My daughter's book on Maya Anglou in hindi

http://www.ebay.in/itm/Mai-Roz-Udit-Hoti-Hoon-/121331195397?

buy this book online from the above link

xoxo

Haryanvi Novelties

 



 



Daamann



 a traditional dress colloquially named as Daaman or ('Ghaaghri'  ..i.e.

A very heavy, bulky and beautiful skirt worn by womenfolk in villages

 

.the upper part is termed as Dabotta ....i.e...The top portion of desi skirt (Ghaaghri) from where the thick rope ('Naaadda) is passed through  to tie the skirt on the waist

 

Laamann ..i.e...The bottom portion of a desi skirt ('Ghaaghri')















 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





both the above pics are Daamans but made up with Dowati ..i.e...The thick, hand-made cotton cloth

 

 



 

 

 

 

All the above 4   pics are Phulkaries (shawl embroidered on Dowati ..i.e...The thick, hand-made cotton cloth)

 



Chund-di Same as 'Chunni' in Hindi



 



Aangi ..i.e...Blouse to wear with Daaman (skirt)



 



Topaa (decorated with embroidery and patchwork cap with hood for kids)



 

 

 

 

 



Traditional Jewelry box for Haryanvi women



 



A Haryanvi woman with all traditional jewelry with Chunda

Choonda   ...i..e...A hair style of rural womenfolk - to tie the hair with strings on top of the head

 

xoxo



MY DAUGHTER'S STORY GOT PUBLISHED IN DAILY NEWS PAPER IN HINDI

AFTER taking my lunch I just approached my couch to have a nap in the noon. Temperature is going at its heist point these days, so I thought its better to cool me down in AC room. Just than bell rang and I got up to open the door, it was postman with a big grey envelop in his hand. I got it from post man and hurriedly opened it up carefully( may daughter used to get annoyed when any of her postal envelops be opened in haphazard way). It was National Duniya of April 13 with my daughter's story published  in it .I read the story it was beautifully written.






Welcome To National Duniya: Daily hindi News Paper

www.nationalduniya.com

  I am really proud of may daughter. Also I read the column of writers with answers to the questions  about their writing accomplishments. My daughter's answers about her writing carriers were also published last year,  when i got acquainted about her writing carriers through that news paper I was amazed

 



 

 

the traditions housed in Museum

When I first stumbled upon   the tapestry crochet bag( in 2006) on the net HERE. I jumped at the sight of it, when I was younger,  the girls in our village (in Haryana state) used to made a bag for their dowry, nowadays it does not have to be seen anywhere.

tapestry crochet bag

tapestry crochet bags

 

When I  accompanied  my daughter

to  Kurukshetra for her story recital, we visited Dharohar and their I come across many traditional things along with these bags
 Now before y’all schooling me on  Haryanavi traditions, I am highly aware that this particular one has lost steam in recent years  and placed in the  Museum ..but I am hoping for its revival.

These  Haryanavi traditions could use a bit more colour ……….I will make one for sure in this year …….a bag with any animal figure using raw spun cotton yarn with colour.

 

xoxo

 

My Jtropa,fabric vases

I just finished this planter today- I kinda like the way it turned out if I do say so myself. I have already had a few compliments today! I put in my china rose, with red flowers,  (which is my favorite- it was in the movie i recently watched (didnt remember the name of the movie, but that is probably one of my favorite movies of all time),i isolated it during repotting - my champa, my jatropa, and jasmine, roses.

I love mixing the different things up. I planted another pots with seasonal flowers but they have a way to go until they get photographed. I will post pics of those soon. 

the editor of WE emailed me for articles  on special issue, so while working on a magazine article I came across these beautiful felted vases by Dutch creative Erica Hogenbirk. She studied fashion design and specialized in knitting techniques. It shows, because the vases, stools and bags look gorgeous. As do the patterns she chooses. They are inspired by nature, tattoos and even maps of churches. The material used is all  natural. To see more of her work please visit her website.

