travel, books, art, stories, mumbai, music & more
The Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum in London is a favourite of mine. I love their collections, but more than that I love the fact that they allow visitors to photograph their treasures. One of my favourite exhibits from there is a ceramic fireplace from Turkey.
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Lucknow is a beautiful city.
That’s what my friends from Lucknow would always say. For many years, I experienced Lucknow and its famed culture through their eyes and stories about their city. I improved my spoken Hindi (or Hindustani as they preferred to call it) by speaking the language with them, and over the years came to speak the language like a native of Lucknow. At least that’s what my friends would say. But I never managed a visit a visit to Lucknow in all these years. Till last month, that is. 🙂
When I got off the overnight train that brought me to Lucknow from Varanasi at 7.00 am that October morning, I didn’t feel like I was in a strange place. Instead, I felt like I was in a familiar place, with the stunning red and white Char Bagh station welcoming me like an old, old friend.
Continue reading “Lajawaab Lucknow”
The Background
Hindu mythology can be quite confusing for a non-Hindu. Why, it can be confusing and for a Hindu too. The different and contradictory world views that co-exist and even support and complement one another can bewilder even the most dedicated scholar or devotee.
According to Devdutt Pattanaik, author of the 7 Secrets of Vishnu (and the book under review here),
In mythology, all forms are symbolic. (pg.7)
This one sentence, in my opinion, is the key to understanding and appreciating not only this richly illustrated book, but also Hindu mythology and Hinduism itself. The 7 Secrets of Vishnu (Westland, 2011) has nearly half of its 220 pages devoted to images from calendar art, paintings, sculptures, etc. “to make explicit patterns that are implicit in stories, symbols and rituals of Vishnu” (p.xi).
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Do you ever have a song, an idea, a storyline, or an image stuck in your head? And it just refuses to go away? For some time at least? I have this with music—it could be a song, an instrumental piece, a jingle, etc. This becomes my ‘now’ song, and the “nowness” (pardon my English here) could be for any length of time.
My ‘now’ song is Ve chori chori tere naal, a Punjabi folk song by Meesha Shafi, a Pakistani singer.
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My Favourite Things 