Not always on my head.

Beauty is everywhere.

You just have to keep an eye out for it. Alternately, you just
have to keep forgetting to lock your phone before putting it
in your pocket, and get a nice surprise later when you find
it has taken a picture while in there.

That's more like it.

Although yesterday's post has it's value, I much prefer this auto-rickshaw's message to the world.

For those of you who don't understand Urdu or Hindi, that says:

God willing
we will meet again
May God keep you in his care
My fellow traveller

Nice to know that someone feels that way. I'm always on the look-out
for interesting "Auto Backsides"; some get very creative.

For some reason, however, most auto drivers seem to like
decorating their, er, backside, with a dagger dripping blood.
I can only assume it's a silent plea for help and compassion.
It must be hell driving around in that bumpy three-wheeler
all day. I'm pretty sure there's a correlation between the frequency
of dripping-dagger-decorated auto backsides and the vast amount
of Piles & Fistula Clinic signs I see all over the city.

Beware.

Was fortunate enough to catch this public service announcement
on the back of an auto-rickshaw the other night, after dropping
a friend off at the Indira Nagar bus stand.

Social awareness activist and his moving media

I did my bit.

Yes I did.  It would have been rude of me not to. Went out and
 bought a packet of sparklers in order to contribute to the air pollution
levels last night. Got a lungful of sparkler smoke in the bargain.

 Okay, I confess. The real reason I bought those sparklers was
for that smile you see in the picture above. My mom's housekeeper couldn't
go home for this Diwali, so we didn't want her to miss out. She lit candles
at my mom's front door, and had a great time playing with the sparklers.
The cough I have this morning was totally worth it.

The Festival of Lights

It's Diwali! I liked this festival a lot more when I was younger and immune to the startle reaction of over-loud fireworks. I also liked it more last year, when I did not know that it's a bad idea to make a breakfast of the plateful of home-made sweets my neighbours bring over every Diwali morning.

A garland of marigold at my neighbour's front door (and yes, a leftover Christmas decoration from last year!)

 Diwali is by and large a Hindu festival, although I believe
that Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains also celebrate it (that's what
President Obama said so it must be right!) The Festival of Lights ..
and it is quite a sight. A lot of people will set off fireworks tonight
and tomorrow night - I love going up on my terrace to watch
the rockets being set off from all four directions. Even from
a distance, it's lovely to watch their beautiful explosions
of light and colour. Some are pretty complex (Made In China,
I've heard) and those are the most expensive and the most
ah-inspiring. Tonight, thousands if not lakhs (that's a hundred
thousand to non-Indian currency users) will go up in smoke.

What I don't love about Diwali is the noise created from strings
of little (or big!) red firecrackers or the ones packed tightly and
given appropriately lethal names like "Atom Bomb". These set off
car alarms, drive stray dogs into gutters and pet dogs into
anxiety disorders. They terrify babies and unsettle the elderly.
They make heart patients nervous, and PTSD sufferers nauseated.
And their tattered remains will decorate the streets tomorrow morning,
adding to the already nearly-at-breaking-point garbage problem
that sits soggy and stinking on practically every street corner.

As far as I know, this type of cracker has very little to do with
Diwali. It's the Festival of Lights, right? Not the Festival of Noise,
or the Festival of Make-Life-Hell-for-Everyone-Else. There are
some restrictions set down by the police and/or government,
but these are largely ignored or unenforceable, and fireworks
are sold freely like some seasonal vegetable in large open
courtyard markets set up around the city.

Over the past few years, fireworks sales have been going down,
though, largely due to greater public awareness of the
environmental damage and the nuisance factor. A few years ago,
Diwali morning would be grey and choked. I'm hoping tomorrow
won't be that bad, because as I write this, I don't hear a non-stop
string of explosions that lasts for several hours, as I did say,
five years ago.

I like to think that means more people are showing compassion
for their fellowmen/women/dogs/cats/cows/birds/etc. And showing
respect, not only for their city/nation/planet, but for the festival
itself:  for Diwali.

I read this today, and I thought it was a beautiful description
of what Diwali is meant to be.