xoxo

नये दौर की नई चौपाल

 नये दौर की नई चौपाल

हाइटैक चौपालों से शिक्षा व रोजगार

राजकिशन नैन

पहरावर में नये जमाने की चौपाल की आधारशिला।

देहाती दुनिया में चौपालों का समुचित स्वरूप समुन्नत होने जा रहा है। चौपालों में वक्त-बेवक्त हुक्का गुडग़ुड़ाने और सारा-सारा दिन ताश की बाजी लगाने के दिन अब लदने लगे हैं। गांव की परंपरागत चौपालों की जगह अब नये दौर की नई चौपाल लेने जा रही हैं। रोहतक जि़ले के पहरावर गांव में हरियाणवी अंचल की अपनी तरह की पहली हाईटेक चौपाल की नींव ज्येष्ठ कृष्ण पंचमी (रविवार, 22 मई) को विधिवत्  भूमि-पूजन के पश्चात रख दी गई है। पहरावर की ग्राम पंचायत ने गांव के बड़े-बुजुर्गों की अगुआई में कलानौर हलके की विधायक शकुंतला खटक के हाथों नई चौपाल की आधारशिला रखवाई है। चौपाल के लिए जिस जगह का चुनाव किया गया है, वह हर दृष्टि से भवन निर्माण के अनुकूल है। पहरावर के बीचो-बीच ऊंचे कडफ़े पर स्थित इस जगह पर पहली दुर्गनुमा चौपाल अस्थल बोहर की गद्दी के पांचवें महंत योगींद्र चेतनाथ ने छपना अकाल से एक साल पहले विक्रम संवत् 1955 (सन् 1898 ईस्वी) में चिनवाई थी। उस चौपाल को गाम-गुहांड के लोग ‘बड़ी परस’ कहकर पुकारते थे। गांव के जिन वृद्धों की स्मृति में उस परस के सुंदर भित्तिचित्र दर्ज थे, उनमें से प्राय: सभी वृद्ध अब परलोकगमन कर चुके हैं। सत्तर के दशक में उस परस को ढहाकर दादा लाधूराम ने नये जमाने की जो परसनुमा इमारत खड़ी करवायी थी, वह लगभग छियालीस साल तक वजूद में रही। उसकी माटी उठने के बाद गांव के युवा सरपंच प्रवीण कौशिक एवं उसके सहयोगियों ने इस जगह पर हाईटेक चौपाल बनाने की ठानी है ताकि युवक-युवतियों को पढऩे-लिखने एवं करिअर बनाने के उत्तम अवसर यहां सुलभ हों। इस अत्याधुनिक सुविधा संपन्न दोमंजि़ली चौपाल में एक बड़ा हाल, आठ कमरे, रसोईघर व शौचालय की व्यवस्था होगी। इसमें गांव की युवा शक्ति के लिए कंप्यूटर, इंटरनेट आदि के साथ-साथ कोचिंग कक्षाएं व सिलाई-कढ़ाई जैसे उपयोगी कोर्स चलाए जाएंगे। कंप्यूटर व प्रतियोगी परीक्षाओं की तैयारी के लिए जरूरी सामान व सुयोग्य अध्यापकों की नियुक्ति की जाएगी। ग्राम पंचायत की इस अनूठी पहल से पहरावर गांव की नई तांदी अभी से भविष्य के प्रति आशान्वित हो उठी है—
‘बदला रंग-ढंग, बदली चाल, जाग उठे माटी के लाल।
चमकाएंगी देश का भाल, नये दौर की नई चौपाल।’

किरमारा गांव की बेजोड़ थाही।   चित्र : नैन

MORARI BAPU, THE SECRET.........

 

THE SECRET since last wek. But due to my tight schedule I was not able to sit in front of TV. Than yesterday  a good friend of mine  Santosh who  knows how open minded I am and also about all the reading I have been doing in regards to meditating, yoga and energy work; so she told me I had to watch this movie called “The Secret” and that it could change my life and I was like, WAH! let's see!!

 

 

 

I just finished watching the film and its crazy it almost confirms my thought process of how powerful the mind is and your Imagination is everything, & how its a preview of life’s coming attractions!

Also while yesterday while watching Ram katha  live from  Bodh_Gaya  on Aastha_TV  ,   Morari_Bapu  told the gem words of  _Buddha   below;

“All we are is the result of we have we have thought”  – _Buddha

How true!

Again I can say:

What can you do right now to turn your life around?

--Start making a list of what your grateful for.  Gratitude in your life.  (It will shift your energy and thinking  to positive)

--VISUALIZE.  “When you visualize, you materialize”  The feeling creates attraction.  And the universe can make your dreams come true!

Those were just a few good points I took from the film, it really opens your eyes to a whole new light.  I’m sure its not for everyone, but if this can help just one more person that makes me happy.

XOXO

 

 

Earth day, my daughter's writting piece in news paper

Do Mother Nature a big favor today:   recycle your plastics and glass bottles.

