THE ISLAND

Have you ever felt like an unguided, unoccupied ship whose anchor has been released and it is floating on the surface of the sea. Sea which is unfathomably deep. Sea which has no intentions to cease its horizon. Sea where no island is to appear any time soon. 

The patterns of our life sometimes make us feel like that lost ship. All we need is a resort and some will , not to accept the abduction of our soul. No matter how much busy we have turned into. No matter how much invested we are in our one single life whose time is running out.

There are things to be done. There will always be things to be done. They just don't get finished. Instead, they try harder every time to finish us. It all depends on us us, how slyly we manage to escape this feud. Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes our fight becomes mundane.

The relationship between the boat and the sea however speaks of loyalty. Though its path seems aimless, but still it floats, in hope, in search of solace.Eventually it gets that. And the pleasure possibly is multiplied only because of the yearning, because of its lost trails.

So sometimes, plains of consistency play dull and gloomy while discords play the symphony inside the head. With that symphony, we survive till an island appears again....

One seat

Train anxieties are intriguing. They discover some of the most mysterious sides of us which remain hidden in our daily chores. They are of  many kinds. Lets have a look on some of the most common feelings(I guess) everyone of us must have experienced while travelling in Indian trains which carry not only humans but stories......many interesting stories....

Suppose you board a train in your reserved compartment, eagerly searching for the allotted seat numbers and finally when you find it,you see,it is luxuriously being enjoyed by some stranger as if he was born on that seat. And you ask,

 " Excuse me where is your seat?" 

Sometimes they smile, sometimes they don't rather accuse you through their looks for encroaching their freedom of sleeping and basking. But usually they reply back with some unsaid or fumbled or entwined words leaving just a portion of our very own seat. Even in cases where the unwanted person tries to be friendly, genuinely, our instincts say it is for their interest to borrow some more time there. And many times they succeed in doing that because we fail to move them out. But until they get up because of any reason, my mini me keeps pestering me, 

" Is it okay to be generous and let him be for the sake of humanity? Or Should I rudely ask him to switch or get away because I am not interested in socializing? Should I be humble and polite or authoritative to get things done? " This small and trivial incident instigates my entire personality for what kind of person am I? In that short period, that one seat becomes my prized possession like a life time earned property on which I cannot bear any share. 

It all depends on the situation, the type of person he is and the type of person I want to play with him/her. It all comes spontaneously. But in every case, at the end, it proves one thing, we humans get attached to any thing very easily and for the sake of the attachment that makes us comfortable we often forget who we truly are...........One seat and all this fuss in mind...well this mind deserves better...

Back with a pen

What else could be the best time to revisit my own blog after a long break in the beginning of a new year with an undeclared but self proclaimed resolution that I will re-vitalize my writing to keep me breathing with sighs of contentment. Actually this time due to non-availability of network and of course absence of me most of the times left this blog with no posts since months. Internet and connectivity with the outer world has become the topmost priority for everyone today making us feel alive among our friends and family. The moment I reach my office I log on to my network and become available for all those who also might be sitting somewhere with their screens on. The moment I come back home, I get to my phone for any text messages or updates on social sites. All these trends of the day alias distractions have made me an impostor who is stealing away the true self. And the tragedies with books is the greatest. Recently I heard Gulzar, the famous enchanted Indian lyricist reading some of his lines on how we have distanced our tiny little happiness that we used to receive every now and then after technology took over. About how books plea from behind the dusty glasses of the cupboard for being read. About how we have forgotten the charm of finding out an old letter or a note or some shrivelled flower that always spoke of some old story close to the heart. It is really painful to find ourselves in the ocean of digressions where we we find no harmony in what we think and what we do, in what we speak and what we seek.

About being away from the true self, I guess there may be many reasons. Many times we feel that there is a mystic silence in the mind, where we strive to think something but still no sign of any thought is revealed. And sometimes a whole cobweb of thoughts each fighting for their revelations come up making the brain to explode. In both the cases, I get the realization that I need to clear my head from the dust that flies from outside over the days. And this can only be done by either penning them down here or putting them on canvas. A light, fresh and new breeze follows keeping every thing back in place which few time back seemed scattered and tangled.

