One of the things I wanted to do this year was to reconnect with poetry. I had immensely enjoyed digging out lesser known poems or discovering new poets when I used to post Versedays on my old blog a few years ago. The blog fell to disuse, and I forgot all about Versedays. But now...
What is it about the ending of a year that makes you think of all the things you want to do and don’t want to do? Why can’t we resolve to get fit or start painting classes somewhere in the middle of the year? After all, isn’t time a continuum? We attribute an end and...
Rain. The very word has so many emotions attached to it. Rain can be soothing, peaceful, destructive, sorrowful, melancholic. It can be hard, soft, gentle, forceful. Rain is like a moody character in a modernist play. Like a lot of people, I enjoy the company of rain when am indoors sitting by the window with...
March 23rd is a special day for me. It’s the day a wonderful woman, my Grandmother, was born. Even though it’s now 14 years since she is gone, her presence lingers in me through her words, her teachings, and the very way she shaped my being. Grandmother was born and brought up in a small...
That was the question that came to my mind when I got the word “surrender” as a prompt for my next post. The word has an aura of negativity to it, bringing to mind unwilling sacrifices and actions done grudgingly. But to me, it was just confusion over what to choose from all the good...
Books have been a big part of my life since childhood. The earliest memory I have of reading a book is when I was around five or six-years-old. It was a small collection of short stories for children; a collection, I suspect, I still have somewhere in the dark reaches of my groaning bookshelves. My...
Dublin is the city of many literary greats. James Joyce, W.B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde, Patrick Kavanagh, and Samuel Beckett to name a few. And the City Council has ensured that evidence of their lives and works can be found in forms varying from the quirky to the quaint across Dublin.This little bronze plaque embossed with...
It was the eve of St. Patrick’s Day here in Dublin. There was a buzz in the air as it was the beginning of a long weekend. Pubs were overflowing, more than usual, with people and drink. Hordes of tourists descend on the city every year to witness the colourful, week-long celebrations for Paddy’s Day....
Pubs and bars are generally seen as crowded, smoke-filled places where you elbow your way in, get a drink, and then elbow your way out. However, living in Dublin has taught me that, that’s not all there is to these establishments. There are the bars or pubs that you go to for a quick drink...
I attended an interesting talk in the evening, on March 22nd at the Science Gallery. Named Snap, Crackle, and Pop with Nicola Twilley, it attracted my attention because it promised to take me through a lot of things, from the “history of the calorie to the science behind how the sound of food affects its...
