LOVE: The Ultimate Alchemy

Ravindranath Tagore says, “Love is the only reality and it 

is not a mere sentiment.” The great mystic and poet very 

suitably sees it as “the ultimate truth that lies at the core of 

creation”.

Love defines the countless pathways to the cause of creation 

as Lord Byron points out with poetic precision: “Love will find 

a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.”

Do you think fear, anger, hate, envy, jealousy, ego, lust and 

greed have their own standing? No. Just like darkness is simply 

an absence of light, all these tortuous tools that lynch our self 

are nothing but phantoms doing painful rounds in the absence 

of love. Like a tiny lamp puts out darkness simply by casting 

light, without fighting the dark, a simple ray of love, a symbol of 

our true self, chucks out the flimsy appendages of the unreal self.

There is definitely limit to everything in cosmos. But there 

is one exception: Love, prem as we say it in Hindi. Yoko Ono 

feels the mankind’s regret in not fully absorbing their self in the 

sea of love when he says: “The regret of my life is that I have not 

said ‘I love you’ often enough.”

One need not fight fear, fury, hatred, jealousy, distrust, ego, 

lust and greed at various fronts to defeat them. They have a 

common root: burial of your loving self, your essential nature, 

under the peripheral dust of illusions and ignorance, making you 

identify with what is essentially not your real self. Remove the grime, allow the light of love to emanate from your soul, enter 

your behavioral self, and all around you see peace, harmony and 

balance. The vices, which you yourself condemn against yourself 

after being judgmental on your own self, just dry up, like fresh 

rays of sun dispel the last traces of dark clinging to the morning 

twilight.

A house—an assemblage of concrete, mortar, bricks and 

steel—turns a home only with love and care. Without affection 

decorating it from inside, it’s merely a soulless structure. Billy 

Graham says it very aptly: “Nothing can bring a real sense of 

security into the home except true love.”

The mankind’s fears driven by greed have already resulted 

in nukes and super-nukes having the capacity to destroy not 

just earth but many planets and stars around. Does it serve any 

purpose? The modern civilization sitting on the stockpiles of 

death and destruction is always one button push away from 

annihilation. No man, we don’t need hate anymore. We need 

more loving people around. The moisture of love will dampen 

the explosives of death and destruction.

Love for your man, your woman, your family, friends and 

near and dear ones is the seed that holds the potential to blossom 

into universal love for all and everything making you a loving 

person. So guys start your journey on the love path as a lover, as a 

caring husband, wife, parent or friend and proceed onto nurture 

the seed to help it grow into a robust tree of loving kindness 

for all. This basically is supposed to be the natural evolution 

course for your consciousness attached to this mater, this mix 

of materials called body comprising water and few kilograms 

of matter found in earth. The consciousness, the blueprint, the 

carrier of your previous journeys, is on the path of evolution, to 

merge into the all pervading super-consciousness, like a drop of 

water is moving to mix with the seas.

Do you think you can fight darkness by flailing your arms 

and fists in the dark? No man, that’s not the way. Darkness 

cannot be dispelled. It stays irrespective of your fusillade. All you need is a small lamp. It simply leaves darkness redundant 

by itself.

“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy 

into a friend,” Martin Luther King, Jr. Love definitely is the 

panacea for thousands of ailments afflicting human society. The 

Modern Gandhi of the West further says, “Darkness cannot 

drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive 

out hate; only love can do that.”

Haven’t you felt almost fully alive when in love with your 

man or woman? Well, that sums it up. This feeling is just a 

glimpse of the eternal bliss available on the higher rungs on the 

same ladder. Move up. There are no alternatives. This is the sole 

destiny.

Mind you, there are no sinners. We just have loving and less 

loving people. Come, join me in tilting the scale in favor of love. 

That is your destiny. Later or sooner, in this avatar or in the ones 

coming up next, you have to get along. Just like a river’s natural 

destination is the sea, your soul’s journey is to merge into all-

encompassing love of the eternal entity. The so called sinners, 

who we scorn at, are nothing but strayed selves, like the river 

exploring its final path to the sea gets into a lake somewhere but 

finds it unviable to stay there and takes on the journey again. All 

of us have to explore and find the fallacy of many a thing that 

our disillusioned self makes us believe and come face to face 

with the ultimate meaning of life.

Max Muller says: “A flower cannot blossom without 

sunshine, and man cannot live without love.”

Come, let’s explore the path of love, the alchemy, which 

remedies the suffering self, making it a beautiful, loving entity.

Love is the seed of spirituality. Holy people of all religions 

and faith reached one single point, all-encompassing love.

Saint Basil: “A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. 

A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, 

and he who plants kindness gathers love.”

Love, compassion and kindness are the biggest commonality 

across various faiths and belief systems. Love is basically the 

essential nature of soul. Kindness, compassion, gratitude, 

generosity, truth, beauty, and all other virtues we hold in 

high esteem are simply the manifestations of love. Love is the 

light that shows everything as it is. It dispels the dark corners 

surrounding our selves. It is the guiding light that takes us on 

the path of our individual and collective destinies.

Though no words are sufficient to cover the fathomless 

power of love, let’s try to know a bit more about our loving self 

and its miraculous powers in shaping our lives.

This book is meant to set up an instructional manual to 

help one rise higher on the scale of evolution by changing one’s 

limited love, defined by family and relations, to universal love 

for a compassionate and all-loving being.

The work is meant to help one hone the art and craft of 

building a loving character, which in turn sets up the base for 

a happy and joyful life. All the chapters in the book are full of 

commonest of the common day-to-day techniques, which can 

build up our compassionate self, like we work in the gym to 

strengthen our muscles.

Things are rapidly aggravating. It’s an angrier world than 

ever. Material progression has proved counterproductive. 

Mother Nature is ailing due to our greedy onslaught, which 

borders on raping mother earth. Now an ailing nature is 

handing over its pain and miseries to the human society in the 

form of wars, diseases and strife. Irony is that we are materially 

the most advanced society in history with the USP of being the 

most miserable one at the same time. Isn’t it the right time to go 

into a pause and rethink our collective priorities? Through my 

work, I am simply trying to ask individuals and organizations 

to reconsider their values because there has been a basic flaw, 

otherwise why would there be so many problems.

My work involves simple tools and techniques of going into 

self-discovery to see things in a larger perspective. It’s a semi-spiritual journey looking within and out to be aware of the 

bigger plights written everywhere, to inculcate a basic loving 

nature almost at the instinctive level, to be more observant of 

the self as much as we observe things outside. It breeds self 

responsibility, leading to a considerate nature. These are the 

basic building blocks of a compassionate self.

For decades I have been into spirituality and meditation. 

All the simple instructions, guidance tools and observations are 

born of my own experiences. Spirituality is not something about 

mysteries in the farthest corners of the universe. It’s simply about 

being a more aware person. It’s about realizing the basic loving 

nature in each and everyone around. It’s about harnessing joy 

out of the mundane incidences of life.

Working on this book itself has been really rewarding. I 

cannot ask for much other than writing it. It has given me so 

much of unconditional love and peace while working on it. I 

am not looking much on the material front from this treatise on 

love. All I need is one more partner in spreading the message of 

unconditional love, peace and harmony.

