Books – Page 3 – Nourish-n-Cherish

Ostrich Philosophy: News to Peace

“I would like to be an ostrich, and just bury my head somewhere deep in the sand! “, I said reacting to another piece of breaking news.

“What happened now?” said the husband.

I mumbled and rambled, “Nothing new. Just expected but also so outrageous! Makes my blood boil. But like most of the folks at this point, I just feel resigned. Like I said want to be an ostrich – preferably in its natural habitat – halfway across the world from here!”

The husband laughed, and said, “Change of topic! What are you reading now?”

Ah…he was going for safe bets, but no sir! This time, I was ready with a book that plunged right on. I was re-reading Persepolis – By Marjane Satrapi. It was our bookclub pick, and I realized why it remains one of my favorite books of all time. Marjane Satrapi’s sense of story-telling has a childlike sense of wonder. It is a coming-of-age story after all. But it is set against the backdrop of the increasingly regressive Islamic Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, and the numerous humanitarian excesses that go with these situations. Marjane Satrapi’s sense of humor, even in the telling of the most horrific scenes of 1970’s Iran is what makes the book a marvel.

I held the book up, and opened up to read : as luck would have it, my eyes landed on the announcement by the authorities that they would be shutting down Universities and higher learning was banned.

FromthebookPersepolis:ByMarjaneSatrapi

The next day’s breaking news made me want to be an ostrich again. The Education Department’s funding was being revoked. “Did he read the book and decide what to do next?” I said, clanging the dishes with extra vigor while unloading the dishwasher.

“Really! There must be some sort of book of ideas – some template to go by, no?” I said. I admit I was flummoxed by the uncanny Tyranny 101. On Tyranny – By Timothy Snyder’s book also got it right.

Why isn’t there an equivalent for Peace 101? I suppose all the hard things in life have to be worked for and attained in the hard way, but for everything else there are rulebooks.

The Joys of Library Browsing

Yap Yap, Chat Chat, Chop Chop!

“Enough yapping! Chop! Chop!” I said trying to herd the children out. We had worked hard to carve this time out for ourselves and I was excited. We talked the whole way there. Or rather, they yapped, and I listened. I can’t say I understood- but the number of phrases and words that seem to make no sense seems to increase over time. Age really is a funny thing. It takes everything mutable, garbles it with time, and presents a slightly unintelligible version to you.

“Anyway – excited?”

“Yes Mother!” They chanted. How one phrase can hold both a dutiful and a sarcastic response I don’t know, but that, right there is another thing the young seem to have down. Sigh.

Library Browsing

It seemed like a long time since we’d had a children’s book read-a-thon, and so off we were, to the library. We meandered through the library shelves each of us taking our time, wondering how long it would take us to find things once the reshelving was done.

Library browsing is one of the most under-rated pleasures of the world. We each came back with a stash of books in our hands, and picked out a sunny nook in which to curl up and read for just a few minutes before heading back home to hole up in our home.

If we run out of words – By Felicita Sala

One of my favorite books from this haul happened to be – If we run out of words – By Felicita Sala

It is an innocent earnest worry of a child’s turned into a book. What if you run out of words to speak?

The increasingly exaggerated lengths to which the father would go to find words makes it a sweet story and finishes on a predictable, but heart-tugging phrase that remains unspoken. That is how you bring a smile to the face of children and adults reading the book. Well done Felicita Sala!

When there are words everywhere, words can be swords, pinpricks, thumps just as much as they can be balms of kindness and encouragement. I closed the book, and realized that fears, worries and anxieties come in so many forms. Speaking about them to the ones who matter is the key, says every wise one, but that remains the most difficult thing in the world. For don’t words spoken have to be heard?

The children (one a teenager and the other a young adult) picked up the book, and eloquently summed the book up “Duh! Bruh!”

