Sweet home

 

All life-forms on earth are seeking a home; a safe and cozy home that makes you feel at ease; where you can drop your guard, rest, recuperate and rejuvenate. I feel that our garden houses nests of tailorbirds, oriental white-eyes, silverbills, squirrels and flycatchers. They, on their part, feel that their nest houses our home. That’s why they raise such a ruckus when we humans happen to be near their nests. So basically, the feeling of ownership is a matter of perception only.

Most of the garden lizards have their houses among the leaves of flowers, shrubs and trees. They make their skin dull colored and sprawl on sunlit leaves, just like we humans warm our bones on sunlit terraces in the winter. But one garden lizard has a unique house. A multiple-paneled window faces the garden; its lower portion flanked by tulsi plants and above looms the clustered canopy of champa, chandni, parijat, guava and kari patta. The window shutters stay closed from the other side behind the iron grills. There is a narrow slab projecting over the window. On the upper end there is an abandoned potter-wasp’s mud house sticking to the grill. And here the garden lizard has made its home. An abandoned house turning into a home; the little shelter possessed so warmly by a cold-blooded little reptile.

It seems a stoic lizard. At noontime, for hour and half, sunrays engulf its house in their warm, embracing fluidity. The house owner sprawls in peace. It puts its chin on top of the oblong mud shelter, closes eyes and soaks as much warmth as possible to beat the December chill. At night it sneaks into the little space between the mud nest and the wood of the closed window, a space just enough to hide its main body. Its tail is visible from outside curled around the mud nest. I have seen it occupying its property for the past many weeks. I usually go and tease it, standing just a couple of feet away, peering into its eyes. It’s a shy one and closes its eyes to the uninvited guest.

It looks a very stable and contended guy: the same look, the same routine, the same acceptance of the uncontrollable factors of life. The stable chap doesn’t experiment much with life, which is a prudent thing to do for a reptile in the winters. Possibly it’s an introvert one who is happy in his little world, just comfortable to be himself. I wish him good hibernation during the winters. Best of luck garden lizard! Given your stoic patience, the three winter months seem a cakewalk. Then one fine day lovely spring will arrive. You will then come out, get colors on your skin taking inspiration from the blooming flowers. You will then reclaim that much of life, which you missed in the winters. There would be colors, love, food, hunting, escaping getting hunted, or call it flirtations with life and death. That will all come with the spring. Happy hibernation until then!

Far away from the maddening crowd

 

This peacock has a hand-length of plumage. It looks quite handsome with it, something of rugged little stubble charm of masculinity. Full fantail is cumbersome. It keeps it tethered to the centricity of amorous passion, making it a love-haunted soul. It also means a lot of effort while flying, almost bum-busting effort. And the total absence of plumage also gives too much of a clean-shaven look to a peacock. But with this short plumage, it looks dapper smart and can fly to its satisfaction.

The red-vented bulbul is seen after two-three months. I believe it had gone visiting some relative. Maybe got bored with the uneventfulness of life here. Now it looks fresh with profound and impressionistic attitude.

A cat got onto the neem tree. The cat has no business there. So a crow, a couple of mynas, three-four pied starlings and some babblers raise such a din that it has to jump off the tree. The compendium of birdie platitudes starts a little chain of repercussions. The intimidating squirrel, which has grabbed the millet bowl all for itself after shooing away the sparrows, now runs away trippingly. It thinks the cat has jumped with a decisive attempt at its life. The fresh-from-journey bulbul gives it a nice chase over the wall top. The sparrows shout in merriment.                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Little Nevaan's small world

 

Nevaan’s words during the online classes are highly censored. A little soul’s words of innocence can expose mountains of elderly hypocrisies. Childhood innocence is startingly stylized for truth. It comes from a resounding depth of purity sustained by an unconditioned and uncustomized self.

One day he is given freedom to give his uncensored speech on the topic of mother. It falls with the force of classical weight on feathery modernity. ‘Mama is very good. She does all my homework. She gets very angry also and sometimes pulls my hair,’ his rare repertoire of praising words leaves his mother teary eyed. ‘I devote my entire day for his welfare and look what I get in return,’ she is inconsolable. But then she has realized that he is free in his opinions and is swimming with powerful frog-kicks in the pool of childhood independence.

So now he has to do his own homework. His mother has said a firm no to do it for him after his sting operation. He is asked to ‘write five lines on Nevaan’. He is seen very  busy for twenty minutes with the below given essay in the middle of the page:

‘Write five lines on Nevaan. He doesn’t like reading and writing. He wants to play all the time. He wants to watch cartoon TV all the time. He wants a roomful of chips.’

That marks his little summary of paradise. This candid and instamatic write-up brings more tears in the eyes of his mother. With a lyrical fluency, Nevaan is sauntering around to do full justice to his essay.

He is seen standing in front of Labrador Tuffy, the friendly pet from the neighborhood. Labrador Tuffy barks in a friendly tone. ‘How are you Tuffy?’ he asks. The dog wags its tail and replies in soft friendly barkings. Nevaan also starts doing bho-bho in varied tones. The conversation goes for about fifteen minutes. An objection is raised against Nevaan’s barking. ‘But we are talking in his language. I tried and thought he would reply in our language. But seems he cannot do it, so I changed my language to talk to him in his own,’ he replies in a prescriptive tone.

On the threshold of a colorful spring

 

The spring is always waiting in the wings; like a spiky creeper looping around her cold lover. Basant Panchami, falling on February 5 this year, amounts to sowing the spring seeds that would blossom smiles in March. It’s the start of sunnier days with a balmy tonality. The seasons have an amazing, tactical flexibility that allows healthy transitions and undisputed takeovers.

