beautiful

Vorfreude in A to Z

Prakash Hegade 6 Comments

It’s April of 2024 and Day 22 of the A to Z challenge. This year I am doing the theme of ‘26 Moments’ on my blog. I plan to pull out A to Z parts from diverse set which are more than just the parts and possibly describe the world of their own.  It can be a wonder, an invention, a community, the philosophy, a thought, a lead, a culture, a design, or basically anything that would make one wonder and ponder on.  26 imperfect petite flashes that are amongst and around us.

My everyday will have a selection, description, an eight line poem followed by an interpretation.

Day 22: Vorfreude

Vorfreude is a German word and it took me a while to get its pronunciation right even after going through audios. The word has no exact English equivalent. Vor is before and Freude is joy. It’s the word that describes the joyful anticipation. It is that feeling which comes before experiencing something delightful and pleasure. It’s a joyful and intense anticipation from imagining future pleasures. All those exciting things that we wish to do, all our plans, all those happy moments that we imagine, everything is Vorfreude. Those few days that you wait for your trip to begin and all those things that your mind has already planned and visualized to do, that is a Vorfreude. Isn’t that a beautiful word? Isn’t that making our world beautiful?

The hiker’s anticipation: the nearby waterfall announces itself with its veil of water vapor. Von Hedwig Storch – Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11013068

Poem:
And as randomly as it can get
At a random moment
We dream of
All those could have been,
Should have been,
Will be.
And smile, thank
For this beautiful life.

At one side is the joyful anticipation when we know that is about to happen. At other side are those imaginations that we have, that we know is not going to happen. And still, it gives us an undefined amount of pleasure. This one is to all those that keep us happy!

Why Take Pictures

Prakash Hegade 6 Comments

I have asked that question to myself several times and my mind has toggled between the worlds of ‘live the moment you don’t need a picture’ and ‘also take a picture while you live the moment’. While over the years, being varyingly random, now I usually take a snap that reminds me of collective satisfying moments. We live several moments that are worth being reminded. Isn’t it always a pleasure to return to them and smile because that happened?  Pictures do a great deal when it captures everything we had in mind. I have a special collection where they mean more than those moments to me.

A lot of times, okay, all the times, I take them because they mean something to me. Any other likes when on social media is an additional idolizer to it.

Teeny Tiny Us!

I love the above picture because it overflows happiness. It brings out the architecture. It is calming. It’s hassle free. It reminds me that there is nothing more beautiful than witnessing the moment and carrying it ahead with grace. It reminds me that we lived the time and we were part of it. It makes me virtually wander in the streets of Jaipur.

Not a Coach, Not a Berth!

Prakash Hegade 2 Comments

Guess who missed the train and did not miss to make a memorable journey?

All of us!

That was a first!

You know how sometimes there is really no reason on why something happens and how it happened? We realized at 10.30 am that our train is not really at 4.45 pm and it had already left the Jaipur station at 9.30 am. There was no way we could catch an express train at next station as we were already running late. The next train with sleeper coach available was 5 days later as it was festival season. A 1200km journey would be too much to take a bus. We were not in position to take a road trip after 8 days of already hectic travel (a few of us were, if not all) and flight only costed 52K. Well, we had another train to catch in Mumbai and it was not like we had all the time in the world – it was like we had and also did not have.

The next train to Jaipur was at 2.00 pm and we had to book general seats – THE only available option if we ever wanted to travel. We came to station and did (cheers to the long queue and stomach running rats). There was not even one leg space in general and we had to make around 20 hours journey. Of course we paid extra and moved to sleeper. With no surprise, the sleeper looked like general. Seven of us kept moving across bogies making sure to take seats which got empty and vacate when the seat holder came by (damn those luggage). There was a stop for every one hour-ish. Everything that could possibly happen, happened that night. That’s why the journey was beautiful. We all got around 4 hours of no disturbance sleep in the end when train was almost empty, at the end of journey, long past the midnight. We reached Mumbai with tired smiles.

Could it get any more amazing?

P.S. We were not supposed to share this with anyone!

Kalon

Prakash Hegade 15 Comments

AtoZ2019K

Its April of 2019 and Day 11 of A to Z Challenge. I am doing Foreign word/phrase a day and 8 line poem for it.

Word/Phrase: kalon
Language: Greek
Meaning: means beautiful. In Ancient Greek philosophy it was used to refer to an absolute ideal or perfect natural beauty, both physically and morally.

Poem:
fragments of life,
that smell like:
a stranger,
an old soul,
away from normal,
absurd graffiti,
blank wallpapers.
there, life echoes: kalon.

Interpretation:
Those pieces of life that make us feel like a stranger, an old soul, abnormal, a confused graffiti, messed up wallpapers etc are the ones that add beauty to existence.