Category: prose writing

થોડું અંગત અંગત..A letter from Father Valles

નવા વર્ષની શુભેચ્છાઓ! આજે જે પત્ર રજૂ કરું છું એ પત્રવ્યવહાર શરૂ થયા પછીનો પહેલો કે બીજો જ પત્ર હશે. એઓના પુસ્તકો, જીવનકથા વાંચીને મને ઉદ્ભવેલા કેટલાક પ્રશ્રોનો જવાબ અહીં આપવામાં આવ્યો છે. વાત તો સાવ ટૂંકી ને ટચ જ છે પણ સમગ્ર જીવન જીવવાની ફિલોસોફીનો નિચોડ અહીં છે અને નવા વર્ષે આનાથી સારું મનન-ચિંતનનું ભાથું બીજું શું હોઈ શકે?!
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ચિ. નેહલ,
તમારી વાત ગમી. પણ જુઓ, મને સ્મશાનવૈરાગ્ય તો થયો નથી! મને આનંદ છે, મઝા છે, જીવન બહુ ગમે છે. જીવન મંગળ છે, પ્રભુએ આપેલું વરદાન છે, અને પૂરા દિલથી માણવાનું છે. એ વિચારો શોભે. ત્યાગ કરીએ તે ફક્ત જીવનને વધારે સૂક્ષ્મ સ્વરૂપે પામવા માટે. એટલે પ્રથમ આનંદ, ઉત્સાહ, મનનું સમાધાન અને દિલની શાંતિ જોઈએ. પછી જે સહજ રીતે થાય તે ખરું.
આનન્દ સાથે
ફાધર વાલેસના
આશિર્વાદ

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Wishing you all a very happy new year, filled with wonderful moments shared with family and friends!!
Today on the first day of 2017, I want to share one of the letters written by Father Valles in a response to my letter, in which I had asked him few questions after reading his books and his biography. He answers in short, meaningful sentences, but one can ponder upon them for days and if understood well can lead a fulfilling and happy life! 🙂
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A simple english version for you all….

Dear Nehal,
I liked your thought. But see, I did not choose the path of renunciation due to tragedies of life! I am happy, enjoying, I love my life. Life is auspicious, It’s a God’s gift and to be cherished fully.These kind of thoughts you are supposed to have. When we renounce something it’s only to understand the deeper meaning of life (to embrace life with all it’s intricacies). So, first of all you should feel happy, enthusiastic, mentally fully convinced and calm in your heart(before going for the path of renunciation) and then do whatever you can do effortlessly.
Blessings from Father Valles

……..

હાલમાં એમની website http://www.carlosvalles.com છે

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Shot by a Stranger — On Art and Aesthetics

I found this article intriguing, I want to congratulate French-Spanish artist Gonzalo for thinking of such a project.  We all are lonely in our own cocoon  despite of our crowded social life online!!

 

Google “millennials” and “loneliness” and you will find a flood of articles. Our generation is rich in virtual connections, poor in concrete companionship. Since 2011, French-Spanish artist Gonzalo Bénard (born in 1969 in Lisbon, Portugal) has been working on a photographic project called “B Shot by a Stranger”, which he hopes will be the subject […]

via Shot by a Stranger — On Art and Aesthetics

Reblogged

One of my favourite blogs and I truly admire her …

 

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in you…

Source: About

time for another coffee…

Another round of coffees?… Each week my daughter and I meet my grandparents in a cafe. It’s a little one with darkened corners and wooden tabletops. A cafe with a heart, and dependable …

Source: time for another coffee…

Esoteric Enchantress

I follow this blog for their beautiful and positive approach towards healing! It’s a great initiative and I hope you’d like to know about it.

Broken Light: A Photography Collective

Photo taken by contributor Jaeda DeWalt, a conceptual self-portrait artist in her forties from Seattle, Washington. Her battles with mental illness hearken back to her earliest memories, at age four, when she became obsessed with the number four and performed exhaustive rituals in patterns of four. During her teen years, she began noticing extreme mood swings, manic one moment and depressed the next, and in her late 20′s she finally sought treatment and was diagnosed with Bipolar, OCD, Anxiety, ADHD, and PTSD from the trauma of being sexually abused as a child into her young adult years. Her life was filled with self-destructive coping methods until she went full force into creating, in her mid-twenties. The process of creating and putting herself in front of the camera felt cathartic, liberating and healing. The photographic medium opened up a new world to her and ignited a kind of passion within that she didn’t even know she was capable of experiencing. She has been on an ever-evolving, healing…

