The ever-hungry questions

 जिन प्रशनों के उत्तर खोजने पड़ते हैं, वे जीवन पर्यन्त प्रशन ही बन कर रह जाते हैं। वो चंद मुट्ठी राख में खाक बनकर किसी पवित्र नदी की धार में मिल कर अपने अनसुलझे प्रश्न का हल खोजते खोजते अनंत सागर की तरफ बहे चले जाते हैं। और  जिन प्रश्नों के उत्तर स्वत: फलीभूत हों, इतनी स्वाभाविकता से जैसे कि बगीचे में एक पुष्प खिलता है, वे मनुष्य की चेतना को सत्य के और निकट ले जाते हैैं।

The questions whose answers we have to seek, remain mere answerless questions for the entire life span. They turn into fistfuls of ashes that float in the holy waters of a revered river and keep moving in their quest to find the answers. The holy torrents take them to the ultimate sea where they rest finally with the river itself meeting its resting place. On the other hand, the questions whose answers fructify naturally of their own, like a rose blossoms in a garden, they take one's consciousness to the brink of the ultimate truth. 

Aim for a better Taliban and the worse of other terror outfits in the new superpower's backyard

 How to make yourself appear more presentable if you cannot absolutely bring out any change to your own self? Well, our cognition and interpretation of reality is relative and comparative in nature. Use it. Make yourself stand by the side of a still messier persona and emerge as smarter—apparently though—without any change in substance. You will be at least symbolically better. Well, Taliban are far smarter than the last time they were bundled out two decades ago. To make it better for them, they are learning politics pretty fast apart from firing guns. So they may be up for a better innings this time. Given their past, they were almost unacceptable to the world outside Pakistan and Afghanistan. They cannot change their skin altogether. So what was the option? They allowed IS-K, a far bloodier version of terrorism, to stand by them and appear more acceptable and less savage. A very smart game. Please don’t commit the mistake of categorizing terrorism in good or bad terms. These are plants from the same nurseries. Taliban, IS-K, TTP, LeT, JeM and many others are simply different colored plants in the nursery managed by Pakistani generals and the ISI. These are mere chess pieces, move up one, take back the other, sacrifice this one, abandon that one as per the varying situations. The more pieces you have, the better it is. That’s why Pakis keep many outfits under their patronage. You cannot just rely on one. In the face of the gruesome bomb attacks at the Kabul airport by the IS-K, the West now naturally finds Taliban a bit more digestable because may be they are apparently less bloodthirsty. The West should not be too bothered about who rules Afghanistan. They should forget about it for some time. If at all you can do something, facilitate the safe exit of those Afghanis ho want to leave the land in turmoil. Then leave the field clean for the nursery of fundamentalism to thrive unchecked in the backyard of China. Terrorists have no friends. China may think that its clout in Pakistan will be sufficient to keep its Uyghur plans intact. The concept of Islamic Jihad is above and beyond alliance or falling out with outside powers like America and China. China is temporarily part of the scheme just because America is out of it. Its temporariness they will surely taste for much bitterness in mouth with the passage of time despite tea sharing with Taliban leaders. Did you ever see a case where there was a fire in a house and its immediate neighbor did not feel the heat? The Chinese will also feel the heat. About Pakis we need not say anything because to them feeling the heat is a normal part of life. They are used to it. The Talibs have as much a right to rule as the Americans, Russians or Britishers if they can capture Kabul like they have now. Let it be the way it is. Why force a change? When the land is ready for it, the change will come from within. Give resources to the Panjshir valley group to retain their freedom so that this can be used in future. Don’t allow Ahmad Massaud’s land to fall in the hands of Taliban. The West still needs a bit of foothold in the backyard of China. This little space should be sufficient. Use it for geostrategic purposes, focus on ETIM. If you have the guts and resources to nurture it, do it. Recognize Taliban and give them the protocol driven respect a ruling group deserves. It will make them more responsible and bring less mayhem in the lives of ordinary Afghans. Why douse fire if the water you throw also aggravates the embers. At the moment we can try for a better Taliban. It’s prudent to stop the ‘no Taliban’ strategy. Their political office in Qatar has given them some training and experience about how to handle things diplomatically instead of talking through guns all the time. Slowly they will loosen the Pakis grip on their wrist because a grip by an outsider is the least they want. Now they have been focused on ousting America, after some time and cool Afghani deliberation they will prefer to have their hands free of the Pakistani grip. They just cannot help it. They have to shake off any foreign grip. Pakistan has been handy so far in reaching Kabul. But if they stabilize their power for a considerable time in Kabul, Pakistan will be less handy.

Tea-time musings on a breeze-swept day

 With softly pining majesty,

silence sings a song,

Shadows grow long,

Her soft fingers brace my face

and go along a tear's trace.

Delicate tip of her finger bears the jewel,

A tear,

The tear that would have been

lost as a salty line on my face.

**

If the situations and circumstances around you are muddy, count yourself lucky because you have been picked up to blossom the lotus of life in that mud. Ever saw a lotus smiling in clear waters? So guys just splash playfully in the mud. I promise it is worth it. Did you see a pig rolling in the mud? Well, that is bliss if ever there was any. It owns it mud fully. It doesn't hold partial purity of future. It clings to its present mud with full passion. The pig just loves wallowing in its mud. Let the purity seekers waste their lives in reaching the holy pools to cleanse their souls. Let them ruin their present for a promised future. A pool of mud at hand is better than mere promises of holy bathing in uncertain future. Love your circumstances, feller. Try your decent bit and see whether you can change them a bit to your liking. If you manage it, well and good. If you can't change them, simply roll in them like a pig. It is blissful. Believe me!

**

The sun playing hide and seek among floating clouds,

The humid air wispily whispering a smart secret,

The land lying languidly with overdose of love;

its pining thirst quenched

by the sky's countless kisses and love-drops,

A dove pair mating,

lost in the silent majesty of lusty innocence,

And he holding her hand

with a soft touch to cover stony realities,

A gentle kiss follows

to hide the mutual lies told

to make each other happy and joyful

for the time being.

