Walking tour!

Yesterday we saw sun after a long time, so just to celebrate it we had a looong walk in the hearts and veins of Paris. This was our random route that we followed! Basically we wanted to get lost in our favorite quarters of Paris! I guess this is my longest walk I ever did in Paris, the Google map says that this random itinerary is around 18 kms! 18kms with just one break in between! Every corner of Paris have some sensual entertainment to offer and no one can ever be bored to of such walks in Paris, especially when you have nice company with good discussion and arguments on every random topic possible ! May be this spring and summer will be a good time to break my own record and explore Paris by walks!

With Adhittan experiencing Anicca ...

Adhittan and Anicca! These are my favourite words in Pali, an ancient Indian language. I like it more because I can hardly follow them. Adhittan (strong determination) and Anicca (Impermanence; transience). When we can understand and experience the transience nature of this world, we can free ourselves from craving, aversion, hatred etc... and hence help us to have Adhittan. Well! Where did i get this sudden enlightment? I thought taking an Adhittan on my eating habits, especially after returning from India with few extra pounds. Last 3 days I am on Juice fasting, the detoxification process makes me experience this transient nature the of tired evenings and very brisk and fresh mornings! Understanding Anicca without craving (food) and aversion , helping me my Adhittan. Nice to do something which I thought I can never do in my life! Before I finish, todays dose of India’ s story! This is one of my favourite photos of Micha ..sorry by Micha! I feel it is a nice representation of India, colours...unity in diversity...the mess.. and peaceful? co-existence!

God' own country with its own music!

I am catching up with some of the old stories, here are some photos from my recent trip to India, and these are taken by my friend Micha, who was travelling with me for the first time to India. Actually I was suppose to show him around, but this Mikipedia(as we fondly call him) knew everything about the place we were visiting and ended up giving directions for us. To start with here are some photos of god’s own country, Kerala. First time in India, travelling like a tourist with the camera …..taking photos in the street…. staying in holiday resorts, it was bit strange experience for me.
Well! I today I was experimenting with a movie making software, as a result here are some photos of Kerala mixed with Ravi Sankar’s ‘Chants of India’ music. Do you like my first experiment?
And here are some more photos of Kerala taken by me!

Om Shanti Om

My boss, who is a big fan of India, Indian food and its culture etc.etc, Once told me that in his image of India and Indians , the bollywood concept never fits into that frame. How can the people, who have mastered the ancient yoga to the present IT , who believes in the mastery over the five senses and hence the mind, using meditation can enjoy such ridiculous bollywood movies? I was not able to justify my love for bollywood that weekend, but I feel after this weekend I can answer this question. Last few weeks I was in a heavy mood, rainy days kept us away from my usual sports waking, biking and roller blading , This weekend also ended up in indoors , watching ‘Om Shanthi Om’, a recent bollywood movie made as a tribute to all the ridiculous aspects of bollywood with holy the mantra for Spiritual Peace as its title….what a contradiction!!! The hero of this movie sings a dreamy disco song to overcome his breakup with his beloved …. Where on earth is that possible??? This reminded me of one of the concept we learned in our meditation classes; We often treat Darkness (sadness) and light (happiness) as two different entities when we are in dark we do all big intellectual discussion, run to psychologist to understand this source of darkness and desperately try to catch up with things going around us and the reality in spite of the darkens, but the darkness is just the absence of light …Right? So … just adding some light, it can be through such ridiculous stuff may help us to get out of darkness. Once we are out of darkness the things around us, the reality will start reveling itself. I ended up bringing out the kid inside me and did some really ridiculous stuff with the group of friends, laughed sooo much…never laughed that much after coming to Paris…. Now I am back to my regular routine of meditation, blogging, to get back to my duties on time. Laughter is a good medicine; sometimes we have to come out of intellectual prison to buy this medicine.

Night and Death(Life)

What happens when the life is filled with anxieties, less than year to finish my PhD, again putting myself in a cross roads, big decisions to take… Again I may have to leave behind the friends with whom I have my Sunday lunch and chai. Leave behind the friends who can read me like a book… Will I be back to the country where I belong or will I go on exploring new lands… How warm these places will be? Last few weeks when I disappeared from my blog, I was thinking about it, sometimes these thoughts explain me the uncertainty of the life and depress me. Today morning when these thoughts were coming again, I was recalled a poem from my school days, a poem called “To Night” by Joseph Blanco White. The poem about the first human (Adam and Eve’s) anxieties about the night they are going to face, just a thought that that they are going to lose the sun, totally ignorant about all the pleasant things of night, filled their evening with anxieties, The following line still touches me in the same way as it did 20years before!

Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,
Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind!
Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife?
If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?

-Joseph Blanco White

With this optimisitic thought that my nights are also going to be as pleasent as my days, I promise to be more regular in my blog.