Another year of illusion!

According to my favourite Dhamma the cat, "Time is an illusion and illusions should be dealt with", Cambridge, the 15th town and 34th year of my life, which makes it an average of around 2 years per town. Dealing with this time bound illusion is more difficult when I have to meet new people every two years. can I really make new "best friend" every two years or its just me idealizing relationships. ‘Rail Sneham" a term used in Tamil for the friendships one makes over a train journey, which terminates the same time as the journey itself. I thought my friendship was more with the train than the people in it! but I don't know when I started missing the people. But it was big consolation to know that I am not the only victim of train journeys. Ruskin Bond, Indo-English author wrote "A song for the lost friends" in train. May be one day, I will stop idealizing my relationships with my train acquaintances and learn not to miss them. Until then let me miss the acquaintance, I just met during his first train journey. For one its just a journey and for the other thats the way of life! So, let me shed some tears even when they are not understood!

He called goodbye and waved
As I looked back from the bend in the road.
....
And the trains roll on, everyday
Hundreds of people coming or going or running away
Goodbye, goodbye!
Into the forest's silence,
Outside the dark tunnel,
Out of the tunnel,out of the dark
...
Twilight and evening bell,
And after the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark.
-- "A song for the lost friends" by Ruskin Bond!

Is Seeing Believing?

Not so successful in my war on fear..Screamed so much 'celebrating' hallowing weekend in scaresville in Kentwell and staying in a 16th century country house in Suffolk. Few fears made me scream, few are still hidden behind the clouds. I wish the Sun can be as brave as me, to come out and face the fears. “Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.” and both are our own perception of illusion, saw this very interesting 'horizon' program on our perception of illusion. Synaesthesia - The Mixing of the Senses, can be a solution to my fears?

fighting the fears!

recently..fighting some fears...fear of water..swimming 3 times a week! darkness..biking through dark fields! horror movies...watched one alone! no fear of the unknown, but of the loss of the known...how many times I yelled in this fear..no yelling ..let the bird fly..may be will come back!

A hero with thousand faces..

Many things will always remain a puzzle, one such tiny Tamil puzzle is Rajnikanth. A 60 year old man who don't know to dance sing or act is enterining the region and treated like a 'mythical' character for last 30 years. Today I got to see him in his new avatar as a robot. It was special to watch him in the silver screen, from UK along with my adventurous (non-Indian) friends who volunteered to share this 'cultural' experience with me, after all like mythologies, movies can be a dream of a society. It was a pleasant evening to revisit my childhood dream land with my friends today.

La Tête en Friche..

Among all the chaos in life, I am still enjoying the Cambridge film festival, I was able to cry along with many other audiences as I watched La tête en friche, a French movie which beautifully depicts the friendship developing in very unlikely conditions. Today again watched a French movie but this time I was not able to laugh along with other audiences, when pain and emotions can cross the barriers of language and nations, I don’t know why the sense of humour fails to cross the boundaries. How many times I have offended people with my Indian sense of humour. I often forget that I grew up in a country where there was no concept of personal space, especially between friends. I grew up in a country where asking and taking favours are part of friendship, a sign to show people that I share a special space with you and how many times I have seen a crappy movie just to share the space and time with a friend I like. After I fought my way into this new world and I do enjoy this personal space I created for myself. But I still take liberty to invade the personal spaces of friends, with my silly sense of humour and sometimes even get disappointed for my personal space not getting invaded by friends close to my heart. Finally the Swedish short movie I saw yesterday came as an answer to my recent disappointments, the movie was a small recreation of a failed bank robbery happened in Stockholm in 2006. So, let me blame the cultural differences for all my disappointments, at least until I understand the actual reasons.. La Tête en Friche...

This day that year!

