Talking from stillness has been both disorienting and natural, like observing the way fall grasps at the edges of leaves and creeps into socks and bed covers until one day you wake up to snowfall.
My family and I decided to spend a sabbatical year at our home in the mountains of B.C. to remind ourselves what it feels like to breathe and speak slower. To eat a muffin at the local coffee shop and taste every morsel. To live apart from devices and the noisy world. To see my girls muddied and uninhibited by strict social protocols that define the way a toddler must laugh and express. To connect to silence, which I hope will support my creativity as I write the next book.
This is almost the end of week two of our quarantine. It’s also week one of (virtual) interviews in Canada for the release of #ClosetotheBone by @penguinrandomca on November 3rd. Promotions began on Oct 22nd the auspicious date of Saptami and I hear November 3rd is an important day for American friends. Never a better time to reflect, read and protect our inner and outer expansion from forces that contract.
I am giddy and nervous for the book’s reception in Canada, it being a narrative uniquely informed by the privileges of what it means to be born Canadian. It seems, from early conversations, the words have landed well, which is the humble, genuine wish of most writers.
Order your copy @amazoncan @indigo and of course your local bookstore
@penguinrandomca @jayapriyavasudevan
Memorable times with @rado
Proud to be an enduring ambassador for a watch brand that pivots and endures.
@rado
Posted @withregram • @shamimsarif #BehindTheScenes on #TheWorldUnseen as @beneaththesheetz shares her sides with @lisaraniray… What a wonderful experience it was to shoot this film in South Africa, from my first novel, with these wonderful actors and friends from #ICantThinkStraight – in a world when the industry believed there was no distribution potential for movies featuring women of colour it was not easy for @hananfkattan to pull off #womeninfilm
Is there any way to gently ease into the subject of mental health? What if I share my own story, spill the mulchy secrets of my terror and pain, the anxieties and insecurities that led to my struggles with body dysmorphia, with anorexia and bulimia, or prevented me from claiming my personal power?
All I have learned is while our individual struggle takes different forms, it’s what remains buried and hidden that rules our inner and outer worlds. We need to normalise discussion around mental health and mental health advocacy. There’s a deep well of healing available just beyond the grip of social stigma and shame.
Stories heal. Narratives can also wall us into pods of self sabotage and low self worth. Still I place my faith in language and truth telling, because in this fragile world shaped by our shared existence, what else do we have?
#mentalhealthawareness
There comes a time in life when everything stands still. That is when you reflect deep within. You nurture your heart, your soul, your relationships. These uncertain times have taught us how precious each moment is. This festive season feel what is precious. This Durga Puja feel the festivity with Rado.
@rado #Rado #FeelIt
One of the most healing, soothing sounds on offer.
@villasamadhi.sg
For every enchanted thought and sweet phrase that you utter, may a bouquet blaze across your lips.
Mask by @picchika
Ma Durga as migrant labourer, making the arduous journey home with her children.
When art and celebration make a powerful political comment on our times.
#PallabBhowmick #DurgaPooja2020
Happy Dussehra!
Lost weekend chronicles, Singapore Edition.
Thanks @suidhaagabyshweta for the pretty metallic mask. It doesn’t match anything I’m wearing these days and that’s why my eclectic heart loves it.
#HeavyMetal #SG
There comes a time in life when everything stands still. That is when you reflect deep within. You nurture your heart, your soul, your relationships. These uncertain times have taught us how precious each moment is. This festive season feel what is precious. This Durga Puja feel the festivity with Rado.
@rado #Rado #FeelIt
Sacred geometry.
View = catalytic soul converter
Reporting from the twin mother trenches: while I labour over ‘shit, what’s for dinner 5 minute pasta’ this mom creates @metmuseum worthy art on a plate using healthy simple ingredients. I would like to see her kitchen after the plating is done though 🤪
Posted @withregram • @demealprepper Peacock Potatoes 🦚🦚🦚 Creamy garlic mashed potatoes, spiced with nutmeg, salt and white pepper. Serve with a fresh salad or roasted vegetables. Enjoy! 🦚🦚🦚Follow me for more plating fun and stay healthy! ______________________________________________________________#demealprepper #peacock #foodartchef #foodlovefollow #food52 #foodart #buzzfeed #thekitchn #theartofplating #instagram #artoninstagram #foodartistry #foodartist #artfood #artistsoninstagram #femaleartist #feedfeed #birds #artonaplate #foodfun #birdsofinstagram #giantrobot #allerhande #albertheijn #cook #stayathome #staysafe #stayhealthy
Posted @withregram • @supranavdash Tanmoy As a Bahurupi Preparing for his Act I, II, Kolkata, 2020// Best of PhotoVogue 12.10.2020 @vagabondtannu #tanmoychowdhury #supranavdash #femininmasculinvogueitalia #bestof #photovogue #lgbtq #androgyny #imaginingthedivine #kaliofkolkata #ramakrishnasays #kali #chaitanya #goddesskali #shakti #bahurupi #bengalfolkart
Creative direction @ishan_sujoy_roy
Make up @ishan_sujoy_roy
Asst: @photoworldkolkata @dibakar1980
Posted @withregram • @shreshiii Ek Zamana, Beet Gaya
(An Era Gone By)
Ek zamana tha jo beet gaya, aur ek zamana aayega, phir hum bhi bitein zamane ke ho jayenge
Hum bhaagne ki koshish bhi kare toh kya faayda? Samay ko thodi hi na pichda payenge?
