baby parrot come again ....

I am terribly late in introducing this lovely guest to you . This was about a week back from Diwali , i heard some unusual flutter outside my window . A pleasant chirp of a herd of parrots is nothing new but they keep themselves perched on the higher branches of the trees mostly . I have failed miserably whenever i tried to shoot them

I feel so lucky to be so close to nature , green surroundings , a jungle-garden and loads of birds . I have seen so many colors , shapes and sizes of birds here and many of them choose to make their nests in my trees . But i am very bad at taking pictures ... i am so engrossed in the experience of watching them that i forget to shoot them most of the times . On the other times when i rush inside to fetch the camera , i get so conscious of not disturbing them and i fail ...... to take a decent picture.

 This is how i shot this baby ....

up and close .........

He just hopped here n there a few times and flew away ... i have been waiting for him to come down from the higher branches since then .... hard luck .... but he is so cute .  This picture i shot in the last week of October .

A child can be so easily recognized by his/her body language , checking out everything and taking short uncertain flights ... this baby is flying a bit more confidently now but is not giving me any opportunity to shoot him .... waiting till then.

my garden pictures...

Okay ...i have a garden in the middle of Delhi and i am not a millionaire .... i don't live in a huge bungalow surrounded by a lush garden for your kind information . It is a small apartment located in a government owned campus . I am on the ground floor and luckily there is open garden space both in the front and back . There is a huge drumstick tree , a nice lemon tree loaded with lemons right now , a curry patta tree , a jamun tree both in the front and back , a bael tree and a chakotra ( grapefruit ) tree adorning my garden . Apart from this there is a mehendi fence interrupted with paarijat bushels and a very fragrant variety of jasmine too . I keep planting some seasonal flowers and vegetables but there is no set layout and the overall look is like an unkempt patch of greenery .... here are a few glimpses....

                                                                          the Araucaria  ....

                                                                  Pink Abutilon .........

                                                    Violet creeper ( railway creeper )...

 

 Right side of the garden during rains........right behind the papaya tree the curry patta and lemon tree are jostling for space ........

Left side of the garden .........you can see the plants battered by rains , sunflowers can be seen which were in the last lap of their growth span , they are huge sunflowers ( 6-7 inch diameter ) rains made it difficult for them ... In this picture only a few sunflower plants have been left . I am posting a riot of sunflowers in the later part of this post ....scrawl down...... Luckily i have saved a few seeds.

                                                  The papaya trees about a month ago...

 Some potted greenery..................

 

                                                          Growing almost wild.......

                               These lilies look like two shining stars to me......... almost wild again...

A small rock garden i tried to construct , still needs some work....

Mogra during the rains.........last lap of the mogra season.................

                                                         Isn't it wild ....well almost....

                                                                Some more abutilons....

                                                          A branch of lemons in the sunshine........

             The Gomphrenas i uprooted last week and saved the bright colored flowers for dry decorations...

                                                                          Close up....

                                                           One more shot of the Araucaria...

                                   And now ........my happy sunflowers .........attracting lots of bees....

                                                           
                                                                  The buds coming up.......

                                                                       Young flowers.......

                                                            Growing neatly in a row......

                                                      Drooping with it's own weight....

                                                         Don't they look absolutely happy........

 Wait for some other happy looking flowers in the next post ............these were all my summer flowers and the overdrive of the rainy season ...... some quite winter things next time.....

A few of my readers and friends have been asking for my garden pictures ....... i want to remind you my friends...that , this is a lazy woman's garden and the pictures have been uploaded in a lazy frenzy.....if there is something like that .............. but the pictures made me happy in the middle of the night and hope they will do the same to you too......... cheers !!!

diwali was great ...

Diwali was great .
There is always something to look up to , only i have to focus my eyes on that .
Small little things to feel good about .

There were no celebrations and it felt like a low and dull weak . The more i saw others cleaning and decorating the more i felt terrible . I wanted to clean up the house at least , lots of things needed my attention but everything was ignored very conveniently ...under the guise of self pity .

On the day of diwali i decided to drown myself in something crafty . Strange, but it was good . It was an instant idea of joining 4 handmade woolen mats to make two cushion covers . It took all my time till the afternoon .

