Twenty- five Seven

Personally speaking

Recent Posts

  • Shattered Dreams – Coping with adversity.

    • Paperback: 404 pages
    • Publisher: Jaico Publishing House;
    • First edition (23 January 2015)
    • Language: English

    Rama has grown up and is now a young married man. Taking off from where the story ends in Book 1, Shubha Vilas continues to weave the magic of the Ramayana in yet another collection of little known stories of the epic that we are all so familiar with.

    King Dasaratha has a restless night , tossing and turning between battles that he faces in his dreams fighting demons both real and imaginary. He has a premonition of something untoward happening but doesn’t know exactly what it is and how he is going to deal with it. Finally he wakes up to the realisation that he is old and it is time for him to give up his throne and make way for his son and heir. So he puts his decision to his people for a vote and was overjoyed when he heard that they agreed with his decision to abdicate. But before the young prince wakes up to the day of his coronation, the book leaves Ayodhya and takes us to the story of Ravana or Dasagriva, the King of Lanka  who is on the rampage to subdue the universe and conquer all the worlds. In his quest to do so he  performs many penances, fights many battles and  ultimately  overcomes several obstacles that come between him and his goals.

    Since I have not read the Ramayana in its original form, I find this retelling quite fascinating. For instance, I was amazed to read about the sophisticated weaponry that existed in those ancient times. If the descriptions are to be believed, the Pushpak Viman is none other than an unmanned flying vehicle or the Drone. Similarly the Pasupatastra which could release hundreds of flame tipped arrows simultaneously is none other than a multiwarhead missile launcher

    With these weapons of mass destruction at the command of Dasagriva ( now known as Ravana) who has already captured the three worlds and the nine controllers it is no wonder then that he needs to be subdued to save the world from complete annihilation. And since it is only the king of Ayodhya who can stop him, the world is looking to Dasaratha. But Dasaratha is old and tired and feels it only right to hand over the kingdom to his son, which is why he announces Lord Rama as his heir.

    But if Rama becomes king, who will save the world? Thus it is that Manthara, the hunchbacked maid, steps in with a Machiavellian scheme to poison  her mistress’ (and Rama’s step mother) mind and poisons Kaikeyi’s mind and prevents Rama from becoming the king. Thus exiled, he has no option but to take on the task of saving the world.

    The book is engaging because it tells stories that are little known to most of us along with the little nuggets of wisdom that are imparted along the way such as how to accept difficulty with dignity, when boons can become curses or how power can make you powerless.

    Like the previous book, the language can get a bit pedantic and tedious but if you persist, you will definitely come out the wiser with new tips on how to cope with every day life.

    I am linking this to Write Tribe ProBlogger Challenge

  • An arty Sunday Brunch

    I started out my modest art collection with an oil on canvas of Venice in sombre yellows by a little known Indian painter. Somehow, trite as the images are of Venice with its bridges and boats and narrow canals, I have always been fascinated by the romance it holds and was keen on buying a painting from Venice itself when I visited it briefly last year. However, my visit was far too brief and too hectic to even look around leave alone search for a painting that caught my fancy, so whenI was invited to the Sunday brunch and preview of Surya Prakash’s paintings of Venice by Maninder Dawer of INDIA FINE ART GALLERY, Tardeo, I was quite

    IMG_0532looking forward to it.

    Our Sunday began with another brunch event in another part of town and even though we were stuffed to the gills with our vegetarian Gujarati food that we’d pigged out on, we made a quick visit to the gallery.

    The paintings were magical – the black and white oils were particularly dramatic and one could spend hours just looking at them and absorbing  the mood of Venice which retains a freshness time after time.

     

    The turnout was really good despite it being a lazy Sunday and several well-known artists mingled with Mani’s friends and clients. Even though the works were large, there were already some sold out – not surprising really since Surya Prakash is a senior Hyderabad based artist known for his impressionistic works of nature.

    This new series of acrylic on canvas and paper, in vibrant colours as well as black and white is definitely simply stunning so go have a look .

    Paintings will be on display  from

    • February 2-9 from 11 am to 7 pm at India Fine Art Gallery
    • February 10-16 from 11 am to 7 pm at Auditorium Hall, Jehangir Art Gallery
    • Open on Sundays and holidays too

    A piece of trivia – it was Surya Prakash who first introduced Mumbai to Vaikuntham.