Since last week I use to grab all the glass and plastic bottles, so that I can gve the demonstrations how to convert the plastic bottles and glass bottles  into utility articles. And today I gave them demo for making   beautiful settee out of plastic bottles………I apologize for the post without  photos , that is  I am not able to post photographs of the demo here ,as my cell-phone camera was not working today

Make flower pots with plastic bottles

 

 

To begin, you need a plastic bottle , , cello  tape , a cotton ball , soil  and a plant ( or seeds to grow one).
The first step is to cut the bottle in half  .
Next, you need to make a hole in the cap,   you can also use a nail and hammer.
To fill the base with water, it should cut a notch in the side of the base .
The second step is to screw the cap on the top of the bottle, then place  up upside down in the base and glue with  cello tape.
After this step you can decorate your pot in the way that suits you, with fabric , ribbon , paper , beads ... all depends on your imagination.
Before planting your plant , you must place an absorbent material in the cap , such as batting , rope or paper towels. This will ultimately prevent the soil from flowing into the bottom and also attract water into the top compartment to moisten the earth.
After it only remains to add the soil, and watch your plants grow all! These are the three pots  . 

MY daughter's writing


My daughter's article got published  in National Dunia on 20th of April 2014 on page 8

http://www.nationalduniya.com/

he Original Tree Huggers: Let Us Not Forget Their Sacrifice On Earth Day

Blog by: Rucha Chitnis, South Asia Program Director. Follow Rucha on twitter here

1730 CE

“Sar santey rukh rahe to bhi sasto jan.”

“If a tree is saved even at the cost of one’s head, it’s worth it.” Amrita Devi

Nearly 280 years ago, the sacrifice of a brave woman, Amrita Devi, would have ripple effects in one of India’s most vibrant environmental movements called the Chipko Andolan in the 1970s.  Amrita Devi belonged to the Bishnoi community that is known for its great love for conservation.  The Bishnoi faith respects the sanctity and sacredness of all forms of life and their tenets include prohibition on killing animals and felling of green trees. Bishnois also worship the Khejri tree, Prosopis cineraria, considered a critical life force in these desert communities.

As the story goes, the King of Jodhpur sent his soldiers to the Bishnois villages to cut green trees to build his new palace. As the soldiers began cutting the Khejri trees with their axes, Amrita Devi, a Bishnoi woman, ran to stop the felling.  She hugged a Khejri tree to protect it from the blows and begged them to stop.  The soldiers asked her for a bribe to stop the cutting; Amrita Devi was unmoved and told them that it was an insult to her faith to offer a bribe.  The soldiers took to violence and struck her with an axe. When her three daughters witnessed the brutality, they rushed and hugged the trees as well and were also killed by the soldiers.  Soon the word spread like fire around the village of Khejarli and others joined in, hugging trees in a nonviolent protest.  The soldiers continued to mercilessly kill people, both young and old, and the massacre led to the sacrifice of nearly 363 Bishnois, who died protecting their beloved sacred tree.  

Illustration by Jillian Gilliland

 When the king learned about the carnage, he was repentant and forbade any killing of animals and cutting of trees in the Bishnois territories.  Even to this day, one can spot the endangered Black Buck, peacocks and other wild life and tree cover where the Bishnois communities live in Rajasthan.  It is no wonder that the Bishnois are considered as among the earliest conservationists in the world.

Fast Forward to 1970s

“Soil is ours. Water is ours. Ours are these forests. Our forefathers raised them. It’s we who must protect them.” A song from the Chipko Movement in India

            

The Chipko Movement is a great example of a Gandhian movement that was based on nonviolent principles of satyagraha. Chipko means to hug, and this movement is synonymous with the enduring images of rural women hugging their community trees to stop rampant deforestation.  In the Garhwal Himalayan region of Uttarakhand in the 70s, there was rapid environmental degradation due to commercial logging. It became clear, especially to women, that logging was destroying their forests and threatening their access to key forest resources needed for their daily sustenance.

Archival photo of the Chipko Movement, where women battled guns and threats to protect their forests.

Soon villagers began organizing themselves in small groups to organize against logging.  A pioneering Gandhian grassroots activist, Chandi Prasad Bhatt, mobilized communities to stop the destruction of the forests. He was joined by hundreds of women, who were on the front lines of the resistance—marching and rallying to protect their community forests and formed human chains to hug towering old growth trees. This kind of environmentalism was inherently linked to their survival; the women recognized that their livelihoods and wellbeing were intertwined with ecological protection.

“This movement of the poor women was not a conservation movement per se, but a movement to demand the rights of local communities over their local resources. The women wanted the first right over the trees, which they said were the basis for their daily survival. Their movement explained to the people of India, that not poverty, but extractive and exploitative economies were the biggest polluter,” writes Sunita Narain, director of Center for Science and Environmental in New Delhi. The impact of the Chipko movement had spread far and wide beyond the state of Uttarakhand and led to the government issuing a ban on felling of trees for 15 years until the green cover depleted by deforestation was restored. And the legacy of tree hugging continues to this day, as do the challenges for people's access to community forests and threats from ongoing forest degradation. 

Today

“Forest is Our Mother. Our life sustains on her.

Our spirituality is tied to the trees.”