The festive occasion is but a kind of setback for the honeybees. They have been brave and tried to undo the limiting definitions of inclement weather to survive for sunnier days. Sadly, their nice round hive is attacked by the honey buzzard. His beak pecks with a notational intent. The hive gets misshapen as he steals away their precious store of honey. I watch from a distance. I can feel that something is missing. Dry leaves tumble down because the big predator’ wings ruffle the branches. We humans suffer the flatness of our sweeping conclusions. To my analytical wit, the eagle is an unsober and hostile bird. My reality is that the bees are buzzing in the air with a sense of loss. But maybe their truth is something very different from my feeling.

The eagle flutters away with a shrieking note. From my linear perspective, the hive seems like an amoeba now. But then my human-born pain withers away and some unconditional truth lands in my senses like a lyrical oasis. There is always a balance in nature. Still there is something left to build the house again, to make a new beginning. There is surely some reserve to last for some more days. They just need their queen to be safe for a riveting fresh start in the spring. The rest they will undoubtedly manage, especially now when we have the February sun smiling kindly. The spring will unfold its subtle coils and will unleash many flowery smiles.

Unlike we humans they don’t complain and waste their energy in the blame game. They have a vaulting clarity in their ‘being’ in contrast to our efforts at ‘becoming’ with our limpid ambitions. Within half an hour, the tattered house is far better in appearance. It’s not smooth and round like earlier. There are irregular edges as the bees work back to their former positions. The eagle is but still circling in the air. I’m sure it has taken enough for one square meal. There are so few eagles left and a small number of beehives. Looking at such little survival games, it appears as if all isn’t lost. It’s a bit assuring.

A Shopper Dog

 

The village has enough space, at least at the fringes where it melts in the farmlands, for the liquor-lovers to sit on the ground after the dark and get done with a quick wining session. The dining part would be later covered by brawls within houses and outside. Usually they take it neat and clean. Sometimes, on special occasions, they get something to eat along. The dog that we have already mentioned always howls is seen coming with a polybag in its mouth. It seems to have taken it very seriously, holds it with a serious purpose as if it will help him in beating the pangs of isolation and alienation among the groups of stray dogs.

There is something inside the bag and a single knot holds the secret. The way it trots with its grocery in its mouth, it appears that the dog is sure the contents are nothing short of gold from the standards of the canine world. It seems a little bundle of longing, joys and pathos. Our pursuits are usually centered around the little bundles that hold the source of our caprices and hallucinations tied in multiple knots in the bags. So the dog has every right to take its possession very seriously.

It looks lonely but somehow magnificent with its object. The booty holder seems to be on lookout for a suitable place to open the parcel. With extraordinary delicacy, it sneaks under a tractor trolley parked in the street. With fertile imagination and concrete capacity, it opens the single knot after a spell of dexterous pawing and mouth pulling. The first item it draws out is an empty disposable glass. The second is a plastic case for food delivery. Its lid is tight shut and inside there is some curry redolent with spicy prospects. But the little disposable tiffin’s lid is beyond the water-mouthed maneuver of a dog. The retriever of this precious item is busy, giving it all in its capacity for this value-driven approach to add to the taste buds on its tongue. Meanwhile, a female dog comes stealthily from behind. Nicely gets into position and pees with meditative effortlessness on the canine shopper’s shopping bag. Some of her friends, looking hard-nosed and thoughtful, curiously stare from a distance.

His shopping vandalized, the offended shopper whines angrily, gives a spurt of howl and runs after her to teach her a lesson. Her friends then escape with the provisions to play with it and scatter the contents in the street to add to their part in the chaos around.

Little Nevaan's World

 

All activities are a playful game to Nevaan and everything a toy. A little heap of woolen socks nicely washed in fragrant detergent, for example. He is doodling on the wall. Childhood is always eager for a bear hug with sweet, little, innocent mischiefs. It’s a dreamscape entirely in a different dimension that unfortunately we forget as we grow old, as thinking mind makes blatant transgressions into the flowering treescape of pure heart.

As he doodles, he seems one of the utmost summiteers of unbridled creativity. His lines are snaking through the established shapes and designs to chart out fresher domains on the canvas of childhood. We elders are extensive on rhetoric but puny on content. But boundless is the childhood’s content. It’s like riding the wave crests glowing on a full moon night. So, as he rides his shiny waves, paddling his little doodle boat with a chalk piece, he hits the shores, so needs more space to keep rowing. He needs wipers to keep enough clean space for his compelling and hypnotizing artistry. The fresh laundry serves a better purpose than what it would do in shoes. The wet woolen socks clean the walls really well.

I am jogging in the yard but my effort to still stay in workable condition is nothing more than a cat and mouse game to him. He leaves the wall clean and catches onto the piece of play offered by a middle-aged man trying to stay in shape. I am the cat so I have claws scratching my back. I am yet to overcome the shock of being a mouse then I suddenly realize I am a thief because the game has suddenly turned into police and thief. I get pounded on my modest bum as he tries to catch the thief who is trying to sneak away from the arms of law. Then he is a boxer decimating an opponent who is just shuffling around the arena. Then all and sundry games follow that he can think of on the basis of all the information he has gathered from watching cartoon programs on television.

A simple, little world of marigolds

 

My marigolds put up a brave face against harsh January to keep the banner of life and hope flying through their smiles. Now the beginning of February has better prospects for more smiles. They aren’t showy and fragrant like fresh jasmine or magically alluring like dew-laden rose, but still they have enough in them to bring some traces of halcyon days among this gloomy winter. With their virtues and valor, they lit up the corner in my garden with their subdued smiles. An almost sunless January couldn’t subdue their smiles. It’s a world where we have decimated smiles in the wilderness across the planet. Our civilizational pursuit of El-Dorado has seen us fluently frittering away the pulsating aesthetics that mother nature had decorated along our path.