**

Whoever pleases and pacifies the Demons in us becomes our Angel!

Teatime Trills

 Greedy, lustful gust of wind 

clasped the fragrant petals 

of the full-blossomed flower. 

Covetous currents of its dark passion 

tore the tiny vase of beauty and perfume.

Petals fly with dust in all directions. 

The storm doesn't win 

and the beauty doesn't lose! 

The former loses battle over time and distance

and dies with thorny imprints 

left by the stem on its viciously throbbing heart,

The latter spreads its cozily surrendered self 

in the limitless folds of peace.

**

If you lag behind, they will trample you.

If you run with the pack, they will try to push you to the sidelines.

If you outpace them, they will pull your leg.

Well, that's human society for you!

**

क्या कहेंगे लोग?

यही है सबसे बड़ा रोग।

**

Lynched by loneliness,

I surrendered to the 

sweet tyranny of solitude,

The wounds healed,

The suffering receded,

They moved away 

like shifting shadows,

Painful memories lagged behind

and turned milestones on the foggy path,

Of course sweet breeze blows sometimes

and carries sweet memories from behind,

They leave a smile on my lips

and are again left behind, as I move on,

like sweet pathside flowers,

I look back, 

They wave a sweet good bye

with a still sweeter sigh,

And thus we have to move on,

All alone

to our destination next,

And pitch our tent at one fine dusk

and go for a long, long sleep.

**

I know this is in contradiction to aesthetics. But then we have to acknowledge the dark as well. So couldn't help sharing this tantalizing piece of grey shades. By who else? GD Roberts in Shantaram:

"The best revenge, like the best sex, is performed slowly and with the eyes open."

The great game among errant kids

 Let’s talk about Afghanistan from the geostrategic point of view. Please don’t feel bad if the life of an Afghani citizen is seen almost inconsequential in this talk about ‘the great game’. Geostrategic maneuvering is primarily about the interests of the superior powers. The interests of the hosting yard, where the game is fought, are inconsequential. Whoever goes to Afghanistan doesn’t go there as an enemy of Afghanistan. He goes there as someone else’s enemy. The Britishers went there as the enemies of Russians. The Americans went there as the enemies of Russians. Presently, Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran are there as the enemies of America. Pakistan has more reasons to meddle there. They are there as the enemies of India as well. The Afghan tragedy is that nobody has gone there as a friend of Afghanistan. It is always some outsider’s enemy. And enemy’s enemy makes a very shaky friendship. China and Russia will realize it during the coming decades. For the Russians it will be a repeat lesson if they cross over the line again. And a superpower intoxicated China has to learn this Afghan lesson inevitably if it really wants to claim superpower status.

The Afgahnis have more or less accepted poverty as their most prized asset at the cost of their fierce pride, clan loyalty, spirit of independence and a culture of killing and dying. Dying and killing isn’t too much a shock in Afghanistan. It’s very easily digested. Craze is craze. Someone fights for superpower status, the Afghanis fight to keep their ideology and medieval principles. It’s their opium. They love taking long draughts at it. It’s good that Americans have packed their bags. Instead of having their army in the enemy’s backyard, it’s more practical to have a lethal naval unit that can move to any part of the world with effective deterrence. On top of it, take a quantum jump in space warfare. Be several years ahead of the nearest rival. Be in a position to harm the enemy’s space assets. It’s just like sitting on high ridges from where you can easily those coming up the slopes. The formula is: Be up there in the skies, higher than the others and trample down your enemy if they dare to stare at you in the skies.

The ‘graveyard of empires’ is surely going to be the graveyard of the next superpower also. Taliban know that they aren’t supporting Taliban as such. The Chinese are merely opposing the Americans. In this, the Chinese are repeating the American mistakes of nurturing a genie that is sure to go against the master at any cost. In future, fundamentalist Islam is a bigger threat to China than America. America hasn’t reformation camps for Muslims. There an ordinary Muslim goes about his/her routine without too much pressure on their faith. The insurgent groups in Central Asia and Taliban are well aware of what is happening to Uighur Muslims. It’s a temporary accommodation on their part to take China as an ally. One, but, must not forget that fundamentalist Islam’s first priority is keeping their faith intact, however objectionable the outer world finds it. So China will surely realize it later. A badland of blood thirsty Jihadis isn’t that much of a threat to America as it’s to China. Superpower status definitely costs you the sleep of a few nights. Let the situation keep worsening in China’s backyard and its flares will surely reach the Red bastion. In fact, by being there America was doing a bigger favor to the Chinese than to itself.

What about Pakistan? They haven’t learnt any lessons from their fire-mongering against India, which ultimately destroyed them to the extent of making them a vassal state of China. Wait, China is a very tough taskmaster. Imran Khan, your Red Father will extract the costs with a nice rate of interests. Chinese are not Americans that they will pour billions of dollars in the name of fighting terrorism while you keep sheltering Osama Bin Laden. They know how to take more at the cost of giving less. Very strict businessman, I tell you. A democratic creditor will at the most pull your ears and shout at you for bunking your payments. However, an autocratic creditor will spit at your face and put its index finger in your ass for the littlest error. So take care!