Exploring Gardening Philosophy: The Joys of Deadheading

“Huh?! Who knew deadheading flowers was a thing?” I said. I was reading a Miss Read book for the n-th time, and came across the phrase as she took charge of her new garden in the fictional village of Beech Green. I had read the book enough times, but somehow, this time, her thoughts on the flowers in the garden drew my attention. Maybe because I was enjoying the flowers in the gardens myself.

“Do you think I should try that? To get some better blooms in our garden?” I said to the husband. He muttered something which I took to mean yes, and started snoring to avoid further plant-based rants or ramblings. If I didn’t know better, I’d have prodded the man, but I know he literally can sleep, and snore, midway through a sentence that he was speaking.

So, I set about deadheading the little yellow roses off my little shrub that refuses to grow beyond a certain point. After that, I walked around with a pair of scissors and shears, properly and improperly deadheading flowers in and around the garden. Some variety of aster or phlox or daisies did not take kindly to this, and remain sticks pointing out. I think they sometimes give me severe looks when I step out. Roses are more forgiving for all their thorns. The chamomiles are conferring amongst themselves and deciding to see how much of a menace I can be with my garden shears.

I muse about Ray Bradbury’s quote on gardening in the book, Dandelion Wine, as I flit about on my own in the evenings. The long days give me ample time before sunset.

Gardening is the best excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are. Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood manure across his lawn is akin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulder.

-Ray Bradbury

These are summertime joys. California is full of flowers in the summer. Even as the sun beats down on your head, you can’t help enjoying the blooms. The huge angel’s trumpet flowers, the large hibiscus and magnolias, or the smaller chamomiles, and aster, they all attract your attention. There is one garden that boasts of all colors and varieties of hydrangeas. I love them.

So, I bought a beautiful light pink hydrangea after a friend told me they need shade and grow very well. I spent the last few weeks deadheading the hydrangea, and resuscitating the poor plant after it almost died. I did everything the friendly fellow at the store told me to do. Sigh.

It makes me wonder every time I pass by a good garden. Because while I enjoy a good garden, I had thus far strayed from gardening shears and gardening experiments. Now, I have a new respect for Earth magicians. How do they coax the beautiful bounty from the Earth?

“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”

– Buddha (apparently!)

If anyone has bright ideas on easy flowers that grow in pots or in tough soil, please let me know in the comments section. I saw a cheeky post on the internet the other day and drew solace from it. “You are enough!” it said, “That plant should have tried harder!”

Also, does anyone if the philosophers mentioned in the post were also good gardeners? I hope not!

The Joys & Jams of Plum Picking

Feeling Plum?

“Go on! Ask me How I am feeling.”

Eye roll.

“Just ask.”

“Fine! How are you feeling?”

“Plum!”

Then I laughed, and the children exchanged concerned glances at each other. Completely lost on them, of course. So, I set about explaining Plum minutiae to a mildly uninterested audience.

I have been thinking of P G Wodehouse during plummy times. (P G Wodehouse was called Plum by his close friends and family)

I have been thinking of little passages from Miss Read’s books as she wrote about making jams and chutneys for bazaars from the excessive plums and marrows during summertime.

How lucky country children are in these natural delights that lie ready to their hand! Every season and every plant offers changing joys. As they meander along the lane that leads to our school all kinds of natural toys present themselves for their diversion.

– Miss Read

I told the children about eating so many berries as children in the countryside in the Nilgiris, it made us slightly sick. But, I also told them about how it was the most fulfilling thing in the world, and they rolled their eyes again.

An Excess of Plums

You see? We are having an excess of plums.

Some days I would gaze up at the branches – grateful for the bounty. Other days, I would step into a mushy one that plopped into my path and spattered and mutter to myself. Plum season is upon us, and nobody is spared. Neighbors, gardeners, cleaners, household helpers, friends, family. Everybody is gifted with plums.

I stood one evening determined to make the best of the plum bounty, and set about making batches of plum pickle, plum jam, plum chutney, and plum juice. I also might’ve eaten a few plums. It was beautiful. The evening light was streaming in through the kitchen bay windows bathing all the world in a luminous glow. The plums were freely squirting their juices into the stovetops, the floors, the kitchen counters, my clothes, and the children stood around helplessly in the melee.

