Navarathri / Dasara doll arrangements!

Happy Navarathri / Dasara to all of you!

Navarathri, is a festival of Dolls, esp in Southern India. We arrange dolls of Gods, Goddesses and other stuff and pray everyday, for 10 days or nine nights (nava-rathri).

Here's the arrangement we made this year!

If you've seen our arrangements a couple of years ago here, you'll notice some changes. We try to make some additions and deletions and rearrangements every year, and this year, we added this Mount Kailash, abode of Lord Shiva. This is again from my parent's collection.

This is Mahabalipuram, with a beautiful background, which Dee bought as an addition this time.

And this cricket stadium is also an addition to previous years'.

Check the batsman, ready to bat!

And no, here comes our creation for this year! After the park last year, we wanted something different this time. Having visited Khuri, in Jaisalmer last year, we decided to create a Desert Village and here it is!

Though we couldn't create the pattern on the dunes anywhere close to the Creator, we did manage it somewhat decent looking, i guess!

Found these camels with a great difficulty, at the last minute!

And here's some arrangement of flowers and Kundan Rangoli.

Enjoy! Happy Dasara, once again!

Old friends and Unforgotten Gifts!

Recently I found an old good friend on Facebook. Apparently she had recently joined FB and I had found her with some difficulty. The last we had spoken to each other was about 4-5 years ago, though I’d remember quite often.

So when I pinged her, here was the exchange of messages we had...

Me: Hi Nxxxx! How are you doing?? Hope u remember me...

She: Very happy to see your note Sumxxx... xxxxxxxxxxx... Ofcouse I do remember you... I still use your Bon voyage key chain... Do you recall giving that to me when I left to US?

Me: Xxxxxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxxxxxx
I don't remember the key chain, but was happy about that! Well, I too am still using the hair clip you had bought for me and Hema in Seoul!

She: I forgot about the hair clip... but happy you are using it... xxxxxxxxxxxxxx... let me know your number... lets talk sometime.

Well, she had bought me and another friend a hair clip each and I still have treasured it. Whenever I use it, I mention it to D about her! And apparently I had bought her a key chain which she too is using! Both of us remembered the gifts we had got, but had forgotten the ones that we had given!

Isn’t it good to count your gifts?

Rainy, Wet and Leechy Wayanad!

It was a long weekend and we had planned to drive down to Wayanad. Started pretty early in the morning and after a quick meeting with a friend's family for breakfast, set out towards Wayanad. The drive was quite smooth, though the road is quite narrow at some places after Mysore, there was very little traffic and enjoyed it. Loved the picturesque landscapes and stopped at a couple of places, where the villagers were harvesting the crops right on the road!

After Mysore, I had taken over the wheels and let the photographer do his job :). And to our luck we spotted this herd of tuskers including a baby. They were pretty close to the road in fact! We slowed down, took a few shots and started off.

As i always say, wherever we go, the rains follow and this trip was no exception! It started raining as soon as we entered Wayanad area and continued to, for most of the time, but it was pleasant too.

We had booked our stay in Green Magic resort in Vythiri. Vythiri is a beautiful place off the road and there is a high end resort too, by the same name around 3 kms from the main road. The place we had booked in is further up the hill some 4 kms further after the Vythiri resort. We were told to park our car in front of one of the houses off the main road and a jeep was to pick us up to the resort. The roads, or rather the path that lead to the resort was narrow, slippery due to continuous rains, but we felt we could have driven our car itself.

However, after about 3 kms, the road, if at all i can call it that, got too rocky, slippery and narrower. Add to it the up slope! No wonder we were taken by the jeep! There were places where a small bridge like thing was just wide enough for the two pairs of wheels to cross! It was indeed adventurous!

After a couple of heart gripping incidents, we reached the resort.

The resort was a simple looking row of cottages, overlooking a beautiful stream. The rooms were cozy, without electricity for most of the time, built in a rural style, has an open dining area, again off the stream. It is totally secluded from civilization. They do have another resort a km or so further, the other one we were told had more modern amenities, but we were here just for the nature, not for a TV or AC :)

The only sounds heard were that of the roaring stream below, pitter patters of continuous rain drops and some insects! It rained for most part of the two days and there were leeches all around. Well, do not freak out about leeches, all they do is suck some blood, and at max, you'll have some slight itching for some time! See this one on my hand, it's interesting how they get on to you and find a suitable place to suck blood! (Ok, here before it settled, i drew it off my hand, though :D)

The best part of the trip was we were the ONLY guests there on the second day! The other group that had checked in the previous day found it boring since it was raining and checked out earlier. And we had the whole resort to ourselves!! Sitting on the porch and watching the rains and eating some hot snacks prepared by the staff was all we had to do, and it was a total relaxation! Due to rains, there wasn't much of bird/butterfly activity, just watched these snails move around everywhere! (Not sure of the Id)

The bath had a glass wall and overlooked a beautiful little private garden!

