Faking Cobras and Boisterous Rabbits

We Indians have been too growth oriented of late, so how could we stay behind in the Corona race. As the second week of June turns north Indian planes almost torture chambers, Corona cases are now swiftly building up the ominous tempo. Already at fourth position with a quarter million confirmed cases, and an equal, if not more, unconfirmed cases, we are sure to beat America during the monsoon season. As people come barging out, feeling terribly tortured in the lockdown prison, the stampede seems a fertile ground for the gleeful virus waiting outside the trench-works.

Unfortunately, those who are over-zealous to jump over the fence to claim more of life and living on their skewed terms are the ones who haven’t faced starvation ever in their lives, nor are they expected anytime in future. The current stampeded is driven by those who aren’t missing the basic necessities of life; they are the ones who need more, the ever-luxuriant human greed. The poorest of the poor have just reached their homes hundreds of miles away from the cities. They are the ones who face starvation and whose jumping over the fence might be justified, if at all. They but will stay where they are. They have given their all to reach home, so even a starvation death at home will appear better than dying in the urban stampede again. It, however, is again a matter of time before poverty will force them to come back to the burning furnace that kills them and keeps them somehow alive at the same time, the famed urban centers.

Scary news is surfacing about the treatment of Corona cases. The government and medical institutions appear spent of their zeal to fight more. They seem to have spent their fuel. Hospitals are saying a loudmouthed ‘no’ to admit even the confirmed Corona cases. In many cases, even to the people with visible symptoms they discourage testing and ask them to take precaution at home. Even the most critical patients have been denied admittance and a few have died. Critical patients of other lesser ailments like cancer are hardly given priority and advised against loitering around hospitals. A few hospitals are minting gold charging many hundred thousand rupees for simple routine Corona treatment costing a few thousand rupees in reality. It appears to be going speedily down the typical chaotic Indian way.

There is a silver lining as well over the edges of the impending gloomy dark cloud. We boisterous Indians are adept at digesting many a bug in squalid conditions. With recovery rate at 50%, it seems to be encouraging people to take the enemy head on. Another pleasant scene that touched the heartstrings is the sight of migrant workers being welcomed with marigold garlands and a genuine smile. Usually, a poor migrant agricultural hand rarely gets even a cursory look by the local farmers. Stray dogs and migrant workers both enjoy the freedom of anonymity to the same degree. Under the new normal, however, a migrant worker is a rare species and hence worth acknowledging and giving a smile. Punjab paddy farmers actually sent a chartered bus to carry workers from Bihar. A chartered bus is a poor man’s chartered plane. On arrival, the broad robust farmers welcomed the thin famished workers with flower garlands and genuine smiles. They de-boarded the bus to the shouts of appreciation and clapping as if they are the soldiers on a special mission.   

America is again in a soup. Just like Wuhan virus spread from China to derail the entire world, the racism virus spreading from the mind of a murderous policeman has spread across the globe. People seem in a real mood to protest. ‘Black Lives Matter’ is the movement that has positively infected the conscience of world citizens in dozens of countries. It at least is a good infection, not like Chin-hatched one that spells doom and destruction. But even a good infection is an infection after all. It unleashes loot, plunder and pillage of property alongside the genuine prayers for racial equality.

China on its part has turned a war-monger. It prefers to be seen as utterly belligerent to appease the nationalistic sentiment at home. It’s using the dramatic rhetoric of its military, like a fantastic Cobra hissing to mesmerize the audience with its majestic hood, to draw the narrative away from Corona. These military drill clippings appear to have been taken from some war-jingoistic movies from Hollywood. At least military movie-making will get a boost in the land of Panda. Loss of revenue for popular American action movies it means.

The PLA soldiers have actually sneaked 10 Km inside the Indian territory along the LAC in Ladhak. They have pitched tents, built up reinforcement and are smirking with their little eyes and yellow faces at the robust Jat and Sikh soldiers who overpower them in the physical scuffle game where no bullet is permitted, keeping the skirmishes to jostling, pushing, abusing and even throwing stones. The state controlled media plays Hollywood style cute videos of its military preparing to strike any moment.