A few flowers remain, that too in the little gardens of almost obsolete people who still love flowers, who still somehow try to hold onto the majestic sinews of mother nature. Somehow wading through the broiling, intriguing corridors laid across the monochromatic hues of the modern landscape, they carry a fistful of earth and a flower smiling on that. Their rarity means they have become a treasure in their own ways.

My neighbors peep over the walls pretty greedily. This little clump of yellow, maroon and orange marigolds is drawing them like nectar-hungry drones. Any day I prefer my marigolds for the honeybees only. It’s soul-pacifying sight to see the bees gathered over the table of frilled petals for a sumptuous sociality in lazy, hazy afternoons. The flowers open their hearts to the guests with an unerringly courteous smile. A month away from the spring, it seems like a thin ration line for the honeybees. But the human bumblebees want the nectar of God’s blessings by offering flowers at the feet of idols in the temple. It’s symbolic ritual by the way. I thing the Gods will be happier if you offer them your love and smiles and leave these few remaining flowers for the starved honeybees. Sadly, we have taken our materialistic pursuits to the extent that we won’t leave any corner for them at our house.

There seems to be an impulsive scheming going around. The consumer culture is galloping by leaps and bounds with intriguing ingenuity and flawed imagination. The consumer culture is compelling, thrilling and free-flowing in its hypnotizing sway over our senses. The Godly courts are under heavy bombardment of demands by the citizens. We are always seeking more of the consumer items that would give us an edge over our neighbors. And flowers come to our mind when we set out to appease the Gods to turn the tables in our favor.

Well, my simple request to people is please forget about flowers on the altar if you don’t have a place in your balcony, garden or whatever space available that can have a flowery smile. My little bed of marigolds is rapidly vanishing under the reaping tool of faith. I feel sad for the bees. Isn’t it better to have lively flowers at homes—that makes them temples in themselves—instead of dead flowers at altars?

Some frost-bitten happy times

 

A rainy sunless January forces the plants, animals and humans to crouch down in defense. The cold is both spectacular and spellbinding in its grip on our fates. The fog, smog and mists seem to be sharing an intriguing chemistry with some invisible opponent. We hardly stand any chance without Father Sun. He is the primal cause of the melodious colors of the springs that bring joy and freshness in our lives. But mother nature has profound ways of expressing her belief in life and living even among the most adverse circumstances.

As the frost-bitten leaves get withered, turn pale and tumble down, and the trees stand with bent head, and the humans stay on a low profile, one little plant has added to its fresh and greeny verve that we usually see in the monsoons. Common mallow (also called cheese mallow, cheese weed or dwarf mallow) has come of leafy youth in the depressive weather. There are lush green clumps of them by the side of countryside paths. They make the most of the wet, sunless January days. It seems they hold aloft the signature emblem of spring with their aesthetically designed leaves—palmately veined fingers branching out from the palm, circular in shape and crinkled in appearance. I expect flowers, in whitish lavender, during the spring, with purple veins.

The cold season at its peak is a testing time for the honeybees. It means survival against all odds. There are a few dozen bees that are seen sitting on the ground. They don’t seem to have either energy or the spirit to fly. Why aren’t they in the hive? There can be many reasons. They may be the ones that are no longer useful to the colony and thus have been expelled. It means if you aren’t useful anymore, you crawl, you hardly fly anymore. These may even be the drones who just suck nectar and pollen and don’t collect it. So during the winters, when there is a scarcity of resources, they get expelled from the hive. As the rest of them snug together to keep the queen alive, the idlers get paid for their uselessness. The stored honey is the lifeline through the lean season. All activity is suspended till warm spring days when the bees will set out with an exalting, energetic and enterprising spirit. In the meantime, the redundant drones are left free to devise their own ways to see through the cold. Sometimes kwing virus afflicts some of them. It deforms the wings. A bee afflicted with this malady may not have enough strength to fly back home if it commits the mistake of setting out on a cold day.

The small world of a little boy

 

It’s a reality show showcasing the taut narration of skills and talents by Godly gifted kids. With enough melody to create any lyricist’s euphoria, a five-year-old girl is singing with unbelievable maturity. Every look at little Nevaan makes it plain to him that the onlooker wants him to do something in the field of ‘talent’. ‘It’s because of the mike she holds that her voice sounds nice. The mike is very talented,’ he gives his expert opinion on talent.

The talent show eggs him to do something of his own. He is all attention needed for executing something to flawless perfection. It’s his sketch-work with chalk on a pillar: two human figures drawn in straight lines with an arrowed heart in between. And the elders would always comment about the kid’s fancy with broken heart. By the way, the millennials are steely in nerves. They break hearts instead of being broken hearted.

He smells the prejudice, the notions of morality, etc., in my comment and changes the scenario. ‘Both of them are boys,’ he clarifies.

Well, two boys with a broken heart between them?

‘The girl was a bad one. Both of them are crying,’ he comes to the rescue of his gender.

Well, the elders might be busy in bigger struggles, leaving him as a newly born fawn struggling to its feet. But he is not a mere unsteady kitten. He has a crisp penchant for exploring newer things in his slowly growing world. Carrying a crisp vision, he has spotted a jewel on the ground. The elders, like grubby kids, are dealing with the spoilsports of the bigger world. The little researcher loiters around with inquisitive eyes. His find is something else also apart from being a jewel. It’s a bug also, a jewel bug to be precise. I make him feel that it’s his find, so he is very happy over the discovery. We take his find’s picture and he goes around the house, showing the new species he has just discovered.