I firmly believe that ordinary beings possess extraordinary 

potential to win against odds, to jump over hurdles, to smile 

over tears, and, most importantly, to be happy when there aren’t 

enough reasons to be. People like you and me are the faceless 

constituents of a massive commonality. We are surrounded by 

a swiping generality. We are coloured in the monochromes of 

mundane reality. Still we are special. And that speciality is love 

at the core of our being.

Through my work, I acknowledge and celebrate the 

extraordinary in the ordinary people. I see heroes and heroines 

on the common stage of life chugging around. And most 

importantly, we have the very same essentially loving nature 

at the core. Just that the flimsy clouds of ego and apparent 

sufferings keep it buried inside. I try to help people unearth the 

basic seeds of goodness inside to help them grow into luxuriant 

trees of compassionate beings.

We fight, and oftentimes fail, but write a little passage in the 

infinite book of life: an ordinary life that was lived substantially. 

On the small stage of life, we live very intensely. Somehow, the 

world would not be the world that is still beautiful without our 

contribution. We heave humanity onwards in its march to some 

better destination. Just that all this gets overshadowed by the 

shifting clouds of ego, stress, frustration and jealousy. We simply 

need to look beyond the clouds to spot the glorious sun.

With our essentially loving nature fully acknowledged in 

our daily lives, all of us can be the heroes and heroines of our 

stories. The seed in us, the seed of love, carries the potential 

to be the tallest, luxuriant-most tree. The powerful force of 

creation propels the potential for maximization. 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 pulls the 

process of evolution for the maximum, for completion, for what 

we call greatness. And the driving force for all this is love. It exists 

in each and every atom in the cosmos. All we need is to be aware 

of it. And this awareness needs practice. I have put an effort to 

nurture this habit of always reminding ourselves of our basic 

loving nature.

O my mind, my seat of potentiality, take my journey further,

Be the seat of my strength, not weakness,

Be the seat of kindness, not cruelty,

Be the source of light, not darkness.

You, me and all of us are born for the stories of greatness. 

Let’s acknowledge our loving nature to see through the journey. 

Please be my partner in sharing this message of universal love.

Is it about Right or Wrong?

So now Shiv Sena is a bit more secular, or call it an iota lesser Hindutvavadi. The Congress and the NCP are a fragment less secular and an ounce of more Rightist. The BJP would have adjusted anything ranging from less or more secularism to less or more nationalism to stir its constituents in the political cauldron to form government. So guys, beyond the smokescreen of ideology and all, the only recipe to power and privilege turns out to be plain old, bland pragmatism and practicality. So my dear voters, when this pragmatism for power is written so brilliantly in the sky for all to read and understand, why don't you guys also demand the bijli, pani, sadak, hegeiene, less pollution and bla bla, instead of just hypothetical stuff to gratify misplaced ego like caste, class, creed, religion etc etc. When you know that our Netas will go to any extent to retain power, why don't you demand the common day to day amenities to help your life and living? If you demand seriously, they will do it I am sure now after witnessing their limitless capacity to adjust to stay in power. So guys now is the time to turn kingmakers and demand your share against your vote. Demand the little little things that facilitate the life of a common man. Forget about never to be seen magical items flung into your face with hallucinating hyperbole by the tricksters wearing magic hats!

Whose Truth is nearest to the Ultimate?

ounce scattered till eternal distances in the universe, multiverse or whatever it qualifies to be. Out of this infinite option to pick up and churn out individual truth, the so called perceivable reality, the human mind also creates virtual reality. Mind you, it's as simple as you see games in virtual reality. There is hardly any qualitative difference. So we have our realities, some of which have been gathered to form collective realities in order to run this society in the form of common belief, social norms and conventions. We can't help this. This mind has to churn out our own individual reality, the so called our very own dear truth. That can't be helped. Our own truth almost seems to define the meaning of our life. Well then here starts the real problem. One's very own truth may sound a character assassination to someone from his/her point of view decided by their own truth. Why do we hurl out our truths? Possibly it's a means of survival mechanism. We probably try to unburden ourselves by letting it out. But man, our truth, the jewel it may appear to us, may be a dagger to someone. Avoid unseathing it! Even if it turns a knife inside your own self. And starts cutting your own self. But if out, it can hurt someone even more. Why should someone else be its target? It's the keeper's responsibility to manage it. Accepted that if kept inside, it will be painful, but it will cut many falsehoods inside your own self, side by side giving a few painful cuts to the softer tissues. It but saves you from committing a verbal manslaughter. Good people prefer injury to their own self, instead of harming others. And mind u this can be practiced. My new year resolution in advance! To keep my version of reality to myself, even if it hurts. It's my responsibility to keep it, to manage it, to nurture it. Our jewel may be dagger to someone else. Be careful about your simple statement that you may take as simple facts, for these might be character assassinating poison arrows to someone else. It's not about the other person. The onus is on one's own self. So guys, her I go and keep my truths to my own self. That's the path of solitude. Possibly it leads to a place where even the last doubts vanish! God bless you all!

Your Mind is the Universe

What we know and understand of the Cosmos is just a projection of our mind. The basic building blocks of life, your own and collective realities are mental building blocks being stone-worked in the mind-workshop. Thoughts are energy movement much as you have anything tangible on the physical surface. This is no mystical talk! Ask quantum physicists, they will tell you that the erstwhile fundamental entities, atoms, are not the basic entities at all. They are 'events' only. Virtual is not that virtual as we presume. It's a mammoth stone-masonry going on in the unseen subterranean cavern, laying out the foundation of your life and living. So guys be firmly in charge of your thoughts. They make and break! This existence doesn't care whether u choose to make or break. Just that we ourselves suffer, if we end up breaking.

The Gateway to the Heaven

Nothing stands in isolation. Can a drop of water stand alone in the ocean? Can an ocean exist without a drop, i.e., with a hole in its heart and the drop missing? Same is the cosmos. It's one continuity in one or the other form. Sea is nothing but drops drops everywhere in the expansion of its geographical spread. Same is with the super sea of cosmic consciousness. It's merely individual consciousness everywhere. Now the question is: how come there is a perception of individual consciousness? Well, that's how the fabric is! Start dividing a sea into tiniest dots! What happens? All we have littler seas made of tinier drops! The threshold from individual to infinite intelligence exists and doesn't at the same time. Possibly the sea itself perceives itself like a drop. Divide it into countless drops, they retain the feeling of individuality. Individual consciousness is thus nothing but a point of perception in the transforming whirlpool where the elements are going cyclically. Is a drop fundamentally and qualitatively different from a big sea? It isn't! Coming to humanoids. The so called conscious is the littlest bit of perception surrounded by the subconscious, which in turn melts into the infinite intelligence and consciousness pervading all around. That's the ladder to spread yourself, to feel more meaningful. One's subconscious part of mind is most active just before sleep and immediately after waking up. That's when the gates open tangibly for taking a quantum jump from conscious to subconscious and further on into super-consciousness. Grab it. Put your affirmation and claim to a larger self. There are infinite possibilities. What you seek at your greediest best may not be more than a drop of water desiring to double its size. You have the pathway etched to be the sea itself. You already are. Just that all that remains to be done is to start seeing through the walls of conscious, watch eagerly through the windows of subconscious in those walls and get connected to the infinite right there in front of you. It's suitable to start with tangibles to break the virtual shackles, just like it's easier to start with body in yoga. The higher battles with more virtual demons are managed further on the path. At the mind front, it's more convenient to start with the conscious part because it's tangible through its operational part through thoughts and emotions. There starts the second tier of management leading to the subconscious part and further on to be out of the prison to come united with everything around. It's not mother existence's concern whether there are storms lashing a drop, pond or sea, or peaceful calm waters pervade. To her indiscriminating eyes all things are just as they are. What happens in the drop of your consciousness is solely your own concern. You create the storms or peace in the tea cup of your existence. And the tools to make and break are conscious thoughts and their shadows in the form of emotions and feelings. They majorly decide the energy pattern pervading across this specific pattern of awareness, this little arrangement of energy within the super sea of energy. Pain, suffering, disease, stress and tensions are mere effects, little obstruction in the flow of river, the life stream. And the repair work primarily begins from the conscious part of the mind , which operates through thoughts, emotions and feelings. So just like u go gyming, go gyming with thoughts. Work like a mason. And etch your reality, your better self on the subconscious, which in turn reflects as your truth on the endless canvas hung around with its infinite dimensions. Good luck!

