The mountains are so grand; I realised it that day when I climbed one. The green velvety zigzag stretch left me overwhelmed.
A thought caught my attention and told me how beautiful and majestic the mountains were, how incredibly small I was, how peacefully colourful the surroundings were and how sublime the music played by the wind was.
I saw the clouds and they saw me; I blushed quietly. With my feet in the wet green grass, I stood there enjoying the drizzle. I sat on a calm rock calmly and opened the notebook. I couldn’t write for some reason, so I drew the scene instead.
Have you ever felt the same? Like when you feel something you cannot describe in words or otherwise? When the smell of an old book takes you back in a different century?
As if the leaf that fell near you was meant to fall there so that you could pick it up and observe it? And that the glamorous city lights were talking to each other and the moon was talking to you?
What about the smiley face drawn by a passer-by on a dusty car that reminds you of the one you had drawn? Have you ever felt the still mind?
The drawing that I made took the shape of the yin-yang without my knowledge. Opposites complement each other. I sat near the window and thought about it; the sun passed by and the moon came with white light very quickly and in the shadow, I saw the light and immediately, I agreed.
I again looked at that drawing, in gratitude but the drawing was no longer the same… there were dark green mountains and blue sky, white clouds and green grass and me, sitting on the calm rock calmly. And I looked through the window…
I can see mountains from the window, I’ll take this window along.
That feeling of sadness when you realise that you could have done something else, something better but you cannot because time has defeated you, leaving you alone with the mighty Fate.
That moment when your heart is full of love and your mind full of confusion and you hesitate to take a step forward; sometimes you console yourself and sometimes you scold yourself…all you are left with is pain.
Pain is known to everyone who knows love, hope, desire and ego.
Why don’t we get rid of this pain and live happily ever after?
Maybe because we need pain…just to understand the importance of everything around us, to learn to value every little thing.
Maybe because pain teaches us to move forward, it gives us only one choice which is to change with time.
If seen in this light, pain helps us to realise our transient nature but not to lament over it, rather cherish every second of it and to make the best of it.
Yes, this will mean to be ALIVE always but this is just how we should live, shouldn’t we?
Why be in grief when neither the reason for the grief nor you, the sufferer, will stay forever? What stays is the wish to live life to the fullest.
I am walking on a mysterious road… what passes me enters me and then it vanishes, leaving a feeling within me, giving me pain and hope… I walk ahead in the search of love… I cannot see the path, just one step after the other… it is thrilling… the silky air around me is what I can feel and the music of the cosmos that whispers in my ears, telling me to hum along.
Just like the fading fog, that fragrant memory faded away.
Summer holidays and not so hot day, lying under the tree I peeped endlessly to see the sky. There were no clouds but now and then few birds crossed my vision. As the sun made me close my eyes, I tried to concentrate on the green leaves of the tree but instead I fell asleep. I dreamt happy and bizarre dreams, Alice like dreams. My dreams were colourful, the child’s world.
Just like the fading fog, that fragrant memory faded away.
Sitting on the study table and with the dull words stubbornly standing in front of me, my mind’s eye tricked each word and I soon reached the future. My future was always perfect – my clothes, my career, my life – everything just smooth and beautiful; boundless time to have fun with friends, family and a special someone. But when my mind’s eye met the alarm clock on the table, I quickly re-entered the tedious world of the textbooks, giving in and apologising, only to trick this world once again.
Just like the fading fog, that fragrant memory faded away.
It is raining and I am standing near the window, watching droplets join each other and run away. My mind is full of umpteenth things but I am lost, lost as I look at someone walking with an umbrella, fighting the rain and the mud on the road and I think about this unknown person. Though the unknown person has left but the thought remains. I take a sigh and decide to get back to work but I keep standing there.
Just like the fading fog, that fragrant memory faded away.
Living far away from my loved ones, I feel empty. Before tears fall, my mother calls and I say hello with a smile.
A funny incident that happened in college and how it became the topic of every discussion in my friend circle makes my eyes wide and I joyfully jump back in time.
