HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADRAS!!!
This is my 32nd edition of “Shadow Dancing With Mind”, which celebrates Founding of Madras, (22nd August, 1639), with a call to "ONE ASPECT I WOULD LIKE TO CHANGE ABOUT CHENNAI"… as well as take you, “UP, CLOSE AND PERSONAL” with some important people I came across in Chennai in recently…
In this edition you will also 'walk' with me through my impressions “STILL LIFE” from Vrindavan, where Krishna’s Love Flowered… And then we end with “THOUGHT THIS WEEK” from Verse Every Day… “BE THE BEAUTIFUL HUMAN BEING THAT YOU ARE…” V.E.D
So here it is and hope you would like the selections from the blog…
Well Chennai is a beautiful, peaceful and culturally very important city, the world over. But being a North Indian, living in Chennai for last two decades, I have developed a different perspective of the city. As a resident, we have some way to go, in terms of infrastructure, development, public transport etc. but then these are things that will be hard to achieve as an individual. But we can all chip in to create awareness, about things that are not right in the city. And the one I would like to talk about lakes among 90 wild life and nature spots that we have in and around Chennai…which attract beautiful migratory birds from across the world, apart from sustaining local flora and fauna.
Another famous person from Chennai, is B K S Iyengar, who brought Yoga to the West, died recently, in his honour, I would like to dedicate this post about Yoga and the perspective the west have of it now…
Yoga is practiced by about 15 million people in the United States, for reasons almost as numerous — from the physical benefits mapped in brain scans to the less tangible rewards that New Age journals call spiritual centering. Religion, for the most part, has nothing to do with it. But a group of Indian-Americans has ignited a surprisingly fierce debate in the gentle world of yoga by mounting a campaign to acquaint Westerners with the faith that it says underlies every single yoga style followed in gyms, ashrams and spas: Hinduism.
C) UP, CLOSE AND PERSONAL
Over the year, it has been my pleasure to meet and interact with Timeri N Murari, a Chennai based novelist, journalist, playwright and screenwriter; whose best seller ‘Taj’ has been translated into 25 languages. His screenplay of the award-winning Hindi movie Daayraa (1997) was voted one of the ten best films of 1997 by Time magazine. In our discussions, he has remarked about his characters, “Once the story starts growing, one character starts taking over” and this is what is the ‘central character’ of his latest book, ‘Chanakya Returns’ which was recently launched at Odyssey in Chennai.
The moment I reach the foothills of Himalaya, the soulful Sufi songs of Abida Praveen turns into a pulsating sphere of earth colors, submerging all my consciousness into the vast sea of joy and happiness. The effect of her songs, the words of Sufi saints and the pure mountain air of Himalaya is such that all my worldly worries retreat into oblivion and only the ‘now’ exists, to be cherished as in eternity. The queen of Sufi Songs, Abida Praveen, remains to be my favorite of all times and when the chance came to meet her and hear her soulful singing, I was blissful.
A book maker who uses photography as her vocabulary…
DAYANITA SINGH is the first Indian to have a solo show at London's famous Hayward Gallery in 2013, who vehemently refuses to use Digital Cameras and computers to design and create her books. She loves making her books by her own hand, armed with scissors, knives of various form and sizes with scotch tape, instead of Cntrl+C and Cntrl+V, which is the usual way the 21st century world works in almost every field now.
D) STILL LIFE
I have been travelling a lot these days, from Chennai - Bangalore - Coorg - Delhi - Vrindavan and back to Chennai. In all these two weeks, spending time in a spiritual retreat like Vrindavan was the most invigorating one.
E) THOUGHT THIS WEEK:
"Absolute love is perhaps the most difficult thing to find in life for many of us, but it comes naturally to a mother… To really love, we should allow love to happen. Remember affection and care almost always transforms into love in depths of our heart and soul." - V.E.D
A global creative co-operation of poets writing linked verses at a very popular Haiku group at Google Plus... The poets write one after the other, taking the last line of the previous poet as the link to thread their own creative output. The result is one of the most beautiful collections of verses...
Hope you have liked this edition of my blog. Let me know your views and I will be grateful if you can leave your comments …
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Shashi
ॐ नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya
