The Rebelle blog

Are words necessary here to express what I feel? The sounds and the beautiful imagery, Neruda's poetry have me enthralled! This movie is to be felt. not just seen. They don't make movies like these anymore, do they?

When I first saw this book, it was shelved under "Influential Books" in my town's local library. Curious after reading the name "Saeed Mirza", for I knew him to be the man who made "Albert Pinto ko Gussa Kyun aata hai" or "Why does Albert Pinto get angry?", I got it issued and finished reading it in a day over moist eyes, chuckles and occasional bouts of laughter. This book is a wonderful insight into Mirza's childhood and his mother's influence on him. Many times while reading through his narration of events that shook the peace and tranquility of common people throughout the world, I realized the sensitive mind of the child Ammi raised in Multicultural Mumbai(Then: Bombay). Its a struggle in today's times to inculcate values that promote multicultural ethos and secular upbringing in children which Ammi so wonderfully gifted it in her children. The incident where Ammi gets distressed with the Hindu neighbors returni...

It's that time of year, Leave all (y)our hopelessnesses aside (if just for a little while) Tears stop right here, I know we've all had a bumpy ride(I'm secretly on your side) These are my favorite lyrics! In times of sorrow, or festivities and especially on a really rough day, I just hum to myself a few lines and wait for the magic to clear my thoughts! So this year has come to an end, only two more days to wait for 2014--- I have a feeling its gone by quickly. I still remember what I did last year i.e, in 2012 and I wonder if my life is moving at a supersonic speed?! Usually, I never question myself as to how the year went by but this year I feel like and want to ask myself everything that passed by me! I am glad for some nice people who have entered my life and spread cheer and happiness within me. Some events were memorable, and some were worth forgetting. Some people I am immensely thankful to and some I am willing to forgive with all my heart! This is how on...

Sometimes the notes are ferocious, skirmishes against the author raging along the borders of every page in tiny black script. If I could just get my hands on you, Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien, they seem to say, I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head. Other comments are more offhand, dismissive - "Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" - that kind of thing. I remember once looking up from my reading, my thumb as a bookmark, trying to imagine what the person must look like why wrote "Don't be a ninny" alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson. Students are more modest needing to leave only their splayed footprints along the shore of the page. One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's. Another notes the presence of "Irony" fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal. Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers, Hands cupped around their mouths. "A...

by M argaret Widdemer     The Poor Old Soul plods down the street,  Contented, and forgetting  How Youth was wild, and Spring was wild  And how her life is setting;    And you lean out to watch her there,  And pity, nor remember,  That Youth is hard, and Life is hard,  And quiet is December.  About this poem: Margaret Widdemer often wrote in traditional poetic forms, and many of her poems explore the social issues of early twentieth century. She first received widespread attention with the publication of her poem "The Factories," which tackled the subject of child labor. (Source: Academy of American Poets via Poets.org) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At times, I feel glad to be able to read essential poetry and collect it too. While reading this poem I was reminded of "When you are old" by William Butler Yeats. Is sorrow too private to b...

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting over and over announcing your place in the family of things. Does this happen with everyone?  If there is a soul, it is a mistake to think that it is given to us fully made. It makes itself here, throughout our life. And life is nothing but the long and agonizing labor of giving birth. When the s...

A friend called me late last night to share what she had done on impulse- sent an email to The Backpacker & Co., for a collaboration on a Travel+Architecture venture. Her call lasted for 30 minutes and each minute filled with genuine hope that she gets to be a part of the Backpacker team. Her post-college architecture life, she said, was disappointing and it made her not the person she has been or wanted to be. She was talking about how she has suffered for such a long time and now wanted this to be a new start to her life. I listened to her, calming her and assuring with words that if this is what she wants to do, it is what will come to her! Even while talking to her and now, almost 12 hours later, I realize how much encouraging words mean for a person in times of distress. Today morning, while going through some articles on a website, I came across this: http://justsomething.co/the-32-most-powerful-images-ever-taken/ Each picture here, reminds me that Human life is fickl...