Also, when I think about the moment when I said ‘Ciao’ to others and their comments and walked on my path, doodling something on the notebook and then closing it feeling my ears getting hot. At this moment someone definitely calls, someone definitely comes and talks and talks and I forget. I simply forget! But it comes to me every time I am alone and every time I just move forward.
Just like the fading fog, that fragrant memory faded away.
Shadow doesn’t like to take bath at all, the wet hair confuses him, he licks himself but still remains wet. This is what Shadow told me.
Once Shadow was happily sitting in the veranda then suddenly he saw something in the garden… and then, Shadow ran towards it. But before he could see it properly, it flew away. Shadow’s Mamma told him that it is called a birdie and that they can fly. Shadow now notices the birds all the time, they fly in the blue sky and vanish, sometimes they sit on trees and sing. Some sing sweetly and some talk ceaselessly. Shadow likes them; this is what he told me.
*
Lalaa-la-laaa, sings Shadow. [Image by J Rumi]
*
Two words that Shadow used – ‘happily’ and ‘suddenly’ – somehow looked magnificently beautiful to me.
Whenever he talks to me, he uses these two words a lot –happily and suddenly. He is happy to get a yummy lunch and then suddenly he jumps from one place to another and again becomes happy. This superb cycle of being happy and then having a sudden emotional change and then in the end being happy again…wow! Amazing life!
When there is a sudden change, one can feel anything like anger, hunger, excitement, retirement, sleepy, weepy, and more; the best part is you will be happy again. This is the kind of life Shadow lives, he doesn’t know it, he doesn’t need to know because he is simply living it. Shadow is happy at the end of the day!
There are beautiful colours around me, pink mostly. Sometimes the softness in the atmosphere changes into wetness which after inhaling makes me happy and light.
I am also holding an umbrella, it is black in colour. I open it and I am dragged backwards by the musical wind. I am laughing and loving the moment. With my flying umbrella, I spin and float here and there like a leaf.
I always wanted to be a leaf, I am serene.
Keep dreaming, keep living, freely. Image from Pixabay.
I read somewhere that ‘definition destroys’ and I think I believe in it. This is this and that is that has never worked for me, only feelings have.
Defining simplifies things, yes it does and makes things understandable, but it also makes things complex and difficult… all the definitions of the macro and the micro world does not help in resolving the problems, the inequality in the world.
Though necessary, it often becomes too confusing and an indigestible half-baked fact.
To define is to confine; actually, I don’t know but it rhymes perfectly and rings true.
I just hate it, this definition thing, the most when dreams are analysed so as to reach a definition. Please, let us keep our dreams as a mystery for the mystery on our smiling face in the sleeping state continues.
‘In those days, the only laxative we had was castor oil, which made me want to throw up. There was nothing but quinine pills for the treatment of malaria. As a child, I could not swallow pills whole. Once, before a visit to Dhaka, I was obliged to chew some quinine pills. Even after all these years, I can feel its horrible bitter taste lingering in my mouth. The arrival of capsules in our lives has made us forget how awful the taste of medicines can be.’
Awful medicines have made us dependent on them, weakening our inner strength and making us dull. We choose this and that medicine instead of trying to improve our unhealthy routine. Look at the table beside your bed, the refrigerator and the cupboard and think about it.
‘There was something else to help me pass the time. It was an amazing contraption called a stereoscope. Many families possessed one in those days but now this Victorian invention cannot be seen anywhere.’
‘My mother and I had gone to attend Poush Mela, a festival held annually in Shantiniketan every December. I had bought a new autograph book, with a view to having its first page signed by Tagore. I went to Uttarayan one morning. Tagore took my autograph book, but said, ‘Leave it with me. You can collect it tomorrow.
We returned the next day. He was sitting at his desk, which was piled high with letters, various pieces of paper, books and notebooks. He began looking for my little purple autograph book as soon as he saw me. It took him nearly three minutes to find it. Then he handed it to me, looked at my mother and said, ‘He will understand the meaning of these words only when he’s older.’ What he had written was a short poem, which is known to most people today:
It took me many days, it took me many miles;
I spent a great fortune, I travelled far and wide,
To look at all the mountains,
And all the oceans, too.
