Soleil says: Please stay at home, (if possible financially). Count your blessings like your blocks. Wash your hands. If you’re bored, call your friends and Dadus. Get vaccinated when it’s your turn. Play with your toys indoors. Ask for help if you need it, and share your blocks with others when they ask.
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Heart breaking to read all the messages for ambulances, beds and medical assistance coming out of India on my timeline. Please, please take care of each other. Wear a mask. Socially distance. Get tested. I love you India. Tough times. Time to buckle up, go within, rise above negativity and fear.
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Oh yes, and read. Discover a new author. Buy a book. There’s no richer, more passionate tango than dancing with words, even in a pandemic.
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Image @barbarichphoto
Image courtesy @maisonbirks
Jewellery @maisonbirks
Makeup @little_dream_makeup_esthetics
This is the fierce Arian I want to get old with, while we attempt to become those women who swan around in saris, cracking sarcastic jokes at everyone’s expense (including our own)
Happy (slightly delayed due to dizzying time zone issues) Birthday to the super powered @itsmspreetatoyou
One day we’ll turn our masks into cholis and tear up the scenery again with our incredibly elegant pleats 😅
Damn this pandemic. Miss you sister of my heart 💜
#MyBirksStory
There’s something about Mother’s Day 2021 that poignantly brings to mind the challenges and sacrifices yet ultimate joy of motherhood. I’ve had some time to reflect on my mother. I miss her. Every Mother’s Day I observed a cherished ritual: she would take out her favourite gold earrings and fasten bangles on her wrists. This was jewellery passed on to her from my father’s family in India. Watching the traditional Indian gold gleam in her blond hair was a perfect visual celebration of my mixed cultural heritage and my mother’s spirit. I hope to pass on precious memories and impressions laden with heritage like this to my daughters, Sufi and Soleil. I chose these pieces from Birks for their timeless elegance, craftsmanship and ability to evoke new rituals. For me, they symbolise strength, beauty, resilience and the gleam in every mother’s heart. Click on the link in my bio for my Bijoux Birks Mother’s Day wish list. #BirksPartner
@maisonbirks #Ad
When @arrahman sir asked me if I’d like to be a part of @99songsofficial I replied: ‘Yes. When. Anytime. Anything.’
I consider myself incredibly fortunate (dumb luck?) in the sense that life (or call it God, the universe, whatever you fancy) has a way of charting out a direction for me, and then stands back, waiting for me to take action. How else did I end up playing a unique cameo in this project?
And now #99Songs is releasing April 16th: a collective labour of love. I intersected with so much extraordinary talent in this film. And, along with my director @vishweshk and @arrahman we birthed Sheela.
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Watch. Listen. Be transported. Soak in new talent. You will feel the love emanating from the screen.
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Watch #99songs when it releases in three languages today.
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Come on…it’s AR’s genius musical heart on a plate ❤️
Deep bows:
@arrahman @vishweshk @sharadatrilok @ehanbhat @m_koirala @edilsy_vargas @dralhatenzin @officialjiostudios @ym_movies @idealentinc @natasha.moor @zoya.makeupandhair @exceedentertainment and all the incredible singers, musical talent and team that brought this story to life 🙏🏼
🇨🇦♥️
So bloody lucky to be Indo-Canadian 🇨🇦
@nelsonkootenaylake @nelsonbritishcolumbia
This is so important Gul. Information is power. Every time you enter a hospital in Canada at the moment, you are required to switch your cloth mask for a surgical one. Now I know why. Cases are raging everywhere, we all have to be vigilant and well informed 🙏🏼 Posted @withregram • @gulpanag Which mask?
While watching with helplessness as our healthcare infrastructure collapses, my mind kept going back to the fact that masks were supposed to keep us safe. Those that wear them. Properly. With BOTH nose and mouth covered.
I know of people who NEVER take off their mask, and yet have ended up getting Covid.
How? Why ?
Then I did some reading on masks. Well, all masks, it turns out, are not created equal. Turns out surgical masks are better.
Now, I must admit, I have quite a collection of nice, pretty cloth masks, acquired over the last year. But I have switched to surgical masks ( right ) now.
Here’s why .
Nice looking cloth masks are great for general hygiene, dust, prevention of allergies, etc . But experts say it’s safer to use a surgical mask right now.
A proper surgical mask has 3 layers, an outer hydrophobic non woven layer, a middle melt-blown layer, and an inner soft absorbent non woven layer.
Now, these three layers have specific functions: the outer layer repels water, blood and body fluids ( ie liquids- there’s a reason surgeons use them when puncturing/cutting), the middle layer, which is most important and the critical highlight of a surgical mask, it is designed as a filter and prevents germs from entering or exiting the mask; and the inner layer is to absorb water, sweat and spit.
P.S. A pilot friend with Air India , first told me, a few months ago, about how one can’t enter the airport in Germany without a surgical mask. And I was a little perplexed. I guess QED.