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On turning 2

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કવિતાનો બ્લોગ શા માટે? કવિતા વાંચવાનો સમય કોને છે? વ્હોટ્સપ પર ફરતા જોડકણાઓની જ્યાં વાહ-વાહ અને પ્રસાર થતો હોય ત્યારે આ બ્લૉગ કોણ વાંચશે? પણ આજે બે વર્ષ પૂરા કરી આ બ્લૉગ ત્રીજા વર્ષમાં પ્રવેશી રહ્યો છે ત્યારે મારી ખુશી અને આભારની લાગણી આપ સૌ સાથે વહેંચતા કવિતાના ચિરંતન અસ્તિત્વનો ઉત્સવ ઉજવી રહી છું. કવિતા એ એક અજાણી કેડીના કિનારે ઊગી નીકળેલા ફૂલોના ગુચ્છ જેવી છે જેની તમે કલ્પના ન કરી હોય, ધારણા કરી ન હોય અને તમારા મનને પોતાની સહજ સુંદરતાથી છલકાવી દે.
આ બે વર્ષ દરમ્યાન ઘણું નવું શીખવા મળ્યું, અનેક નવા મિત્રો મળ્યા, શરૂ થતાં ત્રીજા વર્ષમાં એક-બે નવી પ્રવૃત્તિ કરવા ધારું છું. જેમાં બીજા બ્લોગ્સ પર વાંચેલી, હ્રદયને સ્પર્શી ગયેલી કવિતા, નિબંધ કે બીજા લેખન પ્રકારો રજૂ કરવા માંગું છું અને એ ઉપરાંત મારાં જૂના લખાણોમાંથી કાંઈક રસપ્રદ, મનનિય લખાણ આપની સામે રજૂ કરીશ.
આ સફરમાં મારી સાથે રહેનાર, મારી પોસ્ટને વાંચીને અભિપ્રાય આપનાર સહુ મિત્રોની અંત:કરણથી આભારી છું.
આપના અભિપ્રાય મારે માટે વિકાસની કેડી કંડારવાનું કામ કરે છે એટલે એનું દિલથી સ્વાગત છે.
આપના કિંમતી સૂચનો પણ આવકાર્ય છે.
ફરી એકવાર આનંદ સાથે આભાર, મળતાં રહીએ શબ્દોની કેડીએ….

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Hello all,

Thank you so much for your visits and appreciation,…!

When I first started this blog, I was not sure about it’s future path. Many even advised me otherwise! In the days of Facebook,Instagram, Whatsapp, etc people prefer to read easy and fast! But reading Poetry is a serious hobby. When you read it,it demands your full attention and it takes time to open up in front of you. Who has so much of patience nowadays? But I can say happily and with pride; that on completing two years as a blogger,I have realised people love reading poetry across the world! Across all different languages and cultures! Poets invite you to their own unique world and you are transported to another era, another life, mesmerised!

The most beautiful thing about blogging is that I came to know so many wonderful, warm people; made many new friends; and a whole new world opened up before me!What more can I ask for?

At the beginning of this third year I wish to start two new things here on my blog: Once a week,I’ll be sharing essays,pages from my old diaries. Another day of each week will be dedicated to the blogs I follow – I wish to reblog articles, essays, poems which touched my heart. (which I have already started actually! )

I am grateful to all my blog readers and followers for their kindness.
Without your continuous support and encouragement this journey would not have been so pleasant. I welcome your comments, opinions and suggestions here, it helps me to grow as a writer.
In this world, which is full of so many negative things too; we poets, writers can add a little bit of beauty, love, peace and joy through our writings….that’s the only purpose of my blog and the reason why I love to write it. I am thankful to all of you for helping me continue with this purpose.
Keep flying with me 🙂
– Nehal

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rebuilding rainbow city

I used to enjoy such playgrounds as a child though never had been that adventurous type! I really enjoyed them more with my kids when they were young! I love Pete’s sketches and his blog, hope you’ll enjoy equally! 🙂

petescully

Rainbow City
Davis residents all know Rainbow City, beloved playground made of wood and built by the community in Community Park years ago. I remember when I first came here, thinking that if I were a kid in Davis, this would have been my favourite playground, and I know for my own son, it pretty much was. And then, a couple of years ago, they closed it down – several reasons were  bandied about at the time: safety, the aging wood, termites, chemicals, hiss-boo-modern-world. I was worried that this would end up as another horrible plastic nothing playground, or even one of those weird playgrounds you get now with the odd shaped climbing bars and make-no-sense seats. Or maybe it would never come back. And then, just recently, the City and the local community started the new building project, which is ongoing, and here it is. I sketched it on Sunday…

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Touched by the soul

A poem by my favourite poet, mountains and a wonderful ‘ Bikhre Lavz’ , what more can I ask for? Hope you will also enjoy!

bikhre lavz

The sounds, the smells, the humdrum, the air, each city built on layers of history, presents to you a bouquet of these treats.

