INDIRA LAISRAM

George Harrison's wife Olivia said George “was on fire within”. I was reading in the paper today an extract from the book George Harrison: Living in the Material World and what Olivia has written about her man, one of the most innovative musicians and spiritual explorers of his time, made me reflect on life in general. She said of George. “He had karma to work out. He wasn’t going to come back and be bad. He was going to be good and bad and everything all at once. You know if someone said to you, ‘OK, you can through your life and you can have everything in five lifetimes, or you can have a really intense one and have it in one, and then you can go and be liberated,’ he would have said, ‘Give me the one, I am not coming back here.’ “ As the secret to George’s imaginative soul bares open, I feel that is how I want to live life too. I am indeed greedy about life that I want to have it all, experience it all in one go. I too want to experience the good, the bad, the ugly all at on

For long, he was a non facebooker. The types, you know, who would rather pick the phone in lieu of chats or emails. Perhaps the man likes to stay within the realm of the old world charm, I thought! But with a new phone, or his toy as he calls it, in his possession – it has Facebook on Android, which means there are a slew of fixes and is faster – Lolo’s resistance to Facebook is on the wane. When I first set up Lolo’s account (he did have an account earlier which he deleted after reading how Facebook intrudes privacies), I told him that this time he could use his discretion to select friends. My idea to bring him on the Facebook fold was to make him a part of my cackles over comments/postings/photos etc.   Of course, life does not feel finite with a Facebook but it is a good past time and the best way to stay in touch with friends whom I miss. Then there is the other side that you end up accumulating so many unwanted friends. Like weeds, they need pruning. I mean it does not make se

Almost a month after Bali, I still reminisce about the trip and what a wonderful time I had. Have been meaning to write about the various rituals we undertook as part of the retreat for the benefit of my dear friend Deepika, who is enamoured by all things exotic! The five-day retreat was packed with activities. One of my favourite moments was getting ready in traditional attires and heading off for a purification ritual at Tirta Empul, Bali’s most revered temple. The staff at Kumara Sakti saw to it that not one sarong or headgear were out of place. We arrived at the temple after dinner. My heart was already racing at the idea of a dip in the holy pond - having never stepped into anything beyond two-feet in water. After offering  prayers and flowers, we were led to the bathing pools , the water gushing out of the many pipes before which we had to dunk our heads three times and immerse. I took the plunge after making sure I was surrounded by two, of the three men in the group. Of cours