An adivasi woman from Jharkhand Save the Forest Movement

Adivasi women play a crucial role in Jharkhand's Save the Forest Movement

A few months ago, I had the privilege of meeting a group of adivasi (indigenous) women in the state of Jharkhand, who are mobilizing their communities to protect their forests, as well as educating others on their rights over natural resources.  Jharkhand, meaning the land of forests, has seen some of the most vibrant people’s movements to protect forests and lands from mining and other extractive  activities.  An adivasi woman, Suryamani Bhagat, has been on the forefront of the Jungle Bachao Andolan, Save the Forest Movement, in her state.

During a conversation with Suryamani and other adivasi women from the movement, I learned how they are deeply connected to the forest. “Forest is our Mother. Our life sustains on her and our spirituality is tied to the trees,” said Suman Munda, a young tribal woman and forest activist.  Over the past many years, adivasi women and men have joined hands to reclaim their rights over their community forests; the have created forest watch committees to ensure there is no illegal cutting of the trees, and they are raising awareness on the Forest Rights Act passed in 2006 to enable forest dwelling communities to access resources that have been denied to them as a result of the continuation of oppressive colonial forest laws.

“At first there were many injustices against adivasis. People used to think forests belonged to the forest department and some adivasis were jailed and beaten for using the forest produce. We realized that we needed to organize and assert our rights and protect our jungles,” she says.  Suryamani also shared that the forest department would promote monoculture plantations of Eucalyptus and Acacia varieties in their rich, diverse jungles that had little to no value for adivasis, who relied on indigenous trees like Sal, Mahua and Amla for their foods, medicines and rituals.

Suryamani, second from left, is one of the eloquent and passionate leaders of Save the Forest Movement

In India, mining, hydroelectric and nuclear power projects, industries, among others, are displacing thousands of farmers, fisher folks, pastoralists, artisans and indigenous people from their homelands.  Historian, Ramachandra Guha notes how the environmental movement in India arose out of the imperative of human survival. “This was environmentalism of the poor,” he wrote. This  “empty-belly environmentalism,” where women and girls in India, undoubtedly the poorest, who are most acutely affected by hunger because of the multi-faceted discrimination they face, find themselves on the frontlines of many people’s movements against land and other resource grabs, not out of choice but from the sheer will to protect their livelihoods and dignity, their identity and culture. 

From the brave sacrifice of one Bishnoi woman to the long movement building of women of the Chipko Movement to the ongoing struggles of adivasi women in the Save the Forest Movement in Jharkhand—they all exemplify why it is crucial for women to have equal access and control over natural resources. Environmental movements globally can learn from these bold uprisings of women and make greater commitments to build more diverse and inclusive movements to ensure that indigenous women and women of color are active participants in these struggles and are able to share their vital experiences and perspectives on environmental protection. 

The Indigenous Mahua tree is considered as a boon to adivasi communities

As I was said goodbye to Suryamani in her village in Jharkhand, I asked her what changes she had noticed in the forests since the Save the Jungle Movement began. “Our forests are regenerating, she said.  "The birds and animals are returning, and we also spotted a leopard." I also wondered what the mainstream urban community could learn from the mobilizations of adivasi communities in Jharkhand. “Our life is bound with Nature. You can learn from that,” she said.

xoxo

 

My Dad, nostalgia, Ghir Ghir Ke Aayi Badariya - Ek Thi Ladki

This is an older very beautiful song. My father use to utter occasionally especially staring clouds overhead. Wow what memories.  

 

 

This beautiful song is composed in raag "malgunji" taal roopak.  

Today while walking on the jogging track for my morning walk suddenly it got dark due to clouds overhead they were sailing towards the north it seemed they will just shower upon me but they were not. and I continued my brisk walk and got nostalgic remembering my dad for the dark clouds………..

My dad and Jim_Valvano's quote 

On the afternoon before my matriculation in 1969, we all were st our farm standing under  jaandi

Tree, we used to live at our village Kharkari-Makhwan in Haryana. My father was posted at Jorhat  Air force station. He always in his rural traditional outfits while at village, and on that day, and on that day he’d brought   Dhoti, afreshly pressed khadi white shirt and a khesi my nanu had gotten him for a gift  to my mom for him when mom visited nanu at his place’s remember what he was wearing because it was the first time I noticed him kheep twigs weaving a rope to carry the fuel-wood . He was chanting the song Ghir –ghir ke aaye Badariy while staring clouds and weaving rope I still remember his dhoti wrapped like a half pant.

“Dad,” I said,” have you ever seen the picture contained this song?” my sister laughed and my mother got upset, accused none of us of taking an interest. Because my father became so emotional while on this song that he cant utter a word, and his eyes were filled with water….

xoxo