ROAD TO NARA

A Traveller’s lessons from ten years on the ँ Road

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Few years ago while swimming in the river Tungbhadra in Sringeri, I met an Indian data Scientist who had left his job in the US to work on the Indian River systems. As we spoke while floating in the river conversing about culture and civilization, it that time when i realized something very commonplace, and the impression of its true meaning changed something in...

22/04/2020

Comments 111

Guidance: Ways to grow, On The Road, Philosophy, Road Journals

13/11/2021

When a wedding arrived Magically in Rajasthan

It was a time of peerless freedom. I was a young Yogi travelling with a backpack, pen, diary and...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 111

28/09/2020

When a wedding found me travelling in Mumbai

It was then my first visit to Mumbai. And hence everything i was laying my eyes on went deeper...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 151

27/07/2020

To a Monsoon Wedding and a Rare Feast –III

After Kaushik and I experienced our first monsoon thunder, together under this Divine Tree, I knew that home was...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 71

27/02/2016

The Wedding Song

In her wedding dress that one day she stopped counting years I met J uncle on a very...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 31

17/12/2021

Jyoti Bhatt : A Tribute to a Living Legend : A Photographic Essay on Rural Gujarati...

Today, he is 87 and I will only wish that somehow a film compiling his works, his life, no...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 92

12/12/2021

Days in the Hidden Valley of Mandal and a Small trek to Ma Anusuyadevi Temple : A...

While studying culture and ancient practises in the Higher Himalayas.Continuing from Pandava Forest and the Brahma Kamal : The...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 76

16/10/2021

Welcome To Heaven: Stories From the Line Of Control that May Enlighten The World–...

On the Great Himalayan Road Journey to Baltistan, today is the showdown, the final journey continuing from Call of...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 100

14/08/2021

The Gun Mountains and Other Gods -V

On the Road to Baltistan, continuing from Call of the Now- I Life and nothing more- II Road will...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 93

When a wedding arrived Magically in Rajasthan

Published by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

It was a time of peerless freedom. I was a young Yogi travelling with a backpack, pen, diary and a camera travelling through villages, walking on the mud roads...

13/11/2021

Comments 111

A Rural Asian Wedding Travelogue, rajasthan

One night at the Indo-Pakistan border

Published by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

As Corona and the bats are the rhetoric of the year, i remember one night that came and crossed all expectations of mysticism and fear that will always go...

24/06/2020

Comments 114

rajasthan, Short Stories, Tales from Rural India

LAST FLIGHT OF AN OWL

Published by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

She kept looking towards the sky while floating in the water kept for cows. Her death seemed such that at one time I felt she chose it. But...

13/02/2020

Comments 8

Mysticism, rajasthan

Mangla and her magical milk

Published by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Mangla’s milk has been the best thing to happen in this sea ashram. But today even before I could taste it, Logar brought Papaya for the first time and...

29/01/2019

Comments 0

rajasthan, Short Stories

26/12/2021

Help Save the Birdman of Kashmir. Save Rasool : A Fundraiser

Some of you may remember Rasool. My guardian, and the one who brought Kashmir to me. I had written...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 23

04/12/2021

FINDING Brahma Kamal: The Divine Flower Seat of Brahma: On a Rainy Night from Delhi...

While studying culture and ancient practises in the Higher Himalayas. Continuing from Pandava Forest and the Brahma Kamal :...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 60

26/11/2021

Pandava Forest and the Brahma Kamal: The Nights of Change in the Higher Himalayas &...

But before finding Brahma Kamal, Nara had to go through the forests where Pandavas once roamed. Pandavas! The...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 116

16/10/2021

Welcome To Heaven: Stories From the Line Of Control that May Enlighten The World–...

On the Great Himalayan Road Journey to Baltistan, today is the showdown, the final journey continuing from Call of...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 100

14/08/2021

The Gun Mountains and Other Gods -V

On the Road to Baltistan, continuing from Call of the Now- I Life and nothing more- II Road will...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 93

24/07/2021

The Road will Tell you- III

It rains as i write this, mad heart, be brave. Continuation from Call of the Now and Life and...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 76

22/06/2021

Call of the Now

Image : Looking over river Shyok entering into Pakistan, from the last remaining Tibetan Monastery in the Gilgit-Baltistan Region....

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 64

04/04/2021

A Dip in the Rivers

From time to time, a dip in the river changes your perception about that river you just became with....

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 67

Turiya and Ramakrishna: Conversations around self- A Photo Book, Yogic Studies

A Brief History of Ancient Temples in India: The Secrets are in the conversation- ३

I had just arrived from visiting a temple in Uttarkashi with my Guruji in Uttarakhand. He is from the state and well versed in the ways of temple building...