What about the modern, educated, cultured voice of sanity in Afghanistan? They have no option. They have to leave and set up their world at some other place. Simple message for them is ‘please leave at any cost, however possible.’ Pakistan you be careful of TTP. They will continue pulling your beard. China don’t count off ETIM like you have done so far. Taliban is a great encouraging example for them. They have an idol now in the form of a triumphant radical Islam. India, keep supplying the Northern Alliance with material help because as a regional power aspirant you too are helpless. So to keep your interests, you supply guns to the Northern Alliance. America, you please keep a low profile for some time and focus on your technologies. There is no need to get into a street brawl with the Red bully who wants to dissipate you. You just mind your own business for some time and don’t get instigated by the puns and pranks about your so called ‘defeat’ in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, victory and defeat mean almost the same. Their own defeat is no defeat. And the outsider’s victory is no victory. Why the hell people go there to fight. It looks like a circus ring now. Abandon it. Of course, help those who want to come out, give them visas and facilitate their rehabilitation. But allow the medieval species to lead their lives as they deem fit. And the fight for world supremacy has better avenues. This barren land is very boring. Go and write success stories on the sea. Have countless submarines, aircraft carriers and destroyers. There is more mobility. Now please disturb the aquatic world. There has been enough terrestrial mischief. And run to the high ridges, I mean go higher into the skies and throw pebbles from there at your enemy’s pot. Well, in any case space wars will acquire legitimacy very soon. So why bother about these poor Afghans. Leave them at peace in their caves, elder councils, medieval beliefs and chuckled smiles at both dying and killing.

Why do I like my corrupt politician?

The urge to rule and dominate used brutal force in the ancient times. Then we started getting civilized and the concept of outright blood and gore to dominate and rule was challenged by the civilized norms of peace, harmony, rights, responsibility, equality, ethics, etc. Of course there is still blood and war in different parts of the world but the voices opposing it are very significant also. Politicians are far better than the outright savage killers. They, at the most, draw invisible white blood instead of the red one. Politicians cut the masses vision, to keep it suitable to their purpose, instead of gauzing out eyes altogether. They try to cut down your thinking to reshape it on their anvil instead of outright beheading. Apolitical power aspirants have hardly any inhibition in pulling out eyes and cutting throats. As a chicken-hearted writer I always prefer non-physical cutting over the physical one. I am always in gratitude to our politicians for they have spared my limbs and allowed me to retain my croaking. With their clever as well as cunning acumen they may push me into the corridors ignominy and pathetic survival. However, at least I still get a chance to keep croaking. Politics is the craft of creating mammoth mountains of symbolism out of tiny molehills of facts or even fiction. It's extremely cunning but very creative work. The massive loafs of cloud then roam in our minds, covering the real from the unreal. The sun of truth stays above and in the shadows fractions of truth, beliefs, conventions and set up narratives mischievously condition the mind to think in a definite pattern for big gains for the politicians. And all this allows them to claim power and its pelf in majorly bloodless ways, save some minor aberrations here and there. What I fear most is the apolitical power aspirants like religious fundamentalists. Do you think Taliban will allow any unbecoming croaking to their ears? Never! They are perfectly apolitical. And believe in drawing direct, real, red blood. In comparison, our khadi clad politician rulers seem angels. Learn to love your political rulers, fella. Ask those who haven’t political rulers sitting over their head and instead have apolitical direct power claimants. Ask any educated Afghani person, running away from the land of misery, what it means to be ruled by ‘active fists’ instead of ‘scheming minds’. You will have all your answers. 

The Pleasure and Pain of being Human!

 You may say that an ant has a tiny memory span of mere 6 seconds. After this brief interval, it reclaims its natural impulse of seeking food. It forgets that you had put a finger across its path and in reaction it stopped sensing danger. But this memory lasts just for 6 seconds after that it has a new start. In comparison, the Homo sapiens possess a memory span of not just this lifetime but massive pools of memories from our previous births in the form of subconscious and unconscious chambers. It instinctively keeps on taking us into past, thus depriving us of the present time’s bliss that the so called lesser species seem to enjoy. One may wonder, is such forgetfulness, the kind enjoyed by an ant and other species, is the real bliss.

Well, of course they have more fulfilling lives. They have the existential limits; we have the possibilities beyond the world of mind-born miseries. They face physical threats to their survival. We have the great faculty of still feeling insecure despite all the securities around. We but can't compare life at various hierarchies of evolution. An ant's karma is bound around 6 seconds of memories. Ours is a bit more. There is just quantitative difference. But there is hardly any difference qualitatively. Look at her passion for life, unswerving focus, her ability to lift weight. Its short, life's each moment is full of unwavering karma. Nature expects the same from us. What are we? We are simply bigger ants with a bit bigger memory. It's never about bliss as such. According to me, what matters is what we create out of that has been given to us by the accidents of birth, this body, our family, our circumstances. Beyond compulsions, if we evolve to a level of living by choice, this according to me serves a big role in whether we live a joyful or miserable life. We have already crawled as ants in the form of consciousness attached to this human body of present. I, you and all of us have already enjoyed ant bliss in previous births, don't worry dear readers. This cosmos has a tendency for moving to complexity. So our individual consciousness is also moving from the simplest body forms to a complex human body. And the journey continues. Journey well you all!

Please don’t get dismayed at my calling our birth an accident, merely a chance event in the cosmos. Beyond the loopy tales of inflated egos, all of us are mere mortals in the scheme of mother existence. We are mere drops for her overall existence, like the drops in the sea effectuate the universality through their individuality. Nobody has a claim over 'more evolved' or 'less evolved' soul. We are mere work in progress. Now, coming to your 'dismay' about our birth as mere accident. There is a lot of difference between 'letter' and 'spirit'. Yes, our individual consciousness has had a specific journey, across various body forms in different births, whose momentum has carried us to the present coordinates of mind, body, soul, circumstances. With that kind of cause and effect linearity, we cannot say our birth is a mere accident. But, ironically we hardly remember anything of our past births, so given this human frailty, in laymen terms, birth appears accidental because we don't know the causes of past karmas as such. We just know the effect, this birth and its circumstances. That's why our birth appears accidental. It appears so, but it is not. When I say that we have to be a creator beyond the incidental throws at us, I just emphasize the human faculty of conscious decision and choice making to be a better version of ourselves.