The frigid cold leaves one in need of the warmth of love and companionship more than ever. The lone jewel bug, also called metallic sheet bug, is almost frozen. They feed on plant juices. They even have the option of producing offensive odor when disturbed. The oval-shaped little shiny creature looks like a beetle, but it’s a bug to be precise.

It’s a brilliantly colored bug with iridescent metallic hues. Its green metallic sheen with black and red dots is surely sufficient to make Nevaan feel proud of his discovery for the benefit of the world. Its pleasantly exotic colors inspire me to Google it for more information. It comes to my knowledge that they have huge, spiky, heavily sclerotized genitalia. That makes its mating practice almost ‘traumatic insemination’. It seems a marquee masculine mischief against the divinely feminine—a kind of evolutionary sexual conflict. The male bug tears through the female reproductive duct to deposit sperms, causing severe damage to the female in the process. I think all the lurid sadists out there must have a strong evolutionary memory of the jewel bugs coursing through their veins.

Maybe inspired by his discovery of a new bug species, Nevaan is adding to his clanship. His surname is Deswal. So the cats are Yellow Cat Deswal, Black Cat Deswal and the likes. So are the dogs christened along the same lines.

The honeybees in January

 

There are little clues lying revealingly to help us in demystification of the biggest puzzles in the scheme of nature. There is a natural art of survival without a feeling of suffering and victimization. Its protagonists are apparently subservient and soft-spoken in stark contrast to the hyperbolic obituarists who loudly shout the vainglory of struggles and mighty efforts. Like the bees in this comb.

It’s harsh cold in the middle of January. It rained overnight. Everything seems beaten and surrendered to the freezing touch of the winter that is pervading around with unsettling bravery. The honeycomb has shrunk into a tight ball. There isn’t a single movement to be seen. There is a wellspring of holism in being tightly around each other during testing times. The magisterial aura of holding each other tightly saves many against the onslaught of time. They weave a tapestry of courage and conviction to survive till warmer days are there.

The bees don’t seem interested in shifting their positions. Those on the upper side, the front guards showing arresting quality of self-sacrifice, don’t complain. It seems strictly classical. They protect those below them. They have icy dewdrops over them. The leaves are dripping with dew and mist. A few freeze to death in the line of duty. It’s almost unthinkable for we humans with our fickle emotions, stupid covetousness and base pretentions to sacrifice ourselves for a larger good. There is grace, diligence and a sense of inviolable duty among the honeybees. They stand for each other. The March sun is just a month and half away. A juicy spring awaits them. Then it will be a happily buzzing place.

After being sunless for a few frozen days in January, you actually come to feel the orgasmic pleasure of the butter melting in the pan as the sun suddenly comes up and the frozen cells of your existence melt and come back to life again with the warm touch of life.

In the little clump of trees in the courtyard, a dainty oriental magpie robin retires for chilly nights. At dusk it lets out a sawing shrrrr call, the notes confidently full of inoffensive mischief, as if warning other birds about not barging into his home tree.

I have put a clay pitcher’s neck-ring on the fence wall. It serves as a nice clay basin for putting millets for the hundreds of sparrows that roost in the nearby trees at night. They flock around with enduring versatility. Some are brooding, others are peppy. Their songs carrying myriad melodies. But they make a lot of noise while picking grains. A few bully ones chase away the docile ones, scattering the little grains on the ground. A squirrel is attracted by the din. She takes possession of the property. It sits right in the middle of the grains in the clay ring. The sparrows now show patience and sit at a distance—a picture of somberness and solemnity. Maybe they are curious to know how the squirrel uses her front paws to expertly chew the grains. A few of them hop onto the ground and pick up what they had scattered playfully. The squirrel is taking too much time. The bullying ones then start pecking at its bushy tail from behind to remind it that it has to move away.

Little Nevaan's world

 

Nevaan is reading a poem to his father from a WhatsApp message on the latter’s phone. His father is correcting every word the little son pronounces. Nevaan’s patience is pilfered away and he shuts him up, ‘How will I finish the poem Papa? You keep quiet and only say, “vaah, vaah!” when I read the poem!’

‘Oh, it’s Thursday tomorrow!’ little Nevaan is suddenly startled. Well, it’s the ‘thought of the day’ day during their online classes. And he thinks not so appropriately sometimes. His thoughts sometimes border on big insults for the teachers and the school. His free-spirited thoughts give him ruffled hair and angry shakings by his much-worried mother. ‘How I wish there was no Thursday and just Sunday in its place! There should be two Sundays!’ he sighs very sadly.

One day he is feeling very happy. He has had two successive nights of dreams. This elderly teacher is very strict with him during the online class, so much so that we use her as the scarecrow to deter him from his mischief. He says that in his dream he went to the teacher’s house and she allowed him to watch cartoons throughout the day. Not only that, she gave him big buckets of chocolates, cookies, noodles and pizzas also. So he ate throughout the night. Inspired by his dream, he isn’t taking her as scarecrow in real life anymore. ‘Ma’am is very sweet!’ he gushes.

In the second dream, a dolphin with a huge face becomes his friend. ‘We play and swim together. Her mouth so big!’ he says. ‘She opened it and I went in for playing. We played ludo, me and she in her mouth. We played football also. Then we ate hot-dogs, burgers and chips. Then I came out and we played outdoors. Then we both went to what is below Leh?’ he wants me to guess. ‘Srinagar?’ I propose. ‘Yes, we went to Srinagar to enjoy.’

