Rotdu dog

 Barking is synonymous with being a dog. They just love barking! God knows whether it’s out of anger, joy, fear, need or frustration. While the rest of them are in a merry chorus, as we humans get jittery during Corona times accompanied by dozens of mild earthquake tremors in the Delhi NCR, indicating all is not well under the earth, this brown-white dirge singer has his own ludicrously howling composition. It appears as if he is offering his doomsday song well in advance. While, the rest of them go into long spells of yodeling and barking in varying joyful notes, as if they can smell the soon to break in fault-line underneath, this champion vocalist but stays on his same old frequency. While the rest of them are shouting ecstatically, we can pick out this one’s piteous howls as if he wants to spoil their game.

Offer him a chapatti, its anxiety and god knows what pains spurt out through a sad whine that beats even the customary dog’s tail-wagging on being offered food. So the moment you offer it a chapatti, it will start eating but give you a guilty feeling as if you have given it something very bad in taste. It whimpers, whines and then lets loose a screeching note of howl in gratitude. May be he is not comfortable with anything at all in the canine as well as our human world around and goes cursing. Eh, the perennial naysayer!

Growling also is the sovereign right of a dog. They assert their arrogant dogliness through it. What dog is that which doesn’t growl? This one doesn’t. He can’t even if he tries. Because the moment he puts pressure on his vocal chords, the muscles appear to have stuck up at one place to give the same very old whine, whimper and howl. Suppose some skinny outsider dog enters the locality and all the natives are barking out their machismo spirit at full speed, and there being almost no danger as the skinny outsider cowers in the street drain, this champion participates in the defensive force with his full-hearted wretched howls, as if he is on the side of the pinned down outsider. In this he unsettles many of his companions, who give a break to their lungs and actually stare at him to find out if they have bitten their own buddy by mistake. His lowest of a rumble automatically catches onto a sad song of pain and cries.

When a weirdly dressed gypsy hawker enters the locality, the dog squad gives more pressure to their coiled tails and set after barking in a line after the hawker nomad. He doesn’t mind their barking. He walks confidently, thinking of himself a majestic elephant who isn’t bothered about barking pathetic dogs. They on their part think this strange one will have a share in their chapattis and ladies so needs to be thrown out at the earliest. The nomadic hawkers hardly bother about barking dogs. But even he is forced to abandon his detachment from such mundane settlers’ ways and look behind carefully, his ears picking the piteous howling cries among the proudly ringing din. May be some aloof and unattached gypsy will also start crying after hearing these sympathetic notes. Wonder of wonder, the poor fellow actually believes that it’s barking as can be seen from its taut coil in the tail and proud bearing during the citadel defense. It can’t help if it comes out as a whimpering, irritating howl. May be some unique vocal filter fixed by nature to do some experiment!

The rest of them have wide range of vocals to vent out a range of emotions from the best to the worst. But this one’s joy, sadness, curiosity and of course frustration are all expressed in the same crying tone. His groans give a clue to his discontentment with life. Suppose a dog fellow approaches him with the intention to play, this one reciprocates with his own innocent intention to play. But how will he stop his sad howling. Those playful sighs again come out as piteous scary whines and whimpers and the fellow leaves him, accusing him of being a habitual crier.

Amidst all his teary whimpers, he is a loser in love game also as can be expected. During the mating season, the dandies break many a moon to woo their sweethearts. This one also, driven by his biological instincts, tries the same. But the lady runs away during the foreplay itself as his pining moans start with piteous howls as if she has just pierced his heart with her paw. You have to believe me on this. I have actually seen it happening. Otherwise, why would I be interested in maligning his character on social media? I call him Rotdu, habitual crier, by the way!

A poet batting on a slippery wicket

 

The tiles are getting so oily smooth in fashionable houses that I have to walk like a heavily pregnant penguin waddling on the Antarctic ice to avoid a fall. But we are up for leaving a grand impression on the house fashion scene, or for that matter in all types of fashion in all spheres of life. That's being cultured; otherwise you are a Sentinelese prehistoric tribal in the Andaman and Nicobar chain of islands. In fact, the floor tiles have become so slippery these days that I feel like a goat being taken to a slaughter house if some fashionable person invites me to their house.

But credit goes to we humans. We are a gutsy race. We take risks. We are ready to take the risks of broken bones for being most fashionable in the neighborhood. And so many slip and break their bones in fact. What floor is any worth if it doesn't carry the slipping potential and break bones and wink with a flashy smile as you fall? And we shouldn't forget that broken bones are a boon for the medical fraternity.

What car is worth its tyres if it can't go like a rocket and carry the prospect of trampling as many as possible on its glorious journey? But the naughty trampling cars are a boon for the insurance industry. Isn’t it?

What music is worth its rhythmic hop if it can't burst a few eardrums? What dress is worth its salt if it doesn't make you look like someone from the farthest galaxy? And the dress that actually covers the body is no dress, it's an old hag. So poor clothing is up for a big challenge. It has to show all and still appear to hide everything. So we are busy fixing it. It's a very serious question. How much of cloth goes off from the bum-side to cover the soles of feet. Or how much goes from the chest to cover armpits. One half of the mind working overtime to bare all, while the other half trying to devise an airy dress to avoid a complete fall. Imagine how much creativity it requires! What an art man!

And what is this boring, old-model plain skin? It's a big canvas for art. Why waste paper for painting when we have our dear skin ready for the sadistic pleasure of the tattooing needle? So human body is the canvas now. Some tattoos go deep in the skin in proportions to the transient emotions in the heart. But we have shifty hearts. So when the clouds of emotions scatter and take a new shape, the poor tattoo taunts as a sign of infidelity. So it has to be vanquished. So tattoo removers have become as important as tattoo makers. The other day when I put out my hand to give some money to a beggar I got a shock. He had a dragon on his hand. He appeared so empowered in comparison to me. My poor non-tattooed hand won't dare to go ahead. So I just walked away. When I see people with their sophisticated tattoos coming on the way, I involuntarily find myself moving away in awe and wonder to give them space to walk. They appear a completely new race to me the old model. Maybe tattooed bums, biceps, breasts and tummies have gone berserk and are now revolting to claim new versions after getting fed up with their boring old self.

