Between Books

After starting this project, I am finding myself drawn to writing new posts everyday. And obviously, I just cant write new book reviews everyday right? So thought will share some other reviews also with you here...experiences that I have between books.
 
Restaurants, hotels, new products, stores...these are some of the things that I am planning to record here. Hope you will like it.

Comments

Post a Comment

And they blabbered back!

Popular posts from this blog

How much longer will India be the land of festivals?

Image
There are so many things that I want to write here, that I don't know where to start. But there was one predominant thought I had when I got up at 3.30 am on Sunday morning which I wanted to compulsorily blog about -The Karadaiyan Nombu. For the uninitiated, Karadayan Nombu falls on the first day of "Pangunii" month as per the Tamil calendar. Legend has it that Savitri, rescued her husband Satyavan's life from Yama on this day. So every year, young girls and married women pray to the Goddess to bless them with good husbands and for longevity and good health of their husbands respectively. We wear a yellow thread around our neck on this day and make a special delicacy -the jaggery adai and the salt adai. The time to tie the thread around the neck is usually the moment the month is born. As far as I can remember, it has been at convenient times. Even on those days when the month is born late in the afternoon or evening, we all managed -even if it ca...
Read more

A Song of Ice & Fire - George R R Martin (Game of Thrones series)

Image
You might think I’m ambitious for attempting to review A Song of Ice & Fire for my very first review. To make matters worse, it is also a wildly popular TV series titled after the first book, Game of Thrones. Also, I could be shot if there are any spoilers in the review. But I can’t think of another series/book since Harry Potter that captured my imagination and obsession so effectively, so here it is. For those who haven’t watched or read it, Songs of Ice & Fire is about a power struggle of massive proportions between kings & queens, lords & knights, conquerors & slave masters, set in a land where seasons can last for years. What’s new about this story of power and politics, intrigue and ambition, murder and betrayal? The mind-blowingly intricate tapestry of characters, locations and events, to put it simply. Each chapter is from the point of view of a different character, but the storyline is in many threads, spread across many miles and gorgeousl...
Read more

Some Days

Image
Often, I am just stuck with my fingers hovering uncertainly over the keyboard. I can't bring myself to type out the entire sentences. My thoughts are always on a rush, each one pushing and shoving and jostling for attention. They just push past each other, tripping over each other and reducing the words a jumbled garble of letters that just spew out as a powerful stream of projectile vomit. Before long, the vomit of letters will just trickle down to a string of weak, spent saliva...still stuck precariously to the tip of the lower lip, but utterly spent. Then there will only be this uneasy stillness, like a room full of acquaintances suddenly gone quiet with awkward silence hovering over them, after running out of topics to discuss within minutes of settling down to talk. But that silence only lasts so long, before the letters start peeping into my brain. They gather their might, bit by bit, a sentence here, a phrase there. Then they slowly brew into full...
Read more

Karma Yoga -Part 1 -What and Why

Image
For the longest time, I was under the impression that the term Karma yoga only means doing social service -maybe sweating it out in a beach clean up, sweeping the temples, cleaning the animals in a shelter and doing physical work for charities and NGOs. And needless to say, I felt that Karma Yoga makes no sense because I didn't have enough time to walk around with a broom stick. Looking back, it kind of feels funny that I have always associated Karma Yoga with sweeping and mopping.  Then came my initial Vedanta classes. When our Acharya used to talk about unselfish action, not working for fruits of action, work for work's sake, working without attachment and so on, I was still left scratching my head -not because of what she was telling, but because of my limited understanding and evolvement. At that time, I was still working in corporate and I often used to wonder, what it meant to work unselfishly? It is not that I was a selfish person anyways, so where am I...
Read more

Getting Yoga Ready (4) -Brahmacharya

Image
As we saw in this earlier post about what it is that we are aiming to achieve by all these disciplines, let's move on to reflect about brahmacharya.  The word brahmacharya literally means "going after Brahman (Supreme Reality, Self, God)". If I aim to go in search of God, it is absolutely essential that I MUST purify the mind. So, let us see a little bit about the mind. What is the mind? The mind is an equipment or a vehicle of the self or the soul, just like the body. While the physical body is gross, the mind is extremely subtle. The power of the mind resides in its subtlety. I can't perceive my mind through the sense organs -I can't see it, touch it, taste it, smell it or hear it with my physical ear. But, the mind is powered by these exact sense organs. In the sense, the mind is the repository of ALL the perceptions that are gathered through our sense organs. The sense organs collect all the data about this physical world and submits it to the m...
Read more

The Chore Trap

Image
A house is a beast by itself. It enslaves and ties one up with an innumerable and inexhaustible array of chores. I rrespective of whether one has a help to assist with domestic work or one does it all by oneself, there is never a dearth of these chores to complete.  And the trap here is, being caught up in a constant whirl of chores lulls you with a false sense of productivity and achievement. The chores may vary slightly from house to house, depending upon what chore falls on your head to what gets done by the help, but the essence is this -KEEP CLEANING TILL YOU DIE. Don't you agree?  The chores come in varying degrees... everyday chores that includes  Cooking -the one major activity that involves a hoard of sub activities around it -starting from grocery shopping, shopping for veggies, breaking your head as to what to cook today / tomorrow/ this whole week-morning & evening, chopping the veggies, cleaning the kitchen after the cook & ...
Read more

Ocean and the waves

Image
As we are slowly getting back to our routine, I am looking back at the beginning of the lockdown and how it all unfolded for me. As the whole world withdrew inside their homes, the environment became so conducive to go within. The stillness on the outside easily helped achieve a stillness within.  As the world slowed down, the mind also slowed down. Activities came down to a bare minimum. Actions were performed only on a need basis. No mindless running around. Within this physical stillness, the mind stopped gathering new impressions. And with no new impressions to distract, the older ones surfaced up with a vengeance. When that happened, there was no choice but to confront them. Look them in the eye and truly SEE them for what they are.   And when that work was done, it was like a huge chunks of slush and dirt that were clogging the spirit were cleared off, allowing for the state of flow to manifest so beautifully. As the inner world cleared out, the actions ...
Read more