Highway Murder

Do you think only you have the right to tell you story? No man, no! Even we trees have the right to tell the tale of our life, especially when the main protagonist is man, the master of nature presently. So listen you all, humans as well as nature. The two are different now by the way. Listen!

Well, I am a great eucalypts tree standing by a road. They are killing me. The iron is hissing and kissing the rings of age in my stout trunk. I stand benumbed and in daze. But I have to speak out before I fall. Possibly you listeners will spot the crime and just—at least—have some of the pain I feel while I am being slaughtered.

Well, I feel really bad about it. I never thought the end will arrive so soon, without any notice. There is no storm threatening to uproot me. It’s a very fine day, and all the more suitable to the humans to carry out their act of greed. My killing but is unjustified because I have been fulfilling all my duties assigned by mother nature to me.

The way I have gone overboard in carrying out my task, I think I should have been lucky enough to see the majesty of upcoming wintery full moon. The moon-rays are very naughty I tell you. You may be lost in brighter self-created neon lights, but nothing can beat the beauty of full moon rays on a winter night. I pine for one more such night! Alas it seems impossible! I have to take solace by remembering the past only. 

See, you may not realise it but your tools of cutting, your axes, saws, scythes and blades are very painful. I have to impose anaesthesia on myself for I cannot even cry like you guys. Still I can feel the saw’s butchering the bloodless flesh in my guts. But poor me, I don’t even have the blood to put forth the evidence of a murder. Even though my flesh is as good as yours, but mine doesn’t bleed so even the sanguine interior as they saw through it, appears simple painless stone to them. But I feel the pain, I swear. Just want to tell. Please don’t take my cutting as simple as breaking a stone.

It’s a hazily sun-lit winter noon. It appeared such a balmy day. Looking at the people moving onto their destination. But then they suddenly arrived like hounds. I was even surprised why so many of them arrived and started prodding me, slapping me out of my languorous spell. I don’t even know whether to throw my almost harmless, inaudible curse at these fellows or the state itself that has authorised my murder to broaden this already fat road.

Let me be clear on this. It’s a murder. You may prefer to call it just cutting wood. But there is a life inside. Never forget this. Don’t I grow like you guys do? Don’t I do my duty of purifying air and providing shade and provide dead and even live wood, like you people claim your utility?

For many decades I have been standing as a serving helper to both man and nature. During older times, this metalled road, this carrier of huge traffic and so called your ‘progress’, was simply a dirt road. It was my friend taking your forefathers to their common destinations. Nobody was in damn hurry like you people these days. I stood here as a milestone reached by a tired pair of legs, by a rickety bull-cart, who halted under me, savouring the shade I provided. I felt so proud of myself.

This very path has turned a foe now. It’s a highway after all. The merciless, fast-paced carrier of growth. It has turned a parasite now. It needs more space. Damn it, they don’t need shade and pure air now. These can be easily managed in the metal boxes that hurtle day and night on it. So I’m redundant and old. I have turned a blocker of progress with my few square-feet of foot-hold.

Man, again I try to shout and remind you that if a healthy mass like me is no life, then yours is also not so important. By cutting us you are cutting yourselves, for you are nothing but merely an extension of our world. A mere reflection of the nature around you. We gone, even you will be gone. Haa fools, now I can afford to call you as such during these final moments, for you cannot even see the precipice you are heading into.

Man, now it is hurting quite a lot. But I have resolved to keep telling my murder story till the axes, scythes and saws send my tiniest of branches to be turned to ashes in some poor household’s fire-place.

We trees never wince with pain as your axes spray chips of our flesh. Just because our flesh is different coloured doesn’t mean we don’t feel the pain. We do, man!

We had equal rights till mankind was just a part of nature, not the master of it. Now this saw going deeper and deeper into my bloodless guts reminds me of our inevitable fate. Every tree on earth now has a deadly date with the greedy most, treacherous and unforgiving mate.

Haa the cowards! Forever playing so safe! They know that I’m huge. Poor things are afraid of my fall. Little do they realise that a tree’s pride is in standing tall and upright. And we do it till the last ounce of our strength. I am not going to give in that easily. They have to earn my dead body. It cannot be a cakewalk. Let them have blisters on their hands. It will serve as a proof to my murder.

Little do they realise my commitment to my duty, my oath to mother nature. Even in the face of death, I cannot stop playing my part in nature. As they are robbing me of my few square feet of space on earth, my saplings are still giving them life, still doling out oxygen under this winter sun. I am helpless and bound to my sworn duty. I cannot be vindictive and stop fuelling life into the lungs even if they happen to be my murderers. Even my murder cannot change me, helpless as I am due to my nature.

Now the saw has gone pretty deep. I am getting the signs of that eternal sleep. There is also an unbearable pain in the so called painless mass. Death is death after all. Hope you understand.

Like hangman’s noose, thick hemp ropes are tied to direct my fall. From a safe distance tractors are pulling to bring down this wooden bull. They are worried, but are assured of victory. There are too many of them, with steely human determination to win, to stifle any chance of failure. No, I don’t see any chance of a miracle. It’s as hopeless as it can be.

Now I feel it. The death blow. The pinnacle of their jeering selves. A  cleavage breaks through the portion still holding me to my mother earth. From softest saplings to rock hard tissues my whole self is panicked. But still I have to tell the tale of my murder before I finally fall. My saplings are crying like innocent children. The hardest of trunk tissues are shamelessly crying like the battle hard, handsome soldiers on their knees after losing the war. Death is after all death. Who wants to cease to exist?

Who cares? Nobody. This big snapping sound is my death cry. And here I fall with a thud. Yes man, you win. I am dead before I thought I will. 

The murderer and the robber are just an arm-length away

Feeling lucky not to have come across a real-life murderer with blood-ridden hands and a dagger in hand? Feeling at ease not to have faced a robber, with muscular barrel chest, eye-patch and devilish beard running away with yours and others’ money? Well think again for you might be grossly mistaken. There are murderers and robbers on the prowl around. And in far more numbers than you can ever think even in your wildest of horrifying imagination.

It can be your sheepish looking, harmless milkman, holding the potent weapon of slow death over the years. Yes the milkman with his passable crime, with little doses over months and years. In India the fight for self-survival is so rampant that poor milkman won’t flinch an eye before mixing urea and adhesives like Fevicol to make adulterated milk. It breeds death, slowly over months and years, with no sign of a murder committed. For the milkman all that matters is a successful day with all the pots empty sold out. What happens later is none of his concerns.

It can be the sweet-tongued sweet-maker pampering your sweet-tooth with an affable smile and still honeyed words. Yes the sweet-maker with his shortcuts to profits with fake milk derivatives and cancerous chemicals and colors. And there are many, as many as you count the sweet shops, except for the few moralistic ones. India is crammed to the guts, and the mere struggle to survive, at any cost and through whatever means, justifies the end and more bucks in the wallet.

It can be the poor-looking harmless fruit vendor. You even end up having sympathy for him. Little do you realize that the fruits you presume to add to your life are in fact cutting into your days. Artificial, cancerous-chemical-catalyzed ripening, waxing on the surface to make stale fruits look fresh and scores of other devil-devised machinations to get some more bucks at the cost of disease and destruction in others’ livers.