Is our pursuit of happiness the cause of massacre of earth itself? I would like to say that happiness is never a part of what we have done so far. Have you ever seen a happy and joyful person going on to kill fellow human beings? A happy and joyful soul will be driven by 'needs' not greed. You may say that most of the people in their blind pursuits, whose ill effects are written large over mother earth, are under the impression that they are doing something that they like and love. So it's basically their pursuit of happiness that is the basic cause of present time chaos. No my dear sir, it's the pursuit of misery that has brought us to the threshold of mass misery. This is the fatal addiction, like an alcoholic spells physical and psychological doom under the impression that what he does is driven by his liking, and hence happiness, for alcohol. But would you term it as a happy choice just because someone likes alcohol. This is not choice. This is compulsion and helplessness. Only with a capable mind and body one can make happy choices. It's the helpless, compulsive pursuit that breeds disaster, not choice-driven attempts. With choice driven persona, one becomes a creator, a responsible citizen who knows the ill effects of his/her likes and dislikes. Whatever we like, do or intend to do is never strictly in the bracket of likes and dislikes. Most of the things that we do compulsively are mere escape routes from the agonizing bitter truth driven by guilt, fear, anger, hate and jealousy. There is a difference between what your soul craves you to do and what we end up doing under the primal compulsive instincts of anger, hate, jealousy, etc. My idea of happiness is only about following the inner voice of one's soul, not the outer compulsion driven pursuits most of us end up getting trapped into. The real happiness and joy is proportional to how much we create on the manifest plain following the sing-song voice of one's inner self.

Have you ever seen fragrant jasmine flowers flowering from a prickly acacia? All these prickly fruits of pollution, wars and diseases are the fruits of what we have sown. Their seed isn't pursuit of happiness. Their seed is pursuit of misery. The great mirage of our existence that presents misery as pleasure! We are unfortunately following mirages in deserts.

You may wonder that little animals and insects follow a code of conduct in keeping ecological balance, while we rampantly flout all norms. Is that all it means to be a human being? Is it only about winning over nature and destroy it in the effort? Don't worry ma’am, this creation isn't human centric. Ecological balances at the level of the so called less evolved species may appear a nice code game. In our cases, if you find Homo sapiens outstretching the natural balance, forces beyond earth will counterbalance our misdemeanors. This termite mole-hill that we call human civilization may pop out far earlier than we think, like it has happened many times earlier. So till then let's have a life of joy and purpose. Enjoy your journey!

The Return of the Native

 It must have rained really well to make everyone feel so happy, relieved in fact, after two days of heavy downpour. It rained so heavily that even earthworms thought it was the mythical rainy cataclysm and started crawling into the house, abandoning their hideouts in the garden. Tiny frogs seem to have literally fallen from the skies if you look their sheer number. They can beat even ants in number as of now. Either God brew their seeds in the pools of clouds and dropped them at our heads or the frog couples have been extra horny on earth this season. Well, they have taken over the garden and the ones who want better accommodation have crawled into the rooms and are jumping and hopping. We have to walk very carefully. We are as much of intruders to them as they are to us. In their little minds the house belongs as much to them as we have the notion of ownership in our slightly bigger minds.

Fed up with waters, all seem to say, request in fact, ‘No more water at the moment.’ The sky is still cloudy but one can see the sun making a dent in the cloudy fabric to reclaim its kingdom. It cannot allow the clouds to rule the skies for too long because they are good as visitors only, make them permanent citizens and there will be a big problem. Well, not for fish and aqua life. But definitely for we humans. The air is fresh, cool and windy. It feels like a massive air conditioning unit is blowing after the preceding hot-humid weeks. The weather had turned so sultry and humid as to put a frown even on the most joyful faces. It has been really baking hot and humid. Global warming is a reality and we need to come out of our comfort zones and do something about it. If we miss it, the next generation may not have too many options to avert the dangers. 

Luckily, rains have been very lenient this season. Even the prickly trees are decorated with lush green leaves to appear more presentable. They are no longer the crooked nailed quarrelsome old grannies. They are now buxom happy women of substance. Drunk with rain and nutrition, the branches sway to the song of air. Butterflies have extra air in the wings and loop, curve, dive and lift themselves with the sweet nectar of the rainy season. The dragonflies go with more linear determination against the wind like an adamant drone. All seem out to play after the rains. Birds have raised a pleasant ruckus. A tailorbird couple is hammering their prickly sequence of angry notes to distract some predator from their leafy nest. A squirrel is busy in tik-tik chorus. Probably its bullying neighbor stole its nuts. An Indian Robin chips with her coquettish glance from a wire. Peacocks hoot as the kings of the season. A peacock is under bigger risk during heavy rains because its huge plumes soak so much water. When it rains too heavily, a peacock sits like a statue without moving. That is acceptance of the forces beyond our control. It knows this rainy blizzard is just an aberration. There will be blue skies to fly and sing at the top of their voices. They do it now to the capacity of their lungs. 

Coming to the peacocks! Do you recall the peacock that sneaked into the kitchen when it was really hungry and after feeding it couple of chapattis Ma would chase it away with broom complaining, ‘You eat here and drop your plumes on the neighbor’s roof!’ Ma has departed for the journey beyond this plane. It has been nearly 19 months since she left us. The peacock stopped coming after she left. It didn’t come even once during these months. But here it is today staring into the kitchen. As I came near it won’t run away. Immediately I knew it is Ma’s peacock. He hasn’t forgotten. They have better memories than we humans. I sat on a chair and fed it a chapatti and a sweet pancake. It ate from my hands. I had tears in my eyes. Probably, it can see what we cannot and still feels her presence here. Now it’s sitting contently on the roof fence, its huge plume hanging down and its upper body lost in the neem and gulmohar branches above.    

A laughing dove couple is seeking a suitable branch for making nest as a follow up to their courtship and acceptance of each other’s love. A stern looking red-vented bulbul is feeding pulpy, rain-shod guava to her two young kids who are almost ready to take off of their own. Presently they follow their Mama across the trees. Their dependence has no meaning without her love. And her love cannot manifest without their dependence. A forlorn pigeon looks languorously from its perch on a railing. Probably his girlfriend has abandoned him to fly more joyfully with merrier wings. Another pigeon is playing with the wind. It flutters against the wind, going flip-flop and ascends almost vertically and then abandons its feathery self to be blown happily with the wind to enjoy an orgasmic glide. Is it the happy goon who has taken away the forlorn pigeon’s lady? Well, you never know. Probably they also rub salt on each other’s wound like we humans. 

