Writing

For a handful of grain, sparrows come to perch by the hundred. Oh… hundreds and thousands can be counted. It is what lies within the fist that makes one tremble. * Can those who adorn themselves for festivals thrill to the blossoming of every moment… How long does the perfection of adornment last… * The child flies her kite in her own sky. Even when the wind buffets it, she claps and laughs. Even if it lies torn, its tail snapped off, caught in a branch, she hasn’t a care. Kite upon kite, a hundred thousand are hers. As she makes…

The Great Way is not difficult for anyone without preferences of their own.  When longing and hatred are both absent, everything is clear and undisguised. Cling to even the slightest attachment, and heaven and earth are separated without limit. If you wish to see reality, do not cling to any view, whether in acceptance or rejection. The struggle over what one likes and what one hates is a kind of sickness of the mind. When the inner meaning of a thing is not understood, the mind’s fundamental peace is disturbed…

1 ‘Hey, Nabeesa, they say One-Handed Ibrahim is dead. A wild elephant trampled him at Surulipatti early this morning. They’ve laid out his body at his elder brother’s son’s house. All the women are going to see his face one last time. What’s there to see? They’ve gathered him up and brought him back rolled like a bundle of cloth. The elephant left only his face alone—squeezed and crushed the rest to pulp.’ Nabeesa was silently sweeping the little house. With her right hand, she wiped the sweat from her forehead…

“I go in search of myself. It is in this search that my essence lies. The path I walk in the course of my search belongs to poetry.” These are words Pramil wrote in one of his reflections. The journey along the path of the arts is a journey towards essence. That is both the nature and the purpose of art. This foundation, shared by all the traditional Indian arts, in the Tamil land, in the modern age, as the modernist outlook and aesthetic entered the art of the novel…