And what gun is a gun that can't pierce a hill from a distance? So the human mind is making the best of a gun. But then what bulletproof jacket is that which can't stop a cannon ball on the chest. So one half of our collective brain is making the deadliest gun, while the other half is busy in making the best of bulletproof jackets.

We are a very busy race. We can't stop. We have to scatter litter in the first place, so that we can devise the most efficient ways of waste management. We ought to rechristen ourselves as busy-sapiens now. We have to first go into war and killings and then make UN and the entire set of peace talks and diplomatic corps for peaceful negotiations.

I sometimes wonder maybe we are basically looking to create more avenues for problems, so that the genius of the human brain can be actualized in managing those problems. I think the autonomous human mind is smartly using the slavish human body for experiments, like we do with the toads on dissection tables, putting us in weirdest situations just to find whether there is a solution to this and that. What an experiment going on! It really is a big drama.

A tragic comma in a fastly scrawled sentence

 

The other day, on the way to the town, a sad spectacle unfolded on the road. A hit and run case. A crime, unaccountable though because the life lost didn't belong to the Homo sapiens. It was a dog and since the law-books give enough space to the mankind in this matter, people drive rashly, trample over the so-called lesser lives, and move on nonchalantly. It doesn't even count as a happening. Happenings, or mishappenings, are classified according to their human-centric valuation and assessment.

The poor thing was lying on the edge of the road, a pool of blood by its open mouth, making its loud statement of a murder. But unfortunately such statements are majorly heard by poetic people or the ones carrying soft hearts. They at least ought to pay a silent homage.

Another dog was tentatively, after all death is such a big event, sniffing at the blood. It was a very sad sight. ‘What must this living dog be thinking? Has the event somehow changed its normal perception of taking blood as food?’ I moved on with my sad, brooding reflections.

Mother existence has her own ways of providing us the answers that we need. On my way back after an hour or so, I saw my answer written on the scene. The other dog was sadly sitting by the dead one; its front paws stretched out, head supported on them, sadly looking at the canine dead body. So this one was the friend of the dead dog, sitting there in condolence and companionship! Look at the bond. They must have played together so fondly and then some uncaring human trod over their bond, cleaving it apart.

Well, the law-books don’t have any space for such smaller murders. But at least the book of values in our heart and conscience ought to have some lines of empathy for the so-called lesser lives. Those unwritten laws should hold us responsible for our legalized transgressions. They should hold us accountable for the injuries and harm done by us to the so-called smaller forms of life. They should remind us to drive carefully in order to spare not just humans but cats, dogs and reptiles also.       

Tau's knowhow

 

Tau Hoshiyar Singh is confidently inching towards the three figure mark, a century of years on earth. He has been a cricket fan and would like to hit a ton. If he gets out in late nineties then he might consider his innings a failure. So I would pray that he meets his target. A very hardworking farmer till five years back, when his grandchildren and wards forced him into retirement (because he would hackle with them at the farms trying to force his age-old farming techniques), he now spends time at chaupals. He has enough stamina left to compete with young idlers in card games, drawing hookah smoke in a long-long draught, and giving his opinions on political and social matters. From his enthusiasm, I’m sure he is up for a century of years.

He sometimes pays me a visit, special visits I would say. These are primarily to make me realize the real me and act accordingly. An illiterate hardworking farmer, he has been, like others of his ilk in the peasantry of Punjab and Haryana, a follower of Swami Dayanand. To them the Swami’s words on all aspects connote the ultimate truth. The simple farmers just deny any possibilities beyond that.

So he wants to have a modern-day Swami Dayanand. He has cutely misinterpreted my bookish ways as signs of saintliness. ‘You can become like Swami Dayanand, I tell you! Just that you need to simply leave your house forever, abandoning everything and set out on foot like he did! You have it in you!’ he would express his expectations from me. ‘Why don’t you quit this house and everything else?’ he has asked a few times. At those times I feel like pouring salt in his tea and chilies in his hookah tobacco. Don’t know why he is so eager to see me as a beggar roaming around. Anyway, he is an elder and he has his rights to expect.

The other day, he is taking sips at tea served by me, coolly taking out a flea that had fallen in it, saying, ‘You never know even this mix of flea and tea might do some good to the system of elderly people like me’. Well, he usually has a solid point to back his wisdom, so I generally avoid falling in arguments with him.

Now me being me, full of books in the mind, I have a tendency to start giving lectures on various topics. God knows how come this topic of cars arrived during the talk. I am soon lecturing him about the costliest cars whose prices go into crores of rupees. His eyes are literally popping out. To him money came in pennies at the cost of loads of sweat in the agricultural farms. So the talk of so much money leaves him slightly perturbed. ‘What do they call them?’ he asks me, his eyes wide after I have talked about Rolls Royces, Hummers, Jaguars, Volvo, Mercedes and more. ‘Cars, cars with different names,’ I expound. ‘Then what is yours?’ he asks, pointing at my little old car. ‘It also is a car,’ I’m slightly embarrassed. ‘Yours should be called something else,’ he is so wise.

Then he is asking what is different about those big cars. I am trying my level best to expound their specialties, which fall out of the zone of his understanding. ‘What happens if there is a traffic jam? How is this big car different from the ones like yours, which you also call as a car?’ he interrogates. ‘Well, it has to wait on the road like any other car,’ I reply. ‘Then what is the use of throwing away so much of money if it cannot even fly in air for some time and take you out of the jam?’ he asks. I hardly have any answer. My books haven’t equipped me with those facts. If I try to explain that these are the things in the mind, that’s the urge to stand out higher than the others, he won’t take this logic. Because as a hardworking farmer he cannot relate to the bugs of mind like most of us do in a consumerist society. So Tau takes leave but not before reminding again, ‘Why are you wasting your life? Leave home and hearth and become a sanyasi and turn Maharishi Dayanad and change the society,’ he advises the course of action. He basically means that I should turn a hardworking ploughman in the field of religion and spirituality.

