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Showing posts from April, 2010

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2023 - The Year That Was

Places impact you for a variety of reasons. And the same place impacts different people in different ways. This is especially true when it comes to spiritual experiences, where every single person’s experience is unique. And personally, every spiritual experience is unique, the same person can have different deeply spiritual experiences at different places, at different times. This thought has emerged because of my own experiences over the years, but especially so this year, with different and unique experiences at various places I have visited recently. I began this year with a visit to Baroda (Vadodara) with friends. It was meant to be a relaxed trip, a touristy trip, with our sons. We enjoyed ourselves to the hilt, but the highlight of that trip was a visit to the Lakulisha temple at Pavagadh. It was the iconography of the temple that I connected with, and I spent a few hours simply lost in the details of the figures carved around the temple. There was an indefinable connect with

A Hectic Weekend Part 2 - Getting lost and finding birds.....

It’s been a while since I wrote my last post, and I have loads and loads of stuff to put up! So many things have come up recently, including an interesting freelance assignment that I shall write about soon! Meanwhile, I just hope I don’t forget all the interesting things I want to tell you before I get time to write them down! Getting back to the last weekend, here is the second part of the series – our Sunday adventure. As I mentioned in the first part, we had returned late on Saturday, with no energy left to make plans for the Sunday birding programme…. To continue….. I was doubtful about going for the birding at Nerul the next morning, but when the alarm went off, I was pleasantly surprised to see Samhith wake up enthusiastically. When I asked him if he really wanted to get up so early on a Sunday, and also reminded him that on no account could he miss school on Monday, he said, “But Amma, Aadesh uncle said this was the last chance to see the water birds…… we have to wait an

A Hectic Weekend Part 1 - Earth Mela and a Reunion, after two decades!

As weekends go , this last one was probably among the most hectic ever. What with the Earth Mela and a school reunion on Saturday and a birding walk early on Sunday followed by a visit to an exhibition, this weekend gave us no time to relax, and I am facing a sleepy week ahead! Earth Mela We had been looking forward to the Earth Mela , but were able to start only after lunch. We reached late in the afternoon, and spent some time wandering around the different stall with eco-friendly stuff and admiring the Warli art put up by a group called 'Matsya'. The BNHS and the Sprouts' stalls also had some very interesting stuff, and we returned with our arms full! Samhith especially enjoyed just running around the place, and I must say, the Maharashtra Nature Park is indeed a great effort by the authorities… to convert a garbage dump into a nature park, the nearest one can come to a forest in a place like Bombay, is a fantastic effort. I must also commend the efforts of Sprouts E

Binsar - Part 6 - The Pre-Historic Paintings of Lakhudiyar

The route from Almora to Jageshwar t akes us along forests of pine trees, alternated with bare rocks of all possible colours – from orange and red to yellow and grey! Needless to say, Samhith was fascinated, and we have brought back lots and lots of stones. But this post is not about them! This post is about something interesting and unexpected which we saw on the same route. We were stopping often, especially since both Samhith and I are prone to feeling nauseous on mountain routes. The only way to escape the mess of puking on the road is to play games or notice every small thing along the way, and stop when the feeling gets too bad! Well, over the years, we have learnt to pay enough attention to the road and avoid the mess! This time, our attention yielded even better results, when we spotted an ASI (Archaeological Society of India) sign on the road to Jageshwar. I immediately asked our driver what was there, and he replied, “Kuch nahin, madam. Wahan to sirf purane paintings ha