Readings from Hinduism

This post goes to Maya, the girl in the pic. My best friend in India.

Readings from Hinduism
The Yoga of Knowledge and Action
Spiritual advancement through friendship

"Those who know the thoughts of a friend, without the friend speaking, are like jewels in the earth. The ability to know the thoughts of friends is a sign of spiritual wisdom; through spiritual discipline people acquire this priceless capacity.

Outwardly such people appear quite ordinary; but inwardly they are extraordinary. Their eyes can look at a friend’s face, and read the mind that lies behind it.

True friends are like good books; they are perpetual delight. The purpose of friendship is the acquisition of spiritual wisdom; friends support one another on the spiritual path. Friends know by intuition each other’s feelings; when they smile to one another their smiles come from their hearts. Ask your friends to correct you when you go wrong; and correct them when they go wrong. Ask your friends to share their sorrows and anxieties with you; and share your sorrows and anxieties with them. When you feel your clothes slipping, you swiftly reach out to hold them up: when friends are in need, go to their aid with equal speed.

Do not make friends rashly, because you can never abandon a friend; if you make friends in haste, you will repent at leisure. Seek friends with the wisdom and the courage to correct you when you go astray."

Valluvar 701-705, 783-788, 791-792, 795

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

One of my favorite movies. I liked the way it handles the taboo topic of divorce in the Indian culture.

It is not that I agree with extramarital affairs, but I like the advice that Sam gives Maya, his daughter in law, when he finds out about the affair she is having with Dev:

"Leave my son. You don’t love him. By staying with him, you are denying him someone else’s love and yourself true love. These unfulfilled relationships don’t make anyone happy.”

I think the actors Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan (father and son) and the actress Kirron Kher are so good.

A pity the story takes place in New York. I enjoy it more when the scenes are of Indian cities or landscapes.

I also wonder... Is there anything sexier that an Indian man dancing? ;)

Here a pic of Abhishek Bachchan, SO cute!

I got the pics from these websites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabhi_Alvida_Naa_Kehna and http://www.santabanta.com/cinema.asp?pid=12081

Lage Raho Munna Bhai

I really enjoyed this movie last Sunday. It was very cute and fun with lots of Indian music and dancing.

This is the review of the movie by IFI:

DIRECTOR RAJKUMAR HIRANI REVISITS THE CHAOTIC WORLD OF MUMBAI HUSTLERS MUNNA AND CIRCUIT IN THIS IMPRESSIVE FOLLOW-UP TO HIS 2003 HIT MUNNABHAI MBBS.

"Sanjay Dutt and Arshad Warsi reprise their roles as the goons with hearts of gold, turning in charming comic performances that are complemented by moments of tenderness and endearing innocence. Now a successful businessman, Munna’s thoughts have turned to love and he’s besotted with radio DJ Jhanvi (Vidya Balan). He contrives a way of meeting Jhanvi, who is led to believe that Munna is a history professor and an expert on Gandhi. Munna begins to read everything he can about the great Indian leader, who appears to him as a ghost, and even develops his own version of Gandhi’s philosophy. Without ever losing its sense of fun, the film makes serious points about Gandhi’s place in contemporary Indian society. Director Hirani has a rare gift for effortlessly combing quite sensitive drama with broad comedy and spectacular song and dance numbers. The results make for a truly magnificent entertainment"

http://www.irishfilm.ie/cinema/dispfilm.asp?filmID=5222&Date=10/14/2006&PageID=13

There is one Bollywood movie in the IFI the first weekend of every month at 12:00h on both Saturday and Sunday. The public is mostly Indians, but there are also a few non Indians like me that like these movies as much :)

This is the link to Bollywood in Ireland:
http://www.bollywoodireland.com/

Passion India by Javier Moro

A few weeks after I came back from India, Alejandra lent me a book that in her opinion was a good story with a cheesy title: Pasión India (Indian passion).

I just read it, and I loved it!.

Pasion India by Javier Moro is about the life of Anita Delgado, a Spanish dancer coming from a humble family that becomes the fifth wife of the maharaja of Kapurthala in India in the early 1900s.

In 1906 Jagatjit Singh, the maharaja of Kapurthala, comes to Madrid to the wedding of the king Alfonso XIII and by chance meets Anita, a Spanish dancer.

He falls in love with her and soon convinces her family of his good intentions. Before taking her to India, he finds a mentor to take care of her education in France. Anita lives in Paris for some time where she learns what she needs to become a maharani: etiquette, French and English, horse riding and tennis (what a good life!)

A year later she travels to India with mix feelings of excitement and fear for her new life and the new world she is about to discover.

Anita lives in an India ruled by the maharajas under the British Empire for over 18 years.

The story very well tells about the eccentricities of the maharajas, their wealth and their wonderful lifestyle, the rural India, the loyalty of the Indians towards the British…

I suppose this story is quite novelized, but still, despite of the difficulties, I was amazed to read how well Anita adapted to such a different culture and lifestyle. It seems she was not only beautiful and charming, but also very intelligent.