So as of now this post has washed off a bit of my load that I was carrying. Tomorrow is Weekend and I guess I will get plenty of stuff to stuff here. Signing off with a quote before I fall in slumber," There is lot unknown, lot undiscovered, lot un-realized, so keep looking for adventures in life, keep beading your experiences to make a strong trail of beliefs, keep adding radiance to your soul, keep improving!!!"

Learning Oil

Oil Paints are really testing me out. It is tough to be patient knowing that its effect can be marvelous. I always wanted to paint Buddha who seems to be a source of calmness, peace, knowledge and eternal light. Though it is not as I thought. Painting shall get better with more strokes I guess. The only thing that bothers is that the oil being used for the purpose empties out from the bottle very frequently. Buddhism is an interesting legacy that I would like to read. Inspired from my own painting I wish to paint many more Buddhas..........

Hold your story

I was thinking to write over this issue since quite a long time but couldn't actually got a whip. Recently while taking a glance over a wheeler at Kanpur station I read Chetan's lines  that contained  the same expressions that wanted a channel through my words. Today the generation of youth has wings of fire with excellent confidence to achieve what they aspire for, a great deal of flexibility and openness for change with changing times and almost all essential attributes with which they can arrange every bit of their lives in a beautiful manner.

Moving ahead, being in love is the most sacred feeling a person hones making him self- motivated and inspired at all times. The fact that one is held in the continuous concern of someone gives a sense of completeness and being truly connected to one more strong and similar entity of universe. Now centering your life around love is the most beautiful thing one can do but making love your universe needs a brief introduction. Today the meaning and purview of love has changed and as a consequence the most tender and   bare age misses out their original instincts that calls out for fulfilling their dreams, reaching their goal and making their lives not love-locked but love-blessed. Having love in life is like having the strongest support with which one gains a lot confidence to confront any hurdle and proves that it compliments your life and helps in collating other tottered pieces. It pushes us forward towards what we truly are and what else we can add up to keep on rising along the stairs of self realization so that towards the dawn of life there is no regret and a lot of accomplishments that one weaved and aspired since he starts weaving dreams. Since everyone has got only one life it's ridiculously unfair to make it concealed for something that in real doesn't bear a virtue of control. I am writing this because deep down in our country the concept of controlling lives of others and surprisingly of the one whom you love the most sinks into a depressive territory where so many freedoms are getting negotiated in the name of some narrowed obligations.

Take a simple example of Indian bridal selection. It is really disheartening that today also people of India are held back with their conventionally unjustified demands of a bride that can feed their bellies, can adjust into their originality,  no matter how efficiently and beautifully she has been taking her life to all the levels of excellence at work. Well an independent, free-spirited and soulful girl has all rights reserved to maintain her thoughts and preserve her principles without any change and compromise for the sake of new relation because relations do not expect, they accept and they accept more.

Today the depictions of Indian society is creating a graveyard of free spirits in a face lifting, enormously unrealized number making this world devoid of the synergy it requires for a progressive and healthy place to live. It is a matter of disquiet that the issue is given least heed to the countries like India where human value has still got least priority when it comes to loosen some ulcerous knots in fossilized thinking that is eating away the soul of the nation. What picture are we creating when we choose a fair skinned, well virtue d  ductile girl over a successful, well accomplished, confident girl just because some people think they might not fit? What and why do we Indians aspire for fitting in and why not making bigger acceptances to enlarge the scope of positive and progressive changes which this nation is in dire need of.

It is a matter of great concern that India being a mosaic of emotional beehive that gives it an edge to come out as an ethical and spirited country still is caged in some really disgusting concepts that has hardened into the roots. 

Our friends and families need to understand that all we can follow is our hearts because spirits cannot be asked for any negotiation cause it will be like murdering one more soul. Feel high in love, try to rise in love cause we often do not get an idea when and how we lose some things that is ours. Stop following people because at the end when we you will stop you will feel that it's too late to revert back and by then you may be addicted towards getting the directions from outside  you when you had fair chances to make your own. Follow your dreams, preserve all the love that will always compliment you to reach out to them, celebrate lives, create a great life, a great story, a great and healthy relation with you and yours.

My companions.