These very old, much used mats were used for the most significant thing of their life .

 I clicked these pictures too after finishing them . These were two white and two black mats and i made two sided cushions with them ..

As soon as i finished them , a very sweet thing happened . In my neighborhood , an uncle is partially paralyzed for the last two years and he rarely goes anywhere ... other than hospital visits and a drive to India Gate her daughter treats him with . His family takes very good care of him and they decided to bring him to our place this Diwali . This is the beautiful thing happened this Diwali when this uncle brought me gifts and blessings . It was wonderful !!

Another very nice thing was that a couple who were apparently headed for divorce got together this Diwali .... and it was because of my small little contribution in their life . I had invested some of my time and lots of my emotions towards them and the result was really wonderful . I got a call from them how happy they are ...making some future plans . Isn't it a wonderful feeling when we touch lives and make a positive difference to each other .

I hope such wonderful things keep coming in my life . What do you feel ?? Could it be any better ??

wishing light to all of you...

A doodle for light ...

welcoming all the lights and cheers and sending them back to you all.........

we choose to be what we are.............

While talking to someone that day over phone i realized that i should write about a friend who has been very strong and upright in her life , who has the spine to stick to her beliefs ....... and that , this strength has been an acquired virtue . I have great regard for all the people who have made their lives better on their own , by sheer grit and courage . A few such people have touched my life and have helped me grow too . This is something i wanted to share here for a long time but somehow i lack the drive to come here and share even the greatest things happening around .

This is a friend who i met through a FM radio ( Meow ) and related to her ideas and thoughts immediately , soon we started talking over phone and started visiting each other . She visiting me most of the times , myself being the lazy bum . We were strangers and still we could share so many things easily to each other , guiding each other and listening to each other in the not so strong moments.... we feel so week and helpless sometimes and after each episode come out stronger . She is no more a stranger and slowly we developed a different kind of bonding , most importantly i saw her connect with Mithi almost instantly. Let's call her T ..... a name is not an issue...

Yes , Mithi responded to her the very first time when she talked to her . I used to feel so happy whenever T used to come to my house and call Mithi's name loudly while entering the house .........something nobody else ever did . Unfortunately at that point of time Mithi was less responsive and could not respond to her call but she always understood whenever T talked to her holding her hands. That was the time when Mithi had become very week and her body very very distorted and no other person used to go to her and communicate with her , apart from us family members. This gesture always warmed me up and definitely Mithi too .

May be because T has an elder sister who is a special child , still a child at 50 . Seeing a disabled sibling all her life must have made her sensitive towards the needs and emotions of such a person . So Mithi was the first reason for our bonding , later we realized it was much more than that .

The story i wanted to share here is of that fateful day when Mithi left us . Both Arvind and i were dumbstruck and shocked . We had rushed her to the hospital in a frenzy and saw the doctors struggling with her for almost an hour .... the longest hour of our life ......... and when the doctors calmly informed us .. as if both of us had lost our voice . I don't remember for how long we sat there , still ........ Arvind's colleague , who was there with us , took the phone from his pocket and started checking the call log to find a number of any family member to inform , he dialed one number and gave the phone to Arvind . I do not remember what came to my mind , i took out my phone and dialed T .......... she came immediately . It is now that i realize , the way i felt when she used to communicate with Mithi might have been on my subconscious mind and that might have prompted me to call her. ( i did not call anybody else and that is why i wondered after a while why her name came on my mind )...........This is not what i wanted to share here , it just falls in the sequence of events....... and may be i feel lighter by facing it one more time........

When it was time to go to the cremation , somebody asked me to go home ( thinking it would be difficult for me to see all of that ) and before i could say anything , it was T who said firmly ....... Sangeeta is going there ...and insisted that she would accompany us too . I am telling this because T had lost her husband about 12 years ago in a freaky accident and going to the cremation ground must have been so very difficult to her . Facing our worse memories related to a lost loved one is so very difficult . I could feel that day and for weeks after the day that she was very very depressed . Apart from the tragedy in sight , confronting her own fear and heart wrenching memories had definitely taken a toll . And i know all this while she was silently praying for her own sister too , who is old bodily ( if not mentally ) and is suffering because of many issues .