I know I might be accused of oversimplifying something fundamentally challenging!. You may crib that I'm asking you to ping Bill Gates each day going to bed and waking up, as if you have some hotline handy. You may crib, 'Crawling out of my materialistic mess and rising to lofty heavens! Is that really so easy?! Shedding off all the past karma! Isn't it like having to first sail through all of its roller coaster effects and then arrive at the ladder to lofty heavens?'

I truly understand your point my dear Sir! But you have to be open to mine also! The yogic practices enable one to rectify lots and lots of energy blocks born of past and present karmic debts attached to an individual's consciousness. There are two ways: either allow things to take their natural course, or forge an alternative reality, totally brand new, free from karmic debt through concerted, aware and hyper-conscious effort.

But then you may still retain your skepticism and counter: 'From a myriad of spiritual practices available, how would a novice discern? Which path to take? Is it okay to leave path of devotion (bhakti) .. unconditional surrender .. and step up to yogic sadhana .. the path of active karma?'

Well, my simple explanation is all I can manage. Bhakti marg is the easiest one. But we have to understand that to completely believe in something we have to unclutter our subconscious of routine fears and insecurity bred by rampant thinking and logical reasoning of the conscious part of our mind. To be receptive and surrendering is a blissful state. But how many of us can be true believers in modern times? Not many! We can think that we are believers hypothetically, but disbelief lurks and that undoes all effect. Modern education, competitive times, dehumanized society and scores of problems have put our mind burdened with anxiety, fear, insecurity, tension. Where is the space for faith and true belief to germinate? Bhakti yoga is for all those whose subconscious is already at position where most of the shadows don't exist. For educated people, whose minds have been bombarded with unchecked what's and why of life, and the consequent anxiety and complexity of mind, they need some conscious efforts to somehow clear the ground to begin with. The modern mind is bruised and burdened under merciless cold hard facts, figures, knowledge and information, and hence least qualified to be a proponent of bhakti yoga. To cut iron, one needs iron. These are the phantoms of mind. It needs going down there with conscious effort and do a bit of de-weeding first.

Recover, Recuperate, Re-surge and Rejuvenate

What if the roomful of miseries appear immovable at the moment? Understood that the room having thick walls is beyond your might to shift and change. You cannot push its walls to change its shape and change the interiors. You might even be incapable of removing the darkness inside having lost the light of enthusiasm, the sunrays of your will power, and the brightness of your passion. It is not necessary to be a revolutionary fighter all the time. You can very well sit in a still darker corner of the room full of your own miseries, most of them invisible to the uncaring world outside. But then sitting in a dead dark corner is being dead and we have no business to be dead before we actually die. Temporary shelter in the lap of a deathlike stale corner might be of some utility, but not more than allowing the tears and anguish of self-pity and helplessness to flow out through the feeling of being a victim.

This little puss out of your system; after this it has no purpose. A little bit of crying after being overpowered by the feeling of victimization helps. Crying helps in letting out salt from your injuries. It also clears the eyes. After the watery outpour you are supposed to see better and clearer. You have been on the hospital bed, taking a bit of rest for the diseased, afflicted self, now you are supposed to step down, wear your slippers and walk away to claim what you lost while you were forced to take a rest. Looking beyond your dark corner in the dark room with immoveable walls, you can at least open the windows that either you or the situational winds have banged shut. Do not move walls, do not even try to bang against the locked door, just open the openable window to allow a bit of light, to expose yourself to the fine traces of light that will surely burn the fire in you again, that will definitely ignite your passion, enthusiasm and will power lying dormant. If you cannot lift your roomful of miseries on your head and throw it miles away, you can surely lift little-little signs of your worth and capabilities lying around your feet in the dark and look at these against the light from the just-opened little window. These are the imperishable seeds, these cannot die, and will surely grow into luxuriant harvest, provided you give them the moisture of you feeble self during the re-germination.

You might not be able to laugh to the full contentment of the self, but you can smile at the little world outside your tiny peeping window. Even the slightest semblance of smile will do. These are the flower buds that will surely blossom into full laughing flowers. Your hands might not be still ready to go agog and start breaking the mightiest boulders around. But you can raise your hands and wave gently at the world outside, it will wave back with grace and acknowledgement, giving back its share with kindest interest. You might not be still ready for the marathon, but you can shuffle your feet and count your steps and listen to your slow pace between the walls. It will prepare you for the longest journey that you might take. It will be a prelude to your first step on the winnable journey that you will definitely take.

Close your eyes and with an open heart accept your share in making things dark in the room. Nobody is perfect and we just have the bigger or smaller share in our miseries. We cannot change the universe, but we can definitely bring about a little reformation in the self. You might not be able to overhaul your personal self, but you can definitely change tiny bits of life in general. It will blow up the wrong shades, leaving you a totally different person. Close your eyes again and think of your positives, your advantages, your good qualities. There will be many I‘m sure. Look around with a gentle look, these must be somewhere around. You will surely spot them. Smile at the little basketful of your qualities. These are your weapons to help you win through the battles and wars. A mere acknowledgement of their existence will do at this stage. Just caress your qualities and look at these with a proud smile. These and many little things will help you. Forget about bigger things. These little seeds will grow into a bigger harvest. Just gather these seeds, hold them, they will take you back to the bigger world of baleful of roles, responsibilities, praise and achievements.

