Rocks : small and large

For Earth day & Lens artists photo challenge

Nature does not hurry yet everything is accomplished. ~Lao Tzu

You don’t live on earth, you are passing through. ~Rumi

Reading log continues:

In Februaary I read a book called “Please look after mother” by a South Korean author. Within a couple of weeks Bridget from “the happy quitter” mentioned this book. I was surprised by the title itself. Without delay I checked it in our library system and ordered

A heartbreaking memoir by Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders. Her mother contributed to her eating disorder by introducing her to calorie restriction at age 11. I haven’t watched any of her shows but still felt for this 6 year old girl. A manipulative mother is worst than enemy. She knew very well how to play innocent and tortured little Jennette.

A collection of 8 short stories of South Indian immigrants. These stories revolve around women’s lives. I could read only two of them the first one and the one called “Amma” , which is based on former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Jayalalitha. A fantastic book. I shall get it back after a couple of weeks.

The name says it all. Sadly I am not able to read much.

************

It’s time for a hiatus. See you all in May. In case of any possibilities will update my Instagram account.

https://www.instagram.com/rupali_mazeepuran/

Till then, take care.

Window Shopping

Buy, buy, says the sign in the shop window; Why, why, says the junk in the yard. ~Paul McCartney

Windows allow us to see past the boundaries of our own lives- Unknown

I hate this when women are presented as objects – Image taken in Prague

Ideas matter. Ideas that depict women as less than men influence men to treat women as less than men. Ideas that objectify women result in women being treated like objects (sex objects, mostly). ~ Beth Allison Barr

When outside is so beautiful! Prepare yourself to take a tour.

Our emotions impact how we perceive and respond to the world around us; how we interpret and, subsequently, judge the actions of others. We rarely seek to challenge why we’re feeling a particular emotion. Instead, we seek ways to confirm that emotion, making it easier to defend our reaction(s). ~Paul Ekman

Hong Kong – A few items are just for window shopping!

Brussels : Not only Chocolates

As long as you have a window. Life is exciting – Unknown

Window:

•  An opening for admission of light and air
• An opening through which business is conducted
• A means of entrance or access

Books open windows to the world and have the power to transform lives. ~ Ralph Lauren 

February reading log

Reading books is similar to window shopping – Somethings we remember and some we forget.

I did learn two things from the first book. One is about “Fall fig ritual – fig growers traditionally bury their fig trees in the ground for the winter. Burying protects them from severe winters and the fig tree almost always survives.” The second about “the painted lady, Vanessa cardui, is a migratory butterfly that performs an annual multi-generational migration between North Africa and Europe“. It is the longest continuously migrating butterfly ever recorded. Wetter conditions in Sub-Saharan and North Africa at certain times of year can result in hundreds of times more Painted Lady butterflies making the 14,000 km trip to Europe.

I got interested in the secong book as it shed light on the conflict between Armenia and Turkey. The role of the Armenian community in the development of Istanbul and the Turkish regime’s denial of their role in the Armenian genocide. Are Turks really so ignorant of this history and why the Armenians are so stubborn to relive it? I have Armenian friends and I know their feelings. More details can be found on “Armenian genocide“

Lens Artists Photo Challenge

Am I on the right track

These are my pick to show how (my) ideal winter day from dawn till dusk will look like. I am late in responding for Sofia’s theme for Lens artists photo challenge

Instead of being happy in our choices we keep doubting ourselves. If one lives like a flower, I think half of our self imposed health issues will be solved. A flower blooms for its own joy. Our urge to impress others is killing our originality. The social media attention grabbing all our me time and controlling us.

*****

January reading log

Naguib Mahfouz was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature. The quarter consists of 18 sketches which are translated by Roger Allen. The book also includes the speech Naguib Mahfouz gave when he was awarded the Nobel prize in literature. The Short stories or sketches were little difficult for me to understand but I thoroughly enjoyed the foreword by Alif Shafak.

Actually I read about the book by Alif shafak on Rumi’s life, “The forty rules of love: Anovel of Rumi” but then were introduced to Naguib Mahafouz. I like reading about how Rumi was transformed from a great scholar to one of the greatest poets of love.

