Regardless of our personal beliefs and faith, this is a constant, is what I have seen. The deep, abiding thoughts that come to mind when we feel gratitude, are worried, when exams come around, when a loved one is worried, in trouble, or unwell… I could go on. But then again, you would still do so, even if there was no man-made religion or deity, would you not? In the presence of that which gives and gives, with love, unconditionally. Nature. Nah, that is too broad a term.
A tree, trees, on a hot day. A tree, that catches the lens of your phone camera as you pan, looking for things to shoot with it. A leaf, on the tree, falling from it, brushing you softly, as you pass under you feet? Flowers, oh I could go on. The flora of earth is poetry.
A bird, birds, maybe you do not know, but are fascinated or simply see them in passing. I think peacocks and elephants are two denizens that abound in my native land (peacocks come by regularly, at my mother’s place). Butterflies, dragonflies… not everything that flies, though 😀
Extended families of non-human beings, whoever they be.
The concept of Kaavu, comes to mind here.
Hoomans too, family, even though we aren’t born of the same parents. Our tribe.
Divinity comes in so many forms, for me. And my prayer is always gratitude, and that I am worthy of them. Karma may be a stormy beach, but we got boats, sails and anchors, of our kind, and we make good Karma. So.
Bonus:
Bindu Manoj introduced me to Mary Oliver’s poetry. So grateful for you both, Bindu. This one sums it best.
Praying
By Mary Oliver
It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.
22 September, 2023, for Day#22 of #SeptemberMusings
I’ve always loved driving/riding vehicles. From the humble bicycle I learned to ride when I was 10, I think (we did not own cycles back then – the early 1970s, and finally when I did get one, it was a treasured one, even if it was second-hand), to the cars I now drive, it has been such a pleasure, driving.
I grew up doing all the things my brothers did, from playing cricket with them and their friends, to climbing trees, learning to ride the cycle, later moped, a Luna, and then Daddy’s Mist Green Two-door Herald, later his Classic Ambassador and now the WagonR they have, my car, my son’s car (yet to drive abroad, another bucket list item 😀 )
The scar I mention as my identification mark, for ID cards is a scar above right eye, earned during my stint of learning to ride a bicycle. Later, my knees, feet and elbows carried enough patches, badges of honour (or recklessnesses? ) that have been testimony to my love of riding/driving. Yep, I have the drive. I am driven. You know… 😀
I am so glad that driving has now become a necessary skill, especially for girls/women. I loathe all those innuendos and jokes about/around women drivers (some shared by women themselves!), and cannot fathom why they would when it is “they” who do not let the women (a) learn to drive (b) practise enough (c) be guided with a cool head (d) make the same mistakes that they would condone for a male driver. I could go on. This is favourite soapbox topic, even in the face of folks telling me I’m privileged, I’m “bold”, I’m a rebel… yada yada yada. Bah, humbug, I say.
Even as a schoolgirl, riding my bicycle to school, I would have men-cyclists whom I might have overtaken, quickly catching up, and going ahead. Amusing, even then, I tell you. So, as a woman, driving a car, in the 80s and onwards from then, you can quite imagine how audacious it must have seemed. These days, thankfully, women drivers on roads are no longer a novelty. And here, in Kerala, it gets very in-your-face, this derision/astonishment that a woman is driving a car (90s, 2000s, at least upto 2010, hereabouts!) Now, grey-haired, short-haired, and still driving kickass, I get solicitous advice on manoeuvring and parking – would you like us to? I do appreciate the kindness in the thought, but I’m not always happy with the thinking that I might not be able to. Sigh. I LIKE my driving, even if it gets labelled whatever 😀
Back in 2009, Arjun, my first-born bought his first bike, a Thunderbird, Red in colour, from the Royal Enfield home. Bucket list it was, riding it. Still to check that box completely, but I did do an amazing ride around the INS Hamla Naval Base one night, with him on the pillion. OooH! The thrill of it ALL! Someday, I still hope to ride a motorbike from my home into town, all those 7 km. Bucket list indeed!
If there’s one thing I usually tell girls and women it is that they learn how to drive. Driving, swimming, financial independence. I realize it might not be possible for all of them, but then again, what can be done to achieve it, it MUST be. 3 musts, I know them to be. That’s just me, please feel free to ignore 😀
Right now, my steed is a Maruti 800, christened AK47, since this is in the number plate. We’ve been together 17 years, and she’s still a good girl on the road. She’s also been immortalized in a little story my Class of 2015 did, as a gift! (you can read more here – LINK) When it is time to let her go, I know I’ll miss her the most. Second to the Ambassador my father had for a long time, about 16 years, from 1988. Included below the picture is a letter I had written to The Hindu, Letters section on our association with her/him. (Yep, the Ambassador was sometimes HIM 😀 )
7. The Amazing Likeness, in the fantastic close, to my AK 47
___________________________________________________________________________________________ This is the letter I wrote to “Letters to the Editor”, (08 June, 2014) The Hindu, reading that the Ambassador Car would no more be manufactured. Of course, it did not get published. All the more reason to publish it here 😀
Sandipan Deb’s lovely nostalgic trip down memory lane (Long Live the King, published in The Hindu, circa 2014) in the King of Automobiles, in the Indian Memory was thoroughly savoured this wonderfully rainy Sunday morning! My father and I are in absolute agreement with all the notions, having had the honour to be charioteer to this King of Cars!