A Laotsian Bird

A master camouflage. The smallest of a rag tag inconsequential nest. Almost like the few remaining sinews of an old old nest. And a pulse of life throbbing to bide precious time. Each beat counts. It means a huge step towards free-winged flights in a few days. Here each second counts. It's a laughing dove hatchling.
Well, a dove is a dove indeed. A silent most stoic bird. I always wonder how come they even survive as rest of the birds appear to be angrily, enthusiastically and energetically competitive. Doves look like the ascetics of the birdie world, always sitting silently on the laid back sidelane. I even laughed at them as lazy ones, having witnessed seemingly half-hearted attempts at patching up a famished little nest that would allow the mother to put merely paws in the middle, leaving rest of her body out. But then i also had an inkling about mother existence's ways of squaring up things even in those apparently weak cases where the odds appear terribly against them. Now this hatchling clings almost unseen, barely at a height of 8-9 feet. Cats have been duped. Even a greater coucal, ill famed for spotting tiniest of nests in the foliage, sat a few yards away on the wall and missed it. Wonderful!
Well, these are Laotsian birds. They win by not fighting outrightly. Their strength is their patience, composure and calmness. They go about their nesting business almost imperceptibly. After the hatching, the already famished nesting hut has lost many more sinews to make it look like the useless wreckage of a many season old little nest. And on its edge, lost in the colours of deception, throbs the prospect of a life. The only clue to what is going on is the laughing museful song of the laughing dove parents now and then from a distance. They hardly raise a ruckus when i check out their little household, as if under a mystical realisation that that which can't be cured, must be endured. They stoically do what they can, and watch over the unmanageable without that typical browbeating.
Imagine, last season an oriental white eye had patched up the littlest of nesting cup. It was a wonder of nesting architecture. So small, hidden under the leaves. But its symmetry turned it outstanding. The predatory caucal spotted it, leaving me flabbergasted how come its radar caught this few grams of grassy cup weaved with such effort. And now this apparently clumsy jottiing of few dry twigs and pieces of dry grass, in the branches of a small tree, barely 8-9 feet above the ground, and not even hidden too much in the foliage, carries its success story so far. The altruistic attitude of doves takes them onto a path of surrendering spontaneity, a sort of open hearted acceptance, which hardly creates ripples on the stage of life, allowing them to carry out this cute coup. Well, may be they laugh so cutely to be named laughing turtles. Possibly, they laugh at this world competing on the scales of complexity, while they laze around in the hazy sunshine of early winter and laugh out into the cool air.

The Broken Egg

Pre-script: How I wish I could hold the monkey and give some exercise to my grandpa's oldest walking woody aid to gift the monkey the reddest bum on earth!
A bleeding crack that robbed a winged prospect of airy swirls by a life. The broken spotted munia egg. For weeks the parents matched the human efforts in building a skyscraper and built a safe globular grassy nest. Their feeble preening chirps looked up to upcoming more onerous duties of raising hatchlings. Then the storm came. Well, not windy. It was rather let loose by our genetic ancestor. The errant kid on the ladder of evolution, presently at a stage where we homo sapiens were a few millenium back. The monkeys. While rest of the species, fight merely for food and procreation, our genetic match goes beyond these two essentials to jump into mischief, fun and revelry. Out of a big horde that has raided the village, and most of the females proudly carrying their little ones, one gallant jumped into the Soft Parijat tree. The wood is soft. It must have enjoyed the breaking sound of its funstry like we humans do. The poor tree severely jolted. Some branches broken. The nest unhinged and scanned for some morning fluidy lollipop. I am sure it must have hardly the patience to even look seriously inside and take out what it intended to do while breaking the nest. A monkey carries the feeble imprint of human tendency to play errant to draw a strange sip of gratification. So the nest was blown apart. The eggs tossed around like tiny plops and shelled projectiles. Here lies the cracked egg. Out of instinct, the parents still flit around the broken nest entangled in branches. This is loss. Just that they don't suffer like we humans. Simply because they do all this without any sense of gain. Minh Ngo there is a difference between pain and suffering. They feel the instinctual pain of it, of course. But they don't suffer like we humans. Simply because they just follow the call of cosmic intelligence while putting that selfless labour in setting up the nest. They don't have a sense of gain guiding their routine unlike we humans. As all experiences stand on the duality, so in the absence of a clear cut sense of gain and profit, the sense of loss can't sustain beyond the momentary instinctual pain. And that saves them from the perpetual agony and suffering of humans, whose major portion we hurl into our environment and society. A major portion of what mankind does to nature is born of his own inner discontent and suffering.

Her Full Smile even with a Broken Self

Look at its injury. The spine almost broken. Forgetful and forgiving, it decides to move on. A little leafy bandage of hope and resurgence sprouts around the wound. A sort of bridge to keep the juice of life eager to move on and realise its full blossom. It's the flagpost of life and living. The accidental storm had snapped her spine. It but decides to live.
The brave Pink Purslane (Portulaca Pilosa) aka Kiss-me-Quick has her last smile. She has won it. She has retained her smile and pouts forth with an inspirational 'Kiss-me-Quick' tale of forgetting pains and conquering blooming heights.
What an inspirational story portrayed in a small corner by this tiny strand of this pink ground cover flower. A clear winner. The snapping, breaking tragedy has melted into the background. She has claimed her canvas to paint her bright smile. Well, that's a humungous life lived. What a smile against the breaking odds.

Her Reddest Lipstick and the Himalayan Yogi

A blissful creative moment and a babysoft sapling of life, love and living holds out its tiny baby finger to hold onto the mighty, grand old hand of mother creation. Well, all is well that ends well!
Actually, the brooding banyan plant appeared to have gone into an otherworldly detachment. Rains lashed. I also showered my affection. The sun also beat down nutritional beams. It but won't come out of its trance. Like a famished yogi in a Himalayan cave, it shed all its leaves. Keeping just one leaf as a sign of its still remaining attachment to this world. And then the yogi slowly opens its eyes after many months and sees this fleeting world through its softly sprouting eyes. The tiny shoot is now cradled in the care of fabulous September end breeze. Welcome back to this sweet sour worldliness Yogi Maharaj!

She has the reddest lipstick...ladies stay away...no competition at all...she is a winner all and out...keep smiling my girl, Canna Indica aka Keli....you win the pageant!

The Infantile Wings that would never Kiss Free Air in the Open Skies

The parents will miss a new life's eager chirps to take an independent flight. In the indifferent womb of mother nature, such stories are ever unfolding. The globular grass house of the Spotted Munia will be emptier today. For the last one week it sounded a house full of noisy toddlers as parents cargoed baby food throughout the day. From the jingling notes emanating from the grass house, I could make out around three kids. One has toppled down today. Its shape of matter is melting into thousands of ants as they jump onto the stage of infinite series of matter/energy transformations. I could hear a lone, almost sad, note from the nest. There is supposed to be at least one birdie toddler there, wondering why the house has become silent and emptier. In this ever flowing stream of energy, the selfless love, like here shown by the birdie parents, creates temporary loops of thriving lumps of life. Out of many possibilities, the impenetrable, secret doctrine of mother nature unfolds endless pictures on the fluid canvas whom we, due to our limited sense perception, see through the prism of pleasure, pain, agony and ecstasy. Well, that's what makes us humans. A sad interjection in the tiny birdie phrase here. But then I would be happy if at least one hatchling takes on the journey of an adult, crossing the grassy threshold and fly into the uncharted skies. Like a huge breech tree in pristine forests produces millions of seeds in its lifespan of a few hundred years. Out of all these possibilities, if even a single seed germinates to be an adult tree like the mother tree, it's called a successful reproduction cycle. Similarly, multiple chirps jingle musically in a nest, and at the most one note carries the song ahead to keep the story alive and kicking. Well, that's how life is my dear friends!

The Fallacy of the Ultimate Truth

All of us have felt the heat of the very same age-old nagging clash between religion and science, both sniggering at each other, claiming to represent the absolute truth in their own ways. The religion finds it to be a formless and attributeless experience. The science, on the other hand, goes into a direction, where everything has to be logically qualified and calculated to build up hypothesis, and take us to the inviolable, flawless and irrefutable knowledge, the final frontier of logical understanding, i.e., the ultimate truth.

