A Cup of Coffee would have Made It Right!

I woke up to all white, not pristine, yet clean and fresh! Nestled in the midst of the luxurious cotton bedspread was nothing. They could have been the same sheets I have back in my dorm room. 90% cotton and 10% polyester would have worked just fine. I placed my feet on the ground, expecting, in all that dizziness, for the icy sting of a cold morning cement floor. Carpeting greeted my soles instead. A minute passed by and it was still surrealism in it's bare essence. I stood up and another wave of ecstasy; a pair of skin tight cotton boxers with its advertising brand name printed across my hips. It was half past eleven in the morning. 

I alighted. One to the right and then to the left, each step forward, deliberately slowed down and grounded to feel the realness of the the soft carpeting below. As opposed to pinching myself, this seemed like the better idea. 

"Yes, yes, yes!" my mind screamed, a child at the sight of Chritmas presents inside my head. All it did was heighten the endorphines. I exhaled... I exhaled again... Tugging with enough force at the curtain, lo and behold, rays, all yellow, all transparent and all pleasurably blinding. I stood there, satisfied of being the first to allow the sunshine in, in a dramatic fashion.

I imagined how my eyes would look like? Would they look translucent and luminous, as good as it usually does when I catch a glimpse of my eyes in the car rear mirror during Monday mornings? I inhaled... I inhaled again...

"Snoring? Oh well, I think I hoped for the best. Disappointment! Bah!" more screams of a child rang again, now, one that was reversibly damaged by the father denying desserts after pizza. Then the mind drifted. The mind is like the monkey, someone said. So, mine swung from tree of thought to tree of thought. 

"The torso needs work, but still, man I have come a long way!" 

My mind then moved to another tree. 

"Coffee would be great right now... Let's get this window opened for some breeze." 

The swoosh of the air carried scents of mowed grass blades and polluted air. My eyes wandered towards the uncomfortably close proximity of my dorm.

"I wonder if that work they spoke about really did go on..."

I stood there, waiting for the unnecessary 'stop and smell the roses' pause.

Then.

Warmth spread. Tall and strong. Warmth on my back. Firm yet intermittent. Stronger warmth caressed my left cheek. Lighter warmth swirled around my waist. And one point felt right, just around the lower spine. The warmth from my cheek rested on my shoulders, while my lips voluntarily and simultaneously, stretched upwards at the sides. 

He had kissed my cheeks, held my waist, pulled me in close and then rested his chin on my shoulder and his head next to mine after our first night together...

My heart skipped a beat....

Gunghroos!!!

I taught myself how to string my own dancing bells.

There was, at my disposal, a pair of dancing bells that were not blessed.

These are belted, akin to the one below.

Courtesy of Now Public

I tore the padding that mounted them and removed the individual bells.

I then looked up some pictures online of how the bells on strings looked like. And formulated a method of what I hoped was the correct way of weaving the bells.

And voila, it was!!!

Here's one from my previous post of a pair of proper odissi gunghroos.

And here's the one I wove.

Amazing isn't it? The beauty of the ghunghroos! Especially on strings! Now I can invest in better quality bells and weave then myself!!!

The 'I'

Among the subtlest yet unshakable vices dwelling in human beings, none is more stubborn than egotism. The 'I' and 'ME' we so closely advocate as means of justifying our attitudes, behaviors, personalities and point of views. A very thin yet gross, almost impenetrable wall that stands between a soul and the ultimate Wisdom; denying possessing ego is egotism itself.

Let's all wind down and move to a more graspable deduction. As far as my brains have allowed my mental-arithmetic to work, ego is more or less the product of the thought that stems from the 'I'. A single alphabet-syllable word with seemingly infinite amounts of inferences. I think, I want, I wish...

To reduce the 'I' and include everything else in this age and time is overpowered by the notion of self-protection. Bordering frailly over the preservation of one's self is the act of giving in; an exercise that could have saved many lives, healed many souls, harmonised many tumults. Peace cannot live where the 'I' reigns. Raging selfishness tends to destroy the need for reasoning. And with that the urge to (avoidably) fight.

I got to thinking about egotism when I stumbled upon an invite to dine with Gj Kind Boy and a junior of his. Previously having noticed the latter's self-absorbed point of views, I donned my shield to protect myself from bigotry; utter indifference! Of course our aforementioned friend did not fail to deliver; everything GJ Kind Boy said had either a rebuttal or a reenactment of something better. Sometimes I couldn't help but to form an opposing opinion which I, fortunately, did not verbalise.

The 'I' reigns like a burning fire within us that we should learn to acknowledge and fight. Besides, what's the fun in being right all the time?

"Man's ego itself is maya. It is the veil that shuts the light."
-Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.

2012 Tamil Festivals Thus Far...

Ponggal came first; the harvest festival; the thanksgiving.

Although, through my lenses, I see superabundance of calories above all else!!!

Dinner at grandma's place.
Look closely, notice a total of 11 side dishes, a snack and a dessert!!!
Courtesy of Aunt #4.

Ponggal; the day centers around expressing gratitude to God for the food (rice/harvested paddy) that He has given us by preparing sweet porridge cooked with palm sugar and fresh cow's milk and presenting it to Him in the alter... It really is more of a cultural tradition rather than a religious plus it is one that is (if correctly put) associated to the Tamils rather than Indians or Hindus (common misconception). Not all Hindus and/or Indians celebrate Ponggal.



Then came Thaipusam; the celebration for Lord Muruga; the homage and penance.

Again, it is focused to the Tamil community simply because it is the celebration (Pusam) for Lord Muruga (a Hindu deity) in the month of "Thai" according to the Tamil calendar (hence, 'Thai' + 'Pusam'). Not all Hindus and/or Indians observe Thaipusam.

Through my lenses however, it is the amalgamation of;
loud infectious Tamil folk music;
the amazing array of colour palettes on women's traditional oufits;
the adorable machas (and the over-dressed and ugly ones too);
the beautiful kavadis (and the ludicrously extravagant ones too);
and;
definitely not the least, the amazing vibrations of the holy day that is felt only on such special occasions!

The beautiful silver chariot!!!

I love being TAMIL!!!