Whenever i remember that day , T is there in the memories and that act of courage comes alive . It was not easy as we can imagine , but she decided to go for it . She choose to be strong .

Today evening we were talking about the things which make us restless..... the changing season .... this is the season when she lost her husband ( this very month ) and the chill in the air and everything related to this month must be difficult to encounter .......every year , year after year . She brushes off the chill and gives a warm smile......... she chooses to be happy ...
 
As i have witnessed so many times , we come out stronger when we address our fears face to face . I am not writing this to prove that i am indebted to her gesture ....... That will be an insult to a pure selfless friendship i believe . I just want to convey this to anybody who might get inspired from her . Personal courage and strength is something we achieve by practice and by will . After loosing her husband , T has struggled a lot to raise her two sons single handedly . That is the reason i believe that the courage and the resolve to be strong is an acquired asset and we can all grow towards it . Also, this 'growth' is an ongoing process and we have to work on a daily basis to keep growing ..... Something i am myself struggling to do now a days ..........

Growing is life ........ we choose the direction ..........

who is disabled ???

 I met a sweet girl who had specially come to meet me when i was visiting my sister's place .

'Sweet girl' ...this was my first impression for her and she talked to me non stop for a couple of hours together. What i had known about her previously that she works for autistic children and occasionally with blind people. I was so touched by her child like demeanor and eagerness to talk to me about endless topics....all related to the lesser privileged people .

We talked for hours about how satisfying this work can be if we do it from our heart and soul . But she had come to me with a purpose . She had actually come to to tell me not to engage myself into working with disabled and special children . Yes , it may sound weird or even insensitive , but she was talking from experience and i had to give it a thought . She was following me from the very beginning through my sister and often my sister used to tell me to meet this sweet girl i am talking about.

I could understand what her point was . It is really heart breaking to see somebody suffering when you have been at the receiving end yourself . Every time you see somebody suffering the way you have , it revives all the pain once again . More importantly the person is mostly able to deal with the physical pain , but the social stigma ( of being differently able or disabled ) and callous behavior by friends , family and neighbors is most disturbing . The reality is that the closest of people have the most capacity and probability to hurt you . When you see some other person being subjected to the same kind of callousness , it is far more heart wrenching . And that is what 'the sweet girl ' was trying to convince me.

I understand that. Very well . I understand what it is to be ignored by family and friends . As if you no longer exist . As if you exist for a few occasions convenient for them , when they are not ashamed of a 'not so presentable' you . When everybody seems to be associated with you only for a benefit or give and take and you no longer seem to be useful for anybody...... In a country where every kind of disability is associated with beggars ... we are so used to seeing the blind , lame and lepers queuing at temple gates and traffic lights that a person who lost his limbs in an accident is reduced to being a faceless 'bechara' , and 'bechara' here doesn't translate to a 'poor thing' ...... the 'bechara' in this case is a mere subject of charity ( ohh...charity can be different to different people , that i want to discuss in detail some other time ) . Not a competent professional he once was , not a dear friend , not an intelligent thinking mind and not at all a throbbing heart . Not that all of it should happen to me , it's just that i become a bit more perceptive to any of such things happening around ....and even if someone else is at the receiving end , it hurts me to witness the callous attitude. Clearly , it will be all the more painful to intentionally reach out to that kind of people if you are not a heart of steel ( gold is not worth )...

Now about the 'sweet girl ' . In the midway somewhere during the conversation i realized that this girl must be older than me . The wide eyed expression , the fidgety fingers and straight posture with a precarious uneasy back on the sofa was not a young girl's usual demeanor . It was an obscure mind of a grown up woman who was still vacillating between her beliefs and social norms . Her beliefs so pure with a twinkle in her eyes when she talked about how the particular child can only be tamed by her and not his parents when he is violent and it is the touch and a soft voice what is needed to speak to him . The social norms which have alienated this sweet girl from the people she works with and the extended family and everybody who reaches out to her or is hesitated to do so ....