Kitchens are busy. Various cooking smells waft as freely as the birds and butterflies. And that’s how the song of life proceeds to adopt another day with its tireless rhythm. All this makes this Sunday a real fun day. Icing on the cake is Rakshabandhan, the festival of brother-sister love and affection. Rakhi is a beautiful reaffirmation of the unshakable sibling bond. Wish you all a beautiful Rakhi day! Brothers, give a pause to your habit of spending money on goonish follies and unstring your purse to give a bit more than you are willing to give to your sisters. Give them all you have. It’s their day today. Beyond the customary money, give them the reassuring smile that you will be always there to help them realize their dreams.

A Miracle on the Ganges

Fed by the heavy spates of rains in the Himalayas, the holy river Ganga flew with full life and vigor. Its waters rushed past creating torrents of devotional fervor. The evening Ganga arti on Parmarth Ghat, Rishikesh, is an important milestone on a typical day at the pilgrimage town.

Everything is routinely settled for the evening arti. The yellow robed young monks are ready to chant delicious mantras to enthrall the congregation held on the marble steps overlooking the majestic river. The tourist-cum-pilgrims are set for a delicious dose of religious musicality. At half past 5 in the evening, the hills to the north get clouded by dark gray clouds. The air mass moves down the valley. A strong wind blows. The arti has just started. The rain lets loose a pining, pleasant outpour. It’s a torrential rain buffeting earth with life. It pours down with open heart. The opposite bank becomes almost invisible. Meanwhile, the arti continues under the waterfront shelter as people rush to take shelter under any portion of roof available. The people stand, sit and recline and clap to the rhythmical chime of the mantras. Brass prayer lamps with hooded snakes projecting over the fire bowl burn with unaffected vigor. It warms the cold air gushing into the valley. The hymns are captivating. The Ganges becomes one with the falling dark grey torrents of water. It seems a conduit to the awesome super entity above. Everything is thoroughly washed. 

The people, a teasing mix of natives and foreigners, gather and dive into the devotional fervor with equal measure. Incense smell wafts across, pleasantly plummeted around by the wind blowing down the valley. The spears of rain pierce the heaven-bound fragrance to keep it lingering on earth for a little bit of more time. The simple rhythm of mantras and devotional songs vibrates the chords of faith in many hearts. It’s beyond language, religion, caste and culture. The people are sitting on the bathing ghat steps, lost in devotion, staring at the fervently rushing waters of the holy river. All are part of the devotionally surcharged air.

Even though you surrender, your subconscious mind is encouraging you to have more expectations, entitling you to more blessings by the higher entities.

There she is: an innocent, pure, unadulterated being, beyond ambitions and fight for a space in the world. An accident at the time when she was conceived puts her on the sidelines. She isn’t a participant in the buzzing game of life; she is a mere presence.

She is a girl around 14 years in age, her ‘being’ defined by the clinical symptom named autism. It sidelines her and puts her beyond rampant ambition, the devil bug that infects the modern mankind and despite best of our efforts stays side by side with our imposed goodness.

The swift currents of prayers have captured the mundane souls around but all this, more or less, is meaningless to her. Or does she have her own share of meaning that we can’t understand and perceive?

She is a beautiful special child. Her identity could have been still better had she been in a position to gather the traces of her individuality with the cord of self-interest.

The doctors may call it ‘autism’ but she just is the way she is. She looks the other way. She stares into the tiny side-lane where the birth-time biological accident has pushed her into. She has virtually no claim over the life’s bounties that we so brazenly fight for. This look of detachment appears a punishment to the normal world with its mountainous pettiness. Holding her head at an awkward angle she looks away. She has no reason to fall prey to the surcharged prayers.

The girl has beautiful eyes, a perfect nose and an attractive face-cut. Overwritten is the imprint of her special ability that we take as disability. Her lower lip hangs loose. It’s an opening into her disarrayed persona. It’s a clue to her not being in control of her identity. A bit of saliva drips down. With an effort she moves her hand to wipe it with the back of her hand and muster up some control. She then fiddles with the towel hanky given by her mother sitting next to her.

Her limbs and head move with mechanical pauses, not with that fluidity which pushes us into the stream of commonness. Looking at her helplessness, everyone around appears to own a sea, and she merely a drop. How will you accept such injustice on the part of nature?

Her family appears to have enough sensibility to take care of her needs, but that is no justification. She doesn’t even realize what she has lost right from the beginning of her innings in this life.

Lost in the oblivion of her own special world, she comes gasping on the surface, awkwardly tugs to draw her mother’s attention, who has learnt to ignore such disturbances on her girl’s part.

It’s a particular challenge to raise a special child. You need unending patience and the tank of maternity should never be empty, otherwise the special child has no choice other than suffering.

There are girls of her age, fleeting around, full of life, sweet-sour experiences of life waiting with excitement at the threshold of adolescence. The people are floating leaf bowls containing flowers, incense and a tiny lamp. One tear in her unseeing eyes is more substantial than the Ganges itself.

The sea of her loss drowns me in its endless waters. My own tears add to that sea.  My own bickering and bitterness feel such a meaningless thing. There is everything around, but she cannot so much as take a confident, solid step to claim her share, while everyone in the devotional crowd is busy in a stampede to collect huge piles.

The evening Ganga prayer is over. The rain has stopped. Her family stands up. She also gets up with an effort, her movement standing somewhere between a human and a mechanized robot. It’s not a confident, fluid run. Every moment has a full stop, a kind of an end of the journey. Walking absorbs her in its own world. There she goes with unsteady steps, her hand on her mother’s shoulder to get that support which she will need forever.

