spirited scribbles

missed it again!!:( don’t know when it will occur naturally to me..

well, have you ever said sorry and thank you’s to your furniture, walls, vehicles, utensils, books etc? ah, they are non living things! then do we need to?!

they can’t express.. but can we?! should we?!

well one can only decide for self and i am extremely thankful to my parents who did in corporate this habit in me.. 

habit of being polite and grateful to your things which help you and are part of your daily life.. and without them you are almost handicapped!

so as the checklist begins..

one of my precious thing would be this blog and yes i missed it again this year! missed IT’S birthday.. well if you treat it as good as living thing then it has birthdays :p and by the way, who defines what birthdays are really if only of living things or of non living things too?! i guess not even lord bhrama - lord of creation can decide that truly.. that what when and how spirit takes birth! 

it’s been so long for the last post and probably longest that i haven’t even thought or anything hasn’t inspired me to even ponder and keep in my computer drive..  no un posted but saved files either :( and thus, it feels so much more today when you almost can’t write?! (for what so ever reason like - life is busy, too many things piled up, work pressure, nothing to inspire etc) it then feels so significant that how far pondering over thoughts and sharing experiences  before been like! a way out to so many emotions experiences and expressions and how the tiny blog truly helps..

of course those who read loved criticized admired and encouraged it to go on.. and hence it happened and still happening..

but for me its been mostly great way and medium of expression. without which woman feels suffocated ;)!

So now it strikes me on my birthday to wish my blog belated birthday! that

'may  it continue long..  and may it gets better..'

ps:  how do we know and decide birth date? simply the day when I posted my first blog.. 8^th june 2008! :)

grazie.. gracious..

one incredible year spent post arangetram..

first arangetram anniversary today!

a smile through one eye and tear drops through other..nostalgic day.. the day when i danced my heart out..

gained so much pre, post and during that and lost even double..

that’s how life trade is :)

it naturally takes me to the past, not just by a single year but by many years..

and while i contemplate and think about the most special thing dance has ever given me?  is the grace!

‘grace’ to live life..

and like i mentioned before, what it took back as a fair trade is something so unfair and hell so special;(

and if life permits, then we can talk about it some other day.. but for now, gracefully getting back to the grace :) yes,

dance has been teaching me that grace not just to dance gracefully but to learn to live life gracefully against all odds..

how and what and why and i am not sharing it all ;)

dance blossoms with grace and its my sincere opinion that life too can if lived in graceful manner will blossom..

though this particular learning is a life time and a challenging process in real life..

but how and when this grace is tested?

see ourselves learning for years back stage, struggling to get that one step correct and sometimes we give up only to pick up again.. and on stage is there is any escape?  ankle bells may loose may fall, jewels may break or disturb and a lot can happen with costume too, cd’s might run too fast, system can fail or one might be unwell.. but the show must go on!!

how even double gracefully and smartly we would compose ourselves then..

similarly in life.. in tough times, i think we are only expected to handle those with grace.. but we over react, misbehave, feel bad, think negative, handle, quit, cry, crib and do all of that which blasts so naturally within us.. :)

instead this is my very simple understanding of accepting life that whatever it offers, it should be lived gracefully.. and that’s one of those special lessons dance has been teaching me.. to live with grace.

needless to say, only masters have achieved and mastered it to live it that way.. and we can little bit try and try again if and when fail.. but someday wouldn't we be grazie to that gracious way? :)

so here i am thanking my stars..

also a big thank you to particularly those whom i forgot to mention and thank in my speech on arangetram day..

cheers..

from shadows to light.. from life to life..

