A glimpse of the ultimate truth at dusk in my village:

On the infinite canvas in the sky, He, the ever-creative artist, paints one mural after the other. Gives a fleeting vision of the ultimate truth. Of transience. Of ever transforming shades. The creator doesn't hold onto the fleeting shades. He allows these to dissolve into newer and newer frescoes.

PS: Ravinder bhai has provided a higher dimension to my emotion through his translation. So cannot help sharing it on the main post with much thanks to him. He is rapidly evolving on the path of self realisation. May almighty allow him to stand face to face with the ultimate truth. Here goes the translation:

वह, एक रचनात्मक कलाकार के रूप में, आकाश के अनंत चित्र-फ़लक पर , एक के बाद एक चित्र बनाता है। एक अंतिम सच्चाई के रूप में क्षणभंगूर दृश्य देता है । क्षणिक भंगुरता का  । कभी रूपांतरित होते हुये रंगों का । विधाता इस लगातार बदलते क्षणिक रंगों को रोकता नहीं है । वह तो  इस घुलते हुये नए से नए बनते भीतिचित्रों की अनुमति प्रदान करता रहता है ----

आभार सहित प्रोफेसर रविन्द्र कुमार

Real Karma

 One of my favorite slokas in गीता. To be stable like a stone in the fluttering petals of life. To be stationary even while walking and running. To be silent even when speaking. To be the immovable chetna as the screen of mind plays the interesting film of life. To be the emptiness inside all that appears solid and filled up. To just 'be' among all the waves of 'becoming' surging around.  To be beyond creation and destruction, life and death even in a battlefield. To firmly hold the reins of the horses of sense perception as the chariot goes over the ground smattered with blood, gore and corpses of the mundane survival game. To be the spotless blue above and beyond the shifting shapes of clouds.To be alive and dead at the same time with each inhalation and exhalation.

Mother Kundalini

 The primal source of energy driving the primal matter...the ageless, infinite stream...the feminine half of the ultimate unity...the spark of cosmic agility...the force behind apparent creation and destruction...the Shakti holding the essence of Shiva...the spark of life inside a rock...the mover of galaxies...the exhaler through bursting stars...the inhaler through blackholes...and the divine cord that sustains the phenomenon which creates the sweet illusion of me being me.

A simple, little world of marigolds

 

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

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

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

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

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

Millet Musings

 

Different things mean differently to various parties. There are some grains of millet. Some sparrows eat seriously; some play and eat both; some quarrel and eat; and a few do all of this plus intimidating others. To the squirrel, it means temporary ownership of the property. It perches smartly among the grains and shoos away the sparrows. The doves don’t have much use for the tiny grains but they make noise and try to stamp their docile authority. The crow has no use of it but sits in surprise as the sole owner for some time before getting bored. The doves pick a few grains from the ground among this scuffle. The cat eyes all of them as lunch items from the nearby flowerbed. It’s a really hectic business. There is an understated simplicity in these tiny dollops of happenings momentarily surfacing from the ethereal vistas of the ultimate reality.

Grandpa's Cycle

 

Grandfather rode his archaic Atlas cycle till his late eighties. Apparently innocuous and toothless, he had a sharp mind and still sharper willpower to hit a century of years like his favorite Sachin did on the cricket field. His classic old cycle and his frail but athletic figure presented an epic profile when you observed them slowly moving on the dusted path of life. Both seemed steeped in antiquity but you would never fail to feel the delectable charm of a pair honed by vintage years. The cycle would give panting, creaking and groaning sounds in response to his slow, easeful paddling. Maybe his joints also creaked but any sound in that genre was shadowed by his metallic companion.

I remember my first lesson in cycling at the age of twelve. With me sitting on the crossbar in front, a fodder bale at the back, Grandfather heaved the cycle at the age of eighty or a bit more. To learn cycling first you should know how to properly occupy the passenger spot anywhere possible on the cycle. That was Grandfather’s advice as I tried my best to behave to the best of my capacity, juddering like an infantile passenger, trying my level best to score good marks in the art of sitting on a cycle. For a long time I was having his warning muffles above my head, ‘Don’t hold the handle too tight. Don’t try to steer it this way or that!’ Then we fell down. He plonked a hand-smash at my nape, ‘Didn’t I tell you not to try to steer the handle. That’s the rider’s job!’ he exposed my grand profanity.

Three years later, we were coming in the similar manner with the slight adjustment that my still older grandpa was sitting in front as I plodded ahead with much sideways shaking of the front tyre. Grandfather forgot his own lessons in the art of being a passenger on a cycle. Not a fault of his, the frustrating cascades of my lurching paddling were sufficient to make him forget his own set of rules. No wonder, Grandfather hardly trusted my ability to see us safely home. So I found him involuntarily trying to control the handle.