She can survive only as long as there is love and care in a fellow human’s heart. It’s more vital than the oxygen, water and the food she eats.

What is the meaning and purpose of her survival? Perhaps, it’s to keep the banner of love and care flying in this worsening world.

The night is falling. Her language has just a few efforted sounds. She can merely respond to the language of love and more still to hate and anger.

I’m lost in the sad sea of her loss. I try to swim to find some justification and meaning to all this. I find none. It’s blank, pointless. Tears are streaming down my face. Her image haunts me. I sit to meditate by the Ganges. The sea of sadness surges in. A daughterly affection for her engulfs me. My hands convulse to bless her with all the happiness possible in the world. My lips move to kiss her forehead and sip down all her agonies with my fatherly prayers.

This seems to be the meaning of her life. Melting hearts, creating selfless torrents in the hearts caught in selfish quagmire and make people feel gratitude over whatever they have got in life.

As I close my eyes, more tears stream down, washing my soul of much of the bitterness I hold on account of my own losses.

I feel like a helpless father who cannot give a portion of the world to his daughter that she surely deserves. I implore mother Ganges to pour all blessings on this little angel; to fulfill the endless abyss of her helplessness with all the happiness and joy possible for a girl. I pray for the long life of her parents, for only the parents are best suitable to feed the vulnerable lamp with the oil of love, affection and care. I pray for her family’s economic well being and over all luck so that satisfied with life, and hence less bitter, they turn more loving and sweet and she gets her share of love and life from that happy pool. I pray for her younger brother to grow up to be a sensitive human being who will take the baton of love from their parents. I pray for him to have an understanding and loving wife who will help in keeping the flame of love going on to enable the flower survive happily. On top of all, I put my faith in Ma Ganga, ‘Ma you have a soul. You are so full of life and carry miraculous powers in your holy waters. Your force can cut mountains, so it can definitely help this little flower take control of its destiny in her small hands. Do a miracle Ma! Let her be cured gradually so that she takes her portion of happiness on her little palm. Do it slowly to make it appear like a digestible fact, a kind of little surprise medically, if you don’t want to make it appear too miraculous!’

The blissful torrents of Ma Ganga ripple past. With the tears streaming down, I pray for that little angel of love and affection. My tears have absolved me much of my bitterness. I open my eyes and look helplessly into the darkness. In the dark, Ma Ganga feels capable of performing miracles. I want her to be miraculous.

Next evening, I visit the arti ghat again to see the angel more than anything else. There she is! I look at the angel with a peculiar mix of sadness and happiness: a strange equanimity, equidistant from pain and happiness. I may have forced myself to believe in a miracle. I am happy with it. I can sense a small installment of Ma Ganga’s blessing going to her share.

Today she isn’t looking with sad indifference into the side-lanes of her unparticipating existence. She looks closer to the world around. She is looking into the praying mass. She appears a bit closer to have her own share of happiness, all by herself. She laughs, shakes her head, hardly making any noise. She tries to clap, rapidly bringing her clenched hands together without actually hitting them. She pulls at her mother’s sleeve with more authority. She looks belonging to this world and ready to see and understand it at her own pace and conditions.

As they get up after the arti, and as she follows her mother with efforted steps, she pulls at her shoulder and points to her waist. Her mother turns and adjusts her pyjama. There they go at their own pace.

It’s better to believe in miracles because sometimes that is the only option left.

For the remaining part of my stay, I fervently pray for her to the limits of my soul. On the day my departure, at five in the morning, I walk down the steps to reach Ganga Ma, wash my face and pray again for the angel. The holy river looks very calm in the pre-dawn darkness. It looks as if she is able to hear my prayers in the absence of all the din and noise. 

Even while moving away in the auto on the road along the opposite bank, I keep lighting the lamp of my prayers.

She is in her own world surrounded by love and care which I believe will only grow with the passage of time, making her happier. More importantly, the miracle of Ganga Ma will work. It may happen slowly but it is inevitable. With the passage of time, she will become capable of having her share of life and living at her own terms to give back the love that has kept her alive.

Any memory of her doesn’t go without praying for her. I feel enriched and evolved by her sight. My bitterness has poured out and it has made me more loving, full of gratitude and more open to the belief in miracles. For, ultimately only miracles count. It may not appear like this, though.

GOD BLESS HER!

MA GANGA PLEASE CURE HER!

LET HER BE THE PART OF THE COMMON STREET!

LET HER COME OUT OF THE TINY SIDE ALLEY!

Miracles are happening all the time. What is quite miraculous is that most of them pass off as ordinary occurrences. Perhaps, that’s how it has been planned.

Never felt so fatherly before. I can feel the likeable pain of being a parent. Blessed is the parental pain!      

 

Life is just a choice to be alive

 A little frog is croaking and jumping in a little rain puddle. ‘Why is it dancing?’ I wonder. Probably it’s very happy, I get an answer as per our own equation of happiness. ‘But why is it happy?’ the skeptic inside again tries to get an explanation. ‘It’s happy because it’s dancing,’ this isn’t my idea. It has landed from a higher plane. Things just exist in an unqualified, unconditional state. The ‘what’, ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘when’, ‘where’ are mere cognitive consequences of the neuro-transmitters cascading in the brainy matter. Within its exclusive zone of happening, everything is cause and effect at the same time. Imagine two points on a circle. Each point leads as well as follows the other at the same time. And their journey can be endless on the circular path. Cause breeds effect; effect sires new causes. Creation sows the seeds of destruction; and destruction conceives creation. Everything is round about. ‘Sab gol gol’, as a mendicant friar exclaimed by the Ganges. A big sunya. Here nothingness breeds everything; and everything sums up to be nothing. It’s just a mammoth humming, buzzing, vibratory drama. Play your tunes well and dance like the little frog. To be happy and joyful is a matter of choice. Food, clothing, career, hobbies are what make one feel better and happy. So isn’t happiness a choice? Choose what makes you feel better. Now, who says happiness isn’t a choice? Beyond philosophies, simply choose what makes you happy.