The problem here is that there is no fundamental entity to define the absolute truth. Whatever you think is your own invention. All we have is the cyclical transformation of multidimensional interplay of matter/energy transformations. It has infinite possibility for the things and phenomenon to be interpreted the way one wants, provided one takes orderly, sequential steps in a specific direction to invent a temporary truth, a little halt, on the energy highway. It’s a multidimensional infinite canvas, on which the scientist can draw the lines with the brushstrokes of logic and reasoning to invent a picture, just like a painter does on a two dimensional canvas. Now, just because the scientist builds a hypothesis, it doesn’t mean that he has arrived at something that was already there, existing in an abstract form to be explored exactly in the shape and form it has been found now.

The scientists are driven by a dream to reach a know-all stage. However, the more they try to know, the more they realize that the sea of the unknown has in fact expanded instead of appearing to shrink. It is just because there is no limit, no fundamental confines that will help them to gauze the extent of their reach, and feel happy about the extent covered and congratulate themselves over the less remaining domains to be covered.

There is no such thing as absolute knowledge. All we have is an approximation of the apparent facts, gathered on the basis of the level the researches we have attained. However, these attempts to understand the reality enable us to build laws, hypothesis, theories and calculations that help in channelizing the flow of energy in a closed set to ease our survival. It is mere resource utilization, just like any other species is doing at their level.

In the absence of a fundamental entity, the only recourse left is the mystical way of experiencing it. In the absence of any entity like the absolute truth, you cannot know it. If you cannot know it, you cannot say or express it, and consequently you cannot prove it. The endeavor to prove something draws on the presumption of some fixed entity. Therefore, the only truth is that there is no fundamental, absolute truth against which we can measure, evaluate something in the terminology of right/wrong. If at all there is any reality beyond all supposed truths, all our versions of approximations, it is there to be felt and experienced in totality. One pale version of truth can be the experience of that totality in which nothing is permanent and everything is getting transformed into a self-evolving pattern. In this cyclical transformation, there is an infinite possibility for things to be visualized and interpreted logically as well as illogically.

Now they say that Newton is proved wrong because his gravitational laws don’t hold in case of black holes. Einstein is holding for the time being. However, in future Einstein will have Newton’s fate because the platform of understanding and approximation will take a shape where you need more than what Einstein has offered. It only proves that Newton is not wrong. At his level, he perceived and interpreted the evolution of things and phenomenon around us. It had its practical uses and brought us to Einstein. How can you reach the right destination, i.e., Einstein, following the wrong path, i.e., Newton? Therefore, it’s beyond the concept of right and wrong because there is no ultimately fundamental law to prove one right and the other wrong.

It’s a cosmic pool of infinite possibilities, where you create your reality, your truth that practically holds on a little stage to help you and serve you like your mother serves you dinner. You systematically move in one direction on the basis of certain presumption, and even expectation, because the genesis of scientific theories lies in certain assumptions and acceptance. It is the seed of scientific approach, like a banyan seed, out of which the freshly minted version of self-forged truth sprouts forth. In fact, it’s just a fluid and expanding pool of approximate knowledge and information. There is no such a thing as truth. The set of knowledge that serves us the most, and consequently, turns dearest to our heart becomes our ‘truth’.

As the transformation of this energy is going around, we use our logical portion of brain to create a ladder on which we first fix one step then another and then still another. You reach a conclusion. This is your own self-derived knowledge, which you accept as truth. It gives a satisfaction that you have arrived home. We humans need to have fixed targets and hence this obsession of taking transient knowledge as truth, or at least the path to the final truth. So, on the highest step on your ladder that you have built so far, you proudly look around and reach a conclusion to view your knowledge as truth. All this is your own invention, not that it was something existing in abstract for someone to come and find it. You have created a little hatchling of truth from the open-ended possibility impregnated in the cosmic womb. The problem arises when we take our efforts as the nearest representative of the last truth possible.

Someone, moving from the same point, but in other direction, can have a different approximation of knowledge, leading to a different version of truth. And mind you, even that would have served us, differently though, thus giving rise to a totally different picture of reality from what we see it now. So it proves, it is not necessary that only this picture was possible where we have reached. We have this picture because the best brains visualized it to be this way. Those who proposed otherwise somehow fell short in painting or forging their version to be accepted as a hatchling of suitable truth.

It is thus an infinite cosmic river having the multidimensional interchanges of energy transformations. We are just like a kid sitting on the riverbank, scooping out a bit of water on the palm, and thinking I have captured the seed of the ultimate essence of things. We use our scientific inventions to scoop out a bit of energy from the ever-flowing river of energy for our transitory purpose on the basis of certain parameters in a closed system, which holds like our house weathers against a storm, and use it for individual and collective comfort and convenience. These little pieces of forged truths, basically knowledge packets holding for the time being, are the mere means of convenience.

Absolute truth doesn’t lie in a corner in the cosmos to be reached by building specific linearity in the flow pattern on the basis of little portion that we can see. An ant sees a far less fraction of this world than a human being. So in case there is a far more evolved intelligence, having multiples of senses than we have, it will definitely have a broader view of the flow and the consequent usage of it. Their forged set of knowledge, leading to their truth, will be different from ours.

Our attempts to define the ultimate reality are simply like drawing tiniest straight lines on the periphery of a circle having infinite diameter. Now, a straight line is an attempt to simplify the path, to understand, to have a view from this horizon to that. It may be convenient, but it cannot replace the total essence of the infinite arc of which it’s a mere part. The straight line bears a direct corollary to our scientific pursuits. You just create a specific linearity on the basis of self-observed, in fact, self-created laws—not that they exist as such in neutrality; these could have been interpreted some other way also. For example, you may have a night-centric civilization. On our planet earth, the nocturnal world is a minority; who knows, under a separate set of self-created knowledge and understanding, you may have a busily buzzing nocturnal world, where during the day you have just some exceptions hitting the ground to play their role.

All we have is an ever-pregnant possibility for things to adopt shape on the basis of concerted efforts that go systematically. There are all the elements that can be picked up, like Humanoids in case of earth, to reshape the channelization of this energy in a particular direction that later on establishes itself as truth in that little corner. It’s futile to treat this tiny endeavor at approximation of knowledge as the path to the ultimate facts about the laws of existence. It is beyond right or wrong. It is only about at what level a particular set of conscious beings harnesses the waters of that cosmic pool, which is ever getting recharged by matter/energy cyclical transformations.

The nature has provided us two spheres in the brain: the left portion for logic and the right one for emotions and aesthetics. Just because a scientist channelizes his logical creativity to hypothesize a picture, it should not be accepted as having a copyright to hold the beacon to understand the ultimate truth. The scientists say that they have to prove everything. How can you say that the aesthetic part used in creating something is off the mark? There is hardly any fundamental difference between the left and right approach. In one case, you want to hurtle on the cemented highway to reach the destination, while in the other you take a slow-paced recourse on foot across the countryside. A painter in using his aesthetical tools to paint a picture is just like a scientist using her logic to build up steps to understand a bit more about the cosmic web. The canvas in the latter case has infinite dimensions, out of which one can draw, with focused pursuit, x, y, z dimensions to paint a picture of practical reality.

