... 

sometime last week when memories of  college days floated back, along with it refreshed memories of our love for that Bryan Adam's song... and how its video had made me want to do a little Spanish dance and how i had swooned over its lyrics and had wished to meet and fall in love with a man who would hear my silent words, see my dreams in my eyes and love me unconditionally till the end of time..........

[How was your weekend ? I had a nice time drawing this Spanish dancer. i could not get her face right, 
so my friend M.P Deka helped me to complete it ... the drawing has been inspired by this photograph that i had found via google search]

MEXICO...

My friend is on his way to Mexico.. a work-trip to Mexico ... lucky isn't he ??

and the pictures from Mexico in rockstar diaries are surging up my desire for such a holiday-work-trip for myself....

i too want some tacos and a huge sombrero to wear to that beach....

[image via google search]

. .... Savor the coffee not the cups !!

A friend mailed me the link and i thought I should share....

Inspiring isn't it ??   At times we are so engrossed upon uplifting the face-value of the add-ons and the accessories that we forget to live life for ourselves and our happiness... Just for the weekend let us forget the tools and embrace life full on and let alone the stress of the rat race ...

What are your plans for the weekend ? This weekend I have some errands to run, some odd ends to attend .. and a picture in my mind that i wish to paint.......   

 Have an enjoyable weekend !! 

good-bye, take care 
eat healthy, exercise and drink lots of water...

and drop a line if you are here and have the time to spare....

[Thanks Priyotosh for sending the link!! ]

Once upon a time ...

once upon a time when i was a teenager i had a crush on a boy..
i had not met him many times but i wrote to him often
wrote to him long letters with details of my dreams and my daily accounts...
i loved writing and so did he....
and through our letters we fell in love........

but as we grew... the times became harder ...
peer pressure weighed and i wished he were nearer..
i wished to see him more... but things kept him occupied ...
i then started seeing too much into the things he did and often did not...
he was less than perfect i analyzed ...  and so was i ... but that i forgot...
so i fell out of love with him... and resolved to moved on in life...

i tried my best never to tread back into his lanes again... and that i was good at..
with time i settled for happiness, the kind most of us seek..
i settled in life with my love, family and dreams... and let his memories haze...

yet sometimes when common threads spring up and i hear he is well
nostalgia strikes, sends me back to visit those lanes ...
his lanes that i had left once..
but now, in retrospect, i feel glad that we had met and then moved on
for happiness and well-being for both of us lay along different ways
but that brief affair was sweet and i would have it no other way ...
... in retrospect, i feel glad that we had met and then moved on our own different ways...

[images via weheartit]

Dear Husband .......

I met someone from your  Alma mater yesterday..

I asked, if he knew you... he said, he did not

Surprising !!  for you shared the same residence...

and you were a part of all the campus games !!

At that, - a friend commented, 

"perhaps he was invisible then and that  strategy won him his games..."

i smiled, then thought to myself,

' i am so glad,-  you made yourself visible.. only for my sake ...'

love,love,love,

yours only.....

[image from weheartit. photograph by Max Wanger]

Happy Birthday !!

Dear Ma, 

Just wanted to let you know.....

that the journey from being  your daughter to being your friend was most endearing.... 

Happy Birthday !!

               love you and miss sharing my laughters with you everyday...

                                                                                         

                                                                                        love, hugs and kisses,

                                                                                                    adoringly yours..

            p.s : I wish all those who share their birthdays with my mom a very very happy birthday !!

Sad stories make me cry....

I have a curious affinity for every detail that is not my own ..

    specially those parts in their  stories that involve pain..

                           ... very often i tend to internalize their concerns, their worries, their pains

                           and eventually without ever realizing make them a part of my own tale...

            loose my smiles, my sleep, my peace of mind over them

                   and end up feeling hopeless, dismayed, scattered, displaced and hurt ....

         i hate this confused complication, this lose of sleep, loss of mind ..

i hate the way they make me feel....

           for the worst part of all this involvement, this concern,-   

             ...        is the underlying knowledge that  i can't help... i can only cry.....

[image from weheartit]

Leap anyways....

"......... for one small step for a man....
                            might be a giant leap for mankind.. "

[drawing inspired from a book of Chinese paintings]

Amelie.... in you i see a figment of me...

Last night my mind wandered... it was on a run... it went wild and would not succumb.. so I settled in to watch Amelie...

Then came the seen when Nino is late and there are only two explanations Amelie can see for it...
" 1.  he didn't get the photo.
  2.  before he could assemble it, a gang of bank robbers took him hostage. The cops gave chase. They got away... but he caused a crash. When he came to, he'd lost his memory. An ex-con picked him up, mistook him for a fugitive, and shipped him to Istanbul. There he met some Afghan raiders who too him to steal some Russian warheads. But their truck hit a mine in Tajikistan. He survived, took to the hills, and became a Mujaheddin. Amelie refuses to get upset for a guy who'll eat borscht all his life in a hat like a tea cozy..."