 

My office desk and cabin invites me every morning at 9:30 AM to get reserved and occupied for next 8 hours. My workplace is not much tempting to create an anxiety for daily projects and I have to sometimes create my own personal corner with some adjuncts to keep me at ease under the pile of files and tasks. Some little things that cheer me up at the times I skip my work attention. These charmers around I can say allow me bear the 8 hours of drudgery which definitely is turning me lesser of a fun receptor during the schedule. The round pumice stones held in my palms percolate the calmness into me through my skin and of course serve as my personalised paper weights. My lovely duos from the frame keep me inspired and motivated to love my job and deliver just what is required. They keep me connected to myself. The one hanging chain of the damsel, a reminder of some fortuitous delights in life that we often receive and love to treasure just because memories and moments could be frozen. The only memento of such an event as of now that I do have makes me feel still alive and full of feelings that give my heart a compensatory elixir. The pen stand that is always in a hope of a nice ink-filled pen and stationeries to justify its presence allegedly holds up all my chits containing some scribbles. Often all these get hidden behind the scattered papers and files all over my desk and give me an impression that like them I too get carried away by the diurnal reservations and the moment I clean up, I feel light and fresh. These are my companions beholding me as a keeper, instilling a tinge of faith to overcome all odds and recreating a diorama of my personal essence.

 

Can I say: Do not go, Please....

The injustice, the unfair surprises, the peevish destiny, the indelible memory, the mortal harassment, whatever one may call it but death remains unhampered, uninfluenced by the screams and deafening cries of all those who have lost their companions, families, relations. It makes us realize time and again just when everything in life goes smoothly that even when we do not want to think about it, it has the freedom to sweep anyone of us anytime, no matter what how much we are addicted to mortality.

Sometimes we hear or come to know about someone whom we just knew somewhere in the garden of yore and are actually not related, that he/she is no more.That feeling of restlessness towards an unattached person whose stories had no common chapters with that of mine indicates that the fear of loss is one of the greatest fears against which we do not have any weaponry to confront rather accept and then move on hiding it somewhere in the dark of our heart. It's like snatching the right of a person who might had to do many more and go far afield before having the final submission. The thought itself  makes us looking up for all our dearies without whom we cannot imagine our lives at all.

Death will not compromise, neither should life. Somethings cannot be changed like the uncertainties in life. Hearing the news of demise of someone who was as normal and hearty as we are today passes a heavy smoke down the spine that tomorrow or some day in unseen future ahead we might not be contributing to the energy this universe shares. Let it not call as a preparation for death but by not whining and not cringing for what we did or what we  not, we may start our preparation for a life. Being the custodian of our own life and respecting everything that comes along, let us try to overcome this fear.The strange human heart has the strongest fractals potent enough to absorb every vile event, drink every poison and still remain hopeful that tomorrow will be brighter. 

I wish I could feel the fragments of those lost in the clime, gone forever, whose faces will never appear again, whose fragrances still linger in the memory lanes of their dear ones and whose influences have brought changes.I wish all of us to have a great life and anytime if anything unpredictable happens to anyone just consider it as another sign of life that it is never alone,its end is glued to it.

Live happy.............

Just read somewhere:" Life asked death" why do people love me and hate you?"; Death replied," It's because you are a beautiful lie and I am a painful truth."

I do not agree to the life part in this quote but still believe that yes life is beautiful and definitely death is painful.

Dissonance theory

The monsoon has superficially started that was supposed to bring lots of wetness to wash away the skin of gloominess that I had since last few months out of seasonal boredom and continuous longing for a big reason to cheer up. But unfortunately due to the meagre mercy of clouds or do not exactly know why the raindrops couldnt create those many vibrations this time. I am missing my regular visiting to my blog and sharing many thoughts that came, stayed for my write-up but eventually slipped away from my mind seeing my dilatory attitudes. The reasons are many, some are important and some are too much important that cannot be moved out of the personal corner.

Neways I had thought of writing about cognitive dissonance since long cause I fear many a times that I might be suffering from it. 