Rain Romance in January

 

The rains of January are not so gentle reminders by mother nature that She holds far more cords in the puppet show of our existence; that all our strategizing is unreliable and dodgy. Sometimes She flaunts her robust patronage of our fates through the harshest, cruelest and darkest trajectory. The January rains may not exactly qualify to be too much on the scale of the fact mentioned above but it has enough to convey her disapproving glare.

The clouds thunder at their best with a strange creative focus, a kind of stimulating contradiction in the form of water and sizzling lightning fire across its watery bowels. It looks a strange, awesome testing ground of hatching newer possibilities.

The cold rain comes lashing. We realize our limitations and withdraw. And a few days of leave of absence by the sun makes us realize that our life is a mere gift by the sun. A brief spell of sunlight amid the entire gloomy overcast day has the power and potential to revive hopes at many levels. The loud, garish proclamations instantly take a backseat as the tiniest of a ray peeps through the clouds. Delicately flavored is its touch; everything looks energetic and inspired. And despite holding the key to our survival, the celestial torchbearer stays so unassuming and unpretentious.

The good part about January rain is that it gives a nice wash to the trees and plants. It serves a still better role. The arrogant monkeys surrender to their wet, soaked fate. The eccentric display of misdemeanors vanishes and they start behaving well. The sight of a shivering, rain-sodden monkey on a gloomy, cold January day, moving with good manners is nothing short of blissful. Their foolhardiness slowly being asphyxiated, they carry a sullen visage. They don’t loaf around. No wonder, it’s really peaceful when they sit quiet.

Three days of winter rain and their roof leaks. It never was a home, always remained a house. The father-son drunkard pair always kicked the homely foundations. Disgrace, poverty and continuous pain define their existence. And now when the roof leaks in this cold weather, the daughters of the almost ruined house get onto the roof, try to stop the leakages by putting a tarpaulin sheet as an extra protection to their depilated house. The broken house still stands because there are three lovely daughters to support its crumbling columns.

And the winter slowly lumbers on as if following a self-reflecting trail. It’s very cold. The reptiles and rodents gone very deep for hibernation in their holes and burrows. Deprived of hunting opportunities, all the feral cats have smartly ditched their shyness and come begging. They raise their tails, making purring, flattering sounds and try to rub against one’s legs. It’s a problem of plenty. You don’t feel comfortable with all the feral cats gone friendly.

Some ray of hope in the winters. The Taliban have made a slight amendment in their behavior. I take it as a welcome change. They have ordered the shop owners to behead mannequins. Well, that’s better than beheading people in real life. One little step ahead indeed. But then they follow it with a big jump backwards. They are going to have a suicide squad as a regular unit in their army. This is scary. Someone blowing himself or herself seems the worst form of violence.

January 10

 

There are people who once lit up your life with their warm smiles. The cold, hard icicles of your life melted under their warm touch like balmy sunrays giving a kiss of life after many snowy days. Later, however far you may drift apart, they are still inseparable part of your being. Your ego may deny it on the surface but the cells in your body carry those sweet memories. They set up the tunes of an unwavering harmony below the turbulent surface having ripples of guilt, complaint, pain and anger. The fragrance lingers on with its innate modesty. A frozen current inside you that still flows sometimes under the warmth of the nostalgic strains of distant memories. Its aching beauty, its divine sadness still sometimes comes acalling to refresh and revitalize your pain-lynched present self. It always exists to define your present. Always. Acknowledging the existence of countless such sweet memories in my mind, body and spirit! With grace, humility, gratitude and love wishing the source of these sweet memories a very happy birthday! Always wishing that special someone a profound, meaningful, joyful happy birthday on the tenth of January!

Village of the apes

 

As the ever-effacing scythe of time reaps on, it’s no longer the same world. We have turned out to be a sensationalist species. Our riling and abrasive march on the path has forced the lesser species to go hush-hush and move prohibitively, trying to stay away from our snipes and barbaric barbs.

But our simian friends, the co-sharers of our gloriously compulsive traits, still hold out the baton from the side of the lower species. Everything from flowers to jewellery is under risk. How can things be normal with so many monkeys around? The situation is grim. Sometime in future, I apprehend a ‘Planet of the Apes’ kind of scenario.

The rhesus monkeys aren’t simply driven by instincts. They surely have a strong intent to carry out their thuggery. They love breaking, ruffling, toppling and shuffling things. To watch their misdeeds is an illustrated treat in itself. They deftly handle the myriad strands of foolhardiness to spin out most outrageous of stage scenes. Their sexuality is decidedly warped like their more evolved brethren. I see two monkeys going normally over the top of a wall. Suddenly, the one behind jumps onto the haunches of the one in front and feigns vigorous, avaricious pelvic thrusts to pacify the pangs of lust lying forever unsatisfied in the psychic realms. It’s a blatant slap on our norms. A typical tome of their mischief.

The hawker opthlomogist

 

The spirit of commerce is zealously relishing its sway over the modern-day mass psyche. All our passions, prejudices, pride and myriad other silent inconsistencies of our character go onto feed the spirit of the corporate operating with an officious smile, promising enduring homilies and affinities. Even the artless, hardworking rural rustic society is falling into the sheen of the corporate. There are entrepreneurs wandering in the streets, like this hawker who is shouting, ‘Get eyesight glasses. Get your eyes checked and get a number ka chasma so that you can see even an ant on your neighbor’s wall.’

