Water

The water understands
Civilization well,
It wets my foot, but prettily,
It chills my life, but wittily,
It is not disconcerted,
It is not broken-hearted: Well used, it decketh joy,
Adorneth, doubleth joy:
Ill used, it will destroy,
In perfect time and measure
With a face of golden pleasure
Elegantly destroy.

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Spring is Here!

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest;
keep us here All simply in the springing of the year.

~Robert Frost

Daughter of heaven and earth, coy Spring,
With sudden passion languishing,
Teaching barren moors to smile,
Painting pictures mile on mile,
Holds a cup of cowslip wreaths,
Whence a smokeless incense breathes.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Awake, thou wintry earth - Fling off thy sadness! Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth Your ancient gladness!

~Thomas Blackburn, "An Easter Hymn
"

And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant"

The naked earth is warm with Spring,
And with green grass and bursting trees
Leans to the sun's kiss glorying,
And quivers in the sunny breeze.

~Julian Grenfell

Happy Republic Day

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

~Rabindranath Tagore

Flock of Angels For Ever in Flight

All these things have you said of beauty.
Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied,
And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.
It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth,
But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.
It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,
But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.
It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,
But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.
People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and your are the mirror.

~Khalil Gibran

Sunset in Goa

Twenty years from now you will be more disppointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

~ Mark Twain

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

~William Arthur Ward

Its Onam Once Again!!!

Happy Onam to all the malayalees out there. Ellavarkum nanma nirranja Onashamsakal!

I have been away from blogs and blogging for a long time now. Life has been kind of hectic of late. But all of a sudden my blog started getting an amazing number of hits from people searching for pookalam designs. So I thought I must post something on it. You can check out my previous Onam and pookalam post here & here.

Someone left a comment in my previous Onam post informing me about the online pookalam competition. Check it out at Gamez India. You can actually make pookalam designs online and submit it for the competition. Its fun though nothing can beat the getting the flowers and putting a real one for Onam, still a virtual pookalam is better than no pookalam at all. So all of you who can't have a real pookalam can now have fun with a virtual one. Enjoy!!!

I am posting the pic of one of the pookalams i created on the site. :)

Left Handed Sketches

Taking up Arvindh's challenge of drawing with my non-dominant left hand, I made these sketches on my tablet pc. Sorry Arvindh, I found this more challenging and fun than taking up the tag. So, what do all of you think?