Ruchira's Ramblings

Apologies for the long delay. I have actually been busy with a couple of new projects- first, I bought a new ukulele- meet Polo, everyone, short for Apollonia, named after the Greek god of music- and I have been trying to learn how to play it. Second, I signed up for the Airplane Poetry Challenge to write 100 Poems in a year. Usually, they give one prompt for every week (I joined in Week 13 so I’m already behind) but April being the National Poetry Month, they’re sending out daily prompts which, what with my daytime job and all the whining I was busy doing after spraining the big toe on my right foot (my theory is it happened while I was running from the alien monsters in my sleep. True story.), I’ve not had much time for the blog. But I’m ready to make amends for that, with what I hope is going to be a long ramble about three of my favourite quotes and a rather fascinating tale. I'll start off with the story. I found this little gem in the 'Introduction' se...

What's in a name, you say? In Kalimpong I overheard a little girl complaining about the name of the mountain to her father. "What kind of name is Kanchenjungha? I don't like it." "And what do you think the mountain should be named?" "Megha Mountain. Because it touches the clouds." A while later, as her parents called after her, I realized she had given the mountain her own name. We were leaving, so I didn't get around to asking them, but I have questions. Did she mean to claim the world as her own, or did she want to become the world? Or did she, as a child, recognize that she was , in fact the world- she was the mountain in the horizon and the clouds kissing its snowy peaks? Kanchenjungha is a Tibetan name, by the way, meaning 'the five treasures of the snow', named after its five high peaks. The mountain is worshipped by the people of Darjeeling and Sikkim. And mankind has long worshipped the immens...