Living in the Indian subcontinent means that you have access to so many regions, cities, towns and villages which in another lifetime were kingdoms in themselves.

The smell of Mumbai, heavy and humid, greets you as you step on the tarmac; the chillness that seeps into your bones, smell of hot chai and omlette comes greeting you as you enter the hills of Ooty just as I can never forget the feeling of freshness accompanied by a light drizzle as the train enters the station that heralds the feeling of finally being  home, the city of Bangalore.

Street-Food-Chandani-Chowk

Each city lays itself bare, giving you the chance to seep into it, feel its soul and give yourself up to its chaos and humdrum.

On the other land in…

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A page from an old diary!

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Starting something different on my blog! A page or two from my old writings! While I was spring-cleaning my book shelves I found few notebooks of mine, lying in a corner, unnoticed! I went through my old writings and some of them were really interesting; so here I am, sharing them with you! Hope you like it!
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Why I always seek continuity ( in a person, in a relationship)?Why we always save impressions from the past?Why can’t we meet a person in his/her and our “today”? Why we insist on continuing from where we have left? In deep recesses of our mind we store those images, indelible; how can we free ourselves from those images? Those very images are the reason that generates expectations! Unmet expectations create conflict!!
-Nehal (1991)

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હું સાતત્ય કેમ ઝંખું છું, ઈચ્છું છું? ભૂતકાળની છાપ શા માટે મનમાં સાચવવાની? પ્રત્યેક વ્યક્તિને તેની અને આપણી આજમાં જ કેમ નહીં મળવાનું? આગળનું સાતત્ય શા માટે જાળવવાનો આગ્રહ? એ અમીટ છાપ મનના ખૂણામાં સચવાઈ રહે છે; તેનાથી મુક્ત શી રીતે થવું? એ છાપ જ છે જે અપેક્ષાઓ જન્માવે છે, તે ન સંતોષાતા ઘર્ષણ જન્માવે છે!!
– નેહલ ( 1991)

I found this piece of writing thought provoking. Whenever we meet someone, we like to start from the last communication we have had. We have a habit of collecting snap-shots, images of the moments we spend with anyone! On the basis of that we create a persona in our minds, which may or may not be the same as the individual we meet! People move on, they grow, evolve as an individual and we hold on to our old perceptions!? Be it in a close relationship or in a friendship; our mind starts creating likes and dislikes, affinity and aversion towards that person! We love to build up our emotions and expectations on that! The inevitable outcome is; those expectations are never met the way we want,it creates disharmony and conflict. Living in the moment, meeting them with fresh mind set, keeping a space for growth for us and the opposite person can keep any relationship lively and growing strong with each passing day!

What do you think? What is your experience? would love to hear from you,..
-Nehal (now 🙂 )

Plunging into Abstract! !

Suddenly I opened my eyes and found myself pressed against the wall by a shapeless, nameless darkness! It has just jumped out of me and now pushing me into a corner. Unable to find my hands ,tried to escape by running away. ..could not move . My legs being dissolved into a wall! I’m getting converted into an empty room! And the shapeless, nameless darkness spreading like a liquid inside, a thick , sluggish black liquid. I don’t feel the moisture instead feeling dry , burning! Feeling choked by the mere presence of it…the walls need to breath too! Where’s my ceiling,I wish to open it like a box and pour some sky into this empty room. The sky has also been converted into a heavy blue sea looming over this empty room. No sun to be found! What’s this place? I think the room has gone down to the bottom of the sea and opening up a ceiling is not helping to bring the sun in ! Surprisingly the sea is static , can’t feel the much needed waves to have a feeling of motion. Let me burn a desire! A flame of desire to cut through this cold frozen sea. To my disbelief the flame is burning but not moving at all ! It is like a painted flame..bright and shiny but lifeless! Sometimes motion is life , no ?? Before everything gets solidified let me creat something which can move ; creat out of this walls, which can come out , go upwards and bring the sky down. Let me plant a dream…should it not bring the sky and the sun and the wind for me, this empty room ! Dreams are plants , I have heard and can grow anywhere, in any land or water. I don’t know whether this walls are land or water, I hope they’re not air!! Does anything grow into the air? ? Certainly they’re no air else my desires would’ve been burning ferocious flames by now. Do dreams have roots too? If so they can crack open these walls. How about spreading the roots through floor of my being? ! Floors need foundation. I know sea beds have volcanoes , may lead to sunami sometimes. ..but that will blast everything out! And certainly that’s not life. Then how the first life ever appeared on this earth?was it a movement? Was it a desire? ! Was it a dream? !