Someone asked me today – you follow Bengali rituals, Punjabi rituals, processes from the South of India…where are you from exactly? As predicted, today may have been the hardest. I didn’t find it too hard though. The lack of food has not been a problem, given my fasts on Ekādashi, and I surprisingly have not …
Tamas has been taken care of. Rajas is next. These four days, I haven’t had tea or coffee. Most of us find caffeine to be the most difficult to control. You absolutely need that early morning cup of tea or coffee and some more to get you through the day. Or so you think. We …
Have come one-third the way, two-thirds remain. Navrātri is also an important occasion because of the opportunity to socialize. People visit each other’s houses, exchange sweets and generally catch up on the happenings of the previous months. Today, I got a chance to visit the most happening Golu in south Dubai – the one at …
The second day is also easy. You still have the passion, the energy to go through the vrata. You will feel a slight change towards the worse starting tomorrow:) Today is the second day of destruction. The body starts to realize that you are fasting, and slowly starts to dig into it’s reserves (polite word …
The first day is also the easiest. Some people think otherwise, but in my experience, the first day is the easiest to get by. You are fresh, well-fed the previous day, and eager to get going. The middle part of any fast is the worst, relatively speaking. You are only halfway from where you started, …
सर्वमङ्गलमाङ्गल्ये शिवे सर्वार्थसाधिके ।शरण्ये त्र्यम्बके गौरि नारायणि नमोऽस्तु ते ॥ sarvamaṅgalamāṅgalye śive sarvārthasādhike .śaraṇye tryambake gauri nārāyaṇi namo’stu te .. The number nine holds special significance in our lives. In fact, we begin our journey with the number nine – that is the number of months we spend in our mother’s wombs. Yog shastras consider …
Tomorrow is Bhadrapada Amavasya, a day when one remembers one’s ancestors and performs pujas for them. The following day is the start of Navrātri. Why do we remember our ancestors? Now that you think of it, how many of us remember our great-grandparents? Chances are that we did not even get a chance to see …
It’s that time of the year again. Navratri, Durga Puja and Dussehra…celebrations and pujas, fasting and overeating. Those nine days have it all… Last Navrātri I fasted the whole nine days. You can read about it here. I also compiled the Devi Mahātmayam series during this time. Days pass fast, don’t they? Anyway, I was …
You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Of late, news websites have been carrying less of news and more of advertorials and snippets that put (in)famous gossip magazines to shame. And so you have an actual piece of news, followed by 8-10 sleazy posts on celebs vacationing in the Maldives, creating couple goals …
Today is the second of October. Usually celebrated as Gandhi Jayanti. The “Father of the Nation” is omnipresent across the political spectrum. Statues adorn the landscape all across India, and nearly every city has a Mahatma Gandhi Road. Gandhi’s face adorns all our currency, and quotes attributed to him float on the internet, along with …
