What began as a slow,sleepy 3am sketch while remembering a great weekend in a sleepy town turned into this drawing.
I’d borrowed some seashells from the sea, hoping to return them to her before we left - but that didn’t happen .I’ll be their custodian for now , until I meet the sea once again, preferably along her sleepy towns and lazy beaches!
But I’m hoping that it’ll be at the sleepiest town of them all- one that feeds you senseless and let’s you nap anywhere you please ! 🌅
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A year since the Room on the Roof became our home — with a steadily growing mini library, gratitude for this quiet corner in a mad world, and always room for more love ❤️
Of all the years, this one.
The greatest one year, the sweetest lessons, the hardest nights, the most precious smiles, the sharpest learning curve, the biggest blessing! How can one year hold so much and yet go by so quickly?
Happy one year Kashi, the light of our lives! Thankyou for being mine ✨
#wesurvived#firstyear
Dissolving and becoming, all at once.
Joy and grief, all at once.
Clinging to me and slipping through my fingers, all at once.
Here and now, all at once.
Oh the metamorphosis of #matrescence 🦋
My sketches may remain incomplete, but every attempt to roll over, each new version of her smile and that exciting new milestone? All documented and replayed over and over while being naptrapped.
Letting this surreal, breathlessly emotional, painfully joyous season of life drench me in all its waves 🍃
I thought of the name Kashi before I even imagined myself as a mother.
Kashi— our abode of light and the most special space in the world. I don’t know since when I might have longed for Kashi in this lifetime. I dream of the peace I have been drenched in along the curve of the Ganga… a soft, ancient, unnameable peace.
The name came to me first, and then this precious child, and both Saumi and I didn’t bother to look beyond this beautiful, glistening word.
Kashi, so equally sacred to all the cultures this young one inherits — Marathi, Marwari, and Tamil… and Kashi, of the Kashi Yatra from our wedding, where Saumi proceeded to leave for Kashi until appeased!
Who knew, we’d bring a Kashi home one day, eyes brimming with joy, arms swinging under the bougainvillea, and a familiar peace taking root in my heart.
❤️
May she always find herself in the embrace of trees,
and an eternal spring in her heart,
May she explore the world fearlessly.. eyes bright with wonder,
yet always know her way home to our arms.
May she sing her own song — with a voice that is bold, brave, kind.
May she forever be an abode of light —in our home and the world.
🌞🌸🌼✨🦋
You know what seems more unbelievable and surreal than having birthed an entire baby right now? This incredible baby shower my friends threw me!!!@niyanta05@sheeldamani
I’m so in awe of how beautifully a December evening became a warm blanket I want to snuggle in forever. 🥹🥹🥹
My only brief to Niyanta for the baby shower was, “No balloons, no cakesmash, and Yes to a HANDS-ON CRAFTER-NOON with my happy people.”
Sheel and Nio held secret event-planning meetings days earlier and coordinated on detailed vision-docs and Notion notes. 😁Sheel with her incredibly busy schedule (as a designer extraordinaire, look her up) and Nio with a fast-moving one year old baby and an upcoming Board Games Fest to manage , — together pulled off an evening I don’t think even they can ever top!!! 🧿
(This post sounds like a superlative review, because I don’t know how else to appreciate the insaaaane little details, the thoughtfully curated food menu and top-tier craft activities these two put together. )😭
The blue and white theme — a nod to my fetish for blue & white pottery and textile was Nio’s brainwave. That in itself was ingenious. 💙 But translating that into the hand painting of ceramic tiles activity, all the decor elements (white flowers with blue water🤌), handpainted sugar cookies from @freddies_baking_studio and everyone wearing their happy blues & whites was design-detailing like no other. We spent hours painting, laughing, dipping blue dim sums in soy sauce and just marinating in all the love. 🦋🖌️💙🌀🤍
Beyond elated to call this bunch my little village in raising our baby Kashi. So thankful to have friends-turned-family that show up, spend hours writing cute love notes and excitedly painting alphabets — while dreaming up a color-coordinated future together🧿
After an entire lifetime of believing I couldn’t swim, I took a plunge.
Before any thought occurred, before the paralysis of fear,even before the wave of risk rose…I went in, on a whim. Didn’t sink. Reached the other side. Alive!
After years of sitting on the edges of beautiful pools, or waddling about in shallow waters, after summers of marinading aimlessly or letting pristine springs pass, this week was life-changing.
The blue-green pool my husband learnt swimming in as a child now holds space for me to explore. It’s a special place, where the body becomes an afterthought, time becomes fluid, and I too learn to learn water fearlessly, as he might have.
I’m no master swimmer yet. But floating across a few feet of water has drawn me back from the abyss I’d sunk myself into, for no reason at all!
What else have I been believing I can’t do? 🤔
All the waters I’ve met:
Club pool
on top of an unreal waterfall
stream in a North Carolina botanical garden
rooftop of an Asian city
the coolness of Rajasthan’s summer pools
an infinity pool in the world’s rainiest place
sunset over restful waters
blues of my beloved Konkan
a zen pool in Auroville
and shallow waters in starlight ✨
Longing for this surreal,unexplainable rainshower of peace that’s felt, seen,lived only in one place in the world for me — the ghats of Kashi…where all else apart from Kashi feels like an illusion. Only the water, this moment, the clouds and the city are real.
The song 🎵by Pt Kumar Gandharva and Vasundharaji too is drenched with longing — one that pours from rain pots (or clouds)in the eyes, like the unstoppable monsoon in Braj flouting all rules upon separation from the divine.
Perhaps only a song (which is not even about Kashi!) can hold all the ache in my heart for it!
@saumitrakabra waiting to return!