The sudden loss of long nurtured beliefs under the piles of the incidents we were in and the decisions we made when leads to a phase where we stand dilapidated, lost and weak is the spell of dissonance theory.This theory lies as a mental crank erasing all the glories of past which were achieved from the principles that today lie in the perimeter of suspicion.It is hard to accept that what we had been thinking and idolizing throughout our lives so far is actually a fallacy and we start looking at ourselves as a dupe that lived moments whose charm now seems vicarious.We start recalling people we confronted , mistakes that we didnt do, so called right things that we actually did, all with some handful principles which today somehow appear unclear and a bit wrong. The toughest confession of a person is that he was wrong and most of the time if we see we are involved in just justifying our beliefs. Our deeds, our sppech, our behaviour and our gestures are reflection of what we believe and what we tend to believe. Even if we like others' beliefs  that might be different from ours it takes a lot of time to mend into one and change the long lived fossilised mind. The flexibility that we often lack in accepting and moving on with a new perception often leads to a suffocating frustration twisting our confidence over making a firm decision. The cognitive dissonance becomes worse when it starts affecting our approach  towards life that we always wanted to live. In no case this stage should persist inside cause the more one refraines himself from being a changed person, the more he would remain entangled in his fussy interior dragging him towards an unlikely entity. Life should be full of acceptance, acceptance to whatever comes in way.

I think this theory is too common and every second person who is an observer of his own life might feel the same way this theory makes us to feel. The good thing is that we are potent enough today to feel the things happening to us cause sometimes vacuum of thoughts stretches its nulliness so wide that mind becomes quiet. So try hard to keep  your passion alive that would speak to you in several ways, in several languages. Try hard to be talkative to self cause it is the best place where you are safe and not being judged by anyone else but you.

Do we like Change?

For writing a new post with some different and eclectic topic, I have erased so many lines so many times. Today I want to sound smart, broad, enlightened and free. A long cherished dream that I really want to come true is something related to my art of writing. Though a cliche' that there is a writer in everybody' but it is true that expression of thoughts through writing or by keeping it safe inside in the mind makes a lot of difference. People bear differnt nature, different behaviour such that each one of us at some point of time inspire, teach and stimulate each one of us in one way or another. Take for example in our professional lives as a fresh graduate when we stepped in, we had an excitement to explore the new life and feel proud of ourselves. We met for the first time in our lives so many people around us talking, suggesting, chattering and making impressions in our minds. Before here, we had our self chosen group of friends with whom either we didnt notice outside world or we felt like having our own world. These are some tiptoed changes that creeped inside us in no time and we became big all of a sudden as a responsible part of society. The feeling freaks me out that some changes happen without our knowledge and any intimtaion.Today we have responsibilities of our work centres, we have a visiblity count among people whom we do not know, we possess a pose of an impostor that helps us in situation where we need to be starightforward or diplomatic with an ease, we have hangovers:good & bad from the work life that adds to the seriousness, we have turned into a more calculative and practical person giving more heed to righteousness over emotional wrongs and work over life.The changes are big enough. There is  a need for an introspection of how much of 'us' has remained inside.

Talk about quality of life. There is no meaning looking back in yore to compare our routine and hours because time changes and diorama shifts replacing friends with colleagues, assignments with projects, laughters with work smiles, passing time with rejuvenating youth and getting young with growing old. Every change is hard to adapt cause we feel that this is the best we have. Life has no such thinking and has basket of surprises which can be opened up only when we have a temptation for the upkeeps in life. Whimpering not always helps especially then when life is standing to welcome you with open arms to get embraced by the destiny with a courage to accept whatever it has for us and without any fear of getting cheated. The time we have seen so far was not that much bad and so it will be in the coming years. The only expectation that we should have from ourself is not to panic and take our souls to the peak of enjoyment where lies no complications, no hitches, no worries and a healthy acceptance for the changes happening in our lives.

Dilemma

I want to reverse things which I cannot. I want to sew up the gaps which I dont dare and I wish to lay down in my own fairy tale which I can only dream of. Dilemmas are bad for they try to open up our eyes those were busy in spinning the threads of future hanging in the dust that has no trace in the present.

A dire need to pine for

A thing that hangs in the dust

should I go or should I retreat

or let this feeling too get rust.

I am strong, as they say

Or is it not a much big deal.

The only option to collect the strength

And once again ready to kneel.

The voices have dimmed,

The echoes are quiet

They all have turned few

I cannot escape

Nor can  I run,

from the Dreams I often sew.

Keeps of ma life

When I look at tiny lil' faces with sparkling, glimmering eyes and smiles like curves in the heaven's dome; when I listen to their curly words that say every great things and create an image of how God must be like; when their pink, soft feet press against my cheeks and lips wet in water try to kiss, I totally want to be a mother of a child that is somewhere inside me, that will be somehow a part of me.

