Shiva'a temple

My daily temple visits:

Let me confess at the outset that I am not a very religiously inclined person. Before I came to Kolkata I was this rush to college kid who barely managed breakfast and always cursed traffic jams in way to college. Praying was a distant affair. My mom would often crib, but to her dismay like any other collegiate I had developed the knack of ignoring her parental grudges.

I often would snigger at her advice of praying to Lord Shiva, so that I would get a nice groom. Arrey, who really cared for shaadi waadi anycase. The parking lot at my business school had a temple of Kali. I would do a quick salute to her and rush to my classes. That was what my religious encounters were about.

Yes, since I lived in Kathmandu, I would sometimes visit Lord Pashupatinath. I liked visiting the temple in the evening times, when it is much cooler and the campus of the temple is lit with small diyas. The bells chime and soon aarti begins. It always put me in a spiritual trance.

But again, as I said I was not very inclined to idol worship, it was to my friends' utmost surprise that I should keep a fast every Monday. The fasting started after my visit to my maternal grandmother. She cajoled me into keeping a fast. Having met her after almost 10 years, there was no way I could refuse her. And I thought keeping a fast once a week would do good to my body too.

With just that much of connection to God, and a little more : that when I wrote down things in my diary, I would often begin with, dear God....

And then one fine day I got married. There was no college to rush to, but I still got up early. After an 8 O clock breakfast, I thought it would be nice to accompany Linus downstairs, to see him off. This became a part of my morning. After seeing him off I would go to the nearby temple. This was the Shiva's temple.

I will try to describe this temple in the next post.

Till then,

:)

Vid

Out of Hibernation

It is a rainy afternoon. I walk up to my window to watch the rain. I look at the coconut tree bathing lavishly. What a wonderful shower, I smile to myself.
I am thirsty and Lakhan, our kitchen staff comes to me with a glass ful of coconut water. I relish each drop of it. The glass leaves a round stainon my glass top desk. I pick the glass up, and quickly wipe the surface with my palm, deposit the glass on the floor and continue to write.

Write about what?
This morning when I went downstairs with Linus, I thought of just writing about my morning. As a stay at home kid,it is like my friend leaves early for his school. After he has left there is little to do, no one to play with. And like a mother would humor her younger kid who still hasn't joined school my mother in law fusses over me.

Linus and I wake up around the same time. I sometimes take another 5 min nap, while he is reading Economic Times. After shower we both get ready for our breakfast.I hurry through my breakfast to keep my pace with Linus. Someone should advise him to start chewing his food. I wonder if he ever buys chewing gum. I wonder because I fear he will gobble it down too!
After breakfast, Linus will hang his bag over his right shoulder, carry his lunch box in his left hand and stand in front of the door, waiting for me. I step into my slippers and we both get inside the elevator. I press the G button and the lift goes down. Outside our gate we wait for his pick up. It is almsot like seeing your elder sibling off to school and hoping that next year you would be joining him to school.

We stand outside for about 5to 10 minutes. Linus remarks, if the Tata Sumo which carries the school children from our road has not yet come. We look around observing if the number of cars parked on the roadside is less than usual. We both smile in case we talk about the kiss in side the elevator.

His bus arrives with a zzzzzzz kind of sound that we can hear from a distance. Because the bus traverses a bend, we hear it first and then we see the yellowvehicle. We say our quick byes and off he is to work. While I walk a little distance and reach the neighborhood temple.
I will talk about the neighborhood temple in the next post. For now, my morning after my visit to temple continues into room cleaning spree and then to an extended afternoon. Will write more on what I really do in extended afternoons and small evenings!

Come Back

It has been long, and I have been away. I do not know if you have missed me. But here I am anyways.

Hmm, of all these days that I have disappeared I can perhaps only justify by writing to you about what I did .

One of the interesting things is about making maps. Let me confess at the outset that I am terrible with directions. My mom always says that I inherit my road sense from her. She, is as she says, has a highly developed road sense, it is just these darn roads that change directions, the monument which used to be in the left corner one day suddenly shifts to the right... and and everybody thinks it was always on the right! Now no body believes that roads change their course or that buildings move or that North always is at North. If you move from north to south you should be in south but in south also there is a north... how confusing....

So, in Kolkata, I have been trying to connect roads, Theatre road, Camac St, Russel St. , Park St. and so on and so forth. When I am in a cab with Linus, I look out of the window and try to make my map, often I have to erase land marks and reposition them. Linus wouldn't agree but I know roads have changed direction and repositioned themselves. Any case I make quick corrections and we move on.

In the process of map making I sometimes lose the track of conversation, of situation , of the fact that we are going to shop for him and not me. In such times I am very quiet, noting and jotting down landmarks and yes building my map.

Linus is lucky, he hasn't had to face the chatterbox upfront, as of yet.... But how long???

Cya all soon and around....
Vid