success and prosperity
peace and harmony
love and people
happiness and smiles
may 2011 bring all in magical ways to you and your loved ones..
wishing you great new year! priti parekh

it felt nosy:p and weird when i saw this message some friend put it up as her facebook status on new years day! not cause one shared my mere words without any of my consent.. neither i am a big famous writer nor i vouch that i dont copy and paste anything at all!
but i doubt if one really considers or rereads the meaning of these beautiful heartfelt words.. and the little precious time one spends over thinking on how to greet loved ones.. sigh

some 2 years back my blog initiated the same way when nothing came to my rescue for new year's wishes and i am totally glad today that i didnt opt for any ready made life or any ready made writeup back then.. or else the blog would have never happened!! :)

this funny friend of mine unknowingly sends my own thoughts aka my phone messages back to me as forwarded messages and may be she really likes it and hence she shares with everyone including me too :)

don't i say always, everything in life happens and comes for certain purpose..
thanks to hers,
she helped me update my blogpage which was idle for half year or more, clearly wanting to move on and was looking for some provoked intuition:P
she helped me value my writeup's knowingly unknowingly
she helped consider my blog birthday .. awe its born on 8th june 2008  :)
so i will continue writing messages and sending her as well :P whats the big deal when purpose is fulfilled ;) !

men will always be men!

since there’s is no unanimous ‘ happy men’s day’ ?!
i did celebrate it one on last friday! unknowingly though.. and will remember it for long i guess…. so long enough to blog it here :)

met 4 different shades of men, reacting so differently in the same situation! and showing care and concern extremely different ways :)
what i share with each one of them is so different and so the care and concern they showed was obviously very different..
and it will be stupid, foolish and unjustified to say that this was better and that one was fair enough and other wasn’t.. or perhaps this was expected and this wasn’t!

so leaving all the calculative work behind, let me put this very simply that it was one of those happening days when i realized that..

" sometimes we only understand ourselves better with the way ‘man’ judges and loves us :)"

as an independent person and woman i totally dislike it.. but then :) its so true that we do sometimes.. and we do realize it....
so then here are few who made me realize it the same other day :)

suketu
my friend my savior!
someone who proves me that a cat and dog can be friends:p
someone who taught me
‘selfishness is virtue.. sometimes.. for the bigger picture!’

how hard it is sometimes for naive and stupid people
and how easy you made it for me suketu......
i will always be obliged for the same :)

might be a coincidence that i am performing soon a scene in dance from bhagvatgita where arjuna was caught in ‘dharma sankata’!
where he give up in the middle of battle field and decides not to fight against his own blood. its then when lord krishna guides him ‘that what has to be done must be done.. in order to save kingdom and more’
i guess performing this scene in dance is so easy now..
but living any dharma sankata in real life !! !! but thanks suketu....you have no clue how simple you made it with those three lines, a piece of advice at the right time!
and at the top of all, it doesn’t feel any wrong. thanks for the right push and right light. you helped me take certain decisions with so much ease and giving me that new insight. my savior cant thank you enough in words...
‘for sometimes in life you are destined to listen to something extremely important from someone who will give you that pure unbiased thought and which will help you till eternity.’

my dear father
the one who taught me how to walk and i am not ashamed to accept that he still do..
the one who provides unconditional unsaid love and support
one who is busy these days teaching me that, how to arrest certain situations in life and why?
its so wonderful to know that all of sudden you have sooo much time for me again, that i have to say ‘goooo now i need to work’ and you will still hang in there for me.. with something indirectly you teach is to never give up on situations and on people!
its wonderful catching up on the time we lost, be it whichever ways:)

prospect
the doctor who had nothing but all his shallow heart for me :) probably few doctors need to learn the art of saying sorry.. cause that’s what few are known for!
but then i still respect doctors a lot.. i really do.
be their patients off the medicine and they will show you what care and concern is like..
i guess doctors are most challenged people when it comes to emotions.
and i guess i have always seen that enough in real life to understand.

but then, mr. hahnemann once said that treat the man in disease and not disease in man :)
guess what, sometimes spirit and guts lack..

where i realized the most that when you say it, please mean it! mean it from the bottom of your heart or else dont say it..
cause probably when doctors hurt it takes longer to heal.

