flow

Mumbai’s Rain: A City of Anticipation and MagicFocus

There’s something about Mumbai when it rains. The city slows, just a little. The streets glisten. The sea looks alive. But there’s also something about Mumbai when it waits for rain. The air is thick with hope. The sky teases with grey clouds. People glance up, waiting.

Anticipation fills the city.

And when the first drop falls, it feels like Mumbai breathes again.

The wait makes the rain sweeter.

That’s Mumbai—a city of moments.There is something to Mumbai when it rains. There is something to Mumbai when it expects the rain!

When did you last have a ‘Holliday’? Quick, can you take your eyes off the screen and think about how it , to be on a holiday? Relaxed? Fun-filled? Joyous? Peaceful?

Perhaps that was because of the place. But have you imagines a time when you felt relaxed or joyous or peaceful without having to travel to a place?

That is to have a ‘Holiday State’ (of mind)! It is possible. It means to be in a state if flow. It could start with conscious effort to get to that state, but it is a joy to stay there.

So, have to you considered to wear this state of mind? 🙂 Try. It’s a good state to be in!

(at Thiruvananthapuram – Trivandrum City)

“Be like water”, he tells me. “Find your space. You may be contained by your present container. But remember you aren’t the container”

I am awestruck by what a simple man sitting under a giant oak tree in the courtyards of a simple temple is telling me. I look at him with wonder. “You see water finds its place. Hold yourself lightly and keep going. There is a joy in the flow.” He is old and the wrinkles bear testimony to the many seasons his skin has been in the game.

A silence fills the moment as he stares into the sky and I stare into his lost eyes. “You will know what it like when you stand by the stream or watch a waterfall. You can hear it’s energy”

He breaks free from his trance. And proceeds rather dourly. “You didn’t expect this from a wrinkled old odd smelling fellow like me, did you?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. And then says, “many years ago I was like you. Riveted by drive and laced with passion’

His pauses for the longest period of time. Unable to bear it any longer, I ask, “and then?” He smiles, dusts himself up as he prepares to leave and says “I began to flow”

He walks away leaving me in the company of a silence broken by the sounds of his receding footsteps on dried leaves.

(at Yosemite National Park)

The balustrade on the bridge over the River Sienne on Paris, has seen much river flow beneath it. So much so, that it barely warms up to the Sun making its appearance in the horizon.

The Sun isn’t making an appearance for the Sienne either. Some sort of a magical coincidence.

The average traveller in me revels at such coincidences as we pack our bags one more time today.

#Paris #Sienne #river #RiverSienne #Europe #EU #France #bridge #sun #sunrise #water #flow #traveldiaries #travel

What does it take …?

I run my hands over many layers of bark. They are sharp. I didn’t expect them to any otherwise. The bark is dry. I look up.

For a height that seems insurmountable, the bark and the wood beneath extends above my head. I arch my neck.

Many feet above, there is green.

What does it take to stand tall ? Without being upset with the wind or whining about the sun ?

What does it take to take to the withering that time brings with ease?

How does it feel to grow leaves, shed them every year, and regrow every year.

What does it take to stand tall and provide shade to the child and to the wood http://healthsavy.com/product/soma/ cutter with equanimity? Without pausing to think of how much is there to be given.

When the height is immense and the vastness so mighty, how deep must the roots run ? How much grounding is necessary for the height to stay high?

How old yet so full of life. And hope.

Why must a tear form in the corner of my eye. As I run my hands over bark and arch my neck and try to look at its zenith?

Indeed, what does it take to stand tall?


Impromptu words that flowed from a borrowed pen on to a spare tissue paper. Chancing a tree in a deep wood and thinking of appa & amma.

Been looking…

Its that season. The season for rain. When the sun goes on vacation, handing over charge to dark clouds laden with rain.

The dark clouds have been pelting rain like sun rays. Incessant. All night long, the sound of the rain landing on whatever comes in the way : the floor, the wall, the tin roof, or the man running with the raincoat on.

And so i have been looking. Looking at sky. Looking at earth. Looking at people from the earth, looking at sky.

Looking at the single bird sitting on a construction pole, braving the rain. In solitude. Perhaps in reflection. Of the world and its ways. Of man. Of nation. Perhaps of inflation.

Sleep stays a good distance away. The rain providing music to images of loved ones that stay far away. Looking at images run in the mind. Looked at with love and longing.

To look at mother Earth responding. With a green haze that covers the mountains and molehills and soaking up the collective communities of slums and distinct dwellings in high rises.

So that’s about the one thing the monsoon gets the eye and mind to do. Sit back and soak it all up. Keeping the windows open, the rains have been some sight to see. Nestling the filter coffee laden stainless steel cup and staring into the dark clouds and silver rain.

Oh yes. There are many items on the the ‘to do’ list, that still sit pretty. People to meet. Projects to finish. Flights to take. Documents to sign. Books to read. Pictures to click. Workouts to commence. Friends to be talked to. Of course, blog posts to write.

But then, the rain you see…the rains are just beautiful. Not pouring because they are seen as a thing of beauty. Because that’s the way to be.

So there ! I thought i will return to the blog world, laying the blame for the two week hiatus at the rain God’s door step.

By now, that lone bird has taken flight. Those bamboo poles jut into the sky. Into the rain. Am still looking !

Care for some filter coffee ? The rain show is on. At my window.