“Amma – you’re going cuckoo! Can’t you just leave the plums?!”

I gasped for dramatic measure and said that prudent folks saved the excess.

“Another 10 have fallen from the tree since you came in ½ an hour ago. Let it go!” said the daughter. Seeing that lunatic obstinate look on my face, she decided that the best thing to do was to leave me alone and took mocking videos of me instead.

I sorely regretted this plummy splash of enthusiasm a few hours later. I had sticky juice everywhere, a jar of jam, a jar of pickle and two bottles of sour juice. But I also had the back-breaking task of cleaning up the kitchen. The mops ran red, the washcloths turned pink, the tissues soaked and cleaned like they had never done before, and yet the kitchen was nowhere close to done.

I tell you.

Black & Blue & Plum

The next day, I plucked and picked more plums and gave them to my friends. “Err…it’s okay! I have some!” they said.

“Oh! Sure – that’s nice. Don’t worry – I’ll walk over and give them to you.” I said smartly, putting the phone down before they could say no, and walked over.

“Would you like some blackberries?” said one of them, and I beamed at her.

“Oooh! That’d be a nice change of pace from plums!” I said, and set about picking the blackberries and popping them in the mouth. The friend peeked into the bag and said, “Plums might make a change from blackberries!”

We looked at each other – lips stained with blackberry and plum juice and started laughing so hard, it was hard to stop.

I’d call that a fruitful week-end, wouldn’t you?

Exploring Dragons: Myths to Movies

No!

“You’re inviting me to a movie?” I asked, incredulous.

Usually, I am begging to go to the movies with them, and the response is “No!”. Curt no’s, polite no’s, humorous no’s. But ‘No’. The fault, I admit, is on both sides. I fall asleep before the movie starts, but the theatres make you fall asleep even before the movie starts. What’s with all the dimming of the lights, and the trailers for every movie they are thinking of releasing in the next decade? What’s a good, hard-working woman to do in a comfortable reclining seat at the end of a long day with some inconsequential music playing in the background, and the popcorn butter doing its magic in the old intestines, huh?

I start with a simple meditation technique involving closing the eyelids for a few beats of music longer, and then a few frames of trailer longer, and before I know it, the magical lands open to the subconscious mind throw open the cosmic doors, and I float in with a smile on my lips. The theatre hears a dramatic hiss at this point in the proceedings: “Amma! Get up! The movie started and you missed the opening!”

Anyway, this time, the dragons of sleep may have made valiant attempts to snatch my consciousness to their realms, but I was firm, and resolute. I was going to watch the dragons take the sheep in the movie, not in my dreams.

“Wake me up when the movie starts!” I said before starting the m. technique.

“If you don’t get up, I’ll…I’ll”

“What? Tickle me?! Please!” said I, and drifted off.

I was happy to learn that I was invited because the movie was good for me: not too much violence, has a happy ending, is not too depressing, and has dragons and humans in a beautiful setting.

How to Train your Dragon

Based on the novels by Cressida Crowell, this is a wonderful story of a boy who seems to be a reluctant heir to the vikings chief, and a soft-hearted, intelligent misfit in a bunch of knuckleheads who all value brawn over brain. I have always liked the series, and when I read Cressida Crowell’s article on her childhood influences, it only made the series dearer.

However, I still do not understand the impulse of large studios to remake the same stories over and over again. Did you really have to take the same movie again?

Does Harry Potter really need a remake this soon?

Our Fascination with Dragons

In any case, the fascination of humankind with dragons is millennia old and the number of dragon stories is near inexhaustible. So, I am sure there isn’t exactly a dearth of dragon content.

Why do so many cultures have dragon legends? – Timothy J. Burbery

How could human imaginations in the absence of social media have imagined similar creatures (Fire breathing, of giant aspect and size ) the world over?

