By Girija Madhavan High in the mountains above the Sea of Japan [the East Sea], amidst lofty cedars is the “Eihei-ji Monastery” or “Temple of Eternal Peace” in Japanese. It is in Fukui Prefecture. Under curving tiled roofs and in timbered halls, the “Soto” school of Zen Buddhism is practised by the monks who live…
By Girija Madhavan There was detailed coverage on TV channels recently of the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. I could identify Priyanka Chopra in a pale pink hat and dress, Amal Clooney, George Clooney and Sir Elton John among the guests. The formal dress code for this…
By Girija Madhavan Star of Mysore recently carried two touching stories about pets. I recall an unusual one from my childhood. In the early 1940s, after an illness, I was kept at home. Our Railway bungalow had a large garden. A lonely child, I wanted a pet for company. Dogs were vetoed because the family…
By Girija Madhavan To some of us “Russia” evokes the memory of its great writers: Tolstoy, Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Turgenev, Chekov and others. Even in translation from the original Russian, they have an impact on their readers including some Indian thinkers. Later writers like Vladimir Nabokov and Boris Pasternak lived in the twentieth century. When…
By Girija Madhavan Spring in Mysuru brings jewel-like flowers to the leafless, stumpy branches of the Frangipani trees after the cold season. The flowers usually have five white petals around a heart of gold. Some blooms are pale yellow set off by a magenta centre, or white deepening to pink; all are lovely and delicately…
Author Girija Madhavan’s mother Mukta Venkatesh, painter and writer, who lived in Mysuru from the 1920s till her death in 2003 at the age of over 101, was the fourth daughter of A. Madhaviah, a social reformer-cum-writer. She was deeply influenced by his love of literature, both English and Tamil, and also his liberal views….
By Girija Madhavan I have lived in many houses abroad before returning to settle down in my hometown of Mysuru in 1995. Each was a temporary home, a haven, claiming a place in my memories and sentiment; some in alien land and others in friendlier ambiance. But the house that remains in my mind as…
By Girija Madhavan Concerts from the archives of Doordarshan can be evocatively nostalgic. One afternoon I chanced upon a “National Programme” of Hindustani music of 1981, the photography in black and white. It featured the late Pandit Amarnath, the foremost disciple of Ustad Amir Khan of the Indore Gharana. When I lived in Delhi for…
By Girija Madhavan Culinary programmes on television help to whet the appetite for lunch or dinner. We enjoy watching how Nigella Lawson, Master Chef Australia, our own Sanjeev Kapoor or Vikas Khanna present their shows. But “Hell’s Kitchen” starring Gordon Ramsay and his chefs scrambling to cook and serve their dishes against a relentless clock,…
By Girija Madhavan Our lessons began on Valmiki Road, shaded by rain trees, where traffic was sparse. We would drive slowly up to the Mosque at the end of the road, turn round and drive back. Father insisted that I practise hand signals as I drove. At that time the fashion was to wear glass bangles;…
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