Well-qualified ophthalmologists beware now. He is a small thin man with a testing kit on his bicycle. These are the times of doorstep delivery of products and services. Even the malls look like a kind of obligation now. There are so many people who are open to the idea of delivering anything from needles to road engines to your doorstep. Every street has a peasant woman selling garments and clothes apart from buttermilk and milk. One provides dung-cakes also. I recall a very kind-hearted, ever-smiling, loving custom clearing agent. Mention procuring a fighter jet to him. ‘Ho jayega, worry not!’ he is always there to help you keep your hopes alive.

Chronicles of little Nevaan

 

Little Nevaan is at a temple with his Mausiji. With innocently garlanding ease, a kid has crammed many Sanskrit slokas, so no wonder he is the centre of attraction. With an acrobat’s agile leap, he jumps from slogan to slogan, garnering heaps of praise from those around. Poor Nevaan is already tired with practicing alphabets and numbers on the slate board and assembling and reading educational puzzles before coming to the temple. And now this irrational and idiosyncratic chanting by this chit of a boy. As if there is a savory slice of lime pickle in his mouth, which he likes with an impeccable and uncomplicated sense of cherishment, Nevaan tries to divert the show in his direction.

With the urgency of rattling trams and angrily hawking vendors, he recites Gayatri Mantra and Mahamritunjya Mantra. Egged on by the heady pampering of his parents, the other child unleashes sloka after sloka from his big repertoire. Coming to terms with a sense of humane realism, little Nevaan brings out the best shot in his kitty. He starts whistling. It’s his inalienable right to showcase what he considers to be the best item in his kitty. He hammers his tone to stonewall the Sanskrit slokas coming out so profusely.

Only a gentleman with silver-grey hair tries to be the solo audience to his offering. Nevaan fails to grab attention. So the other boy wins the show—prominently, purposefully and publicly. On top of it, it gets him another reprimand from his ever-correcting mama. He responds. At night, his mama opens her phone to find a notification from her Amazon account regarding a payment failure of one lakh rupees. Nevaan put an i-phone and a gold ring in the cart and made an unsuccessful attempt at payment. He knows his mom loves the money more in the purse instead of its changing forms, especially the costly gadgets.

There is a visitor at the house. He is haggling him with the question, ‘When did you come beta?’ Now little Nevaan is clueless about dates and days. It was about two weeks ago when he arrived at his maternal uncle’s house, yours truly by the way. The questioner looks serious enough to have his answer at any cost. He repeats the question a few times. ‘I came on the day I came here,’ Nevaan gives the asker a crisp glimpse of his much-sought answer.

I’m reading and little Nevaan is looking for something more substantial, a playmate. Lost in the reclusive and remote world contained in the book, I try to ignore him. He is making strange guttural sounds. ‘What is this?’ I’m forced to enquire. ‘I’m asking “What are you doing?” in Chinese,’ he enlightens me. ‘I’m reading a book,’ I reply in Hindi to his Mandarin query. ‘No, no I’m asking what are you doing in reading,’ he simplifies the query. I make it that maybe he wants to know what I’m reading. ‘I’m reading that little kids shouldn’t disturb the elders when they are reading a book,’ I try to somehow salvage my reading session. This piece of information doesn’t fit his plan at all. ‘No, no I was just asking what are you doing,’ he tries to avoid the unbecoming issue of kids disturbing book-reading elders. And before I can reply he says, ‘Ok, I see you are playing with a book.’ He continues with his strange sounds. The answer to his second main question doesn’t exist because the question itself has been wiped clean on his slate.

By the way, his mother is very happy. ‘He has started to get up in Inglish now!’ she gushes. ‘Today he said, “I’m oothing in the morning,” and last night he said, “I’m sleeping,” so that means he is sleeping in eengleesh also!’ Well, this world seems to be some primeval mother’s creation.

I’m engrossed in the miseries of the bigger world. The paper spread in front of my face carries deep and voluminous folds of activities that grown-ups are engaged in. Geostrategic wars, political brawls, diseases, killings, sports rivalries holding my attention with their clawy tentacles. I’m sitting on a chair. Little Nevaan is standing in front of me. He is a bundle of energy carrying ecumenical vibrancy and a dreamy future-map in his twinkling eyes. I’m, on the other hand, carrying a timeworn load born of weathering of long years. No wonder, our worlds are completely different.

The double spread newspaper chronicles a sage of grit and glories of the past twenty-four hours. He is staring at the full-page luscious advertisement by a global food chain. Crunchy grilled patty, juicy toasted buns and grilled burgers are presented for a child’s food paradise. A picture speaks thousands of words. He has read entire tomes by the time I finish reading a few news columns. ‘Sufi mama, why aren’t you reading? You are just looking at the a, b, c, d. Read here. Yummy yummy masala mar ke, aha!’ he informs me that he has read all the pictures and I have been merely looking at the letters in the meantime.

He has turned a big informer in the house now. The gossiping neighborhood aunties use his informing skills. ‘Don’t tell what you hear inside the house to the people outside!’ he gets a reprimand from his mother. So he decides not to inform anyone about anything said inside the house anymore. ‘Ma doesn’t call you bulldozer auntie. Ma doesn’t say that your car is khatara uncle ji. Ma never says that you beat uncle with a stick aunty ji,’ he tries his best not to divulge any secret anymore. He is very happy as he returns. ‘Ma, I didn’t tell them anything as you said,’ he tells her and expects ice cream as a reward today.