Our tales speak of dragons across time and geographies too.

Ancient Aliens: Mythical Dragons Across the Ages

“Speak politely to an enraged dragon” – JRR Tolkien

The metaphors of inner dragons are just as widespread

“You can’t map a sense of humor. Anyway, what is a fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Dragons? On the Discworld, we know that There Be Dragons Everywhere” – Terry Pratchett

“This Marcius is grown from man to dragon: he has wings; he’s more than a creeping thing.” – Shakespeare. It describes the transformation of the play’s protagonist, into a figure of immense power and ferocity.

With all the imagery, humor and wit we have humankind must continue on in its quest to slay its inner and outer dragons, with the motto of Hogwarts in mind

‘Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus’ – which means ‘Never tickle a sleeping dragon‘ – J K Rowling

P.S: The children did tickle me when the movie started, and I am happy to say I enjoyed the movie.

Finding Calm Amidst the Chaos of Life

May seemed to me an especially fast merry-go-round. The spinning was fun, the laughter for all those involved loud, and the merriment infectious. But as June came around, I had the feeling of being dizzy without the fun bits. The world still seemed to be spinning, but the merry-go-round had stopped. Life had resumed. Normal life had resumed, I mean.

One rare afternoon, I sat trying to soak in the quiet of the evening, and felt strange. I usually relish these moments of solitude. I reached for my books, and found that the mind and body were racing far too much for quiet contemplation. Even though the book I had in my hand was a perfectly good one on Writing, exhorting me to pay attention to the following aspects of life (Attention, Wonder, Vision, Surprise, Play, Vulnerability, Restlessness, Connection, Tenacity, Hope), I could not slow down enough to take it all in.

I gave in to the impulse of watching Instagram reels, and got a ridiculous song stuck in my head, I went into Facebook, and scrolled – joyless and felt more drained by the end of it. That is when I knew that what I needed to get back to a slower pace of activity was to reach for a tried-and-tested book: Changes in Fairacre – By Miss Read. I took a deep breath as I entered the village of Fairacre.

For some folks, music does the magic. The mother-in-law said she listened to Amaidhiyaana Nadhiyinilae Odum – a tamil song whose lyrics evokes the imagery of a smooth flowing river and all its associated imagery. I can see how that can be a calming influence on the senses.

For Yours Truly, it was a Fairacre book, By Miss Read. The slow and endearing life a village school mistress leads, is therapeutic. Maybe it takes me back to the idyllic times of my own childhood – growing up in a small village community, where both my parents were school teachers. The imagery she evokes of the beautiful countryside makes you think of the maxim:

Nature never hurries and yet accomplishes everything – Lao Tzu.

Nevertheless, that evening when my restless legs stepped out for a walk, I forced myself to slow down, to feel the breeze, to look at the rays of sunshine shining like little sparkling diamond strings through the evening air. The smell of sage and lavender crushed in my palms like a beautiful balm for the soul.

It helped but it still took some time. For those of us who refuse to do the hard work of trying to still our senses and the world around us, the merry-go-round can keep going. That night I thought of Miss Read’s observations on modern children (her books were written a good 30 years ago, but it seems truer today than ever before)

“What I do feel that the modern child lacks, when compared with the earlier generation, is concentration, and the sheer dogged grit to carry a long job through.”

― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

Truly chastened, I settled in with a mellow light throwing a comforting gleam on my bedside table, took a deep breath, and immersed myself as best as I could in village life. Sturdy, slow, and reassuring.

The Junior Hydrographer’s Revenge: A Maritime Tale

I was wearing a t-shirt that said, “I am introverting!”and skipped my way to the pile of books by my bedside table. Maritime adventures awaited.

I was reading the book, The Sea Chart – By John Blake

The book is fascinating to thumb through. Maps in varying degrees of intrigue, complexity and use over the years is there, along with plenty of information about maritime cartography. It also contains interesting anecdotes such as the one about the junior hydrographer’s revenge.