Sleepy musings on a sultry, humid night

 If those in power could take corruption to the extent of CWG, coal mines and 2G spectrum, thus writing it clearly on the wall at every nook corner that that’s how things are done. Everybody knew that corruption came perilously close to be synonymous with Congress. With the incentive of all this knowledge, the masses who voted these people into power again in 2009, it proved that we aren’t just a poor helpless bunch of monkeys. We are in fact street smart guys who know how things get facilitated to creep out of the dusty corridors of governance.

Manmohan Singh became the third longest serving PM of India after Nehru and Indira. It also prove that we Indians have a lot of digestion for hereditary rule. If we are to believe in royalty, Nehru the King and his family the royal family have a long-standing in our ruling affairs and rightly so. It’s as per our customs that are comfortable with royalty and hereditary hold over knowledge, skills and rulership. Well if it finds favor with the majority of my countrymen then a cribbing commoner like me should shut his mouth very tight. In fact I’m keenly waiting for the Yuvraj to become the PM of India, which he will surely at least once.

**

When lakhs of your own sons and daughters are taking pot-shots at you, think o mighty Hindustan think! Either you have turned out to be a very bad father or they are the worst of children.

**

I've an arrowed heart. Its insensitive steel a check dam across the smooth flow of the river of my sensitivities. But more painful is the fact that the hands that pulled the string of merciless bow are the hands of my own people. My Bhisma's arrowed body with countless holes in it offers the outlets for the outflow of countless sins committed by me and my near and dear ones.

**

It rains in the hills. Muck, shit, garbage, cow and people stink even more. But Ma Ganga gets a nutritious face pack. Its sediment-laden torrents gain victory over the errant child perennially shitting and pissing in its motherly lap.

**

While many an Indian PM delivered the costmary Red Fort speech, it has rained during the last leg of the monsoon season. It always appears to me that God pours water to wash some of our collective sins. Thank God our cute to cumbersome PMs’ khadi appears spotless and clean.

**

V shouldn’t evaluate our status by analyzing shadows. Just because we have long shadows in the morning and evening doesn’t mean we are giants. If you think so then we are dwarfs at noon. So go for the substance fella. That will confirm the real status. It will puncture the ego, leak out extra air from the balloon of your existence and allow you to fly at a height where you deserve to be.

**

Even the words of sympathy and the emotions of piety serve as a fraction of the practical fight for justice in terms of utility. So feel proud for your contribution to a greater cause. If you still feel helpless and guilty for not doing even that then recall the memories of any selfless soul that you remember  on account of his/her deeds and you nurture a strain of greatness in your DNA.

**

The Governments waste more energy in defending their wrong rather than justifying their right.

**

If a few thousand votes cast in secrecy can make you the so called law-maker, then the millions of open and non-secretive shouts in someone’s support earn him the status of law-defender. Governments you just cannot ignore the civil society’s cause. It comes with far better democratic legitimacy than you guys.

**

Conversation with a Stranger:

One day he asked someone hiding inside

the bodily façade like a fugitive,

‘Who are thou?

And why despite all the architectural negativities

people define thou positively?’

From it unreachable deep cellar

that someone raised it germ-free, disinfected voice,

‘I am the exiled one without choice,

While the bones and the flesh around me

in worldly spotlight rejoice,

I just take the ordained backseat

and watch the game of

birth, survival, struggle and death

played inside the castle on the shaking stage.

‘Don’t you feel perplexed by the passing days?’

Again the query was voiced,

‘Don’t you feel bad or ever you rejoiced?’

It answered in a heavy, impassive tone,

‘Thy gimmick cannot shake my throne,

In the timeless shades I spend my time here

and when the castle will be broken

the death squad will find the door open,

Away I’ll fly with the figures of

deeds and misdeeds to the final court,

and if it is found short,

again I’ll be exiled.

It has been like this for thousands of years,

but I never rejoice at new birth

nor weep at death and shed tears,

My book lies in mighty primordial hands

and the player to settle cores changes with worldly trends,

I am the same forlorn, exiled child

of the majestic, mighty father,

It’s a never-ending game perhaps,

A tiny cog on the chessboard of creation,

Let’s see how high and mighty you make the castle,

Void will then gobble the tone and stars!’ 

Irritated musings on a baking hot, humid noon

 The lush green ripply pastures of yore are gone. It's now a barren, stony waste stretched for miles after miles in my heart. The fiery sun bakes the sand and the sandstorms screech and howl. Joy only so little as would amount to some lone dewdrop on a singular blade of grass if that can survive. And the sufferings lay piled up like daunting sand dunes. They don’t change, they just creep invidiously. The rose that once blossomed and smiled when all this was a lively, joyful garden is now a dry thorny memoir. It stands there like a crooked garland of thorns draped around the heart. It pricks and lets loose a torrent of memories that nibble at whatever moisture lies there among the barren waste.

**

A lot many words have lost their essence in spirit. They survive half-alive in ‘letter’ only. They are no longer those perfumed living entities that their ‘spirit’ bestowed them. If ‘letter’ is the body, the ‘spirit’ carries the soul of a word. We have squashed the ‘spirit’ like a worm. To take our mechanical assault one step ahead, we are pummeling the ‘letter’ part now. The literal meanings of all the nice words have entered the obsolete book of poetic justice. Guys for the real practical meanings rub these shiny words till the blindfolding glitter vanishes to show you the more realistic stuff.

**

Plundering has been the first priority of our political class in democracy. We aren’t saying anything about the outright autocracies because there plunder, looting and exploitation isn’t a mere ‘priority’, it’s an outright and sole ‘right’ of those who wield power. In a democracy, sadly our ruler has to come out of this breed only. Is there a way out? Yes, it’s the civil society! Guys cast your alternative vote. Join the ranks of the civil society movement. The civil society guys are basically a thorn in the flesh of democratic autocrats. The world is yet to witness its first perfectly democratic government by the way. Peep over the wall and see the massive bundles of lies, conceit, forgery, falsehood, loot and plunder that goes through the legal machines of autocratic democracies. A slightly heightened sense of awareness is the eligibility to be a foot-soldier of civil society movement. In future, civil society would become the flag bearer of democracy in autocratic democracies.  

