Rug underlay with anti-slip – You have doormats and rugs at your home and due to the glossy finish of the floor, they slip every now and then, right? This product is the solution. Put it underneath the rugs/mats and they won’t slip again.
That’s it.
My most popular Instagram post recently —
#Tbt my solo Benares Trip! It was a helluva ride! . …Click the photo below to read the entire story.
Peter Thiel’s Religion – This long-form piece from David Perell is deep and thought-provoking. He has written this long-form essay introduction to Peter Thiel’s ideas. It’s a different take on Peter as David writes about his Christian World View instead of the usual topic – Business for which Peter is famous.
Even though it’s the study of religion from Peter’s viewpoint, but it tells much more about life in the essence of it.
Kudos to David. Thanks for writing this piece.
A playlist I loved –
Reading Playlist – Found this reading playlist right before the night reading some days ago. It was pretty clutch stumbling upon it as it could quickly put me into the zone of reading.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPaByTt1Yws
Quote I’m pondering on lately –
Do not “Tell” the world what you can do – “Show” it!
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I was going through my photo archives recently and it inspired me to share my old Benares posts. So here are my Benares Posts which are like a visual diary of my solo to Benares (Varanasi) in 2016. Even though it was almost a 5 days trip and 2 days are missing from these posts (even though I intend to recall those memories and write down about those 2 days), but still, it has most of the essence of what I went through on this journey.
Here is one of the first-day photos from that trip, when I immediately got exposed to an overwhelming ‘Antim Sanskar’ (last rituals) going on the Benares Ghats that evening, there is more of it in the above posts if you want to get the flavour of Benares.
Photo – Himanshu Sachdeva
My most popular Instagram post recently —
Photo no. 7
. Albert Hall
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Click the photo below to read the entire story.
Jasoda – Honestly, I had no idea about this book and the author Kiran Nagarkar, until last Saturday, when I was in Kala Ghoda Art Festival’s (2018) Literature Event, which is usually held in David Sasson Library gardens every year.
I had put this event on my festival day calendar (yes, you have to make a calendar schedule for this festival, because there is a lot which goes on in this festival and frankly you have to choose your time wisely) which was the book reading by Author for his new book ‘Jasoda’. I hadn’t heard either about this book or about the author earlier. But turned out that this was one of the mesmerizing events of the day. The author turned out to be pretty good with humour and sarcasm. He read a few excerpts from his upcoming book including the starting scene, which is too terrifying to describe. But it goes something like this (P.S.: it’s my words with the understanding from the conversation and not the actual excerpt from the book) –
Jasoda (the protagonist) is lying under a tree. Her kid is alongside her. Her water had just broke and she is delivering her baby just by herself. She pushes through with so much pain and soon the head of the baby is out. Then she pushes again and baby’s torso and the down body area comes out but legs are still stuck inside the vagina. As soon as she knows that it’s a girl. She didn’t let her out completely and gets the baby’s head in her thighs and chokes her to death.
Well, if that’s less horrendous then you must read the book. Kiran told us in the conversation that this event is from real life and actually happened some decades ago. It was so casual to kill a baby girl in that era that after killing the baby, Jasoda just went on with her usual routine like nothing happened. Phew!! (Taking a deep breath…)
What am I watching —
How to Wake Up at 4am Everyday: 4 Practical, Non-Hacky Ways – If you are fighting the need to wake up early, this video has some practical tips to help wake up pretty early in the morning without getting too cranky. (and yes I mean like “4 or 5 AM in the morning” early.)
By waking up early you get 2 potential advantages –
You get 3-4 hours of ME time or the time you can just devote to yourself and your personal activities without actually having much of distractions, cause most of the world is still sleeping at that time.
Secondly out of this ME time you can actually devote some time to working out and that sets a great tone for the rest of the day.
Quote I’m pondering on lately – Today’s quote is taken from one of the Kiran Nagarkar books ‘Cuckold’.