"Diwali or Deepavali is the Festival of Lights. On this day, 
Hindus decorate their homes with light, using candles, 
earthern lamps or electric lights.  Light symbolizes the removal 
of inner darkness, as well as the glow of knowledge that can lead 
mankind from illusion and ignorance to an understanding of truth. 
The essence of Diwali, very simply, is a prayer for an enlightened world."

That's from an article The Essence of Diwali by Mark Sharma; if you'd like to read the complete article, click here.

A clay diya with oil and a cotton wick, outside my neighbour's front door.

I think that is such a beautiful concept. What a pretty, simple
and sweet way to remind oneself of the importance and value
of this kind of light in our lives.

I'm not a Hindu, but tonight I am celebrating Diwali. I'm off now,
to place candles at my doorstep and on my balcony as a symbol
of inviting goodness and light into my home and heart, tonight and always.

No idea.

Absolutely none. It just looked beautiful to me 

and I had to take a picture of it.

Disgusting treatment of the labour force.

I couldn't resist doing this! Now that I think of it, it serves as
a good example of how misleading the media can be, when
they don't show us the whole picture.

Actually, Mast Kalandar serves up food that's anything BUT gross.
It looks like a fast food restaurant but you get hot fresh delicious
North Indian food. My favourite is their chola batura, washed down
with some yummy lassi.

The next best thing to jet-propelled.

 Always keep my eye out for interesting hand-painted signs.
They mostly tend to be oddly spelt notices of the "Child Bear"
variety (that's chilled beer, in case you were wondering), but
I like to snap up a nice illustration every now and then, like
this four-winged aeroplane I found on an old truck the other day.

Upside down.

It's four months since my father died. My world has turned
upside down. I've gone from being the baby of the family
to being its general manager. I've gone from reading and writing
to 'rithmetic. I've gone grey. I go home every morning to do work
that isn't mine, and I leave home every evening to sleep in a bed
that isn't mine. I go crazy once in a while, and go into the abyss
even more often. I go on. I indulge in a lot of emotional overeating,
and am intrigued by the amount of emotional weight loss. I smoke
like a salmon and cough like a cancer patient. I cry, even in front
of other people. I wake up screaming, and wish I had an Edward Cullen.
I obliviate by drowning myself in Harry-Potter-abilia, which works well
until my favourite characters die, and then all the heartache comes back,
and I cry like it's four months ago.

But .. Nature spoke to me this weekend, and this is what she said:




















So - it's been four months since my father died, and my world
has turned upside down. I'm not the baby of the family any more,
I've grown up. I'm learning new skills, like how to balance accounts
and pay taxes. I am getting to experience emotions that I've spent
most of my life running away from. And when it gets too much,
I have places to escape to, some down the road, and some
inside my head.I do smoke and I do overeat and I don't exercise,
but I haven't walked into a bar and I haven't got hooked on
sleeping pills. It's difficult closing my eyes because the nights
aren't very nice, but the mornings keep coming, and when
my eyes are open, that's when I catch such glimpses of
the loveliness of life that is always there to find if I just look.

Upside down isn't all bad. I'm growing. Just not in a direction I'd expected.

P.S. I don't know what these amazing flowers are called. They're growing on a tree 
in my next-door neighbour's garden (she calls them "trumpet flowers"). I've been 
driving past for more than a decade, but I only noticed them a few days ago.

(Edited 15 April 2014)

A New Year's Wish For You

 Walking down the road to my parents' house for New Year's 

lunch this afternoon, this water tanker caught my eye. While 

I was getting my camera set, that boy in blue happened to come 

into frame. It didn't bother me much, although I had intended 

to just get a close-up of the painting. And now, after having 

just read Lunar Hine's comment on my previous post, I'm thinking

 that maybe it's serendipity again. This is what she wrote: "I think 

that sometimes love is as simple as doing the washing up when 

 it's not your turn. These are the droplets which build the rainbow 

we call love."

And so, my New Year's wish for you is this:

The next time you're doing the washing up, out of turn, out of love .. 

may the gods not just smile upon you. May they - wide-eyed, 

with nostrils flaring and moustaches bristling with pride - stick out 

a joyful red tongue and lick the side of your face.

Choose joy.

The answers are always around us. It's how we look that helps us
to see. I can focus on the ugly pipe shaft from the building next door,
built a little too close to its compound wall, or I can focus on the way
the sunlight plays with the plant on my windowsill. There's always a choice.