A Yellow Sunflower Among Saffron Marigolds

March 2, 2026

The Buddhist monk, the sole yellow robe among the sea of saffron-clad sadhus.

He seems ageless, hasn't changed a bit in the last one year. He has arrived to take his usual spot at a corner in the narrow street buzzing with tourists and pilgrims.

Before that, he bows down to Ganga Ma and each and every idol or image of gods, goddesses, saints and gurus which are visible from the point he is standing at.

After this, he will stand meditatively at the corner in the crowded street, a shiny brass bowl held in a piece of cloth slung across his torso, holding the bowl over his belly, his hands at opposite corners. A slow nod of the head if someone drops a note or coin in it.

I don't disturb him this time.

I accost him the next day when he is walking in the bustling narrow bazaar.

His lump on the Ajna chakra is gone. I think he got it operated.

But he says, when I point it out to him, “It came out of its own.”

“But why did you get it operated?” I say still not getting the point.

“No, no, not that operation. It burst of its own and cleared up,” he clarifies.

“Do you remember me?” I ask.

“Yes, I do. You are Wakil Sahib, who had arranged a scooty for me to take me to the hospital for injections against dog bite.”

He remembers, but I don't know how come he calls me Wakil Sahib. I have never said so. It is his own guess about my profession.

I don't say anything on this.

“How much money have you collected for making a little Buddha temple at your village?” I ask.

“Not much, just fifty thousand rupees,” he says with a sad but peaceful smile.

“So much money!” I gush with feigned joy and ask where it is. “I would take it.”

“No, no, no, I don't keep it with me. I have a bank account. I keep it safe,” he laughs.

I add fifty rupees to his collection.

So this Buddhist Baba is the sole yellow-robed sadhu from Buddhism that I see during my pilgrimages to the holy town, and he stands out like a yellow sunflower among saffron marigolds.

There are sometimes very exciting sparks when the edges of Buddhism rub against the multitudes of Hindu edges carried by numerous mendicant friars and Babas around him.

But that's what makes it quite interesting.

It's a very lovely feeling to watch him when he bows down to Ganga Maata, when he folds his hands in front of Hindu idols of devis and devtas and gurus that are visible in the ashrams and temples around.

So basically, this is what Sanatan Dharma is about.

In my opinion, Buddhism is just one part of the great bedrock of human faith, Sanatan Dharma. And there are big parallels between the two.

In fact, Buddhism came out as a social reform movement against casteism and other negativities that had cropped up in Hinduism at that time.

So when I look at Buddhism, I just look at it as a part of Sanatan Dharma, and there is so much of commonality that Buddhism and Hinduism share.

Whatever differences the main priest-keepers of both sides claim to be there, it is just to maintain their position.

In reality, more or less, it is just another stream of faith and enlightenment flowing on the landscape of Sanatan Dharma.

Sanatan Dharma is the overall landscape on which these little streams, like Buddhism, Sikhism and all forms of Hindu belief systems, be it Shaivites, Vaishnavites, and I would say even Bhakti saints of Sufi order, they are also the offshoots of this beautiful, majestic, comprehensive landscape of Sanatan Dharma.

These are little streams sparkling with joy and contentment, with means and possibility of taking one to Om, the utmost restfulness of biggest realization.

The Angry Sadhu and the Contented Dog

March 1, 2026

Suresh, the tea seller, harks my attention in the busy narrow bazaar street passing in front of Parmarth Niketan Ashram.

He is a happy, dark-coloured man, smiling face, elegant manners, soft words. He is at peace. I cannot see the hard edges of restlessness in him.

I ask about his pet, Sweetie.

“She died a few months ago,” he says sadly, the female dog whom he loved so much.

The loss is visible on his face.

“She died due to kidney failure,” he adds.

His son is sitting nearby on a bench.

“We have another pet now,” his son informs me. “It's a Rottweiler named Jack.”

That's how life moves—losses, then new additions, change. There is nostalgia about the past, but then something new in the present to cling to.

I am having tea at his stall.

The tea man Suresh is now in conversation with a sadhu who is standing across the grills separating the narrow path from the riverside platform.

“What day is it today?” the sadhu asks the chaiwala.

“It is Wednesday.”

“Is it Wednesday?” he asks.

This query triggers a strong reaction in a woman passing through the street. She stops and starts shouting at the sadhu, a middle-aged woman beaten down by circumstances. She is draped in a worn-out shawl and carries a bag made of sackcloth.