The Junior Hydrographer’s Revenge

A lieutenant in the Royal Navy of England served under one of the hardest captains of maritime history at the time: Captain Alvin Coote Corry. The man had more officers court-martialed than all the other captains of the time put together. Naturally, he was not a beloved leader.

His discipline led to being obeyed, but the last laugh is still reverberating through the ages.

It was a beautiful day in the Aegean Sea near modern day Greece. The year was 1903. The ship, HMS Hydra, and crew had just docked at Port Mudros for a rare day off, and the pleasant conditions on the island beckoned. Much like his fellows, a junior hydrographer, Captain Lockyer, was looking forward to shooting partridges and dreaming about being reunited with his girlfriend back home. He had a special name for her too, Nulma. Dreams about Nulma, and a day loping after partridges looking out in the Aegean Sea – what more could he ask for?

The joy must have shown on his crew’s face, for the disciplinarian in Captain Alvin Coote Corry could not permit it. He ordered them to survey the island, and each of them were tasked with a hard day’s labor. Cartography, in the absence of modern technology is a demanding routine, and the hydrographers were miffed.

Lieutenant Lockyer seeing that he had no option but to obey the irascible Captain got his revenge though: He named four hills on the chart which was then sold world-wide: Yam, Yrroc, Eb, and Denmad. Read backwards, the import is clear.

He also named a hill he liked after his girlfriend, Nulma.

Maritime Stories

Maritime adventures over the past 2000 years have been fantastic at times (ex: the creation of Carta Marina. It is a fascinating geological map showing the mythical monsters in the oceans and where they are to be found. )

The Kraken Sleepeth

Completed by Olaus Magnus in Italy in the mid sixteenth century, it attempts to outline all the monsters known at the time in the Nordic regions from various accounts.

With modern technology, the seas have been explored much more, but still retain an allure and a mystery that beckons humanity.

The Poochandi: Fear, Eunoia, and Allodoxaphobia

The Poochandi

“Acchichoo – Poochaandi varum!”

Many of us growing up must’ve heard of the famed poochandi. He is ominous and omnipresent. The poochandi is the South Indian version of the bogeyman

In one of R K Narayan’s stories in the Grandmother’s Tales or Malgudi Days, I forget which one, he writes about this vague poochandi. The poochandi is a ghost or nefarious persona, whose purpose in life seems to vary: Frighten children into swallowing the next morsel of rice, or getting the slightly older ones to come home soon, or the daughter-in-law of the house to light the lamps on time every time.

I remember thinking that the poochandi seemed like a busy, if slightly jobless character.

As we grew older, the poochandi was replaced by ‘They’ as in Society.

What would They say?

🫠 You aren’t making a 5 course meal in between the 3 course meals that are each 4 hours apart? What would They say?

🫠You aren’t wearing a 9 yard saree so you can pour water droplets on a coconut? What would They say?

🫠You aren’t making murukkus as well as halwa for Diwali? What would They say?

They were all-knowing & all-judging.

If you were perfect, They knew all the ways in which you were not.

So imagine finding out that fear of what They would say actually has a word?

Allodoxaphobia & Eunoia

Allodoxaphobia: fear of what other people think of you.

I first read the word in the book, Build the life you want – by Oprah Winfrey, Arthur C Brooks

Allodoxaphobia can work in strange ways – sometimes, it can make us function in ways that enhance our positive qualities. Other times, it can burden us with a mindset that we neither grow out of, nor discard easily.

They and the Poochandi worked full-time to keep you pliant.

In the face of this, what can we do to retain and maintain our eunoia?

Eunoia? You ask. I am glad you asked. You didn’t? Well, here I go anyway.

Eunoia – is a beautiful word that signifies a positive and kind disposition. The kind of personality that develops out of cultivating beautiful thinking or a well-balanced mind.

The ability to choose without spurning, live without hurting (others or ourselves), etc are extraordinarily hard things to do. It is why philosophers set great store by it and acknowledged this to be a great thing.

