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Reena Jungle Safari

@reenarkanji

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just a girl with messy hair and a thirsty heart💫

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I can’t quite believe I’m writing these words.

I have spent the last few hours in disbelief, waiting for someone to tell me it wasn’t real.

But… it’s true, isn’t it?

We now live in a world without Dolly.

And somehow, that just doesn’t feel possible. She was such a presence. She was just… there.

I was lucky to see her live, and she was everything you wanted her to be — sassy, playful, mischievous, with that wonderfully acerbic sense of humour. Always completely in on the joke, delivering a one-liner with that sweet smile and having an entire audience howling. And the stories she’d weave through her set… such a masterful storyteller.
And she sang all the songs with that voice

Oh, that voice

Oh Dolly.

There are some people who become so much a part of the landscape of your life that you can’t quite imagine a world without them in it. You were one of those people for me. You never lost sight of what mattered. Beneath all the glitter and rhinestones and jokes was the biggest heart. We were so damn blessed to have existed in the same time continuum as you.

And as they say in the South, and as you would say yourself, “the higher the hair, the closer to God.” Well, tonight I’m thinking you must be right there, real close to Him.

thank you, god, for the gift of the soul we call Dolly Parton.
she brought so much joy, so much love, so much light into this world.
she was a balm for the soul.
we needed her.
we were blessed to have her.
please welcome her home to be reunited with her beloved Carl
And may we carry forward the Light she shone

Oh Dolly, I loved you I will always love you, thank you, thank you for it all dear heart 🙏🏼🤍 🦋#DollyParton
X by @reenarkanji

24

2

a month ago

And just like that, it’s been ten years already.

I still remember opening my pre-ordered copy of Blackstar that weekend, replaying it over and over, trying to decode the lyrics, as I was always wont to do with your oeuvre. A birthday. A new album. It was a joyful, Bowie-esque weekend.

Then came Monday morning.
And there we were — thrust into a world without David Bowie.

I miss you.
All the time.

Somehow, you made the world feel braver and more alive just by being here.

The world spun off its axis that day and it has stayed slightly wonky ever since.
I wonder what you’d make of the world we’re living in now —
the noise of it,
the slow drift toward authoritarianism,
the uncertainty that hangs in the air,
the strange beauty still trying to break through.

I would like to think you would have seen it clearly,
named it honestly,
and still refused to be diminished by it.

Time has passed, and the stars indeed look very different today.
But your music, your words, your films, your insights, your essence — your face, those eyes — you, my dear heart, are ever present, for I take you with me.
Only forever, not long at all💫

X

#Bowieforever by @reenarkanji

26

3

9 months ago

Oh Diane
You were so
so authentically YOU
and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love you, for me you’ll always be one of the best to ever do it. Simply impossible to emulate. Thank you dear heart. la-dee-da, la-dee-da, la la godspeed #DianeKeaton 🙏🏼💗

x

#WhenHollywoodWasGreat by @reenarkanji

52

3

a year ago

“And always I have this feeling- which may not be true at all - that I am being used as a messenger” Jane Goodall, Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey

Thank you Jane, we were blessed thank you for it all #JaneGoodall 🙏🏼💗

X by @reenarkanji

24

0

a year ago

oh Robert
if my memory serves me right it was as Jay Gatsby
you first came into my life
handsome enigmatic
and so you remained
In my life
for
Barefoot in the Park and The Way We Were
two of MY most delectable films of all time
I watch them often just to swoon
And I will continue to do so
for You are the one to swoon over
Thank you for all you gave us this one hurts we were just so goddamn fortunate to live in your time
Champion of the indie film Champion of our planet
Artist Humanitarian Lion
See ya Hubbell, rest in eternal bliss dear heart #RobertRedford

