Budapest

This one's for you, Rukmini ....

Source : TED

The four-leaf fritter

I must confess that in the past when I have come across a blog that shared recipes I have felt slightly let-down. I mean, a blog is about serious writing, not recipes. Even though I do trawl the net looking for new and interesting ways to cook, recipes are meant to be on food sites, not blogs. So now, when I’m about to share a story and a recipe, I smile a bit sheepishly and self-indulgently :) But then, I tell myself, when a recipe forms itself out of inspiration and available ingredients in your kitchen and turns out to be a success, it begs to be shared.

I’ve been growing fenugreek in my kitchen garden these past few weeks and today I pulled out the last of the crop. Instead of making the usual rotis or sabzi with it, I thought, let me, for a change, make fritters with it. Then, just for variety I decided to add mint leaves and the leaves of the Coleus aromaticus (panikoorka in Malayalam) from the kitchen garden. When I dug into the refrigerator to retrieve the coriander leaves, I saw some corn ears taking up a lot of space in the veggie tray and took one out, de-kerneled it and added the kernels to the chopped up leaves. Then some besan went in, together with cumin seeds, turmeric, chilli powder and salt. Generous squeezes of a lemon went in next, all combined together with water. The mixture turned out to not have a pouring consistency and feeling reluctant to add more besan, I decided to stick to ‘healthy’ and add wholewheat flour instead. When that had gone in, I remembered sesame seeds. I love sesame seeds so much that given the chance, I’d give in to the temptation of adding it to EVERYTHING. Which is not such a bad thing compared to hubby’s penchant for adding fenugreek seeds to everything. So, in went a bold dash of sesame seeds. I then spotted a half-peeled potato sitting on the bench-top and chopped that up and put that in too. The batter was now a thick yellow-green mass with the greens kind of lumping together in solidarity.

Now, in keeping with my ‘eat healthy’ philosophy I had planned to pan-fry the fritters with as little oil as possible, but looking at the thick mass bursting with leaves, I realised that pan-frying is only going to cook the underside and the leaves and insides might remain uncooked, so I poured some more oil into the flat bottomed pan so as to have an oil depth of a few millimetres. I then poured tablespoonfuls of batter into the hot oil and flattened each fritter out so that about half of it was submerged in the oil. Fried them on both sides to a light brown crispiness and drained them on kitchen paper, which to my dismay got quite drenched with oil. However, the end result was quite crunchy and tasty.

Well, after I had eaten a couple of these oil-laden delicacies my conscience literally started to jump up and down in anger telling me off and telling me to go work off all the fat I had ingested. So, off I went on a walk and as usual when I go walking in the quiet dusk in the balmy weather, I tend to muse and ponder over things. I got to thinking how like life it was, the fritters that I had made. A lot of times we don’t have a say in the hand we get dealt in life. We have to make do with what we’ve got and fashion a life out of it. We might have to take large amounts of wholesome flour and somehow stir in the bitterness of fenugreek, the hot anger of chilli, the coolness of mint and the fragrant virtue of coriander. Add great dashes of lemon for zest and sesame for the nutty flavour, salt for steadfastness, all to be combined and fried in the trials and tribulations of life. But just to the right degree, not overdone to result in burn-out or frustration, or underdone with a soft belly and laziness.

All great recipes are born this way, I like to think. In times of famine or plenty, people have taken what was available and combined and cooked them in ways that would result in food that was not only tasty but was nourishing to the body and soul as well. I guess that’s what our lives are about too. To take the things that are available and at hand and fashion a life that is a thing of beauty and nourishment and wholesomeness.

Learning from a barefoot movement

This TED talk by Bunker Roy is so awe-inspiring !

Please share if possible ....

Shukriya Zindagi

Yes, there is so much to be grateful for in life ....

Shafqat Amanat Ali's voice does strum the heartstrings!

A very unusual love letter

Opening the doors of compassion...

Source : Internet

Poetry of gratefulness

A wonderfully inspirational video on the meaning of gratitude.

Lynne Twist on gratitude

Union

(my attempts at Haiku)

When we gaze

at each other,

God smiles.

In the silence

lies the secret,

of union.

Beyond body,

beyond mind,

we are one.

In the end,

there is no you nor I,

only God.

Through our union,

It experiences itself,

as Itself.

In the bliss

of nothingness,

is everything.

What is life now

or death, I have

glimpsed eternity.

~~~

The Invitation

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer


It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to
be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can
disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

~~~

Who killed Baby Falak?

How many children will have to die before we finally do something?

Who killed Baby Falak?

:/

The Cord

For those mothers who have lost a child, and those who have lost their mother;


The Cord

We are connected,
My child and I, by
An invisible cord
Not seen by the eye.

It's not like the cord
That connects us 'til birth
This cord can't been seen
By any on Earth.

This cord does it's work
Right from the start.
It binds us together
Attached to my heart.

I know that it's there
Though no one can see
The invisible cord
From my child to me.

The strength of this cord
Is hard to describe.
It can't be destroyed
It can't be denied.

It's stronger than any cord
Man could create
It withstands the test
Can hold any weight.

And though you are gone,
Though you're not here with me,
The cord is still there
But no one can see.

It pulls at my heart
I am bruised...I am sore,
But this cord is my lifeline
As never before.

I am thankful that God
Connects us this way
A mother and child
Death can't take it away!

~ Author Unknown

Wonder

Immaculate Misconception

A blog post I wish I had written, so close it is to my thoughts and feelings ...

Immaculate Misconception

It's outrageous but true and what are the solutions?