There are also a couple of tree houses, which give a wonderful view of the thick canopy and wildlife view from very close.

The staff were good, though we had language problems! food was just ok, with little options, considering we are vegetarians. Also they gave us a good discount over the actual price, may be because it was off-season. Would love to go back there again, in a brighter season!

Note: We made this trip in Oct 2009, and writing it down now, when an acquaintance asked for info on Wayanad resort. Unfortunately we were not much into wildlife as much then, and due to rains we didn't do much other than relaxing!

On our return journey, we stopped at Pookot lake and then at Edakkal caves, both were crowded with people and didn't impress us!

‘Adult’erated!

This was about a year ago. As soon as we returned home we were told that the main valve from the tank had been closed as a tap had broken outside. There was no water at home and this had to be fixed immediately. When asked as to what happened, nobody seemed to know what had happened. May be some street boys had come over to steal the tap, may be it was too weak and broke itself and so on.

Fine, we had to fix it first, rather than needing to find out how it happened. Went about, got a new tap and D fixed it himself. All this while, Hima, who was watching us fix, came over and said,

“Atte, Hima was playing in the evening with water, she wanted to water the plants. After that Hima tried to close the tap and it came off. Hima’s clothes were all wet. She got scared because she’d get scoldings”.

Yeah, she’d call herself as Hima.

She even gave us a demo of how it had happened!

We both gave her a hug and a peck on her cheek. Told her that it was ok to make mistakes; everybody did. And that she was a ‘good girl’ because she told the truth and admitted it. She was rewarded with a candy.

Why can’t we adults have such honesty? And the ability to admit our flaws? Why are we always thinking of covering up our faults?

'Home'less :(

Where did it go? I screamed. And D was also shocked to not find it there. The nest that we had been watching for the last two weeks was not there. It had disappeared completely with just a trace of a few strands of straw sticking to the branch, on which has stood this lively nest, bustling with activity till that morning. We had reached home late that day and noticed it only after dinner.

Nobody at home seemed to be aware of it, and we were given some lame justifications that it was there even in the evening, may be the birds took the nest to a different place, may be a cat would have attacked, may be some street boys had come in and stole it, the wind would have blown too hard, and so on. None of it made any sense, and tears started rolling down my cheeks.

It was the nest of a pair of sun birds, hanging from a branch of hibiscus plant, just below the window lintel, and in a walk way. There was a remote chance of a cat reaching there as there was no support for it to climb up there. More over if it were a cat it’d be interested only in the bird and may be eggs, but not the entire nest itself. And the other excuses were totally dopey, not needing any considerations at all. There was no litter below, as if it had been carefully removed from its place and cast away. It sure was a human act, for only humans can be so meticulously destructive.

The female bird had built it all the way, while the male had given her company. And she had laid egg(s) too, for she was incubating them day and night. How joyful had I been when I discovered it right on the first day. We had observed it throughout the nest building and now incubating period, I even took notes everyday, religiously. And were waiting for the chicks to come out, I had clandestinely planned to take a day off to sit and see them... but that day never came.

I wept and wept, while D too was very upset and started searching around for any clues, or for the nest itself, if it was lying around somewhere. But there was none. Somehow, this one was so close to our heart... We were as joyful as if it were our own home, and it were our own babies to be born soon. And now, it was gone without a single clue. We hardly had any sleep and even the little naps were full of dreams.

And in the morning, I had got so used to listening to their chirps even before I got out of my bed. I can now make out various bird calls, even without seeing them. I know exactly which bird starts chirping first and which follows next, every morning, though I’d still be in bed and listening. And as soon as I heard the sunbirds’ call we rushed out and saw the female fret about around the branch that held her nest. And the male was there too. They frantically searched around as if the gone nest would reappear again. It made me sadder and more tears rolled down my cheeks. After a few minutes, the male signaled and they both flew off, out of sight. I just hoped that they forget about this and build a new nest again at a safer place and restart their family.