Sometimes what They say, and what the poochandi threatens aligns with our inner sense of eunoia. But when they don’t align, how do we balance the cultivation of eunoia against what They will say?

Eunoia means doing the hard work of finding our morality, and sticking by it regardless of what They say, even if the Poochandi will find you for it. Eunoia means being personable and helpful without giving yourself over to Them and Their demands.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I’d like to find the poochandi and work with them to change what They say. A Poochandi who will give you a nod or a pat on your back when you clip unkindness in the face. A Poochandi who will not turn a blind eye to cruelty, and arrogance, say?

Here is a two-part question to you?

What would you like your Poochandi to do?
How do you cultivate Eunoia?

20 Years of Blogging: Cherishing Ordinary Lives and Moments

Two Decades of Writing

Some gifts are marvelous in how they keep giving. Writing is one such gift: a gift that enables us to find light and joy in our lives. Just like that, this month marks two decades of my blogging journey. 20 years or 1040 weeks in which I wrote 1-2 posts a week, every week. (#syzygy)

April Highlights: Poetry Month and Stress Awareness

April is a beautiful month of Spring. It also is Poetry Month, Stress Awareness Month, and plays host to several days such as Earth Day, World Reading Day, International Dance Day, and we found out quite recently, World Quantum Day.

Trying to accommodate all these different aspects into reading and experiences can be quite the adventure if you let it.

For Stress Awareness Month, we released the fourth episode of Sitare Spotlight. This time, our guest was Salima Banu Iezzey. Salima is a fitness coach, adventurer and nutritionist. The conversations with her were a good reminder for all the tenets of good living. Simple things we can do for daily well-being, bigger adventure goals and healthy eating. Please check it out here:

Sitare Spotlight Ep.4: Salima Banu Iezzey on Fitness, Adventure & Wellbeing

https://youtu.be/Tpirxjy_u8U?si=2-3P_Q7ltAgjpChA

For Poetry Month, apart from dipping into poetry collections from time to time, this time I also read about the life and times of Emily Dickinson. It was fascinating to see how the few poems of hers that did make it to publication during her lifetime were published anonymously by her friends and family members.

Book: Becoming Emily – the life of Emily Dickinson – Krystyna Poray Goddu (what a fascinating way to spell Krystyna?)

It was only after her death that her friend and niece got her poems published – a little tug of war between them to see who had access to more poems. It is also interesting to note that like Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson too hailed from a family that valued education, and somehow, even during those times of limited financial independence for women, were unmarried. That probably explains the prodigious work they were able to turn out in their lifetimes.

On Earth Day I gazed down upon Earth as we took off and flew over arid deserts, lush green forests, snowy stretches, oceans brimming with life, on my travels. All the time marveling at humankind and our ability to create a safe mode of transport in the air when we neither have the wings nor the air-borne buoyancy required to pull it off. Our innovation helping us gaze over the beautiful planet and peer into the maps being flashed on the screens”

Flying over Deer Lake, Cat Lake, Big Trout Lake, Sam Lake, Kingfisher lake, Wunnumin Lake – past Saskatchewan and Ontario

Quaktaq – Past Hudson Bay – where I remembered reading about the Great Bear Sea and the Arctic Unicorns (Narwhals)

Then I zoomed and chuckled over whimsical, interesting and beautiful names: Pikangikum, Quaktaq, Akulivik Puvirnituk.

One of the many futures of AI innovations may whisper in my head the meanings or origins of each of these names, but for now, it was enough for me to muse. Imagine nonsensical little things about their etymology, the languages, or the peoples who named them. I wonder why we don’t spend more time as amateur cartographers, naming the little nooks and corners of our daily walks. I remember telling someone to meet me at Reflection Pond, and then remembering that there was no Reflection Pond on the map. It was simply a name the children and I had come up for the dear pond on one of our many strolls. It was the time of sunset, the pink and orange hues above our heads were beautifully reflected in the serene waters below, and we sat there, each of us lost in our own reflections.

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