For a woman in her 70s who had never been able to travel out of her village, this was akin to the grand pilgrimage to Kashi or Tirupati. The orderliness with which she picked the flowers and the discipline with which she set out of her house at sharp 6 p.m. turned her walk into a holy pilgrimage, and the seemingly austere village temple turned into a divine sanctuary. Since that day, I made sure to pick the prettiest flowers and rinse them gently to ensure that my grandmother’s mini-pilgrimage was completed daily.
The story of the sacred seaside temple of Somnath goes way back. Offering a blissful vibe to devotees as the ocean waves soothe you under the holy sanctum, the Somnath temple holds a divine legacy. It finds mentions in the Mahabharata, the Bhagavata Purana, as well as the Vedas. These sacred scriptures suggest the present-day Somnath as Prabhasa, a spiritual site where Lord Krishna spent his final days and where Arjuna and Balarama went on tirtha.
We make friends all through our life; as kids, in school, in college, as adults. But as we grow older, we get caught up in life and tend to lose contact. Some survive and some don’t, that’s just life.
But when you look back, it’s these friendships both lost and found that will lighten your load - and knowing that even those forgotten can be found again.
Jaya Javeri, artist and lover of flowers talks about her passion for art and the meanings behind her paintings. Surrounded by her art, it is easy to see the fruits of her relentless passion and hard work. Today, Jaya mentions how integral to her life it has become.
We believe flowers make you fall in love. They cause you to pause, to look, to for a second, notice the beauty of the world we get to live in. And it’s important to fall in love with the world everyday: we need to love the world to be in it, and we need to love it all the way to the end of this world, so that we can create a new, better one.
It starts with a simple belief: that this world is ours, and that it is worth that moment of quiet when you stop and smell the roses. With that moment, we can fall back in love with our planet. With that moment, we can change the world.
"This has also made her realise her true, deeper independence. We need each other for cement steps and reclining seats, but when the day winds down and you are left by yourself in the silence, any answer you need, or any strength you require is inside you. “This may sound cliched,” she warns, “But if you ask yourself, the answers are already there."
K is a force of nature -- anybody who meets her can confirm this. Nothing about her life, despite her nonchalance about her own achievements, is ordinary. The force with which she cares, the dedication with which she works and the life of integrity she has crafted for herself all point towards a woman who truly has chosen her own way. She has chosen to take whatever it is that life throws at her and respond each time with kindness, hard work and dedication. She says, “Everyday there are challenges -- traffic or any disaster. You have to see yourself through each day.”
Roshini Kumar is hard to miss in a crowd, but not for reasons that are immediately apparent. It is not her hair, though that definitely catches the eye. The style and confidence are also striking, though even that pales when she begins to talk. What makes Roshini stay with you is the undercurrent of steel that is hard to miss in her gaze, and impossible to forget after.