And lastly I found Respected Sir a master piece though it’s a story of a man and his ambitions. I see it as a metaphor. There is nothing static in the universe and happiness is never permanent.

A great way to start 2024 😊

An autumn Wednesday

Festival of leaves

*****

This week I finished yet another interesting book “Exit West”.

The earlier two books which I recently finsihed, “a woman is no man” and “run away amish girl” were written by young women on their first hand experiences in their own words. The struggle they were facing in their day today lives.

Whereas this book is written by Hamid Mohsin, who is well educated and is already an established author. The story revolves around a young couple and their lives. The city or country of origin of this young couple is not mentioned. We see the glimpses of destruction brought into their lives due to a civil war in recent times ( as they are talking about internet and mobile network). They escaped the city through one of the many unnamed doors by contacting an agent. It’s like a fantasy or science fiction where one takes refuge in another land through doors. They met another refugees from another land and then the story revolves about how the natives responded to such sudden outflow of refugees which invloves riots and finally settlement.

All three books are like windows to another world.

Framing in photography

The golden rule is work fast. As for framing, composition, focus-this is no time to start asking yourself questions: you just have to trust your intuition and the sharpness of your reflexes. ~ Jacques-Henri Lartigue

The thing I love about photography is that for just a moment, you can make everyone else look at the world the way you see it. ~Amy Spalding

Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts.~ Garry Winogrand

Lens artists photo challenge

*****

I do read books but not review them and most of the time I forget to mention about books on my blog. Some books are hard to put down once we begin and then there are books which demand our time, either hard to read or make us ponder. I am glad to have got a couple of good books recently.

These include “Dancing in the mosque : an afghan mother’s letter to her son” by Homeira Qaderi. I have read a couple of books based on Afghanistan war but this book shows a new side of life of women in Afganistan. Next was “The last train to London” by Meg Waite Clayton. The Last Train to London is based on the true story of the Kindertransport ( Children’s Transport was a unique humanitarian rescue programme which ran for children (but not their parents) from Nazi-controlled territory between November 1938 and September 1939, the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 children, most of them Jewish, from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Free City of Danzig) to rescue of ten thousand children from Nazi-occupied Europe and of real-life hero Truus Wijsmuller, a member of the Dutch resistance who risked her life smuggling these children. It was difficult not to think about the events and the people mentioned in then book. Some extra reading was just necessary.

Mystery of Holocaust escape girls solved after 84 years

Kindertransport exhibit highlights family separation in 1930s

Otto Adolf Eichmann

The magic of full moon night

Six Word Saturday

Silent Sunday

*****

I am not in science fiction but someone mentioned the book during one of our book club meetings. After being on waiting list for a couple of months I finally got the book. A book which was set in the future after a flu pandemic, was a captivating dystopian novel.

Now back to the book I was reading…

Random reading and fun!

The likes and dislikes of one are part of their personality and somewhere deep down lies the reasons for such choices either good or bad. The outer appearance of a person might be totally different than the person.

Think about a situation where two neighbours staying together for decades hating each other. If a murder was free who knows they might have tried hard. Their lives flow independent of each other but at a right moment the curves of their lives not only crossed each other but they got tangled.

For a certain reason they stick together and tried to help each other despite their differences but yes at the end they donot become friends. Still life goes on.

A couple of weeks ago I had to pick a book with not much time in hand. I chose a book by Yemande Omotoso, “The woman next door“.  At the end I felt like it was not a bad bet after all.

Then soon after it, I started with Roberta Gately’s “Lipstick in Afganistan“. Roberta has served as a nurse and humanitarian aid worker in the third world war zones including Afganistan. We donot see the real suffering of the people but still was a good read.  A new angle.

In the mean time Brenda of  “a mediative journey”, in her post “a fatherless child” introduced me to Frances Hodgson Burnett and her book, “A little princess” . Though it is a children book,  I enjoyed it thinking if only all the stories have happy endings the millions of children suffering around the world would have had some hope. A hope for better tomorrow.

Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live ~ Gustave Flaubert

 

 

Monday walk to “the Norwegian book town”

For Jo’s  Monday walk this week let us have a short walk to the Norwegian book town (den norske bokbyen) which is situated in Mundal, the centre of Fjærland.

