Life marches on

Cool weather and warm socks
watching rain from the window
a cup of tea
fresh made food
nowhere to go
quick naps when I want
long walks when I want
watching the sun span the sky
watching the moon bloom at night
happiness lies in counting your blessings
they say

The poem is probably bad but I didn't want to pick up one written by another to indicate the state of my mind. Why not write it myself? I love poetry but probably suck at it. It is so hard to evaluate yourself. Why is it so hard to write something and not be able to tell if it invokes the kind of feelings in others that I am trying to express.

What I am trying to say is, it can be a lot of fun to be alone. It is fun when you are not under constraint to do things. Such a time can come only under two circumstances, 1. You are unmarried and living on your own. 2. Your children have grown up and moved away. Unfortunately, this state has come to me at 2. I wish I had been courageous enough to live on my own when I was younger, I may never have changed that. I realize that I am a natural loner. Even in company it is my tendency to keep me to myself. I am like a fakir inside.

I have changed the name of my blog and will try to post more. More snapshots of my past, more about my doings.

Swimming and Kerala

I cannot pinpoint the exact year when we visited Kerala. It was surely 1971 to 1973. It was most likely 1972. One of my father's friends was getting married in his village in Kerala. Alas, I don't remember the name of the village either. It was close to Cochin as far as I remember.

I remember taking a train through Kerala. I have not ever seen such a verdant landscape. It was lush and green. More treats were coming our way.  We walked at the edge of a valley which was again, so full of foliage that all I saw was a carpet of green. If I had slipped and fallen into the deep valley, I doubt if I would have hit the ground. I would have landed on a leafy tree.

At night the fireflies came out. I was amazed at the numbers and the size of them. They seemed more numerous and more brilliant than the stars. It was an unforgettable image that has stayed with me. Whenever I think of Kerala, I think of Lush greenery and the brilliant fireflies.

There is another image that has remained with me, the sea. No, the valley had no sea close by. While returning, we stayed one night in Cochin, maybe waiting for a connecting train back to Bangalore. The hotel was Bolgatty Palace. I realize now it was a heritage hotel. In those days it seemed simpler. Just a hotel slap on the seashore. We reached there late and went to bed immediately.

Next day morning, I went around the grounds and was mesmerised by the sight of the sea. I stood at the edge of the lawn staring into the deep green water. I declared I wanted to learn swimming. My mother promised to teach me as soon as I returned to Bangalore.

We lived close to High Grounds in Bangalore and my mother chose the swimming pool of Hotel Ashok (then plain old Ashok, now the swanky Lalit Ashok) which was 10 minutes walk away. They had a nominal fee for a day use of the pool and had nice changing rooms. To begin with, my mother taught me how to swim in the kiddie pool. Once I learned, I graduated to the big pool.  It was a clean pool with water filters and well scrubbed tiles. I fell absolutely in love with swimming and went quite often to the pool. Sometimes, I even took my friends along to show off my swimming skills. I wasn't very skilled, all I can do is the breast stroke, but I showed off nevertheless.

Till date, swimming remains my favorite activity. I have just abandoned my aerobics class as I was too hot and took up swimming for the season. I was full of prickly heat because of the soaring temperatures. After a couple of days of being immersed in water for 50 minutes, I am cured and cool once more. The sight of the pool always brings back the memory (by association) of the deep green water of the Arabian Sea which inspired me to take up swimming.

On Reading the Narnia Series

During the 1970's my family reunited for a few years.  My father returned from the USA bringing along his wife.  My older brother and I were sent from Jamnagar to join him.

It was not wholly pleasant for me to be uprooted from my comfortable existence in Jamnagar among my dear cousins, school and friends.  What made me thaw was the books I got to read in Bangalore.

My stepmother had brought along some books dear to her from the USA. I cannot claim to remember them all, as I was just eleven years old then. There was Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Chronicles of Narnia, Beowulf, and a dog eared anthology of poetry. 

Out of these I fell in love, like Bella Swann, unconditionally and irrevocably in love with the Narnia series and Lord of the Rings.

The Narnia books, I remember, were laid out in our dining room cupboard, in chronological order, The Magician's Nephew, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Horse and his Boy, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Last Battle. Hence, I read about the wonderful land of Narnia where flora and fauna were respected and spoke. Humans were rare and mostly imported by the will of  Aslan, their real king.

I must have read and re-read these books time and time again. They opened up a magical world to be me where I could wander for hours together.

When the movie based on The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe was released in 2005, I heard about it but was not able to see it on screen. I saw it in parts when it appeared on television. Seeing the movie in bits and pieces was not the best introduction to it, and I was a little underwhelmed.  I did not get the high I had experienced while reading the book all those years ago.

Three years later, I watched Prince Caspian in the theater and was suitably impressed. However, I did not recall the story as it was in the book much.  So I embarked upon reading the books once again. This time there were no neatly lined books in the dining room cupboard for me. Nearly forty years had passed, and times had changed.  I found ebooks of the series and read them once again. 

Nothing can replicate the joy of coming across a wonderful book that you want to read and re-read again.

The books are full of platitudes and homilies for children who must resist temptation and not fall prey to any of the seven deadly sins.  Aslan is said to be Jesus, or his father. Narnia is perhaps a sort of utopia. It has been criticized for this.

I did not heed the moral angle overmuch when I read it. All those years ago, when I read the books, I was captivated only by the world of Narnia where animals talked, trees had life and all was beautiful. It was where the Pevensie children were at their happiest and so was I.

Today I will curl up in my sofa and read The Magician's Nephew once again, admittedly the book I like best in the series. I will discover the beautiful yellow and green rings in Uncle Andrew's laboratory once again and vanish into worlds beyond our ken.