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"...if you have benefited from the currency of your looks, when that currency loses its value, you can end up feeling pretty bankrupt. Entering a room of mixed company—a meeting, a party—or walking down a crowded street, I've learned to expect that I'll attract a little attention. I don't mean that people stop in their tracks, open-mouthed, and stare ... but I've been banking on appreciative glances for a long time. They make me feel pretty, which makes me feel happy. ..."

"...watching your face mature is not the most gratifying spectator sport—because no matter how constantly or enthusiastically you root for the home team, eventually age will win the game."

Valerie Monroe

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Action comes first: Start to walk, the way will appear

Rumi said: "As you start to walk on the way, the way appears." Clarity doesn't come before action. It comes from action.

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"...you can still find your way forward in a world broken to pieces. Glue them together a new way, and let the seams show." - Jason Farago My new motto for life

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On People Like Me:

Quote... we exist like a widely spread, not-so-secret society. We know we’ve come across a fellow member when we hear them speak; we know we’re in cabal-company when someone speaks idiomatic Indian Neutral and you can’t quite catch where in India they’re from, or maybe only a faint trace of a ...

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On some other English-speakers in India:

Quote

There is also another kind of English usage at which I don’t laugh. More and more one finds that people whose first language is not English nevertheless use it quite fearlessly to make their points in the social or political field.

Again, this is not some peacocking conceit, these are attempts at communicating issues as quickly, articulately and effectively as possible, and reproducing the Queens’, or laconic Merricanese or fluent Neutral-Indian is not part of the speaker’s concern.

To find fault or laugh at these English deployments would be stupid and elitist, it would be privileging your need to find cheap humour over the serious content of what someone is trying to convey. Does this mean I no longer laugh at English or people speaking it? Not at all.

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From the boisdejasmin Instagram account

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Notes on an Indian Autumn@wordpress.

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The most terrifying sport actually, age always wins

"...watching your face mature is not the most gratifying spectator sport—because no matter how constantly or enthusiastically you root for the home team, eventually age will win the game."

Valerie Monroe

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Happiness as posture

Joy is ephemeral. Of course it is. For me, happiness—and I’m not talking about the externalized Facebook-type of faux happiness—is a feeling and a state of mind, but sometimes it’s also a posture. Because they don’t want that. They want you to look beaten up. That’s why laughter is as much a part of my writing as anything else.

Arundhati Roy, in Paris Review interview

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“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”

Cormac McCarthy

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...if a perfume inspires a daydream, it’s guaranteed to lift your spirits anytime

QUOTE:

"...if a perfume inspires a daydream, it’s guaranteed to lift your spirits anytime.

When sampling a fragrance, pay attention to what a scent evokes for you. Does it merely smell nice or does it make you think of a place or an emotion? Sometimes a perfume speaks to you instantly, but some fragrances take time to reveal all of their layers. Try a perfume several times and notice how it evolves and what images it paints. ..."

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What's left when memories fade?

-- by Shubhra Gupta

"We are made up of our memories. When they begin to fade, what’s left? Do we vanish alongside? Does the residue matter?"

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Three of Us review: A beautiful ode to memory and preservation

"Shefali Shah and Jaideep Ahlawat are exceptional in a sobering, slow-motion stroll through the past as embodied by a beautiful Konkan town."

by Manik Sharma

Unless "the act of losing them again also happens to coincide with finding them one last time"

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पर जो माँगे से न पाया वो सिला याद आया

रूह में जल उठे बुझती हुई यादों के दिए कैसे दीवाने थे हम आप को पाने के लिए

यूँ तो कुछ कम नहीं जो आप ने एहसान किए पर जो माँगे से न पाया वो सिला याद आया

साहिर लुधियानवी (गुमराह)

ruuh mein jal uthe, bujhti hui yadon ke diye kaise divane the ham aap ko paane ke liye

yuun toh kuchh kam nahin jo aap ne ehsan kiye par jo maange se na paaya vo sila yaad aaya

Sahir Ludhianvi (Gumrah)

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Oh, how I long for solitude

"...and I feel more life in me after every hour of being alone." -- Iris Murdoch "To be alone in the house is now my greatest pleasure. Even a mouse annoys me." -- Virginia Woolf from Letters in Praise of Solitude, Letters of Note https://open.substack.com/pub/lettersofnote/p/there-is-no-one-around-and-i-can

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The smallest of moments ...

"The smallest of moments can have a cumulative effect on the quality of a relationship—and determine whether or not it lasts."

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Nikle the kahaan jaane ke liye

निकले थे कहाँ जाने के लिये, पहुं���े है कहाँ मालूम नहीं अब अपने भटकते क़दमों को, मंजिल का निशान मालूम नहीं Nikle the kahaan jaane ke liye Pahunche hain kahaan maloom nahi Ab apne bhatakte kadmon ko Manzil ka nishaan maloom nahi -Sahir, for Bahu Begum

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Just a list of books that seem worth reading ...