“What did you say? You don't know how to behave with a woman? I will report you to the police,” she shouts.

The sadhu also gets angry.

“She is mad, a mad woman, okay! I challenge you to take me to the police. What would they even think about a mad woman's antics? She is a mad woman. She broke her daughter's head. She is a wandering lunatic. Her family has turned her out. Of course, the reason is her madness. Mad, mad.”

The sadhu is giving counter-punches.

“All of us are mad in our own ways,” I mutter under my breath.

“You should not get angry like this, Sadhu Maharaj,” I say.

The woman has walked on, but the sadhu is carrying on in the same angry pitch.

“Why shouldn't one get angry? One has to get angry in such situations. Otherwise, how will one even survive?” he justifies his anger.

He cites scriptures to defend his right to be angry under such provocative circumstances.

“Yes, I agree, it is natural to be angry.”

He is mollified slightly by my acceptance of his right to be angry.

Then he talks with ease, opens up, shares his story.

“What do we have? We have these dogs and cows for our family,” he says.

He then tells me the names of all the stray dogs roaming around.

“One of them bit me the other day.”

He shows me his middle finger.

“He bit me by mistake, not intentionally. He was thrashing a little puppy like a bad bully. I intervened to save the tiny puppy, and he bit me out of instinct.”

He points to the dog that had bitten him.

“But the next day when I fed him, I could see that he was very sorry about his behaviour. I could read this in his eyes.”

The sadhu is from Juna Akhara. Bhagwan Dattatreya is their patron guru.

Bhagwan Dattatreya had 21 gurus, he tells me, and one of them was a dog.

“Why a dog?” I ask.

“Because a dog is santoshi, contentment personified. A very contented being. Suppose you are eating from a plate on the ground, and a dog comes to sit nearby, keeps looking at you eating your food. If you don't offer it even a single morsel and finish your food, pick your plate and walk away, the dog will still have something to get contentment from. It will come and inhale the smell of your plate on the ground and draw some pacification and contentment from it. Even this much is sufficient to pacify its hunger”

He lovingly looks at the stray dogs whom the sadhus have given lovely names.

The sadhu listens to Osho ... on his smartphone, of course.

Phone is a must these days. Only very poor Babas don't have a smartphone.

“Osho is full of knowledge,” he says. “Osho tells very interesting things, but still he can't know the ultimate truth, because for that you need to have a guru to see you through.”

He says we ascetics give our guru the bigger place, even more than God.

“But Osho had life and living itself as his guru,” I say.

“Yes, but that is not as good as having a real guru.”

I want to say that Osho himself is guru to millions, so will his disciples get enlightenment?

But I don't say it.

The sadhu has regained his kind posture. He is smiling lovingly. Why spoil this by falling into arguments?

I think it is better to keep mum over points that might bruise someone's conception of life. Fight with your own opinions if it pays you in your career. Otherwise, it is a wastage of lung power and precious energy.

One need not carry weapons of oral armory in small talks within families, nukkads and bazaars.

A Grenade on My Conscience: Gandhi Jayanti in a Violent World

October 2, 2026

The birthday of the prophet of nonviolence—the Gandhi Jayanti national holiday.

So ironical.

The Mahatma is almost a prophet now. His philosophy and principles are almost otherworldly, distant, unrelatable and impractical for this violent world. His talk seems suitable only for heaven, while we earthlings are busy fabricating our own multiple hells using violence, distrust, lies, deceit and mad competition in order to win at any cost.

So the great man looks distant like gods. His legacy vaporizing to rise to the dimensions of mythology and merge with the ancient greats. And when that happens, we earthlings just worship that great persona through statues. We garland the pictures and pay lip service through preachy talks.

Violence and wars have become the norm now.

The United Nations is practically defunct. The poor institution looks on helplessly as countries break all international norms of sovereignty and boundaries of their neighbouring states or even distant countries and launch wars.

The words of measured caution and disciplined arguments are obsolete. The heads of state now talk quite loosely, freely venting out their anger and hate like people on street corners.

As if American hegemony wasn't enough, now we have China as the new superpower aspirant. There will be lots of friction and sparks as their respective sharp edges graze past each other, bruising their egos. The smaller countries will become the cannon fodder for the two super bulls to score goals over each other in the international arena.

All in all, it’s a super-violent world.

