Silent and overflowing leisure

"If people came to know where my king's palace is, it would vanish into the air.

The walls are of white silver and the roof of shining gold.

The queen lives in a palace with seven courtyards, and she wears a jewel that cost all the

wealth of seven kingdoms.

But let me tell you, mother, in a whisper, where my king's palace is.

It is at the corner of our terrace where the pot of the tulsi plant stands.

The princess lies sleeping on the far-away shore of the seven impassable seas.

There is none in the world who can find her but myself.

She has bracelets on her arms and pearl drops in her ears; her hair sweeps down upon the floor.

She will wake when I touch her with my magic wand and jewels will fall from her lips when she smiles.

But let me whisper in your ear, mother; she is there in the corner of our terrace where the pot

of the tulsi plant stands."

--excerpted from "The Fairyland," by Rabindranath Tagore.

***

"I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side. The works

that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.

Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite,

and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.

Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and

the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.

Now it is time to sit quiet, face to face with thee, and to sing

dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure."

--"A Moment's Indulgence," by Rabindranath Tagore.

***

"On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying,

and I knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded.

Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my

dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind.

That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing

and it seemed to me that is was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its completion.

I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and

that this perfect sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart."

--"Lotus" by Rabindranath Tagore.

Credits/Notes:

The sims are Black Taj and White Taj: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Black%20Taj/120/35/52

The White Taj is modeled after the Taj Mahal and the Black Taj is a product of imagination.*** These are ethereal, unreal, gorgeous builds with so much to explore and discover; each time I go I am surprised by something. Perhaps there are a few too many stores and billboards about, but a sim's gotta make money and I can respect that.

One of the happy by-products of this blog is all the lazy, meandering "learning" I tend to do in order to put a post together. It goes something like this: I visit a sim, which, besides making me want to take photos, gets me interested in some topic (e.g. Chinese brush painting, the Taj Mahal). What follows are hours of procrastination from RL chores spent in Internet research, following tangents down rabbit holes and discovering things and people I probably should have already known about.

Rabindranath Tagore is one of those people. I came across a quote by him about the Taj Mahal and thus found the happy sweet-spot tangent of this post. A poet, novelist, musician, playwright and essayist, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 (the first non-Westerner to do so). He was from a wealthy Brahmin family, lived in luxurious mansions and floating barges, studied law in England, traveled the world and knew everybody of importance, was a cultural dignitary and proponent of Indian Independence (he was the one who started calling Gandhi by the honorific "Mahatma"), an influencer of poets like Pablo Neruda and Octavio Paz. He was a good friend of Yeats. Here' s a cute photo of him with Albert Einstein:

Why the hell didn't I know about him?

Anyway, I've read quite a few of his poems now, willy-nilly, not knowing the dates, or in what era of his life and career they are from, but what I've found I like, though they feel awfully indulgent: sun-dappled, idealized, spiritual, light-filled, sentimental, bordering on florid, almost too beautiful. Too much of them and you're in for a stomach ache. I feel like I need a dose Imagism, some Ezra Pound, some spare haiku as a bracing chaser to Tagore's syrupy wine.

The Spanish poet Jose Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [may stem from the fact that] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have ... Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader."

(Kind of like Second Life!)

His poems work perfectly for the, well, rather florid look I was going for in the photos I took at Black Taj/White Taj. I added a grain texture and light gaussian blur to them because I was trying to capture the feeling of antique, early 20th-century children's book illustrations. I can just imagine the book they're in, its worn hardcover, the embossed, faded title-- "Tales of Adventure from Old Hindustan" in serif script-- earthy, yellowed pages, the smell of enclosed musty attics, &c. &c.

All the clothes are either from Zaara or Mashooka Designs. I probably have about 75 percent of the creations in Zaara Kohime's store in my inventory, which is quite possibly too much for any one avatar to own, but also quite understandable if you're familiar with her beautiful designs. I'm also quite partial to Aradhana Voight's traditional Indian offerings at Mashooka, especially the intricate jewelry.

Here are their main store SLurls, but they both also have handy little shops in the White Taj/Black Taj itself:

Zaara: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Zaara/128/128/2

Mashooka Designs: http://slurl.com/secondlife/House%20Music%20Island/150/63/21

Photo 2: Menaka sari and Suvarna Kundan head jewel and nose ring, both from Zaara. Hair is Lua from Analog Dog.

Photo 3: Deewangee outfit and gold Indian pearl jewelry by Mashooka Designs. Hair is Acacia by Calla (one of the first good non-noobie hairdos I bought ... way back when!).

Photo 4: Frawla by Zaara. Hair is Maitreya's Aisha. The henna tattoo is from an outfit called Bollywood by Bolero Collection.

Photo 5: Magic by Zaara with the Aisha hair and various pieces of jewelry, also from Zaara. The gentleman is wearing the Jodhpuri outfit by Zaara. (Thanks, Georges, for modeling!)

Photo 6: Kavita gharara by Mashooka Designs. Hair is Lua from Analog Dog.

Photos 7 & 8: The blue skin is Jasmine Frost by MiaSnow. The little translucent skirt is from Mashooka's Nisha bathing suit. The jewelry is a mishmash from Mashooka. Hair, Maitreya's Aisha. I was going for a Vishnu look, though I'm missing some arms, I think.

I got crazy good Indian dances and dance poses through a tireless search in-world and on Xstreet. LAP has a good pose set, and I love the Banghra dance I found at Ministry of Motion.

*** Legend has it that the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal in memory of his third wife and love of his life Mumtaz Mahal, planned a mausoleum for himself to be built in black marble across the Yamuna river, but that he was overthrown by his son Aurangzeb before it could be built.