MILES OF SECONDHAND BOOKS IN QUAINT BOOKSHOPS:

The Norwegian Book Town is an experience out of the ordinary, situated in a bewitchingly beautiful spot between fjord and glacier in Western Norway. Between May and September, various bookshops are open every day 10am-6pm, some of them are combined with a café, art gallery and souvenir shop and even hotel. Numerous events are arranged all season.

How is it possible having thousands of second-hand books in a small 280-inhabitant rural town?

The Norwegian Book Town in Fjærland started out very modestly in 1995, and now stocks about 2.5 miles of shelving, filled with books, in a variety of abandoned buildings – from ferry waiting rooms, stables and local banks to post office and grocery shop. Besides taking care of books, the idea here was also to preserve the old buildings, this makes some of the shops rather exceptional and characteristic.

 

Three large shops are selling only second-hand books: Straumsvågs Antikvariat and Den norske bokbyen A/S. Solstice bookfairs are arranged every year in May/ June.

Requests by e-mail, post, fax or telephone are served all through the year, and the book town enjoys a lively postal order business. During winter, the office hours are 9am-2pm every weekday.

During my short visit on weekend I was able to get two books by Ernest Hemmingway but of course I shall visit this place again.

Resource: https://bokbyen.no/en/

 

Relieved for now!

I would like to contribute to Becca’s Nurturing Thursday theme (on Monday due to valid reason) with one of my favourite quotes:

Wherever you go, go with all your heart ~ Confucius

With all busyness during my vacation in Decembe I managed to buy a few books. One of them was “Parv” (Epoch/age) written by Dr. S.L.Bhyrappa based on epic “Mahabharat”. It was originally written in Kannada. I got it’s marathi translation by Uma Kulkarni.

For last two weeks apart from doing obligatory chores at home and at office, I spent my time in reading this 700+ pages novel.

Right from my chidlhood days I had read/heard stories related to Mahabharat. Almost 2 decades ago after reading/spending time on “Yugant” by Dr. Iravati Karve and “Vyasparv” by Durgabai Deshmukh I got real interest in various characters of the great epic.

After hearing about “Parv” by Bhyrappa I had but one aim to get it and to read it. Parva is unique in terms of the complete absence of any episode that has the element of divine intervention found in the original. This is what I like most. It seems more real than the version I had read/heard before.

The book has been translated in many languages including in English  with title “Parva: A tale of War, Peace, Death, Love, God and Man ” by Tr. K. Raghavendra Rao.

I would love to hear about your experience with this book or in general on Mahabharat!

Happy reading!

Library/ ग्रंथालय/ वाचनालय!

येथे आल्यापासून आणि वेगवेगळ्या गावांतील public library बघून बरेच दिवस यावर काही लिहावे असे मनात होते पण जमत नव्हते.   २३ डिसेंबर २०१३ ला  ”सकाळ ” मध्ये “झोपडपट्टीतील मुलांसाठी फिरते ग्रंथालय” हा लेख वाचला आणि मग सगळे सुचत गेले. वाचनाचा छंद असलेल्या गरीब मुलांना तो जोपासता यावा म्हणून एका महाविद्यालयातील मुले हा अभिनव उपक्रम येत्या वर्षा पासून सुरु करीत आहेत. उत्तम कल्पना आहे. मुलांना मिळणारा आनंद आणि त्याचे फायदे मोजण्या पलीकडील आहेत.  हा उपक्रम एका विशिष्ट वर्गातील मुलांसाठी आहे. ठीक. आता मुद्दा आहे इतर वर्गातील मुलांचा.

पूर्वी उन्हाळी सुट्टीत, दोन महिने मुलांना मस्त वेळ असायचा. फार तर आजोळी जाणे  पण कुठे ही असले तरी, वाचनालयाचे सभासद होणे आणि मन मुराद गोष्टीची पुस्तके वाचणे असे प्रघात असायचे. मग या पुस्तकांची अदलाबदल होणे हे ओघाने आलेच. पुस्तके विकत घेणे किंवा भेट मिळणे याला एक मर्यादा होती. आणि हो एकत्र कुटुंब पद्धती मध्ये कुठल्या तरी मोठ्याला वाचनाची आवड असायची आणि मग बच्चे कंपनी खूष. परत हि मोठी व्यक्ती घरात नाही तर शेजारी-पाजारी असायची. थोडक्यात जवळपासच्या सर्व मुलांचे कल्याण.

