ऐसा लग रहा है मानो,
छट रहे हों मेघ काले |
अँधेरी गहराइयों से जानो
पकड़ कर तैरती डालें,
और कुलांचते हताशा,
तह से उबर रही है आशा |
सतह पर उभर रही है आशा ||
~ ओशिन विप्रा सागर ©
Translated:
The feeling is as if
the clouds are shifting
And from the depths of darkness
holding onto floating twigs
skipping over despair
reemerging is the sunk hope,
resurfacing is the sunk hope.
~ Yours truly
OVS
So it is weekend again, and I am happy because I feel better about myself. I am not where I wish to be or where I was supposed to be, but I am ahead of where I was yesterday. It’s not reason enough to celebrate but it is reason enough to smile. And wherever one might be in life, there’s always enough reason to ramble over a beverage of one’s choice! And this week I am offering my spin-off Americano.
I am not where I wish to be or where I was supposed to be, but I am ahead of where I was yesterday.
It was on Saturday evening that I wrote the above bit and shut my laptop. Then I laid down, fiddling with a mirror, trying to see my impacted third molar which was troubling me all afternoon. The pain had scaled up from mild to medium, and all I could think of was my tooth! I was restless and so was my tongue which moved all around the buccal cavity, and soon it was bruised with contacts from the premolars and canines. And then I stopped. But the tongue was relentless until I called it a day. (You perv, don’t read much into it!)
Rewind to Thursday. It was Rama-Navami. And I accompanied my mother to a Homa hosted on the banks of river Kosi. Unlike most Homas, there was no priest. People had their own troughs. And simultaneously fire was consecrated in each, invocations were offered to deities, followed by chanting of mantras, and some exhilarating kirtan. It is believed to facilitate positive thinking, and subsequently performing good karma. The ambience was serene; it brought about a sense of much needed calm, and positivity.
Then it was Friday, I wanted to watch something. I hadn’t watched anything in months, and I wanted to watch something that makes me feel good – not something that demands seriousness or/and leaves me disturbed at the end; neither did I want some lame lewd comedy. And I tell you, the Universe is at work! Like the time when I was gifted ‘Furiously Happy’ and it was what I needed to read the most; just like that I found the movie I needed to watch the most at this point of time! So I was rummaging through my cinema library on the external drive, and there it was – the first movie I considered out of the 750+ entries – ‘It’s Kind of a Funny Story’. And it was so befitting – it felt as if it was my story, except I am still trying to bounce up. Craig was much resilient though. Nonetheless, it was assurance that I am not alone and ‘I (too) can’. Also reaffirming was when Dr. Minerva, an ER psychiatrist refers to the Serenity Prayer while counselling our protagonist Craig, and it felt like through Minerva and Craig, the Universe is reaching out to me, telling me to keep calm, to let go of my anxiety.
Lord, grant me the strength to change the things I can
the courage to accept the things I can’t,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
~ Reinhold Niebuhr
If we were having coffee, I would tell you, if we were to have coffee last weekend – you would probably be disappointed in me, I would not have shown up. Curled up or strewn, I would be passively lying in bed or on the floor. But about previous weeks I would put aside at that, and I would only tell you about the week that just went by; about how uplifting it feels to be able to sit at your desk for longer, to have some mental block removed, to be able to translate your thoughts and mental images to pencil sketches, to be able to finish drawing frames with far more clarity than one had in months or a year probably.
And I would ask you how do you like your coffee? If you had come over, nonetheless I would make you Indian filter coffee, and show you how Indians traditionally drank coffee. But were we to go out, I would order an espresso or maybe an iced latté depending on my mood. (And I would secretly wonder about your tastes if you ordered a cappuccino!) http://www.instagram.com/p/tm25iVGv_V/
Also I would ask what book are you currently reading? And then I would tell you about this book I recently finished reading called ‘Furiously Happy’ by Jenny Lawson ‘The Bloggess’. I would not have personally bought the book myself, because I didn’t even know about it. Thanks to Bavitha, one of my friend’s cousin who sent me this for Christmas, I found just the book I needed to read – one in which I found I wasn’t alone in my struggle, one in which I found someone who was facing same set of problems like me (besides many which could be hers alone, I’m sure, or shared by other human specimens I don’t know of!). And it was relieving. I remember one of my teachers telling me last year that my problem is I don’t read humour. And he was right. He said,
“…humour heals.”
And I would tell you what a sweet pleasure is night time reading, just after you have retired to bed and right before you call it a day. It feels like a reward unlike when one takes temporary refuge in them to escape from one’s situation – one’s own insufficiency to make life better. By the way, I am currently reading The Girl at the Lion D’Or by Sebastian Faulks, and it’s quite an interesting read. And I would have our coffees refilled and I would tell you to brace yourself because I am going to talk about something very serious now. Continue reading
Nothing Is Absolute 