Books and Art, Art and Books-- two of the most satisfying worldly pleasures I would dwell in time and again.

Seen in a bookstore in Berlin, I wish I could have splurged on books then instead of postcards but Alas, money is a big deal!

Still remember that sunny August noon walking along the canal and the Graffiti led streets of Berlin with these bookstores and cafes to charm my spirits! ❤

A lazy Thursday afternoon had me do this. Such solace to be with colors. Experimenting with water colors while in isolation due to covid 19 outbreak. #watercolors #birds #nature #india

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I shall pass through this world but once, any good thing therefore I can do, or any kindness I can show to any human being, let me do it now, let me not defer it or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.

“I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils.” - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

prints | instagram | don’t delete caption please! 💛

As I opened my emails today morning, I was pleasantly surprised to see a notification announcing seven years of my presence on Tumblr! How happy did it make me! Changed my mood in an instant. Then I came here and went through my posts. It truly felt wonderful to see what I read in the past seven years and the photographs I shared with love. Here’s to more life in our years!

Lily love from my mother’s home-grown potted garden in 2016.

My Bombay Book Amigo

Just another day while walking past the busy streets of Mumbai at 5pm, I saw Bablu ji, the most knowledgeable street book seller of Mumbai sipping chai by his display of books stacked neatly near the now fenced off portico of a building. He saw me and we greeted each other like old friends. He remembered our last book conversation (which was in November 2015, last year) and promptly handed me Doris Lessing's THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK. I screamed with joy and he lit up with laughter. He also directed my attention to a Shakespeare book and I told him, I didn't have enough money to pay for it and he said, JUST TAKE IT. When I insisted that I couldn't take the book without paying for it, he said, "We sell books for money but sometimes also sell it for the love of words." I stood there shocked and surprised and extremely pleased. He is an amazing reader. He will regale you with tales of his favourite reads from 35 years ago and also find you treasure amidst his collection. He showed me a copy of Albert Camus's THE PLAGUE and said he will never sell that copy because it is so dear to him. How I love the passion these people with their golden hearts possess for people and books and their city! Thank you, Bablu ji. You are my true book amigo in Bombay. :)

Quo Warranto by Harshit Scott Prakash 

*For all the Anti- Reservation and Casteist Junkies!

Make a place to sit down. Sit down. Be quiet. You must depend upon affection, reading, knowledge, skill — more of each than you have — inspiration, work, growing older, patience, for patience joins time to eternity.

On this last day of National Poetry Month, the wise and wonderful Wendell Berry – one of the greatest poets of our time – on how to be a poet and a complete human being. (via explore-blog)

We’ve constructed culture in a way that people are not feeling recognized, loved, accepted, happy with their place in society… What have we done to create such unhappiness?

Magnificent Design Matters interview with Amanda Palmer – an openhearted conversation about art, love, loneliness, motherhood, vulnerability, trust, and more.  (via explore-blog)

Fairytale

Beauty, leave some rags for me that I might presume to be a woman: beautiful bedecked believable.

Composition

Freedom became my dancing shoe How well I danced and danced without rest until the shoes turned grimy on my feet and I began to have doubts. We are all alike, we women, in our wrappings of hairless skin. All skeletons are alike, only the souls vary that hide somewhere between the flesh and the bone. All I want now is to take a long walk into the sea and lie there, resting, completely uninvolved. I must linger on, trapped in immortality, my only freedom being the freedom to discompose.

Between Births

I span my life between the mango's blossoming and the winter- jasmine.

MADRIGAL

"I inherited a dark wood to which I seldom go. But a day will come when the dead and the living change places. Then the wood will begin to stir. We are not without hope. The most serious crimes remain unsolved despite the efforts of many policeman. In the same way there exists, somewhere in our lives, a great love, unsolved. I inherited a dark wood but today I am going into another wood, the bright one. Every living thing that sings, wriggles, oscillates, and crawls! It is spring and the air is very strong. I have a degree from oblivion’s university and am empty-handed as the shirt on the clothesline."

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