आता चित्र खूप वेगळे आहे, उन्हाळी सुट्टी म्हणजे सहली आणि त्याहून वेळ मिळाला तर शिबिरे किंवा छंद वर्ग. पुस्तके विकत घेणाऱ्यांची संख्या आता वाढली आहे. मुद्दा असा कि आपण किती ही पुस्तके विकत घेतली तरी घरीच वाचनालय होवू शकते का? दुसरे आता बऱ्याच ठिकाणी विभक्त कुटुंब पद्धत, मुलांना वेळ कोण देणार आणि वाचनाचे संस्कार कोण करणार. ढिगाने पुस्तके आणून दिली तरी ती वाचली जाणार याची खात्री काय? ती नुस्तीच शोभेसाठी किंवा status symbol साठी नाही हे कसे समजणार?

दोन उदाहरणे,

शाळेत कोणा एका इयत्तेत  असताना वर्ग शिक्षिका असणाऱ्या बाईंनी सांगितले  की डायरी म्हणजेच रोजनिशी लिहा. खूप फायदे ही सांगितले मग काय जो तो डायरी लिहू लागला.  बरे आठवड्या नंतर त्याच बाईंनी सर्वांना आपली रोजनिशी आणावयास सांगितली. झाले मग काय, ज्यांनी लिहिली नव्हती त्यांनी एका दिवसांत ती पूर्ण केली. मागे कोण राहणार.  गंमत म्हणजे सर्वांची रोजनिशी तशी सारखीच होती, साचेबद्ध (routine) आयुष्य असल्या मुळे त्यात नवीन असणार तरी काय होते. त्यात काही प्रमाणात वाक्ये ही सारखीच होती.

तशीच दुसरी एक आठवण शाळेत शिक्षिका असलेल्या मैत्रिणीने सांगितलेली. शाळेतील मुलांचे निबंध साधारण पण  सारखेच असतात. असे कसे? उत्तर सोपे आहे,  शाळा एकच आणि शाळे नंतर क्लास पण सारखेच.  बरे क्लास सारखे नसले तरी शिक्षक वापरणार ती पुस्तके सारखीच. अगदी निबंधाचे पुस्तक पण. परीक्षेची तयारी म्हणजे निबंध पाठ करणे, ते ही म्हणी सकट. मग तर झाले.

आपण स्वतःला एक प्रश्न विचारू,  आपण शेवटचे ग्रंथालयात कधी गेलो होतो? आपल्याकडे आई – वडील  मुलां सोबत लायब्ररीत जातात का? आई – वडील मुलांसाठी bedtime stories वाचतात का किंवा इतर वेळेस तरी ते एकत्र पुस्तके वाचतात का? मुलांवर अश्या प्रकारे संस्कार होतात का? वाचनामुळे मुलांची कल्पनाशक्ती प्रगल्भ होते,  याची पालकांना जाणीव असते का?  एका प्रसंगाला पुस्तक भेट दिले की झाले, एवढ्यावर थांबणे बरोबर आहे का?

Albert Einstein चे एक छान वाक्य आहे,

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

मुले जेंव्हा टिव्ही किंवा सिनेमा बघतात तेंव्हा सर्व काही घडत असते. त्याच्या उलट पुस्तक वाचताना मुले शब्द – वाक्य वाचून कथेचे विश्व रंगवतात. ते कथानकात गुंततात, त्यातील भाग होतात. टिव्ही – सिनेमातील नाटकीपण तेथे नसते. उलट त्यांची भाषा आणि विचारशक्ती समृद्ध होते. मुले बुद्धिमान होण्यासाठी सर्वात सोपी पद्धत म्हणजे त्यांना वेगवेगळ्या विषयांची पुस्तके वाचायची गोडी लावणे आणि ती आवड जोपासण्यास मदत करणे.