Mindful living

This is a long-winded post but it has been a month in building up. And hopefully it also marks a new stage in my life as I settle down comfortably in my 40s, where I’m becoming more mindful, more calmer, think about what I need versus what I want, what kind of a world I want to leave for my daughter and do my part for it in my tiny way, and focus on how I want to live the rest of my life. So here goes.

Exactly a month ago on the first day of this new year I thought I’ll organise my closet. I pulled out clothes, folded and folded and it looked like it was never going to end. The worst thing was I hadn’t worn many of the clothes I had and some even had tags on them. It was like a revelation, and I was seeing inside my wardrobe with fresh eyes. I realized what a position of privilege it was to possess so much and I was abusing it by buying even more. I was wasting my money, hoarding unnecessary clothes and cramming my house with too much stuff that ultimately I didn’t need. There was just too much negative energy all around.

I made a vow right then that I’m not going to buy any new piece of clothing, footwear, handbags or yarn this year. The only exceptions will be underwear, anything I get as a gift, and any specific yarn that I would need for a specific, custom ask. As a first step I thought I’ll break the year down, keep a target of 3 months, evaluate where I stand, buy only the absolutely necessary items if I need to and move on to the next 3 months of not buying. I am also going to use all the clothes, shoes and handbags I haven’t used yet, give away the ones I can’t, and mend the ones that I’d pushed to the corners if a button was missing or if there was a tear.

It’s been exactly a month now and I’m so proud to say I have stuck to my resolve. So this is what I have done in the last one month:
⁃ Sorted through my handbags and kept only 5 that I knew I would use, and gave the rest away to who would be happy to use them.
⁃ Bataany and I worked through her wardrobe, kept only the clothes she wears regularly and gave away 70% of her clothes to a deserving charity. She’s never worn and never will wear some of these clothes and most of them are too small for her now but still in great condition.
⁃ I have pulled down a great many boxes from the storage cupboards and thrown/given away most of the stuff I had kept for the one-day-I-might-need-it scenario.
⁃ As for the mending part, I’ve stitched up two lost buttons in 2 shirts, mended a kurta which had a torn seam, and patched up a hole in one of my jeans.

What I’m most proud of though is this black tunic you see on top that had a noticeable hole on the shoulder.

I did a little snooping around on Pinterest to see what would be the best way to cover that hole and came up with this. It started out as a small patch just enough to cover the hole, but once I started I just had to keep going and this is the result. It’s nowhere near perfect, it’s all wonky and the stitches are not at all neat, but it’s my first embroidery project and I’m so proud of it! Now I can’t wait to embroider more!

Next on my list is tackling my shoe cupboard which is already a nightmare. Wish me luck please!

Chaos and stillness

 

There's a certain little spot in my mind where there's an absolute stillness.
No thoughts, no feelings, no emotions, no turmoil,
no breeze or rain or sunshine or darkness.
Just absolute stillness.
There are a million thought-like debris flying around and round that spot.
But the spot lies empty.
I'm unable to catch hold of any of those anchorless thoughts.
I can't enter that spot either where I can melt into that stillness.
I need to, so need to.
That noisy, painful, meaningless thought-debris will consume me otherwise.
I feel myself standing just outside the stillness among the chaos
and reaching in, but I'm not quite there.
Yet.

 

 

Pottery Town adventure 🤪

There are some places that you hear about, read about, see photographs of... and you add your own imagination into all of that and build up a picture in your head. You finally actually go there and you experience this humongous disappointment and you feel as if your own mind has let you down.

Has this happened to you? Which place/experience was it?

Pottery Town was one such let down for me. I've lived in Bangalore almost all my life, but had never been there. So when I thought of buying some clay cookware, some planters, etc., we thought why not go there and check out the place. When my sister warned me that it's not worth going there, I should have listened! (This is not an I-told-you-so moment sis, back off!)

Several factors combined to contribute to this disappointment. First of all, there is heavy metro construction happening all around the area and there were several roadblocks that led us away from that place. We relied on Google Maps (not always a good idea but I never learn!), but it didn't consider the roadblocks, so we drove around in circles for a while. We got stuck at really narrow roads lined with houses, shops, gunny bags, parked trucks, cars and bikes, cattle, where people's lives spilled out on to the streets and for a while I thought that's it, we're never getting out of here!

We finally escaped, thought OK, let's park the car a few streets away and walk. But finding a decent parking space in Bangalore is an entirely new post altogether. Anyway, we then parked at quite a distance and got an auto to take us there!

Once we finally got there we realized how close we had actually come there before. Mind you, we were still laughing at our silliness that time.

We skipped and dodged some muck on the road and stood and looked around, to see a few shops with some sad looking pots, planters and kulhads. The streets were waterlogged, there was muck and garbage all around, and the shopfronts were choked with junk. Nothing at all like I had imagined.

Maybe it was our unfortunate timing too. Deepavali is just over, and summer is still a while away. There are not many buyers around this time, and this is kind of a slow phase for the potters. There was a woman in front of one shop who we started talking to, and she confirmed this for us. All the things you want will be ready only January-February, she said.

