Snowstorm | Original By Great Wide World Photography

my saturday evening consists of...

fav hindu mythology stories: Krishna and Kaliya

“Kaliya, in Hindu traditions, was the name of a poisonous Naga (snake) living in the Yamuna River, in Vrindavan. The water of the Yamuna for four leagues all around him boiled and bubbled with poison. No bird or beast could go near, and only one solitary Kadamba tree grew on the river bank.

Once Krishna and herdboys were playing ball, and while playing Krishna climbed up the Kadamba tree and hung over the river bank, the ball fell into the river and Krishna jumped after it. Kāliya rose up with his hundred and ten hoods vomiting poison and wrapped himself around Krishna’s body. Krishna became so huge that Kāliya had to release him. So Krishna saved himself from every attack, and when he saw the Brij folk were so afraid he suddenly sprang into Kāliya’s head and assumed the weight of the whole universe, and danced on the naga’s heads, beating time with his feet. Then, Kāliya began to die. But then the naga’s wives came and prayed to Krishna with joined palms, worshipping Krishna and praying for their husband.

Kāliya, recognizing the greatness of Krishna, surrendered, promising he would not harass anybody. So Krishna pardoned him and then let him go free to leave the river and go to Ramanaka Dwipa, his home.” (x)

credits: i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii, viii, ix

Krishna and Rukmini for the Compass Rose meme. Thanks.😄

North

first encounter | (turnabout is) fair play | fool’s gold | forbidden fruit | the female of the species is more deadly than the male

They watch her, eyes glittering with greed, and anger tightens Rukmini’s throat once more: to this crowd of shameless men, she is no more than a prize, a possession that their friend has already claimed.

She forces herself to smile.

Let them look; they will never have more than this illusion of her, docile and demure. They are fools, each and every one of them, and treasure knows better than to stay in their hands.

South

(cold) comfort | confession | cloak and dagger |  crocodile tears | charmed life

Perhaps it is a tad dramatic to send a secret letter.

Rukmini cannot bring herself to regret it, though: always she has been wise Rukmini, prudent Rukmini, Rukmini to whom all answers are known. Some might suppose it was only that she craved some excitement in her life; so, at least, her brother supposes in her fury.

But in truth, she has as much of a taste for intrigue as her husband — and when one feels so, when one fights for her very life, who would not expect wise and prudent Rukmini to plot and scheme?

East

stars | songs and stories | (politics/misery makes for) strange bedfellows | silver lining | sea change

Someday, Rukmini knows, Dwaraka will return to the sea. She does not regret this: her kingdom, though beautiful, is but borrowed from the ocean, and outsiders may not enjoy his bounty for long.

No, what she dreads is that Dwaraka dares not abandon its duty while Krishna lives, but he cannot do so forever. Someday, Rukmini knows, Krishna must return to the heavens from which he came—and that day shall be her last on this earth.

West

just in time | joined at the hip | jam tomorrow | juvenile | journey’s end

Her heart stops a dozen times, once for every step that leads down the Devi temple. She feels alone, flanked though she is by waiting-women—at least until she hears the thunder of trotting horses.

A hand takes hers, and tugs her into the chariot; Rukmini laughs in delight.

“I trust,” says Krishna, “that I am not too late.”

“Not at all,” Rukmini replies, in every bit as excessively solemn a tone. “You are just in time.”

They beam at each other.

okay, but, like, I feel like we need to emphasize more on how important it is to have a partner you can just talk to. I was telling this to someone the other day, but Hollywood and media focuses so much on sexual tension and explosive passion in a relationship, and while those are completely valid and understandable things for certain, not all, people to desire (even I myself do), I feel like there’s barely enough light casted onto the value of being able to converse with your partner and relish in their company even in the most neutral discussion. I can barely count how many films, particularly romance ones, have emphasized on the importance and value of being able to speak to a partner like they are your close friend, and being able to absolutely adore their company, and engage in conversation with them about anything and everything, even if it isn’t romantic. Lexi and Fez, Aristotle and Dante, Marianne and Heloise, Jesse and Celine, Connell and Marianne. so many people adore these couples because they showcase such a human, genuine connection through conversation. Lexi and Fez discussing God and the backlash of social media. Aristotle and Dante’s talks on finding identity and how life feels better when the shoes are kicked off. Marianne and Heloise debating over what it meant when Orpheus turned around, and the release found within music. Celine speaking to Jesse about how the media is controlling our minds and how she thinks she really loves someone when she can detect every detail of them, Jesse speaking to Celine about when he saw his deceased grandmother in the sprinkle of a hose and the things he remembers his parents having said to him. Connell and Marianne sitting under the summer sun, eating ice cream, discussing the differences in their class and how money can be simultaneously corrupt and indescribably appealing. all of these couples have made me realize how while passionate kisses under the rain and loud proclamations of your love for someone are valuable for certain people, it is also inexpressibly important to find someone who you can linger in the passenger seat for just to hear what they thought about the movie you watched last night. someone who you take your time putting your shoes on for just to hear about the physical sensation they got when the second last line of your favourite song reverberated through their headphones.