“He stood for an America we have to keep fighting for” @janefonda

#WhenHollywoodWasGreat

X by @reenarkanji

29

4

a year ago

Trying to articulate you… me
With Twin Peaks you opened a portal of strangeness which I had only ever seen in my sleep and so there was teenage me completely hypnotised happy to stay in the red room for as long as you needed me to.
Through the years I would come to pour over your canon of work.
And It was one wild trip witnessing your art. I didn’t always ‘get’ it but I think that was the point in itself, you always made me think mostly wondering how your mind must work🤯. I love how true you remained. For you it was always about the craft.
And if this was it it would be enough
But
it is TM, which I learned from your foundation, that profoundly changed my life at a time when I so needed it.
And It continues to do so.
Everyday. TM. Twice a day. You did that. Thank you Sir.
Rest in spiritual visual wonder and our eternal love dear heart #DavidLynch🙏🏼💗🕊️

x by @reenarkanji

35

3

2 years ago

The speed of
Basher al-Assad’s downfall
has quite literally
left me breathless

Momentous and Historic

And

For the 12 million+ displaced Syrians

For Zein and Ibrahim Al dahir who - in the wake of the Arab Spring at the onset of the Syrian Civil War - invited me into their home, introduced me to their culture regaling me with stories of their earlier life in Syria AND so started that evening what none of us could have known the beginning of my journey working with refugees. For them and For all Syrians

today I dare to HOPE 🙏🏼

x

#SyriaIsFree
#Syria #HOPE #WithRefugees
#ChooseSolidarity
#HumanRightsDay by @reenarkanji

12

0

2 years ago

so
that happened!

still processing, currently experiencing some kind of reckoning within my weary soul, but I have in these last few days found solace in the immortal words from the great Chumbawamba
‘I get knocked down
But I get up again
You’re never gonna keep me down’

YOU AINT EVER GONNA KEEP ME DOWN.

x

#ThisTooShallPass
#Breathe #HOPEful
#OnwardAndUpward
#SlavaUkrayini by @reenarkanji

45

0

2 years ago

As a self confessed political junkie
this election is my Olympics
but oy vey America what are you doing to me!
I swear you’re making my hair grey faster

I was thinking of how to best encapsulate this moment
everything I wrote felt uninspired
so I’ve borrowed from the Boss

“This train
Carries saints and sinners
This train
Carries losers and winners
This train
Carries whores and gamblers
This train
Carries lost souls
This train
Dreams will not be thwarted
This train
Faith will be rewarded
This train
Hear the steel wheels singin’
This train
*Bells of freedom ringin”

so America,
fascinating wild experiment YOU
where to next
I hope
and
pray
that
you’ll meet me
in the land of hope and dreams

dear god
please grant wisdom and courage to the American voters
that as they make their choice
it aligns with the greater good of their community,
their country and the entire world

x

#Americadecides #USElection #VOTE #VoteBlueDowntheBallot
#FriendsDONTLetFriendsVOTEtrump
#countryoverparty #ImWithHER
#NotGoingBack #Kamala47 #HarrisWalz24
#KeepKamalaandCarryOnala

*Land of Hope and Dreams
Song by Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band by @reenarkanji

55

0

2 years ago

when I first moved to London I had a wish list of those who I wanted to see on stage, Maggie Smith was of course on that list. And lucky me my wish was granted.
The night I first saw her was a twofer with that other great Dame, Judi Dench in David Hare’s The Breath of Life and for me these two ensemble it was pure masterclass✨

and as I’m sat here tonight remembering
feeling so fortunate for that night, the others that would follow and for the body of work in which she beguiled with those eyes of hers and that mighty talent, it is with the heaviest of hearts I say thank you Dame Maggie
may flights of angels
sing thee to thy rest #MaggieSmith 🙏🏼💗 🕊️

x by @reenarkanji

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1

2 years ago

that voice

deep rumbling august

remembering it tonight

I’m hearing it recite the alphabet (Sesame Street) I’m hearing it tell Luke you are his father (The Empire Strikes Back) I’m hearing it as you perform as Big Daddy (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in the West End) I’m even hearing it reading Letterman’s best top ten list (Late Show with David Letterman)

forever embedded in my memories you are

for your wonderful oeuvre thank you sir #JamesEarlJones

x by @reenarkanji

26

1

2 years ago

today on your bornday
I will revisit your words
soak them up
and let them love me whole
Happy Heavenly 100 Sir #JamesBaldwin

x by @reenarkanji

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2

2 years ago