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A Therapeutic Conversation with Our Surroundings
We may not always realise, but our surroundings are constantly trying to talk to us. They are telling us what they think, how they feel. One place might say: I care more about cars than about you; I care a lot about advertising, so I am going to make you look at a huge sign…
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Padmavat (Part Two): Parrot Hiramani Goes to King Ratan Sena
In the first part of our Padmavat series, we discussed the life of Princess Padmavati in Lanka. Now, let’s travel all the way to Chittaur, which is in Rajasthan (India). Ratan Sena was born in the lineage of Chitra Sena, after whom the city of Chitrapur or Chittaur was named. Coming to our story, around…
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Padmavat (Part One): Princess Padmavati and the Parrot Hiramani
Padmavat is an epic poem written in the Awadhi language by a Sufi poet Malik Muhammad Jayasi in 1540. A famous piece of Sufi literature from the period, it relates an allegorical story about the desire of three different kings for its central character, Padmavati. In the next few posts, I will be briefly narrating the…
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Love in the Times of Shakespeare and Kalidasa
Kalidasa, the classical Sanskrit poet, is often referred to as the Shakespeare of India. While it offends a certain passionate section of Indians who insist on using the title the other way around (calling Shakespeare the Kalidasa of England), it also tempts one to make a comparison between the two great poets. Rabindranath Tagore did…
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Indian Paintings: How to See, Understand and Reflect on Them
When a subject perceives an object, the experience of it not only depends on the qualities of the object but on the state of the mind of the subject too. The ancient Indian sages elucidated this point beautifully using the metaphor of a mountain lake. The clear still water of a mountain lake reflects the…
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Understanding the Philosophy of Indian Aesthetics
How we see the world, how we perceive it, it’s greatly influenced by the culture we grow and live in. Therefore, when it comes to aesthetics, the cultural background matters. It matters how some of our senses have been sharpened by our surroundings, while the others have been blunted. In other words, our past experiences…
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Teaism: The Wisdom of Ancient Tea-Masters
‘Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence,’ wrote Okakura Kakuzo in The Book of Tea. The movement started around the 15th century in Japan. It was the time when Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism were seeking mutual synthesis. The pantheistic symbolism of the time was…
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Chai-Chai-Chai: The Story of Indian Tea
You visit anyone’s house in India and you’d be greeted with an invitation for Chai, the great Indian tea. Often it’s not even a question, it’s more of imposition. Indians don’t use the phrase ‘would you like some chai?’ as much as ‘let me bring you some chai’. As a result, hardly any interaction —…
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