Thoughts inspired by Atheena Wilson's booty shaking anti-bachelorette tea party with wine. The journey of womankind from being ripe for the marriage market to become the goddess. All in Frida Kahlo style.
When Atheena Wilson invited me for her wedding, I was amused and thinking about her series of articles 79 IN TIME, where she asked her grandmother: “When will I wear a saree?”
Grandmother answered: “You wear a saree only when you become a woman.” Atheena have sarcastically commented on it: “It sounds like a sentimentally wise thing to say, but let me break it down to you. In other words, it also meant, “When you’re ripe enough for the marriage market.”
Here she is! God gave her imperfect irresistible beauty, which graduates every time you meet her. Plus, as she admitted, she had stolen from her grandmother’s shelf of knick-knacks a spoonful of pickle and some sweet and sour sarcasm to become a writer. Not only “ripe for marriage market”, but also ready to break the strict south Indian social rules and marry the man, she loves. Rolling with her big intense eyes, which could belong to kathakali actress, telling me, we are going to have a fun and her “anti-bachelorette tea party with wine” will be in Frida Kahlo style.
Invitation stated:
I accepted the challenge with the Frida’s words in my mind and slowly painted my own reality. I desperately needed to add some colours in my own life. All happened very fast and within few hours I was standing at URU art harbour in front of Anand Rakesh camera.
And yet, again, I remembered Athena’s words about the beauty, which she wrote about her grandmother:
“Growing up with someone brutally honest, I knew she always wanted to teach us beauty lay in how content we were with ourselves not the one that thrived in compliments. In the end, another person’s opinion of how you look never mattered if you don’t know how you look. So then I, with a naked face, began to look into the camera, unafraid.”
Next day in St. George Church, George and Atheena, invited us to be part of wondrous chapter of their life and have officially let the universe conspire and gift them the indelible story. The Gods of Small Things blessed them and watched how she wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes.
I spoke to no one, but this time I heard the royal words of Her Highness Princess Gouri Parvathi Bayi, which she told me almost one year ago: “But, Zuzana, female and male, they are complimentary. There is no life without the male and the female. We have a tendency to see it as sort of competition. It is not a competition. They have to melt, they have to go together to be of use to the society.”
And she continued: "There are a lot of talks about 'Woman Empowerment'. What exactly is this 'Woman Empowerment'? We are what we are! There is 'Shakti' in us. I do not think we need any extra empowerment. We have to be aware of the 'Shakti' that is within us. We should bring it out and use it in the sensible way."
“We, humans, we are not much evolved. In our scriptures, we say, that the power of God is everywhere. There is a saying: "The God exists in the pillar, in the piece of rust, in the stones, in the thorns and in me and in you." The God is only one and we were given the freedom to worship the power, which is God, in any form you like. So that freedom to choose, that the God has no gender."
Founder & Director of Ayurveda Trails, healing collection of (extra)ordinary people and their stories, whose experiences are transferred into various trails shared by travelers.
Run parallel, meet at intersections, skip a few lines, the line of thought has journeyed across a few latitudes and longitudes. To more miles before the big sleep. Cheers, Atheena
The Travancore Kingdom Royalty are considered the descendants of the Gods and ancient Cheras, Venad, Pandya and Chola dynasties, who brought the philosophy of ayurveda to the world.
He calls himself The Lone-traveller. In section about him is written: Don’t have a clue yet. He silently stalks Kochi Muziris Biennale artists and transform their visions into photographs.
While he is searching for the right frame, he believes, that art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. Perhaps he is lost in Pondicherry or found in Cochin.
A journey in to an ancient world of India, divided in 10 short-films. It was not only a journey to India but more a journey in to another world. For some reason I was literally falling in to an unknown world touched by all that beautiful things going on in this world.
Deities associated with sacred forests transformed and evolved according to different historical eras. It is believed that the main original forest deity was Mezguasche (Forest-lady). Mezguasche was responsible for the forest and fauna.
RISHIKESH: Breath Of Himalayas
Rishikesh, a town in the foothills of the himalayas. It's a pilgrimage place since thousands of years, where the yogi's gather before they continue their journey in to the mountains on their path to the ultimate liberation.
02: Circassian’s Belief System
Since time immemorial, the Circassian native tribes did not follow a script or a holy book, nor erected praying temples, but rather, they have formed an unwritten philosophy based on their collective outlook on life, and worshiped in the arms of nature.
Trees stand as a magnificent reminder of one of God’s infinite masterpieces, they are like the silent observers of time, wordlessly conversing with life as eons go by. Trees can be regarded as the wardens of earth, unconditionally giving life, sustenance and shelter.
Time of year when the city of Kochi transforms into a madhouse! The Cochin Carnival is the biggest gala of Fort Kochi and a great time for merrymaking and feasting along with hundreds and thousands of people before stepping into the New Year.
Burning of Pappanji is a public celebration on the midnight of December 31 to usher in New Year’s festivities and carnival at Fort Kochi. It is a symbol of Kochi’s secular and festive spirit. The tradition started among the local people of Fort Kochi in the 1980s.
Found on the busy colorful streets of walled city of Jaipur, are two men who are proudly preserving three eras of photography with their 1860s Carl Zeiss camera, Surendra Kumar and his brother and Tikam Chand. The camera is a piece of history.
From the interconnected backwaters, the forests of Wayanad, the beaches of Alleppey, the temples of Thrissur, and the streets of Kochi, Kerala is right the place with the right traditions to embody what we’ve come to know as Human by Nature.
Celebrating the Jewish Fall Festivals - Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkoth and Simchat Torah - with Cochin Jews, a small community trying hard to keep alive the most sacred and revelous days of Jewish life in Kochi.
Sisyphus: Time as a Rolling Witness
Parag’s meditative practice of achieving realism on canvas is often mistaken for photographs, his troubling paintings of faces and bare bodies design a carefully linked chain on the compelling ways that material, subject, and sensibility can align on canvas.
01: Ayurveda in Travancore Kingdom
If you expect stories which starts: Once upon a time, there was a princess... stop reading. Her Highness Princess Gouri Parvathi Bayi of the Travancore Royal Family will introduce us very modern and open minded view on today's Kerala society and ayurveda.
NAVARATRI
Festival of Nine Goddesses
Navaratri is a nine night festival that honors the Mother Goddess in all her manifestations. The worship, accompanied by fasting, takes place in the mornings. Evenings are for feasting and dancing. Each day has a different ritual associated with it.
THE TALK Nº3:
SwaSwara A Woman
SwaSwara reminds me a woman, she can be moody, but still you feel her openness and free flow of all-encompassing energy. She is a mother, a sister, a healer, it's all there! I think, this is Swara of Swa, you can hear that echo in the whole way it's built.
ONAM
The Harvest Festival in Kerala
Onam is the most popular festival in Kerala. It can be traced to the primitive harvest festival and also to the myth regarding King Mahabali - the benevolent asura ruler who brought peace and prosperity to his country. It is celebrated in August and September.
Narendranath is the guardian of a dying heritage. At his tiny shop in Fort Cochin, shrunken in the course of time, he reigns as the devoted practitioner of an age-old system of medicine, a rich and valuable legacy left with him by his forefathers.
