Life and Spirituality

Photo snapped from road to Hairdakhan in Nainital District of Himalayas I f you reflect carefully you would realize that in the ultimate analysis the Universe is the father of all life and Earth the mother. While mother feeds us, father works at a distance to bring in the means to get the food. The Sun a visible part of the universe provides the means for earth to produce that food, oxygen and water and everything else besides. Father built the home; the universe built our planet, the stars and the moon. Mother decorated it. The Earth did with pretty trees, rivers, mountains and flowers; and what wonderful delicacies she prepares in her kitchen for humans and animals, on plants and trees, with such a wide variety to choose from. When we were young we messed up the home and mother fixed it. We played and never bothered much about mother and father. Have we grown up yet? If we have, it is time to bring them some gifts and help in cleaning up the home. Have you planted a f

Hari Rani Sahni, nee Sethi (1890-1924)  A s ide from Environment, food, spirituality, economy and much else about life, I have from time to time included sketches of my immediate family too in this blog. Recently a cousin Manoj Sahni who now lives in San Francisco, USA sent me a family heirloom, a photo of my grandmother dating from around 1916 or so. My mother (Nand Rani Sahni) had described her as a beautiful and graceful lady who died a month after the birth of my mother in 1924. I am not certain of her birthday but it may have been somewhere around 1890. She was the daughter of Lachman Dass (Sethi) and wife of Lala Gurdas Ram Sahni. At a relatively young age in his early forties her father Lachman Dass became the Chief Administrative and Judicial officer (Sherishtadar) of the Quetta –Pishin Districts of Baluchistan. This was the most developed of the six districts of the large province of Baluchistan which had been a part of the Sultanate of Oman, British India and n