My father bought the car, in Mumbai, in 1988, and for the next sixteen years or so, it had become family. We called it an ‘aanakutty’ – meaning a baby elephant- naming it ‘Cherplassery Sankaran’ after the place it was stabled! When I returned to settle in Kerala, almost twenty years ago, this was the first car I drove on Kerala Roads. I must emphasize that at that point, there were few women drivers, and I had yet to meet/see, another woman who drove an Ambassador! That too, an Ambassador, which had two happy heads of dogs lolling out their tongues and enjoying their ride!
This, in turn, would excite passersby, who exclaimed with excitement, ‘dhey penn odikkunu!!’ (see, a woman driving!) to ‘dhey penn odikkunu, pattikalumaayi’ (see a woman driving, with dogs!!)
When the baby elephant became a white elephant, due to high maintenance costs, with her love for guzzling petrol, my father, with great sorrow, sent her away to another Amby afficionado, at whose garage, she still stands.
The article by Sandipan Deb brings home memories of how upto 15 persons have been accomodated in the car, on a long trip; how our Labrador, as a pup, took a flying leap out of the running car; how we even had our cat Kunji, who loved the car, and taking trips in in! A universe of life, lived in that one gentle giant!
The Ambassador, for all its refusal to adapt to new and modern ways to exist, will be sorely missed. I still miss ours, ten years later!
Cherplassery Sankaran, as we used to call Him/Her!
____________________
September Musings for today (6000+ words 😀 ), has been a trip in more ways than one down memory lane!
and grow. Sing and sow. Sing and sew. Singing, have you noticed is always part of you, when you’re happy doing something? In the shower, gardening, making art, doodling, driving, travelling. You hum, if you don’t know the words. So much comes to mind when it comes to how I simply cannot sing, and yet love it. How I appreciate all those who have the gift of singing, making music.
Singing while working, is a culture by itself : seen on the paddy fields here -Transplanting of paddy is finally happening in the fields in front of my parents’ home in Cherplassery now, and Omana and I were lucky to meet the few women there, singing and planting. So what did that bring to mind? Indeed. The Solitary Reaper by William Wordsworth (LINK)
I’ve re-versified the poem, sending gratitude and humble apologies to the Master Poet! 😀
THE CHALAVARA SINGER-PLANTERS
Behold them, singing in the field, Yon Chalavara songster women! Sowing, and singing for us! Stop here, or gently pass! As they pick and sort the paddy, And sing a *naadan strain; O listen! for the air Is overflowing with the sound.
*No Nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands Of travellers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands: A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides.*
*Will no one tell me what she sings?— Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago: Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again?*
Whate’er the theme, the women sang, for us As if their song could give joy with no ending; I saw them singing at their work, And o’er the paddy bending;— We listened, Omana and I, encouraging, overjoyed.. And, as we walked back the **varambu The music and video in my phone I bore, Long after it was heard no more!
The poet’s original lines are between the *and * * native song ** path between fields
No videos here, sadly. Shall add them to my instagram and facebook shares. 🙂
… the thunderous hard consonant, ‘D’, thumps rhythmic and loud, when you articulate it loud and clear. It’s a happy sound of cheering onwards, or it can lend ominous overtones in either- while tom-tomming agenda-driven blather, or the verbiage that accompanies witch-hunts! So what are these sounds d-d-d-doing here? A bit or a lot of… well, read on and somewhere in the ramble you might discover it, even if I have failed to convey it! Typical post, here, in other words 😀
After years of instructions on how to flow with the community and make sure one conforms, given that that is how I had been brought up, no matter what, I decided it was time to lend a helping hand to the rebel within. And many without.
Deify-ing vs Defy-ing. What a danged difference an “i” makes. We clamp down heavily on those who defy, and we adore those who deify. To what result? Most times when defiance ought to be considered, and examined, as to the reasons why, we tend to invert, and revert to the time-honoured maxim “Thou shalt do, and not ask why!” It must have been a couple of years ago, that it finally dawned upon me, that the more one makes the young listen and “obey”, no questions asked, the more one is training them to be the fall guy and accept any kind of authority, especially the toxic kind. So, in later years, when one is in an oppressive situation, and one ought to defy and disagree, the default mode is so ingrained, that even in cases of assault, sexual assault, to be precise, the focus turns inward, instead of being directed where it ought to go, and one blames oneself for what happened.
Grown-ups know best is no longer the norm, in my opinion. So, while discussing randomly, off topic, as usual, in a senior class, I happened to mention that it was okay to disagree, and to say NO, if they wanted to. The response to that was bewilderment, and confusion. Not surprising at all! I mean we’re always telling them they have to listen to the “elders”, and that grown ups know best, and here was this teacher telling them that it was okay to say NO. Impressing upon a youngster that dissent is important has to be done. And it is best that it comes from a non judgemental source. (To be continued in another post, hopefully)
4/5 Sept, 2018 (Serendipity)-4Feb, 2019, for Day#17 of #SeptemberMusings
TripawChangu giving a damn, right here. Kind of the best peg to hang this post 😀
And, yes, i love to limerick || Have tried to master the trick || Of the a a b b a rhyme || 'Tis a joy truly sublime || When a verse comes out slick and quick!
A Quest on Overdrive ... :) 