Ipsita Contemplates

I have always known it's not my cup of tea. It never was. Nevertheless, I have always loved them, still do, and if I may dare utter words for the future, I will always... always love them.  Poems have always intrigued me. So, even if I wasn't blessed with a talent for poetry, I kept on reading poems. I would read poetry books, collect poems from various different sources, and sometimes recite them (The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes being my favorite) the way I supposed they were meant to be. My first inspiration to learn new languages came from poets who wrote in languages I had not known before.  Despite all that, I never gave it a try. I never even dared to attempt writing poems for the longest time. Having started my writing journey with stories and articles, I never even thought of writing something that could resemble a poem. Until that day.... a day in the November of 2010 when I wrote "Reflection" followed by "And the moon got lost" a few months later. I...

The Language of Food : <German Edition> If I have to find a beginning to the story, I would say it started with the chicken croquettes. It is French but food (and words) evade boundaries, and sometimes dimensions. Those six golden pieces of croquettes provided a much needed sense of familiarity on that particular day. That was the beginning or day zero of my German classes. Why did I choose croquettes? Because the language that I had learned last was French. It might not make sense, but that’s how I operate. And I, for some reason, tried to take a peek on the memory lane from those days. I don’t know if we can call it a walk down memory lane, but it definitely sprinkled bits and pieces of nostalgic moments from the days when I was learning French. With each bite of the croquettes, its crunch invoked the memory of the page-long essays that I wrote based on the different aspects of the French cities, and the soft chicken and cheesy insides brought back a sense of comfort/familia...

It all started with a dream. When I say that, I do not mean it figuratively. It was quite literally a dream. The process of transforming the story snippets into a book will probably be a longer tale to tell. But the process to unveil it to the world (in a broader sense) was no less of a dream (figuratively). It all started with the important decision: whether to have an offline book launch event or not. I mean there already had been an online launch. Would it feel redundant to have it again? There were a lot of apprehensions. However, the decision weighed in favor of having it, and thank goodness it happened so. I think it was towards the later-third of July (probably July 21) when the planning phase started. First step was to search for an optimal venue - a place which would look apt irrespective of the number of guests in attendance. We needed a place which would not look too empty if none of the guests turned up but should also be sufficiently big to seat all the guests. That was th...

With all the work related to the book release of my debut novel “Inexplicable Distances” going on, I never knew how to unveil it. Or if I wanted to unveil it at all. But who knew things would unravel the way they did, and I would end up scheduling an event for it! The online launch event was for the e-book version of the book. Initially, there were no plans of having it at all. I mean, it was there… lurking in some corner, but I never thought of it actively. Just the evening before the e-book release date (June 27, Monday), one of my friends suggested me to go ahead with it. That was the motivation that I was probably looking for. Immediately the work started which began with the search for a place to have the online launch (since a calm place was needed with no disturbance). Though it was last minute, the place got finalized by 9 pm. Afterwards, there were not much left to be done… or rather not much with external dependencies involved. The next step was to finalize the event platform...

It's you And your alluring smile That made it what it was That moment And every other moment Every day Every second Meaning of it I still wonder about After writing a few verses Feelings still sprout  "Why do so many lines you carve?" They ask But the world hasn't seen your smile the way I have The universes may change And the worlds within it may too But that glimmering smile  Is beyond eternal Brightness of a zillion lumens And of hopes anew Copyright © 2022 Ipsita Contemplates. All Rights Reserved.

An engineering and architectural marvel, Konark Sun temple, has much more in store than just what the eye meets. It associates tales that span multitude domains and harbor significance in every walk of life and can mesmerize any soul who wishes to seep in the enigmatic charisma of this masterpiece. Many a times, I have thought of jotting down my thoughts on this. However, I have always found myself mesmerized by its enchanting mystery so much so that I end up forgetting the line of thoughts. Its happening now as well, but I will try my best to capture as much as I can. The stories wrapped around the temple have situations of varied fields in them, which includes but are not limited to Philosophy, Science, astronomy, cosmology, architecture, and engineering. Primarily, one tale surfaces around this. For the uninitiated, I would try to give a quick preview of it without going into much details of the play of emotions, sacrifice, motherly love, and the likes.  The construction of the...