Violence is sprouting in various forms—in the form of a crumbling ecosystem, poverty, the haves and have-nots, the unsurpassable chasm between beggars and the super-rich, civil wars, communal flares, genocides, land grabs, ranging from countries attacking each other to take away more chunks of land to oligarchs grabbing land in pristine forests and turning them into dead land after mining.

I think we are going to embed all this violence in the algorithms of artificial intelligence.

It is an unprecedentedly powerful tool, but its mechanical soul is driven by our poisoned mind. It has the potential to make a heaven for us. But for that, you need a sweet collective heart in the driving seat in the form of governance, collective responsibilities, responsible institutions, humane corporates prioritizing rules and regulations, checks and balances, systematic pause.

But that is impossible.

We are intrinsically made to use a resource as a tool or as a weapon to surpass others. And such a powerful tool like artificial intelligence will open the avenues for unprecedented harm to humans at many levels.

Let us see where this unprecedented capacity for violence takes us in the short, immediate future.

We can no longer talk of the medium future. So forget about the distant future.

Chronic uncertainty will lie or linger just weeks away now, or even days. Aeonic shifts in the shortest of times will put the stage on a very, very shaky platform where the characters, the plot, the theme will be vibrating with drastic uncertainty.

Drastic overhauls, stormy somersaults, blizzards of change in situations, views, opinions will become the norm. These bursts of massive shifts within no time will eat away the still remaining traces of stability and pause.

When change becomes so short-spanned, it will speed up the element of entropy to such an extent that human civilization will get heated up, running fast to a burnout.

Violence in digital form is a byproduct of violence in our minds.

I stand helplessly on this day when we celebrate the prophet of nonviolence.

As we pay lip service to him through a holiday and garlands to his statues, making speeches full of lies, every word a white lie, because those words are impractical in such a violently competitive world.

As I walk in my garden, I see the imprints of my own unconscious violence: the prints of a few hairy caterpillars that crawl at night and were squashed under my foot during my night walks, the pulp of a few slugs, the numerous ants I step on daily, the yellow mark of a broken egg on the bricked yard, dried but still visible—the mark of my version of putting things in order.

The trees had overgrown during the monsoon season, hardly leaving any sky visible in my small yard garden.

As I pruned branches, plop comes down the egg.

It fell like a grenade on my conscience.

A frozen moment.

A dove's egg, broken on the ground.

And there I stood, shell-shocked, with my pruner in my hand.

I felt like the harbinger of violence, so symbolic of what we humans are doing to other species on Earth.

The more we think we are putting our house in order, the more we are destroying the little homes and nests and habitation of other species.

The poor thing, the dove, can't even angrily shout like most other birds when either a human or a predatory bird destroys its nest.

It just coos, and even in agony, it sounds as if it is chuckling, because it's a laughing dove. We have named it a laughing dove on the basis of the notes the bird makes.

That is the irony of being human.

Whether we intend it or not, we end up being violent in one form or the other, and there doesn't seem to be a way out.

That makes it most ironical, a pinching irony, at least for a poetic heart, on the birth anniversary of the great man, the Mahatma, the prophet of nonviolence.

I stand helplessly looking around in all directions, trying to get some assurance that things will be peaceful, that it will no longer be a violent world.

But alas, there doesn't seem to be any clue.

Things look destined for a darker face.

One More Step, One More Tap: A Pilgrimage Through the Tired Hills

Late February 2026 — Rishikesh

More people, more heat, less water in the holy river, more rituals, more pollution and garbage and plastic waste on the Neelkanth track.

The forest doesn't look and feel fresh even in the early morning. Nature seems tired, having overworked itself to keep absorbing the dirtying deeds and maligning needs of her children.

Less water in the brooks on the way, more plastic waste dotting the foot track. Fewer birds, fewer bird songs—a wailing call of some bird echoing through the valley, a very sad call, coming as the dying songs of the birds.

No elephant poop near the track. They have retreated further into the hills for food and free movement.

Just one creamy butterfly, even though it is still the season of spring in these Himalayan foothills.

Little groups of greenish, sparrow-sized birds—they are still maintaining a healthy population.

A foreigner in a white T-shirt and grey cargoes, making the most of what this deciduous forest has to offer. He takes shortcuts, going up steep hillsides, along dry water channels. He is clicking pictures with a boy's enthusiasm.

I see him appearing and disappearing as I move slowly, steadily, attuning myself to the rhythm of the tap-tap-tap sound of the crooked stick I hold.

The stick taps with a measured friendliness.

