Ammu Nair's Blog

When Friday evening arrived in all its underwhelming glory, Nila collected her laptop, coffee flask, and other sundry belongings scattered on her work desk. As she was about to get into her car, the phone rang.   

“Girl, whatcha upto?” Daphne’s perpetually perky voice greeted her from the other end.

“Just getting out of work,” Nila said, morosely.  

“Beth is so flaky!” Daphne complained in her cheerful tone. 

Nila couldn't remember who Beth was. Maybe Daphne’s sister-in-law?

Daphne continued, “Beth a...

“Is there an anklet up in the attic room?” Maya asked her aunt. 
Ammayi who was serving rice stood transfixed, her hands poised midair with a scoop ofrice on the steel ladle. “How do you know about the anklet?” she asked, her voice shaky. 
“What anklet?” Shambhu asked. 
Ammayi smiled nervously and sat down.
“What anklet?” Shambhu repeated, this time a little displeased and incensed that asecret was kept from him by his own mother about some anklet in the attic of a house that he grew up! And his c...

One night, Raju hung out with his friends binge-watching horror movies. Around 1.30 in the morning, just after finishing Omen, the movie, he decided to head home. 
 "Where did you park your bicycle?" Raju's friend asked. 
 Raju had always dreamt of riding a Harley Davidson, or at least a Royal Enfield. But all poor Raju, a second year undergrad student in a sleepy little village in Kerala, South India, could afford on his father's school teacher salary was a run of the mill bicycle. 
 "By the littl...

Truth dawns when the right questions are asked. A seeker’s path is only as fruitful as the honesty with which she approaches a difficult question.
So the pertinent question we posed to ourselves when we set out to buy a car is ‘what car do we want?’ While answering the question honestly, we discovered that even the most worldly and banal question can be viewed from a philosophical or at least a psychological overlook. What we see may not be always scenic.
‘What kinda car do we want?’ we asked...

Here are some excerpts and links of English newspapers / websites that mentioned my book, A Brief Hour of Beauty: A tribute to Edmund Thomas Clint, the master who died young.

"Ammu Nair’s narrative is superlative. What Clint did with his paintings, Ammu does with her story. And that’s what makes it a perfect tribute — only a dreamy, sensitive storyteller could have told the story of the little master so tenderly and poetically. His story could not have been told in a better way. The book is...

I'm in the process of collecting the words of praise for 'A brief hour of beauty' that are scattered here and there on the Internet. Well, it seems like shameless ego boosting. But so is the way of this 'samsara' :-) Anyways, here are some links of newspapers / websites that reviewed / reported about the book:

Sunday Tribune

Deccan Chronicle

The Hindu

Book Peek

Flipkart

The Hindu

The Indian Express

Deccan Herald

A Brief Hour of Beauty tells the story of the master artist, Edmund Thomas Clint, who died at the age of 6 leaving behind a whooping 25,000 drawings and paintings in crayons, pencils, pens, pastels, watercolors. They exude the skill and dexterity of a master along with the inherent simplicity and innocence of a child. His drawings and paintings are balanced, proportionally perfect, brilliantly colorful, and fun.

Art, beauty, genius, innocence, struggle, hope, pain, love, and loss make up the...

Muhammad, the last of the prophets of Islam once said to Ali, “You are of me and I am of you.” In his book, The Way of the Sufi, Osho describes the effect of those words on Ali: “When he heard this, Ali became ecstatic and involuntarily started dancing. What else can you do when a man like Muhammad says to you, ‘You are of me and I am of you’? How do you receive this? Ali did well. […] It is not that the Sufi dances; godliness keeps dancing in him.”

When the human mind comes face to face wit...

It all started when my sister prayed for a miracle. Spiritual masters might tell you that miracles are not deeply edifying, but she desperately wanted one. Although she’s my spiritual fellow-traveler, I didn’t join forces with her in this respect. I have come to believe that spiritual experiences are going to elude me until I learn to control my anger, fear, boredom, physical slothfulness, and mental cha cha cha.

Anyways, my sis continued to pray to Babaji (the deathless Himalayan master f...

As soon as we stepped out of the regal Mysore palace, the majestic elephant standing leisurely on the grass patch strewn with coconut leaves caught my eye. It was an adult male elephant, admirably placid. Absorbing the long beams of the silver sun sifting through the rain clouds and reflecting nothing. Like a black hole, one shade grey.

I thought aloud, “I’ve never had an elephant ride.” Anil couldn’t believe it. Growing up in Kerala, the land of festivals and caparisoned elephants, I had ne...