soliloquies in the outdoors
Sanchi, a serene UNESCO World Heritage Site situated away from urban surrounds, houses centuries-old relics and remarkable stone carvings. Despite modern visitors and changing times, it remains a symbol of endurance and quiet resilience.
‘Twas perchance that I stumbled into Coptic Cairo, after a dusty morning gazing at the pyramids and the early noon spent at the Egyptian museum, we’d planned to visit some market after lunch but the restaurant was close to towering church spires that spurred a change of plan and spooled us into their fold… Somehow, …
Pyramids – they’re full of stone, geometry, and crowds… entrenched in the memory since childhood, as one crammed up the seven wonders of the world, they fade into, as much as they stand out in the desert… architecture at a scale that the modern world keeps trying to fathom, excavating for remnants and clues that …
For a country holding one of the world’s oldest civilizations, and mummies, within its bosom, ‘twas a rather cruel irony to be holed up in a swanky resort town… freshly paved sidewalks, functional fountains and free shuttles… busy doling out rhetoric in another quintessentially exasperating environmental conference proclaiming to be humanity’s (and the planet’s) last …
Musings on Shiva in Himalayan contexts…
ruins of forts, beneath their decaying exteriors, are wizened storytellers… at peace with the encroaching shrubbery, defecating humans and tenant bats, as their stories retire into the annals of history, they subtly assume role of observers in stasis… between warrior kings and wasted princes, the sombre chambers let go of the bricks and mortar… the …
If one were to look at the innate motivations that pique one’s curiosity about temple ruins – somewhere in the middle of the animal instinct of seeking shelter from the elements and the intellectual cycle of constructing theories from the deconstructed – it’d be the simple appeal of geometry, large cuboid appearances staring from plinths …
A temple is a kernel around which settlements, permanent or temporary, are spun… across history and religions, they have laid the ground rules for civilizations, defined the contours of culture and cradled the arts… one might say it comes at a price though… an opacity of belief and conviction beyond which societies offer little incentive …