Ancient Life and Research, Guidance: Ways to grow, Motivation and Inspiration, Turiya and Ramakrishna: Conversations around self- A Photo Book, Yogic Studies

Turiya and RamaKrishna: Who Are You?- ११

Nara commentates … First called is Svante, alittle five year old sannyas aspirant, and subodhi, his mother. Ramakrishna tells him to shut his eyes which he does, instantly, with full obedience, tight and very still,...

Delhi, Making of The Capital, Quantum Mode: Walking in Delhi, Turiya and Ramakrishna: Conversations around self- A Photo Book, Yogic Studies

Yogmaya – १

It was sudden. A day of change. Something shifted. Paradigm. Light. Its been months that I had known where to look yet It took time to find. Because it...

Ancient Life and Research, Enjoy the Paintings, Making of The Capital, Mysticism, Tales from Rural India, Yogic Studies

Truth, Evil and the Sun

When we reached Gopeshwar that night, Gana seemed speechless. But Neel looked at him with satisfaction giving an expression like then he has seen. We sat around fire, while...

Ancient Life and Research, Guidance: Ways to grow, Yogic Studies

5 Ancient Secrets of Yogic Wellness – III

A long time friend and astrologer, who works as an Engineer in California has cautioned that the next 10-15 years is going to be very tumultuous for the world....

Ancient Life and Research, Guidance: Ways to grow, Yogic Studies

The cost of Life?-II

“Conserve”, because No, nature does not need us instead we need nature to stay relevant as life on earth.” By the end of 2020, the year had dented many...

Ancient Life and Research, Yogic Studies

A brief history of life on Earth and the origin of Yoga-I

It has been many centuries since humans have stopped moving from one place to another. Almost the majority of people today grow up in long settled societies. This new...

Guidance: Ways to grow, Yogic Studies

Moon, Woman, and the essence of a Long Life

The year will soon end, and hence i was thinking of going into the realms of my understanding of this life as a Yogi, to speak to you in...

Yogic Studies

Food and the World on a new Yogi’s mind

It was time. The sun had arrived when he decided going to bed again. After last night chocolate truffle, the cough had soared. The times are odd. Eversince electricity...

Mysticism, Yogic Studies

Life is only breath. Every other thing a distraction.

The night before was dedicated to red Hibiscus flowers. They ended inside the fire place while praying for the solar chord, our right nostril, symbolising river Ganga; and in...

22/09/2020

The Play of Tendencies

There are many layers under our skin. Cells that live with us and leave us without even letting us...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 18

24/01/2019

Arrival of Maharaj

Threads of cotton. Some new event had to happen. A long day in motion. Paris. Not patparganj but Indirapuram...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 0

07/01/2019

Play a sport

Many a times when body starts feeling the temperature, it starts affecting every other small action, as simple as...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 0

29/12/2018

The dip

Sometimes one dip changes your smile and temperature. It takes you then to places that can only be created...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 2

24/11/2018

For a better Life

As someone pointed out; convinience trumps privacy. Morality and good judgement for too many of us- the internet has...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 0

22/11/2018

Pattern

Here In north India if women had left dishes overnight to wash them tomorrow; then elderly women used to...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 0

Truth, Evil and the Sun

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

When we reached Gopeshwar that night, Gana seemed speechless. But Neel looked at him with satisfaction giving an expression like then he has seen. We sat around fire, while waiting for the food to arrive. Open your ears said Neel and he began speaking like reciting an over practised hymn. The men in the east, he said, are trees; those in the south are flocks of animals; those in the west are wild plants. And those in the north like ourselves, who cried out while they ate other men, were the waters. When the collective sound started filling the air, he started explaining about eating. The act of eating is a violence that causes what is living, in its many forms, to disappear. Whether grass, plants, trees, animals or human beings, the process is the same. There is always a fire that devours and a substance that is devoured. This violence bringing misery and torment will one day be carried out by those who inflict it. Pouring milk into the fire- every morning, every...

HYPNIC PICNIC : 5 elements Wind and Water published in Rare Journal

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

The journalist had been following my journey here on the Road to Nara and later found herself ecstatic on seeing some images that i had made few years ago following the sea along the expansive South-Western coast of India. I was then documenting it for a long term project on the journey of five elements and various shapes and forms they take. HYPNIC PICNIC was this month’s theme, magic as she asked me for images that carried in them a life in between and the journey. Along with me came a few other artists, as many as the fingers are in both hands, two from India and few from far away countries. Working, carrying their experience of the world in their fields of expression; illustration, sketches, graphics, Paintings and images. In them i found few very interesting people doing the things they have been doing in their lives like Stilleke, he is a curator and was invited here to talk about the future of festivals and even more so in the years leading to...