Growth

We are God seeds planted in a human vehicle and our job is to grow and blossom into God selves.

~ Jean Houston

The Four Agreements

Toltec Wisdom by Don Miguel Ruiz M.D.

And the Fifth Agreement, added recently:

"Be Skeptical But Learn To Listen."
'Don't believe me, don't believe anyone else, don't believe yourself...'
~ Don Miguel Ruiz

Eliminating belief systems are one of the core teachings of the Toltec Path. Whenever you have a belief, you no longer perceive what is. You see only what Toltecs call, the smoky mirror. You see the world through colored glasses.

In order to see the truth, to see reality clearly and unbiased, one must be free of belief systems. In order to grow and evolve, one must change the way they see themselves and the world.

Source : Internet (Friend's FB update)

The Beloved

My Beloved, a patient lover, waits for me,
while I, like a busy housewife,
scurry about to finish my chores,
to settle the affairs of the world,
to put aside the calculations of the mind.
When I still my hands of their constant activity
and my mind of its constant fluttering,
there, I behold Him in the silent cavern of my soul.
His smile is the gentle unfolding of a dreamy full moon,
His gaze makes me forget myself,
cast aside my identity, my selfhood,
and dissolve into His all encompassing embrace.
In that sacred space, I know myself as Him,
I always was and will be. We are one.
He laughs at my forgetfulness
and rejoices at my remembrance.
My Beloved is always all there is
if only I would open my vision and see.
I look around and see Him everywhere,
in the dazzling sunlight, in the bumbling bee.
From faces distorted in pain and anger,
He smiles gently up at me.
Waiting patiently for the remembrance
of a Beloved they somehow fail to see.
But I must remember and I must see
that the Beloved, He dwells in me.
My Beloved has the luminescence of a million suns,
my Beloved is me.

~~~

Spectacles of nature

I stepped outside today evening to try and spot the unfolding of a heavenly spectacle in the skies, the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus. It took me several minutes of scanning the tree-obscured horizon to  finally spot the two planets in a gap between the trees, sparkling bright in the azure sky. The brighter of the two might have been Venus and Jupiter even though bigger in size looked like a younger sibling hanging around the brighter one. They are orbiting on vastly different trajectories, but once in a while their travels align them in such a way that when looked at from the earth, they appear to be in conjunction.

Later on, when the night had deepened, I stepped outside once again to gaze up at the night sky. The sky was almost clear, with only a few clouds obscuring the view, and stars lit up the heavens. The Milky Way was a diaphanous swathe across the sky and looking at this starry display, once again I was moved by awe, thinking of our tiny little planet amidst the heavens and the universe spreading out into infinity. And a tiny little me, sitting on a tiny little planet watching it. Its sheer grandeur is so monumental and yet to think that the force that shaped the stars and the galaxies also shaped me and throbs within me. This puts us straightaway into the league of stars, and we can feel the pulse of creation, of awesomeness throbbing within us.

Earlier on, I had gone for a walk and sat down by the river. The sun had gone down and the sunset was lighting up the sky in golden hues. Down there where I sat there was no sign of human habitation. It was as though I had escaped into a different world. The river flowed with music on her lips and jauntiness in her step. Sea gulls feed on the pebbled banks and once in a while took off in flight, spread their wings and alighted again. The bank opposite was thick with bush of various kinds and hues, and shadows gathered among the leaves, and slithered on the branches, whispering secrets. As the day retreated, the night approached, like a soft-footed lover, all velvet smoothness and dark mystery.

Sitting there, cradled in nature and caressed by the velvet night, my mind grew calm and still. I began to feel a blurring of my separateness as the walls that I normally put up while negotiating the eddying currents of human transactions began to dissolve and fall away. The sense of a separate 'me' began to disappear and the sense of a far greater vastness began to reveal itself. There was only an observer and the feeling that all was in oneness and all was in bliss.

When the mind falls silent, truth and beauty reveal themselves. What does the mind do other than record events, store and retrieve data, and based on past recorded data, form opinions, concepts, beliefs etc. But the moment is newborn and fresh and its beauty and aliveness cannot be sensed by a mere cataloguer of a database, it must be sensed by something beyond the mind, something that dwells and moves within us and whose ethereal voice is normally drowned out by the cacophony of the mind. In moments like these, when we are in the midst of nature, when we get the chance to drop the mind and move into stillness, the soft, loving voice reveals to us, not in words, but in a deeply felt sense, the truth about ourselves. Then, we can be said to have come home.

~~~

Why you will fail to have a great career

A talk that I needed to hear at this point of my life ....

Larry Smith's TED talk

Very compelling!

Lifeguard

This was so heartening, I had to share this ...

Yaaaaaaaaay !!!

Photo : courtesy Internet.

Wise words

Those who speak much are not necessarily possessed of wisdom.

The wise can be seen to be at peace with life and free from all enmity and fear.

Dhammapada v.258

As rain cannot penetrate a well-made roof, so the passions cannot enter a well-trained heart.

Dhammapada v.14

If anything is to be done, do it well, with energy and devotion;

the renunciate life led heedlessly just stirs up the dust.

Dhammapada v 313

Truly it is ourselves that we depend upon; 

how could wer really depend upon another?

When we reach the state of self reliance we find a rare refuge.

Dhammapada v 160

I Singe The Body Electric

Another raw, bleeding post. The only consolation and maybe hope is that the women are writing about their anguish, proclaiming their pain. I hope that is bringing some measure of control, of catharsis into their lives ...

I singe the body electric