deponti

Halloween

The word comes from "All Hallow Even"...as the sun goes down, the spirits are hallowed, and rule for that night, until the approaching light of dawn dispels them again.

Insomnia seems to have become a permanent friend...but I had a great day yesterday (early morning birding, some torcher, afternoon play and a lovely time with friends) and I am looking forward to my trip to

Maidanahalli

in a few hours with

Garima

and others from the BULBs (Bangalore Urban Lady-Birders...we have co-opted some male members, such as

Rajneesh Suvarna ,

though!)


I am sitting in the dark with just one goose-necked lamp...and was musing about light and darkness. That darkness is associated with evil both in terms of the lack of colour (making it black) and lack of light. The dispelling of darkness often signifies the dispelling of gloom, despair, and anything not good.

On my way up the stairs in our apartment complex, I found that someone was celebrating a festival unknown to me (probably it was also the Tamizh festival of kArthigai, I don't know...), they had set up this little shrine outside their home with lights to dispel the darkness:





It was rather unusual to have the puja display outside the home rather than inside it...but it made a warm, appealing picture!

And then, of course, my asakiyume picture...in this one, the light is fading and yet the gathering darkness seems no portent of evil, but rather, the peace and rest that come after happiness and work well accomplished:





Sunset on a daily basis is echoed, in my mind, with the fall season, where the days draw in, there's a sense of things ripened and replete...."season of mists and fruitfulness", as Keats puts it. To some people, of course, the lesser amount of light is depressing...but to me, being a person who loves the rains and the monsoon, it's not of any negative connotation.

"and leaves the world to darkness and to me", writes the poet Thomas Grey...and the peace of that statement is tinged with melancholy, and the name of the poem is "The Elegy"!

It perhaps takes someone in a tropical country, who bears the harsh sun, to appreciate lack of light, and the dimness and coolness that accompany it.

To me, the fall, the Sisir Ritu, and the evening, are wonderful times.

With the internet at one's disposal, sending greetings is a very easy thing to do.

No more hunting for the right card(s), hunting for the addresses (surely that aunt moved last year?), writing them laboriously, signing your name to so many cards, pasting on the postage (did the postage go up since the last time?....of COURSE it did!) and going to the post office to mail the cards, hoping that even in the rush, somehow, the greetings will reach their proper destination....and not be dumped by some disgruntled postperson who is sick and tired of walking around every day!

No...with the internet, in the twinkling of a moment, you can send greetings to your friends. And your family. And your relatives. And others.

Ah...the others. Here's where the problem lies.

Some of us seem to think very all-inclusively about our communication; we seem to want to include every name and email id on our Address Book. I don't seem to relate even to those physical cards which come with some unintelligible signature in them, with a bald wish for "good wishes for the festive season" or whatever. *The signature is illegible because it was the 873rd time the poor sender was putting it on paper, of course.)

To me, bulk greetings of any sort (both postal and e-mail) totally miss the point that such communication should make, which is, "I am thinking especially of you." If I address a card (e- or real) to 250 people, who am I kidding that I am thinking of them? I am just thinking about getting my greeting-sending chore done, that's all!

I cannot, therefore, send those generic festival greetings to everyone on my list. I would like to wish different people differently. (Eg for my sis in law, who has one false tooth in her smile, I made a greeting card that said, "Without you, there would be a gap in our lives."...something like that.)

Yes, e-cards save paper...quite a lot of it, so I do like sending them. But each of my friends deserves individual attention, so if I feel the need to, I'll send an individual card to each of them....

And what I have now started doing is, sending e-card *replies*, not greetings. To those friends and family who have wished me, or communicated with me, I send greetings or mail in return. I do not send out greetings on my own, because knowing me, I am bound to leave someone out!

But if you have sent me a greeting that is also going out to the rest of the egroup or your address book, I am sorry, I will not be replying to you!

Well, I do hope each of you is having a good festival, if you celebrate it, or enjoying the holiday(s) if you don't...! But you're not going to get bulk e-greetings from me.....

