Perspectives of a Soul- A tale of life

How I survive the Creative Void? The suffocation of the emptiness -Sufia Khatoon  Today was another day where I managed to wake up early to prepare for my upcoming events and performances this month. For my friends here, life has changed drastically I now work as a professional Artist, I teach Art and Creative writing to students, I am an Art Curator and I am a PR and Event Manager. I am deeply involved in social work mostly philanthropic initiatives and poetry. It has become the center of my life. If I look 5 years back, I was another 'me' in another time looking for myself, exploring my strengths and it took me almost half of my life to actually understand what I like to do? What are my talents and how I should work with them to improve things around me? How I have to be stubborn to continue? Beyond everything I have learned, I have realized the importance of simplicity, honesty and dedication to work. Define happiness? I am content with my choice of working as an ...

The Tea Thoughts and Stories... I always wondered and wander through the dimensions of my thoughts, rather I would say forcefull reasonings of the mind, looking for inspirational realizations. It hardly knows how to stop talking and feel the moment. Not everything has to have a reason right. But everything seems right with a cup of my best Kerala grown tea leaf or Nilgiri tea on days like this. Mind has very less time with itself, it worries too much of the world within and without 'common sense' and a hot cup of good tea seems like a relief, a stop at the station where strange noises seem to choke the air out of my lungs. So when days like today comes, I look for the best cup of tea, a real good book to let me go on a meditative journey of taste,stories and nostalgia. I was never a tea person and in the name of coffee all I cared about was the frothy creamy capachino which got colder by the minute I started savouring it. My journey with tea started two years a...

Madari's of Kolkata-  lost life, lost Animals Wherever you go in your city, on the streets you might have encountered the Madaris entertaining the crowds with their highly trained and skilled performers, singing in exuberance and glee. One such performer you wold have often seen sitting pensively on the railings or pavements and chewing the leftovers of the city's amusements, what we were once in our primitive stage, are the monkeys. Like you all, I too love to walk through the busy city road and discover stories on my small journeys. In a suffocating lifestyle, these escape in nature and open air gives me inspiration to look at life and believe in beauty again. On one such expedition, I discovered Md Asgar silently sitting with his monkeys playing under the tree shed in park st and looking at the passer by expectantly. He had the look of a tired man who goes out everyday with the hope of earning something for his family and returning home empty handed. Some of us...

Early Mornings, a forgotten era... It's been a while since I have been like this, a late sleeper. Each time the oath to wake up early and practise healthy habits has made me fall flat on my face and tummy. Needless to say I do remember few nights where I had hardly slept because of an overdose of coffee and I saw the beauty and peaceful early mornings. In a city it's different, you can hear the world screaming out of bed to rush to their usual livelihood but my recent holiday in Gangtok was breathtaking. Nothing can beat the beauty of hills and forest, their mystery is too precious to me. Still my mother's garden on the 7th floor is my small retreat to nature in a not so forgiving Kolkata city that thrives in pollution. Her love for trees I see now has faded with time and health problems but this garden to me is a reminder of my mother's crusade of making us eat organic home grown food when I was growing up in the late 1980's, it comes from time to ti...

An old toy shop, childhoods essence..... An old toy shop, Childhood essence..... Childhood is the best thing that happens to us, a simple world which accepts and rejects us at the same time thus teaching us the right and wrongs in life. I always knew when things will make no sense at all, I will have my childhood to go back to and gather myself again to walk ahead in life. My grandmother's simple lifestyle of little wanting and little expecting was a happy and ideal life for me, a life that I have always looked upto. I had spent most of my childhood wandering on the streets of Belgachia and my grandmother's house as a traveler discovering new things about life and the world on my journeys.  Children posses a heavenly innocence in them which is taken away slowly with time as they grow up to know the world more and become conscious about it's workings. Toys symbolise that innocence of childhood which acts as a reminder of imagination and purity of the world....

Simpler Living....... Times have changed with changing taste of civilization, our cities are wider, broader and fancier but in every city, even now I know there are people living and thriving on the values of a simple life. Walking on your city payments even if hawkers, wires, lamp posts, and add hoardings haven't left much space for walkers, such small journeys gives you an insight into the parallel worlds in our known existence. Walking with my camera to explore the roads is a very usual habit for me which gives me the oppurtunity to observe the simple people in an over crowded city space. Obeservation of life is the soul of the world and I feel lucky that it speaks to me very often. In all religious books or philosophers down the ages in their discourses have stated that a simple living is a way to attend peace of mind. When I see people like tin box and metal scrap sellers, corn and oil fried snack sellers, garam cholle sellers, pan and chat sellers and anyone who in sp...

The Tale of Romeo and Juliet _ A Nature's Play... (Juliet pondering over things on the porch opposite my window) Nature is beyond our understanding and reach, If we open our hearts to her she never lets us lose our way. I feel deeply connected to her in search for life, something worth discovering. The humming of pigeons early morning outside my window,  my Terrace garden welcoming migratory birds now and then, evening winds, butterflies, spiders spinning web often in corners, sparrow hatchlings waiting to be feed in the nest in my old bag hanging out in the balcony, flowers old and new blooming everyday. All these I get to see often as Nature even if I am residing in concrete walls , finds a way to inspire me and make me feel good about this beautiful life. Nature is like Divinity, once your heart let's it guide your life, it yields you a peaceful existence. (Romeo gears up to begin a new morning) I share with you today the story of a family of pigeons who hav...