Well, I understand from where the grouse originated. Tau was at the forefront of canvassing the rival army in fighting against my little battle of saving myself from the yokes of matrimony. He did his best to get me yoked into the lurching countryside cart of matrimony. He approached with many arranged marriage proposals, out of which I slipped out like a cunning, slippery eel. To him it’s foolish to stay unmarried and still stay in the human society. Such people must go to the forests. That’s why he wants me out and join the league of wandering mendicants of India.

A canine love triangle

 

This is a solitary trail running between the canals. It’s the last hideout for me and the wilderness in the area. I follow the solitary trail in the evenings. I go up and down the narrow path—a nice exercise of going with the flow and against the stream (psychological aspect only)—as the sun’s red ball dives into the silvery pools over the horizon. A cold night builds up, taking everything into its dark folds. But I see more clearly—the light inside, giving more awareness within the self. Little prinias have retired in their tiny grass homes among the tall pampas grass on both sides. Now and then there is a rustle.

I meet many dogs on the way. There are some fish ponds, poultry farms and mushroom farms on both sides. I reckon there are thirty to forty stray dogs in the area. They take up this solitary trail to cross over to this or the other side of the canals. The more cautious ones use a three feet footbridge over one of the canals. The adventurous types have their fording points across the canals. There is a big iron water pipe passing over one of the canals, half of it submerged under the water and the other half above it to serve as a nice little bridge for the canines or even the farmers in case they need to cross over to the other side. You just have to walk cautiously to safely cross over.

One day I’m walking on the trail near this pipeline. I meet a black dog with two of her male friends resting on the silt by the footpath. The canine lady and one of the males (a tabby black and white one) got up and easily walked to the other side over the pipeline as they see me approaching. The third dog, a dark brown male, is not confident of walking over the curvy little bridge. It stands on the buttress and sniffs at the iron, tentatively takes its paw forward but then withdraws it. It’s hesitant and walks to the little footbridge over the other canal. But this safe option would take it in the opposite direction of its love interest. It stands in the middle of the tiny bridge and growls at me as I pass, as if accusing me of spoiling its date.

Cross over the safe bridge to the safe shore, dog, if your fears drive you away from the call of your heart. But this safe option will take you to the other side of your interests and desires. After accusing me for its own fears, it again comes back to the pipeline as I have crossed the point by this time. I stand at a safe distance to avoid being a culprit for the canine fears. There it stands in a critical dilemma whether to cross over the pipeline or not. The love-struck pair on the other side is frolicking among the bushes. Jilted and jealous it whines in frustration. Little does it realize that its own fears are responsible for its frustrating situation. It’s afraid of a fall in the water from the pipe, a fall of mere 1.5 foot because the pipeline is half submerged in the water. Fall is its phobia. So it takes a safer option—it jumps into the water and swims to safety, all drenched up and shivering.

The moral of the story is that by surrendering to your imaginary fears, you forfeit your right to the entire set of possibilities. You already accept the worst thing that would have befallen you, a mere fraction of the possibilities, as you allow yourself to be cut to your minimum by the imaginary fears. What would have happened—at the most—if it had decided to walk over the pipeline? At the worst it would have fallen and get wet but still would have crossed over. But there was a big chance that it would have crossed over without wetting its fur, all dry and in high spirits. But by this time the other two already looked like a cupid-struck pair. Females hardly care about cowards. The moment when it struggled to the point where they were playing, both of them easily walked over to the former side. Now it’s standing at the opposite buttress, undecided whether to walk over or swim. It has already forgotten that it’s all wet and is now entitled to go all fearless. But our imaginary fears rarely leave us with enough sense—common sense I mean.    

Fate and Fortitude

 

Fate seems to play its cards almost randomly, just like a throw of dice to make everything incidental. If not for this, the divine hand cannot do such injustices as this. Kala, the hardworking laborer, had to change his vocation due to chronic arthritis. He turned a smart vegetable seller, expertly shouting the names of vegetables with typical hawker’s intonation. After much practice in honing the hawker’s art and memorizing the vegetable names, he now suffers another setback. A hawker’s voice is his basic skill that draws people to his cart. He was finely shaping in the art. Sadly the budding vegetable hawker suffers a paralysis attack. His tongue has gone immobile. He has lost his voice. A man who was earning fair bread with his tongue has gone silent. He isn’t even fifty. In contrast, Laroop, who is around sixty-five, is gradually getting his tongue rasped to avail more bite and sting. He gets sloshed daily and shouts the dirtiest, foulest, vulgar most words known in the dialect. His mouth is a stinking equivalent of gutter. God seems all too happy with his poisonous tongue that spews out muck, venom and profanities—a kind of vocal horror show.

Monkey magic

 

Monkey magic for the day: a monkey is busy in eating a guava, sitting on a branch, tail hanging down, his pink bum safely tucked in a fork in the branch overlooking the street. He eats so cutely with both hands. So unhurriedly as if this cosmos is in a pause to allow him finish eating. Eat restfully as if this entire existence has the sole task of seeing you eating like a mother. He eats half of it—the stomach knows (better than the mind) how much to take in—and throws (why carry the residuals while there are so many promising things lined up the way) the remaining guava into the street. It nearly misses the most quarrelsome woman in the locality.

If you are quarrelsome, the same circumstances will develop as per the vibrational frequency of your mind. I don’t think it was intentional but you can never be sure about a monkey. She hurls a curse at him. He grins and bares his teeth in shameless fun and shakes the branch with vigorous fun. Why be affected by wrong accusations? Shake your bum at cranky, snappy people.

His woman has moved onto a neighboring roof by this time. She gives a loud recall. ‘Ouunn’. Always keep a watch on your man. Men are men. You can expect anything. So she is justified in reprimanding him even though he is teasing a female of other species. And he instantly pays heed to her call. Your woman will always overlook your diversions if you instantly pay heed to her snappy call. There he goes hopping over to her. The best mantra of maintaining relationships: if you can’t avoid doing certain things that create sparks between you, at least listen to each other.