Why ?? What is so special about her . The red head which i thought was a trendy hair color was not so . The covered hands and full sleeve kurta was not due to summer heat ( as any scooter riding girl does these days ) and the dark glasses were not just for the sun and the milky white complexion was not of a parsi or kashmiri origin . In a nation obsessed with fairness , albinism is a disability which is torturous in a girl's life . While she could very well protect her skin and eyes from the scorching sun , the soul so pure was scared to face the world , was unsure of the people's reaction ...always looking for a sense of acceptance....nowhere to be found . I kept thinking about her for weeks and when asked my sister , got to know that everybody in the office makes her the scapegoat and everybody practices the right to pour their own frustration to her , to make her feel inferior .....even feel like a retarded ..... Yes she is often treated like a retarded person in her workplace.

She is not a hard working honest girl , not an intelligent mind , can never be a trusted friend ........... she is just a useless white skin   ......... in a nation obsessed with fairness.

Coming to her advice to me .........which was so important to her that she wanted to meet just to convey this to me for a long time. Yes i agree to the concerns she had , and presently i feel a bit worried about being unprepared and unequipped for being a hard core ' worker ' but i know i have the understanding to handle it . It's a matter of time and i will not be able to stop myself . Still i think i do not stop myself when i see someone being ostracized or deprived because of an inferior status or a disability ....any kind of discrimination for that matter. I am specially sensitive to children being ill treated by their own parents and intervene whenever there is such a situation . For me any small little gesture of being useful for someone is good enough ...... and as i read somewhere i now consider myself as a ' work in progress ' ...

thank you...

I said Thank you to a few people who responded immediately after seeing my last post , I didn't know how to react actually... so Thank you for the few moments you diverted your mind towards this. I actually didn't want many people to see this but at that time my mind was not on those things , that is ,the places this feed ( blogposts ) goes to and who all will be reading it immediately ....

I received a few , actually more than i had imagined , mails within the first hour of posting the previous one .... and to all of you ...hey i am all right !!

You know i am a strong girl , the only thing is ...that strength comes when i feel weak and is actually a defense mechanism to the weakness , does it work that way ?? Always ?? With all of you ??
Don't know but it works like that for me.

The post was probably a confrontation with the grief , i know i will never be out of the past but yes i feel the past and the loss will not be as painful for me now.... it should become a routine thing for me to think about her and to think about her with a smiling face , a beaming heart ......she was a special gift to me ... and moreover , she will be with me all my life...

In the future too i will never stop myself from sharing my experiences with Mithi , but i know it will not be painful for me ... as i really want to share so many things so that i can make people understand that a child should get all the love and affection no matter how he/she looks or whether is a special child by any means.....

I want to share my own experiences of how i tried and succeeded ( as much is humanly possible ) in making a child happy and it's not difficult at all and most importantly , the sense of contentment it gives you .... you are a contented parent when your child is a happy child and connects with you well.

As a parent i am really really happy and contented , my daughter was a well behaved good girl , i don't call her my angel without a reason.

fumbling with the words ....... finding my way.....

It has been almost 9 months since Mithi decided to go quietly . Probably it was someone up there who decided to call the little angel back home but it was the little angel herself who decided to leave so quietly , without a fuss and without causing a louder shock. She took care of her parents and took care not to bother any other people who might have found difficult to deal with it...

I always felt that i was prepared for her to let go but now i feel how wrong i was ... It was just that i could not see her bearing all the pain and wanted her pain to vanish even if it meant her life . Parting with my little angel has been like a loss i never had imagined , ever.  I want that little Mithi back who played with my hair and pinched my lips indicating me to sing for her , who was so content with her mama's hug that even the mama felt like having the world in her arms.... that world is lost , for ever..

As the clouds refuse to go and the temperatures are changing , my heart sinks to think of all those adjustments we had to do to make her comfortable in the changing weather . How i used to lift her on my shoulders and walk her in the house or in the garden ... mithi ghumne jayegi  were the words she could be happy with , her neck resting on my left shoulder and her limp legs dangling below my knee , her left arm around my neck , palms resting on my right shoulder .........how i want to hold her like that.... even like that , even when this was the last thing a mother would want to record her child's growth by how far her feet reach down my legs when i lift her on my shoulders....she was growing bigger..she had been a healthy chubby child but she had become very thin and just a skeleton in her last days......cannot forget the last time i held her , as if she had no weight and felt like a senescent leaf on my shoulders .....