Life is only breath. Every other thing a distraction.

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

The night before was dedicated to red Hibiscus flowers. They ended inside the fire place while praying for the solar chord, our right nostril, symbolising river Ganga; and in yogic texts known as pingala. It was also mauni amavasya, i.e the quiet moonless night, as advised for centuries, this day must be observed in silence. Women who could not restrain themselves from speaking, fasted in exchange for words. And the ones who spoke nothing from mouths were seen talking cautiously from eyes. There was nothing satvic about the day even though I tried to make it. And above all It ended without a moral, not that it had to. But without a story as if either it wasn’t needed or we weren’t important. In the evening the walk became unending. It didn’t feel long but the sun had set. We went around the circular home to find more wood but instead found two calves loving like statues. Somehow they got excited and started running like jumping deers. The once desired magic when attained, when passed...

23/10/2021

Turiya and RamaKrishna: Who Are You?- ११

Nara commentates … First called is Svante, alittle five year old sannyas aspirant, and subodhi, his mother. Ramakrishna tells him to shut...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 63

05/06/2021

How I found my self ? And sooner my strength- I

In the silence of the night, the only sound that started coming was of the rain drops dropping, infrequently...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 54

20/05/2021

9 Ancient Yogic Ways to fight Corona Pandemic

When flood comes, the fish eat ants. But when water dries, the ants eat fish. – Theory of Life, Virus will be...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 60

28/02/2021

Born to Run

The first half of Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography makes some things abundantly clear: He had no natural ability to play...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 42

22/02/2021

Technique, and how must, can we learn one ?

Its amazing by how much we can get done simply by trying. Whether its writing, finishing a complex film,...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 17

25/12/2020

Conversations in a Dream

Never stand and drink water, eat food or smoke. Some one very important from the other world entered in...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 68

10/11/2020

Tomorrow comes Daily

Slowly slowly as good days passed, hardest ones arrived. Three deaths and earning a bagful of silence later, we...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 51

25/09/2020

Finding Music

The poet-priest Kabir says, the first thing in the morning, do not rush off to the work. But take...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 56

Life at School, The Capital

Vandy and her Wonders

Day 6 I called Vandy again, out of love. To show our solidarity, that school is behind you, that we are with her in this hour of anxiety and...

Life at School, Motivation and Inspiration

Many Children and a School for Life

Anyone who in coming weeks, months or years comes across this post, must know that we are always on a look out for someone who is happy and wants...

Bruce Lee, Life at School

A Digital mind

The world has long gone past finding comfort for humans. Comfort seems secondary. They might only say it has only started. Facebook and Google will leave no stone unturned...

Life at School

Schools ruining the foundational roots of learning

We spent almost 15 years being brainwashed on learning things that have nothing to do majorly with our present mind space. And we keep paying the price. It is...

Life at School

Teachers Day is also a Mother’s day

Teachers day is somehow another Mother’s Day. Because mother is our first teacher. First person who taught us love, and taught us how to everything on earth. It was...

Life at School, Yogic Studies

Open your eyes, inwards

Dawn 7 New Delhi The day was Tantra. But first of all what is it that you feel when you read this word? Does it evoke complexity? Mixed emotions?...

A Tale of the King Rooster, The Birdman and a Cat: Saving Rasool’s Bird Park in Lake Dal, Kashmir.

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

On a drive to make this man live. Continuing from Remember me with a Lotus: Memoirs of Heaven and Birds in Kashmir and Help Save the Birdman of Kashmir: A Fundraiser : ँ :Even though Rasool’s favourite rooster died in old age but his death was not natural. By the time he died, the deepest virtue he attained was patience. And carried the Curiosity of a crow. He was a fighter Cock. And is remembered for his last fight that he fought with the heaviest cat on Dal Lake in Kashmir. The cat would start swimming as soon as the sun would set, from the foothill of the Shankaracharya temple crossing Dal and coming to the backyard of Rasool’s houseboat named Abu and Sheeba. It was said that it was she who inspired a line of dogs to cross the lake to find newer avenues to hunt and eat. But being a cat she would come and take all her time to roam and plan all night. It was noticed that the chicken count...