15th Sep 2008, I had a deadline for a manuscript submission, worked non-stop...yes! non-stop 25 hours in my Paris lab and the next day (15th sep 2008) when I stepped out of my lab around noon, I found my bike stolen. Which made me write this(to my lost love) blog entry..Oh! god ! I was so cheesy then! Now 2 years later, I started biking again, I almost biked 1500 kms in last 6 months, including London to Cambridge..Love can find you back in many different ways! I wish I will be fit enough to bike till I die! This photo taken during my first break after 30 km, during my London Cambridge biking. Yes! on 25th of July London and Cambridge was linked by a long chain of cyclist! And ...also.. thanks to my friends for their kind donation for this event!

இது ஒரு பொன் மாலைப் பொழுது

Got to see a very beautiful sunset on the way back from my work. I love this evening bus trip through the fields...

Today sky reminded me of my lines favourite from a tamil song!

"வானம் எனக்கொரு போதிமரம் (sky is my Bodhi tree)
நாளும் எனக்கது சேதி தரும்" (it enlightens me each day)

as the title says...it was a golden evening!

Green horizon!

I missed and was whining about the lack of nature, green and horizon in Paris.

Now in Cambridge all I have is nature green and horizon...

taking that long walks to see the place where this green mixes with that blue.

Science facts remind me that such a place doest exist, but why do..

I still have hope?

PS: Hug from 4th dimension totally works!

Hug from 4th Dimension

I have to contradict myself again, as a follower of tenth dimension blog, I should be believing in magic sort of things, after all human can see only up to three dimensions. Sometimes we even pretend not to understand the realities of third dimension. Today I pretended not to understand my mother and my friend pretended not to understand my email, we both live in the fear of facing strong emotions. To overcome the fears of 3rd dimension, here is a hug from the 4th dimension. Mom! this hug is for you on your birthday! and one for you my friend, to face the emotions of today which doesn't need a year long planing and agenda. So, Now if you wonder how this 4th dimension hug may look or feel like, you can have a look at Sarah Maxine Williams animation of two dimensional beings getting hug from 3rd dimension.

And if you are curious enough to spend 18 min to see whats around the corner from 4th to 10th dimensions have a look at this blog.

Magicians do not exist!

Travelling this incredible journey called life, I even forgot to update my blog for sometime. When I was away from the virtual world, I was travelling in the far lands, enjoying the beauty of Sweden and Scotland. After three months, as I return to my blog I realize I am in the very same place as I was 3 months before. Today, I was spending my lunch time, listening to the beautiful beats of my heart and talking with these fishes in cam about how to let things go. I felt like this ignorant little girl in the movie L'illusionniste, we both wandered over Arthur's seat in Edinburgh and we both ignorantly believed in Magic. Expecting Magic from friends and family, expecting them to understand my heart beats but "Magicians do not exist!"

Let it go!

Something I discovered in my meditation is, how many 'unrelated' events that happened in my life are connected with a small thread of emotions. Often in my meditation, when a certain type of emotion comes up on the surface of mind, for example disappointment, I can reflect 'all' the events lead to disappointment since my childhood. Yesterday as I was having my lunch at my favorite spot on the Cam bridge at my work, staring at the fishes . Seeing this Pike fish for the first time, with nice patterns on its body shining in the sun rays in the shallow water, I was trying to find the balance between my impassioned wish to hold it closer to me and fear that it will suffocate the little fish. Finally tried to enjoy this beautiful reality that this fish is very nice part of lunch and rejected the impassioned wishes or fear as my own projections of the reality and not actually part of the reality.

Walls of Prejudice

A confused day, and like most of my confused days I spent the evening reading J.Krishnamurti. I watched the Video: The Challenge of Change - J. Krishnamurti Online. The source of my confusion was due to my disbelief in others experiences. For past few weeks I am living the following lines of JK "I have long been in revolt from all things, from the authority of others, from the instruction of others, from the knowledge of others; I would not accept anything as Truth until I found the Truth myself."
When I was 12, I studied Alexandre Dumas 's The black tulip novel in school and argued about the existence of tulips and black flowers. My botany teacher was able to convince me the existence of tulips with a picture, but she was not able to convince me about black tulips. Finally yesterday after 21 years I was able to say my botany teacher was right...black tulips do exist. It is a big struggle to break the wall of prejudice and to reject the experience of friends, family and wise people but there is no joy like experiencing the experience oneself. Still...like to share my experience of black tulips!