There they go as a nice pair and then sit on the roof parapet to tease a pet dog that is barking out his lungs at them from the yard below. They feign very robust attacks. Vent out your mischief and anger against a common enemy. Then you will have less of ammunition to hurl against each other. Moreover, spending one's armory against a common threat instantly creates a subtle bond. See, it develops so elegantly even among strangers who happen to be gripped by some untoward situation. So the couples should pick out some irksome neighbor and plan and scheme skirmishes with him to spend their ammunition. There will be lesser blasts within your own walls then. So these are some lessons from the book of Monkey baba.

Catching a few snaky, rippling moments from the past

 

Tau Tarif Singh, drawing lineage from my great granduncle, was a small man with a huge well-composed demeanor. Very gentle in behavior, soft with words and peaceful in movements, he hardly created any ripples on the stage of life with his presence. There was an exception though. There would be a complete reversal of his persona at the sight of a snake. He would be filled with lightening agility and within the flash of a second he would run after the helpless reptile, hold it by the tail, swing it around in a highly technical way and bang it on the ground with such force that it would make a second strike almost redundant.

Let him see a snake at his house, in the locality, in the village, in the fields or open grounds or even a forests, he won’t miss an opportunity to culminate its journey on earth. His biggest feat was holding two snakes by their tails simultaneously and swinging in his special way and banging them on the ground to finish their journey. Surprisingly he was never bitten in the task. To this day I wonder why would such a peaceful and calm person turn into a snake-annihilator at the mere sight of the poor reptile. Maybe some karmic entanglement with snakes; possibly uncle was a mongoose, a peacock or a garuda in his previous birth and his evolution into a different species still retained the predominant animosity against the snakes.

From the village standards, Grandfather was a reasonably educated man. He was in love with mathematics and that helped him in calculating things with logic without getting clouded by unnecessary emotions. Grandmother was very tart with her tongue and he matched her in the matrimonial equation with the agility of his hardworking hand. Their domestic life, like any other farmer couple, was defined by these skirmishes between the female tongue and the male hand. But she died quite young leaving Grandfather’s hands free to engage in more suitable occupations. Grandfather was neutral to snakes. ‘One has to kill them if they sneak into the house, but one shouldn’t bother about them in the open,’ he maintained. His closest encounter with a snake happened when he was around eighty. He was still active in farming till then. It was evening and he was lying in the field, his headgear bunched under his head and one leg raised in the middle and the other supported on the raised knee. He was smoking a little hookah, his head tilted to one side to draw smoke. Another farmer was sitting nearby. A black snake chose to keep its way straight, instead of taking a detour. Grandfather’s head was tilted in the other direction. The other farmer saw it when it had already crept up to Grandfather’s stomach. Then Grandfather’s mathematical logic worked to save him from a snakebite. He turned a stone, didn’t move at all and allowed the entire length of the fearsome snake to creep over him. After that Grandfather took the longest draught at hookah in his life. ‘I have never seen so much of smoke coming out of me in my entire life,’ he told me later. ‘She was your wife who came to scare you for all your agility with your hands,’ the other farmer joked.

Father was a philosophical man. He could talk better than anyone I have ever heard in my life. His was a world of books. He wasn’t bothered much about worldly affairs. He was an athletic man and could have been at least a national level player if things had gone well. He was brainy enough to be a senior bureaucrat if things had taken a sympathetic turn for him. His oratory would have made him a famous politician if things had happened as they usually happen in the life of a successful man. But none of these happened and he was contended to be a government servant with hundreds of books and a philosophical mind. As the family patriarch he had to take the responsibility of killing a big-hooded cobra that had crept into the cattle barn. Mother raised a hue and cry and before Father could realize anything she had handed him a stick to make him realize his worldly duties. Father killed that big snake. I was very small at that time. And the very next day as I scampered around to play in the street, I feel headlong and my forehead hit the sharp edge of a brick leaving me all bloody. I still carry the mark. ‘I hit the cobra’s hood and see the karma comes back in the form of this injury on my son’s forehead,’ Father drew his philosophical reasoning.

The biggest cobra that I have ever seen being killed also needs an account here. It was a moonlit night and a majestic cobra sneaked into the locality. The village was pretty open till then. A horse panicked and neighed a warning. The dogs barked. By chance, there were all children and female onlookers at that time. The stick was handed over to the only grown up male available. Dheere cowered with the stick. He was—sadly—nicknamed langda because his one leg was incapacitated because of polio. Dheere struck quite forcefully, missed the mark and his crippled leg lost footing and he fell down with the strike. But after that he regained composure and somehow managed to beat the entire ground with almost a hundred strikes in rapid-fire and by chance one of the strikes hit the cobra in the middle injuring it, cutting its movements and then the striker had it easy.

My own quota in the sins against the snakes involves killing two harmless little common wolf snakes that had entered our house and my panicked mother handed over the responsibility to me as the new family patriarch. I performed the job with shaking legs. The other partnership in crime occurred when I held the torch and my uncle pounded a harmless rat snake. Other battles against snakes involved throwing pebbles at the harmless water sakes in the village pond. They would dive playfully and would emerge at a distance. That was quite a fun for both the parties. I remember once I was walking on my little legs in the playground outside the village. It was a faint foot trail in the little grass. A cobra was also enjoying its walk on the same trail from the opposite direction. It stood its ground, maybe finding me small enough to turn a bully. It stood its ground, raised it hood to full spread and warned me to get off the way from a distance. I took to my heels and watched from a distance. Male cobra is arrogant I have heard. There it passed following the foot trail.