This curious monologue  made me breathe a sigh of relief and bless the writers Guillaume Laurant and Jean-Pierre Jeunet  profusely... had it not been for them i would have never known that my twin-self lived in France by the name of Amelie...

The World fascinates me....

    With my fascinations to take care of,
this weekend flew by rather fast ..

   and now... the Monday morning blues...

.. they are impeding in the way of my work....
not letting me attend to them much..

I need to be caffeinated...              

  revived and rejuvenated ....

I need to get started at work...

 'Tis Monday Morning...  Oh,- God !!

  

[image from http://www.art.com/gallery/id--a76/andy-warhol.htm]

When at night i could not sleep, i talked to the Shepherd and stopped counting the sheep....

Of late I have begun to admire  and envy those independent  women who can live happily by themselves.... because for me it is the hardest thing on earth. its been eight months that me and husband are staying in different places.... and at times this living apart suffocates me a lot... weekends and holidays are the worst... indulging yourself never seems enough...for every now and then i need my family to rejuvenate, i need my family to ventilate... and it makes me really sad when loneliness is all i get at the end of each weary day  ....

my introvert personality, which for sheer want of companions, masks itself in an extrovert visage, has probably a lot to do with this feeling of suffocation. but what do i do.. i wish to talk and not just to the walls... i wish to hear someone talk while i am sipping my cup of evening chai or having my lunch... i am probably too old to make new best friends ... and so i let myself be accompanied by whoever comes along.... but still at the end of each day i am alone and that makes me really sad and makes the whole ordeal seem rather futile...

i hate to feel so vague and sad... i feel the need to gather myself and do all that needs to be done... so i have decided to wrap my spread here and  move to where husband stays...... at that, my companions expressed their concern...  and said, " if not paid you'll  probably not do what needs to be done"... and  i replied, "why not ?? my work is my passion and all i need to steer through it- is family and my peace of mind...."

[title adapted from the quotation: When at night you cannot sleep, talk to the Shepherd and stop counting sheep.]

[images by google search.]

A little letter......

My cupcake, my cutie-pie,


       Only for your sake,

             for your smiles and your kisses....

                  for i wish to fondle you all-day-long
                  and wish to see you grow

                  and not miss your little games.....

                - the mayfair of your toddler-kindergarten-and- adolescent days....

          these days, I wish every now and then

                 that ours was a joint-family-affair

                          and not a nuclear one.....

love, love, love,

lots of hugs and kisses to you, my doll,

yours fondly....  chotoma....

Every once in awhile, a girl has to indulge herself.......

A sizable amount of work awaits me... but i do not feel like it. It happens to me once in awhile... when all i want to do is to indulge and work must wait.... so last night i saw a movie, Houzhe (To Live) and then again one today post-lunch, Turtles Can Fly. Both the movies are excellent and they left a deep impression on me... No. I shall not attempt a movie review of either... for i do not feel competent... but for sure i recommend to you both.. they brought me goosebumps is all i can say....

Also this blogdom has revived my interest in drawings and paintings again. and under the spell of the art-blogs that I have recently started following,  i tried a version of a Chinese painting with crayons today. I quite like the completed picture. so for the time-being... or till i  draw something that I like better, i have set my new drawing as the banner of the blog. the orange sun was an after-thought...  i added it while  editing the picture in GIMP.  right now, i quite like my blog-banner with my little birdies tweeting under the sun !

so far so much about my weekend. hope you are indulging yourselves too...   catching up with friends and hobbies that had taken a back seat to accommodate the  business of the week...  Indulge abundantly and have a lovely weekend !!

Bye, take care...
and please drop a line when you have time to spare.....

[title is a quotation by Sarah Jessica Parker]

Genius !!

Vidushi is one of the smartest four year olds I have ever met.... Recently, at an art-meet in the campus she painted the above picture.  She is small, so understandably she wasn't able to tackle the water-colour at her disposal. but she justified her art anyways explaining,

"It had rained heavily on that village !!" 

Isn't that genius !!

Subho Naboborsho !!

   Aaj Poila Baishak Choddosho-satero !!  Sabai ke janai naboborsher shubheccha o preeti...

[It is  Poila Baishak Choddosho-satero today !! Wish you all a very Happy Bengali New Year !!]

While I was looking for an appropriate image to accompany my Bengali New years greetings to all, I came across  some beautiful paintings by Dithi Chakrabortty at Deezden. Owing to copy-right issues I have not posted here any of her paintings ..... but if you are fond of art, you must visit her blog. She is a self-taught artist who merges very beautifully the traditional Bengali styles in her art. In the words of Chandana Banerjee, who recently interviewed Dithi for Femina,

" Bronze-skinned and doe-eyed Indian women waltz through her canvases, whispering secrets for the onlooker to interpret."