Help Save the Birdman of Kashmir. Save Rasool : A Fundraiser

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Some of you may remember Rasool. My guardian, and the one who brought Kashmir to me. I had written about him more than a few times. But for the ones who might not have heard about this Birdman, this magic man, must read this first. Remember me with a Lotus: Memoirs of Heaven and Birds in Kashmir But if you have skipped and are reading this. Let me please request you to meet him first yourself. You must have known that for some time i had been meaning to do something for Rasool. Not because i must but more because his life is more important than most. As he knew, he understood how valuable, how important others lives are. He loved, protected and cared for the lives of those who were left to fend for themselves. He saved the birds and all nature beings as his own. For me, to find his work and a small bird park in a region marred by Bullet sounds and all kind of violence was a revolution in...

Welcome To Heaven: Stories From the Line Of Control that May Enlighten The World– VII. Final

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

On the Great Himalayan Road Journey to Baltistan, today is the showdown, the final journey continuing from Call of the Now- I Life and nothing more- II Road will tell you- III Remember me with a Lotus- IV The Gun Mountains and other Gods- V The Wait of Baltistan- VI : ँ : — It was more difficult to reach here than i had thought. To an extent I was only one night away from leaving it all and going back home. A whole day had gone in repairing Tyre and servicing this vehicle in Diskit, the same valley that hosted gypsies once, ancient travellers, porters coming from Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan carrying opium and other magic potions to the cold desert of Hunder; a stop that they still talk about as the Silk road. This was the ancient Silk route, and from here you either go up to Mongolia or find your way to the Tibetan plateau into China. I took to Baltistan. “And had Turtuk not pulled me in this one time, I...

09/01/2020

Protected: Ways of Seeing, as in 2020

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

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14/09/2019

Amarnath in the times of article 370

Even after thinking about doing something daily, one ends up doing it, achieving it, finishing it only in the...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 6

06/02/2019

Planets find a well

The four rounds around fire and seven complexities. Sound of a marble like play of a mystic. Gaya left...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 0

10/08/2018

Saving the Bird Man of Kashmir

I and Rasool entered the hospital minutes after winter sun arose. Rasool had been in extreme pain ever since...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 0

05/07/2018

Vipassna in the Jungle

To tell you, I had lost this post a long time ago. Digital world has its own...

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Comments 0

Man’s Search for Meaning

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

When I returned to Ishbar that night, Shiban seemed speechless. But Dr Kaul looked at him with satisfaction giving an expression like “then he has seen.” And soon the moment came to explain to him what he had seen. We sat around fire, while waiting for the food to arrive. Open your ears, said Dr Kaul and he began speaking like reciting an over practised hymn. “The men in the east, he said, are trees; those in the south are flocks of animals; those in the west are wild plants. Last, those in the north like ourselves, who cried out while they ate other men, were the waters. When the collective sound of chewing filled the air, he started explaining about eating. The act of eating is a violence that causes what is living, in its many forms, to disappear. Whether grass, plants, trees, animals, or human beings, the process is the same. There is always a fire that devours and a substance that is devoured. This violence, bringing misery and torment, will one...

One monsoon in Bengal – II

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

After hiding under the monsoon tree i had thought of home and had felt at that moment home is calling. Bengal had become love filled for me because of Kaushik. I was living, moving in the rural country around his village as he wished to. We reached his home thinking i will take the evening bus to calcutta but the moment we arrived at his place it started drizzling and it did not stop raining for next four days to come. Here I am writing from Kaushik’s village home in Jhargram. Its night. Light has come after nine hours. I have cooked six packets of maggie with peas and potato. We both will eat it all tonight. Kaushik has gone to get McDowell’s for himself. Its my last night. We are partying. Meanwhile, I posted that letter to M. Something happened. Let me share this. it was magical – I am fortunate to have spent a memorable time during west Bengal monsoons. The blue sky behind the clouds had slept and drizzling took a break from firmly...

One Monsoon in Bengal – I

by Narayan Tushar Kaudinya

Monsoons are coming, Or are they ? They say that this year it’ll not rain but the skies are going to weep. Clouds have arrived two weeks early. Even the universe knows, that this time children are angry, they are not participating in anything. All are quiet and vulnerable. Few years ago, i travelled through Rural Bengal once in majestic Indian Monsoons. Being there it felt like my soul grew while in only seeing the earth showing her abundance, her happiness. So much went inside me then that i had to write a letter to a friend who sat far. Not to tell her as such, but to learn myself what was going. –– Clouds have arrived, I knew it ended right there with this photograph. I realised home is calling. Silda Football Ground West Bengal Rain was never far behind. This happened to be that moment of my journey. This tree felt home away from home. Travels have not been too comfortable but its liberating to learn that i could come to west bengal at this...