Now I’m more balanced and logical in my approach to snakes. I can at least marvel at the crawling majesty of snakes that I come across in my solitary walks in the countryside. They are just creatures like any other creature. In the Delhi NCR there are just two poisonous snakes—out of the forty species found in the area—named Indian cobra and krait. The rest are harmless long earthworms and get unnecessarily killed because of our natural instinctive fears. Knowledge is empowering. It dispels darkness. So now I am more adjusting to their presence.

Kaka Maharaj, who stays in a hut by the canal outside the village, has so many snakes around but this isn’t an issue at all with him. There is a clump of banana trees just by his hut. Once as I approached to pay him a visit I saw a cobra basking in the sun. It scampered into the clump of trees when I arrived. I told about the naga to Kaka Maharaj. ‘This land is for all and everything,’ is all he said. After our talks on the matters of spirituality I saw him stepping into the clump of banana trees to take out a basket he had hung on a frond. He went in quite naturally. He had even forgotten that I had told him about a snake there.

There is mother nature’s little air purifier just in front of our place. It’s a dense clump of trees and vines with lots of undergrowth. Aren’t these green leaves an extension of our lungs? But people take nature for granted and hardly anyone speaks in favor of these green tissues of our lungs. People usually complain of a couple of cobras that stay here. A few sightings and people go paranoid. Almost every other day someone is raising a hue and cry about their sighting by our yard walls. The gate is open with grilled portion on the underside. They can easily creep in. The night is theirs to creep. They are all welcome. But the day is mine. They have no business to be in during the day. They haven’t bothered me so far, so why should I bother about them. Why stretch your fears beyond a point. Just be careful a bit more, that’s all. Use torch while moving in the dark. Walk gently to allow them to creep away as you approach. And they eat rats and mice with relish. The area is almost mouse-free. And mother nature knows more than us. There were mice that’s why there are snakes. And to ensure that the snakes don't crawl at each human step, there are plenty of peacocks doing the rounds. They must be eating many little snake hatchlings to keep the number finely balanced. But who is there to keep a check on us? In our case only we can do it, individually and collectively.

A small speciality

 

Two spectacular events make October 25 a special day. First, I see a pair of coppersmith barbets. It’s a beautiful grass green bird with a trademark crimson breast and forehead, yellow throat, heavy bill and short truncated tail. They targeted the dead gulmohar and neem trunks—having forest mushrooms sprouting from their decaying bark, giving a little autumnal semblance of pristine forests. They struck the dead wood with a loud tuk-tuk like the strike of a wall clock, one strike per second. It sounds like a kind of birdie coppersmith tonking at his wooden piece in the distance. Maybe they tried to excavate a nesting hole but found the locality too noisy and flew away.

The second was the solar eclipse at the sundown. It proved to be a majestic sight. The big orange ball got a slice cut off and seemed like a bloated red moon crescent. Later, as the eclipse progressed, it looked like a big red boat sailing in a misty sea as the eclipsed sun downed into the mists lurking over the horizon.

There are always many special happenings and you have the choice to pick out yours to make you feel better.

Romancing with pause in a little world

 

There is so much to learn at each step I take in the countryside. Wild grasses, flowers, bushes and shrubs hold their secret for stiffed arrogant hasty walkers who go determinedly in pursuance of a monetary goal. But they smile, greet and lay bare their secret to anyone taking a pause, look carefully and caress some wild flower. There is so much to learn about small things in life.

Common water hyacinth might be called ‘terror of Bengal’ due to its invasive tendency, but here it’s no terror. The aquatic plant freely floats on water edges. Its buoyant bulbous stalks hold green glossy leaves. Some of them have lavender flowers.

This is late October and this little patch of wilderness between the canals is adorned with its blooms. Urena lobata (Caesarweed or Congo jute) are tender shrubs. They have small pink-violet flowers where a little group of white butterflies is having a peaceful nectar feast on this noon.

There are eucalyptus, neem, sheesham, mulberry, peepal, banyan trees along the canal bunds safely holding the undergrowth around them. The local forestry department has planted some blackboard trees (scholar tree or milkwood). The latter have prospered well here. Their glossy leathery leaves are found in whorls of six or seven.

Carrot grass (Congress ghas or Santa Maria feverfew) has grown very well without feeling guilty about its invasive worthlessness. It’s not maligned as an invading weed here in this little free ribbon of wilderness between the canals and on the outer bunds on both sides. But its tiny white flowers can cause pollen allergies for those sensitive to it. On the optimistic side, some researches are proceeding to look into its heavy metal removing properties. Mother nature still holds lots of secrets in her coffers for we the kids to explore.

Common cockle bur has hooked projections. The burs stick to the clothes of solitary loungers like me, probably recalling our attention to their medicinal properties.

Prickly chaff flowers (devil’s horsewhip) have spikes with reflexed flowers arranged on a long peduncle. Not too suitable to caress and go near, but they have uses in dropsy, piles and boils.

Common mugwort (riverside wormwood) forms a lush green carpet of little frilled leaves.

Senna hirsute is a smiling yellow-flowered beauty crowned with joyful butterflies hovering around.

Pampas grass flaunts its rustling silvery inflorescences. It’s the stalwart of the grassy world reaching up to four meters, almost forming a second-tier tree-line below the bigger trees. Their blade-like leaves make rustling music as their cut the breeze to contrive natural percussions.

Saccharum spontaneum (kansh grass) is a perennial grass growing to three meters. It’s useful for making thatched roofs.

Then there are reeds having their resident colonies of weaverbirds and warblers.

I caress yellow common wireweed flowers as I walk gently in this little slice of solitude on this noon. There are some fish ponds at some distance from the canals. Black kites and cormorants fly to steal fish. This is a little strip of solace for me. It holds a few units of wilderness in its ribbon-like sojourn across the cropped fields on both sides of the canals. You cannot see much on both sides as kansh grass and elephant grass provide a suitable fencing. When I take gentle footsteps across the shrubs, bushes and grass, I get the feel of a forest. Especially at noontime the quotient of solitariness goes up by several notches as the farmers have returned home and even the distant voices cease to exist to cut across the natural fencing.

