Arbit Scratchpad

The Deadly Embrace – A Buddhist Thanka or nightmare of a Wild Goddess ?  A dark deity, much bigger than me – the goddess with black radiance - embraces me with her arms, her lips red and her enormous tongue jutting out ready to eat me up. My naked body she holds in a deadly embrace and it is akin to a timeless, tight embrace - a volcano of energy I feel is being transmitted on to me. Dark matter or the goddess with glowing eyes, a bluish black tinge of colour on her glistening dark bare skin, primal energy Shakti - personification of the force. I am as if riveted to her, my head falling back, my yellow body in contrast to the black contours of her form - her bosom crushing my ribs with several kilo-tonnes of cosmic power – I am truly terrified. Red and yellow flags all around in the background and several little elfs and demons, surround me baring all their jagged teeth as if ready to dig into the leftovers of me, if anything was left after the goddess devoured me herself. H...

The top three, best writing from my blog posts in 2007. Go read 'em: Unconscience Deep B Why Sonia Gandhi should be the coach of the Indian Cricket team.

The Belur Math and The Dakshineshwar Temple The post that I had promised earlier, after those crazy posts in the mean time. During my recent visit to Kolkata, I had been to the Belur Math - the place where The Ramakrishna Mission was established by Swami Vivekananda when he placed the ashes of his master Sri Ramakrishna, and laid the foundation for a temple for it. The temple has a beautiful and pleasant dark sandstone colour. The interiors when I went in was filled with devotees and the evening bhajans/kirtans were being sung. As soon as I entered it, I was in some other world. The temple is like any other Ramakrishna Math with an idol made of marble of Sri Ramakrishna seated in Samadhi, and Sarada Devi's photo in the left side inside a little room. The kirtans were so soul stirring that I just sat there in rapture for a while as this melodious song was being sung by a large group of monks; as if the whole of the temple was vibrating in consonance with positive ene...