He is around three and is taken to the doctor for a routine vaccine. He howls. All his wrongs for which he gets reprimanded flash before his terrified eyes. He thinks he is getting a punishment for all those pieces of mischief. ‘Dotter, dotter, please forgive me! Maaf kar do! I will stop eating candies. I will not watch mobile. I will stop watching cartoons on TV. I will study,’ he realizes all the sins that have possibly landed him in trouble. After a long list of will-nots, he realizes his sins are too big for these promises. Then he tries to bribe, ‘Dotter, I will give you the best plane, the red fighter plane!’ The doctor is amused. ‘O really! I will take it as my fees.’ The needle goes in. A loud cry. The tone is bordered on the abusive frequency. His mother senses it. She tries to forestall it by putting her hand on his mouth but Nevaan is successful in splurging a cuss word he has caught in the streets from the mouths of older street urchins.

We buy a new cycle with side-supporters on so that he learns the art of paddling and balancing. He is serious and sullen and sits in a corner. ‘Aren’t you happy with this beautiful gift?’ we ask. ‘No, I’m not happy. Now I have to fall from it many times!’ he explains the reason for his being in sullen mood. He has seen a few little ones toppling over as they learnt cycling. ‘What gift is this? I have to fall many times to play with it. No, no it’s not a good one,’ he condemns the latest purchase.

He is getting another dose of reprimand. He has written ‘Pupaya’ on his worksheet. The last papaya he ate didn’t come too sweet. So he improvised to make it sweeter. ‘But Ma, pupaya is very sweet,’ he tries to convince her. Maybe pupaya is sweeter than papaya. But in the world of grown-ups, the helplessness to adhere to the factual correctness doesn’t leave any space for the sweetness brought by a kid by changing some vowel.

The other day, after two hours of memorizing and writing exercise, he writes ‘Grabs’ for ‘Grapes.’ His mother gets a practical clue and grabs him by head and shakes it quite forcefully to ruffle his nicely done hair. He looks shaken like a pigeon cat-handled by an angry cat. He doesn’t react, he responds. ‘Ma, you tell what is two plus, minus, multiply a, b, c, d, dog and cat!’ he yells his question.  

सत्यप्रकाश

 मणिपुर के बारे में मैं और आप जैसे साधारण लोग ही लिख और पढ़ सकते हैं. आराम से पॉकेट गरम कर चुकी गोदी मीडिया को तो एक नया पाकिस्तानी स्टार मिल गया है. खैर हम तो बात कर सकते ही हैं. कम से कम अभी तक. आगे का पता नहीं.

77 दिनों की बेशर्म निष्क्रियता के बाद, पहली गिरफ्तारी हुई है और वह भी तब जब पूरे देश ने मणिपुर के भयानक वीडियो के मद्देनजर उनके चेहरे पर थूक दिया। यदि यह अमानवीय, क्रूर, शैतानी वीडियो वायरल न होता तो राज्य और केंद्र सरकार अभी भी यथास्थिति बनाए रखती। आदरणीय सर्वोच्च न्यायालय को चेतावनी देनी पड़ी और तब हमारे विश्व स्तर के आदरणीय, माननीय प्रधानमंत्री जी ने अपनी चुप्पी तोड़ी। और निंदा की कुछ पंक्तियाँ कही। लेकिन क्या अब इससे कोई फर्क पड़ता है? क्रूरताएं काले हृदय से खुलकर निभाई गई हैं. Hvaniyat पिछले तीन महीने से खुले में नंगा नाच कर रही है। और ऐसी सैकड़ों घटनाएं हुई हैं, जैसा कि राज्य के सीएम ने खुद स्वीकार किया है. मणिपुर में होने वाली घटनाएं अमूर्त, भीड़-जनित विस्फोट नहीं हैं। उनकी जड़ें हैं. जाति, वर्ग, धर्म और जातीयताओं पर समाज के व्यवस्थित, संगठित विभाजन की जड़ें। और भारतीय राजनीतिक परिदृश्य में इस तरह के विभाजन को कौन बढ़ावा देता है और कौन इसे पोषित करता है, यह कोई रहस्य नहीं है। यह उतना ही स्पष्ट है जैसे हमारे ऊपर सूर्य है। धार्मिक स्थलों को जला दिया गया है. जलाए गए चर्चों और मंदिरों का डेटा लीजिए. आप देखेंगे कि उनमें से अधिकतर चर्च हैं, Kuki समाज के धार्मिक स्थान जो अधिकतर ईसाई हैं। क्या यह पता लगाना एक अघुलनशील गणितीय समीकरण है कि वीडियो में दिखाए गए मध्ययुगीन बर्बर कृत्यों के बावजूद  मणिपुर में अभी भी राज्य सरकार क्यों चल रही है? यदि अधिक मंदिर जलाए गए होते और प्रताड़ित लड़कियाँ ईसाई कुकियों के बजाय हिंदू होतीं, तो कानून की तलवार से बहुत पहले ही न्याय मिल गया होता। न्याय के लिए कुछ कदम उठाने के लिए 77 दिन और सार्वजनिक आक्रोश और माननीय सुप्रीम कोर्ट की चेतावनी नहीं लगती। सीधी सी बात यह है कि मणिपुर को जानबूझकर जलने के लिए छोड़ दिया गया है ताकि 'उन्हें' सबक सिखाया जा सके। तथाकथित राष्ट्रवादियों के लिए हर कोई देशद्रोही है. 'वे' जो उनके दिमाग को खराब करने वाली बयानबाजी का भक्त नहीं बनते है। ये शर्मनाक और घृणित है. यह कोई तत्काल भड़कने वाली घटना नहीं है. इसका गर्भाधान काल होता है। हमेशा खुजली करने वाली खाकी निक्करों ने प्लेग की तरह चर्चों का तिरस्कार किया है। वे उस हिस्से में नफरत के बीज बो रहे हैं और अब यह फूट कर सामने आ गया है। क्या यही वह विश्व गुरु है जो वे भारत को बनाना चाहते हैं?