P. P.S. A lot of folks are also wearing double masks. With one of them being a surgical mask. The more the merrier. What say ?
There’s this video on @ndtv which in-fact suggests this as they eat forward. Double mask that is.
Your thoughts ?
Posted @withregram • @thepoetresse For everyone. Every day. It is the most powerful collective effort we can make while staying at home.
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#pray #powerofprayer #surrender #love
From #Santati, Mahatma Gandhi. Then. Now. Next.
Authored by @thepoetresse
Exposition curated by @lavinabaldota
Freshness. Freedom. Farness.
Cherish this planet. Womb to grave, it’s our home and legacy.
#earthday #rainbowchildren
Posted @withregram • @indiaculturalhub “ Why go to a gym when you have PPE’s?”
I’m 26 years old and I’m currently working at King Edward Memorial Hospital, Mumbai
Once we wear our PPE, we do not remove it for the entire shift – be it food, water or going to relieve ourselves. As such, we stop drinking water an hour before our shift, which does not help with the dehydration for when we perspire (courtesy Mumbai’s humidity) owing to the ACs being shut as we need to provide ventilation with the windows. This leaves us dizzy and feeling faint. Wearing a mask with a proper seal makes breathing difficult – adding to our light-headedness. When our shift is over, the first thing that we do is run for the water bottle and drink like a camel. Oh, what a sweet luxury that is!
The past two weeks have been to say the least -Scary! it is disheartening to see how terrible things are! Our wards are overflowing.It has been a tough time for everybody. I’m currently under a lot of stress with my final MD exams also coming up, so once I’m done with duty, I come back home, sleep and then spend the rest of my time studying for my exams. The stress is so much that these days I don’t get sleep, despite being how tired I am, unless I take sleeping pills.
My very first Covid duty last year is etched in my memory as rock-bottom. From 2 in the night to 8 in the morning, we lost 15 patients who had come in too late. One of these patients was a 37-year old male; it was devastating to see the loss of a life gone too soon. It was truly the most eye-opening experience of this pandemic for me – realizing the gravity of the situation and the battle that lay ahead.
My family is foremost in my mind as I step out to work everyday. My partner has been my unwavering rock – we both had contracted Covid last year through the course of my duty, and the risk of contracting it again through this is high – but she has never once complained.
We WILL get through this. We WILL come out on the other side. We’ve got your back :)” @doctor.agni
Found objects by Kootenay lake. Magic breathes in puffs of discoveries.
@nelsonkootenaylake
☀️♥️🏔🇨🇦
Posted @withregram • @heretheresomething A life worth writing about is a life worth reading about, Close to the Bone is a meditation on life itself. Lisa Rani Ray, cherished by her loving father of Indian descent and inspired by her mother’s Polish roots, is a woman of the world. She has the mind of a philosopher, heart of a spiritually awakened being and nonchalant charm of someone who lives her life serendipitously.
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Starting her career at a very young age, she finds herself tasked with choosing between modelling assignments, acting roles & other professional commitments while dealing with bouts of anorexia and moments of self-doubt. Through the chapters, she opens her life to us, her readers, about the songs in her heart, the yearning to travel, the stressors in her life, the pain & joy brought about by her lovers, her anxieties and the need to look within.
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There is truth & honesty behind every word Lisa has written and I laud her for that. The famous saying “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” epitomises her life – she has been fearless in the face of adversity and relentless in her pursuit of happiness.
💁♀️Fellow book lovers, this book is unmissable. It has altered me forever. Please, please, pleaseeee read this memoir. You won’t regret it
So apt and beautifully written I had to repost ❤️
Posted @withregram • @janicepariat This evening, after longer than I can remember, I was caught in a storm. I was out on errands—veggies, more masks—in preparation for the curfew/lockdown from tomorrow, and there I was marooned in the midst of it. Wind whipping up dust and dry leaves, lightening bolting through the dull leaden sky, and not-so-distant thunder. Hurry, hurry, I told myself, head down, walking faster. I’m not really scared of thunderstorms (unless I’m in an airplane!), but I felt real prickles of fear today, a feeling heightened perhaps by anxious news these last few days. Hurry hurry. We truly are small in the face of these things—a dry leaf in the wind, a speck of dust—and there’s something truly ancient about weather like this.
Caught, away from the safety of my apartment, I couldn’t ignore how it all was so frighteningly, magnificently, beyond our control. And I thought of how to our ancestors, huddling together under rocks, in caves, this could only have been divinity. Some otherworldly power, showing wrath or displeasure. How children would’ve crept closer to their parents, how the adults would’ve held them and said do not be afraid. What is that? the children might’ve asked, of the bolts of light, the rumbling in the sky, and despite themselves, the adults would comfort them with a story—of how they came to be, and how they’re nothing to be frightened of, because a long long time ago…and their voices would have lulled the children to comfort. This, I realised, standing amidst the wind and rain, this was the beginning of stories.