rishi
some people know you so well sometimes, beyond any time any distance. candid enough to understand when needed most. maybe not a everyday part of your life... but its great the way sometimes we talk in silence..
forget about the call rishi, i was hardly even expecting you to understand the gravity of status other day...
guess it shows, we seemed to have sooo much good time together .. haven’t we ?:)

so with all that happening on just one single day i hardly had a time to think about women.. lols! hardly had a time to think for myself:P.... and the men here did that for me :)
kudos and thank you’s.

for sometimes.. when significance of men felt so much on the same day:p
now if you hang in till here then let me add something which happened so recently in the same context.....

someone asked : soooo, you do fashion designing….??
i : naaahh.. i do interior designing.
someone: but then your dressing sense is good….!
i :......... cause may be being a designer i understand lines, cuts, colors, patterns little better…… (i can be sooo boring at times.. ;( :P)

someone: ohh right! and you probably add good curves to it!!!!

now that’s too much to handle as compliment specially in presence of your parents and lot of other people who i wish ignored that.. lols! i politely thanked him.. thinking at the back of my mind.. men will always be men :) ;)!

vipassana

on my way from mumbai to pune.. in volvo bus.
i never read or write in such kinda travel. but this time is a true exception!cause i know if i don’t do it just now it can’t be ever again so effortlessly and spontaneously.
(didn’t carry laptop with me:( and actually writing on notepad and this insane music in the bus is so insane that i wonder how long i will be able to concentrate on writing and imagine the online typing effort again ……… but anyway lets get started!)

i dedicate this blog to my friend kalpesh! for ‘we’ know what ‘i’ earned :)
thank you kalpesh for whatever little or more i could extract out of this experience, this wouldn’t be possible without your constant encouragement and being a true helping hand.... always.

and here comes the reply to all those who didn’t know what i was upto last 12 days! where i was? why i didn’t reply to any mails calls and messages? and answers to the very habit of seeing a person online, and sudden disappearance may question lot of curiosity!

‘i truly wonder if we really miss someone’s existence more or their non existence is so inhabitual to us!’
anyway that’s a whole different plot alltogether:P but thanks for asking.. i am fit and fine, in fact wonderful:)

been to ‘vipasana’ actually!

well, i am not in a authorized position to do all the talking about what vipasana is and what it is not.
just a first time student!
but i can always share my tiny piece of experience briefly.. something what i earned can be shared….
main link -
http://www.dhamma.org/

and do not faint when you check, code of discipline and schedule.
here -
http://www.dhamma.org/en/code.shtml
lol.. but do check that.

for me, the entire experience of learning vipasana for 10 days was..
mentally challenging
physically difficult at times
but in the end, all so worth it!!
how far i take this forward.. (practice and theory) is even i am eager to see :)

but we can always talk one o one.. if you need to know more details, my actual each day experience over there and if you are preparing yourself to learn vipasana. or any damn thing :)

this blog has to end here, as vipasana is ‘just’ about experiencing it yourself, nothing more or nothing less.
so nothing more to add here :)

though beyond words..

i am <3ing new year.. just know it so perfect within, that its going to be an amazing, challenging, generous, wonderful new year! and a really different one.. a milestone in my life!

beginning with gr8 news to share with you all:) (officially:P)
its something to do with my dance.
its something about my life time experience.
its something about ‘my transformation into a better dancer’ or as my teacher rightly likes to put ‘transformation into better person’!!

“ i am performing my ‘ a r a n g e t r a m ’ on 7th february 2010! “

some answers to obvious questions :P
what is bharatnatyam?
what is arangetram?
so what really happens after arangetram?
why do you need to do that?

bharatnatyam is south indian classical dance form.
this dance is an unique combination of history, vast theory and equally mind blowing rigorous practical dance training!

arangetram is the stage, when the guru presents their student for the first time in full fledged recital. it qualifies the dancer to begin her career, learn and seek knowledge and to live by her art!

it can also be called as ‘graduation ceremony’ under bharatnatyam in which student performs solo along with live orchestra, almost 8to9 different dances in front of dance lovers, family, friends, acquaintances, critics and about everyone..
an open show for everyone to judge and enjoy :) where student offers a true gurudakshina to teacher after many years of rigorous training under him or her.