Husky getting nervous at his first swimming lesson

5 AU Headcanons: Rama Accompanies Sita Into Exile

For @marauderstar!

1. There are more than a few similarities between Rama’s first exile and his second.

Sita’s presence at his side is, of course, the most important: a constant of the universe save for those terrible months when it hadn’t been. Even now his stomach rebels at the remembrance; even now he reaches unconsciously for her hand to reassure himself she hasn’t somehow been stolen away once more.

The second is this: the aching, burning necessity to flee before he can be stopped. Before it had been Father’s men and the subjects of Ayodhya. Now it is no less than his own brothers. Already Lakshmana has protested loudly at not being allowed along, but Rama cannot do Urmila such injustice twice. And should he be persuaded to allow her presence, why, then there were Bharat and Shatrughan already cross at having been once left behind, along with their their wives—which didn’t even begin to account what their mothers might say. Before he knows it, Rama is sure, he would find himself housing his entire family in the woods and he doesn’t even want to begin to speculate how enormous a cottage that would require. Surely more than he and Lakshmana could assemble in a single afternoon.

No, Rama decides, and a faint smile flickers across his face (as has been the case every other time he happens to remember the swell of his wife’s stomach; a cottage for three will so quite well enough.

2. So long as he remembers he has wanted to be King.

Wanted, perhaps, is not the right word; expected is better, and expected by everyone else better still—and yet even that doesn’t explain his readiness to give it all up for a single rumor.

Ravana, he knows with bone-deep assurance, had both wanted and expected to be King, craved it to maintain his conception of the world. All too easily Rama could become much the same, and he recoils from it. Ravana was a monster for many reasons, least of which was his ancestry; and Rama would not become his shadow, not for a kingdom that turned on his wife for no fault of her own. 

Not for a kingdom that wants him but does not need him, not the way it believes it does. 

3. As it happens he doesn’t need to build any sort of cottage at all. Rama, who is guiltily remembering that Lakshmana was far more successful at the brothers’ architectural ambitions he last time around is not a little relieved when they stumble, almost literally, upon the hermitage of a worn wary man who calls himself Valmiki.

“I am afraid,” Rama feels the need to confess, almost as soon as Valmiki’s invitation to stay is spoken, “that we—we come bearing scandal.”

Valmiki’s mouth quirks into a sudden grin, one that was once (as Rama will discover) the terror of travelers passing alongside this road. “Rest assured,” he replies, with such good humor Rama cannot refuse him, “that I am no stranger to scandal myself.”

4. Their warm welcome, it soon turns out, is due as much to their host’s kindness as to the fact that he is composing an epic on Rama’s exploits. Rama flushes to hear of it, and all the more to listen to line after line of his supposed virtues, but Sita laughs outright–and takes impish delight in suggesting all the more wilder exaggerations when asked by Valmiki to confirm the facts as she knows them.

“This bow,” Valmiki says, “by which your husband won your hand–”

“Six feet long,” Sita replies promptly, sketching out unrealistic dimensions with her hands, “and twice a man’s weight to draw.”

Rama groans. “Half a man’s. If that much.”

“Did I say six feet?” Sita very nearly manages not to giggle. “Surely I meant eight.”

“Eight?”

“Perhaps, dear daughter,” says the poet, straight-faced; “you might be mistaken. Ten seems far more likely.”

By the time that afternoon’s composing is complete, the bow is twelve feet and Rama utterly mortified–but Sita is laughing, and Valmiki humming with satisfaction, and Rama can bear a bit of mortification for that.

5. There are two boys, not one; the first already boasting a head of dark hair that stands upright like spikes of kusha grass, the second golden and grasping for his father’s finger.

Rama reels with the wonder of it, and all the more with the knowledge that he has a lifetime with them, years to watch them grow into the men they are meant to be. This must be what his father had always wanted for him, Dasharatha who had performed a thousand prayers for just that life. He would give up a hundred kingdoms for that, a thousand; he is certain–no matter how much news might trickle out from Ayodhya that its citizens still mourn their lost son, that its King swears to perform the Aswamedha Yagna in twelve years’ time, should he be reunited with its brother by its end. 

There are two boys, not one; and they are both perfect. Sita is well, and happy, and they have a home. 

Rama wants nothing more.