    While I have no space large enough to display these gorgeous works, I will be happy to display the mug that Mani gave me and recall the magic of Surya Prakash’s Venice.

    Thanks Mani for this delightful gift!

    p.s. What really thrilled me was that Mani told me that he’d found my blog post about the Vaikuntham coasters he’d sent along as a Diwali gift on Google and I could hardly believe that I could be found on the internet so randomly !

    I’m linking this to Write Tribe Pro Blogger Challenge

  • So do you still want to blog?

    Life’s lessons are never learnt until they are truly learnt

    I don’t know where I read this quote nor do I know who has written it, but I suppose it applies to all of us because it is a universal truth. Everyday we learn something new and every time we absorb some learning, we think “Eureka!”

    Sadly, the very next minute we realise that what we learnt is out-dated.

    I agree this is hyperbole but knowledge is so vast that very few can really claim to know it all. This doesn’t mean that we don’t try to find out things and master them.

    If like me you are a self taught computer geek ( I only started out with a knowledge of typing) and had to ask somebody how to put the computer on, you will find your journey of blogging quite hard. It is fun, challenging, frustrating and even impossible at times but each time I cross a roadblock, I feel I’m the Master of the Blogging World and promptly blog about it in the hope that it will help newbie bloggers so that they don’t have to struggle the way I did for all these years.

    Why do you want to blog?

    First, ask yourself this question – why do you want to blog? Aren’t there enough things for you to do that you want to add on one more task on your to do list?

    Ok, you like writing and find this a great way to get your message across without sending off Letters to the Editor (a medium that hardly exists since most newspapers that carried this column are now defunct) but do you know how many bloggers there are out there in the world? There are enough articles and statistics about how many bloggers there are clacking away on their keyboards or punching away on their iPads, iPhones or any other device they blog with, on many different platforms, linking up and networking with several other bloggers ………….you get the drift, don’t you? So why do you want to be just another drop in the ocean?

    Some tips

    Presumably you still want to go ahead and become just another drop in the ocean. After all, if each drop refused to become a drop, the ocean would dry up!

    But there are things which you may have heard and which you may have followed with sincerity till somewhere along the way you got tangled up like me. Of course if you are born in the latter half of the last century you won’t be having this problem because somehow I feel children born after 1980 are wired differently and see things better than I do.

    1) Identify your niche – is your blog about you as in your daily life like a diary? Is your blog about food( a very popular category)? Is it about travel? Photography? Technology?Finance? Interior Design? Fashion? There are literally millions of things you can write about, but it would help you to decide the niche under which you want to write. This helps in making your blog more user friendly……once you’ve categorised and tagged your articles, they are easier to find.

    2) Choose your platform well. Sorry Blogger, after diligently following your platform I tend to agree with the millions of WordPress users that it is a more user friendly platform. Yes, after MSN and Blogger, I found WordPress hard to understand and navigate but now I find that it is much easier –

    • It has a nice clean, uncluttered look.
    • It has many more themes with many more features
    • It can easily become a self-hosted blog by simply going premium ( Blogger makes you buy a domain outside)

    3) Choose your consultant wisely.

    After several years of stumbling in the blogosphere, asking around, interacting with other bloggers, I found that I wasn’t really going anywhere. So last year I took the plunge and actually PAID a professional advisor to help me with my blog. It turned out to be the biggest mistake because this guy just didn’t follow the brief I had given him and I landed up more frustrated because this was something I had literally bought! BEWARE OF ALL THOSE WHO CLAIM THAT THEY CAN HELP YOU SET UP A BLOG ETC ETC. They don’t always put their money where their mouth is.

    My learnings till date

    So after getting gypped, I was even more curious as to what I was doing wrong and found out that

    • Only self-hosted blogs have the capacity to add Plug-Ins. So go for a self-hosted blog once you are comfortable with your blog. This helps you add several things easily like free images that make your blog more attractive. You can get SEO help etc, etc.
    • Don’t go for domains like GoDaddy etc  unless you are completely familiar with what to do next. Technology is not always as easy as it looks and technocrats aren’t really patient with newbie learners…….so this can be a frustrating experience. Upgrading on WordPress is a far less painful experience.

    Since life is a learning experience, I’m sure there’ll be many more lessons for me to learn but till then, I’d like to share these latest lessons with you!

    Happy learning and happy blogging!

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