On the other hand, the aesthetic creator of a different reality formulates her visualization using a softer version of reality that is pliable without any hard boundaries. Here also there is hardly any criterion of right or wrong. The best portrait born of an utmost concentration and a mindless scribble have their own standing in existence. Just because we find one better than the other doesn’t, in any way, mean that it is nearer to the absolute truth. But yes, it may be closer to a human face and that qualifies it to be a more acceptable version of truth. The art forms have changed from mesmerizing natural portraits to the contemporary abstract art. Can we define each other according to their relative terms to praise one as right and the other as wrong? Similarly, the pursuit of science cannot also be termed in a language like Newton was wrong and Einstein is right. The simple fact is that now we see a bit more from the self-created ladder to look at the interplay around.

The quantum physicists now accept that at the tiniest levels deep inside the apparent things and shapes around, the basic building blocks of this overall transformation aren’t permanent, fundamental entities. These basically don’t exist as they appear on the superficial level. Lot many realities surface once you have the onlooker on the scene. It gets defined in a way, more or less, where either they have convinced themselves to be, or where, on the basis of the ‘perception platform’ they stand upon, they are able to take out a little sip of meaning from the hubble-bubble fluid having many more possibilities of being logically defined, just like these set of people are doing. Just like a painter using the aesthetic energy with the help of her artistic sense, the scientists also create a different version of painting with the brushstrokes of logic and calculations. This picture is always open-ended. It is never closed and framed to contain the nutshell of truth. Its one end is always open to include the reframed shots later on. It’s a book of endless canvas sheets. There is infinite possibility to draw your portrait as per your knowledge and understanding and, of course, the systematic and institutional support.

Other intelligent forms elsewhere in cosmos must have contrived their own set of knowledge, not necessarily matching with our calculations. We create knowledge, not that it exists there to be explored and retrieved. This is the beauty of this ultimate law, that you can contrive smaller self-sustaining laws. The research is only about building the pool of knowledge and information, not discovering something that abstractly existed, waiting to be explored. It’s just one set of apparent reality fabricated with the help of individual and joint abilities to project their understanding on the screen full of infinite potential.

This basically is an infinite screen, where we can project our own set of realities. The one that gets maximum acceptance to serve the highest of the lot comes near to shake hands with the so-called truth. And there is no limit to this filming. It can go forever. We can hardly afford the luxury of having this feeling that OK this is the final point and beyond this, there is no possibility of creating more viewpoints out of this cosmic fluidity. This fluidity has infinite dimensions where you can, propelled by the best brains among us, create a picture, a set of knowledge that we treat in terms of being near to truth or otherwise. It holds as long as it serves us. It allows that incessant flow to be molded and channelized in a way so that it takes a suitable form. So the mystics just emphasize on ‘experience’ instead of ‘knowing’. The best way of using logical creativity lies in the use of resources, instead of seeking the final frontier of truth.

Aren’t we merely a bit more sophisticated apes in our language and contrivances to use resources to survive? They do khee-khee; we have a bit more distinct, sophisticated khee-khee. They use resources within a clump of trees; we do the same over a bit broader stage. There is hardly any qualitative difference. So truth as such is not human-centric, just like this existence isn’t. It simply cannot be. All the species have their own truth forged by the best brains and brawn across their generations. So all the debates and words, books and scriptures fall flat when it comes to represent the ultimate truth. Simply because there isn’t any. All we have is an ever-shifting stage. We try to gather foothold on this shaking stage and that momentary stronghold, enabling us to stand and survive, appears like an imprint of the ultimate reality. Words can get anything under the sun except conveying the so-called ever-sought ultimate truth. These can pacify ego, bestow commendable oratory, can help you build an impressive career in corporate, politics or as a social reformer, but they hit off the mark when they claim to have a copyright on the ultimate truth. Simply because there isn’t any. This statement itself might come nearest to the biggest truth.

Now, we have lot of issues about global warming, destruction of flora and fauna, forest fires, and more and more problems. We are scared that earth may not remain suitable for humans anymore. Existence is not bothered about such issues. However, we are entitled to be anxious about it because we have created it. It’s natural for us to hold this wish to stay at the level where we have evolved to. It’s a pleasant nostalgia. Dinosaurs are no more by the way. During their time, they also ruled this planet. Hope you get my point!

When the mother planet no longer remains suitable for maintaining our current physiognomy, the primordial flow of energy will take recourse to introducing artificialities into the human system so that it copes with the changed climate. When it becomes totally unsuitable for the mankind to survive here, it will take recourse, with the help of the further use of this interplaying energy in the infinite pool of resources, to further building on all the groundwork that has been done to paint a still bigger picture of reality, enabling the humanoids to settle on other planets. To mother existence, it hardly matters that in this little corner of the cosmos, where some particular, incidental cyclical transformations have resulted in this type of temporary screen on which the mankind is playing his self-created picture of approximate knowledge.

Even if earth gets blasted suddenly, simply its matter/energy will be sucked into the cosmos. It will spread across the quantum field. It may get clumped with other celestial bodies. Will it even make an iota of difference to the biggest picture in the cosmos? To us, of course, it matters, as it means a sudden swipe at our reality that has been forged over millions of years generally, and particularly during the last few thousand years when the mankind took more concerted efforts to forge a truth that is humanoid-centric only. However, on the cosmic scale, even now many stars are breaking and new ones are getting formed. Does it concern us?

You move methodically, you build your hypothesis, use logic, equations and calculations, all this while moving on a ladder that you have created. It’s not that this is the only path that could have been chosen. Just because you are moving in that direction, it doesn’t prove that it is the only path. You can reach the summit from all around. Some channel appears more convenient, the pre-existing suitability leading to a momentum building up, some initial steps walking over the grass, leaving foot-tracks that later turn into paved broad highways of our advancement. Nonetheless, there are adventurists also. There truth lies in scaling the peak from the most treacherous and risky path. So just that a sense of safety helps you arrive through the so-called conventional path, a commonly accepted approximation of knowledge passing off as truth, it cannot deny the existence of titillating paths for many whose priority isn’t merely the safest path. They paint their picture in totally different colors. It means that the present picture, as we see it, wasn’t waiting for us to come and make it what it inevitably was supposed to be. This transient energy could have been molded into other realities also. The selected brains, who can forge the picture ahead, will continue doing so from the platform of the already done work. But all this has nothing to do with the absolute knowledge, the self-sustaining, self-surviving, self-holding and ever-shifting ultimate picture. Somewhere in the ever-pregnant womb, we just cash on the tendency to paint a stable picture, carrying the genes of the ultimate law, to create tiny field channels to water our fields to survive. So this mere fight to survive ought to be avoided from being termed as the path leading to the absolute truth.

The mystics feel these traces of intuitive wisdom and emphasize to sense and experience it. The scientists say, no we have to understand it using our logic. But logic needs words, and words are incomplete, contrived by us only to convey what we see and perceive, so the debate turns endless, and will remain open-ended. It only proves that there is no final point to be reached.  

Finally, of all the humanoid churn-outs from the infinite broth, the emotions bordering on positivity, love, care and compassion are the brightest gems. They define the soul of our entire endeavors to paint a better picture. Hold you paintbrush confidently. You owe it to mother existence to contribute in forging a better truth.  

