Hamare Khayal, Hamari Kala (Our thoughts, Our Art)

Karlstad, 2012

I walked into the building last year to find an unusual art exhibition.  Try your Art Drawing skills!!  Anyone who wanted to participate was provided with paper and colors. You were allowed to say your mind.  

I was touched so many of these. I took many pictures, but still many remained un-captured.  These folks, most of them, were not artists.  They said what was in their heart and mind.  Words became images, and images--words.  

Robert Fulghum, in one of his books had said, 'that we should fight with crayons, for all the world's leaders played with them at some point"

Well, here is a heated discussion, that some how is in consensus ---all in colors--crayons or otherwise!!

Notice the word 'world' on the right hand corner of the page.  What a simplistic rendition of a chaotic world!!  

We are the Unicorns, but we are people too!! 

How I wish we knew we were Unicorns, and wish we knew for sure that we were people, and not animals fighting over limited resources--people who are able to create an entirely new world by the process of our 'thinking' for the better!!

Whereever Maya takes me, I will go, but my heart remains in Nepal (I can read the script and make sense of the langauge, but it is actually Nepali--a language from India's neighboring country).

I bet there can be a thousand meanings of this painting...

How could love and heart not come into this free expression!!

Truth, Hope and Love!! Something couples get engraved on the insides of their wedding rings!! Karlek (pronounced Sharlek) is the Swedish word for Love!! 

A flower of a heart, a heart on wings!!

This tree had been cut for (profit-fruit) --don't know how many birds come looking for this old tree!!  A message that be applied to environment as well as people to who are kind, do good and are eliminated from positions of power, by those who seek power to rule and not to help. 

What more to ask for, if we have these....

Often true!!

This morning a bad dream woke me up, now I am afraid of going back to sleep!! 

Many of us can relate to that. 

Puss (kiss) and Kram (hug)!! Simple!

This should be a regular festival, rather than a valentine's day or bosses day.....we should focus on expressing ourselves....and we will realize that most of the voices are calm, beautiful and filled with love. 

Always in April!!

Living in Sweden, I have accepted that it will snow at least once if not more in the month of April.  I am never that surprised because I lived in Pennsylvania for many years, and have experienced snow as early as mid-october and as late as early May. But what is surprising about Sweden is that during April we get some really good days, and we are duped into taking our hats and gloves off!! But the wind and breeze are just as biting.  Light is brighter than you can imagine and yet, snow comes from behind, playing hide and seek.

Winks at us, flutters its flakes, ever so lightly, and then is gone...for about 6 - 7 months.

Hopefully!!

Following is a picture I took this morning from my window.  You will recognize that tree on many other pictures.

April 13, 2013

The above picture was taken last week from my window as well. Ashamed that I still had not removed the stick on X-mas tree from my window, but the above snow came to me as    a reminder that I am living in Scandinavia!! And Christmas spirit is stronger here in its crispness than any other place I have ever lived!! April, 2013

Beauties! a bit edited

Thimphu, Bhutan, September 2012

A note to the readers:  This reading has been on my mind for the last two hours since i uploaded it.  And I realized that the ending for the post was not appropriate.  It came from another thought, not related to this post.  Frost's poem was written here because I was thinking that there are still many dreams and ideas that I have make come true.  However, I have added a couplet that comes to mind whenever I see beautiful gorgeous faces, covered in wrinkles and folds...especially like the one above...

It was my first time in Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan.  It was a bright sunny day and I needed a drink of water.  I walked into this shop and found a young man sitting at the counter--staring out at the road.  As is my wont I starting chatting with him.  He was James, all of 22, and had given up on pursuing his education.  

First, I knew that he did not give me his original name, but the one he must have created for tourists and foreigners, second I also felt that the child needed some inspiration.  Someone to shake him out of his complacency.  

On my way into the shop I had seen this elderly woman, and despite her helplessness, I could not take my eyes off her face, because I found her face to narrate a thousand stories.  Every wrinkle could create a novel. Every fold, a poem.

I talked to James a short while, told him he was very, very, very young----even though he insisted he was too old to go and finish his high school.  I asked him to place his face next to the lady, so I could place beauties---that are poles apart together.

While we consider old age to be something to run from, it is still lucky to have lived a long, healthy fulfilled life.

Everytime I look at this picture, I cannot but mumble...

The Roads are
lonely dark and deep
but I have miles to
miles to go
before I sleep
----------------------- Robert Frost!

PS: Apropos of the opening (updated) comment on this post is the following couplet....

Khandhar bata rahein hain ki 
imarat kabhi buland thi...

The ruins are a testimony
that once it was (a) 
magnificent (monument)

Be Like the Lotus

As a lotus flower is born in water, grows in water and rises out of water to stand above it unsoiled, so i, born in the world, raised in the world having overcome the world, live unsoiled by the world:  ----Lord Buddha To Keep the body in good health is a duty, for otherwise we shall not be able to trim the lamp of wisdom, and keep our mind strong and clear.  Water surrounds the lotus flower but does not wet its petals: ---Lord Buddha

Thailand, July 2011

One who does all work as an offering to the Lord, abandoning attachment to the results, is as untouched by sin for Karmic reaction as a lotus leaf is untouched by water:  Bhagavad Gita 

Thailand July, 2011

I do not know the name of the flower. It is not a lotus flower.   But I know the above leaves--lotus leaves.

In asia lotus has a very special significance.  It symbolizes creation and rebirth.  At night it closes its petals, and in the morning, with the first shaft of sun, it opens--symbolizing re-birth.  Opening of its petals is also likened to opening of the soul to its own divinity.  The heart chakra--the fourth chakra-though symbolized with color green is supposed to be a twelve petaled lotus that opens with the awakening of love in our being.  

Lord Buddha himself is supposed to have been born on a lotus leaf.  

But my favorite symbolism associated with the lotus flower is its ability to remain untouched by the dirt around itself.  Lotus flower, a kind of a water lily, usually grows in stagnant water, often covered with algae and moss. The flower and its leaves might seem to have some dirt and muddy water on them, but the due to their inherent nature --namely the fleshy leaves---they repel all dirt.  All we need to do is shake them, and all the dirt comes off like oil on water.  In fact, I have several of these pictures with water droplets on lotus leaves.  They look like diamonds!!

Lotus thus remains a symbol in many cultures of someone that remains so pure, gives joy to the world, and yet leaves the world untainted by its narrowness, grime, and ugliness.

A hard task, but one worth contemplating on.