These are the murders on the safer side of law. Nobody dies instantly. Death comes slowly. It’s a causeless disease. Nobody can be blamed. They vend out poison slowly, in mild doses. They add a day to their survival at the cost of minutes from the lives of those whom they serve.

There are robbers around as well, in clean shirts and socially respected avatars. Law cannot touch them because they don’t rob out rightly like the condemnable criminals barging into a bank and running away with the whole vault of money and gold. They do it in slow sips over years, as invisible cogs in the corrupt machinery. In both governmental and private institutions and departments these legalized robbers sit on their desks with an affable smile and clean slate. It’s facilitation money. The extra money has to land invisibly into their pockets to move the process stuck at their check-post.  

Then there are countless petty criminals and transgressors, stomping their way to their destination at any cost. It’s an ant-swarm. Law never looks more impotent than in the face of such brazen frequency, everywhere, every moment. Spitting, urinating, defecating, shouting, molesting, eve-teasing, raping and countless other forms of violence from the mildest to the heinous most. It makes it seem as if the rulebook is just a draw of lots for all the criminals around. Only a few are unlucky to get their name taken out as legal offenders. The rest clap for their luck for being left out.  

So there are mass murderers and robbers all around. And law cannot sneak into each and every soul to arise either fear or conscience to think of injustice done to others’ in the struggle to survive. Poverty and greed make a person too thick-skinned to be sensitive to the world beyond the self. The only option is to hope for a generational shift when more people will be aware of the issues beyond the limited self.

Unfortunately with the Indian population ever-exploding, and more people fighting for diminishing resources, it seems a dream to visualize a society where the milkman, the fruit-vendor, the sweet-maker, the government officials will become humane enough to be self-responsible and follow the laws even if there is no apparent risk of getting caught.

Law-abiding instincts get honed over a period of time.  It’s like stopping at a red light on a totally empty road, in the depths of night, with absolutely nobody around, and no fear of punishment, but you still put up breaks, and smile. It gives a strange peace to be self-responsible for such tiny transgressions. Just looking forward to a day when majority of the Indians will come out of the pit of self-obsessed survival and be self-responsible not just for their own survival but for others’ convenience as well. 

No flesh, blood and bones after 200 years

Nature is not with anybody. Neither is it against anyone. It is for us to decide whether we are with it or against it. The onus is on us! Since we are a part of it, it suits our purpose if we go with it. Going against nature means going against ourselves. But that is what we are doing presently.

With its impartiality, nature ensured a competition among species for survival. Look at the fantastic evolution of organism and species. But then with the food-chains reaching a dead end with mankind being the master, the nature itself—the cause—will become the casualty.

Humans evolved as inseparable part of nature, just like any other animal species, using their best skills to survive. Humans used brain to master nature. Still mankind (biologically) and its institutions stand on nature’s back. Now we are crossing all limits. Possibly the inevitable juggernaut of progresss. The more forests we cut, the more species we force into extinction, the more pollutants we release into the air and the seas, the more we are eating into nature’s guts. It’s like killing the hen that lays golden eggs.

Our present biological standing is a sum total of the nature around us. We are a reflection and sum total of the state of the overall natural health. With more natural ecosystems being decimated to get into a more mechanized world, it will be a folly to think that we will be able to survive at the present biological level of human physiology.

In a world with ghastly depleting natural resources, and cement, steel and machines ruling the roost, how will the present human biology—the outcome of the natural phenomena and food-chains—survive? It just will not. So the cut into nature’s guts will require adaptations in human biology and physiology as well. Simple fact is, the present human physiology will be totally redundant in a world where there will be hardly any forests, most of the species extinct, air polluted and weather totally changed. To survive under the new challenge, the mankind will bring out mechanization in the physiology itself. Genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, artificial organs will see a world in which mankind will be a semi-machine managing full machines.

And with the final traces of nature gone, with the environment modified mechanically to survive, mankind will finally become a full machine. It might be just 200 years away when the last sinews of human blood, ligaments, flesh and skin will be replaced by artificial devices. The cycle of evolution! The super species! The machines all around. And then the inevitable destruction. 

All that woman is

It’s 819 AD. Indian mystics have laid the foundation of systematization of thought about the unknown. With open arms Vedas welcome the infinite manifestations of universal goodwill. These are the outpours of awe, wonder, obedience, surrender and love for the unknown.

Human mind is fertile with imagination. One more step has been taken. Vedanta literature has shown man the next step in Indian philosophical thought. It’s no longer about feelings of awe. Now it’s not just plain surrender to the gaping unknowns. There is an effort to interpret the forces of nature. There is cultivation of thought and logic. There is an effort to understand the process of humans grasping the reality.

Brahma Sutras of Sage Badarayana Vyasa have set up a platform for human thought and logic to take the next stride. Human mind looks within to understand the ways and means of interpreting the messages sent by our sense organs.     

Philosopher and theologian Adi Shankara is taking human mind further by integrating main thoughts in Hinduism. He has a huge collection of commentaries on Vedic texts. He has thrown more light on Upanishads. He is slaying the rituals and founding the concepts of Advaita Vedanta, unity of the soul and attributelesss supreme identity. Ritualism has eaten the vitality of Indian thought and philosophy. He is travelling across India to revive the spirit of Hinduism. For self realization. To be a master of one's own destiny, not be a helpless beggar before deities. Wherever he goes he challenges those who oppose his thinking. Clubs down their logic to overpower them with his logical interpretations of our thought processes and natural phenomena around. It's a blizzard of logic sweeping the length and breadth of India. And here he comes to Mithila state in northern Gangetic plains near the frontier between modern day India and Nepal.     

The great scholar has reached Tharhi village. It’s autumn. There is mystique restfulness spread around. A perfectly pensive evening is building up. The great thatched hall in the hermitage premises is softly abuzz with scholarly excitement. Shankaracharya has arrived only a couple of hours ago and is ready to take logical potshots at rival theologians.

His shaven head and calm eyes don’t give any sign of the long, arduous travel. But he has much ground to cover. They start immediately. Adi is on a spiritual rollercoaster and easily prevails upon daunting bearded rishis. A young student, having holy thread criss-crossing his torso and wearing white cotton dhoti is lost in the great philosopher’s persuasive logic. He has a question.

“The words of your logic fail to take me to the exact picture of reality. Does it mean there is no specific plane of reality? And we just reach a level, given our understanding of the words involved in the sentences, that we infer. Is it like a person with good eyesight can watch distant objects in comparison to somebody with a bad one?”

Adi smiles at the question. His calm eyes bore straight into the young student’s handsome face. The penetrating focus in those eyes is very attractive.

“Study hard for each word in books of theology. Work for the meaning of each and every word. Focus your senses to grasp the maximum a word has to offer. You will see the farthest one can see!” it appears like a blessing.

There is something extraordinary about this boy. Next morning, before setting out again on his mission, Shankaracharya calls the boy. He again looks into the deep, reflective pools of his eyes. The philosopher smiles. There is the stability of an undisturbed ocean in the young student’s eyes.

“He can take very deep dives to take out the gems of reality from the mysterious depths,” the sage softly told himself.

Adi hands him a palm leaf compilation of Brahma Sutra of Badarayana. The text is a famous systematization of the philosophical ideas of Upanishads. Brahma Sutras explore the nature of human existence and absolute reality and the importance and need of attaining spiritually liberating knowledge. 