Does anyone remember when the PLA soldiers actually fought? Not many, I am sure. The last war they fought was in 1979 in Vietnam and the tiny country soundly beat them blue. In contrast, the Indian forces are forever in the boiling cauldron of anti-militancy combat operations in Kashmir mountains, thanks to our dear buddy Pakistan. No wonder, Indians appear far more battle prepared in the mountains than the Chinese and it should come as no surprise if the yellow faced red bully gets a blue bump on the forehead in case some battle actually happens, which is highly unlikely in any case. Military scene will scatter away in proportion to the Corona talk fading away from the scene.

America is whimpering that the Chinese hackers are stealing latest Covid vaccine researches to stall their progress in order to make their own vaccine and then cash on world’s collective miseries through dumping medicines from New York to Timbuktu like they dump cheap toys. Was business ever free of exploitation in one form or the other? So why blame little red-capped, yellow faced, tiny eyed champions of egalitarianism only for this?

It leaves us at the question: Who will emerge victorious in this cold war of faked belligerency? The answer is ‘America’. Indisputably! It may take even a decade for the communist system to crash but that is inevitable. It is not a question if that will take place. The only question is ‘When’. What makes me so sure about it? Well, the communist system is inherently fallible. It has the raw power to surge like a dastardly blitz-kriz rapid fire cannon, but it is bound to burn its fuel before putting the satellite into a stable orbit. It’s too unsustainably manipulative. The system, the communist party, primarily focuses on keeping its own population at a far too low level by repeatedly cutting their wings of individual freedom and liberty to keep them as manageable entity. Everyone is a prospective state enemy! The state is forever wary and apprehensive of its own people. Of course, the pressure cooker has its bearing limits. You know what I mean. Let the coming years answer for it!

A democracy, however flawed a system it might be, in contrast has far less reasons to be insecure about its own people. Instead of cutting their wings, political parties vie with each other to win their favorable opinion. It’s a slowly heaving elephant that goes lumbering on and on despite many pitfalls and bickering. Communism is an angry crouching tiger; it has to feed on phobias, both internal and external. It growls, pounces, claws and tears for bloody scary scenes. How long it will continue hunting. A species that simply eats without any intimidation, like an elephant, has more survival chance than a species that hunts ferociously. Sounds contradictory? Well, not so if you think a bit more deeply about it.             

It’s said that the gunpowder was invented unintentionally by Taoist master alchemists looking for the elixir of life. Well, the innocent monks surely ended up making the elixir of death! What a miscarriage of the idea! Communism as an ideology is the modern equivalent of the miscarriage of the idea of equality. It was offered to bring heaven and ended up bringing hell.    

I am no strategic analyst. I am a common Indian speaking from my humble lodging in the countryside. I take lessons from life thriving around and advise Chinese to provide safety valve to their system before it bursts.

I am sure most of us have seen a sweet-sour tug of war among a group of trees in a narrow space. Much as different trees push and prod to kiss the sunrays, they are ready to recede and be on the backfoot at the same time. They are ready to take frontfoot with as much enthusiasm as they are ready to go on backfoot. Much as they try their level best to go straight to kiss the rays of survival, they are equally prepared to bend down to the necessity and take a detour in the face of obstruction. It’s a beautiful balance between surging ahead and surrender. All this is beyond winning and losing, a marvelous equilibrium. Ego, the phantom malady of we humans, cannot survive on such a beautiful line drawn with unqualified composure. No wonder, it’s beyond winning and losing. These are the fallacious categories mischievously hatched by the existential forces to put testing hurdles on the path of our evolution. It’s as simple as a constraint on a plant or tree that faces natural limits and hurdles to its growth. A plant grows egolessly, unaware of the terms of winning and losing, and hence there is hardly any suffering in its journey. We are a bit more aware egoistic plants, popping out to grow and be so much more aware to lose this restricting ‘limited awareness’ of cutting down reality in poor fractions. To be frank, a plant or tree appears more evolved than us in this regard. What we aim to gain after intense spiritual practices is naturally available to a tree. So who is more evolved? In my opinion, it’s the tree! In fact, the spiritual model of evolution—in which we take mankind as the more evolved species after having traversed through the lower realms of plants and animals—may indeed be the reverse. Like, we may be at the base and by shedding our illusionary mindwork, we are moving to higher states of egolessness, crossing over to animals to trees to grasses to dust to nothingness, on the path to become part of everything by shedding all sense of ‘I, My and Me’. I at least feel like worshipping trees more than I feel prostrating before any of the so called holiest feet on earth.     