Though I couldn't quite summon up the energy to put up any kind of Golu for A, we did visit the home of A and M, who are expecting their first child shortly...the golu was really cute!





And here we are...there are TWO "A's mother"s in that pic! (A's parents live very close to her place, and I think it's great to have your family close by on a permanent basis!)





We are supposed to visit someone else today, but they don't seem to be at home...and here, it isn't really Navaratri, it's Weekendratri! :)

Love sometimes goes hand in hand....





and sometimes the message is a massage...




I liked the colours in the first image, and the diagonals in the second.

D had done 43 miles as part of his training for the

Century Ride

that he will be doing on October 11...and he was getting a much-needed foot and leg massage afterwards!

It's great to see one's child blessed with a truly happy marriage...and I am so thankful...

Today is National Night Out, when neighbours are supposed to get together and get to know one another. We are having a get-together on this street...will document it!

We were driving through Forest Park when I realized that this was a bird I was familiar with, but hadn't seen before in the US:





Well, here was a WILD TURKEY crossing the road! (No, please don't immediately ask, "Why did the turkey cross the road?" ...that one IS a turkey!)


I got this shot of the bird at the side of the road:







I wonder how turkeys came to be associated with Thanksgiving ....! All turkeys must have been wild once, but nowadays the only wild thing about them is the wild rice that they are sometimes eaten with in this country!

We went to see the Chinese Festival at the Missouri Botanical Center, and here's the video of the jugglers...





They set those plates spinning on the canes, one by one, and then set the plates on the tables spinning,too..there are 24, in all, isn't that amazing!

The video is 2'23" long..but I think it's worth watching!

We live in hope...we believe in new beginnings (what are old beginnings? anyone seen any?)...here's wishing everyone health, happiness, and peace of mind!

I wrote several articles and "middles" regularly for the Deccan Herald before I started writing for Citizen Matters, and after having met Sangeetha Kadur and hijacked her and Madhukar (another expert birder whose work with the digiscope can be found here ) home,I
went and googled for the article about the artists who painted the beautiful murals at Bandipur...it's at


http://www.deccanherald.com/archives/nov192006/finearts1942320061118.asp


Oh, I have referred to it in

this post

Alas, that last mural remains unfinished, and JLR never continued with this great initiative....but Sangeetha continues with her wildlife painting, and is at present working on a book on humming birds! More power to her brush...


Hmm...I thought I had lost all the articles that I wrote, I realize I can hunt for them...these simple things take the Concrete Cauliflower a while to understand!

The Wildscreen Festival proved far more interesting than I budgeted for; the masterclass by Jeremy Bristow was riveting, and the one by Laura Marshall on managing productions, applies to so many situations that demand good scheduling to ensure a successful outcome. More in my writeup for Citizen Matters! :)

It's always a pleasure to watch anyone skilled at work...and it was no different as we passed a wedding hall near my home and saw this palm thatch getting ready...





What deft interweaving of the palm frond ! And to think how cheap it is......

I love to see baskets and mats and such beatiful things being woven from bamboo, rushes and reeds.

I hope we continue to employ these artisans, who weave magic with their fingers.

Here's a little child, in the form of the god that's my daughter's favourite...





Wish you all a happy,peaceful weekend, at the very least, in the US....pray for terror victims everywhere....

Today is the day that Karnataka State was formed....it's called Rajyotsava Day , "the festival of the kingdom"....




One flower represents Karnataka, the other, our motherland...and the greenery is that of our planet....



*

Photobucket is nice :)

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/529-bengali-pujas

Wait, wait, they didn't use several pictures....

Here they are.....


The traditional way of wearing a Bengali "thaanthEr shaadee" (Bengal cotton saree), with the pallu having a bunch of keys tied to it, with the jewellery and the tray full of items for offering "arati" to the Goddess. The yellow saree is very typical.





A very young man wearing the typical male attire, the "dhuti pAnjAbi"...






( more pujO pics here )

The beautiful, very traditional South Bangalore Pujo idol's face...those lovely elongated eyes....!