It is a blessing. Just the ownership of the text containing the apex of Indian philosophical though is a matter of pride. He walks back to his house holding the cloth bag containing the precious text. He has been exceptionally hungry for the knowledge and words of holy Sanskrit texts. He has mastered Vedas, Upvedas and Upanishads. Now he possesses the cream of all that knowledge, the gist. He wants to go further, to see further, break the frontier of all human thought reached thus far. He is holding the text even more dearly than his life.           

“Vachaspati Vachaspati come out. O God what has possessed this boy. That book has a magic spell. I have to call babaji to break it!” Vatsala is anxious.

Her neighbors are standing near her. They face the hut he has locked himself in. She is a widow and he the only son. They have sympathy for her.

“He hasn’t come out for the last two days. These books can turn a young man mad,” she is sobbing.

More sympathy for the widow struggling to raise her son, who is all concerned about Vedic knowledge and now this book.

They raise a chorus. There is a pandemonium. He is drawn out of his eerie. He hasn’t opened the book even once. It is precious. It has priceless meaning to each and every word written in it. He has been looking at it and taken away into a trance. He can hear his mother’s lamentation outside and words of sympathy floating around. He opens the grass and reed thatch door of the hut and steps out. The sun is too bright. He squints and looks deep into the blue sky. They hold him with empathy taking him to be sick.

The proximity of the precious manuscript carries the effect of thunderbolt. He is in a delirium. The young man has fever. He mumbles strange meaningless words about the ultimate reality. His mother gets scared and even thinks of throwing the book away. But then stops from doing this, herself being scared of the powers in the book.

Vachaspati regains his footing from the jolt after a week. He carefully starts touching the book, afraid like touching fire, familiarizes himself with the smell and feel of the palm leaves and the Sanskrit words. He is as cautious as if he is walking on a rope and fire is burning below. And he has miles to go along the rope to reach the destination. And Brahma Sutras are the bamboo, supporting him, balancing him, preventing his fall into the fire.

The world than ceases to exist for him. It is just the Brahma Sutras, the beginning. And the end? He wants his awakened self to be that end. Aham Brahmasmi. I am the all potent supreme entity. But he has to prove it to himself. He has to break that delusional veil that filters the supreme knowledge from barging fully into the compartment of our being leaving us angry, ignorant and frustrated. He has to understand why and how we see the perceived reality. Can the reality be changed for the better? Is it fixed? Is it pliable, to be molded into better shape by our heightened awareness? Endless questions.

He has now cut himself off from the society. A secluded grove is the safe house with the precious book. It has been eight years since the book landed in his hands. And there has been just one routine, reaching the grove in the morning with a time’s meal and water. He goes back to his hut late at night. Slowly opens his hut’s door, finds the rice and cooked lentils on his bed. Eats and goes to sleep. His mother’s tears have dried up. She has accepted her fate.

He has forgotten the number of times he has read the book. Each time he reads, it has a new meaning. He rises higher with each jump into the air to see beyond the fence. He just cannot overcome this feeling that there is limitless joy to be harnessed through learning.

His mother is not keeping well these days. She struggles to catch her breath while she struggles hard to earn two meals a day for herself and her son. She is worried what would happen to him after she is gone. Marriage as an institution is supposed to guarantee hope and care in future. She has been thinking of getting him married. But who would give his daughter to somebody who doesn’t seem to act and behave like a common householder? The world is but full of people bound by conditions that would force them to settle for the minimum. Like while most of the parents try to ensure a life-long security for their daughter, looking at the groom’s prospects from multiple angles, there are still some who are placed so tightly that just getting their daughter married somehow to anybody gives them the satisfaction of fulfilling a duty. There is one such family in a neighboring village. The father consents to Vachaspati’s mother’s proposal.

“It is our good luck to get our daughter married to such an avid scholar!” he even smiles.

Vachaspati is so lost in the questions raised by reads and rereading of the Brahma Sutra that he hardly knows what goes on in the world around him. He is so full of ever-persistent questions about the finality, the ultimate reality that there is hardly any scope for the sense organs to do their work and break his spell.

He is in a reverie, like he is most of the time, when his mother informs him about his marriage. He doesn’t seem to react in any way. His nonchalance is taken as his consent and the marriage is fixed. He is married to Bhamati on Guru Prnima (Vyasa Purnima) in the month of Asadha. It is an auspicious conjugal day when many others start their marital innings. For him but it is the night to start on his real quest.         

His hut is decorated for the bridal night. A full moon has lit up the stage outside. Shyly his bride is ushered in with a big tumbler of hot milk in her hand. She raises her eyes to sneak a look at him. In the light of the oil lamp a new world opens.

Vachaspati is sitting erect on a reed mattress on the floor. A sheaf of clean palm leaves by his side. On the small wooden writing desk a palm leaf waiting for the first word. His hand is on the feather quill still in the brass ink pot. Time seems to have been suspended. The lamp is burning almost steadily. It’s a frozen moment, like it will remain for the next 12 years.

She moves slowly and sits on the edge of the bridal bed. There are flowers on the clean white sheet. The sheet will remain as such. Time has stopped. It’s not before the dawn that he opens his eyes slowly. His hand frozen on the writing quill moves and the first Sanskrit word of his historical commentary on Brahma Sutra is written. There is a force. She can feel it. She knows she has no choice apart from being a part in this creative stillness.

And the days pass, as easily as the weeks, which pass like months, who in turn pass with the ease of years.

He is in a cocoon. He is breaking the walls of disillusions to see the light of logic to take Indian metaphysical thought to a new level after the Brahma Sutras. Brahma Sutras have given him the tools to dig the mammoth mountain of mysteries. He is busy with his spadework.

Bhamati knows the duties of a wife to her husband. She lives her duties. She has to keep his cocoon safe for him to continue working. She is the silent nurturer of his cocoon. She is invisible. But manages everything. It’s her duty.

She moves so slowly as if afraid to shift even the air particles as she cleans the floor, puts food plate in front of him, takes it away, fills the ink pot, gets fresh pair of writing quills, safely stashes the worked upon sheaves of palm leaves, arranges new palm leaves, lights the lamp as it starts getting dark, pours oil in the lamp through the night, takes his dhoti to wash and puts afresh one nearby. In between she lovingly looks at his picture, for he is just a picture, unchanging except the quill moving on the paper.

The picture is broken only twice or thrice a day when he gets up for bathing and toilet. But this also is merely an extension of the picture.

Initially during the long drawn out spells of night she would feel cravings for his touch as she watched him from the corner of the hut where she sleeps on the ground on a simple grass mattress. Then she felt guilty even in that lest she should be polluting the air with desire. Now just looking at his pensive, absorbed face gives her all the gratification she needs as a woman from her man.

She is a mother now. There is a child in her womb. She has to nurture it at the cost of the major portion of her own life, her own share in this world. Her pregnancy has lasted years and she is the same smiling, uncomplaining mother, keeping her hands safely around her bulging tummy as the world moves on.  

Well that’s basically a woman is, a mother. A man is just the instrument of her reaching her status of being a mother. To be a mother she has to cut a major portion of her own self to help life thrive in a new unit, in a new human being.