“There is no truer meditation than music and no journey of discovery greater than that of looking within.”
Join my reader’s list – It helps us a lot when you become a subscriber, it smoothens you experience on Lifestyle Architecture Lab. Being on email list provides you additional benefits like some exclusive content, webinar’s, free goodies and all of it will be FREE. Please click the link above to join now or put your email address in the below box and hit subscribe.
This post is the progression of my earlier travelogue posts (Day 1, Day 1 Continued, Day 2 and Day 2 Continued) on Benares trip earlier this year, Hope you enjoy it.
Benares – Day 3
In the day 2 post where i mentioned i met a few photographers and travelers while i was having my late lunch at the Cafe Zoe near Assi Ghat. We discussed a lot on traveling, photography and life in general, among other things. Life in their countries and life here in india. It was then that i started loving my travels more, cause they made me meet people from across the world who thought like i did.
We met in the evening again on the same day. While bidding goodbyes for the night they invited me to their place for breakfast the next morning. I was so psyched to meet them again. The best part! we didn’t exchange our numbers, they just gave me their address and told me to be their in the morning.
The next morning, i was up at 7 o’clock. Got my shower and ready to go in the next half hour. Then, I started for their hotel where few of them had been living from the past few days.
It was a Welcome Heritage hotel on the far north side of the Main ghat. As i walked towards this hotel, i had to go through two really scary and shocking spots, which i didn’t know were there on my way. First was the living area of the Aghori Babas.
Oh boy! That place scared the living shit out of me. But as i digested all that was going around while crossing that spot, i made peace with it. These Aghori monks are said to be an mysterious ancient tribe who feast on human flesh as part of their rituals, as well as drinking from human skulls, chewing the heads off live animals and meditating on top of cadavers in search of spiritual enlightenment.
Here a picture of an Aghori Baba taken by an Italian photographer Cristiano Ostinelli who spent time with the tribe to discover more about their way of life. Here’s the complete article.
Aghori Baba | Photo credits – Italian photographer Cristiano Ostinelli
I wasn’t even back to my wits yet, then came the scariest moment of my Benares Trip. It was a heavy feeling of weird kind of energy when i passed by the “Manikarnika Ghat”*. I’m getting goosebumps even right now, as i’m writing this. I couldn’t even take my camera out, when i was crossing this place.
This post is the progression of my earlier travelogue posts (Day 1, Day 1 Continued and Day 2) on Benares trip, Hope you enjoy it.
Benares – Day 2 Continued…
Once i crossed the Flower boat, i started heading towards north again. Then as i was just crossing an area where a pundit was doing a ceremony, just after a family arrived back to the Ghats from a boat which had gone to immerse ashes of their deceased beloved in holy Ganges. It looked like a rural south Indian family, I tried to capture a few portraits of them.
I was expecting intense emotion of grief, but most of them were having happy faces except for the wife of the deceased. I tried to talk to them and found out the deceased was in pain and suffering due to a long hold malady. So the whole family was having a relief that at least now their beloved will not have to suffer through that pain which he was experiencing from a long time. Here are a few portraits:
I call these photographs collectively – “The Faces”.
This post is the progression of my earlier travelogue posts (Day 1 and Day 1 Continued) on Benares trip, Hope you enjoy it.
Benares – Day 2
“Subah-e-Banaras” is the local term (originated from Urdu) used for Benares Sunrise! Which is one of the many exciting charms of Benares. I didn’t know what to expect. But regardless, i had set my alarm at 4:30AM to wake up early in the morning, to get up, shower and make it in time till the Ghats.
The eve before i had asked a boatman if he could take me to the Ganges banks on the other side of the Ghats. He agreed and was to be found at 5AM on the main ghat as promised. When i reached there, neither i could find him nor his boat. The first disappointed of the evening.
Then i started walking north from the Main Ghat into the early twilight of the morning while sun was still below the Horizon. Here is the picture of the particular moment.