A Matricidal Tale of the Biggest Sinner

The August rains wreak havoc across many parts of Asia, uprooting millions who stay closest to earth. These hapless masses, occupying just a tiny shelter and a few cattle, have hardly any role in degrading the pristine slopes of their natural armour and in corroding ecological immunity, still they suffer the most. The behemoths, whose rapacious juggernaut rapes the natural resources, hardly get affected directly. The geography of a plush cocoon in a high rise may save them, but the stinking, suffocating atmospherics of an asthmatic earth, with lungs hardly functioning without trees, will come to lay its evil, chuckling grip on their plump neck-tied necks. Let them have air-purifiers, as they may brag about it. But how many times you will have your funny oxygen toy with you. Will you use it even while shitting and fucking? Well, if you do, then poor plunderer let me remind you that you make yourself a prisoner.

The naked, raped slopes fall crying testimony to their rape and plunder. The spiteful rivers cry out the tale of mankind’s scourge. The glaciers fall with the majesty of grand old men killed by their own grandchildren out of criminal neglect. Many species become extinct and the last of them take a final breath with a curse in their eyes for the man and his kind. The grandest trees fall telling another tale of agony and tragedy. It’s mother earth’s big, loud, pinful cry, you damn fools. 

Mother Earth’s lungs are burning. As the fresh, verdant, lively, life-giving woods get charred to lifeless ash, the mankind has taken one more step toward the inevitable doom. The lungs of earth, the Amazon forests, supplying 20% of the total oxygen to the mother planet, are turning to smouldering char and dead ash. Nobody seems to be bothered. It hardly qualifies as serious international news. The golden haired boss of the world and a small, plump Romeo, bursting at his skin’s seams, shaking hands to take a break from their respective follies pleasantly startles the planet. The message reaches everywhere from the hungriest bellies in the remotest hamlets in Africa to the well-fed rats in the gutters of the financial mega-hubs housing the dens of lies, conceits, exploits and plunder. But the lung of mother planet burning and collapsing hardly qualifies to be a news-studio worthy beat.

The modern civilization appears to be too solution-oriented. It believes in grafts and transplants. It’s taken as a hallmark of technological prowess. Isn’t it funny? I mean just having to pursue solutions for the follies that we are knowingly committing. It’s outrightly fatalistic. It just fights the evil-effects of the well-proposed and efficiently implemented policies and plans. Why doesn’t it just show innovation in being with the natural mechanisms that support human life? Why does it put all human potential in first deliberately destroying its overall home and then use institutions, NGOs, armies, research institutes, medicine, innovation and planning commissions to plan on a bigger scale to undo the self-inflicted harm? It is simply as fatalistic as a snake eating its own tail to survive. The poor thing assumes that it’s moving on the path of survival. Little does it realise, it’s progressing on the trail of its own annihilation.

So, as the news channels and those who matter waste their lung-power in school-boyish scuttles and slips, the pristine flora and fauna in the most luscious natural part of mother earth burns to lifeless ash. To the land-monger modern civilization, a clear path is more important than a clump of trees. The issues of trees and environment are left for the future generations to handle as they deem it fit. Basically, we are showering the so called parental love and care on our children to leave them suffering in the concrete gas chambers a few decades down the line. There cannot be a graver and more short-sighted version of self-seeking love.

The Real Prison

You know what, institutions are the mammoth whirlpools, which suck individuals into their all powerful innards. By institutions, I mean the systematized, soulless machinery to achieve dark, power-hungry, ambitious motives—even though a lot many of them pass off as the needs to run the world. The institutions of despots, dictators, mafia, business magnates, hidden heavyweights pulling the strings, the intelligence and spy agencies, politicians, NGOs, and many more. These are the black holes that absorb their own light, hence keeping them hidden.

Those who operate there lose their souls, their sense of right and wrong, as a strange sense of ennui grips them, making them sleepwalking jombies. The institutional juggernaut reaps its crop, while the individual clogs, levers, pullies, nuts and bolts just perform their duties mechanically. Institutions have strange hypnotic powers to put vibrant hearts and independent minds to put them under the magic wand. The constituents operate like lifeless bottles on the conveyer belt in an assembly line in a factory.

Even stones change to, slowly though, to the cooing calls of season and weather over decades. The institutions do not. They adapt though to the changing circumstances. However, the core philosophy stays the same. And long after the cog is retired, and regains a fraction of his soul, and sees the grease on his hands, only then he realizes what he has been through. Now he can listen to his heart. Now his mind can help him see beyond the factory wall. It does not, but, change anything in the world. Nor it can even if the retired cog tries. All it gives is a guilty bruise to an ageing heart and a sad feeling that life could have been spent better beyond the walls of the institution. 

Ajit Dobhal in Afghanistan

In order to consolidate the non-military Indian rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan, the suffering soil of the lost paradise there needs Indian boots now. Modi sahab listening! Modi chacha ji, it will help Tau Trump also. He is very cranky and pissed off right now, especially after the Greenland fiasco.

Well, the Indian PM is now well known, in fact famous world over, for doing lot many things, which we see happening for the first time. So, why not Indian boots in Afghanistan to restore the rule of law there? It's not that it will help Afghanistan only. It will directly help India in Kashmir also. Violence in Afghanistan and Kashmir share a subtle anatomy. I don’t think there is any doubt about this poignant chemistry. Just peel off the upper layer, use some common sense, and there you see the bitter juicy reality.

So, why not go into the den itself to contain the scourge. A little icing on the cake, it will cheer up Tau Trump also. He is very moody and unpredictable. You may find him having Iftar with Imran Khan if you leave him alone to suffer with this irritation. Modi Sahab listening? One more thing: by having Indian boots in Afghanistan, you get a strategic location to twist both the right and left ears of the naughty all-rounder boy.

History gives a little opportunity now and then. There is a little opening for India to consolidate its position now—after all that rebuilding efforts within our limits, which unfortunately Tau Trump finds almost inconsequential to the puny extent of just building a library somewhere in the war torn country—by redefining its association in Afghanistan. Tau Trump is willing presently. He seems to have bitten more than he can chew, so needs munching jaws to support the mouthful. If irritated further, who knows, you may have, God forbid, naughty all-rounder boy's boots there, which will be worse.

I know the skeptics will sound a warning about the irresolvable puzzle that Afghanistan is, suitably giving Russian and American examples. But aren't things managed finally by someone? The Indian PM, being an astute human resources actualizer, can definitely count upon Dobhal Sahab. The modern version of Acharya Chanakya has definitely more to offer than assignments like managing Post-370 Kashmir. Modi Sahab count upon him to manage Afghanistan with Indian boots in the once paradisiacal country.

If the whole idea still seems too preposterous and unworkable, go there at least as goddamned UN peacekeeping boots. Graft the American led NATO forces with a UN peacekeeping mission. The boots will remain the same, with the addition of Indian boots of course, and it will not create a paper revolution in India by the opposition. Moreover, beyond all the stratagems, the poor country needs a peacekeeping force only.

The Mother

Vivian Richards: “Test father, One Day mother and T20 their children” One of the greatest cricket players of all times has a big point here. I but beg to differ a bit slightly, or may be not so slightly. My common man’s corrected version would be: “Test mother, One Day father and T20 their children”.

