Petals!

Wish you a wonderful, blessed and joyous Happy New Year 2022!                                [Image: Pazhavangadi Temple prasadam] Starting the year with a temple trail feels super sacred and joyous for me. It felt like a beautiful way to grasp with gratitude the precious moments of 2021. Taking inspiration from  the words of John O'Donohue: "We bless this year for all we learned, for all we loved and lost." A visit to Thiruvananthapuram, capital city of Kerala, is how I wrapped up the tumultous year of 2021. Paying respects to my favourite temple in the capital city - yes, Pazhavangadi Ganapati kshetram - and then a first time evening darshan at Sreekanteshwaram temple concluded our visit as we got ready to welcome the New Year. On New Year's Day, which is today, I had an amazing time meeting loved ones, especially spending time with family members, uncles and aunts and cousins. Such fun-filled moments...

2020, I can never forget you! From March 2020, it felt as though everything in my life had become unreal - more like sequences on reel than real life, a sort of question mark looming ahead and my constant worries related to safety. Like many of you, I too had my share of  situations that made it extremely painful to navigate. During the first few months, I felt as though I was walking on an inner fire that scorched and had the power to turn everything into ashes but it didn't.                                   [Image: Swapna Raghu Sanand] But the toughest part - being helpless and losing loved ones. Losing loved ones isn't easy. To stand back and watch friends and family members who lost their loved ones and could not even travel to complete the last rites - it is way too painful for words.  I prayed for their resilience continuously because helplessness is what I felt too. When SPB pa...