It has been twelve years since their marriage and twelve years of his working on his commentary on Brahma Sutras. It is a stormy night. Squalls of rain beat on the thatched hut. Wind beats down hard. There is no risk to this hut at least. She has been working on making it sturdier and stronger over the years during her spare time. This is exactly this type of weather she has had in mind while working on it.

His face bears a strange expression. Like you have been running for a long time, and then you see the destination, you want to run harder but the body is keeping you within limits. During the latter half of the night the storm started to abate. His face also eased up. Even a smile at the corner of his lips. It makes her world, that smile. He seems to be walking slowly now, with destination just nearby. And then he stops.

It’s a bright dawn. The storm has spent its fury. Calmness, as it’s supposed to, has spread its aura. He has written the concluding word. A journey has been accomplished. He stands up and stretches his arms. It’s like a stone statue coming to life. He looks around and sees the world as it is after so many years. There is a woman in the hut. Her uncared and untended beauty shines like moon’s corner over the edge of a dark speck of cloud. 

The mother, the donator, the giver. Her pregnancy has lasted all storms. The delivery has been painful. She is shy again. She melts under his gaze. He is curious.

“Who are you and what are you doing in my hut?” he asks politely, words coming with huge effort after so long a spell of silence.

“I’m your wife. We were married 12 years back,” she tries to remind him very softly.

He was on another plane of reality so doesn’t remember anything. He looks at her hands and realization strikes him. He remembers these. Even in that astral plane these hands have been the root of his support. These hands that bathed him, fed him, kept everything away that would break his mystical spell. He has been feeling that the task at hand has been as much of these hands as he himself. This pair of hands had melted into his veritable being. His quest had been with four hands. He always had this feeling, but had taken it as some divine support.

But can there be a bigger divinity than a mother’s efforts?

“You have been serving me for 12 years and never told me!” he has tears in his eyes.

She just smiles and has tears. Unable to speak she just looks at him.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I had taken a vow that I will renounce this world after completing this work!” tears are streaming down his bearded face.

“I always knew the importance of your cause. So just served you. It is my wifely duty,” she speaks very sweetly, as if it was never about her, like her life did not and doesn’t matter.

“But this is injustice to you. All this service and pain. With my vow I have to leave for the Himalayas for penance. What becomes of your efforts? Where is the fruit of all that you did,” he is agonized.

There is a flood of tears. A sage who has busted the secrets of reality to make human thought further capable of deciphering more about the ultimate is crying.

She comes closer and again assuages his pain, frees him from guilt.

Wiping his tears she says with a calm smile, “Your tears, your acceptance, your realization, this work, all these are my rewards. Like I didn’t stop you earlier, even in your vow of penance I will not be a hindrance. It will give me happiness if I still help you in seeking further truth as a recluse by allowing you to go. By freeing you of any duty that you might think as a husband may prevent you. Please go guilt-free.”  

He hasn’t yet given a title to his commentary. Wiping his tears he moves towards the collection, picks out a fresh palm leaf and writes Bhamati on it. The title. And puts it on top of the work.

“You are the love and guiding spirit behind all this. This world may forget me but not you,” he prepares to leave.

Bhamati.

She watches him go to the hills. Bhamati, the masterwork, is there for the world to dive into to fetch out more gems of metaphysical thoughts.

A man might take rounds of earth to search his destiny, a woman realizes hers just by being there with her love and care.

A man might break mountains with the raw power of hammer, a woman is the air that fills his lungs to fuel his determination.

A man might aim to crack the ultimate secret, a woman normally does it just by being a mother, by allowing a life to thrive parasitically inside her, at her cost, gobbling her share of food, blood and flesh.

And no thought can be beyond love. And nobody more suitable than manifesting love than a woman.

Be the frog king in a shit hole; it's better than being a slave in heaven

Apart from all the shit happening around, life is supposed to be a big, fat, interesting book. Let it be an exciting story, not because others applaud it, but basically because you own it, write it and enjoy it. Don't die every moment to see appreciation in the eyes of those around. If that is the expectation, then forget it. It won't happen. People around you will give you more reasons to be sad rather be happy. Others will prefer to see your sad face instead of ever-grinning, full of joy joker. Not because they are sadistic. But because it helps them in somehow digesting their own miseries. So at least don't hold any expectation on that front. The appreciation has to come basically from within you. So let it be a very fat book of your follies and little, little triumphs. Let there be unending trails of anecdotes that make you the champion of your small world. Forget about being a world champion. This world is as small as you in comparison to the cosmos. Both are puny. Laugh at it, if it laughs at you. This world has limitations, but not you. There are no limitations on you to extend the world within, inside your smallness of routine life, tiny errands, short walks, little losses, tiny gains and stable-unstable relations. Live more. Like a frog that just jumped into the murky, muddy, green-mossed puddle of water. This little puddle itself won't be there after a week. Summers are unsparing. It's boiling. But does it stop the frog king from walloping and taking fantastic breaststrokes in the filthy water? Does it stop the love-lorn fella from croaking dandily and woo the lady of its dream? It doesn't because it's just living in a lifeful 'consciousness', not 'self-consciousness' like we humans who impose 'self' on natural 'consciousness' so heavily to make life a burden. 'Ego' is the feeling of 'I am'. 'I' overshadows 'am' the state of 'just being', of 'consciousness', of living fully, of gliding in the present without the burden of past and worries of future. Nurture 'am'. Water it. It will prosper. Consciousness will spread healthily, and you nurture consciousness, dis-burden enjoyment of life from the heavyweight of 'I' and woo your mistress, the life, even in the dirtiest waters like the king of the puddle, the frog. Just 'be'. Write more chapters in the book of your life. Not as 'I' but by 'being' there. More the chapters, the better it is! Don't bother if these are just scribbled with amateur verve. It's your creation, and as parent of this one you will hardly be judgmental about it. If a particular chapter goes stale, wind it up and save your book from getting boring. Start a new chapter. We are the writers of the book of life. Keep it interesting! 

Be there in the orbit, greatness awaits you

The best chance to survive, move and be happy. Choose your orbit and glide with perfect harmony. The objects which fall out of the orbit, presuming it to be a leap for freedom, go burning and crash-landing into smithereens. The destination is not into the depths of cosmos for you to get into hot pursuit like a burning meteorite. It’s always nearby, at some place in the same gentle periphery of your common journey. No journey is common by the way. Extraordinary is just maintaining your hold on the ordinary. Love the gentle loops of your circular journey around the axis of your being: the axis of your small, small commitments and responsibilities. That is the mother planet for your individual self to revolve around in circles. It defines you. It keeps you in the orbit. It helps you in your happy journey. It stops you from escaping into the black guts of the cosmos like a rootless rock going burning and turning to ashes. So choose your little orbit. Staying in the orbit does not mean being tied to a chain. It’s a grasp for lasting freedom. It is the life-force, this gravity that keeps you bound to your orbit. Your destination lies in the orbit itself. The day you get it, it becomes the loftiest orbit and the journey worth it. Things as small as bunking office to be with the kids, surrendering your right to the TV to allow kids to enjoy their cartoon show, letting the little one to play on your abdomen and suppress the discomfort to give a winsome smile and even laughter, laughing when the little one pees on you, going to office daily over years to see that small world back home in the evening, saving money over years to give the surprise gift of a car to your children, and many more. These are the forces that keep you in your orbit. Love your orbit. Glide effortlessly. You will cover astronomical distances on the same familiar path. Love these common repetitions that go unnoticed and unrewarded. Loving these is the reward in itself. Like your path. It’s strictly yours. Stamped with the unique greatness of your unseen efforts to stay in the orbit. Just to stay in the orbit means to be great. There are countless milestones that you reach. These are as shiny as the biggest stars. This universe started with a bang from a point. That was the explosion of potential for countless souls to carve out their orbits, to glide peacefully in their trajectory. Be there, smile, give a victorious cry for you are already a winner. 