its like a dream coming true for every bharatnatyam dancer! unlike routine school, college procedures it has no yearly very patterned syllabus system. so sometimes even if you are learning for 10 more years, your teacher may not find you up to mark to be able to take arangetram level performance and will ask you to practice some more…. again every teacher and every different institute demands their own standards to meet!

needless to say, it’s not as simple as it may sound!
years of hard work learning and practicing such disciplined dance form, reaching the arangetram level.. still being and feeling almost like a novice!
an ‘everyday’ struggle to learn and maintain stamina.. leaving all physical injuries.. barriers behind and then we _ as the normal people, are always going through lot in our professional and personal life:) dealing with all those etc mentally taxing things in life and experiencing the sheer joy of progressing, learning dance and dancing!!

so how do i feel just 2 weeks before arangetram??!!
thrilling? joyful? excited? nervous? sad? happy? mad? ohhhh…you just name the thing!
i am still in a very tender process to believe that i am an artiste and will take at least lifetime to understand what it is really to live like an artiste?! :)
but yes, i love dancing.. i love bharatnatyam.. and i am happy i made this choice to learn this dance form!

leaving sad and few non happening things behind (we will discuss why, what, how, later some day;() its about living and feeling so much happiness for now :) !!
learning and looking at life with different perspective. atleast trying to do so...
i so wish if i can explain better but no words can suffice the apt description! and then there is sooooo much to share.. saving my keyboard and let my mind, body and heart alone play the battle;)

i am extremely thankful to some people who have tolerated my already so hyper and then differently hyper in aragetram days kind of temper! i am happy that only few have seen my temper and i wish nobody sees it :D
it’s a sure time which tastes your close people no matter you want it or not! i am lucky, my people have always surprised and helped me with all they can.

without a doubt, these are one of those best, amazing and memorable days of my life.. complete with few people and incomplete without few people:)

So for now, sharing this wonderful news at one of the settled moment i was able to steal out my pretty complicated mind state of these days and of course the grueling practice schedule!
no more blah blah really…

i take this opportunity to cordially invite you for my arangetram! can’t wait to see you all at the event!!!!!
accept this as informal invitation _ to those i know (i am sending invitation card soon) and may be formal invitation to those_ my anonymous friends and readers.
send me across your wishes and prayers from now cause there is nothing like that which works :) and i will soon catch up with ..? !
keep glowing your imaginations;)
bye for now..

by the way venue details:P

arangetram: 7th feb 2010, Sunday at 5.30 pm
artiste: priti parekh
venue: tilak smarak mandir, behind s. p college pune 30.

kudos to my mamma ..........

every time you manage your time ……….
busy schedules and stand by me ……….
maybe you never get to see all my performances cause you are managing lot of other things then ……….
you help me dress ………. do my hair ……….
i know that’s tremendously tough job ……….
but you do it all so well !

i shout, get irritated, tensed, worried , nervous, mad all at the same time ……….
but you never stop praying for me! praying for my success where ever i go ……….
i know you are behind me praying always!

even if i don’t do well, you always tell me that i was the best amongst all ……….
i know mamma ………. that’s not true all the time
but you want me to believe and get going always!

i have lived on those theplas and golpapdis you specially prepare before my any performance ……….
so much so that i feel nervous when i don’t get to eat the same!

all my medals awards accomplishments you share so equally ……….
cause there wouldn’t be any if it was not you, behind me!

when you see my dance videos, you try and imitate my actions ……….
you look so so cute then ……….
one of those time when i feel you are my daughter!

i am just about to leave for another dance class ……….
and there you are telling our maid to make tea for me ……….
reminding me to eat my almonds ……….
before you leave for your so important work!

i know you will never read this unless i get you here and make you read ……….
my not so tech savvy mamma
you prove that there is not everything a machine can do ……….
can it design mother?!

you know something………. i never want you read this ……….
cause i want somebody else to read and bless me
to be your daughter always!

Maybe i will take many births to be your deserving daughter ……….
but i want to be one!
and i want to pray ………. to be the one!