Today there is no point in describing how he or how she would be but for sure they will  be a reflection of me and my better half. The regret that I carry today is to be totally unknown and naiive about who will be the bearer of the fragments that my kid will have whom I will love like I love me.What is this feeling called which creates a bond with someone unknown, someone who is in future but has no trace in present, someone who will share my world, will be a part of my world? i think this is what they call as keeps of life at every turn of the road...............................................

How do I ....????

Like a pen filled with ink writes

while an empty one embosses sheet

My heart refrains from getting gorged

By your love that makes its beat.

The moment you are near to me

My heart lives an age.

I feel like getting drowned

by a love-tied,honey-purged sage.

Your stare bores a hole in me

through which your side is seen

I will never forget your naughty signs

and your wicked smiles umpteen.

You tease, you smile, you fight

To get you my reaction.

But how clever am I,

to count each and evry refraction.

You do not show what you think

And think I do not know.

But let me tell you one little thing

I will follow wherever you go.

My heart propels with you so close

that I could feel it saying

Let him hold me so tight and firm

and forget that rules are staying.

I am scared ending up as a dupe

with a filched heart and a rich stealer.

who robs my peace evrytime he loves

leaves me like a kid in the cradle.

Hangovers

O really , this time the height of boredom is beyond the clouds somewhere. I havent received 'maati' yet and I am on the same intial three pages of the book presently in my custody. Writers would die seeing the pathetic way of reading their writings the way I do. After attending weddings the hangovers become pertinent and put a hard break pushing us into the same mundane routine.Weddings mean dancing, gatherings, fun and falling back into old times with flood of relatives. Satisfying the prodigious apetite and deciding the menu card makes us the kings and queens of the home. All the night-outs to mock and fleer at the night that it doesn't matter how much it tries to put us into slumber,we will go on jumping into fun.The customes and mores with old songs by old ladies of home feel us so connected and rural that we start forgetting all the things we left behind. 

This time the fields, fruit laden orchids, antique grandparent homes, faded old photographs of our parents in their youth, the customised hills with temples, beautiful canals and dams drenching the skin of the earth with cold,sweet water refreshed and revived me with the magnificient background I belong to. It was  astonishing to see the swords, ancient earthen pots, secret doors in the rooms were we slept when we were child but could realise only now that my home itself is no less than a museum full of adventures and histories.The gigantic doors with fine carvings of old architectural patterns, beautiful lintels offering me to fall everytime I pass the doorway, deep covered wells that really appear to be a deep black hole in the chest of the earth making us hysterically scared, big broad courtyard in the centre of the house where the company of stars in the night and the busyness of the day could build best 24 hours of life. While pulling water out of a handpump we really felt that we had strived to get something like pure, luke warm, sweet fluid from the bottom of the soil which was preserved only for us to take the charm of it.The morning sunlight also seems coming straight from the castle of the sun into our home without any interruptions washing every corner with its freshness.I feel proud to have such a big, magnificient and ancient village and it gives me the feeling that I am connected to the history that must have anticipated us coming and vicariously repeating all such great moments of past.

A long cherished dream hides

                Inside the layers of mind

                             Had I been strong enough

                                          To leave the happiness behind.

A cache

The heady days of youth echoes,
in my ancient ears.                                                                         
The moments we hugged,the blunders we did,
still flaunt ,linger and leer.

I look back and see the breaths I took
And smiles I shared in clime of charm.
No one stayed along with me
and time turned us into a warrior unarmed.

From a kid to a child into a man
I walked throgh the stairs of age.
jealous of losing the last I lived
on the yellow fragile pale past page

Soon my life will come to an end
As everybody lives and quietly go.
How much i wonder at the riddle unsolved
Which has a missing piece always to know.

We cry,we weep and wipe our tears.
With time we learn to forget the years.
Rind of my soul getting thicker and dried.
Vintage of my life,will it be cached inside?

LOL at 'LOL'

Taking reference from Mcmillan dictionary feed,I really LOL after reading the seriousness of the post titled'LOL'.

Actually in the lexical tour,one finds two abbreviations of LOL viz. 'Laugh out loud' and 'Lots of love' and no need to say how devastating reactions we may invite if we or the receiver are ignorant of any one of the meanings. Take few examples,

"I got to know about your son,I am sorry for your loss.Nobody could think the fate will play with an innocent kid at such an early age."LOL.....misunderstood as Laugh out loud

(an innured/dogmatic teacher)I knew you were never capable of scoring high marks.LOL,,,,,,misunderstood as Lots of love

And the relations of the involved changed forever thereon..