I am unrestrained in my devotion to the divine feminine. To me male and female means more of traits beyond strictly biological categorization as we usually do. This existence has two basic elements: receptive (feminine) and aggressive (male). We have males trapped in female bodies and vice versa on the basis of the ratio of either feminine or manly bearing in their persona. So sexuality is basically attitude not just genitals. As a Taoist follower, I am more inclined to revere and worship the feminine face of creation. No wonder I see the glaring injustices against women in traditional societies like India. To escape boredom, a man has to just extend his normal schedule; the same extension, which barely meets a woman's paltry effort to tide over her boredom, turns her into a sinner.

Look around and you will find the woman, a representative of the divine feminine, is the stronger and superior force. Her gently flowing spirit, like cool waters, assuages the fire in man, the rugged representative of divine masculinity. She carefully douses the male fire. The burning volcano in him loses its flame. Yin energy, the pliable, soft, surrendering, receptive and yielding polarity of creation, unfailingly conquers yang, the hard knots standing at the rigid polarity on the other end. Holy waters are yin. Earth and stones are yang. The majestic serpentine curves of rivers are yin, the divine female. Its softness has the tightest grip. It wins and triumphs over solid most and hardest rocks. Mountains give in. A gentle stream slowly, imperceptibly wears and corrodes a mammoth mountain and writes its victorious tales in majestic valleys. Accept it O thou poor man, accept! Fire has to go; water has to flow!

Still we are at the same stage that was set up by Charles Dickens around 200 years back in his seminal work on patriarchy, Dombey and Son! Charles Dickens took 900 pages to express it. A proud rosy Papa is holding the soft lilac infant bud as if the son-crazy father will protect the infant son even from a nuclear strike. The force of patriarchy gets revealed in a brief pause! I am afraid a daughterly bud hardly stands a chance to blossom to her full potential. If we can spare the discomforting sight and smell of the overblown patriarchy, it’s an afternoon drink for the eyes: sherbet mixed with milk! The father-son rose duo has red traces in their white.

Nearby stand handsome homegrown Peepal lads! They will taste fun and frolicking days during the coming monsoons after being planted in the wild. Then they will give shelter to saints, sages, thieves, ghosts, spirits and commoners like you, me and all without any discrimination!

Much as I care to the best of my capacity to bloom a single exquisite rose, the least cared flowers blossom the most! Sadabahar, nicknamed by so many like a homeless street urchin: Catharanthus roseus, bright eyes, Cape periwinkle, graveyard plant, Madagascar periwinkle, old maid, pink periwinkle, rose periwinkle. Cut them, leave them waterless, don't look and appreciate them, forget them, treat them cheaper than grass, they will bear all insults and ignominy just to smile all through the year. Seasonless beauties! Mollycoddle your nursery rose like the apple of your eye, these destitutes don't feel jealous. Feed the cherished and highly pampered exotic flowers with the nectar of your love and affection, these orphans still don't mind. Let your pruner go carelessly over their eager to play petals, cutting and bruising them, they still don't lose their smile. They are happy with what mother Earth has given them. They don't need more. And still how much we hanker after the spoilt dandies, who bring many tears in our eyes to give a solitary smile in return!

Like our creeping civilization, the giloy tendril has taken hold of a baby soft new soot of grass to reach the wall! To be an ultramodern successful creeper, we usually use our tendrils like tentacles to reach the wall of our goals. Our tendrils and tentacles latch onto the softest sinews, even if that means killing and suffocating the tiny offshoot that needs help and support itself, on the way to hit our post. Sometimes I think, after witnessing the rawest elements of nature, this creation is imbued with self interest, and our pretty human selfishness is just a portion of the infinite force of self-preservation that we see around. What do you think?