One more step, one more tap.

The wood and the sound it makes turn friendlier as I move on.

Tiny groups of youngsters come rushing from behind and pass me with a swag. But all of them I meet resting on the way, upslope, after some time.

The smartphone seems to have sapped their energies, making them dull and less imaginative, habituated to instant gratification. Their calf muscles and lungs and hearts don't seem to sustain a steady, relaxed, joyful walk on a forest track, on small rolling hills.

A tiring restlessness seems to be toying with them.

I again meet the foreigner about a kilometre from the temple. The path forks into two and he is confused about which one to take. I point out the correct one from a little distance.

He is clicking the little arched gateway and the bell dangling from the top.

When I arrive, we start talking as we walk to the holy shrine.

He is Alex from Brazil, works in the Amazon forest in a department dealing with the natives. He lost his son five years back.

“I was suffering terribly. Then I came here and Bhagwan Shiva and Lord Hanuman enabled me to bear the pain, took me in their blessed, caring charge,” he tells me.

With his faith, he seems to have overcome grief and accepted the reality of his loss.

A man in his sixties, full-faced, with a white beard, he is now walking to the place where Bhagwan Shiva consumed poison, as he says, after the churning of the seas by the gods and daityas.

We take prasad from a shop near the temple. He gets late in arranging things. I move along the little line of pilgrims and I am lucky to have darshan before the gates are closed for an hour for performing rituals in the sanctum sanctorum.

It is off-season and few pilgrims stand in the queue to have darshan of the holy lingam.

I whisper a prayer in the ears of Nandi in front of Shiva.

The Shiva lingam, the black, ancient-looking form, is loaded with flowers and bel-patras. As I approach the holy lingam, I pour holy water on the brass lingam, the water flowing through a brass runway to fall on the tiny fragment of rock placed in the middle of the shrine chamber.

I am just out of the shrine when he comes with his puja thali.

He has to wait for one hour to have darshan.

He asks for a suitable place where he can meditate. I think he was lucky in spending one extra hour at the holy place.

On the way, he had picked a small trident-shaped crown of a weed and said, “Even this is Shiva.”

He spoke at length about deforestation in the Amazon.

“The wild animals don't attack women as they do the men because men pose a threat. They attack with guns,” he says.

“Yes, world over, it is we men who have been unleashing wars and blood,” I say. “I think the world government should be handed over to women for some time. There will be fewer bloody wars, even though there will be more noise and gossip among the heads of states,” I say, and we laugh.

The legend of Neelkanth Mahadevji, according to Shruti, Smriti and Purana, draws its origin to the times of Samudra Manthan, the churning of the Ocean of Milk by demons and gods.

Fourteen jewels were produced during the churning, Kalakuta (poison) being one of them.

As a kind of fatherly figure, Lord Shiva consumed the poison. To soothe the flame of poison in his throat, he meditated for sixty thousand years under a Panchparni tree near the confluence of the Madhumati and Pankaja rivers.

Before going back to Kailas, the mighty Lord consecrated a Kantha-shaped lingam for the welfare of the people.

They say it is self-manifested.

I move on to cross over to the other hill on the way to Hanuman Temple, about two kilometres away, leaving Alex behind in a meditative mood, waiting for his turn when the shrine doors will open again after an hour.

The Hanuman Temple is a big one, and it stands on the top of a steep hill overlooking Neelkanth.

The pujari at Hanuman Temple has grown very old during the last year. But he still goes through all the rituals needed to keep the purity of the idols in the sanctum sanctorum. His disciple has to help him in getting up and moving around. So much changes in one year. Just a year back, he had quipped with the innocent mischief of an adolescent.

“You can have siddhis if you follow a few rituals and ceremonies that I suggest,” he told me, as I opened my eyes in the temple after meditation.

There are certain things which the energy does to one's head, and maybe he guessed, or he had this opinion about my energies because he put his hand on my head, on my Ajna chakra at the back of my neck, and then quipped this—that you can have siddhis. You are already there.

I believe in the siddhi powers of yogis. It is practically a science of yantra, mantra, tantra at the subtle energy level, but somehow, even though keenly interested in spirituality, I have never felt drawn towards attaining siddhi powers, either through tapasya or a guru's blessings.

I somehow find it to be unnatural, even unethical.

After paying my respects to the old priest and making a little donation, and after praying in front of the majestic Durga Mata idol and Lord Hanuman's idol, I start walking towards Maa Parvati Temple, two or three kilometres away.

