Gifts of the season.

The blustery wind is uprooting age-old trees. It’s making such a racket, I can’t hear anything else. The gust is roaring and the rain is pouring at sharp angles. Everything is soaked. The air is so heavy with moisture that every bit of fabric in the house is saturated with it. Invisible dampness pervades the kitchen towels, curtains and tablecloths. That laundry has been trying to dry itself on a stand, standing in the middle of our living room for the last four days and nights but it’s nowhere near dry yet. The pages of my books are swelling up as they become more and more damp. The incessant rhythm of banana and palm leaves fanning outside the window and the dance of the silver oaks permeate the milkiness of the cloud inside which we live. The clanging tempo of huge rain drops hitting clay roof-tiles makes it feel like a proper rock concert.

The water has pushed its way into the house. The wind has driven it in through the frame of the west-facing window of our bedroom. A thin line is streaming down the wall, starting at the lower end of the wooden slat that supports the south-facing roof. Most days we wake up to the surprise of little puddles on the floor.

This is normal. Our little rented cottage is unable to keep the monsoon out. Most other houses are the same. It’s to be expected. It’s familiar now. It makes me smile. So far, we’ve spent two months of two monsoons here. Despite the above gifts of this season, a deeper silence and stillness remain present within me. They’re also becoming very familiar.

Next week we fly to Heathrow. Wow! People everywhere. Again. Wonder what that’ll be like. I hope to carry a little box of silence and stillness with me so I can open it and smell these pleasant fragrances at will.

For now, I need to find a way to dry the laundry. I could iron these clothes, but the power supply is unavailable. The sun will be on holiday for at least three more months. I think the only way to dry them is for me to wear them and let them dry on me before packing them up.

Life is about more than antiseptic wipes.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

If there ever was a reminder of my own disappearance, it is here. Right here, looking straight into my eyes. This line ends with me. No progeny. No genetic propagation. No continuation. No traces.

Lines on the surface of water.

This is a kind of liberation from the complexities of life, the noise and the karmic debts, whatever they might be. Nothing to give. Nothing to take. Simply another life, here and then, gone. After Saagar, the inevitability of my own demise is the most obvious fact. It doesn’t evoke fear or dread. Inescapable. It puts a smile on my face. Ah! To be human. What a ride!

In the grand scheme of things, we are momentary bubbles riding on a wave, arising out of the ocean, assuming a separateness from its waters.

Grand and then gone. Like Saagar.

I see folks with long bucket-lists spending their days and nights doing soulless jobs, brothers defrauding each other for a possible gain, couples frantically buying houses in every city while the ulcers in their stomachs bleed and proliferate.

Sitting at the table next to me in a posh Bangalore café, a mother is fretting over the fact that her child doesn’t yet know the names of all the months in the right order and he’s already two years old. While I sip my coffee, I watch this young mum obsessively chase her son around the place with an antiseptic wipe, cleaning his hands, everything he has touched and is about to touch, repeating, January … February … March …

Comings and goings.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

As usual, I sit here at my table by the window of my study, admiring the autumnal trees standing in the park across the road, looking for inspiration to write. They have been my encouraging companions for years. The difference is that today might be the last time I write sitting here.

Early autumn has cycled back again. The fullness of the moon has synchronized with the one eleven years ago. The comings and goings of the seasons, of the world carry on as usual. Moving away from this home to live elsewhere was unthinkable at one time. But now, the heart has settled. It knows things it did not before. It carries a treasure of love and memories. Saagar lives in this heart now. He cannot be left behind. He is with me everywhere.

This, our home is ‘under offer’ now. A young couple wants to buy it for the same reasons we did twenty years ago. A quiet street. A diverse neighborhood. A garden. Parks and good schools nearby. Last few days of packing up have been intense. Things that have surfaced from deep recesses – a handheld Nintendo Gameboy carefully wrapped in its purple case, a proper Canon camera, one black sock with TUESDAY on it in yellow bunched together with another with SATURDAY printed on it in green.