Elysian Garden

The weekend filled with English heritage experience, got to see one of the England's greatest gardener "Capability" Brown designed master piece today. I Wandered around in a 17th century country house with my English friends, hearing stories about the Jacobean architecture, "Capability" Brown's landscaping methods, Elysian garden and witnessing very impressive Espalier. The kitchen garden in this 17th century house had a fence made with apple trees trained to grow in two dimension, using this horticultural method called Espalier. Here is little glimpse of the very beautiful Audley End house and its English garden through my camera lens

Mysterious door

Opening many mysterious doors at work and I always have pleasant surprises behind the doors More of photos of spring at work...

Feeling blue!

After having this magical experience in the bluebell walk, 'feeling blue' word is now got redefined in my dictionary.

Living by the Dream!

No progress today...and no hope over the weekend too...still guessing..if the bud is going to be leaf or a flower, my friends want it to be a leaf but I bet it is a flower. my friends say leaves are relatively long lasting but I argue for flowers, they have potential to fruit and bear seeds. It can be this beautiful bluebell that I stare from kitchen window...

but my friends doubt if it can bloom boldly in between long blades of grasses!

I hope it can be this purple bunch, high enough to I stare from my first floor bedroom windows....

Sorry friends, but I will wait for my dream catcher to catch a beautiful dream for this spring.

Hydrangea..

I was looking close at the spring season of my life and this hydrangea plant, both are having lots of beautiful buds, wondering if they are the future flowers or leaves....Leaves or Flowers both can add colour to my garden and life!

creating a wilderness..

long days meaning more time in my garden, I was trying to identify some wild flowers in my garden, thanks to my friend who gifted me a book to identify wild flowers and this web site floral images, I was able to name few flowers in the garden today. more to come later...(with my slow iphone 3G can't fit my whole garden)

Dandelion

Bluebell

Scentless Mayweed (is it not an insult to name a flower like this?)

in the silence..

Finished a year in Cambridge, it was one of the 'easiest' year in my life, I don't have to make an effort to live or to pass each day. In Paris, life in the middle of buildings, each buildings has its own rules, we transform ourselves to fit into that building. We keep silence inside a library and a museum, ancient buildings should be handled with care and we are suppose to go crazy inside a pub or a disco. But when I am in the laps of nature... as I run behind the sheep...

...walk on the green grass and the wild flowers...or even in a confusing cross roads in the middle of the woods..or just siting silently under a fully bloomed apple tree..In this silence of nature I am able hear every little heart beats of mine..my heart doesn't beat for the buildings anymore....it beats for the people...I am able feel that it beats faster for someone..and slower for others..In that rhythm I am able to discover the moments I lose my temper and the moments when my heart goes out...last one year...walking in the silence of nature to the beats of my heart...no wonder my last one year was the easiest year in my life!

express myself!

I wanted to express myself to my mom, to my friend, to my boss, to the people i like and the things i don't like.... in all these possible way as shown in this video.. but spent the whole day in silence.. may be I am bad in languages...may be too tired from my 15km cycling..may be things are too complicated to explain..sometimes I can express myself better in silence.. as I did today!

Run for life!

Me and my friends registered for the Cancer Research UK fundraiser 5 km run. Thanks to the good weather and the generous contribution by my mom, boss and colleagues, I was inspired to start my training today. I did 7 km training, in my favorite Grantchester route, I took it in a very slow pace. Here is the stats of day-1 training run. I hope I will get better before the final run in July. You can be generous by clicking here!Flossie Run!

Started: 5 Apr 2010 17:15:29
Run Time: 1:04:05
Distance: 7.18 km
Average: 8:55 /km
Fastest Pace:6:33 /km
Climb: 11 meters

into gardening!