A slow walk with a goatherd

 

There is still some space left for their goats where the farmers won’t harass them. It’s a Tsunami of ‘development’ propelled by the parasitical growth in the Delhi NCR. There are more and more roads and industries planned to relieve Delhi of the unbearable urban pressure. The agricultural farms are rapidly changing into industrial plots; district roads into national highways and expressways; and the dusty farm-side cart tracks of yore are now tarred single-lane connectivity. It’s a business boom; the air is buzzing with the talk of money. The value of agricultural land is going up to reach crores of rupees per acre. There are bigger cars, swankier houses, louder talks and mountainous pride and prejudices. The countryside is shifting to a completely new shape.

There are last traces of wilderness among this progressive clang and clatter. Two canals go side by side, taking easy turns, giving each other a rippling company. Their embankments have almost a free growth. The forty-feet dividing bund between them is covered with pampas grass, weeds, bushes and grasses. Walking on a thin foot-trail running across this growth gives you the feel of serenading in a peaceful forest. Tall growth on the outer bunds provides you a natural wall to nurture your moments of solitude. You hear the sound of tractors but you cannot see them, hence you feel miles away from the humanity’s banging and clanging ways.

He is a man in mid-sixties; his companion a lad of maybe twenty. They have a combined goatherd of fifty goats. They are Balmikis. Their day starts around eleven when they set out with their goats on the unclaimed, free patch of grassy ribbon between the canals. Their goats can freely graze here. They cannot enter the cropped fields on both sides, so it avoids kicks and abuses by the angry farmers. There is fresh water and plenty of grass for the goats.

The old man is clad in shabby all whites. He looks full of wisdom and contentment with his thick snow-white beard on a weather-beaten dark face. They talk, walk, lie down and even stay silent through the day. The bigger world, though not too far in physical distance, is far-far away. They aren’t into calculations and numbers. ‘How many goats do you have?’ I ask. ‘Well, this is all we have. Maybe a few are behind the bushes,’ the elderly man introduces his assets. ‘How do you come to know which goat belongs to either of you?’ I’m carrying the inertia of ownership of property from the village. ‘The goats know better. They all look the same. But once they reach home, they are smart enough to segregate and walk into their respective homes. There is never any confusion. They know better,’ he shares the goatee basics of wisdom.

Both groups have a bull each and the patriarchs are on good terms with each other, knowing that there is nothing to fight about. Things are clearly sorted with a natural understanding.

They sell some of the grown-up goats whenever budgetary requirements arise. The goats graze and contentedly live; the owners also manage a small slice of life almost on the same level of hierarchy. ‘A good goat sells for ten thousand rupees,’ he tells the basics of their economy.

He hasn’t got his old-age pension even though he is eligible for it for the last five years at least. He has adhar card, voter card and ration card but the crucial age proof is missing. The age on the mentioned documents isn’t sufficient to validate his pension entitlement. Those who have attended school can present a registered proof from the school’s past records. Even then it’s a tough job and one has to bribe a few months pension to avail the right. Those who haven’t got a school leaving certificate and a matric mark sheet have the option of getting an age certificate from the civil hospital. There the doctors believe in your youth. They won’t believe you are sixty till you are seventy.

He is happy because he doesn’t believe that even he can get a pension. An amount of 3000 rupees/month can surely help him a lot at this stage of life. ‘You have already lost 180000 rupees of pension money during the last five years since you turned eligible for it,’ I bring hard commerce and economics in this little slice of solitude. I myself feel the pinch of his loss. But he seems unaffected because he doesn’t expect it at all.

He is landless, illiterate, unskilled, and very low in the so-called caste hierarchy. From the pit of his existence it’s impossible to look high and think of pension. Life itself is such a big loss right from the beginning, so you don’t care about smaller losses. ‘How much money I will lose if I live to be hundred?’ he asks. I calculate the sum and give him the figure. It’s a big sum in lakhs. ‘And you lose all this because you cannot arrange a bribe of 10,000 rupees,’ I tell him the reason for his loss. ‘And who would think of pension if had 10,000 rupees to fill their pockets!’ he laughs loudly. I’m ashamed of my calculative ways. Now it dawns upon me that he is happy in his small world, where he has some little rights of free grass on a ribbon of wilderness. Any additional information from calculating and educated people will disturb his peaceful world. At least the grass is still free. Let’s see how and when even this thin ribbon of free wilderness vanishes, making him possibly the last goatherd in this tiny world.

The lecherous oldies in the countries

 

A man from our village operates a chemist shop at a village nearby. The village chemists work more as a doctor running a clinic. They diagnose, prescribe and sell the medicines. In this way they fill up a lot of blank space on the health welfare map of India. I’m having a chat with him at his shop. A man in his sixties arrives at the counter, puts down twenty rupees, looks the other way and stealthily plucks away the pills put in front of him. Not a word was exchanged, or even a look. I’m curious even though I have some clue to the episode. My friend elaborates on the matter. This man belongs to the breed of the old men whose bodies have aged but the passion remains the same in the mind. So to fill up this gap between the body and the mind they take aphrodisiac pills. My chemist friend tells me that there are about fifty such heroes in the small village. Half of them still experiment outside their matrimony and the other half dallies within their four walls, including some who have nice amorous equation with their daughters-in-law. Of the last category, they are primarily pension holders and are still the main economic pillars of the family, entitling them to amorous times with their young daughters-in-law.

A small-time writer's skirmish with a bull frog

 There is a little group of bull frogs who wallop in the small street drain. They retire for the night under a culvert nearby. They are too big for the rat snakes hiding in the bushes a few yards away. The bull frogs look like miniature hippos walloping in muddy waters. They are very confident even while face-to-face with the rat snakes. One day I saw a poor rat snake helplessly staring at the mud-wallopers. They even turned their backs to it. ‘We are too big for you!’ they seemed to take a jibe at it. Then one of them got out to scout our yard for a suitable winter hideout. It showed the same attitude to me that it flaunts in the face of the rat snakes. I applied water cannon to shoo it away but it stayed adamant and turned my policing act into a bathing with clean water. I stomped my feet to shake the ground around it to scare it. It but stood solid. A very brave one indeed. I then used a stick to prod at its bottom. It got angry and stood on its front legs to increase its size. ‘Hey, I’m bigger than you!’ it meant to say. Then I give a small, gentle hit at its bum and there it galloped away croaking obscenities.