So be facile and prolix when it comes at words......

........

I am more scared,more afraid of the day I would crash and shatter down without people who justify my existence.-Jan'03'2012.

My Fear

My fear of getting all alone hoovered by an unknown vacuum at one point of time intimidates me making me more worried cause it is a nightmare to see me without any thought in mind.All I can imagine my state of flux at such a time has been described here but I know if it would be,it would be much more gall than this............

Insinuated by the heart and rebuked by the soul,

I stood like no one when I deceived.

The day of my denial to what they spoke

Was the day I killed my dream.

The pieces of past like broken mirrors

Showed my face like a traitor

And turned me cold like a body of dead

Without any hope, without a narrator.

 

The one fine string that connects with sanctity

Is spun by the fiber of dreams.

Which gets stronger with our efforts,

Makes us rich everyday it seems.

I enjoyed, I gained while living with it

Since over the years it irked me.

Never was I at rest and peace,

Which looked like days of ecstasy.

I am a killer and a stealer,

Who defied my real being.

I am living like an impostor with a purloined soul

Whose dreams and desires can never be seen.

I wish I could drive back in the time

And fill in the vacuum I hired.

And create new dreams to see and cherish

For they are the ones to inspire.

NAMES

Just few names of all times in my life that I could recall today and would keep on adding to stress the fact that there are umpteen people we meet,talk to,play with,enjoy with and then leave them to move on.I  have missed so many names that might have glistered my life at one point or another but I hate the human nature that forgets the forgone.......While reading out these names all the moments and memories and reminders start floating with different coloured images,all being part of it. 

Madhu,Renu,Deepen,Sippi,Neepen,Chulbul,Pintu Chintu,Mintu,Rakesh Awasthi,Niranjan,Megha,Soni,Punnu,Nehari,Namita,Rajani,Meena,Vandana,Anup,Vijay,Ranjit,Sourabh,

Sandip,Nisha,Keya Paul,Basanti,Roshni,Soni Hansda,Picon,Sonal,Kanchan,Hema,Archana Bhagat,Rahul,Pankaj,Shwetank,Sashi,Sneha,Abhisek,Anusha,Govind,Pooja,Ani,Anand,Himant,Mukul,Manu,Swagata,Aditi,Anjali,

Pratibha,Sugandha,Ravi Teja,Ashank,Tuhin,Richa,Vibha,Prerna,Alka,Bhavna,Khusboo,Ruchi,Rolly,Priyanka Utkarsha,Dilip,Nilesh,Swatantra,Vishaal,Chunni-Chunna,Vinay,Tanmoy,Guda,Sumit,Suraj,Ankur Rathore,Pranav,Ansh,Roshan,Kshama,Neha,Gul,Parul,Aarti,Ayush,Koustubh,Shaalinta,Nikhil,Rita,Momina,Rajat,Hemanth,Som,Ishita,Vaibhavi,Baani,

Soma,Deepti,Anupriya,Anshu,Prashant,Gunjan,Neelam,Vijji,Mallika,Lokesh,Akansha,Aninya,Adi,Alka,Goldy,Pratyush,Anurag,Pratiksha,Sinchan,Misri,Rupa,Anjana,Lily,Komal,

Anuradha,Neeta,Sonu,Divya,Rosy,Reshu,Chhoti,.....to be continued..........

tamatassssssssss

 they emerged as shiny-red cherry blossoms in my sundried kitchen garden which nowadays remains covered by the dry noisy leaves of the banyan..when they appeared ,they looked like one bringing the wetness of a raindrop on the bare earth fissured.Though there are other palnts too like chilli ,spinach etc but they haven't yielded yet so they also seemed to have  bathed in the sudden serendipity.Till they were green and tight they couldn't carve out their beauties and my backyard looked pallid and drooped inspite of my pamper and care.I too was under the fear that I couldn't make out time for them .But this arrival in the summer just coaxed me to make more of them and now I wish to fill my garden with all of them.ahhhhhhhh these were too fresh and young enough to contrast beautifully my green bowl.I wished not to use them but the tomato soup and curry really placated my belly very nicely........thanx to them........