On the last day, Bengali women follow a practice called "Sindoor Khela". (I was requested not to take photographs at this time, so I complied). After this, the idol was taken for "Bisarjon" (immersion) You can see a video of both of these practices

here .


And for those of you who want to see the amazing creativity of Pujo in Kolkata, here are the images which a friend brought back from her visit this year...


click here

Let me close with a short Bengali poem:


"Maa..kothAti chhotO...kinthu, jAnO bhai....
eehAr cheyey modhur dAk tribhubhonEy nAi."

("mother"...the word is small...but, you know...
There is no sweeter appellation in all the three worlds.)


Maa...the Mother Goddess..I am NOT a religious person, but I do love Durga Puja!







*

Wishing everyone happiness on Vijayadashami or Bijoya, as the Bengalis call the day.




Off to do some visits....

The Bangalore Kidney Foundation has been doing excellent work for many years now; as part of their fundraising, they have the annual Dhwani Music Festival.

Here are the details:


Dhwani 2008 - 5th BKF Mallikarjun Mansur Music Festival

Saturday, 20th September 2008, 5.45 PM - 10.00 PM
Pt. N. V. Gopinath, Sitar
Smt. Shruti Sadolikar, Vocal

Sunday, 21st September 2008, 9.45 AM - 2.00 PM
Pt. Samaresh Chawdhury, Vocal
Pt. Sanjeev Abhyankar, Vocal

Sunday, 21st September 2008, 5.45 PM - 10.00 PM
Pt. Jayateerth Mevundi, Vocal
Pt. Ajay Pohankar, Vocal

Venue: Shivarathreeshwara Hall (JSS Auditorium), 8th Block, Jayanagar, Bangalore

Donor Passes: Rs. 50 only | Available at the venue
Also available at: KC Das (25587003) | Landmark (22067777) | Calypso (22452368) | Channel 9 (55392728)

For more details contact: Mr. Y. Guruprasad on 98454 24053

This is for every north Indian classical music lover in Bangalore...do come in large numbers and support the great work that BKF is doing!

We are going to be doing some shifting, but will try and make it to as many of the concerts as I can....

Most religious and social functions are accompanied by the adornment of the venue by "kOlam" or "rangOli"...but I have not before seen such beautiful use of vibrant colours for a "hOmam" or sacrificial fire worship.

In my community, we tend to use rice flour and some red mud ( like the kOlam I made in this post ) but not other colours as you can see here , so I found this rangOli on the homakundam (pit where the hOma fire is kindled) lovely:



and at a different place in my friends' new home, where I had gone for the Griha PravEsham ("entry into the new home"), this kOlam/rangOli was lovely, too:




Of course, it was a little the worse for wear with people having passed by, but it was still really striking!

I wonder if the use of these colours is a Kannadiga custom? The words seem to be in Hindi..did the family have some priests from north India?

And meanwhile..the "get a flat stomach" ads are still here, next to the window I am typing on...

This is the pooja that I did at home:




But I was photographing the pooja that we had downstairs, on the lawn, common to all the apartments in the building; and I like to fancy that Ganesha was present in the flames of the hOmA:




With a little imagination, I can see the the elephant fan-ear on the right, the head, the single-tusk (Ganesha broke off the other tusk to write the epic, Mahabharata, as Vyasa declaimed it), the swelling belly (full of devotees' offerings!) to the lower left...!

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/397-ganesh-chathurthi

I will be putting up several more pictures later; the idols are so colourful and come in such a variety of poses!

I had been to someone's 80th birthday celebrations on Saturday;it was a couple, this time, and it was nice to watch them surrounded by friends and relatives....and at the festivity, I took this photograph of youth and age..




How did the English prefix "grand" come to be associated with this relationship of a child's child, or a parent's parent? Does anyone know (no, don't tell me to google it.)

That baby in the photograph...reminds me of Charles Schulz's description of his creation, Charlie Brown...that ROUND head...you could put a compass caliper point on! that little girl's nose and draw a circle and the head would fit perfectly...and not to miss that tiny finger! :)