And then I recall Alex, the Brazilian gentleman.

I remember him telling me that he really respects Mahatma Gandhi, the prophet of peace, and then he had asked me, “Do you know Mother Teresa? She was from Brazil,” he says proudly. Then we talked about her charity works.

“Modi has gone to Israel,” he says.

“Lula just came to India,” I reply.

Then we talked about powerful people who are wreaking havoc on Earth.

Now, it is hot noon as the remnants of these talks do very lazy rounds in my head.

The noon is building up really hot as I move on the trail.

Maa Parvati Temple is situated on the top of a little hill about three kilometres from Hanuman Temple. I am the only one on the path. The woods are pale, without any charm. The sun is bright.

Maa Parvati Temple is surrounded by a small hill-top hamlet. Little prasad shops line the path passing through the small hill houses.

One of the shops is owned by an old woman. Season or no season, pilgrims or no pilgrims, she is always there in front of her shop. I don't recall a single instance when I haven't seen her at her post.

The small temple is empty.

I approach Mata's lovingly decked-up idol across the hall. I walk gently and don't strike the bell.

The priest is dozing with sleep in front of Maa's idol. From the entrance to the hall, it seems he is soundly asleep.

As I stand in front of Maa Parvati's graceful idol, I find him busy scrolling his smartphone. Phones have taken possession of modern-day life even in remote peaceful hill temples.

Paying my respects and disturbing the priest's social-media session, I walk across the narrow passage through the hamlet towards the famous Jhilmil Caves, where many rishis, including Guru Gorakhnath, Sage Jhilmil and Dhruv Bhagat, did tapasya in the past.

They say even the Pandavas had taken shelter here during their agyatvas, the time during exile when they were not to be recognized by anyone.

The sun is hot, the grass beaten by the winter just gone, a depressive lethargy wailing in the small wooded valleys.

The cave is on Manikoot Parvat, the abode of many enlightened souls. It looks very ancient, and it feels plausible that it hosted mythical sages in its blackened grooves, natural arcs, recesses and stalactites. There is a natural skylight in the roof at the back. It makes it airy and well-ventilated.

There is light.

It's a living environment.

As I pass the cave, I stand near the entrance, fold my hands and move on further to visit Ganesh Gufa, about one kilometre onwards.

A sadhu from Jhilmil Cave is busy on the phone. It seems a serious issue.

Ganesh Gufa is on the other side of Manikoot Parvat, towards the back side overlooking another deeply wooded valley.

There are frequent warnings about elephants, leopards and bears.

The few shops that dot the final stretch to the gufa are locked. Not many people come here. The Shravan pilgrims may trickle up this far after visiting Neelkanth.

One shop is open.

I can see bottles of cold drinks and packets, pouches and sachets of chips, namkeen and biscuits on a small metal rack. A curtain is half drawn across the little door frame.

I don't see anyone and go down the steps towards the gufa.

“Kindly close the door after having darshan” is written on the grilled iron gate to the shrine.

I go in and put my head on the cemented floor of the small cave.

Lord Ganesha is painted with vermilion. It's a natural idol, a rounded stone looking like the auspicious God with his prominent trunk.

I strike the bell hanging from the chain.

The sound is answered by a shouty, “Who is there?”

It must be the shopkeeper, I think.

I don't answer the first time, but then he asks again.

“I am a yatri seeking darshan,” I say.

There is a very old wooden chair at the back of the wall facing Lord Ganesha's naturally manifested idol. I sit on it and chant the Ganesh mantra.

After meditating and chanting, I come out slowly, close the cave's gate as instructed and go to the tiny shop by the cave side.

The man must be in his early sixties.

I take a water bottle and a little Sprite cold drink.

As I drink the cold drink, sitting on a little mud bench overlooking the valley below, the shopkeeper comes and sits nearby.

The people in the hills would love to talk to a stranger. They have all the time for talks. 

“You must be feeling lonely. Hardly anyone comes this far, save during the Shravan pilgrimages, when some pilgrims venture this far after having darshan of Neelkanth Mahadev,” I say to him.

He says yes it's lonely but good to be left alone. 

I am not carrying much money—the bliss and bane of digital payments.

He points to a scan code hanging at the end of a string from the shed roof.

I scan the payment code. The camera catches the code—twing—the money is safe in his account.

He is happy.

He points to a place on the opposite hill across the valley.

“That is my village,” he says.