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#thunderstorm #thunder #thunderstorms #lightening #thunderstorm⚡️#storytelling #delhidiaries #lockdown2021 #delhistorm #coronadiaries #thebeginningofstories #delhidays #lockdown
Posted @withregram • @gulpanag What kind of mask should you wear ?
For those who couldn’t take out the time to read my earlier post – A video explainer 💁🏻♀️
#mask #maskup #maskupindia
Posted @withregram • @rolibooks On World Book Day we hope you are safe and healthy. “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
– James Baldwin #believeinbooks
I’m struggling. There’s days when the effort of balancing the multiplicity of roles demanded of me is too much. I begin to work on my book or an idea for a novel and it slides through my fingers when the calls from my children and parenthood overpowers all else. Grocery shopping, cleaning and administering discipline takes precedence over solitude, the walks, the conversations and research it takes to create stories. Many of my online interviews have been interrupted by a toddler plopping down in my lap mid-conversation. For a woman who dodged domesticity for decades and thrived in solitude, well, these moments make me feel I’ve been lifted out of myself and dropped into someone else’s story.
So I’m turning to literature for solace. ‘Black Milk’ by beloved Turkish novelist @shafakelif is an ode to motherhood and writing. It is hard to describe how much I relate to Shafak. A natural nomad Shafak was convinced that she was not interested in having children. However, as fate would have it, she marries and becomes pregnant. Through this memoir, we follow her journey of facing the tensions between various sides of herself.
‘After the birth of my first child I experienced a strong depression that separated me from the one passion in life that until then I had held above everything: writing fiction.
It was an emotional tremor for me. When I ran out of the building of the self I had carefully constructed all those years, there in the darkness, scared and shaken, I encountered a group of thumbelinas- six tiny finger women, each of whom looked like a different version of me- sitting side by side. I understood that if it weren’t for the extraordinary situation of my postpartum depression, I would have never seen them in a new light…perhaps all women live with a mini harem inside…this book is the story of how I faced my inner diversity and then learned to be One.’
Shafak gets it. The parenthood vs career struggle, how to defy the notion of motherhood as sacrifice. Her fear of the obligations motherhood requires. Her passion for seeking, even when it comes at the price of facing herself. Black Milk is also an entertaining, expansive read.
@shafakelif
Posted @withregram • @elephantjournal “For the first time in Minnesota state history, a white police officer has been held accountable for killing a Black man.” ~ ACLU
Deep exhale. Relief. A mournful joy.
Victory for truth is not a small victory. Now let’s work, together, to reform the system for all of us, for truth, for justice, for equality, for love.
Because the verdict of one case (when there are dozens a week that get little attention) is important, but it is not nearly enough. ~ @waylonlewis
👉🏼 Read: “These days, a victory for truth is not a small victory” on elephantjournal.com (linked in our bio).
Posted @withregram • @doubledayca Happy #CanadaBookDay! 🇨🇦 📚 We’re so proud to publish such a breadth of amazing Canadian authors and stories. 😊 What are you reading today?
Posted @withregram • @heretheresomething Nearing the end of #closetothebone by @lisaraniray . There is only one way to describe this book – it’s magical ✨
💁♀️Review coming up soonest!
Posted @withregram • @dralhatenzin Our labor of love is releasing into the world tomorrow.
IF you are planning on watching a film in Theatres this week. I kindly request you to choose 99 SONGS.
It’s Story-Telling at its finest.
In Cinema Theatres near you.
Needless to say: Wear a mask & maintain Social Distancing.
#99songs
TODAY!
Please join us at 3 PM EST/12 pm PT 💕
Posted @withregram • @modoyoga We’ve often heard faculty members at the @modoyoga Teacher Training say that one of the best things about teaching at the Modo training is that this community is so packed with talent that the faculty learn from the participants in the training just as much as participants learn from faculty.
We’ve had so many incredible humans graduate from the Modo Yoga teacher training over the years – many of whom embody the Modo Pillar – Live to Learn – by taking the training simply to dive deep into practice with no plan of teaching yoga on the mat.
One such graduate is acclaimed author, actor, and cancer activist Lisa Ray @lisaraniray . Lisa will be talking with Modo Co Founder Jess Robertson this Friday.
The theme of the conversation is Deepening Your Practice. This will be a series of conversations on how different thought leaders, and every day super heros use yoga in their lives.
Lisa’s recent book Close to the Bone is an intimate, generous and poetic work (link in bio).
@heyjessrobertson Jess and Lisa will talk about Lisa’s writing process as well as her experiences as an actor, author, mom and cancer activist.
👉Watch it LIVE Friday, April 16 at 3pm ET (12pm PT) at @modoyoga
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#modoyoga #instagramlive #yogalearning #topchefcanada
Posted @withregram • @kathy.giusti But this can change. Covid proved it. We’ve seen funding drive collaboration, fear relax regulatory burdens, and urgency fuel data sharing and innovative trial design. We must take these learnings and apply them across all diseases.