Test is the genesis, the prolonged furnace in which the real cricketing destiny is forged. So shouldn’t Test be called the mother? Given her soulful, bordering on most selfless version of love seen in nature, contribution in formulating a new life, involving emotional and physical contribution before conception, and later in the form of irrigating the new seed with her own blood, and still later in 24 by 7 care and concern, when her own individuality melts and takes the shape of that little vulnerable life, doesn’t she stand closer to the prolonged cricketing game of agonies and ecstasies spread over the five day version of the game? So Test definitely is the mother! I have no doubts. Ask mother earth, how much of divine stillness and poise is needed to allow a new seed to sprout from its earthy womb!

Father is the One Day version, definitely. He is moderately rash, adventurist and huffs and puffs for a day. No wonder, his contribution might seriously come close to only one fifth of what a mother does for her children. No insults meant for all the fathers out there. But kindly have a close look at the story of your children’s rearing up, and you will realize the mothers have been out there like a slowly smoldering warmth, keeping the tiny shapes with the prolonged glow of her care and forever-existing duties. Fathers have a privilege of playing, tiring though, swashbuckling one-day innings and hot blizzards of fiery spells of bowing and rolling dives in the field. It has but its concurrent fun, this play of brawn and show of spirit. But the classic contours of a mother’s travails are spread out over a broad time and space, like some elegant tussle at the Lord’s on some autumn evening. Her efforts touch the horizons and mix with misty insignia of godliness.   

Well, no issues about the children being the vagrant, rampaging, arrogant, disobedient, running off the line T20. Effervescent, unorthodox, fiery, revolting, as many mishits as hits during the funny adolescent idiosyncrasies. We can spare our words from elaborating on the evident jocularity.

The Angry President

An angry Trump skipped lunch and like a pissed off kid raising a ruckus about going to school cancelled his Denmark holiday. Not being able to purchase a future's prime location, and present's last hideout away from the mankind creating concrete jungles (Greenland), to change its status from nature's estate to real estate, I hope there aren't broken windows in the White House. An angry businessman is scary man! It's understandable, there can't be a bigger loss for a businessman. My sympathies with him for his mood getting spoiled. And God save the dining set, bedside mirror, housekeeping staff and even officials in the office. All of us are mother earth's kids. But the tantrums of the fattest bully among the famished mass of we poorlings can be very testing. I pray to almighty that there is a surge in President's business to make him forget about the loss!

From booming, buzzing colonies to sad, solitary couples

It is a cool late August morning and a lot many hominids are having hasty breakfasts before catching onto the bandwagon of survival through the day. This little Indian yellow wasp, unfortunately maligned with a pinching adjective ‘stinging’, is not breakfasting on the dry bark of this dead Marwa plant.  With the unhurried ease of an artist, it’s scratching away little bark crumbs to use these in making its paper carton galleries to lay eggs and start the process of life from its end. In the slow-paced, unhurried smaller world, they use pollen crumbs and dead bark pieces to build their umbrella-shaped nesting hives, the little galleries to shelter eggs.
Well, it’s a sad tale from colonies to couple. Earlier, during the times when they stood a chance to stand, or when humankind wasn’t too imposing, they thrived in colonies and valiantly defended their citadels. The days are gone. Humankind’s heart has shrunk and his pest control arm has expanded well beyond his home and hearth. It now covers every nook corner of earth. So the colonies are out of question these days. All you have is just a wasp couple—he/she seen in the video and the partner taken flight to lay the foundation somewhere—sneaking like thieves and set up a little nest in some inaccessible part somewhere around overhangs, porches, eaves, attic corner, barn, porch shed, some abandoned ceiling, railings or door-frames. More than the artistry, it is about theft of temporarily stealing a little space somewhere. Just a tiny bulb of nest and a few eggs. All that is left of the maligned stinging nest. A little unbecoming projection at the risk of swatted out by the gentlest touch of a cobweb cleaner.
There will be many who feel like rapping my knuckles for speaking for the stinging wasps. Well, do they sting for pleasure? Let somebody come barging uninvited into your bedroom and then watch your own sting. Just because you hold man-made pares of the property doesn’t justify your sting, just like it doesn’t biggest wars for space and resources over earth.
Nature has a place for them. They pollinate flowers and control many insect species. Now don’t look at the insect species controlled by the wasps as the primary villains. They in turn must be controlling something else. In the two-way scheme of things, every species receives something in lieu of what it gives back. We have but turned the tables. We have re-calibrated the natural instinct to give back also. It’s a mad rush to take as much as possible, without willingness to give back anything. No wonder, we have raped mother earth. With newer and newer techniques to plunder resources, we are giving back long, long tragic tales of ecological degradation, extinction of species, wars, diseases, strife and unrest. Well, the list of our give-aways is endless on the negative side.

The Real 'Wrong'

Well, most of us commit our wrongs with a sense of duty, a sort of commitment, in a kind of frenzied sense of occupation. If not for this, so many of us will not be found ready, almost instinctively, to go the wrong way rather than volunteering to do something good. So, the ‘wrong’ seems to have its justification born of those perceived duties by the doer.

A hierarchy of sieving then decides not so common from the common-most crop. At the first level of filtration, the finest wire-mesh allows majority of the mob of wrongdoers trickle down into the dustbin of petty wrongs on the smallest stage closest to earth in crowded slums, stinking nullahs, mucking markets and laboring beehives, where the fight for survival saps most of the energy, leaving very little escapades of and on in frustrated minds. The bigger, fat, rascally particles stay above on the screened, perforated platform and engage in bigger wrongs on a more substantive platform.

Now, the second level of sieving takes place among the thicker rascal-heads, the bigger baddies, or the plumpier daddies of the trade. The holes in the wire-mesh are bigger than the previous one. A lot many foolish gallants topple down, so many die, get beaten, imprisoned and clobbered down to survive at the second tier of wrongdoing. They slide down the screening holes at the second tier and settle for bigger wrongs than the lowest mass. As expected, the still thicker ones get a chance to play the wrongdoing game at the next level. Here, the stakes are higher. The risks involved are bloody, but so are the returns, which hit the proportions of jackpots.

To qualify to stay above the screening mesh at the third level, the thickheaded pebbles, veritable stones, quibble, use brain as well as brawn, and mostly utilize the muscle of the toppled down smaller particles at the level immediately below, and the ignorance of the ant-swarms at the bottom.

In this final sieving, the biggest mafias, cartels and powerful politicians stay afloat to rule at the apex. Now they decide what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’. All other versions of right and wrong at the lower rungs lose their meaning. There, at the lower orders, murders, rapes, felonies and thefts come to be mere stats in the law and order book. These are mere social problems and hardly matter as long as these don’t shake the foundations of the state, i.e., interests of the ones qualifying to be filtered at the highest sieve.

One can commit a murder on the lower rungs and still be considered a foolish nonmalignant element. However, if a sound brain, even in the frailest and most non-violent of a body, raises a verbal assault against the wrongdoers at the apex, he then becomes the most lethal anti-state, malignant criminal. The state is basically not bothered about the marketplace cacophony of petty criminalities like someone cutting somebody’s throat, or someone raping, plundering, beating or shouting abuses. These are local-police station worthy petty, minor pardonable wrongdoings. These in fact are the cause of creating the bread and butter for a whole damn law-keeping department. The real ‘wrong’ is the ‘wrong’ that shakes the confidence, or throws light, or exposes, the machinations and stratagems of the biggest rascals at the top.