#1: The Origin Story of Masala Puff Moments

To new creative beginnings and welcoming gracefulness

Hello,

I am thrilled that you are here! Wish I could give you a hug in person to thank you, but for today I will let this newsletter do the task through my words.

Masala Puff Moments: the story behind the name?

I am a humongous fan of flaky buttery puff pastry - masala puffs and butter croissants (in that specific order) are at the very top of my list. I am also a 22 year old who is very strict with her diet (fun fact my little brother has nicknamed me a cow; apparently because I eat plenty of greens). Since puff pastry and conscious eating habits don’t particularly go hand-in-hand, I have what I call ‘‘my masala puff moments’’ - moments when I want to treat myself, reward myself for something beautiful that has happened, or just punctuate my day with ‘V you are doing great’ - I get myself to indulge in a masala puff.

With this newsletter, I hope to bring to you every weekend, the feeling of those masala puff moments. Little joys, big joys, shared joys - something for us to carry forward to the next week :)

Onto this week’s theme, Accepting with grace

Wanting to start a newsletter has been on my list of things to do for years now. Excited beyond I can contain to share that here I am on a random Wednesday evening, writing the start of my newsletter series.

So while I was on my way to the airport a few weeks back listening to a podcast, I heard this sentence that immediately built a home in me “beating yourself up is never a fair fight”

This got me thinking about accepting compliments. Something I am working on is accepting compliments with grace. To believe that it is not being said out of a need to be “nice”. To not immediately mentally turn it down as a result of feeling like someone is doing a favour onto me. To have a self-faith so strong that a compliment arrives at the doorstep of my body merely as an excerpt of a love letter I’ve written to myself ages ago.

This is not about the compliment but about my reaction to it and what signals it fires and wires through my brain and body.

Receiving a compliment with a smile or a thank you that means a lot, is a favour I am doing to myself, it’s an action that signals to my body “you are worthy”

My body is my temple, I will love it, I will cherish it, I will take care of it because beating myself up is never a fair fight :)

But why?

I believe the universe listens, multiplies and delivers. Accepting a compliment with grace is my way of expressing my gratitude to the universe, signalling that YES this is something I appreciate in my life.

On that note, I was reading a poem that I wrote a while back, and I fell in love with my own words (not me shamelessly self hyping myself up :) ), questioned why this isn’t something I spend more time doing? Sharing it here. I hope you read it like you are dedicating it to yourself.

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This is an astronomy poem

the distance between the earth and the sun 
that’s one astronomical unit 
about 150 billion meters

if I were to walk from the earth to the sun 
with an average human walking speed 
it would take me a hundred years to get there (perhaps even longer)

and still, one single astronomical unit compared to the universe 
is a pea in a football stadium 
the universe is ginormous.

I want my love to you to feel like an astronomical unit 
overwhelmingly large, larger than you can comprehend in one lifetime 
and that will still only be pea-sized compared to how much I truly love you.

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Final section for this week? Moments of joy

This is going to be a recurring section in the newsletter where I share one thing about my week that really stood out to me, felt like a moment of magic, a little/ big miracle. Hope this gets you thinking about your moments of joy too.

Every night, Amma, Daddy, Jaan (my sister) and Momo (how I like to call my little brother) sit in a small 5 person circle and hold hands - forming a little pile of palms, fingers and giggles. We each share something that happened in the day that we are thankful for, and something about ourselves in that day that we would like to improve. It is often in random routine moments like these that I think to myself, what a miraculous blessing it is to be born to exactly my Amma and Daddy out of the billions of other people that I could have been born to :)

Some very old photographs

From so long ago that none of us look the same anymore :)

Okay one last section for this week I promise: Sharing is caring

Been listening to this beautiful song (Little bit more by Suriel Hess), felt like sharing it with you 

I’ll see you next week. If you felt something while reading this, have a moment of joy that you’d like to share, or just want to say hi, write to me, I’d love to hear from you :)

Lots of warmth and wonder,

Vaishnavi

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