life's a kick

  To the friend who missed seeing the moon of Buddha Purnima on the day of lunar eclipse: Dear friend, I begin to write this while simultaneously gazing at the moon. Or Super Blood Moon, as it is called today. This is a sight meant to be drunk in with the eyes. It calls for a complete surrender. If at all I am taking my eyes off this spectacular vision of life, it is to convey to you, the unspeakable beauty I have the fortune of witnessing today. I was walking down the road this evening in a nonchalance that typically accompanies a deep meditation session. It was a normal evening, until this sight came to vision. I went out for a walk. Soaked in the colors of twilight. Sat by at my everyday corner to meditate. Completed the meditation and started walking down the remainder of the road, looking out for little feathered friends and the usual canine company. It was then that the road turned and brought me face to face with the moon of today. It was like being thunder struck....

The silver oak tree...with its golden flowers Kasauli shivered in the summer night. The COVID era wedding allowed for only 25 attendees, and all of them were unprepared for the cold. Who packs up winter clothes in north India for the month of May? Moth, earwigs, and other insects lay dead or dying, also unable to cope with the whistling winds. The wedding was arranged in a hotel that stood atop a hill with the valley on one side and a lawn on the other, the latter being used for the functions. The white and golden canopy of the wedding tent was complemented with the simple and startling decoration of hundreds of tea lights. Though electronically controlled, their flickering flames looked real in the weather. Yellow fairy lights swirled around tree trunks and branches around the lawn. Natural mist diffused the lighting (and the mood) in a way that most exotic places couldn’t match. It looked like the place was ready to welcome gods of heaven. A sickle moon rose above the imposing Deod...