But I was wrong. They didn’t seem to have given up so soon. Through out the morning, they came about together, every few minutes, to check if there was any hope. How can there be any?!

They searched around in the bushes, sat on my bike, searched in other plants nearby, cried to each other... I guessed that they knew it the previous evening itself, and still came back in the morning, because all these days the female used to spend the nights in the nest.

Every time I heard them or saw them, my heart broke... I could so well understand their pain...

Ohh! Where did it go?!?!?

Where did it go?! She cried in despair
Soon her partner joined her there
Frantically searching here and there
For there was no clue anywhere

It was their nest, built with love
Hope and passion to raise their chicks there
And also the hard work they had to endure
In building little by little day in and day out

The site was chosen with great care
As they were small little birds
So made it safe from every predator
But entrusted on humans to be guards

Now there were their eggs in it
And she’d sat in day and night
Not even feeding enough for herself
Waiting for the eggs to hatch off

And then on one un-fine day
She came and was aghast
For the branch swayed empty
Without her beautiful nest

Their beautiful home that stood
Full of life and joy till yesterday
Had now vanished completely
As if it never ever existed

There was nothing that they’d find
But still they came on, to look out
Every time bearing more anguish
As they had wrongly trusted mankind

Novel-tears!

Little Hima: Atte, are you angry with me?

I nod as a ‘no’

Atte, I simply scolded you, for not telling ABC when I was playing teacher-teacher.... it was just for playing, ok?

I nod

Atte, am I a bad girl?

I nod again, trying to smile

Atte, why are you crying? Are you not well?

I nod

Atte, don’t cry.... did thatha-ajji scold you?

I nod

Dee comes in and starts teasing me and laughing at me.

Atte, did mava scold you or fight with you?

She looks at D and scolds him that he is making me cry.

I nod again, tell her that he didn’t do anything, wiping my tears and trying to smile....

Atte, don’t cry ok?

She gets a towel and wipes my cheeks; I give a bigger smile...

She looks at the book in my hands,

Atte, did your boss scold you because you didn’t read the book?

I nod, take her on my lap, hug her and start laughing...

I show her the book in my hand - ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ and tell her that I was crying over the characters in the novel.... she’s all the more confused, she can’t comprehend that someone can cry reading something.... and I just smile at her innocence... Why can't everything be just as innocent in the world?

A Thousand Splendid Suns

I can say this is one of those books that haunt you for days after reading it. With its characters, the plot, the background. The writer Khaled Hosseini has done an amazing job in bringing in front of us the lives of common people in a war-struck backward country like Afghanistan. How a war between countries and forces, leaves the common man devastated and deprived of everything that they actually deserve.

Afghanistan which had been under war for almost 3 decades - first from Soviets, then the Mujahideen and then Taliban... The story is laid out over the last 4-5 decades of which three decades are of war. How a country which apparently was in a ‘developing’ state is ruined completely by these wars, is beautifully and painfully pictured. Women, during these times were the most affected, I can say - of course men were affected too, but most of the times, they were either killed, or continued to live as before, whereas, women were subjected to all kinds of violence, deprived of even the basic amenities like food, healthcare, etc, forget about education and other things, which were not even imaginable!

The story starts with Mariam, an illegitimate child of a wealthy person, who realizes very early in life that she would have to endure many many more pains in life and that was just the beginning. She loses her mother in her early teens and is married off to Rasheed, thirty years older than her, in far off Kabul. She has a series of miscarriages and along with the losses of her to-be-borns, she also looses whatever little regard Rasheed has for her. She is neglected, ignored and more than that is subjected to his violence, which she silently endures.

Laila on the other hand is a young girl, whose parents are with modern thoughts, who comes with the school of thought that women are equal to men, and that education is as important to women as it is for men, and that a country can progress only if its women are a part of the progress. Unfortunately her life is shattered too, when the bombings take her parents’ lives and her lover’s family flees to Pakistan, leaving her pregnant. With no one to approach and no where to go, she, herself 14, has to agree to marry Rasheed who is now in his mid forties.

She delivers a baby girl and so she too looses the love and regard she initially received from her husband, and eventually there is no difference in how both the wives are treated. The Taliban regime would have started then and there would be a thousand laws forbidding women from doing anything else other than enduring their men’s violence, leaving them no option for anything. The two women develop a unique bond of friendship and love in those hardships, and support each other in whatever way they can.