Having grown up in Bengal myself, I can very easily relate to the folklore, the festivals and the Indian woman in her various avatars which form the central theme of most of her paintings. Of the ones I have seen so far, Holi, The red tufted Cockatoo, The Fortune Telling Parrots and The Batua easily qualify as my favourites for the memories they refresh.

I am quite thrilled to have found her blog and so on New Year's day, I thought the best way to greet you all would be by sharing with you my finds of the day !!

Dear Husband.....

             Perhaps you remember ...  but surely not my way .. so i thought i should recall  the day which makes me wish for the rains every once in a while.........

it was the summer of two-thousand-four..

we were  friends then ..

       not man and wife yet.....

dinner was over and suddenly it had begun to rain

I called you,  said,

     "the weather is perfect for a cup of coffee, what do you say ?"

  and in a while you came with an umbrella my way..

the umbrella wasn't big enough

  so half-and-half we got drenched

  but my coffee-urge did not budge
         and as always you remained patient  ...

by the time the frothy coffee was made

  the rain had stopped....

only wet windowsills remained

 but you acquiesced...

         played along ..... did not complain
         and pretended that the weather was still perfect  

   for the frothy coffee i had time-takingly made.....

love you always for bearing all my idiosyncrasies smilingly and playing along un-grudging through them....

Happy Birthday dear dear Husband...

                                                                                            love you always.............   

 love,  love, love,     ..  

yours only   .......

[images from weheartit]

Mistake not the silence .....

Too many times we have let our pride speak for us
       and therefore remained silent....
Too many times we have resolved to revolt
       but just then quietened...
                but mistake not our silence for weakness or consent.....

       we feared being unveiled
       we feared being naked
             while your deaf and blind selves  judged, mocked and littered us again...
       we feared being misconstrued and lightened..
so every time we resolved to protest
    we walked up to you

    then swallowed and smothered ourselves again ......
               but mistake not our silence for weakness or consent .......

[image by google search]

Amy's Dolphin !!

Recently I stumbled upon and completely fell in love with Amy's Dolphin !

Isn't  the simplicity of this piece of art refreshing !!

Sense and Sensibility....

My friend Archana connects with almost all living things on earth... and lately I have come to realize that with her acute sensibility she is quite capable of breathing life into the most mundane things around.... Believe me ...I am not exaggerating !!

    A loves creating and takes origami as a serious hobby.  ...and very often she gifts her origami creations to people she meets.....  Such was the story between her and Aishini, a three year old kiddie who has recently moved into the campus. In A's words,  her little friend is a child of nature for at three this little girl delights in collecting seeds...  So when my friend gave Aishini an origami flower, she gave A some seeds which she had collected from the campus grounds. A had walked those grounds many times before but those seeds had gone un-noticed.  ....Touched by the little one's connection with nature, she made a small pendent  for herself from those gifted seeds.... that would remind her every now and then of her little friend and her bonding with the world that surrounds....

The other day A mailed me the photos of her new creation.... and needless to say, - her sensibility touched me all over again.......

it dawned on me after all.....

there isn't much motion in sophistication...
    it is the road that leads to stagnation
            and renders boredom at free discretion.

..... So i decided to plunge into field work....
      set my hands on dirty grounds,
      walk through muddy waters...
      immerse and enjoy whole-heartedly
            the dirt and filth of counting and calculating the numbers..
      understand the structures of the theories laid,
      learn immensely and thoroughly through my experience of first-hand-aid....

                  then  blissfully rest when all is set
                               and take a deep breath..........  hhaa..hhh !!

[image via weheartit]

I Quote...

              If I have the BELIEF that I can do it, 

       I surely shall acquire the CAPACITY to do it. 

       Even if I may not have it at the beginning. 

                                                             ~ Gandhiji

          

   ......  for sometimes it helps to be reminded what  they  had said !!

[image via google search]

for you asked.....

 Dear friend,

    you asked, - and i wished to yield
        so last night I sat down to write  

             but words didn't oblige  neither thoughts

    last night,  my mind was a stretch of seamless blanks..
          tonight perhaps  my words shall return

          i shall then write you a new song

          till then , -  good-bye,  take care.....

                  and write to me when you have time to spare...

 lovingly,
 your friend....

[image by google search]

at the tellers' dispense....

i do it rarely...friends do it sometimes...and there are others i have met
who do it all the time..... they exaggerate while they gossip.... as if-  what happened was not good enough to relate...
their stories bother me sometimes... specially when they were wild and reality and imagination have been weaved in so intricately, so well that it is difficult to know one from the other.... it bothers me then...
it bothers me when their stories crossed all lines, deny all logical reasoning... nevertheless they do it all the time and it bothers me sometimes....

but recently i read a passage, that i quote, which justified all such idle talk...
and now i have begun to relish their stories and at times i feel had it not been for them, life might have been so boring.....

