In a deep ravine, there is a small patch of green

No one sees it grow, but it has the most beautiful flowers 

Unrivalled by the best garden

In the ravine, deep in the heart of the forest

Walk memories of a forest one cannot escape

Even the sun filters its light before landing headlong into the lap of this earth 

Giving rise to an exotic circus of birds, beasts and trees

I still walk in that ravine deep in the forest where the garden grows 

Resolutions

It's an annual ritual to sit and make resolutions, to be determined that this year I'll turn my life around. Writing has been something which I keep saying I'll do more of. Somewhere along the way, I keep getting this feeling that I'm losing touch with the writer in me. I've lost patience with words; I've started preferring the visual. 

The visual medium has always stimulated me, maybe something to also do with a sense of symmetry. Recently I picked up crochet, and though I was initially intimidated by the complex patterns people on YouTube videos seem to be dishing out, I took to it like a fish to water. It was almost like I always knew how to do it. I loved it, it was addictive. There's something very peaceful about creating neat rows and symmetrical, geometrical patterns. Unfortunately, my neck and shoulders have taken a beating as a result, like several other things I get attached to, I got involved a bit obsessively.  So, this year's resolution is to try and regulate my passions. 

So, write more, paint more, take more photos, do less crochet. 

Also, my view on following passions is to do it silently and for the joy it gives you. It should fulfil something in your soul, rather than being a showpiece to garner praise from others. Create something and do it in the silence of your home. Help someone and do it in a way that truly changes a life, even if it's just one life. And above all prioritize peace of mind and health, both physical and mental. Let's see what the future holds.

In the bleak shadows of sorrow springs the sunny plant of hope. 

New Year New Hope

Recently discovered this majestic tree. All year I thought this was semal till it started to bloom. This is the silk floss tree closely related to semal. Blooms at a different time of the year. Here's ushering in a new year with hope in one's heart for a better tomorrow. 

The world has gone crazy again. The surprise strike by Hamas was the big shocker this week. But in all honestly right from the time I studied about it in school and heard of it in the news as a kid, I always supported Palestine. But I can't get the images of the attacks on civilians, the music festival and the way it was attacked, and some of the reports on the massacres. This is different from Ukraine as that is still restricted to a military conflict, this is terrorism, and it is terrifying. The one image which sticks on is of the young girl being carried away by men in a bike, her arms stretched out to her boyfriend who is being held by other men. It's so unsettling. The way it happened is also unsettling and the way Israel's response has been is equally heartbreaking. For the poor, the weak and the defenseless there is no victory in any war.  I feel sad for the common people, was reading how the Israeli youth had been protesting against government policies they viewed as too authoritative and perhaps it was some of these same youth who lost their lives or are being held hostage by terrorists. Governments and their egos, terrorists and their insanity will tear apart the world, but at the end of the day it would be the weakest who would bear the biggest brunt. Just as terrifying Hamas' attack on civilians has been, the way Gaza strip is being pounded and reduced to rubble is equally bad. Two wrongs can't make a right. 

The other fact of the holocaust and the persecution that Jews have borne for centuries is also a reality. I remember reading Ivanhoe which addressed anti-Semite sentiment (of how a Jewish girl was about to be condemned as a witch), even Shakespeare didn't spare the Jews - though were they not human, did they not bleed. It's very interesting how such a widely maligned community managed to stay rich and be amongst the most powerful and influential even to this day. Most big banks were started by Jews. And this leads me to the other point, the Jews are rich, and Palestinians not so much, there is so much of an imbalance there. These rich persecuted people claimed a land as their promised land, which was now occupied by these poor colonized people and then just set up a country there. This same promised land is held holy by all who live in the area. The whole situation is so complex and the irony which often  gets missed is that the very  people who persecuted Jews are now their supporters 

Drumbeats and other sounds

It's that time of the year again, when memories begin to haunt. Some sweet ones, some agonizing ones - the beating of drums, the waiting in a hospital, the dancing on the streets, the silence of an ICU. It's that time of the year, the bitter and the sweet have been inexplicably interlinked forever. How does one free oneself from demons and even the angles. I miss the drum beats and the verve, but now it has a shadow, which seems to keep growing deeper and darker each passing year. Leaves falling off from a tree till only one remains. That's what it feels like, leaves wafting through the air, going amiss and never returning. Greater and deeper isolation, feeling of being abandoned by those who were supposed to be there. Those who betrayed and left you to your fate, those who were missing at the exact hour of need. 

A longing for a city of dreams and its wet evenings and sandy sunsets, a longing for carefree times, when one could trust people even though slightly. Time is cruel, it doesn't heal, it accentuates the hurt. There is a quiver that's full of arrows and a bow ready to shoot, which keeps getting replenished with new ammunition. Words come back to you when you need them the most, breaking barriers created by the mind. There are moments when one lives all the moments at once. It's that moment full of light and darkness - chaya ani prakash. Don't we need both for life to be livable - joy and sorrow. Is lack of sorrow the life that we want to live?

I wonder why people are so scared of the dark, why do people want to shine light on corners that lay hidden in recesses? Why this constant need to illuminate and spread "happiness", sadness is also a human emotion, why not make peace with it, own it and be okay with experiencing it. The cycle of grief and sorrow, the cycle of betrayal and abandonment. Accept pain, learn from it, make it a part of your being. 

 Remember can't build your happiness on someone else's pain.

Pain

I think most of the pain comes from how little someone valued you, that they were not willing to put in even an iota of effort. That their effort was conditional on your falling into line with what they wanted rather than trying to understand and that the moment they saw a better option they promptly let go. It's one thing drifting apart, it's another holding on only till another piece of driftwood comes along. Which just means that you were just driftwood and easily dispensable. It's a hard reality to face and also a hard one to come to terms with, how transactional people can be. How fake words can be and how meaningless.