Category: Thoughts uncut

Giving Thanks, the Tamil Way

I am a South Indian and my mother tongue is Tamil.

I just said that, because today is a special day for us Tamils. It’s called Pongal.

Pongal is also a famous food item prepared with rice. It could either be sweet – prepared with jaggery, and ghee roasted cashews, or savory – prepared with lots of black pepper.

It’s the day farmers thank the Sun for a good year’s harvest and pray for a better harvest the following year. It’s like Thanksgiving Day for them. It’s only their special day, farmers who work so hard to fill our plates – but as things go on the real world, we all get a public holiday.

Ironically though, while the rest of us relax and rest, farmers spend the day making pongal and offering it to the Sun god. The following day, is a celebration for the cattle that helps in farming. They bathe their cattle, feed them grandly and thank them too. The following day is when they take meat – and in grand fashion too! Generally, it’s a week-long celebration for farmers.

Students celebrate this holiday as much as the farmers; all schools and colleges close for a whole week. And with the weekend just around the corner, most people have gone home to family to celebrate the holidays. They make pongal early in the morning, offer it to the various gods they worship, and spend the whole afternoon watching the back-to-back movies telecasted on TV. A typical holiday at a typical (modern) South Indian home.

Did I mention Pongal is one of the most auspicious days of the Tamil calendar?

Thought you ought to know.

An Artist’s Life

Amanda Palmer-The Art of Asking
From ‘The Art of Asking,’ by Amanda Palmer

Ever had that feeling of being lost? The frustration of not being able to be as good as you want to be? I know I’ve had that feeling – still do, but that’s when we need words like these. To calm the soul, to assure us that it’s all going to be fine. Because everyone’s gone through it. Every artist faces a point where he or she’s torn between scarcity and abundance.

Art doesn’t make money grow on trees; we all know that. And we still choose to do it.

What do we hope for, when we continue to create art despite knowing that it might only lead us down poverty’s path?

Are we hoping for the next best seller? The cover image of a popular art magazine? The headlines of the reputed news channel that no one but the rich have the time to while away on?

Hell yes! Every artist hopes for recognition. And abundance.

But these’s more…

It’s not just the glitter that we’re after. We create art, because we have to. Because knowing that you want to be an artist and not working on it, is like burying all your dreams and accepting a hideous mask in this already two-faced world.

And as artists, we can’t do that.

So we create art instead – the only thing we can do to stay sane. Such art comes from the heart; it’s raw, it’s fresh and it connects with its audience.

And once we’ve reached that point, the glitter follows.

It’s a beautiful life, an artist’s. And Amanda Palmer has beautifully phrased it in her book, ‘The Art of Asking.’ I haven’t read the book, but after reading a few excerpts, the book’s now on my list. If you enjoyed this excerpt, you might want to check out another one I shared sometime ago, also from the same book.

P.S: The image is a screenshot from Brain Pickings Weekly (with their signature yellow quotation mark.)

Hopefully Happy?

So, the third of January – I don’t know about you guys, but my new year hasn’t got off to the best of starts.

What started as general health checkup, landed me in some gut-wrenching tests. Apart from the money we’ve spent, (which is quite a lot, considering I’m neither anemic nor mad) it’s the waste of it all that annoys me.

The medical industry is one of the highest earning industries. Not just in India, but anywhere, money speaks. And the more you have, the more likely you are of falling fatally ill.

Not to mention the mental stress involved. Commuting from one hospital to another, carrying a file each, for your primary doctor, as well as all the others they referred to, carrying a bulk of cash receipts that lightened your purse but weigh heavily on your chest, having to look at the dejected faces of the other patients – it’s like voluntarily spending money and time to get nothing but torture in return.

“Better safe than sorry”

They all say it. But that kind of safety is still as painful as being sorry. Some things are just that way, and I don’t have a solution. Which just makes this post a completely pointless rant.

What a year this is turning out to be!

Let’s Get It Started!

Wishes abound —
Celebrations galore — lights aglow,
Resolutions, that last a week.

No matter how cynical, the first day of a new calendar year is nothing short of joy. I had a quiet day of rest and relaxation – just the way I like it. Hope you all had/have a good day too.

It’s official; let’s get it started. New year, hopefully happy.

Let's get it started