Don't be a pollutant

All of us carry an aura around us. It comprises an electro-magnetic field born of the flow of life energy through and around our bodies. It exists at the interface of physio-psychological and superior selves. The quality of this aura is a function of our mental, physical and emotional states. Anger, regret, fear, jealousy, desperation, sorrow, rejection and hopelessness create a sort of negative energy and consequently a negative aura. It means we carry bad aura. It pollutes the surrounding environment like a heap of garbage. Now isn’t it our bounden duty to keep the environment clean by remaining positive, happy, smiling, poised, relaxed, sympathetic and compassionate? It's our duty brothers and sisters! It's as good for others health as it is for our own. All the steps to the cleaning of all types of pollutants start from the self. Stay happy. Stay clean. Just by doing this we do a social service.

Lip-kissed lies and soul-kissed love

It is springtime in ancient India. Snow is melting in the mountains. Flowers smile and let out perfume that is picked up by the cool air to be scattered in love loops. This town in the Gangetic plains is awash with fresh hopes. Butterflies dart around in the air full of love and procreation.

The air is blowing with a seductive message. A young, handsome monk is moving through the streets. His steps are slow and face has a faint smile. He has a begging bowl in his right hand. A cloth bag hangs from his left shoulder. The spring air is redolent with both giving and receiving. This saffron clad man but has just the goal of having one time meal.

He is passing in front of a luxurious small palace. It’s decorated for love and enjoyment. It seems like a place where one can just surrender the self to quench all thirst. He is but moving all unconcerned and detached from all worldly splendor. A pair of beautiful eyes looks at him from the ornate balcony. Her heart stops for a moment. If she is the ever restless river, he appears like the calmest sea having the immensity to swallow her thirst, her restlessness, her quest for destination, her final fulfillment. She realizes her hunger. It is plain desire. He is so handsome and so aloof from all worldly charms.

She has the world at her feet. The most beautiful woman of the state, she has the title of nagar vadhu. Her life stands for love, opulence and luxury. Wealthiest traders, strongest noblemen, most creative artists all kiss her feet to appease her and take a sip from the fountain of her beauty. Any man feels lucky if she holds her look on his face for more than a second.

The young monk with the begging bowl moves with ease. At ease with his being. All restfulness. It’s a calm, unperturbed lake. It doesn’t happen that she is still holding her look on a man’s face and the man’s eyes move on. Her charms are so spell-binding. She has been proud of this power. The feminine avatar of power. With a faint smile he just moves on. There is not the slightest change in his demeanor.

The hard shell of her ego cracks. It disturbs her. She even gets angry. She can see his back. He is now moving slowly in the street. The anger in her again turns to desire. Till now men desired her. This loveful spring morning has changed the tables. She desires this calm sea. She needs some rest. The spiteful torrents of her youth want to submerge into his silent depths. It just attracts her senses like anything. She feels helpless.

She sends her maid to call the monk. Her heart is pounding against her breast. She is gasping for breath and at loss of words. Her hold over masculinity is giving in. She feels like a helpless, fragile woman. And finds it such a moving feeling.

Her reverie is broken. The monk is standing in front of her door again.

“What do you want?” she asks, shyly, dropping her gaze around his feet.

Where is that domination of men, her servant thinks.

“Beautiful lady, I just want one time’s meal,” the monk tells her.

She laughs in a mocking way. “You should ask as per the status of the person. Even a farmer can give you that much,” she is feeling offended that he isn’t taking notice of her charms as if she is just like any other woman around.

The monk smiles. “Well young lady, this is all I need. It doesn’t change with people.”

“You can have me, my palace and my luxury if you stay with me,” she sounds desperate.

He is as cool as before, as if nothing has happened. “This world is my house. I take the minimum as charity to survive, just one time’s meal. I am looking out for the path to give more. I am searching for the path to a destination when each particle of my being will be ready to give selflessly.”

“I am also ready to give all I have including myself and my palace and wealth. Isn’t it the same?” she asks.

“But you want to give only with the ambition of getting something back for your ego. You want to receive a monk abandoning his path for your beauty. There cannot be a bigger ambition, a bigger tool to pacify the ego.”

The monk is unperturbed. She is shaking with rage over the denial.

“At least stay with me for a night!” she is helpless and appears almost pleading.

“Do you really need my help? I can see wealthiest to strongest are ready to help your needs,” he gives her a kind look.

“Please please…” she is imploring. “I really really need you. If you spend the night with me, I will forsake all men. Believe me!”

The young man gives a pitying smile. “I will come and stay when you really need me.”

She is tearful over the denial. The monk takes onto his path. She watches him till the far end of the street.

Life then moves on. Like it was before. She gets more wealth, more men falling at her feet. And the young monk moving slowly on his path of selfless realization.

It has been two decades since that spring morning in front of her palace. The same monk is walking towards the city, the same city. Years of penance has taken him miles down his path of selfless seeking. He is graying but looks wiser, calmer and even stronger. He can see the lights of the city. It’s just nearby.

He hears pitiable moans by the road. He stops and moves to the ditch by the path. A woman is crying in pain and agony. He sits by the bundle of misery. She is in terrible agony. Eaten by leprosy her open sores are oozing with stanching fluid. It’s as bad as it can be. So much of pain. He isn’t repulsed by the stench. He gets tears of sympathy. The calm surface of his being is jolted by emotions.

He lifts her in his hands and carries her to a nearby inn. They refuse to let him in with the foul-smelling patient. He decides to set up a hut outside the city to keep her. The rest of the night he spends under a tree. She lying by his side, moaning less now. Human touch is a remedy in itself.

The spring sun rises in all freshness. He has been sleeping for the last couple of hours. The woman is also asleep. He opens his eyes and looks at her face. The evil-work of the disease has failed to completely destroy the vestiges of her former self. He recognizes her. From there to here. What a chasm. What a trail of misery. More tears drip down his eyes. He meets the destination of his selfless giving. She was lying there in the dark night to test the validity of his selfless love. And he has passed.

She opens her eyes and is surprised to find somebody crying for her.

“You said you needed me and I said I will come when you will really need me. See I have come. And you are the destination of my penance. Of selfless giving. Of loving from the core of being. I was not sure of myself till I found you. Now I realize it has been worth it. All this search.”

So the monk took care of her. Helped her in easing all her miseries. Stayed with her when no other man didn’t even come near her.

She needed him now. And he was there at a stage in his monkhood when he was all there to give. Just give. Without taking or expecting anything in return. 