"From complete invention, Cosimo, I believe, had arrived, by successive approximations, at an almost entirely truthful account of the facts. He told this two or three times; then finding the his audience never tired of listening to the story and new listeners always coming and asking for details, he found himself making new additions, amplifying, exaggerating, introducing new characters and episodes, so that the tale got quite distorted and became even more of an invention than it had been at first."  

~ extract from Baron in the Trees, 

                        Italo Calvino. 


[image found via google search]

Detoxification......

Too many things have touched me in places I cannot perceive
Too may things have happened while I was asleep...

So this morning when I woke
I decided to sneak into those dark  corners within
where i often do not peep
overturn the rocks behind which i had hid the secrets of my un-virtuous deeds
confess, repent, accept the blame,
forgive me and  let the guilt sublime.......
This morning when I woke and geared for life...
I realised that 'twas time to detoxify me !

[image via google search]

missing the mayfair.....

i wasn't too much of an outdoor kid. i grew up playing indoors with my dolls, my kitchen set and my darling friend, Mini. we had been best friends ever since she was five months and i was a month old ... our mothers put us together in a big cane chair, she whined at first not sure of what or who i was,  and then we were friends... so they say....  and they let us be that way....

i did not have siblings but in her presence i never missed one... we were best friends and sisters at heart...  sisters growing under two adjacent roofs...  we were always there for each other... sharing innumerable secrets and girly tales that are part of the journey which  transforms  little girlies into poised ladies.....

there were times when we would dress alike and owing to the unintentional likeliness in our nicknames,  people would confuse our names for each others and then call us together as if it were one big name  Minimou-Moumini.... we were always together... and we liked it that way.. even when we fought, which i think we rarely did, for i cannot recall of such fights now, ..... we would stay together...  till school and college sent us our own different ways.... we made new friends, made new choices and settled to lives in different places... and in all the rat race i sometimes forgot about my dear old friend...

but on long summer afternoons like these when memories refresh... i  miss her .... i miss her a lot.... i miss the divan where we would sit and play while the music was on ... our music of childhood days.....  not very often but sometimes i do .... on long summer afternoons like these i miss the mayfair...  the mayfair of our toddler, kindergarten and adolescent days....

[i wish i could share a photograph of ours today ! 

but i do not have one with me right now.

later perhaps !

image from weheartit]

she invented.....

 and we played along..... 

       this long weekend of mine......

      

          was filled with little Shruti..... 

                        and her cute innocent games ...................   

  

let the weariness pass......

i love this photograph !! it is the header of the Indian railway website.

fills me with nostalgia... reminds me of the good old days... when i used to wait for the vacations...  and when they began, curled up by my mother's side, traveled miles and miles by train to go to my cousins' place... what fun the holidays used to be!

now cousins have settled in places where the trains cannot take me ... but this picture is making  me wander lusty and i wish to travel.  travel perhaps to the hills to escape from this dreary heat ... or perhaps to the unknown terrains where the romance in the air will soothe me, refresh me,  and cure me of this weariness .... let it wither away...


p.s:   i am traveling today early morning.  going to my dear niece Shruti's place for this weekend ....... what are your plans ?  have a wonderful lo....ng weekend ! take care, tata !

A page from history ............

I did not but did you know that apparently 1st April is called Fool's day marking the birth anniversary of Steve April who was born on 1st April 1579 in Christchurch.

Son of the owner of a textile company, Brian and Co Fabrics, he had a passion to try out  various innovative things. In his lifetime he indulged in a hundred and five business affairs, married an old woman at the age of twenty-two, and lost the property that his father had earned venturing and investing at weird ends. By 1629 he was bankrupt and had been black-listed by all financial companies of that time. He was an epitome of foolishness and was called the master of fools.  For more accounts of his foolish spreads follow the link here and have a good laugh !

love....

Dear love,     

there was so much to say

yet when i heard you speak....

my heart skipped a beat..  my words failed

... with butterflies in the air  i forgot all that  i had wished to say...

  i forgot the sweet nothings that i had whispered into your ears
in that early hour in my dreams -  
when i was missing you....   and  had  closed  my  eyes              

 and  imagined  you  were  here      

you were here... you were near..  
and i was alive....

love, love, love,
yours only...

"We are fools in love with love..." ~ Oscar Wilde

[image Morning Whisper by ~someotherwhere found by google search]

My Lilies.........

 Last April when I was home

                            around this time-  my lilies had bloomed.

         this year i miss the riot they had reveled in....

 
Dearest lilies...  , 

                                                          do come and see me soon !!