Two of my friends sprained their ankles last week the same day around the same time, what a coincidence! I reacted the way exactly my mother would react, went into a short panic mode. All my life I was trying to do teach my mother, how to handle such conditions in a calm and sensible way but it is easy to preach than to practice. Both of them seems to be doing fine, got to spend sometime with one today. Rest of the day, Thanks to the good weather I did some gardening, I might have picked up that interest from my mom too..

just few months back my garden was like this.

and today...all green just waiting for my cherry tree to bloom. again differences in gardening in India vs. UK. In India the most challenging part was watering and keeping the crops away from cattle, here in UK the difficult part is to keep them away from frost. I have to tuck my seedlings inside the fleece cloth. hope that will help them from the cold nights of April.

que sera sera

French make the best movie in the world, yesterday watched The Father of My Children (Le pere de mes enfants).The movie was coming to an end me and my friends were almost into tears, but still trying figure out whats the whole movie was about, that's when this catchy song came as a finishing note. Then the whole movie and my day made lot of sense.

somethings change and others come back...

I saw few daffodils flowering in my garden and that made me to Google the Daffodils poem by William Wordsworth. I still remember reading this poem with my father as my homework during my school days and it was very difficult to understand the whole poem. It is very different from the Tamil literature and the society, which mostly talks about the powerful kings of the past or about leading a moral life. I don't remember a Tamil poem which describe the nature and how that can affect someone's life (Tamil readers please correct me if I am wrong). Also, my father had a tough time explaining the word "bliss of solitude". I used to wonder how can people be in bliss when they are alone (a condition which i never experienced in India). This word started making more sense now a days. few things that didn't make sense as child in India, started revealing its meaning now. But somethings that suffocated me as a child growing up in India like too much of unwanted attention in the name of love and kindness are still following me... Specially when I get into the conditions when I don't know how to show my love and attention to someone, that is when the things i saw learned and hated as kid started coming back to me as second nature... Last few days I lived a life that I hated the most as a kid. Now that I learned the meaning of "bliss of solitude", I think it is time to experience the bliss of solitude and let others experience that too..

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Next passion

Using Tai-Chi to kill my excess energy..and beading to kill my spare time..! I can feel forces of nature my two new hobbies...In my 10th tai-chi class, I understood the meaning behind the slow boring movements, that epiphany encouraged me to register for 10 more weeks of tai-chi. My expensive passion for beading was fueled by inheriting 15 years collection of beads from my friends mom... be ready to read more about my beading and tai-chi journey

Let it Go - Tai-Chi!

I attended Tai-Chi practice day last weekend and had an epiphany. Past few months I was bit confused about two big external forces that was acting on me, a pair of beautiful eyes expressing very warm and pleasant attention and the other pair of eyes with very cold 'jealousy'. I was not able handle both. I spoiled few days and some sleep in speculations about the manifestation of these forces and the ways I should handle it. I was waiting in the same way as you might have seen in a hollywood or a bollywood movie, a hero flexing his muscles when the villain is approaching to attack. But tai-chi taught me a new way...to let it go! I was able to do something similar to the grandmaster in the above video, just by placing my hands over my tai-chi partner's shoulder , I was able to push him but without actually pushing him and was able to withstand the push without actually resisting to it...all just by letting the forces go through my body...all I did was removed my focus from the target, relaxing and let myself go! The cold eyes did not react in the way I was expecting and the beautiful eyes may not react the way I am expecting neither... so, last one week I was able to remove my focus from the beautiful eyes, relaxed my mind and body can let go the energy radiating from the beautiful eyes...Thank you Tai-Chi,I was able to put into practice the mantra of Tai-Chi "let it go"!

Date with destiny!

Today just after 45min train trip, I was magically transported to India. When I lived in India the only thing that happened as per my plan was taking my flight to Paris and so was my day today, nothing went as per my plan. I wanted to go to London, submit papers in Indian consulate, get back to work by lunch, have lunch with friends, play badminton, go to gym and then a potential movie...but things got stuck just at the "submitting papers" stage and ruined all the other plans...why planning doesn't work in India or in any place related to India? why do we Indians allow other people to live our life in the name of destiny? when I was discussing about this issue with one of my Indian friend living in Europe, he came up with this theory....many Indian attitudes are influenced by our belief in reincarnation... Yuva, I need your help to put this theory right!

