Rain. More rain. Even more rain.

Couple of days back, I began walking in the morning—even in the rain, raincoat +umbrella etc.

Drenched, along with the green.

Life looks so much brighter after.

Acharyaji, the park garden expert, created a lovely cactus display for the planter tray I’d bought from Fabfurnish. 

Last night, timepass channel surfing brought me to DD Bharati and the tail end of a documentary on one of the country's foremost poets, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. Where the v/o went on about how he is being forgotten, even in his home state.

I recalled lines which I'd learnt in 1980, word by painful word for this non-Hindi speaker... how can someone with such a legacy be forgotten?

उद्देश्य जन्म का नहीं कीर्ति या धन है
सुख नहीं धर्म भी नहीं, न तो दर्शन है
विज्ञान ज्ञान बल नहीं, न तो चिंतन है
जीवन का अंतिम ध्येय स्वयं जीवन है
- from Parshuram ke updesh

My sympathies with the Taksim square protesters.
More gardens, less memorials please.
in the ALM park, the kailashpati are in bloom. 

Last week, the powers-that-be chopped blunt the decades-old trees in my colony. I hope next lifetime the tree-maulers are reincarnated as trees.

So over the weekend the monsoon announced its presence. Big bang style, furiously, sheets of water and all.
I dusted off the music system and made a color coded pile of the books I've yet to read. 
Not only because someone seems to have appropriated my old leaky black umbrella for themselves, but also because this is the first working day of the week so one must seem busy, and also because I'm not sure if the subways would still be flooded,and what about parking, and truth be told whether Miss Blue aka dhanno rani (with me at the wheel) have the requisite skills to negotiate our bumper-to-bumper expressway, I'm not at a friend's book launch this evening. And feeling guilty as hell about it. Not attending a book launch is a mean, dirty and underhand kind of a thing to do...I agree, Sorry, Icy.

Anyone who can think up a business model to address the needs of the old, with offspring abroad-- is going to make a ton of serious money. 
Forces one to think of one's situation too, a decade or two down the line.
last few weeks have been busy.
too many unexpected things. travel, travel, travel. And work interspersed.

the markets have been skittish.

after the first rainshower, nothing yet, but coming soon soon soon...gray tinges the outline of huge clouds spotted thru picture glass windows.. The full power, thundering monsoon...we wait....

The heat hits at you like a wave, scorching searing burning, even if you keep telling yourself it isn’t hot, it isn’t hot, just 43 deg C, the weight on your forehead and the sweat sheet on your back tell you otherwise. You look at words trying to read, to think to write but your eyes seem clammy and your head hurts, not comprehending.And this is without stepping outside the house.

When the train reached big city bright lights this dawn I was delighted to be back; delighted the first time in sixteen years.

The rare and much valued Rudrakhsh tree in the park is slowly dying, Acharyaji, the head gardener tells me.
The leaves are drying out, and the roots refuse to respond to cajoling.
I think the roots are not getting the space to grow, to push ahead.