Just get away, and time indeed is felt as flying. The year started with huge expectations, I was glad 2025 was over. It was hard for so hang of us, and like so many others, I had convinced myself of new beginnings and being consistent with my blog.
February came and went, and Spring has finally sprung, the birds are singing, and little mulberries, like time caterpillars populate my mulberry tree, vying with the ,eaves that are as young as the mulberries. Two weeks to go, and I wonder if the mulberries will ripen before I leave again. I’ve been missing the peak of their season, and this year, it may be that I miss the first flush of the fruit. More for the birds and the squirrels I suppose, and the time fruit flies that descent in throngs when the fruit ripens and ferments on the ground, a squishy, sprawling carpet of purple.
Early on in the year, I signed up for a Postcard Exchange with a group I discovered via Emily Jarrett Hughes, who has some lovely videos, especially one about water. Every day in the month of February, we were to exchange postcards with folks on a list provided to us. I received the most wonderful postcards, all handmade, as suggested. I’m enjoying reading them and admiring them again and again. They bring me so much joy. I love writing letters, ‘real’ letter writing, not emails. I’m quite shocked that days go by without me checking my emails. However, I betrayed myself and did not keep my end of the bargain, despite purchasing more than the required number stamps in mid January. I intend to make up for that.
What one plans to write, in this instance is very different from what one was going to. Today, I revisited and read my blog and it brought back memories. Revisiting a YouTube link with lots of different singers singing “Abhi na jao chod kar..” brought back the delight that music affords me, and how much I’ve neglected my one need that feeds my soul. I realized that I’ve been so immersed in my scrambled energies, that I’ve been neglecting that very important aspect. The designs we try to live by, and what we need are two very different things. Why the heck do I forget that?!
Some memories also do not leave us, and that leads us into a quagmire of despondent thinking. Not too much this year though, in my defense. On the plus side, I finished two books by Rosalind Pilcher in quick succession. After a long time, I savored the written word with an urgency, as if I was in the world of the characters, and needed to see the outcomes and issues of their lives resolved.
There was so much to catch up on, with my return delayed far beyond than expected, over five weeks. Virgin are getting richer with my cancellation fees, and on a handful of occasions the change fees. Not cheap. Any way, no complains.
Lots of magic happened too. Let me begin with the flight home this January. I was unexpectedly the recipient of extreme kindness from a very lovely flight attendant called Paula, and her friend Jules. Since I had ordered a vegetarian meal, I wasn’t sure if I would get their delicious scone with clotted crème and sandwiches for high tea, or some other vegetarian special meal offering. So I had requested that, and also the very lovely tea (Twinings) that Virgin serves. I think it’s also that they make it just right, with a perfect brewing time. And me and black tea, we have a close and intimate relationship. So Paula the beautiful (that’s how I have saved her phone number) actually brought me a selection of teas! There was more, and that I’m going to keep private. I wished I was carrying my books so I could send them for her children. Anyway, that was rectified. We talked and just as we started our descent, I rushed to the galley on an impulse and gave her my number, asking her to call me when she has time during their layover in Orlando. I honestly and truly did not think she would. They meet a thousand people a week, and I may have read too much in her kind gestures. However she did get in touch, almost immediately on her return home, and I still remember my happiness on connecting with her. Not the first time I’ve connected with strangers, but Paula is special, very special. She’s so authentic, and so lovely, I feel I’ve known her in a past life- lives?
The second magic happened on Shivratri day. That was really something else- truly a play of the divine. In fact, I had thought I should write a blogpost about how it unfolded, it could only be that God himself invited me- us, K and me, to the temple that day. We were planning to just go for a short time, do Darshan and return home. V was traveling for work, and reminded me to please go for Shivratri. I think K is also opening up and enjoys the temple. We no longer feel like a deer in the headlights, but I’m still not that comfortable with knowing how little I know of what to do. Mummy was a staunch Shiv Bhagat, and she was influenced by her grandfather, but that’s a story for another day.
We parked at the main temple, and first walked over to the Chinmaya building for Darshan. There was chanting going on, so we sat briefly, got the Prasadam on our way out, and then made our way back to go into the main Hindu temple. Almost immediately on entering the premises I saw vine eat and her husband, and we said hello. I have no idea how, but K and them got chatting, and they invited us to do a Parikrama of the temple. She knows so much an] out Hinduism, so much more than I do. Rather, I do not know anything really! Anyway, we went along with them, and I liked doing it. K is quite open to it as well now.
Once inside, we all went our own way, and I did a round of all the deities. Upon my Darshan and obeisances being done I came around looking for K. She was still with Vinita and Stein, so I went over to them, thinking K will be ready to go home. However, they seemed to be in the long queue of people getting in line for Darshan and to make the offering to the Shivalinga. They were still talking so I joined them, and thinking we will leave once they’re done. Then Vinita remembered that they are one of the sponsors. Having seen a separate entrance for the sponsors, I pointed that out to her, and that there was no queue there. She and Stein both invited us to join them, and of course we said we could not. She was quite insistent, she’s such a pure soul, saying that we are just like their family, and it was almost embarrassing to argue, because she sincerely meant for us to come with them. I have no idea, how I was bold enough to do so, despite K’s and mine initial protestations. It was a divine calling- except the divine came in the garb of Vinita and Stein. So there we were, at the Shivalinga, while a couple of hundred folks stood in line. I met Lakshmi, and before we knew it, Stein was offering the milk and we were all in line behind him. Then, just as I was following Vinita out, the young man offered me the cup of milk for the Shivalinga. I looked at Hime incredulously and in askance, saying, “can I offer this too?’ “Yes’” he nodded his head. Still in disbelief, and almost as if I was swept away into the motions, I made my offering, with K by my side! How did this happen? Mummy must be smiling in heaven. If she had orchestrated this to awaken my long lost piety, she succeeded. From the very next day, I started the puja at home, at our altar. Guided by a divine hand. Still indebted to Vinita and owing the temple the sponsorship monies, I decided to make it a regular offering, whenever I’m in town.
Had a lovely dinner at Susan’s house with her and Harold. Then K took us for a short walk. Looked at planes and then saw the stars. Which reminds me chow I was thinking of the stars just a day ago. Saw my Earth Sky newsletter come in and read the headlines. Came to the realization, that here we are, living among this great universal home of all mankind, with the stars shining above us, the moonlight, the sun giving life to or days, the rivers and oceans and forests and birds and trees and flowers provided us on this beautiful Earth, our home. And how we forget that, for get the wonders and the magic, and instead focus on our emotions, and allow the negatives to get us down. What a waste of a life when every single moment, we are a part of that magic, or the stars that twinkle and smile fine at us, of all that is beautiful in the world, of what not human band can create- nature’s endless, limitless offering. That’s who we are, the stars are our family, we are related. Wow! What a realization. There’s so much to live up to. No more looking crack or looking down. The stars are shining for me and for every loving creature that walks this earth.
On that note, with the stars up in the heavens and a clear balmy night, goodnight to me, and sweet slumber. The heavens are watching out for me, and I’m grateful for a warm bed to call my own.
Veenu Banga
June 7th 2026
2:14 am.
https://youtu.be/I3JcIszYn8w?si=4P1X5gJ8tnXRBaAX
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