Living the moment!

Today.. a... normal..happy day, I didn't feel the presence of the cultural differences which stood like a mountain few days back, I enjoyed the moment like a cake, without waiting to add that last cherry on the top, I surprised myself by going for a walk next to the river during the lunch break..I usually go to stare at the fishes swimming in the opposite current only on a stormy day! According to Joseph Campbell, thinking about happy things on a sad day can make you feel better! Today.. a happy day, I did things which I usually do when I am down and it is nice to come back to neutral from an excited state!

Who else is fine!

When east meets west...I have heard lots of stories about it from my Indian friends living in west. It is very interesting and some times very painful to see and face this struggle. So far I have met lot of Indians trying to live inside a bubble , totally ignoring the fact that there is a culture and society exist outside their bubble. But recently I met people trying make peace with the cultural conflict, just by repeating " I am fine.." ... Reminded me so much of Ross.. Where do I stand?? I feel so much westernized in the presence of an Indian and too 'indian' in the presence of my new European friends, dragged between two different worlds... All I can tell myself is... I am fine! And hope I can supress the expression of annoying "I like to control the life of people I like" Indian gene very soon !

Liquid fasting!

Planning to live on liquids for a week... Lunch and dinner for the day... Smoothie made of....

Ladybug

Why am I remembering the following dialogues from a very chessy movie...under the tuscan sun...sure there is a reason!

Listen,when I was a little girl,

I used to spend hours looking for ladybugs.

Finally, I'd just give up and fall asleep in the grass.

When I woke up, they were crawling all over me.

Dream Vs. Reality!

I got back to work yesterday. My colleagues were expecting me to come back with a halo after 10days of intense meditation. unfortunately didn't have one. But I did observe one nice change in me. I was able to understand how much I live in tomorrow. Just sitting in the bus to work, thinking about what is going to happen after an hour or two, who all I want to meet and who all I didn't want to, staging a big drama in my mind, and obviously getting disappointed with my reality. In the very rare case when the drama staged in my mind comes to reality, there is no freshness, the charm of the reality is lost because of its preview in my mind. Well! this conflict between the my minds anticipation and the reality was the reason for few drops of tears I shed in the recent past. Last two days as this meditation helped me to live in the present, 2010's reality seems to be more beautiful and fresh than I can ever dream about.

J.Krishnamurti puts this in his beautiful words, a very nice summary of my meditation.

There is no knowledge of tomorrow
Observation implies no accumulation of knowledge, even though knowledge is obviously necessary at a certain level: knowledge as a doctor, knowledge as a scientist, knowledge of history, of all the things that have been. After all, that is knowledge: information about the things that have been. There is no knowledge of tomorrow, only conjecture as to what might happen tomorrow, based on your knowledge of what has been. A mind that observes with knowledge is incapable of following swiftly the stream of thought. It is only by observing without the screen of knowledge that you begin to see the whole structure of your own thinking. And as you observe - which is not to condemn or accept, but simply to watch - you will find that thought comes to an end. Casually to observe an occasional thought leads nowhere, but if you observe the process of thinking and do not become an observer apart from the observed - if you see the whole movement of thought without accepting or condemning it - then that very observation puts an end immediately to thought, and therefore the mind is compassionate, it is in a state of constant mutation.

-JK

Vipassana!

My friends and all the people I know will be surprised to know that I have spent 50 days of my adult life in total silence in 5 different countries. Those were the best days of my life, I was able to see many other sides of myself, I feel I enjoy the aloneliness and silence as much as I love talking and meeting people. I am still thinking hard to find out one emotion that I did not experience in 2009, finishing thesis, getting a new job in a beautiful place, leaving nice people, meeting new wonderful hearts etc. etc. oooh! What a year! I can say 2009 will remain as a one big landmark in my life. So, just added that final cherry on the top by spending that last few days of 2009 in total silence. Now...2010..here I come…Thanks to Vipassana! And Thanks Jo for the lovely meditating Santa!