Unfortunately the love story ends, (such a pity, I really liked the Indian-Spanish combination…), but I will not spoil the ending…

Soon after I read the book, I searched in Google looking for pics and facts about Kapurthala, and I found that our Penelope Cruz is traveling there next January to start shooting the movie ‘Pasion India’. It seems that the family of Jagatjit Singh and the other maharajas are not happy about the plan of taking this story to the cinema. They say that this is not the true story.

Well, I think Jagatjit Singh is described as a cultivated and generous man, very open minded for his time and much loved by his people. According to the author, thanks to Jagatjit, Kapurthala became an example of a cosmopolitan, multicultural and multireligious state.

I really enjoyed this book; it is not a Gabriel Garcia Marquez kind of writing, but in my opinion the story is very interesting and entertaining.

Here goes the link of a review of this book I found by Tribune India:

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060820/spectrum/book1.htm

Kovalam Beach in Kerala

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From Kovalam, Kerala

Kerala is the paradise on earth. Durand, Jenni, Nick, Brian and me spent three days at the Leela hotel. I think it was low season (it was too hot I guess) and the hotel was quite empty. The place was so beautiful and exotic, decorated with such a nice taste; colorful flowers floating on water, cooper Indian Gods statues, huge windows looking to the ocean and to a never ending forest of palm trees... a tropical paradise. I think Durand very well captured the atmosphere at the hotel. These are all his pics.

I had one Yoga lesson one morning. The teacher was from the Sivananda Yoga Ashram in Kerala. My yoga teachers in Spain were also Sivananda teachers, and I thought it was a nice coincidence. I had to be ready at six in the morning for the class, because it was way too hot to do exercise outdoors after seven in the morning.

We spent most of our time in the beach. I found the the Arabian Sea very different to the Mediterranean. It was dark green and warm, and you could not see the bottom. A big group of Indians came to the beach a little before sunset, all the girls dressed in colorful salwars, and they got inside the water with all the clothes on and played with the waves until it got dark.

The last morning I had an oil body massage, typical from Kerala. It felt soo nice!

The food was amazing, and the people were so friendly.

I loved Kerala. I dream of the day I go back.

Goa, India

Goa

The trip to Goa was a lot of fun.

Jenny, Nick and Brian left to Mumbai one day earlier where they met one friend of Brian, a nice guy but I do not remember his name. I had to fly through Mumbai, so we met on the plane on our way to Goa. A van from the hotel came to pick us up, and that is when I first listened to the no. 1 hit in India, the song Jhalak Dikhlaja. Jenny and I loved it, and the music stayed in our heads for the following months. We liked the cd so much that every time we got on the van we asked the driver to play it again. We were all amazed with the scenery we were seeing through the window on our way to the hotel.

As soon as we arrived, we left our stuff and found our way to the beach. I think the hotel was located in the north of Goa, in not a very large beach, nice and empty. Before the sand, there was a big shaded green area overlooking the beach full of hammocks and straw umbrellas, so nice!

The water was very hot (too much) so I did not feel like swimming. We all got inside the water and talked for hours. It was much like being in a huge Jacuzzi.

Then Jenni and I we went for a walk and found conches and shells that I still keep as a souvenir.

Neel and Patrick arrived in the evening, and we stayed in the beach until it got dark.

At night we went for dinner to a fun place on a huge beach, much like a chiringuito in Spain, but on the sand of the beach. I guess the food and the drinks were not good, but I did not care at all. I was in heaven, feeling the hot air of the night on this big crowded Indian beach under the stars.

We went to another place for more cocktails and food, and then dancing to an also very crowded pub outdoors.

The following day, after a swim in the pool, Patrick, Neel and I went to the Old Goa, very Portuguese. We visited the Basilica do Bom Jesus. Inside the chapel we saw the silver casket with the remains of the Saint Francis Xavier.

We then went to a museum, the former convent of Saint Francis, where we found beautiful wooden statues of saints and pictures about the life of Saint Francis Xavier. I was very surprised to see how these statues could be so well preserved with that heat.

Afterwards, we visited the ruins of St. Augustine’s Tower. There were a few Indians working in the ruins. I was tempted to take a picture of a beautiful Indian girl that was carrying water. She realized and posed waiting for me to take it, but I felt embarrassed so I didn’t.

We then went to the Aguada Fort, but it was closed, so we walked around it to enjoy the views and then we headed back to the hotel to meet the rest of the group that had spent the day sleeping on the beach. On our way back we bought some ice creams from a street vendor. Patrick and I were not very convinced, but Neel told us it was fine, so we followed.

That night we went for dinner to a very nice restaurant with great food. I had a dish of fish curry and rice. It was sooooooooo good, I still remember :)

Then we went dancing again, this time to a pub indoors.

The following morning we had a quick swim in the pool and left back to Hyderabad.