Prasanta Behera Blog

Quite a while back, in one of my trips to India, my mother showed my horoscope to an astrologer and he gave some analysis and recommended a certain stone ring to wear. I tried to wing out of it but all logic ends in mother's eyes. So, a ring was made and I ended wearing it one week at most (only when I was in India). Now, the predicted time has passed ... phew!! Recently, a friend of mine and I were discussing random stuffs and we started talking about astrology, past life, destiny ...  (random).  Is everything predetermined in our life ? In our daily life,  we run into situations where family / friends / astrologer ... tell us that it " per-determined " and/or was a "karma" (good or bad) from past life . How do these astrologer make predictions? There are enough fake astrologers... but there are some good ones too and some of us may have experiences where predictions have come true or close.  Hard to believe? As we may have observed in the past, some exp...

I finished reading Tagore's " Stray Birds ".  It has 326 musings. I am listing what I liked. 8:  Her wistful face haunts my dreams like the rain at night. 10:  Sorrow is hushed into peace in my heart like the evening among the silent trees. 18:   What you are you do not see, what you see is your shadow.  23:  We , the rustling leaves, have a voice that answers the storms, but who are you so silent?"  "I am a mere flower."   --------(pause)   33:  Life finds its wealth by the claims of the world, and its worth by the claims of love. 37:   I cannot tell why this heart languishes in silence. It is for small needs it never asks, or knows or remembers. 42:   You smiled and talked to me of nothing and I felt that for this I had been waiting long. --------(pause) 43:   But Man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air.  84:   In death the many ...

" The Journey to the West " is a 16th century Chinese novel from Ming dynasty. It is considered one of the important classic novels of Chinese literature.  It is a 4 volume series. Too long for me and so I read the abridged version (" The Monkey & The Monk "). Even the abridged version is 500+ pages long and I ended up reading 300 pages. From Wikipedia The novel Journey to the West was based on historical events. Xuanzang (602 - 664) was a monk at Jingtu Temple in late-Sui Dynasty and early-Tang Dynasty Chang'an . Motivated by the poor quality of Chinese translations of Buddhist scripture at the time, Xuanzang left Chang'an in 629, in defiance of Emperor Taizong of Tang's ban on travel. Helped by sympathetic Buddhists, he traveled via Gansu and Qinghai to Kumul (Hami), thence following the Tian Shan mountains to Turpan. He then crossed what are today Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan , and Afghanistan, into Gandhara , reaching India in 630. Xuanza...

Spring afternoon cloudy sky falling raindrop gentle breeze fluttering maple leaves. Hope for the El-Nino to save the land to bring the seed of life. The rain and I unattached moment like talking without listening like loving without feeling like helping without love. The rain is needed but something is missing something nostalgic something deep memories of past from the land of my roots. Oh! the dark clouds the lightning the thunder and then the drops of rain the anxious wait so that we can dance in the rain with hope for future farmers we all are farmers we all are!  Rain pours like  falling stars caressing the dusty veranda droplets kissing mother earth. Feel the emotions feel the droplets of rain. Close your eyes smell "the scent of rain". Euphoric kids all we are dancing, jumping, smelling intoxicated by the fragrance the union of my land and the blessing from heaven. I can not forget the feeling I can not forget the fragrance...