She was the center of my universe for the last 9 years . I never wanted to know anything other than her medical condition , her feeding  , her bed to avoid any bed sores , her brushing and flossing teeth , sponging , bathing , combing ....... she had long braids just 3 months before she died . I snipped her hair myself as it was getting tangled and it took longer to shampoo .... I was so into that universe that i find the world outside very very different . These 9 years has been a time when the world has changed a lot and imagine a person who has been cut off from the world for that long...i had never seen a multiplex for instance . I feel lost . I feel lost in the outside world and i feel lost in the house as well , not knowing what to do without her.....

I thought i am a fairly strong person and wanted to manage it well , so well that i remember that i found myself consoling other people a few times... i changed topic when someone came to sympathize and i consoled every single person who broke down talking to me about her . I was wrong , the grief was waiting from the margins ...to take it's grip on me , to consume me.  I try and distract my mind a hundred times and yet it comes back . I pose for happy pictures and talk cheerful things so that nobody talks to me about her and the sense of loss is right there in my heart . It swells up as soon as i take my eyes away from the computer screen , or a book or the nth number of half done knitting or crocheting project . My eyes burning , head throbbing and the heart swelling up to choke me . I never felt so week in my life .... the time when her condition was diagnosed was the time when i was a worried mother , i cried a lot thinking what is going to happen .........but now it feels like questioning myself about what is left ....

I know i have to get out of it and i am working towards it . Writing these words is actually the process of working towards moving on.........i know i have to start afresh .

The difficult time when i was acting strong and yet feeling like a dump of clay is over . Still when i read IHM's blog and see her grief , all of that is revived with full force and how i used to feel ... i know there is no right or wrong way to grieve , there is nothing you must or must not do as you have no control over your emotions and  the delirious mind can lead you to utter depression . There are flashes of moments when you realize that still there is life ahead but you are so lost you never seem to know how to handle..

In the initial days , it felt like my physical self had liquidized , and i wanted to evaporate somewhere and yet at the same time there was a realization that i have to resurrect . Resurrect with a tougher material . I really felt like being in a liquid state for a very long time , as if my body was not a part of me , no appendages and no skin ...there was really no sensation of a physical being . The mind was working overtime , a throbbing head was the only part of body alive ..... new folds of the brain were being analyzed , whats and whys  and what should have been and then a delirium...........i could feel a hurried breathing and would be up to reach her for she needed me .... realizing instantly she was not here .

For an instant i would realize the physical presence of my hands as i would feel the warmth of those little hands , and then my hands would be empty ...but the touch of her skin still there...i could feel her breath on my cheeks and could not kiss her ...that's when i would feel a huge hollow consuming me from inside . A hollow stuck in my throat , another claiming my heart ............and i really wanted to evaporate...... and yet somewhere there was a sense that i have to resurrect with a tougher material , a tougher skin , tougher bones to stand up and a tougher grip to hold on what was left .....

It feels like it was just a moment ago when it happened ...... and sometimes it feels like it was ages ago .... the delirium of the mind continues in episodes and between those episodes there is a strong will towards getting up and start afresh .........it has taken time and i know it will take some more time to be able to find the right things to be done the right way.....

I found a book in the library , i often feel that the books sometimes find me instead of it being the other way  , this time it seems i have willed the book towards me .......... I had never heard about the book or the author and a black paperback caught my eyes ...The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood . She lost her 5 year old daughter to meningitis , suddenly , without a warning . And like me and like all of us she had other issues in life too to handle and it felt like she was loosing everything she had after the demise of her daughter . Her mother leads her towards joining a knitting club and she realizes after a while that we all have to learn to face our loss and our past in order to move on .

I kept crying while reading the book and Arvind was puzzled what is happening , i kept on reading the book and telling him the story and the sentiments woven into it .......... i must say the book has definitely helped me accept my loss , to an extent , it is an ongoing journey and i will have to work towards it continuously i know . I am already working hard towards it . You have to read my cheerful posts on the food blogs i write to believe this.

Are you still with me ?? still reading the weighing down words ?? 
Thank you . I had written this post some time back but never posted as i felt that i should not burden my readers with an emotionally plummeting account of my heart , but when i read this book it felt like it may lead someone else to unclog their own bottle necked emotions , like plopping up the cork and let go of the fizz .....the trapped energy which needs to be let loose must be let loose .... as i was having a word with IHM . Talking about what i feel was important and i was not finding words...i hope now it will be possible to have a way with all those painful words....may be i will be able to convert them into a soothing lotion....