Ice cubes on desert sand

Summers. North India has started to burn. Heat has broken the record of past many decades. Temperatures above 40 in the last week of March. In the desert state of Rajasthan things must be even worse. Sand as the birth soil isn’t too attractive. It must be having its nostalgia, but on a day to day basis it appears a curse. Ask the ones who are born there. So many people come out of Rajasthan to avoid the burning cauldron during the summers.

Two lanky boys are moving across the streets of this Haryanvi village. Haryana is a semi-arid state. But for somebody belonging to the desert state, semi means almost full: full with life; full with bread; full with water; full with green trees.

They are tall and thin. They have migrated from the desert state. Necessity has pulled them out of the sand like water flows from higher level to the lower one. They have to beg. But begging has its own share of pitfalls including reprimands and harsh words.

“Why don’t you study? Why don’t you work?”

So they have put the saffron sail cloth on their poor boat. To sail safely. Holding onto the winds of faith. Their clothes are soiled. But the saffron sashes around their necks indeed cover a lot of holes in their personas. They expect to be taken as wandering ascetics. They have even mastered the artful words of bringing blessings to the house they stand in front of.

The woman chides them the moment they knock against the rusty iron gate. They but decide not to be deterred by the initial rebuke. Stealthily they steal glances at the two small cars parked in the front yard. These are old cars. But to them a car is a car. Hummer or Maruti 800 doesn’t make any difference.

So they continue with their blessing words of good fate, long life, endless prosperity, and more. It’s morning and yesterday it hailed and rained a bit to take temperatures a bit down. To them it seems like a land of perpetual rain and prosperity, although it rains marginally more than from their homeland. They have thorny trees there; here there are some semi-arid varieties like neem etc. And that changes the world for the best. It’s a shift from worst to best.  

They see the woman cannot cross certain limits to turn outright abusive and threatening. This is the chink. They have to prod their way in.         

“You have hard words but heart of gold. You can never think ill of others even if you sound rude,” the elder one nails it.

“What do you want? No money I tell you! I can only give you some flour,” her voice mellows down.

They let their foot further in. It’s an opening.

“There is no better doing than feeding the hungry. A direct holy deed. God sees it instantly,” they take their chance.

She seems to be awaiting God’s attention on some front, so agrees. They barge in. It’s a spacious house with peeling plaster and mundane furnishing like you see anywhere in a village in Haryana. To them it’s an abode of prosperity. They sit down on the unplastered brick-laid floor in the courtyard.

It’s too early for the family to have their lunch, brunch or whatever. So she makes chapattis for them. The vegetable curry is already done. They can see the chapattis are coming straight from the tava, not the stale leftovers from the previous night that people usually give them and thrown to the stray dogs. Every times she comes to put another chapatti they are ready with more words of blessings from the God.

The younger one asks for ice. They must be having refrigerator he has guessed right. It is available in every household here. Ice is luxury to him. He comes from burning sands. Pitchers burn like hot oven there. They drape sack clothes around these and pour drops of precious water to prevent it from boiling. He has already many ice cubes in his water utensil. He opens the lid and checks out to see how far these have melted. He is concerned. It’s melting. He wants replenishment.

“Please give me ice,” he is literally pleading.

She laughs at him. “It’s not that hot this morning. There is cool breeze,” she says.

But he looks at her with eyes that are crying for ice. She has to get it.

As she pours the cubes from the tray into his utensil, she can see the twinkle in his eyes.

Ice that is just ice to her, is precious to him. He has seen fire in life. Fire that seeps in everyday life. In desert. Ice has a bigger meaning to him than anyone else place better than him.

She notices it now. His clothes are also wet. Not dripping exactly, but he must have been completely drenched thirty forty minutes back.

“What happened? Did you fall in water?” she asks.

The elder one is laughing. “Water turns him crazy. Hardly any water back home. We take bath almost once a week. When he saw the pond outside the village he straightaway jumped into it,” he is laughing.

Water that is just water to her, is luxury to this boy. She tries to fathom the reason for his ecstasy over ice cubicles and pond waters where buffalos waddle, but fails to understand. Little does she realize that people run out to count drops of rain on the sand at his native place. So water is luxury to him.

Like most of us fail to understand that the things that seem dustbin cheap to us might be luxury to so many others. That a broken doll on the garbage heap, a shiny wrapper, a single wheeled broken toy are still items of luxury to many others. If we do, then we won’t begrudge about the problems in our life.

The art of emptying

Well before you take steps to fulfill your dreams, learn the art of emptying, of letting go, of letting out unwanted mossy dregs in the container of your destiny. Emptying isn’t defeatist. It’s not surrender. It’s a calculated step towards victory, towards fulfillment. It’s the preparation for gain, the beginning of filling up. Instead of running after the mirage of fulfillment, focus on emptying. Fulfillment is just a step away. Fullness starts at the moment of complete emptying. Wash, scrub, rinse and drain out the muck from the pot of your destiny. Wash away hate, anger, jealousy, ignorance, desires, phobias, complexities and overblown ambition. Drain these out. Let it be a perfectly clean and swanky pot of emptiness. The universe is expanding. It wants clean chambers to pour its energy into. It will sneak into the clean house in the form of your dreams and aspirations. The swabs clinging to the bottom are the repellents to fulfillment. Clean these. Work on emptying. Work on emptiness and you are in fact moving towards fullness. In a perfectly clean container there is no limitation on fulfillment, no hurdles to materialization of dreams, no restrictions on infinite cosmic harmony pouring its vastness into the container. A scribbled canvas has limitations of painting, a clean one has infinite possibilities of shapes and pictures. Scrub the slate clean before you start the journey. Even if it means a lifetime of emptying, it still will not be a loss. Even a second of fulfillment will be worth it. It will still be better than pouring the nectar of your efforts in an unclean pot, and just adding onto the stinking broth that never gives happiness and satisfaction. A clean empty house is a magnet. It pulls positive forces by itself. It's natural like gravitational force. It invites fullness. Complete emptiness invites fullness. Put your house in order. Set up your invitation to fullness on the door. Forget about the rest. Very soon you will hear the knock of fortune on your door. Like water flows to pits in earth, good luck naturally flows to clean, emptied, tidied containers. Come on, let your share flow in!  

The hypocrisy of portraying half-Muslims

Muslim women cannot wear burqa and men cannot support the typical beard that gives an Islamic man pride. Marriages cannot be held as per Islamic rules. Nikah is not allowed. Marriages are to be secular in nature. Polygamy is not allowed. No madrasa education in mosques. It has to be secular education. You are not allowed Ramzan fast. It’s Xinjiang province in China, the home of Uyghur Muslims.  

Well these are the basic roots a common Muslim identifies himself with his religion. Cut these and what is left? Does it mean the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang in China are half Muslims?

Pakistan, the self-appointed official voice of Islamic conscience, is comfortable with these measures. China is an ally. And Muslims there, despite all repressive regulations, are full Muslims. And China is the best prospect for Pakistan’s growth. One simple message: economic and geostrategic measures are far weightier than talks of religious rights. The latter, even if these are raked up, are just simple tools to score strategic battles having nothing to do with religion. Religion is just a tool of bigger battles and the instrument of spilling innocent blood.