Something about doves

 

In order to survive, a dove’s hatchling needs the best of luck from all angles possible. It seems a fickle, vacillating and indecisive parenting. They need their guardian angels to be at maximum alert to thwart the renegadely lurking agents of death. The nest is so fragile and small, almost hitting high notes of imperishment as the bizarre, complicated sub-plots of life and death unfold around. It’s an almost see-through, flat assemblage of thin twigs placed at almost a public place, among easily reachable branches at a hand’s reach. Its mere sight giving a pickling and grilling push to the taste buds of many a predatory bird. The souls of cats getting into stir-frying and deep-frying mode at the culinary prospects.

You need to make a substantive leap of faith to collect any rhyme or reason on the question of how do they even survive as a species. The nest bears such a frustrating anatomy that even by a gentle breeze the egg or the hatchling may plop down by itself to the delight of brooding dark shadows of mortality. So among the boiling and steaming culinary scenarios, if a creamy-white egg survives and a hatchling comes out, even this can be taken as a successful nesting. As the burgeoning, cascading clamor of life moves on, the majority of the hatchlings survive for a few days at the most. It’s a miracle that the doves still survive as a species. It seems impossible without prompt, belligerent defense by mother existence itself. Maybe mother nature sets up a miraculous scheme of chance factors to keep some odd baby bird alive.

The cats are in love, following freaky mirages most of the time, so their absence in the garden means that one egg out of three survived. The other two were taken by the guest treepie after the expletive-rich fight that went for three days, rewarding it with two eggs. The rufous brown and pale chestnut bird kept threatening and blustering for three days to chuck out two out of three eggs.

The honey buzzard seems to be away on its poaching foray. It hasn’t been seen for a few weeks even though there is a bigger honeycomb near the dove hatchling.

The treepie then returned with a whippy and aggressive attitude to have a heavy lunch on the hatchling also. The doves, with their tentative gazelle looks, fought tooth and nail to foil its efforts. But a crow, spurred by a thieving itch, unapologetically swooped down to clutch the prize with an eerie precision to give the little one its first and the last flight. Now, the laughing dove is crying through its chuckling notes. To the uninformed audience she must be sounding laughing. But I know her situation and feel her pain oozing through her ripply, cuddling laughing chuckles.

Isn’t it that most of our instinctive reactions and the consequent emotions of anger, hate, jealousy, fear and prejudices are born of our ignorance of the reality surrounding that individual? It’s so easy to get judgmental of someone without being aware of the complete picture. Like taking the cries of a distraught dove as joyful chuckles! So it helps to know a bit more about people and their situations beyond a point that merely appears on the surface.

And schooling starts

 

One year of preparatory schooling put enough burden on three-year-old Nevaan. The classrooms look almost like poor ghettos to mere two-year olds made to sit, already under the disciplinarian stick. Then the pandemic-facilitated lockdown was a big respite for these tiny students. KG 1 and KG 2 went through online mode without claiming too much from the rich bounty of childhood. The online classes were a big fun initially. Not going to the school is a big bonus to any child. It’s really joyful. But then the idea of joy is already relative. Now the one-hour online class has started to sound tedious. And off day from this session comes as joy presently. So the other day when he was expecting a full holiday, the message popped up that there will be a thirty-minute fun activity class today. ‘Oh no, even today we have school!’ he gets irritated.

In company with birds and animals

 

A basket is toppled. With typical simian assiduity, a mama monkey meddles with peace in the courtyard. The tiny imp on her back holds a raw banana as she expertly escapes. I can just bang a hollow bamboo on the parapet wall. She beautifully glides in air as she jumps to the other roof across the twelve-foot wide street. The baby safely perched on her back and holding the green banana as the trophy of their effort gives me a taunting, smirking look, as if to say, ‘You are no match for my mama!’

Even the doves, despite the foreordained tragedy about to take place in the scraggy, sparse nest, sometimes go against their nature and turn a fighter. A docile dove is a beautiful sight but to have these lovely cooing moments they need to fight with talons sometimes. It enkindles some faint hope for the hatchling in the nest—it’s a miracle that at least one egg was spared and there is a funny, hairless plump chick, forcing me to count it as a success even if it dies the same day. But there is every chance that you will be disappointed if you nurture hopes about the doves successfully raising a brood. I haven’t seen a single successful case in dozens of episodes witnessed over the decades.

The conspicuous calls of the long-tailed rufous treepie carry reminiscences from the hills. Sometimes they seem throwing a weighty pun at the local birds. It’s a migrant couple with cinnamon body, black head and bluish grey long graduated tail. These treepies are known to keep a covetous eye for the eggs and hatchlings of smaller birds. So the little ball of meat in the dove’s fragile, clearly visible nest has caught the treepie’s attention. The predator makes frequent forays to taste it. The doves don’t stand a chance against an eagle. But they think they can give it a fight against the treeepie. The moment the treepie lands on the curry-leaf tree, the doves turn soldierly and chase it away. The intruder takes off with a loud and shrill ko-ko-ko-ko. It kept coming for three days but the doves defended well.

As I have emphasized it many times, a dove hatchling needs to be very lucky to survive. The resident cats have smelt feline girls outside the fence. It meant at least the eggs survived. It seems the honey buzzer has found honey somewhere else, so it hasn’t turned up for the last few days. And now the challenger to its survival happens to be a treepie against which the docile doves can feign bravery for some time. Accepted that we need luck to survive but effort is luck’s operational part.