Yet, I did not see, two steps away from home,
Lying on a single stalk of rice:
A single drop of dew.’
(Excerpts from Satyajit Ray, Childhood Days – A Memoir)
Vincent Van Gogh, Field with Poppies, 1889 On the way to Scarborough Fair… [Source – Wikipedia]
*
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
The melody flows like a stream of water breaking the dryness of the earth, silently and smoothly.
Suddenly you are in a colourful and sweet world. And you listen for the first time to the rhythmic world and you realise that life is not heavy but it is light as a feather. The feather dances.
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
By now you are humming and hoeing and weeding. This is what you want to do in life, with lots of time to sit under a tree, half sleepy, looking at the clouds you smile.
This is what you wish for, once you reach the Scarborough Fair.
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
*
Vincent Van Gogh, Poppies and Butterflies, 1889 At the Scarborough Fair! [Source – Wikipedia]
*
And now you paint… after seeing so many colours you begin playing. Red hands, orange hands, yellow hands, green hands, blue hands, indigo hands, violet hands – you have given birth to a rainbow.
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Remembering that good old vision of the future and a memory of the past, all you actually need is a smile in the present.
While walking I realised that the Earth is walking and so is the cosmos, this jamming made me happy. The sweetness and the warmth and the lightness of this real and tangible feeling took me to the Scarborough Fair.
All I can say now is that I am swaying with the wind and smiling brightly. There is a ribbon, long and beautiful and silky, it is also swaying with the wind and smiling brightly.
You’ll find it too when you go to the Scarborough Fair.
*
Vincent Van Gogh, Poppy Field 1890 Swaying at the Scarborough Fair along with the poppies. [Source – Wikipedia]
Listen to the blissful track – Scarborough Fairby Simon & Garfunkel– that inspired the blogger to write this post.
Endless footprints following footprints/
When suddenly a few of them rise/
To bloom like a flower.
Greetings!
A storyteller, following the ancient tradition of cave chroniclers, standing in vrikshasana (the tree pose) on a hill top (it is sunny, but windy), breathing in and out stories (relishing it all, but at times overwhelmed), declares animatedly that she will continue to – tell stories, share rare story gems, and connect with the pacy universe while also keeping the website ad-free.
Big thanks to my readers. Stay tuned!
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Ya-hoy!
Chiming Stories (formerly Home Chimes)
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Gabbeh, the 1996 film, is a simple tale of a gipsy girl, her clan and the way their life goes on. Unfolding beautifully just like an artist painting a canvas, Gabbeh quietly touches the grand questions.
Ranked as one of the greatest British films of all time, The Lavender Hill Mob confides in the audience, letting them see, feel, laugh and think without tickling persuasively with a joke here and a punch-line there.
Godard… Breathless and Alive
A Tribute to Jean-Luc Godard, the Film Philologist who Reinvented Cinema.
Yes fly! For walking on the second track is dull and usual, but dreaming high, high, high requires tools. Tools like the right pair of shoes, a chirpy, gritty soul that eats butter-jam dreams, a soul that drinks milky-milky creams.
Silver cascade shimmering the night sky, music to the waves and surreal beauty to the eyes, the Moon loves the art of discipline.
It may be difficult to believe for the Moon’s splendour defies time, it stupefies the clock, it follows the path of a dreamer, but how could this be possible if the Moon knew not discipline?
In this moment, I am a little bit of this and a little bit of that, I am complete and incomplete, I am pleased and uncertain, I wish for nothing and I know I have to wait.
Because the distance covered reminds me of the hurdles I have crossed and the ones I could not, it reminds me of a throbbing past and a dreamy future and it reminds me of how much time is left.
Meredith and the Green Lake
Illimitable Splendour
A joy so complete without any rise or fall, so free without any time corners, so real without true being false, false being true.