He is the purohit of the cave.

“Even though I am not decked up like a priest,” he says unapologetically.

He is wearing a well-worn plain shirt and trousers of a householder.

He points towards the cave, meaning to indicate Jhilmil Cave on the other side, and says, “They are monks in name only. They make easy money without doing anything. They smoke weed, get lots of respect and reverence. They just pay lip service to dharma, a mere formality. The cave is a property to them.”

He is clearly against the monks in Jhilmil Cave.

“This is a holy mountain, this Manikoot Parvat. It is the abode of many holy souls. They may come in front of you in the form of an animal or a beggar or a madman. You have to be conscious of your behaviour or reaction. They appear in front of you to test you.

“All this political talk about danger to Hinduism from Islam is an eyewash. I know many Muslims. They are poor, harmless people, working hard to survive. It is we Hindus who have put Hinduism under danger. We pay lip service only. Our faith has grown hollow. Even Christians have more faith in Hinduism, more than us. In fact, they are keeping more faith for our gods.”

I am listening to his narration as he speaks out his views frankly, honestly, without any filter.

He must have spent many lonely days here near the holy cave.

He seems set for a long chat, but I have to go back to Jhilmil Cave, meditate for some time and then walk down the hills to Rishikesh.

So I get up again and transfer one hundred and one rupees to his account as dakshina, because he has said that he is the pujari here.

I take leave.

He keeps shouting, still continuing with his conversation.

I walk back to Jhilmil Cave.

The ancient-looking, rugged, blackened niche of divinity in the mountain's stony ramparts.

The walk inside is a stepped one. You go up as you go into the cave, and once you have reached the uppermost platform, you stand under the broad circular opening in the cave's roof from which plenty of sunlight pours down.

I sit in front of Baba Gorakhnath's idol at the cave's back, on the platform where they say the powerful and miracle-showing Baba had meditated for years, many centuries back.

I sit in silence.

I have a theory of how to be at such powerful energetic places.

One just needs to be openly aware of the sanctity and importance of a holy place and just open with the self, without questioning, without trying to do something special to harness blessings from the place. Just be there with ease, open up, and whatever is needed for you in this and subtler dimensions gets accomplished naturally, of its own.

I sit in silence, in humility, in acceptance of my shortcomings, my pursuit for a stable self. I feel the play of energy when I open my eyes after an hour or so.

I see three or four young men are also trying to meditate. Some of their friends are enjoying weed smoke with the resident Babas on the platform down there by the entrance to the cave.

I take leave of the holy place.

I am tired. The afternoon sun is very hot.

About a couple of kilometres from Neelkanth, I see a figure.

She seems like a bundle of soiled clothes in an inversion, a place where the path passes through a depression, so it is a descent from both sides.

I see her once in a year.

The old woman is about 90.

“So you are still giving a tough time to Yamaraj,” I laugh as I approach her.

She grins, recognizing me.

“What to do, beta?”

“It is easy,” I say. “Just take the Lord's name, stop breathing and go out,” I joke.

She chuckles.

“It's not that easy,” she says.

Her husband is also alive. He is in the second half of his nineties.

Now the most important issue: she expects big charity from me.

Whenever I come here, she expects nothing less than 500 rupees, and even if I come multiple times on one particular trip, she expects that I pay her every time we meet.

She brings notes of suffering into her tone, shows me her hands, “got needles,” she mumbles, and then says something about it costing money.

I give her 500 rupees.

She is happy and blesses me by putting both her hands on my head.

“I hope to see you next year,” I say as I take leave.

She has tears in her eyes again.

I can hear her blessing words as I ascend and move ahead on the path.

A bit further, on a wayside bench under the shade of the slope, I see the old Baba.

I had met him the year before last. He was very old even than. When I didn't see him last year, I thought maybe he had shed his body.

It feels good to see him still around.

He has grown very-very old, and the good thing is, he has been on pilgrimages to Manimahesh, Chitrakoot, Banaras and other places during these two years.

He knows many sayings, parables, the kind which convey big meaning in just a couple of lines.

I don't have even a single paisa to offer him as dakshina.

When he sees that I am genuinely missing making this donation, he takes out a small phone, the ones which one sees rarely these days.

“Charge it for one month,” he says.

The phone is time-worn, donated a long time back by someone near Narmada in Central India.

Smartphones have turned us quite dull to the basics of such old base models.

He doesn't know his number.

