The space within

Another challenge from Corinne of Everyday Gyan.

‘Write exactly a 100 words on the prompt and publish it on your blog – a story, a poem, a mini-essay’.The prompt for this week was “sacred spaces”

 Most of us consider sacred space to be something physical. Something with natural beauty or spiritual significance.

For me, Sacred Space has no physical presence. It is something within us. A place where we retreat to discover our true selves; beyond ego, desires, anger and jealousy. A space we must nurture through contemplation and positive thoughts. 

 However adverse our outer circumstances might be, we can find tranquility, bliss and immense mental strength by simply withdrawing into this inner space. We do not need to look outside for answers. All answers lie within.

 Create your own sacred space, create your own Happiness.

Book Review - Peep Peep Don't Sleep

I haven’t reviewed a book for a long time so when I got an offer to review Ajay Jain’s book I jumped at the opportunity. Which self respecting travel Junkie would say to no to reviewing a travelogue ! 

Well not exactly a travelogue. You can’t really call "Peep Peep Don’t Sleep" a travelogue per se. It’s a very interesting book by Ajay Jain that is basically a compilation of amusing road signs that Ajay clicked during his travels. As most of us know, Ajay Jain is a full time writer, professional blogger and photographer. He is also founder of the fabulous travel café Kunzum. 

Ajay travelled by road for over 10,000 kms, mostly in the mountains and most of the road signs he clicked and compiled into this book have been put up by the BRO(Border Roads Organization).

While travelling through the mountains, the journey is never boring because the scenic beauty around us is always enthralling be it the rugged mountains of Ladakh or the lush greenery of Himachal. 

But what make the journey even more interesting are the road signs by BRO. You cant really miss the road signs put up by them if you have travelled in areas adjoining the Pakistan, China or Nepal border. I can vouch for the fact that the BRO road signs are a sight worth looking out for !

The BRO men don’t believe in putting up just simple boring road signs. Instead their road signs are witty and quirky. I like to think that the BRO men are a creative lot who are stuck high in the mountains and the only way they get to unleash their creativity is through the road signs they put up.Their road signs combine humour, caution, wisdom and philosophy all in to one !

Ajay’s collection is vast and fascinating.Here are a few samples from the book.

It seems the BRO authorities are actually wagging a finger of admonishment signs such as 

  

or something like 

 The BRO also tries to be witty with signs such as [Go Slow on my curves] and [darling I like you but no so fast]. 

The English may be funny at times but they do manage to get the point across!

They also get philosophical and give you advice on how to live your life well.

They are also quite proud of their achievements and rightly so.And they show it through such road signs:

A lot of people don’t pay attention to things like road signs while they travel. They concentrate on the scenery, click a few photographs of the nature around them and zoom off to the next destination. 

That is what makes Ajay's book so different. He looks at travel from a vastly different angle and perspective, and manages to capture something most of us would have missed.
This book is a must buy for all the quirky travellers out there !

(All images have been taken from the website Peep Peep Dont Sleep.

A prompt and a Nudge !

I haven’t really posted anything worthwhile for some time now and Corinne from Everyday Gyan has been quite concerned about this writer’s block that just refuses to go away!  

Actually what I needed was a kick on my butt asking me to stop procrastinating and to just get on with the blogging but Corinne being Corinne she thought of a far better way. She put up a writing challenge on her blog and promptly tagged me on it!

The Writing Prompt says:

Grab the 7th book from your bookshelf. Open it up to page 7. Pinpoint the 7th sentence on the page. Begin a poem that begins with that sentence and limit it in length to 7 lines.

She then very good naturedly kept dismissing all my excuses about how  I simply cant write poetry and how I am too tied up at work to pen poems.

The seventh book in my book shelf was “The Book of Humour” By Ruskin Bond. And the 7^th sentence on the 7^th page was “How can you tell she is married?” 

And here is my humble attempt:

How can you tell

What the world holds
What adventures lie ahead
Unless you dare to step
Into the unknown
And take the road
You have never travelled before.

And to offset this very bad poetry, here is a picture of the road leading up to the Niagara vineyards that I took about a year back ! 

New Beginnings

"Thank God for New Beginnings. A new year, A new month and after every 24 hours a new day, with the sun rising over a new world."                                       
                                                   - George De Horne Vaizey

And on this New Years Day, an earnest prayer that the New year heralds a New Beginning for our country and the dawn of a safer and much more Humane Society.

Happiness comes in small packages !

Usually we look for happiness in big things. We feel we would be happy if we had a bigger house/car or a better Job. We would be happy if we were married (or not married!)

We confuse happiness with the fulfilment of our desires. Happiness to us becomes something that we will get once we have all that we want. And if life doesn't go the way we want, we become sad and bitter and decide that it’s not our fate to be Happy!

Happiness doesn't come from big materialistic things. It comes from small everyday things that we usually forget to enjoy in our maddening pursuit of the “Bigger Things”!

For me happiness is the Methi Parantha my mother makes for breakfast, happiness is looking at the antics of the birds in on my veranda wall, happiness is a good book and a cup of coffee, happiness is people telling me they love my blog.
Happiness is also collecting the Parijat flowers during my early morning walks.

Parijat or Harsingar is a small white flower with a bright saffron stem. This extremely fragrant and delicate flower blossoms at night and drops as soon as the first ray of the sun falls on it. Somehow this pristine flower always has a very peaceful and tranquil effect on me.

There are a few Parijat trees in the park near my house and every morning the fallen flowers lie like glittering white jewels on the grass under the tree. Every day after my walk, I collect the flowers, put them in glass bowls and keep them all over the house.  It always makes the rooms more fragrant and cheerful!
A few days back I was not in a very good mood when I went for my walk. I was thinking of a beautiful pottery tea-pot that I had broken accidently. It was a gift from a dear friend and I valued it greatly. Pouring tea out of it had become a ritual I looked forward to every day. Now thanks to my clumsiness I could no longer use it!

As I walked towards the Parijat tree to collect the flowers, I saw a few branches lying under the tree as well. On a whim I picked them up and brought them home. I was looking around for a pot small enough to hold the fragile branches, when my eyes fell on the discarded tea pot. I decided to put the stems in that broken pot, arranging them so that the broken end could not be seen. Then I decided to put the flowers in my room, next to my books. 

Then I clicked a picture.

And as I looked at the picture, I realized that I had a few of my favourite things right in front of me .. Books, pottery and Flowers !

And that made me very happy indeed :)

Happiness is not something we need to run after or look for. It’s there, right in front of us.All we need to do is change our perspective!