We nodded, walked out, got another auto, got into our car, and got home, without buying a thing.

Moral of the story is, don't always believe social media pictures are the reality, go where you want to go, but don't always expect things to turn the way you imagined it. Prepare to be surprised/shocked/disappointed. But I guess this is not to say you will always be disappointed. There have been times when I have been pleasantly surprised, exhilarated even and some places have proved to be sooo much better than my imagination. So I might not go to Pottery Town again (or maybe I'll change my mind in January) but I definitely will not stop exploring new or out of my places! 😆

(Also, sometimes do listen to your sister.)

Silencing the mind

 

There's a place in your heart where you go
when you need to escape your crowded mind.

Here's mine.

I walk barefoot in the sand,
I listen to the waves whisper soothingly to me,
And I ask the sea to swallow all my demons.

 

Shadows of this night

 

How beautiful is this night...
A gentle breeze,
a few muted lights,
dark shapes playing hide and seek.
Laughter, drifting from a lively home nearby;
another home, cozy I imagine,
lets out a soft melody.
A vast stillness settles within me,
A deep breath of calm.
I should go now, I think.
Move on, and let this safe night swallow me. 

Let's go back.

Shall we go back
to those lonely lands
where the winds howled...
and the sea crashed
into ancient sands?

Shall we get lost
in another time,
another world...
where time stood still
and our hearts raced?

Shall we go back
to when the stars
were in our eyes...
and the ocean
lay beneath our backs?

Shall we then walk
hand in hand in the crisp darkness...
when the night got old
and we, younger?

 

 

September rain

 

It rained so hard,
I forgot to weep.
The drops fell all in a blur
and the world became soft around its edges.
The ache dulled,
blacks faded to greys,
and the screams in my head became whispers.
The rain fell hard
and I forgot to remember. 

Book review: Ashoka by Charles Allen

 

 

Title: Ashoka
Author: Charles Allen

Genre: Historical non-fiction

Publisher: Abacus (3 January 2013)

Price: Paperback Rs. 496, Hardcover Rs. 750, and Kindle edition Rs. 151 on Amazon

Pages: 480

This book was the reason I fell in love with King Ashoka, the "stumpy, pot-bellied, pumpkin-faced, fragile King who had the tendency to faint under stress".

The book itself is written like a detective story, narrating how Ashoka's life was painstakingly pieced together clue by tiny clue by the "Orientalists", beginning in the 18th Century.

Charles Allen has kept it real, without being pretentious, overly academic or puffed up with his own importance as many literary historical non-fiction writers tend to do. The language is simple, current, and narrative.

At the same time, there's a faint hint of the author's tenderness towards this King throughout the book. In the way he regrets the way Ashoka and his efforts in making Buddhism the way it is now, have been unrecognised even now, in the way he recognizes the tender feelings in Ashoka's one of the more emotional edicts near the Ajanta caves when he was young, and the way he talks about his appearance.

I’m not a great non-fiction reader, but this book, I absolutely loved. It also triggered a need in me to want to know more details about King Ashoka Maurya, and everything to do with that period.

Book review: Jasoda by Kiran Nagarkar

 

Title: Jasoda
Author: Kiran Nagarkar

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Publisher: Fourth Estate (25 November 2017)

Price: Hardcover Rs. 449, and Kindle edition Rs. 253.80 on Amazon

Pages: 235

So here's why I have mixed feelings about Kiran Nagarkar's 'Jasoda'... This was my second Nagarkar book and after 'Cuckold', I started reading this with high expectations. It started off well. A gut-wrenching story of a woman struggling in rural Rajasthan and later in relentless Mumbai, told in a casual, matter-of-fact manner.

There were pages when I just wanted to shut my eyes tight and not read anymore because it was so gut-wrenching. There were also parts when I couldn't stop reading.

But as the book progressed, the story telling kept getting too casual, very disjointed in parts. For example, one moment the family returns to their village and the older son rejoins school, you turn the page, and now he's a professor in a college in the USA and dating a white woman, who becomes his wife almost immediately.

Sure the book touches on several prevalent social evils.. patriarchy, female infanticide, abusive husband, poverty, tyranny of the ruling class... and sure, you do hurt for Jasoda, you weep for her and all the women who have to go through so much pain. But the second half of the book feels totally unnecessary, and seems like it's been written in a hurry, with the intention of "just need to finish this already!" I guess it's not surprising since the author started writing the book more than 20 years ago and completed it only recently. There is bound to be a disconnection with the passing of so much time.

To summarize, not one of his finest works. Now I feel like pulling out 'Cuckold' and reading it all over again just to remind myself why I liked Kiran Nagarkar in the first place.

1. A little boy, wearing his mother’s dupatta as a cape and running around making dishum dishum noises.

2. This little guy who hitched a hike with me for a whole 10 minutes in the auto today on my way to work.

3. This mini idly fry I tried out:

 It was yummm!