His phone has no talk-time value in it; it means I can't even make a missed call to my phone to know his number.

The Baba remembers his chela, Sonu. He says he is a nice boy in Uttar Pradesh.

I call him, but he does not pick up.

“Call his wife,” the Baba says, and gives me another number from memory.

I'm surprised that he remembers long-digit phone numbers, that too multiple ones of his followers, but he is not aware of his own phone number.

So as I call this second number, a woman picks up, but the call is immediately taken up by her husband, Sonu.

The Baba asks his chela to give me his—that is, Baba's—number, so that I can recharge it.

The chela gives a number.

I confirm it twice.

I go into phone recharge on my phone and check out the plans available for the number.

I pick out a plan of 489 for three months.

“Why waste so much money?” the Baba says.

He says it from the heart and means it.

But I proceed to recharge it.

The recharge-successful bell twinkles, but there is no recharge message on Baba's phone.

I call back a few times on the number we have recharged.

Nobody picks up.

Then it is switched off.

Suspecting something fishy, we call back Sonu.

He is adamant that it is the correct number he has given. He raises a theory about something being wrong with Baba's old phone.

I give up.

I know the chela has duped me.

I hope he didn't give his girlfriend's number for a free recharge.

I am slightly upset that the intended charity got somewhere else, into someone's purse whom I don't know.

The Baba is calm and at peace.

“Don't worry, all is well. The donation is forwarded from your side with pious intentions. It is complete from your side. Your karma is fulfilled in this.”

He speaks very kindly.

I take leave with parting words about his chela being very smart.

“Please don't trust him blindly,” I say.

But he just smiles.

Trust.

Trust and faith are all he has, this old Baba.

It proves to be a very long day of walking.

I walk through the evening, my stick handle loose and rolling. It rolls after me, making a constant dragging sound.

That also is its support.

I reach Rishikesh when the night has fallen.

The pilgrims are savouring spicy food in the narrow, shop-stuffed bazaar after the evening Ganga arati—worship of Food Devata after melodious prayers to Mother Ganga.

The Milkman, the Dying Wick and the Invisible Hand of Fate

February 2, 2008

The cult of romantically gyrating, flute-flaunting and flirting milkmen and milkmaids was started by the most lovable of the lot, Lord Krishna.

Cutting across centuries, that legacy still survives, romantic linkups often coming dangerously close to the house-breaking taboos of extramarital affairs.

The milk-gathering sprees of milkwalas, our doodhwalas—the ones who, in fact, collect milk almost seasonlessly in the wee hours to ensure that milk reaches kitchens irrespective of cold, heat, rain, or whatever other hand the weather player might draw out.

The poor fellow gets up very early, picks up his bucket and drums, and goes on his milk-collecting spree. And in these wee hours, many romantic linkups do crop up, which act like incentives and rewards for the poor guy apart from his meagre take-home, cleverly contrived by mixing water in the milk.

One such gawala is Devender, the 30-year-old, affable, jocular, high-pitched, fair-coloured, short, square-faced and average-featured milk boy.

On the coldest of nights, when the temperature is around one degree centigrade, he gets up at 3 o'clock in the morning and sets out with his bucket and drums on his bicycle.

Now, selling milk is the most important part of household budgets in lower-middle-class rural households, where agricultural income is always falling short of meeting the budget.

The women contribute to the meagre budget through their buffaloes and cows.

Their life is full of struggle.

The husband works on small plots of land, or in some small-time business, or in some poorly paying job. Most of them drink, cramped by worries.

The hardworking women farmers take some solace and excitement with milkmen like Devender in the dark night in the barn, and the milkman duly reciprocates by giving them ample opportunities of cheating him by mixing water in the milk.

When they are caught, the poor chap has to run away after receiving a few slaps by the fuming husband, leaving his bucket there itself. Meanwhile, the poor wife has to bear the full storms of the fistwork, but nothing can be put to an end by the fistwork alone. Love, lust and romance are beyond the fear of fistwork. 

Their -- the farmer women and the milkmen -- fates are interlinked in such a manner that they cannot pull out the plugs from their respective roles. So, after a lull, after the shocking incidents, the storm strikes again.

You never know in what manner your fate is going to be affected by the sneeze and easy or uneasy turn of some unknown being in some other part of the world.

Coming to my own specific worries. The visit, after that postponement, to Djibouti had been fixed for the 4th of February, and here come the circumstances with their suddenly cropping situational snares.

