Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Rumi Omar Khayyam Aspi Mistry Poetry club Kitab khana

Attended a most enjoyable evening at Kitab Khana located near Flora Fountain.
I love the way the place has been done up. It is a must visit whenever you are visiting Mumbai.
I have always wanted to understand poetry better...Ms Supriya Rai felt the same way...so she initiated a small group. For the last few turns we have been reading and trying to understand what  drives the poets?
I was particularly pleased at the way the attendance has grown...

On July 18th 2012 Aspi Mistry presented an evening of Sufi poetry where masters like Rumi, Hafiz, Omar Khayyam were read and discussed.


It started six years ago. A small group of people in Mumbai, led by Aspi Mistry, a practising Buddhist, decided to meet every Saturday. There was no real agenda: the Dharma Rain Centre was established to discuss in a lively manner all aspects of ethics, spirituality and its practice, to study religious texts and to meditate together.
Anita Anand believes: The shift to spirituality is attributed to the pressures of modern life, in which marriages and families are breaking down. People are realising that material comforts may be fulfilled but emotional needs are not. “Once the children leave the house, and job responsibilities are routine, midlife crisis strikes. People start to wonder what their life is worth,” 

As Aspi puts it, most people usually turn to spirituality after some trauma, a common enough occurrence in this age, asking two versions of the same query—‘Why me?’, or the more general ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’

Perhaps modern-day urban living is making people ask the eternal, existential questions at a much earlier age.

Load the ship and set out. No one knows for certain whether the vessel will sink or reach the harbor. Cautious people say, "I'll do nothing until I can be sure". Merchants know better. If you do nothing, you lose. Don't be one of those merchants who wont risk the ocean."




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