Come to India. Triple talaq, an exploitative practice of female repression and which has been banned in many front-running Islamic states including Pakistan, still pervades in India. Mullas wear this right on their sleeve, brandishing it as an identity. Ramjanambhooomi, a place as holy to Hindus as Kaba and Mecca to Muslims, held in abeyance to pay service to the nation’s principled secular constitutionality. There is not even a single law in India that stops Muslims from following any of the ritual in theological rulebook. But to Pakistan still India is a Satan repressing minorities forcing its biggest minority into half-Muslimhood. And Pakistan gets diarrhea over this. China gives it the pill to cure it.  

Conclusion. Geostrategic animosities have bigger causes than merely religion in fuelling the fire. Religion is just one of the many dry woods that are hurled into the fire of hate-mongering.

Pakistan accuses India of repression in Kashmir. Every single Kasmiri Muslim can go to the end of earth in following his religious rituals. Indian state absolutely doesn’t exist in this domain. They even allow triple talaq, at the cost of thousands of lives destroyed and future of Muslim women put in dark, to keep the principles of secularism afloat. Indian security forces have absolutely no concern about the beard, Ramzan fasts, pilgrimages, polygamy, triple talaq, madras education, mosques and each and everything identified with Islam.

Still China with Xinjiang regulations is a friend, a benefactor of the champion of Islam. And India with its Himalaya high heaps of Islamic rules, customs and regulations with Maulvivs and Mullas sitting over them with their secular shield against any transgression, is a repressor.

It has nothing to do with religion and repression. It’s all about power and land. Religion is always a dry fodder, liable to catch fire. Throw the missiles of hate into it. It will burn. And it burns in Kashmir. At the cost of innocent lives

Is it a holy war there? No, it’s a dirty war of ambition and territorial aggression. It’s a simple power game. To substantiate their lip-service to the cause of Islam in Kashmir, Pakistan must openly criticize Xinjiang regulations against Muslims. Otherwise it exposes its hypocrisy in Kashmir. And with the hypocrisy exposed, it basically becomes a law and order problem in Kashmir. 

Inhale your portion of wellness

It’s a lush green forest around you. Birds are chirping. It’s early morning and a cool breeze is blowing. Nearby, gurgling waters of a brook add music to the stillness around. You feel better. It feels good. The external orderliness, peace and calm raise the bar of your better feeling. With the same set of your own individual, internal, self-specific problems, worries and concerns you feel better if the surrounds are better.

The desert sand is burning. It’s noon and forget about trees you cannot see even a blade of grass for miles. You feel horrible. You feel bad. Worse than your self-specific set of worries make you feel normally. You feel bad if the surroundings are not convenient.

We cannot inhale in isolation. If there is misery in air, it will enter your lungs. Use air-masks and air filters, do whatever. Life still will be stifling and genuine efforts just a struggle because we cannot help inhaling our share of the miseries. The solution lies in cutting down on pollutants. Not in wearing masks. But when it comes to our struggle to increase our happiness, the efforts are almost as useless as wearing masks when the air is polluted.  

Our own set of factors that make life either good or bad are not the sole deciding elements in making us happy or unhappy. If we are happy, then we are just sharing a fraction of the overall happiness surrounding us. Our lungs are safe just in proportion to the purity of air around. If the quality of air is good, only then the individual battles like quitting smoking, eating healthy and doing yoga to keep lungs safe will be meaningful.

If we are unhappy, that also is a fraction of the overall misery spread around. Individual is just a constituent of the whole. Happiness is drawn from the overall pool. How long the frogs will sing songs of self gratification in a vanishing pond? Its waters vaporizing. Its shoreline decreasing. Stanching green mossy puddle. What can be drawn out of it? Only death and misery, not life and happiness.   

A talented software engineer, with his tools of prosperity and happiness, is of no use at a place like Somalia. There is no surrounding prosperity to help him nurture his talent. There is no supportive economy and companies to help him contribute to the overall wellness and get a fraction of the happiness and feel good. A software engineer prospers in America because using his skills he can contribute to and earn back a fraction of the happiness spread around.         

The surroundings set the stage for either make or break.

“Love thy neighbor!” By loving others you are loving yourself. By caring for others, you are caring for yourself. By contributing to happiness, you are adding to your own happiness because your share of happiness and prosperity will be just a fraction of the overall happiness around. With your effort and skills, you draw a big portion if the social forest around you is healthy like the natural forest where each breath installs new vitality in you.

Long before you really start doing something to add to the overall wellness around you, start with a simple practice. You might be busy with scores of neck-breaking responsibilities, leaving you with very little time for real action on the goodness front. Start thinking good of others. Think good for your surroundings. Be happy over others’ victories. Smile over somebody’s stroke of luck. Feel bad for somebody’s loss. Say some sympathetic words as well. Over years, the goodness in womb will get healthy. It will deliver a healthy baby. And sooner or later you will definitely ‘do’ something to add to the overall goodness around you before you finish your journey.

You will then have a larger share from the pool of wellness. When the sun will be setting and you preparing to enter the night for rest, you will walk into the forest with well-meaning steps. It will be a far happier retirement than it would have been otherwise.

The hedge that is forever trimmed to maintain the power center

Political extremists (both left and right) and religious fundamentalists try to change the masses for the worse. Cut down the people to a fraction of their potential and you have nice governable puny-heads. They serve meow meow. For instant gratification. Hate, phobias, pseudo-greatness, anger and jealousy are very convenient tools to rob someone of sanity and get cast as a hallucinated pawn in the power game. Those who are power hungry—individuals, groups and institutions—try to disempower those to be under the influence of their power. It cannot be otherwise. The power pyramid has few strong at the apex and weak masses at the base. It can never be a square, having people of same realized potential from top to the bottom. Those ambitious for power can never think of empowering the masses. In that case the pyramid loses its standing. With pseudoism and populist rhetoric they rob the masses of the balance of their judgment. Hate does it. It tilts you off the balance. You fall prey to weakness. You become lesser of a human being. The power monger’s ambition draws on the peoples’ weakness of judgment. They try their best to keep the people to be nearsighted. To tame them in a sphere, with unrealized potential, from where the launch-pad of wisdom is too far. It draws votes for the power hungry, in a day to day life but it is paid in terms of racial attacks in America, brutal killings by Islamic extremists, attacks on Africans in India, and scores of incidences when people pick up hate and run after each other.

Flip the coin and be the best from the worst

Be the seat of my strength, not weakness.

Be the seat of kindness, not cruelty.

Be the source of light, not darkness.

Be the source of energy, not idleness.

Be the source of creativity, not limited vision.

Be the source of love, not hate.

Be the source of smiles, not tears.

Be the source of happiness, not suffering.

Be the seat of optimism, not pessimism.

Be the seat of gain, not loss.

Be the source of help, not obstruction.

Be the seat of leadership, not just sheepwalk.

Be the seat of a better human being.

Be the source of a more loving person.

O my mind, my seat of potential, take my journey further.

Please choose the better half of all the dualities for me.

Keep reminding your mind. Repeatedly. Daily. With eyes closed and fervent request. It’s a very nice, nutritious pre-breakfast food.

Choosing the better side of the pair of our actions and feelings is as easy as flipping a coin in our fingers from head to tail. It's a very short journey from the worst to the best. As short as the flip of a coin. A mere realization. Acceptance. And a pledge to remember. We are pre-conditioned for the negative end of dualities. The instinct can be broken. Just early morning practice is sufficient. It’s needs much as reminding the self. Repeatedly.