Inder's would-be wife's grandmother decides to slow down the wick of her lamp of life to the barest minimum—that deathbed type of situation in which the last flicker is afraid to go down and the fuel is not enough for revival.

So, while the good old lady fights at the brink of the two worlds, the visit, after much haggling and arguments, has been postponed again.

Now I simply realize maybe our fates aren't in our hands.

We had planned meticulously, but who could have planned for the old lady's illness?

Hoping against hopes, let us hope for the best, the proposed visit might still happen somehow. Otherwise, I will have to take flight alone sometime in February itself and try to salvage our tottering business cart there in the charming, exotic chaos of Africa. 

The Phoenix, the Galloping Horses and the Road to Africa

January 31, 2008

The last day of January.

The last day of a very hectic month, which found me scurrying to Delhi, Noida and Faridabad for content writer and editorial jobs, despite knowing that I am not yet mentally prepared to take up this job, while I keep exploring business opportunities for our African setup, in which I have been actively involved for more than one year.

On both fronts, things have gone with seesaw excitement and agonies.

On the negative side, I see that things haven't progressed much, apart from the fact that we have managed to keep our so-called office-cum-residential rented apartment running by managing to export a few shipments of scrap iron and used oil from Africa to India.

But it is very costly in the sense that you have to pay at each and every step, to every individual and institution concerned, to make any type of headway. If you want your shipment to be shipped and sail off safely, then you should be prepared to let go of a lot of money from your pocket to facilitate the process, because that's the routine here.

At one moment, all the doors seem to be opening to allow me in for a sumptuous feast in lieu of all my labours. Then, in a vilifyingly chiding rebuke, the door is slammed shut in my face, hurting my already bruised red nose.

Many a time I have fallen forward to get a reddish nose.

Like the proverbial Phoenix, many a time I have tried to rise from the ashes to take a golden flight, cutting across the sunrays of a vibrant new sun. But the gravitational pull of higher, stronger realities—the realities of my own frailties, the realities of the invisible throws of dice, again and again against me—finds me falling down to the receiving, ever-gleeful, ever-fiery pyre of futility.

It is the constant pain, constant depression, ever-haunting fear of failure which seems to be eating into my being.

I fear death, but more than death itself, I fear the means adopted by the angels of death. I fear these might be so gruesome, slowly, slowly bringing down your castle of physical being block by block, tonking with merciless hammers in their newer and newer painful avatars—agents which make you die every moment.

Under such circumstances, even death, provided it is blessed to you in a single swipe, taking you off from the needling rake of life and its warm offsprings, becomes a likable thing.

Nonetheless, the world is going on with its stock of pleasures and pains.

The globalized economy is facing the turbulent waves generated by the U.S. home loan market business. The expressway of the world economy is getting newer and newer entrants. We are fastly moving ahead, yet rapidly reverting back on our responsibilities also.

It is good that Asia is progressing, entailing the Western bandwagon, but what of Africa—the tropical land of jungles, mosquitoes, animals and poor humans, mired in civil wars, coups, catastrophes, dictatorships, ethnic wars and genocides, with superpowers still playing dirty to draw out from its famished pockets?

The continent presents a very sorry state in these messy affairs, but still Africa has its fabled charm, which you don't find anywhere else in the world.

So, February 4, at 2:20 a.m., I am scheduled to go to Africa with Inder and Babu from Ludhiana. I hope they find the prospects good and invest in our company.

We, the poor, simple rural group of friends from a Haryana village, who have come out of the well and are trying to punch in an honest way.

Africa as a whole is bleeding.

In fact, it has been bleeding for a few centuries now, after those initial big cuts and gashes in its poor, poorly innocent body by the squirming scimitars of the slavers.

The poor yet rich mass of land has struggled to come to terms with the times. Wars, poverty, hunger, diseases, famines and HIV are the things which symbolize Africa now.

But as they say, the darkest the night, the brightest is the day to follow.

Maybe this saying will have its political, practical example in the form of a rising, prosperous, happy Africa in the decades to come.

On the professional front, I am yet to hear from ELI Research regarding my written test.

Perhaps my style of writing does not suit a content writer's job, whose job is just to pick up facts and figures from the internet, assemble them in a prosaic, lifeless manner so that they can be given a kind glance by some fatigued, weary executive or technocrat.

Perhaps Mr. Gupta recognized and heard the loud footsteps of the galloping horses of my creativity and withdrew into his shell of business insecurity.