Rumi - The Book of Love

Yesterday, it was Milad-un-Nabi or Prophet Muhammed's birthday. Today, I picked up 'Rumi - The Book of Love' - 'Poems of Ecstacy and Longing' with Translations and Commentary by Coleman Barks from a forgotten corner of my bookshelf and started reading it.

I bought this from a Chennai bookstore in 2014 when I was actually looking for the poet Rilke's work.

Jelaluddin Rumi is a Sufi mystic and poet who belonged to the time 1207-1273. Sufis call Rumi the 'Qutb' of love or the 'pole' of love, the other two 'poles' being Gilani, the pole of power, and Ibn Arabi, the pole of knowledge.

Rumi's poems talk of surrender. Coleman Barks goes on to say that his poems appeal as much to 12-year olds as to older people.

He says a creative writing teacher on the prime-time show Judging Amy, suggests that his students read 'The Great Gatsby' and 'The Essential Rumi' to learn how to write.

Donna Karan reads Rumi on a fashion runway show that showcases her new line.

Madonna and Demi Moore read his poems on a Deepak CD.

What's the reason for this Rumi-mania?

xxxxx

Today, I read 1. Spontaneous Wandering.

In this collection, my favorite poem was 'Where you love from'

xxxxx

Comments

My Book Review of 'Bitch Goddess for Dummies'

Recently, I attended a zoom session on chick lit by the Chennai Lockdown Literary Festival (CLLF). In the session, one of the speakers was Maya Sharma Sriram. I was so impressed with the way she conducted the session and answered the questions that I decided to pick up her chick lit novel, ‘Bitch Goddess for Dummies’ brought out by Rupa Publications in 2012. And I was not disappointed. I’m not sure if I was biased toward the book by the personality I had seen on zoom or not, but I quite enjoy chick lit and have read several chick lit novels in my thirties. So the novel is about a 27-year-old woman Mira Iyer who decides to transform her personality from good girl to ‘bitch goddess’ to deal with the people in her life. Her mom who is constantly trying to fix her up with some eligible guy so that she can get married and Sanya, the real office bitch who is always cosying up to their bosses and vying for a promotion, are just two of the people in her life causing her angst. So it’s goodby

Blogging with a Purpose - Theme Post

I’ve loved books since I was a child. I vaguely recall the 'Ladybird' series of books that I read as a child, but the first novel I remember reading was ‘The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage’ by Enid Blyton that my mom brought home for me to read from the library when I was in Class 4. I then finished the children’s books section in library after library in my neighbourhood. Reading has served me well since I now work as an editor. Reading was what filled my hours as a child and kept loneliness at bay. Reading is what helped me find myself at age 40 when I got back to the habit after several years of reading sporadically. I now average about 25 books a year that I track on Goodreads . I’ve had the opportunity to interact with quite a few authors online and offline. My cause for the Blogchatter #BloggingWithAPurpose campaign is "promoting authors." There is a popular joke in the publishing industry these days that there are more authors than readers. Authors a

A Different Approach to Fairy Tales

CARTHICK'S UNFAIRY TALES BY Carthick Blurb A damsel in distress. An evil dragon. A concerned father seeking a savior to rescue his daughter. A hero galloping off to the rescue – a knight in shining armor. Now THAT is stuff of fairy tales. But what if the father’s real concern is for the dragon’s hoard; What if the damsel’s reason of distress is the marriage proposal by her pompous and vicious savior; and what if the story is told by the horse who bears not only the overweight knight but also his heavy, shining armor all the way to the dragon’s lair and back, facing certain death in the process? What if there was more – much more – to all your favourite fairy tales than met the eye? This book chronicles not one but seven such unfairy tales – tales told by undead horsemen and living cities. Tales of mistreated hobgoblins and misunderstood magicians. Tales of disagreeable frogs and distressed rats and bears baring their souls. Once you read these

Ash Talks Books

Search This Blog