A simple man's financial management

 

Rashe is a soft giant. He owns huge strength, which is amply evident when he works as a wage laborer. He can lift huge weights but he is too cool in temperament to be agile. Once, after getting fully sloshed he fell faceward and being very relaxed and unhurried allowed his teeth to hit a brick without putting much effort against the fall. A free and relaxed fall we can term it. Now the door is open with three or four of his front teeth missing. This coupled with a slurred speech—the result of a horse kick during infancy, which jammed his jaw somewhat abnormally—makes him look and sound like a fresh species altogether. But he has a very keen sense of banking. He worked for me for a day for which I owe him 600 rupees. He hasn’t arrived to claim it even after a couple of weeks after the work assignment. He hasn’t any banking account, so all the people whom he considers to be honest are his bank. He keeps the money with them, postponing the settlement of his dues till the day he needs the money. ‘That saves the wastage of money,’ he provides me free financial consultancy.

A rainbow at the day's tail end

 

A gloomy, lukewarm, overcast early October day at the fag end of autumnal corridor. A day on the fringe of all seasons. A disowned day with orphaned feeling. And the sky shedding a few tears, as if in mourning for better times and climes. Some drops of rain leaving just scarring dots on the sand. Then some solacing ray of hope at the time of sunset. The sun calls it off from official duties a few minutes past six. The clouds in the west thinned and orangish curtains cast a faded glow on the darkish grey stage to the east. A little piece of sky over the north-eastern horizon slightly parted to allow the light’s protagonist to raise a beacon of hope. A little arc of rainbow smiled. A rainbow at the end of a gloomy tale proclaiming that there is still hope, that all isn’t lost, that there will be a balmy day tomorrow, or the day afterwards, or still later. But come it will for sure. Then the sun dived further low beyond the faded orange curtain. The little arc of rainbow was gently wiped clean from the sky’s slate.

A beautiful sadly sweet phenomena above and the bustling world below. The India-South Africa cricket match happens to be one of the numerous happenings. The Africans score pretty comfortably in the first forty overs. The Indians then make a comeback, allowing the visitors hardly a run a ball in the slog overs. To we Indians, it means great performance by our bowlers. To the Africans, it means a poor show by their batters. Both have their own versions of reality. Where does truth lie in the equation? I think it’s there in the middle, balancing out both extremes—the Indians bowled well, but the Africans batted poorly also. Doesn’t each of them support the other for its validation? The loser helps the winner in its victory; the winner also facilitates the loser’s defeat.

The story of a stylish, modern-day canine mom

 

Bhuro is a brown and white rotund bitch in the village street. She looks replete with self-care, in complete contrast to other maternally worn out hassled female canines in the locality. She eats only warm buttered chapattis. She doesn’t give much trouble to her lungs by unnecessary barking like the rest of her ilk. I have seen many famished, worn- and worked-out female dogs due to the heavy burden of puppy rearing. But in comparison Bhuro seems a glamorous, narcissistic post-modern girl. I have never seen her attending her maternal duties. Then the secret comes out. She eats all of her newborn puppies to maintain her youth, glamor and figure. Of course there must be some very significant reason to account for her weird behavior. Mysteries of nature is all I can reckon in this regard.

Her meaning of life is in stark contrast to an old black bitch I remember from my young days. She would embarrass even the human mothers in taking care of her newborns. Once her sole surviving puppy also died. But she won’t allow anyone to take it away for burial. She kept licking and tending to the corpse for many days. Of course, love cannot stop a corpse from rotting. I shooed her away using a feigned demonic show of waving sticks, shouting angry words and stomping gestures. Then I hurriedly buried the carcass, secured the tiny grave with a big stone and many thorny boughs of keekars lest the mother in her digs out the dead from the grave. To her canine sense of motherhood I was the murderer of her puppy, and for weeks it would howl whenever she saw me. It would leave me very guilty.

There was another sweet canine mom who had such a liking for her kids that she would steal others’ puppies and rear them as her own. In comparison to these puppy-loving moms, Bhuro stands at the opposite end of earth in temperament and philosophy of life.

The entire story of Rashe Ram's schooling

 

Rashe Ram went to school for four days, or just three and half to be precise. All families in the villages at least try to put their wards in the shafts of the schooling cart. Most of the yoked imps galloped to freedom without wasting too much time. They still do so in the villages but things have improved marginally in this regard. Master Sube Singh pulled little Rashe’s ears on day one. It was painful. A round of defecation on the carpet in the school verandah earned his ears to be literally pulled out on day two. Day three came with urination on the floor and a bite on the face of a fellow student, which earned him a severe shaking of his head, ruffled hair and big reprimand. Some repeat of the earlier tasks earned him a beating around mid-day on the fourth day. As he was caned, he took an impish opportunity to hit the teacher’s head with his wooden writing tablet. There was blood. He fled from the school forever. But he tried to keep his younger brothers Karne and Munna in school. It was done with a sense of inflicting torture on his siblings. They were in class five and six respectively. Bhoop would get drunk and harass the boys, plundered their lunch and eat it. It became a habit with the big-time neighborhood drunk. So Rashe, all of thirteen or fourteen, beat the liquor lover. He later beat the thinnest sloshed Raame over some issue. These are three violent acts that he committed in life. The rest is all love with three or four poor peasant women who surrender to his animalistic charms as an escapade from the hard facts of life.

A Notebook of Dancing Shadows (My Latest Book)

 

<Blurb (A Notebook of Dancing Shadows)>

Step into the world of the introspective and poetic writer, where the mundane transforms into the profound, and the ordinary becomes extraordinary. In ‘A Notebook of Dancing Shadows,’ we are invited into the gentle embrace of a soulful observer, who effortlessly weaves together the threads of everyday life with the tapestry of the spiritual realm.