I suggest this book to everybody who wants to help themselves with any kind of emotional bottleneck , any kind of disturbing past or any kind of loss . I have always felt that working with your hands is a good way to give a way to your energies , i have written about it here , any craft which needs your mind to concentrate and your hands work in a rhythmic manner . Many people find it old fashioned , but nothing is old fashioned if it gives you a sense of creation and peace of mind ..... time is not a factor as even if you do it for 10 minutes in the midnight you will feel how it works for you.... "The Knitting Circle" will give you thousand reasons to get started with knitting but you know your own reasons and your own crafts to start with.

Thank you Dear Reader for being with me all this while.....I needed a dialogue here , an honest one ..... posing for happy pictures has not helped and now it was time for an honest confession of being a weak heart ... as they say the heart breaks but it still beats .... can i make the heart beat to my own tune.......ooohh....

Ann Hood says she knits her love for her daughter everyday .... I have lost faith in prayers for now but i have immense faith in love and in the will of the mind....

the eternal beauty of 'subah-e-banaras'.................

Benaras is famous for it's sunrise by the Ganges .

There is a perfect horizon , bordered with water .

flowing water .

The ancient ghats in the opposite side of the sunrise is a perfect backdrop .....the earthy colors of the ghats complement very well with the water , the sun and everything that follows a sunrise........a golden sheen covering everything in sight .....a perfect way to welcome a new day in your life.......

The waters turn to molten gold and it's just ethereal........

 The ghats are ancient , and most of the buildings are ancient too.......some of them are painted brightly and that looks surprisingly good with the rustic sandstone ghats..............

You get to see how so many different kind of people start their day , the pandas ( the brahmins who facilitate prayers for you in almost all the holy places in our country ) arranging their chhatri ...........

This panda we saw brought the chhatri ( Umbrella like canopy ) from somewhere else and fixed it on the axis .....then we saw he brought another chhatri and fixed that one too..........

On the wooden platform where he sits and waits for the people to come after taking the holy dip in the Ganges ....... his chowki ( the wooden platform ) is complete with all the necessary paraphernalia for a puja .....chandan , pani  , aachmani and the mouli ( holy red thread ) he ties on your hands indicating it's time to pay.......

He calls one and all and lures everybody  to do the prayers with him.........at lower dakshina ( fees for the prayers )........ you have to buy your blessings and the panda will help you out ........a facilitator ............

Okay .... you see other things too.......foreign tourists going for boat ride .......

Somebody sleeping like this is the best place to a good night's sleep.......

People brushing their teeth with neem datun , taking a dip in the ganges and then a small prayer , sometimes a loud rhythmic enchanting of mantras.......not everybody has to buy those blessings , you can always have your own way with God ..........

The air feels resonant with humming chants , ringing bells and flowing water and suddenly the quack quack of these ducks ......

You turn and they seem to be asking you something.........food....do you have some ????

These ducks can be seen on Dr. Rajenda Prasad ghaat and they are very friendly........we didn't have any food for them so we had to move away ......to the boatman.....it's time to drift into the waters........

Once you are in the boat you can see the beauty of the ghaats ..........unperturbed by the pandas and the people trying to rub off all the sins into the Ganges and to start afresh for newer sins.........you just see the ascending peaks of mandirs and the waving flags ....... peaceful and serene........

I like the randomly floating boats and always end up clicking the pictures just for the boats.......kids do their swimming practice and you can spot as young as 3 year kids ..........

These chhatris on the ghats are a symbol of banaras ............

Some royal families built palaces by the banks..........now being refurbished as luxory hotels , as we were told by the boat man .........

Sunrise is wonderful............the sun peeps through the clouds ...........

And then comes out in the open..............

The oars keep moving as the waters change color every minute.............

The boat man wants to click our pic.......and in a couple of trials he succeeds ....

This was a boat ride after 12 long years..........we used to go for boating very often during our courtship days ...........it was great to be there again............our perspectives change and we see the world differently .... and it was definitely different this time.......

Happier.