Things I draw are often a collection of things I’ve seen, things I see and the things I wish to see. It’s hard to express them, they come to me in a flurry, If only I knew how to invite them everyday to come sit with me and have some tea!
Print Available on request via DM or comment.
I’ve been thinking about what it means to belong to a place, and whether we have any choice in the matter. I was neither birthed in the mountains nor on the subcontinent but both landscapes claim me as their own. It’s not logical. But I wholly trust the direction my blood runs when I am in either.
Now that we are in the mountains of BC, the girls love flipping through this exquisitely vibrant book by @christine.chitnis called #PatternsofIndia. It reminds them of India. They pause over the ‘blue baby’ and press their heads together over the image of a street food vendor selling bhel puri in the chapter called ‘Marigold’.
‘Bhaiya!’ Yells Sufi with delight, reminded of one of the many bhaiyas in Mumbai who indulged the girls with everything from sweets to winding the car window way down to delight them with evening breezes on Carter Road.
Talk about a complex concept of home, my third culture kids are either going to have to search for it, or find it everywhere.
#Staycation vibes @villasamadhi.sg with bestie
Can you spot her?
Humbling and also a cool affirmation of the power of pursuing your truth and beliefs during these divisive, cynical times. Thanks @RangitaNandy and the entire team of @4moreshotspls
Enjoyed the experience of working with a team anchored by fearless, creative, slightly mad women aligned with my own personal vision and madness 😘💥
Loves y’all 👏🏽
Also…who knew an old broad like me could still pull out a few surprises. And surprise herself.
@pritishnandycommunications @iemmys #futureisfemale
Posted @withregram • @dallasindianartscollective October is Cancer Awareness Month. And to commemorate this special occasion, @dallasindianartscollective, in association with media partner @avstv, proudly presents the virtual book launch of @lisaraniray’s memoir “Close To The Bone” (signed copies available).
We’ll present a Zoom Q&A with the #Canadian actor, author, activist on Wednesday, October 28th at 7 pm EST. In order to participate, you MUST purchase a copy of the book.
*This exclusive event is only open to the first 100 people in the United States who register! #virtualbooklaunchparty
Posted @withregram • @prlsystem Coming out next month and on order in our catalogue is Lisa Ray’s Close to the Bone, a memoir of her life from rising star to her life-changing diagnosis with multiple myeloma. Request this title today!
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#NewBook #NewBookRelease #CloseToTheBone #LisaRay #Memoir #Memoirs #Biography #Cancer #CancerSurvivor #Books #LibraryBooks #NewRelease #NewReleases #Library #Libraries #Books #BookAddict #ABLibraries #LibraryCatalogue
Posted @withregram • @janicepariat Perhaps because this year we’ve spoken so much about illness, and because I’ve been unwell lately (terrible cold but nothing worse, thankfully)—I’ve been thinking about the act of recovery. It sounds old fashioned: convalescence. A word that comes to us from the mid-17th-century, from the Latin “convalescere”, meaning “to grow fully strong”.
In these times of quick-fix medication, we aren’t used to long illnesses (which is no bad thing) but we aren’t accustomed to slow recuperation either. Unlike the historical practice of viewing convalescence as a distinctly separate and important stage of illness recovery, today’s convalescents are expected to dive straight back into normal life. To be strong, and able almost immediately. But what must we do with the “after-life” of illness?
This, I realise, is when we require most compassion. Writer Alain de Botton says “People can accept you sick or well. What’s lacking is patience for the convalescent.” It’s true—perhaps to convalesce is to grow stronger because it forces you to be patient—with others, with yourself.
These days, I’m learning to lie here, shifted during the day, like a theatre prop, from the bedroom to the living room from where I can look out into our little garden. I cannot stare at a screen, so I read, listen to music. At times, I’m impatient, dismayed. I realise I need to learn to do nothing. It’s hardest of all—and easier perhaps when I was younger.
In a description from a book about recovery—historical, personal, political—Bernard Schlink’s “The Reader”, the young protagonist has suffered a bout of Hepatitis: “These are hours without sleep,” he says, “which is not to say they’re sleepless, because on the contrary, they’re not about lack of anything, they’re rich and full. Desires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again.”
My days convalescing begin to take this turn into a dreamy, out-of-time state. To recover, I learn, is to recuperare, to “get again”, and so we must give away these hours, this time, in order to get ourselves back again, changed, more resilient, stronger.
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📷 @erol
All the existential conflicts embedded in maps and angry hearts, in petty politics that cares nothing for our galactic bodies, composed as they are of stardust and stories cannot but melt away when confronted with the simplicity of a truth telling mahatma.
Thank you @thepoetresse for the gift of idealism and beauty at a time when my heart hungers for it. What a magnificently textured tribute to the man and his message through art and your poetry. I was deeply moved by your book. As I pulled another favoured book from the oven after my toddlers had spilled juice over its pages I think: this will be a great inheritance for them. As long as I keep it away from the juice spill trajectory for a few more years.
#MahatmaGandhi #Santatithennownext @harpercollinsin
‘Matins’ by @nobelprize_org winning poet Louis Gluck.
