Happy Holidays!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Nicholas Smith 1934-2015

Happy Thanksgiving!

Je sui Paris!

Love, sympathy and support for people of Paris and France and for every peaceful citizen of the planet who is victim of any kind of hate, oppression and terror...

Though this is not a political blog but everyone of us who believes in civility, love and peace has a responsibility to voice support against terror, oppression, injustice and for love, peace and justice.

Je sui Paris!

I am Cecil...

A tribute by Rosemary Wright: http://www.abeatingheart.ca/i-am-cecil/

Happy 4th of July!

First Roses of Spring!

Ferris Bueller rightly said, " Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." For weeks I did not go in the yard, and then all of a sudden on Sunday morning at breakfast table I look out and all these roses are in bloom, from Knockout to Queen Elizabeth. I realized I could have missed them all.

Brought some indoors so we can enjoy them more often than the ones still on the bushes. Hope your gardens are in bloom too and if you have not paid attention, please find a moment and take a look before they dry out and turn into dead buds.

Queen Elizabeth smell good too

Thinking of Charles Faudree

It has been more than a year since we lost Charles Faudree. His store in Tulsa has been closed and his website does not exist anymore, but he will live forever in millions of people's hearts whom he had touched through his interior design, his books, his philanthropy and through his humanity and love. His passing away in 2013, a year after my father's passing away was a big shock, I never had a heart to say anything on this blog until now.

Mr. Faudree thank you for making our lives so much more better through your French Country interiors, you did it better than most French would have.

Picture credits: pinterest, google, traditional home magazine, paisley curtain, stroheim etc.

The Life of a Kashmiri Woman: Dialectic of Resistance and Accommodation

Though this blog is more about design and art, but once in a while you are compelled to deviate from your usual routine to introduce something that demands you to do so, and that is the case here.

Recently I had the opportunity to attend a talk by Dr. Nyla Ali Khan, about her book, “The Life of a Kashmiri Woman: Dialectic of Resistance and Accommodation”. This book is about Dr. Khan’s maternal grandmother “Akbar Jahan”, nationalist and social and political activist. She was the first president of Jammu & Kashmir Red Cross, Member of Indian Parliament, first lady of the state of Jammu & Kashmir, a daughter, a wife, a mother and a grandmother.

In my humble opinion Akbar Jahan got a special gene from her mother, “Mirjan”.  Mirjan a Kashmiri Muslim women from an aristocratic family married an Austrian, Michael Harry Nedou, son of a European hotel chain owner in India, when in Indian subcontinent, it was unheard of to marry an out of cast person, let alone a European.

 

Akbar Jahan c.a. 1933

Akbar Jahan's grandfather; Michael Adam Nedou

Dr. Khan takes us through the extraordinary life of an extraordinary woman, who left a life of privilege to marry a young Indian/Kashmiri politician Sheikh Abdullah. Together they went on to a journey to get Kashmir and it’s people their right of self determination in the wake of partition of India by the British into two countries; India and Pakistan. Kashmir, which was until then an independent princely state, got consumed into the bitter politics of the two new states and got divided.

 

Sheikh Abdullah (right) with Indian Prime Minister Nehru

Akbar Jahan went through a roller coaster ride from the First Lady of the state of Kashmir to the wife of an exiled Prime Minister, who could not live in her own house when it was sealed off on the behest of the Indian Federal Government. She was steadfast and determined in all the trials and tribulations, and carried out her duties as a wife, as a mother and as a political figure.

 

Akbar Jahan with Gandhi

This is 2015, we still have not realized that women are born equal; as a matter of fact we have yet to realize that all humans are born equal. Perhaps we need more Akbar Jahan in our world to make it a better place for all of us humans present and future.

 

A view of Kashmir

(Nyla Ali Khan is a faculty member at the University of Oklahoma and member of the Harvard-based Scholars Strategy Network. She is the author of The Fiction of Nationality in an Era of Transnationalism, Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir, and The Life of a Kashmiri Woman. She is also the editor of The Parchment of Kashmir, a contributor to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women (2013), and a guest editor for Oxford Islamic Studies Online).

http://www.amazon.com/The-Life-Kashmiri-Woman-Accommodation-ebook/dp/B00KB4OVRI/ref=kinw_dp_ke

Ordinary people, Extraordinary Adventure

When you meet Elisabeth and Fred, they tell you we are just ordinary people, but they are anything but ordinary. Our friends from New Zealand have started an epic adventure i.e. going around the world on a 1957 Mercedes-Benz 220s aka Ponton.

They started their five year long trip last summer in Los Angeles, California where their car that has been fully restored and prepared for this mission arrived in a container from New Zealand aboard a ship. They have seen more United States than  most Americans will ever see. After visiting Canada this year they will comeback south and head towards South America, from there the car will be shipped to Europe for the rest of the adventure. They plan to arrive back home in the year 2019.

Elisabeth & Fred 

We had the honor of being their hosts here in Oklahoma, and benefited from a presentation they gave about their adventure. Interestingly they enjoyed their stay here and were surprised to find Oklahoma not as wild as folks around the country think. Elisabeth and Fred are in Florida these days and enjoying the nice balmy weather before heading up north.

Elisabeth & Fred in OKC downtown arriving for a presentation

Like us, you too can follow them on their adventure via their Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/ClassicStrider

Map showing their route so far