A best friend's wedding

The same warm smile, the nascent naughty glint in the eye, the friendly warm hug as gentle as ever.
The couple on the reception dais, yet time stands still as old friends meet after a forever.
While everyone else is busy on any wedding day, my best friend is all ears to what I may have to say
Amidst the crowd of relatives and the persistent photographer, there is time to sit down and chatter away.
Yes, your bow-tie was perfect and so was your suit, buddy, yours was the best reception I have been to ever.
Cheers to our friendship which is so blissful, peaceful and etched with a shelf-time of forever.
Wish you a caring angel to help you soar to happy clouds of married life for ever and ever.

Living spaces - The Balcony

A walk down the well-to-do areas of a mid-suburb now is very different from what it was a decade ago. The air is still, there is no breeze playing between the then short buildings. You don't see children playing in the building compound, they are busy with their online games and gadgets, which is not uncommon. But missing breeze is very unsettling. Redevelopment of buildings has turned modest sized buildings into huge buildings adding extra floors, multiple walls, extended windows and compromised with the open spaces for ventilation between buildings. Something that was taken for granted to be as part of our living spaces has gone missing.

More often than not, I see these dilapidated buildings with fancy decorative balconies, now covered with dust, half broken and in desperate need of repairs. The new ones of course have a faux balcony with a railing added or worse still half glass wall. Most buildings have these full size windows, effectively saving the builder the costs of bricks & cement for one wall per room & the inhabitants thus not seeing a point in having a balcony. With sliding gates and maximum use of space, the residents seems to think of balcony as just an extension of the window, not really required or just add a grill & dump old stuff in the box-grill. The beautiful balconies adorned with colorful flowers, a quintessential money-plant and the tusli perched decoratively near the half walls with columns are lost forever.

Balcony or the gallery that I recollect of my childhood was like a child's room away from the child's room. The familiar spot where the sun light would stream in, the flower pots arranged in layers to give a feel of a mini garden, spending afternoons in the balcony scribbling on the slates, spotting birds, squirrels on the neighboring trees and waving good byes to family members or relatives. The balcony was my personal living space to spend hours. Looking through the edifices in balcony's wall design to wave my folks good-bye, to spot the flute seller playing a melodious tune, miscellaneous hawkers, passer-bys, street arguments, the processions - marriage, political rallies, ganapati visarjan - you name it and the balcony offered an unobstructed view.

And I am glad that I still have this balcony, that my building is not yet redeveloped. 

A pie in the sky, a space of my own, a balcony every home must have.

Darkest Corners

Khap Panchayat - mirror image of Taliban.
Both are the darkest corners of the times we live in

Mosaic

Only when you look back can you connect the dots.
And how the timing of events has fallen in place
Though it didn't seem so perfect back then

Life's a jigsaw puzzle, enjoy it. All pieces fall in place when the time is right and when you look back it is a beautiful mosaic. Sometimes our inability to tinker with fate or look into the future makes up for a prefect recipe that could have got spoilt by meddling around.

So sit back and enjoy your coffee, life's good. :-)

Starbucks

Starbucks. 

Yes, the one that has opened in Mumbai at Horniman Circle (Please forgive the taxi walas for calling it Hornyman or Honeymoon or Hanuman Circle).  Had seen tweets & Instagram images of the frenzy to welcome Starbucks with open arms on the opening day, but a particular video just showed how ridiculous it had actually got. People standing in queue for two hours for 200 bucks coffee. Ok, I know it is Starbucks coffee, but seriously two hours!! You could watch a movie, read a good book or magazine in that time! Come on, Bombay... city that runs, hops & rushes against time. Had anyone insisted on waiting for even one fourth of that time in lodging complains against local issues, those potholes & what not that ails this city; would we? Not really, we are so busy, who would spend thirty long minutes for things that really matter. Wasting hours waiting outside a coffee shop just shows how insecure we are & how ridiculously important peer pressure is.

But it's Starbucks - Yes it is Starbucks, but it is your inner impluse to "Check-in" before the weekend ends, the peer pressure to have registered your mark on FourSquare, a click on Instagram & of course, a status update on Facebook, not to mention the incessant tweets. Imagine what this city would turn into if all would be so active during elections, or to raise their voice against something, to demand for right to information, to get the freaking auto meters fixed for once & for all. 

And then finally, if you say - it's coffee - if you really know coffee so well, participate in a coffee cupping which requires more skill than wine tasting and real luxury coffee isn't as cheap as the usual ones with a fancy brand. 

The Firefly

The first time I saw a real firefly, in March 2012... it was at a surprising place...


Last night, as I lay sleepless
In the summer dark
With window open to invite a breeze,
Softly a firefly flew in
And circled round the room
Twinkling at me from floor or wall
Or ceiling, never long in one place
But lighting up little spaces...
A friendly presence, dispelling 
The settled gloom of an unhappy day.
And after it had gone,
I leftThe window open,
just in case
It should return

- Ruskin Bond

The Sea & the Land

Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.

Consider all this; and then turn to the green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!

Herman Melville in Moby-Dick

link: http://literaryjukebox.brainpickings.org/page/5

Books!!

Carl Sagan's quote on books, illustrated by ZenPencils

Sunday joys + Pinterest adds