And finally Mariam decides her own course of her life for the first time in her life and sacrifices herself for Laila to lead a proper life. And she lives on, beyond the war to rebuild hope in Afghanistan, along with her second husband Tariq and her children.

Well, what I liked in the novel is the writer’s way of telling the story. It flows out naturally in a simple way, and yet each line delivers a heavy message. We should be ashamed for what is happening around us in all those war-struck countries, not just this one. People in one part of the world do not have access to food, water or healthcare at a time when we, in many other countries are leading a luxurious life, having whatever we want. Our own contemporaries were subjected to so much of violence when we were busy coding on our high end machines, to solve the Y2K issue! They didn’t have water or food for days together when we were introduced to Pizzas, burgers and KFCs! I wonder what is it that is achieved in a war?

Overall, a wonderful read.... just loved it till the end. Was terribly moved by it... Looking forward to more such books from Khaled Hosseini.

Snakes!

A conversation with mom on phone
Me: ‘Where was it?’
Mom: In my room, almost about to enter the bathroom
Me: And?
Mom: It must have sensed my footsteps and quickly turned back and climbed out of the window, probably from where it came in.
Me: Did you take a picture of it?
Mom: No, the camera and phone were both in the other room; I didn’t want to shift focus from it, so just stood there, observing and watching it
Me: Ok, good... Did it have any ‘V’ mark on its head? How big was it?
Mom: No it didn’t, it didn’t seem to be a cobra. It was about a meter long, not very big...But I was wondering what if it had got into the heap of clothes near the window, and if I had left it unnoticed for a long time?
Me: Don’t worry... most of the time they are harmless... but make sure you don’t get a shock if you spot one like that... in such cases, just open the door or window slowly and make some noise in the opposite direction, so that it goes out.
Mom: Hmmm... So you are now re-teaching me the lesson that I had taught you!!
Me: Oh yeah... :D

Yes, yes, you guessed it right. We were talking about a snake that had entered her room yesterday. Wondering how we could be so cool about it? Well, it is not the first time that a snake came in... not even the second, third or fourth time. We have in fact lost count of such instances... It keeps happening at least a couple of times a year inside home and many more times around, in the last two and a half decades of staying there. We were literally the first family to build a house in that part of Bangalore about 3 decades ago and for almost a decade ours was the only house, the nearest other building about half a km away. I’m sure mom, being a nature lover would have loved staying in such a place, with plants, trees, birds, animals and of course reptiles around, when dad was off to work during the day. How I wish I was staying in such a place now... well, it’s a tragedy there is no such place in Bangalore now, with every plant and tree being replaced by a high rise apartment or a shopping mall....

Coming to the point on snakes, I have so many experiences with snakes (just spotting the visitor of course, nothing else) not only in my maiden house but also the current one, that I thought of putting up here whatever I remembered. Before that please do remember that not all snakes are venomous, in fact very few are. If they were, then I would not be alive and writing them here!! And note that we, people, have encroached upon their habitats that they have no other place to go to and so show up in our homes at times. It is a sad thing that most of the times, snakes are associated with a lot of myths and just brutally killed. Come to think of it, it is these creatures that put a check on rodents like rats and mice, and maintain a balance in nature.

The world is not created only for man, in fact, if you ask me, he was a misfit here, in this beautiful world, that he is destroying all of it, and finally himself too.

Some good reads with information on snakes and what you should do in case of a snake bite:

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/blogs/show_entry/2082-venomous-snakes-near-sarjapur-road

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/2339-snakes-bangalore-safety-firstaid

More snake experiences of mine will soon follow.

People Change, don't they?

People Change, with time, don't they?

Me, you, he, she, there is no one who doesn't change.

Of course change is an essential and integral part of our lives, but why is it that sometimes it gets so difficult to accept those?

Why is it that we tend to continue to have the same kind of expectations that we had a long long ago.... and when the expectations are not met, we brood over it!

More than change in circumstances, it is the change in people's attitude that hurts bothers me more. How right is it to be goody-goody When you are in need, and to have a 'i don't care' attitude when you don't?

Ok... so there were some posts in draft versions that i had started off in the past few week and left it unfinished just because i didn't feel like completing and posting... Today, when i looked back i felt like posting one of them as it was, rather than just discarding it! I didn't even feel like continuing it as the feeling when i wrote it is no longer applicable now :), but posted it anyways!