**

Life isn’t all about pursing your dreams, it’s also about fighting for the leftovers lying in your plate after the hungry fate has had satisfied its gluttony.

**

THE LAWS

HAVE

THEIR CLAWS

THAT FURTHER EXPLOIT

THE HUMAN FLAWS.

Stale, yawning, sleepy musings on a hot, humid and sultry noon

 A widow fleeing from a Taliban ravaged town in Afghanistan says: "When there are two girls in a family they take one to marry her to a fighter; when there are two boys they take one to make him fight."

The bloody saga opens full throttle again in Afghanistan. And the outsiders go there to have their share of the pie and then leave. Superpower blocks cannot heal the Afghan soul. They have bled it too much for many decades. Any healing, even cosmetic in effect, has to come through the UN. Afghanistan needs a UN peacekeeping force. With strong Indian boots on the ground, of course.

**

Dogs, slums, shit, squalor, stray cows, filthy pigs, poisoned air, plundering rulers, dying truth, abandoned and obsolete god. And in all this, we the commoners lost like plagued rats. Rain lays bare the reality in our so called swank 21^st century metropolitan cities. Flooded potholed roads convey the scars that we carry in our imagination. Dirtier than shit garbage lays the foundation of the karmabhoomi of wormish survivals. Salutes my cities!

**

The farmers are shedding blood of their will power for their mother earth. The very same earth whose maternity they have maintained through countless sweat and blood drops falling on her golden crystals. Land grabbers beware! They will stay. Want to test their stamina? Well, do it at your own risk!

**

The real skill of we Indians lies in mindless, reckless, profuse and enthralling procreation. It seems to be a full time job. We just love conceiving even more than the ecstatic moments preceding the conception. No wonder, we are a big, buzzing ant-swarm now. Jostling and lost in its own directionless, blindfolding majesty.

**

Yamuna is up to a complete facelift this time. More rains, more torrents packed with hilly sediments. The runnels of Yamuna rushing past the flood plains in Delhi but still bear the marks of defecations on her holy brow. There was a time, as close as three years back, when two elephants played on the semi-stinking sand, raised their trunks to pay homage to the inherent holiness. The laws have their claws. They were dispatched to some sanctuary. The mother seems to miss its muddy roly-poly babies. 

Musings on a hot, sultry day

 All pigs are good. Unfortunately we can't say the same about the humans. And all donkeys are elegant gentlemen. Again we can't say the same about we humans.

**

The sea has but no option other than to feel its existence through each and every drop cradled in its immensity. Each drop has the very same code of creation as the entire sea. Similarly, the entire cosmos has the only option to feel its lively, enthralling expansion, its pulsating consciousness, through you, me and all of us around. Each sand grain, each particle in the air and the void itself bespeaks of the very same code of creation, the very same primal consciousness. When you know more of yourself and others and the life in general, the cosmos is in fact engaged in a sweet self-reflection.

**

Don't look down upon people just because they are poor and look dirty. Every soil has its own characteristics worth gold. We try to see in others what we ourselves lack. Before condemning and degrading someone else over looks, wealth, power and position, we have already condemned our own selves for lacking the same. How will you judge anyone without having been a thorough judge of your own self. The prejudice that we cast on others is first practiced within the workshop of one's own self. How will you hate anyone if you haven't been hating yourself secretly about your supposed failures, shortcomings and expectations.

**

We cannot avoid doing wrong. But we can at least try to learn to do wrong things for the right reasons.

Musings on a rainy day

 Well, well, well it has been worth it. The storm of course had steely nerves. But then it inspires the very same in you. Unstretched you are just a lethargic, spiritless coil of rope, waiting for the time and its agents to nibble at your sinews. Stretched you become a taut bowstring ready to unleash your potential into the existence around you. Unstretched you are a mere creation, a product. Stretched you are a creator, hurtling your potential on the ever expanding canvas of creation.

Accepted that it was a blizzard worth its salt. A whirlpool of energy whipping up an expansionist storm. But then it also had every right for expansion like all things, phenomena and living beings. It hardly left any visibility on the stage of my life. But then adversities are simply new avenues for the expansion of our potential. Trying to see the way out, I strengthened the muscles of my will power and the eyesight of my inner self. I feel better with the iron in my spirit. Hee hee, nothing goes waste fella. This is the law. Even the most unfavorable lot cast by the fate can’t overrule this. The most it can do is to take away the most common and expected result of one’s endeavor. And is that loss worth crying for and weaken the precious gain in the real substance of your existence?

**

He was a saint for he sat stoically among the garbage dirtier than shit. The dog saint, the holy friar of unholy shrine. And me the follower, the dirty puppy playing in the filth. Now if I drive my soul mad to get enlightenment, do you think there can be a bigger fool?

**

A star shines in my eyes. It shoots off on an exciting, perilous journey, leaves a dusty whiz across my horizon and its remnants instead of crashing into the sea land on my head. I get a nice bump guys!

**

What is success after all? Is it beating others in their achievements? Or meeting others' expectations from you? Or surpassing your own dreams? Or a wispy, pleasant feeling at the day end, 'Fella you have not been a mere weight on earth!'

**

The sun shines bright this morning. I raise my tired eyes and look across the desultory forlornness. A dream beckons from a distance. I just smile and turn my face away, 'No more runs after the mirage fella.'

**

A spider's best chance of landing with prey lies in casting web and wait patiently instead of hopping around to catch one. Use your best faculty fella, however mundane it appears to you. A mosquito has to be as proud of its tiny sting as a mighty lion is of its massive, cleaving bite.