a Wistful Desire

I still have not got over completely the fact that i am miles away from the southern most tip of India,away from the monsoons.A wistful desire to return back in thoughts..

Thoughts always binds me to the land where i belong to.Steamed up memories or tied up memories.
I remember reading this that "Memories and emotions are all tied up. The more strongly you feel about a situation influences how you remember it" .Keep the wonderful memories and keep moving on..

The richness of life lies in the memories that we have forgotten..Cesare Pavese

All images LAkshmi Arvind.subject to copyright

Frozen frames

How much I love my village, don't you all know? How much I want to get settled down in a village..people close to me know that too..away from the hustle and bustle of the fast city life..having seen many cities in my life, lived in many cities, I always want to come down to a village, where time stands still, you then see the time rolling, the sun setting, the evening lamps lit in the courtyards, the Ramayan being read aloud on the verandah.. and the beauty that surrounds me that reminds me of the phone call from my Amma telling me that its the month of Ramayana and they are going to read it in a day at the sacred grove starting from the sunrise of a day to the sunrise of the other day. How incredible the rituals are still followed with sanctity. I love them for what they are .

Influenced highly by the villages where our grandparents belong...there isnt a day that I don't remember them and our villages...how much I love them...how much.

Frames of  my village, memories down the lane frozen in time..Some time spent during the summers where the life is best! The green colocasias rolled their head when photographed, the violet guavas, the fallen and dried leaves on the village paths..ferns overgrown and so much more ..

Its the same every year, nothing much changes here..

images and ideas Lakshmi Arvind
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Summer vacations unfolded..

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson


As we were in the sleepy little town on the banks of a beautiful river, it rained all night yesterday.the mornings had the fragrance of yesterdays rain,the lotus leaves and its drops, it was as though it held the many drops for me,  the pink fruits that fell ,the book that sat beneath many a tea cup,the drops that cling to the grills and the beauty that surrounded us.


Some real time at my grandmas place,where she grew up..


Our own divine sacred grove (Sarpa Kavu),the blue ,white and violets that spread the space,the calmness that persisted in the spaces,the stories that surrounded the groves and the stories that i heard  , the aura that surrounded the place..prayers to be answered for sure...

All images Lakshmi Arvind

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My Village in Monsoons...

Palms swaying in the monsoon winds and the unhurried pace of life at this village is what attracts me to this village,my dads ancestral home and his village..

Its coconut and mango orchards lend loads of beauty. You can either enjoy a game of football on the white sand in front of the extensive courtyard of the house or soak up the rains lazing on the verandah.The beautiful wildflowers and wildly grown home flowers for puja are a sight here.Bees and butterflies happily walk down the lane hand in hand.The green and pink dotted colocasias line the small village roads.The grazing cows are a normal sight here.The mango trees sway in the wild wind and the juicy ones fall down,where we rush to pick them and eat them with salt and chilli powder.Abundant monsoon grass is cut from the fields,growing wildly.Here you can still see the paddy fields and ponds everywhere with lovely lotus blooming...the lonely paths,the mangalore tiled houses and the flowers endemic to these places are the commonest finds here.

Located near the famous Vembanad backwaters,its beauty on its own with the monsoons soaking it up.

This time when we visited ,it was incessantly raining and we just enjoyed the rains.It is always a joy whenever we go there,coz we just soak up the beauty and breathe fresh air.The amazing lip smacking food cooked by grandma and aunties are a joy here.They have the traditional style of cooking food,with logs of wood and a separate kitchen for that apart from the normal one are all that we are in love with .....The banana leaf spread and the perfect lunches are all a part of the secret love that we all share in common.We always wait for the next time,the next time and the next time and the ............

A view from the living room,its all greenery outside,just after the rains...
The well in rains fills up to the brim and we all can dip a mug and take water and have a bath standing here....so much fun when we were smallThe winding paths ,village roads ,the beauty of the lush greenery on both sidesHuge colocasia leaves,love the pink and the green spotsLove the wet feel and the dry leavesFeet fetish and colocasiaButtercups and buttercups everywhere
Wow,the drops,felt like licking them
My love for ixora starts here,we have a huge variety of ixora at home

The white star ixora and a drop of water
White ixoras are specially used for puja in devi temples
Red ixora buds

Wet red Ixora

Fallen and wet
The long village roads
Coffee plant flowers,we make our own coffee powder at home,the purest one,i can smell it here
Small berries and drops of water
Thumpa flowers ,wild ones,used for onam flower carpet
White wild flower
The night flowering flower
Hibiscus in its beauty in rains
All pictures are courtesy:Lakshmi Arvind

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