With each turn of the page, readers are drawn deeper into the writer’s inner sanctum, where thoughts flutter like leaves in the wind and emotions ebb and flow like the tide. From the whispering secrets of nature to the intricate dance of social processes, every observation is tinged with a sense of wonder and reverence for the world around us.

But beyond mere observation, this collection transcends the boundaries of the ordinary, delving into the writer’s spiritual quest for meaning and truth. Through moments of contemplation and introspection, he grapples with the mysteries of existence, seeking solace in the beauty of the unknown.

‘A Notebook of Dancing Shadows’ is not just a book, but a journey—a journey of the heart, the mind and the soul. It is a lyrical exploration of life’s complexities, rendered with a delicate touch and an unwavering sense of grace. So, step into the writer’s world and let his words illuminate the path to a deeper understanding of the human experience.

<Preface>

Welcome, dear reader, to a journey through the meandering paths of observation, reflection and contemplation. In the pages that follow, you’ll find an eclectic mix of thoughts, musings and opinions penned by a humble wanderer of the countryside, where the whispers of nature intertwine with the echoes of profound existential questions.

I am but a simple soul, dwelling in the embrace of a not so tranquil village, where luckily time still moves at its own semi-leisurely pace, and somehow one can still feel that the rhythm of life is dictated by the seasons. From the vantage point of my rustic abode, I embark on solitary walks, allowing the gentle embrace of nature to envelop me in its serene folds.

In the quiet solitude of these wanderings, I find myself attuned to the subtle symphony of the natural world – the delicate flutter of a butterfly’s wings, the ephemeral beauty of a wildflower by the wayside, or the poignant dance of a leaf as it takes its final flight from the branches above. Each of these seemingly mundane occurrences carries within it a profound message, a glimpse into the interconnectedness of all things, and a reminder of the transient nature of existence.

But my observations extend beyond the realm of the natural world, encompassing the grand tapestry of human affairs and the tumultuous currents of society. From the smallest acts of kindness to the grandest geopolitical upheavals, I offer my reflections with a poet’s heart and a seeker’s spirit.

As you delve into the pages of this book, you may find yourself traversing unexpected terrain – from the tranquil beauty of a sun-dappled glade to the chaotic hustle and bustle of the human experience. Yet, amidst the cacophony of voices clamoring for attention, I invite you to pause, to linger awhile, and to contemplate the deeper truths that lie beneath the surface of our existence.

For I am not merely an observer of life; I am a participant in its unfolding drama, a fellow traveler on the winding road of human experience. And in sharing my thoughts and insights with you, I hope to spark a dialogue, to ignite the flame of curiosity, and to inspire a renewed sense of wonder and appreciation for the world around us.

My beliefs are firmly rooted in humanism and secularism. I am also not immune to the allure of the spiritual realm. Indeed, many of the pieces contained within these pages are imbued with a sense of awe and reverence for the mysteries that lie beyond the confines of our understanding.

So, dear reader, as you embark on this journey with me, I encourage you to approach it with an open mind and a willing heart. For in the pages of this book, you may find not only a reflection of my own thoughts and experiences but also a mirror in which to contemplate your own journey through life.

May you find solace in the beauty of nature, wisdom in the complexity of human affairs, and inspiration in the eternal quest for truth and meaning! And may the words contained herein serve as a gentle guide on your own path of discovery.

With warmest regards,

Sandeep Dahiya (Sufi), April 2024

A walk on the countryside road

 

India is developing very fast. The roads are being built at a hair-raising speed. We see world class road building technology and engineering equipment at the construction sites. They make roads very quickly, a smooth cakewalk like a knife cutting through cheese. During good old days the money would start from the ministry and it would trickle down to a measly percentage as the famished tar and asphalt was poorly dumped. It would break up in the next rainy season. It was a slow world carried by slow-moving files and still slower archaic road rollers. Now it’s quick and lightning fast. The road-building machinery and construction firms have taken the game to a new high. The roads are good. Any give and take in the process, the subtle game between construction conglomerates and ministries is beyond the understanding of common people like you and me.

The other day I was walking on the narrow countryside road connecting my village to the neighboring village about three kilometers away. It’s a musty humid desultory evening. The monsoon has been lenient so far. There is plenty of grass and bushes by the sides, especially bhang. It’s almost a monotony over the farm-sides at this time. And the poor people who need to opiate themselves to forget the burden of life can have a free hand at it. They expertly move their hands through the leaves and gather the dust to smoke weed. Two old people are walking slowly and there they stand under a jamun tree. One of them, the physically better one, shakes a bough and there is a drizzle of ripe purple juicy berries. His still older companion gathers them in a little plastic bag. They will eat to their full and carry the extra stuff for their respective favorite grandchild.

The road is in bad condition. It is far away from the direct administrative scrutiny. Small-time contactors can take liberties as in the old days. A new layer of asphalt gets washed away after just one rainy season. The farmers hardly complain. Their tractors also don’t grumble about it. And there I come across something reminding me of the good old slow-paced days: the old-style road roller, a faded yellow iron elephant. They are repairing a little section where the road has completely vanished. The triple drum roller—three drums for wheels—slowly whines and winces over soil, gravel and concrete, trying its level best to do its compacting job diligently like an old worker. It’s all iron from head to tail. The diesel engine puffs and huffs, billows big bales of smoke. In comparison to the latest engineering vehicles, it looks a rudimentary horse-drawn roller of the last to last century. There is a lock on the fuel chamber. There is another over the engine chamber. The iron elephant has to spend lonely nights on a solitary narrow road at nights so its engine and fuel have to be saved from the farmers.

When I return by the same path after an hour, I find the iron elephant resting. Two Bihari operators are mounted under the iron canopy and watching videos on their mobiles. A third workman is sitting against the front roller, his legs spread out. I hope he hasn’t put up a challenge that to move ahead they have to go over him.