Life and Spirituality

My last blog post was about motivations for writing the novel, Nude besides the Lake. Much before that, I had tried my hand at a smaller work of fiction that was published as – Mystic and the Blossoms. I began writing, Mystic and the Blossoms, in 1984 while still a very busy professional teaching engineering at IIT Delhi and busy with scientific publications. As a result, the book did not get beyond the first draft then. It remained buried in my files for years. It was in summer of 1991, I suddenly found time on my hands, free from professional work so I pulled it out and got it printed from a small printer in the city of Jaipur as a hardcover under imprint QUESST Publications. It is a small work and better described as a novella rather than a novel. The idea then was not to make any profit from it but share thoughts expressed through medium of fiction with those interested and those who matter. The book had thoughts on how to improve lives of some of the most backward par...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1463529392 I am not a professional novelist; rather I have been a professor of engineering. In my spare time I wrote a couple of novels to communicate thoughts and ideas that could not be conveyed through professional publications but were best conveyed through fiction. Not being a novelist the novels are different, far from perfect but nevertheless they have delighted those who read them. A few things about my novel –Nude besides the lake – confounded many. First was the choice of word ‘besides’ instead of ‘beside’ that seemed more appropriate. Guess a lot of persons expect someone nude sitting beside a lake, LOL. However the word used in the title phrase describes the content better. The story is about nudity as found in some spiritual sects in India and it is the story of a town that came up around a lake. The second thing that surprised some was the choice of the subject matter, nude. My other publications are on more serious s...

I was deeply touched today morning when a surprise certificate of appreciation arrived in my Twitter feed from Mahindra Rise at https://twitter.com/MahindraRise/status/1110046810121404416 I am deeply honored and perhaps there could be no better way for it than through a tree. Readers of this blog would know about my love for trees and my many posts on it, some of it shown on following search list, https://someitemshave.blogspot.com/search?q=tree Mahindra  and  Mahindra  Ltd is a mulit billion-dollar global enterprise headquartered in India with operations spanning over 21 industries in more than 100 countries. Mahindra Rise is their call to action to help improve planet and life of all that dwell upon it. For more information see https://www.mahindra.com/

As a senior citizen and retired person, I have the leisure to look back at life and wonder how the world changed over the last half-century or so. Perhaps the greatest change has been in communication technologies. As a child we had holders with nibs or pens to write. One dipped the nib in an inkpot and then wrote on paper with the wet nib. There were different colored inks, blue, royal blue, green, red and once in a rare while a brown one too. I loved trying out the different colors. At times one smudged the paper with a blob of ink and there were blotting papers to soak it up. After one wrote a letter, one made a trip to the post office to get the envelope weighed, get stamps and then post the letter. It took a few weeks to reach distant lands. The reply came back after several weeks. One could make a phone call too if the recipient had a phone but one booked the call through an operator and then waited a while before she called back if the call was through to a differen...

Sometimes one builds a large home when not so old to meet various possible needs of a family.   As one ages, parents depart and children grow up to pursue their own lives visiting only in holidays. One is then left with a large home with a lot of vacant space, most of the time, in old age. Some old persons lock away parts of their homes most of the year to reduce cleaning and maintenance chores. I too have been doing that for the past several years. However, others have found an innovative use for their homes. They let out a room or two to visitors, students or tourists. It creates a homely facility for a tourist who might wish to skip the hustle and bustle of a city hotel and save money; for a student from a foreign land it is a great facility. I lived in one such all through my student years at UBC in Canada at highly affordable rates. It was the home of a dear old lady by the name of Mrs. Cuthbert. She not only gave me a furnished place to live in but also provide...

In villages across India, it is a common sight to see groups of old men sitting around under a tree or in sunshine on jute string cots in winter, chatting, gossiping. They exchange news and pass their time in the evenings of their lives. It is a time of reduced energies and reduced needs. The children have grown up and can look after the farm now. Old women on the other hand gather similarly in homes where they can keep an eye on grandchildren too. The young on the other hand, get up early and rush for work on their farms or elsewhere. Their time to socialize is in evenings. However, there are some young who begin gossiping and socializing right from dawn or sometime soon after when the sun is still up and others are busy at work. They may be just bums or persons up to no good in life. The modern world has introduced the Internet so that it is no longer necessary to gather physically in groups anywhere. One can do it right from home, even one’s bed with a hand held d...

Recently when my daughters visited they informed that they consume neither tea nor coffee anymore. However when I suggested a floral tea they agreed. They loved the cuppa. I explained to them how to create their own. This method is shared with all now in view of its usefulness. Dear reader you could create your own wonderful floral tea for free or very little expense in this manner Discovering suitable flowers: The first step is to make a list of flowers that are available in reasonable abundance in your area. These may be available in the wild in due season or in your own garden. Some dry flowers may be available at reasonable prices in your local market and you may add these to your list. Flowers from some trees are also great. Trees produce these in great abundance in season. Now note, not all flowers in your list will be suitable for tea. Some may even be toxic as for example larkspur and oleander. Discovering what flowers are suitable for a tea is the nex...