The folly of treating title more important than the story

There is a house well plastered, tiled and painted on the outside walls. Its well designed and vibrant exterior catches attention. Drawn by the catchy exterior you step inside. You expect an equal attraction inside. But a surprise awaits you. You come across soot, grime, dust, unplastered walls, cobwebs, cement and stonecrush staring at you. It’s a house that has been left unattended inside. Incomplete. You will feel running out. It’s a house that needs the workers rather more than the visitors. That’s how most of us die: just houses under construction. Throughout our lives we keep on painting the outer walls to satisfy our ego through expanding our visibility, hoping attention will give happiness and peace. Little do we realize that real comfort lies in the house completed from inside. So the interior remains incomplete, disordered. Can such a house give permanent peace? No. Outer walls are important. But only to the extent of defining our world, a psychological boundary to stamp our ownership of our chunk in this world. Only this much. And the importance of the outer walls is meaningless if the interior is unfinished. Outer paint is just the title of the orderliness inside. A summary of all the cozy arrangement inside. We, but, commit the folly of treating the title as the main story. Can a title replace the main text of the story? No. The title ought to be catchy. But the story is all that matters. 

Put down your dagger and pick up a stick

The ancient days of real bloody hand-to-hand battle are over. Then daggers were more suitable than sticks. They drew more blood. And made you more threatening. These are but more of social battle times. Instead of drawing the blood, it’s about catapulting ego, anger, jealousy and complexes. It’s no longer about bloody injuries which might land one on the wrong side of the law. It’s about law-abiding invisible whiplashing. 
An advice here. As we set out to tame and slay the real and perceived enemies in the social battle, we can very well afford to carry a stick instead of a dagger. The dagger will go too deep into somebody’s ego to inflict a permanent wound. Staying there as a painful milestone to instigate the carrier to work and connive against us in future. If it is not possible to drop the weapons altogether, at the most carry a stick only. 
Instead of calling somebody bastard, thus inflicting a dagger wound, we can say your father must have been away when you were conceived. Hope it again doesn’t sound like a dagger wound. Well, I mean to say we can try to bruise the skin only, to pacify our ego, with the stick of our words, instead of stabbing the heart with a dagger. A mark on the skin is less painful. It will not leave a permanent scar. Time heals everything. But it takes some more time, and sometimes it lasts more than the lifetime, to reach the extent of the dagger’s farthest point. 
Social battles are very funny ones. Almost flimsy. So why carry lethal weapons. There are hardly any permanent enemies. Scenes and stages are shifting. These are basically funny little stage shows. People hardly care about who the last paper enemy was. So carry a namesake stick. We need not even hold it in our hands most of the time. Just keep it in reserve tied to our belt. We will feel like a well-equipped soldier ready to tackle the enemies in the social battle.
Dagger is suitable for hate. And for plain anger. Or for the unholy, dark duty to kill like in war. But how long can one can keep the fire of hate going? Long before the fire consumes our last enemy, it burns the carrier only. So it's better to be irritated only instead of going full throttle with anger and hate. And a stick is a suitable weapon for irritation. It's a lesser weapon. Irritation also is a smaller fire. It is as much of less harmful to other as it is for the carrier. 
The ultimate goal of course is to go without any weapon at all. And dropping irritation to still less harmful and gentler reactions is the goal. All that goes in parallel with the degree of control we have over our mind. Again it boils down to training the mind. And sitting in silence and looking at the real self daily is the first step in that direction. 

Desert Palm and Mountain Oak

Every seed carries the potential to be the mightiest, luxuriant-most tree. The powerful force of creation throws the potential for maximum in seeds and species. Nature doesn’t want it to be a world of half smiles, half growths, half blossoms and half potential. There is a tendency for fullness. It draws the process of evolution. For maximum. For completion. For what we humans call greatness. You, me and all of us are born for greatness. There are seeds of greatness in all of us.

A desert seed has the potential to grow in its own way, in harmony and adjustment with the harsh environment. A seed in a lush green rain-forest has its own level of potential as per the rich soil, water and nutritious soil. Does it mean a date palm can never reach the levels of greatness because there is sand, burning temperatures, dry winds and no water? Does it mean that only a mountainous oak has the right to greatness because it has the best climes, abundance of water, cool temperatures and cradling lush green mountains?

A desert palm is great in being the signatory of life in the lifeless sand. It is great is merely surviving. In being there where life has almost no business to be. It is great in standing as a milestone of hope for some lone traveler who might come and rest under the shade for some time and then take on the journey onward. It is great in throwing a piece of shade on the burning sands. It is great in showing the light after a long time and prompting the traveler to carry on and reach out to the lifeful oasis.

Like desert palm you might be born in poorest of poor conditions. But that doesn’t mean you are not born with the potential to be the greatest. You are! Just that your greatness is different from the mountain oak and the people lucky enough to be born in luxurious circumstances. Greatness shouldn’t be compared. When we do, we just cannot appreciate the worth of our journey.

We are born in the predetermined soil of our destiny. We have our own individual destinies. Destinies are but not bigger or smaller. They are just bothered about the realization of the full potential. Nature is kind enough to give us the maximum potential to grow as per the conditions.

A desert palm can be a mighty achiever and feel proud of itself if it doesn’t compare itself with the mountain oak.

Strive hard, rake up the soil of your situations, nourish it with the moisture of your sweat and actualize the potential you are born with. And be great in your own way. Don’t compare your greatness with anyone around. Instead of comparing the tiny size of your greatness with the tall structures of success around, look at your own growth from the dusted toughness around the place where you took hold and rooted yourself to grow. You might be happier in tough situations with lesser growth than unhappy people with taller growths in best soils. The moment you realize you have sucked out all the potential that was given to you since birth to grow and survive, the date palm can be happier than the mountain oak. 

The thin line between duty and revenge

In Japan someone killed a Samurai’s master. Now it was the tradition to avenge one’s master’s death. The Samurai went after the murderer. It was not before two years of relentless pursuit that he laid his hands upon the criminal in a deep forest. The Samurai raised his sword to kill the person. Just before the strike the man spat on the Samurai’s face. Possibly he expected a quicker death in one stroke. He had tried to further aggravate the anger in the Samurai. The unexpected happened. The Samurai held his sword back and asked the man to take his sinned face off his eyes.

The murderer was surprised. Much relieved to be still alive, he but couldn’t check his curiosity. “Why did you spare my life?” he asked.

The Samurai was visibly trying to overcome his anger. “For two years I was following you to kill you. But there was no anger in that pursuit. There was no hate involved. I was just following the tradition of avenging my master’s death without bringing my ego in between. But when you spat on my face. You changed all that. You got me angry. You brought my ego into play. Now if I kill you it will appear like I killed you because of being angry after being spat upon. It won’t be an objective, egoless pursuit of my duty. I cannot kill you as an angry person. Please go away. For the time being. If I can detach this personal anger from the cause of my duty, your death, I will go after you again.”

Sometimes a doing, carrying the same effect as an act committed under a spell of anger and hate, can be beyond the germs of ego, hate and anger. It then becomes a duty. The challenge lies in finding where duty stops to turn into revenge or hateful reaction. Check your ego. Tame it within the limits of duty. This world will become a far better place and life more enjoyable.