Supermarket Find

I was pleasantly surprised and almost beaming from ear to ear when I found these in a leading Canadian supermarket here in TO.

I am talking about the clay diyas. The symbol of Diwali. The epitome of grace.

I brought back a couple of boxes of them CAD 2.99 each. We Bengalis light 14 clay lamps (chhoddo pradip) the evening before Diwali to offer our gratitude to our forefathers. Its a tradition my Mum has been following, and now I am starting to do so. Though its very difficult to remember or know the names of our ancestors.

On Diwali, we Indians go full throttle with all kinds of decorative candles and diya. Call it coincidence or planned connivance, but I even made a couple of hand pinched diyas last week in my Pottery Class!

Enjoy your Diwali shopping and buy lots of Diyas, they are forever to stay in your hearts and cameras.

Purple Haze

I am getting into an introspective mode. I know its never premature. And it helps sometimes.

Just to be thankful to God for what we have. And not complain about what we have-not.

Every evening, I turn my worries to God. She is going to be up all night anyway, watching over us. Letting us get our eight-hours in peace.

Today I light a Sōndhā Prodeep (evening lamp) and say a silent prayer. For God to be with my family and friends. Watch our every step. For I believe that Her greatest gifts are our unanswered prayers.

The optimistic in me believes that with this little light, I will find my inner shine.

And yes, God I have realized your last name is not “Dammit”!

Hope you experience and like the serenity of this beautiful version of the Gāyatrī Mantra.

Come September…

…lets get cozy in my corner.The Sun is now warming my back rather than beating on my head. I am a little cooled down and hope that the September Sun will retain some glory.

 I sit in my cozy corner. My feet curled up, in anticipation of the nodding Autumn through the silk-sack of clouds.
Just then Patty from Colours Dekor comes and whispers in my ears, come join my party…

And I hop in with my afterglow and the best two corners from my living room.

The first, which is my favorite corner of my apartment has the leather armchair with a paisley cushion in black and white thrown in. Its the South-West corner of my home and I get a full dose of the afternoon sun. I have a window full of plants and birds here!

The second corner has a quaint charm about it. A minor distraction from the greens are some books kept there with a solid brass Ganesha with a green and red antique finish, an Iranian hand-painted pottery and a thrift store find of the two black ladies.  

I am sending my Cozy Corners to Patty’s party. Hope I can have some of you girls over before September ends…

Comfort Overload In An Uruli

Okay, so I am showing off.

Yes, this sandstone uruli-like-bird bath, made in Rajasthan, shopped in New Delhi and sent all the way to Toronto.

My Ma-in-law picked this from a store called Prakriti (meaning Nature) near about Connaught Place, New Delhi. Looking up the store on Google, yielded no results, so do not ask me where it is!

This week I was feeling extra domestic, making the sondesh, using rose petals as prop, and re-using them to float in this uruli.
When I think of serenity in my life. I default to the obvious; tea lights. And I waited patiently for dusk to wrap my living room in darkness…and the result was S-T-U-N-N-I-N-G. This is exactly my idea of a comfort sight, something I find soothing and can keep gazing at it for hours…

What things comfort you?

Flea Shop Wanderings On A Friday

I wasn’t intending to write about my Friday afternoon knick-knack shopping. But I am rather surprised how some of them just snugly fit into the little nooks and corners of my home.

Take a look at this little cast iron "unicorn" I picked from a flea shop, it goes well with my terracotta horse from Dilli Haat.

This set of silver teapots on a tray were bought from an antique shop, they have "Made in Occupied Japan" etched on them. So my guess is they must have been made somewhere between 1945 to 1952, during the American occupation of Japan after World War II. A collector's item?

A fish plaque, also from the same flea shop. Finding “Nemo” was easy, she lay there with some old records on a retro-looking center table. I thought she would feel at home with my Italian stone owls. Any ideas what I could use it for?
 
In the same thrift store, I saw this little Japanese doll, hiding behind some old books. I thought this little boy playing a flute would pair up nicely with my ivory white shells, I had picked from the beach.

Every time I go to a flea shop, I convince myself I must have that piece. Its another story that I probably don’t need them, but you will agree they do look really cute in my home.

Problem Child With A Green Thumb

I was my parents’ problem child. (My parents probably think I still am!) I had strange obsessions with food, plants, flowers, shells, clay, pebbles, sand and junk. Oh and did I mention plants?

I’d climb half-way up our neighbor’s mango tree to break branches to make rustic “lamps”. I would knead through little hills of sand at neighborhood construction sites to dig for shells, to add to my Mum's pots of succulents, and did not mind dirtying my hands if I touched solidified cat poop during my “search”. One time I even brought home two Mutt puppies on my way back from my school bus stop, who kept howling all night. The next morning I was ordered to return them to their mother by my Mother. This was how Mum chose to repay my shell-collecting debt!

I grew up in a substantially large house. We did not have a garden though, but our large terrace was turned into a rooftop “garden” by my Mum (with help from the various Maalis she had from time to time).

There were two of us who were obsessed with this one dhoti-clad Maali (Hindi for gardener). Our pet dog Doogie and me. For reasons not known to us, Doogie would tug and nip on Maaliji’s dhuti every evening when he climbed the stairs. And sometimes when we were not watching, I think Doogie even got himself ankle-kicked by the old gardener.

But Maaliji was specially nice to me. I was the pupil he always longed for. You know, just to pass on his gardening gyaan. Even in the scorching May heat of Bihar, I would squat next to him when he was digging into roots, looking for insects and pests under the leaves, I would run to turn the water tap off when the water was overflowing from a bucket or help him undo knots in the rubber pipe. I would even get him his evening tea which my Grandmother made for him.

He would sit on the staircase leading down to the verandah sipping his chai, talking about his village farmland with my Grandmother, how consecutive years of famine disrupted his whole life! And how from a land-tilling farmer he had to become a “gardener” in the city.

Now as a big city girl in a space-challenged apartment, I am so glad I sat through all those sessions of repotting, pruning, fertilizing, bulbs being saved for the next year and all that handiwork which I watched and learnt!
I wasn’t planning for this post today, but I can’t wait to share with you photographs of our plants. For the sheer way they are sprouting happiness and soaking all that abundant sunlight we have been getting lately. The greenhouse effect in our condo has added that same cheer the old gardener brought about with his bare hands. The old man may have been illiterate and unschooled, but he sure knew through his experience that apartment gardening is not an oxymoron. Especially if you have a reputation of being a problem child with a secret green thumb.