𝑨𝒎𝒎𝒖'𝒔 𝑴𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔!

Underlying principle in a Hindu temple is the belief that all things are one, that everything is connected. Ancient temples welcome you through 64-grid or 81-grid mathematically structured spaces, a network of art, pillars with carvings and statues that display and celebrate the four important and necessary principles of human life – the pursuit of artha (prosperity, wealth), kama (pleasure, love), dharma (virtues, ethical life) and moksha (release, self-knowledge). At the center of the temple, typically below and sometimes above or next to the idol, is mere hollow space with no decoration, symbolically representing  Purusa , the Supreme Principle, the sacred Universal, one without form, which is omnipresent, connects everything, and is the essence of everyone. A Hindu temple is meant to encourage reflection, facilitate purification of one's mind, and trigger the process of inner realization within.  The specific process is left to the devotee's school of belief....

  Oct 6th 2023. Today is my mother’s 9 th death anniversary .  If she was alive she would have been 93 years old. To honor her memory, I created this photo story of her beautiful life.  My mother sitting extreme left with her family   She was born in Kozhikode, Kerala on January 12, 1930, to Parappil Rukmini Amma and Ullattil Karunakara Menon. Her father worked for the British government as an officer. She had two sisters and a brother, the latter of whom went on to become one of the earliest ICS (IAS after independence) officials. Her father was a forward-thinking individual who enrolled all of his daughters in St. Joseph's, a convent run by irish nuns in Kozhikode for their academic studies. Standing second from right Her family relocated to Tirur, Kerala after her father retired as the Director Fisheries. She was an exceptionally bright student, and one of her classmates who later rose to prominence as a lawyer in the Supreme Court told me that he had to work ext...