I know not to trust my memory. It often fails me. It misremembers things, puts them in the wrong order. Omits some entirely. It plays tricks, causes confusion. Forgets what I want to hold on to and remembers what I’d rather forget. Luckily, the job of the heart does not include remembering but feeling – how it feels to sit here looking out the window and then at a blank page, to fold a much-loved photo in silk and cover it in more soft clothing, to look at an empty room and see it filled with light, to know it’s okay. I can trust this thing in the center of my chest. It’s all okay.

Love endures.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

As you walk through the intense fire that follows the death of your child, your heart burns for those walking behind you. You turn around and look at their tear-drenched faces – parents whose child just died . Despite the unbearable heat of your own loss, you can’t help but reach out to them. Their predicament as unbearable to you as your own. In trying to ease their pain, you believe you diminish your own.

This poem is offered by one of the CORe members for those carrying the heavy load of love and loss. It deeply respects the brokenness while also tracing the quiet light that remains, reminding us that even in grief’s shadow, love whispers through.

I feel your grieving, heart laid bare,
pieces scattered, our lot unfair.
Yet each fragment, though fragile, shines,
resilience stitched by love’s designs.

Your angel child, though gone from sight,
does dwell in memory, a quiet light.
In laughter caught, in whispers faint,
in all the love your heart can paint.

Each tear a bridge, each sigh a thread,
connecting worlds where you are led.
The joins of grief, so tender, true,
are etched with courage in all you do.

Though nights are long and shadows deep,
their presence lingers—it does not sleep.
In dreams, in stars, in softest air,
your dearest whispers: “I am there.”

Your love endures beyond the pain,
a sacred flame that shall remain.
Though broken, your heart bears a light,
turning grief’s darkness into sight.

So let each memory softly bloom,
a garden bright within the gloom.
Even in sorrow, love will find
its way to warm the grieving mind.

Now fragments found, arranged anew,

Love, hope, and courage form the glue.

Your heart, though changed, beats strong and true,

A living flame that carries you.

Whispered Reflection:

Each fracture, each delicate seam, carries a quiet, hidden light. Through love, courage, and the passing of time, these pieces are held together, forming a heart that is not the same as before—but more radiant for all it has endured. The very places of repair shine with their own gentle beauty, a reminder that even in loss, love endures and is able to recreate beauty.

Othering our Ownkind.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

“More than two thousand people read my post and saw my video today “ Yuval said.

‘They will see it and be moved by it. What then? What will they do?’ asked Basel.

That is the big question. What can we do? What will we do? Two young journalists from either camp came together to document the encroachment and destruction of a village called Masafer Yatta on the West Bank. They raise this question loud and clear for each of us. What can I do? The injustice of all this pushing and kicking, hurting and forcing fills me to the brim with a sense of sadness and powerlessness. My arms and legs go limp. So, thus far I’ve been running away from it. I must be a coward. What can I do? So many influential and powerful people have been quiet, watching the numbers and images get worse every day for decades.

Today, I watched No Other Land on the big screen. Live footage shot on a mobile phone over 4 years, 2019 to 2023. Running away is not possible anymore.

Harun’s mother prayed for his death. This young man was shot by a soldier while he was trying to stop his home from being demolished by the army. The bullet left him paralysed from his neck down. He was nursed in a cave as they had no house. No facilities. No transport. No freedoms. Everything around them was being bull-dozed – chicken coups, elementary schools, homes and villages. No one knew what new destruction each new day would bring. Toddlers were learning to speak, and older kids were trying to play and go to school in the middle of this madness. The respectable Mr Tony Blair graced the village with his pointless guest appearance for seven minutes.

Our world is bipolar, selectively blind. It’s okay for the politics of some nations to be tied to a faith but not for others, it’s okay for some nations to dishonour every treaty that they ever signed but not for others, it’s okay to condemn the exact same atrocities when committed by one nation and not another, it’s okay for third parties to fund and support the killing of women and children in plain sight. This is our world.

We humans have the arrogance to believe we are the smartest of all species, yet dogs don’t kill other dogs in millions every year. No other species has constructed the level of othering that humans have. We can’t see what we are doing to ourselves. We can’t see that there is no other. It’s only us in different garbs. Those of us who can see, must see. Those who can write, must write. Those who can sing, must sing. Let not our dark side win.

Arrogance, blindness and cowardice – a recipe for self-extinction.

By Abdul Raheem (https://www.instagram.com/mud._.lotus)