Archive for February, 2011
Strike Up The Band!
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The sound of fire-crackers and drums was unmistakable.
Another festival had started.
This time it was celebrating the patron saint of the small chapel at the end of my lane:
St Anthony of Padua.
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We emerged from the house in time to follow the sound of music –
A fusion of Tijuana brass and Dravidian percussion.
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Fr. Martin, our local Catholic priest, walks in the heart of the procession.
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Men wait their turn for the honour of carrying the statue of Saint Anthony bearing the Christ Child.
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The drum beats intensify.
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The perfectly synchronised, varying and complex rhythms are intensely powerful.
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The procession stops at intervals, allowing the drummers to perform special sequences in well-rehearsed formations.
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Once again, I find myself blinking back tears of sheer joy and excitement.
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Serenade
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What better way to mark the last evening of my son and future daughter-in-law’s stay than a beautiful meal in a graceful garden restaurant,
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While being serenaded by Carnatic musicians?
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The “children” are now thousands of miles away, en route to Europe.
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Without them,
The house seems quieter
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And just a little sadder…
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The Temple At Twilight
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In central and southern Kerala, non-Hindus are not allowed to enter Hindu temples .
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But we can glimpse their exotic beauty from the temple gates.
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A Visit To The Jain Temple
Posted by JofIndia in spirituality, temple on February 25, 2011
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“Live and let live. Love all. Serve all.”
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“All Souls are alike and potentially divine. None is Superior or Inferior.”
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“Have compassion towards all living beings. Hatred leads to destruction.”
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“A man is seated on top of a tree in the midst of a burning forest. He sees all living beings perish. But he doesn’t realize that the same fate is soon to overtake him also. That man is a fool.”
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All quotes are taken from Thus Spake Lord Mahavir: Excerpts from the sacred books of Jainism
Lunch Is Served
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With three guests staying,
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Dalila, Shaji and Anu were busy all morning in the kitchen
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Preparing Malabar fish curry, tomato fry, prawn curry, ginger curry, fish fry and Kerala rice
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A real feast of a lunch, to be enjoyed on the roof terrace.
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Harbouring Dreams
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To sit overlooking Fort Cochin harbour, with a glass of fresh lime-soda in your hand, is as good a way as any, to while away the sunset.
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And Thee, across the harbor, silver-paced
As though the sun took step of thee, yet left
Some motion ever unspent in thy stride,—
Implicitly thy freedom staying thee!
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Serendipity
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Among the many joys of life in India
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Are frequent unsought moments of intense happiness.
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Such as when I briefly pop out to my local shops
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But surprisingly find myself
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In the midst of sheer spectacle:
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One of the myriad Hindu festivals.
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I stumble into the grace and beauty of music, drama, dance and devotion
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When all I had been seeking was hand towels…
Welcome to my Incredible India!
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“Whether we name divine presence synchronicity, serendipity, or graced moment matters little. What matters is the reality that our hearts have been understood. Nothing is as real as a healthy dose of magic which restores our spirits.”
Nancy Long
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We are indebted to the English author Horace Walpole for the word serendipity, which he coined in one of the 3,000 or more letters on which his literary reputation primarily rests. In a letter of January 28, 1754, Walpole says that “this discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word.”
Walpole formed the word on an old name for Sri Lanka, Serendip. He explained that this name was part of the title of “a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of….”
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Consider The Lilies
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“Wealth, the beauty of youth and flowers are guests for only a few days. Like the leaves of the water-lily, they wither and fade and finally die.”
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Finding Your Way
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“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”
Henry David Thoreau
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“In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for ”finding himself.” If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence.”
Thomas Merton
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“We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.”
Lloyd Alexander
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“If we are incapable of finding peace in ourselves, it is pointless to search elsewhere.”
François de la Rochefoucauld
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“There comes a point in many people’s lives when they can no longer play the role they have chosen for themselves. When that happens, we are like actors finding that someone has changed the play.”
Brian Moore
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“.. a point at which everything becomes simple and there is no longer any question of choice, because all you have staked will be lost if you look back. Life’s point of no return.”
Dag Hammarskjold
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“Only in solitude do we find ourselves; and in finding ourselves, we find in ourselves all our brothers in solitude.”
Miguel de Unamuno
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Photographs taken at the Padmanabhapuram Palace
Colunnade
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“Consider the momentous event in architecture when the wall parted and the column became.”
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Photographs taken at the Padmanabhapuram Palace
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"It's a bit of a cliché to say that the longest journey we ever make is the journey from the head to the heart!
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