Sunday Brunch #8

Hola people! Here we are again, what?

I felt very uneasy last week when I couldn’t post the Sunday Brunch. It was as if I hadn’t lived that week at all (Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit). Then I thought, let that be so. This year, therefore, my year will have only 51 weeks. That’s not a bad thing. I just have to go the extra mile to make up for lost time. By next year, the extra mile will become the norm, not the exception. For the rest of my life I’ll go th extra mile automatically. Isn’t that a great idea?! Such a blessing in disguise!

With that happy thought, here we go then!

To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.

~ Bruce Lee

Dish #1:

Privy Trifles aka Namrata, blogs on Memoirs of Me. From her posts, both on the blog and one FB/ Twitter, she seems to be a fellow traveller on a journey to self- discovery. Her posts have made connections within me very often. There are times when I have read her FB updates and found delightful harmony and accord with  my own inner world.

The post I am sharing today is a letter she wrote to herself. It is beautiful letter, not only in content but also in spirit. How many of us take the time to connect thus with ourselves? Perhaps you will be inspired- like me- to knock on the door of your inner being and pay them a visit for a heart to heart conversation. Here is what Namrata writes:

Writing after almost a month, feels weird surely but also emotional at the same time. Life at time loves to challenge us by tempting us with our most favourite things and takes them far away from us just to see how far do we go to reach them. So here I am, running behind my blog trying hard to catch up as quickly as I can.

Read the rest at: Heart to heart – A conversation with myself

I am my own biggest critic. Before anyone else has criticized me, I have already criticized myself. But for the rest of my life, I am going to be with me and I don’t want to spend my life with someone who is always critical. So I am going to stop being my own critic. It’s high time that I accept all the great things about me.

~ C. JoyBell C

Dish #2:

I have known Vidya Chathoth for over five years. I was introduced to her when a friend shared a post of hers. The post was deeply and intensely introspective. I fell in love with her in that moment. She blogs at It’s All In The Mind.

Over the years, she has continued to write but hardly as much as I wish. Somewhere along the way we began to interact- deeply and intensely. I was elated to find that the lady I fell in love with on first sight is courageous, sensitive and wise. She has an amazing capacity for life. Life may knock her down- and life does, as is her rude wont- but Vidya bounces back with a heart for any fate. How could I help loving this woman?

The post I share today is where she spells HAPPYNESS. This is what she says:

That was another time…another life. Growing up in the warm cocoon of the protected world that only parents can build for their children. The city was the same, but it seemed to acquire newer colours as time ticked by. As we grew up, it let us into alleys of life that were unfamiliar, but strangely exciting. There was that desire to break free from the reins of control and taste the exhilaration of freedom and independence. It was a carefree world where struggle and responsibility were alien. Life seemed to overflow with youthful happiness. Amidst all the excitement, exhilaration and warm companionship of people who were in the same phase as me, there was no room for unhappiness. I was in love with myself and with the whole world. I thought this was happiness.

Read the rest at Can You Spell Happyness?

The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

~ George Washington Burnap

Dish #3:

Rachna Parmar hardly needs an introduction. She is well- known and regarded in the Indian blogosphere. She blogs at Rachna Says and categorically warns people to proceed with caution for they are likely to encounter strong opinions ahead. I, of course, am a sucker for people who happily and unapologetically give it to people across their (the people’s) windpipe.

In a way I’ve become a tad lazy ever since I began reading her. I feel as if I have multiplied. There are now two of me writing about things that outrage me. All too often- and I mean as often as 90% times- I wonder whether she wrote a post or I did. Like the one I am sharing today. This is what she writes:

When they are really tiny, you swaddle them in blankets so that their hands and feet are kept away from scratching their own faces.

Read more at Innocence Lost

He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activities in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they’d have no heart to start at all.

~ Cormac McCarthy

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

~ W.B. Yeats

Dish #4:

Once in a way, you come across something which completely turns around all your beliefs and convictions. For example, if someone said that you could walk over to the moon, would you have trouble wrapping your head around that thought? What if it were demonstrated to you, with rational, scientific explanations on the technology behind it? Will you believe it then? What inner process will you need to go through to create the space for that thought? Which prior structures will you have to demolish in order to make room for something as radical as this?

And what if you could have Wireless Electricity?

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and, therefore, the foundation of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

~ J.K. Rowling

Dessert:

The week has been very exciting for Serenely Rapt. This is what happened:

1. Song of Luminescence:  This week Serenely Rapt got the honor of flaunting one of the sweetest voices in the blogging world. In this post, Sridevi Dutta speaks of windows; windows that offer a conduit through which we peer into the depths of life and stare, amazed and awed. She shows you how to open a window for yourself and witness the bounty within. Do read this…. it really is beautiful and profound.
2. In Order To Live: This is a narrative short story uncovering our need to tell ourselves stories- mere fabrications- in order to accept the unacceptable… so that we may move on… and live.

Festivals are times of celebration, celebrations are our way of saying thanks to life. There are many ways of celebrating life. You could love yourself and others. You could be grateful. You could let yourself shine and be awed by your own brilliance.

Well, I always known what I want. And when you know what you want–you go toward it. Sometimes you go very fast, and sometimes only an inch a year. Perhaps you feel happier when you go fast. I don’t know. I’ve forgotten the difference long ago, because it really doesn’t matter, so long as you move.

~ Ayn Rand

I wish you and yours a joyous celebration of color and diversity. May you find reasons to celebrate everyday and when you don’t find a reason, may you be able to create one. May the abandon and joy of Holi attend you on your journey every day.

Wish you a very Happy Holi!