It turned into a motley mix of forces in opposite directions. ‘Grandpa you said it’s the rider’s job. Now why do you apply pressure to steer the handle?’ I breathlessly protested over his headgear. ‘Yea, but that’s only when the rider knows to do his job properly,’ he angrily countered. He followed his observation with an expert maneuver to avoid the cake-cutting ceremony of a fresh lump of dung on the way. I pulled in a different direction. The tyre cut through the dung heap as a celebratory cake-cutting of the event to follow. We were a heap of cycle, humans and the fodder bale. ‘Why did you pull it while it was my job?’ I complained, scared of the colossal discharge of his seasoned farmer’s reflexes. ‘Because you were not able to!’ he shouted and feigned to smash the back of my head with his teacherly palm but stopped short, possibly realizing his role in the little accident.

After that we simply walked to our home. As a punishment, I had to pull the fodder-laden cycle, a tough job for a slightly built boy. I was sweating profusely. ‘It gives a nice practice to manage the handle,’ Grandfather tenderly consoled. He was slightly limping after the fall. So I was lucky not to get his favorite palm-smash at the nape. He was but luckier—in not getting a fracture after crash-landing from a cycle in his mid-eighties. So that was a close save.

The illustrious past of a liquor-lover

 

His wife may give an outraged sniff at this, and rightly so, but the simple fact is that Munsi is the number one liquor-lover in the locality as of now. ‘He is of No Use!’ is the public and private opinion about him. He but is not comfortable with standing out as an ungentlemanly emblem and cheekily, vehemently in fact, denies this belittling charge. Cutting through the teeth and tentacles of the not so flattering status, he elaborates through his slurred speech how he was the most layak among his siblings during the childhood.

They kept buffalos and the calves born in poor peasant barns had very high mortality rates because there was hardly any milk left for them. A kind of tortuous starvation it was for the little ones. With the calf gone, the buffalo ma would have problems in lactation. Tau Dayanand, of grand vision and pioneering conscience, had a nice solution to the problem. So even though ninety percent of their calves perished, there hardly was lactation problem among the buffalos. The process of milking ran smooth. Munsi stood, crouched rather, as the proxy calf for all the buffalo mothers grieving the loss of their kids.

A special calf robe was devised for him. Made of dark, coarse blanket, it gave him a nice calf look as he was paraded first in front of the buffalo that walloped him with slimy affection and licked him profusely. He was then made to crawl to the udder side and mock a hungriest calf’s suckling at the teats. Getting to the pulsating vibrancy of motherhood, the buffalo would then get ready to fill the bucket with a magical sweetness of temper.

However, it wasn’t a cakewalk all the time. In bad mood, and smelling something fishy in the business, the buffalo would sniff at him loudly, prod him playfully, even pushing with a mild punishment, which is too much for a human child. He would get kicks also sometimes as the lactation phase entered the late stage when the buffalos deny the supply of milk.

‘I was the backbone of our economy during those famished days. If not for me, they would have starved to death!’ he proudly elucidates his credentials that are presented to nullify the ‘of no use’ status bestowed upon him. He then proceeds to guzzle the remaining liquor bottle with pride. 

Conquer your fears

 I sought the lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. [PSALM 34:4].

Well the key lies in peeling off the layers of fears, layers after layers. Starting from the plain fears of insecurities born of material world around us. Then of emotions and thoughts born of our relationships. Then the raw brutal fear of death. Observe your fear in its various avatars during the day. As and when possible. Keep an eye on your fear. This awareness of it, this realisation that it exists in you is its antidote. Under the light of persistent awareness the darkness of fear vanishes. Keep a stern eye over it. It's natural to get fearful many times during the day. Main thing is one just need to be aware of it. Getting fearful and not knowing, allowing it to get deeply embedded in your soul is fatal on the path of liberation. To know that you get fearful is itself a step on the path of liberation from sufferings born of our fears. Be aware of it. It should never be allowed to go unobserved once it has shaked your system. Keep a watch on it. And finally it will pack its bags and say bye to your psychosomatic system. Best wishes all you brothers and sisters on the path of conquering fears!

Shiva and His Naga

 Indian mythology is full of beautiful fables and interesting tales. Now they have very mystical meanings if we analyze them, interpret them as per the higher laws of the bigger dimension defined by high vibrational frequencies. I always wondered why do they depict Shiva with a naga, mostly a black cobra, around his neck. My individual interpretation is something on the following lines.

A snake is one of the most perceptible creatures on earth. Their entire body is in a position to perceive things to a level that is almost impossible to even imagine for we human beings. For example, suppose there is a snake in its hole and there is an earthquake thousands of kilometers away. Now there is a high possibility that the snake will perceive the tremors because it is so sensitive to even the softest reverberations coming across its body. We humans have almost a primal fear when it comes to snakes. Just think of a snake and you get goose-bumps. When we come across a snake it can perceive the fear in us. It can perceive and feel the change in our blood chemistry because when we get excited, get fearful our blood chemistry changes and the breathing pattern also turns abnormal. Now a snake is so perceptive and sensitive as to feel the slightest disturbance in the vibrational frequency and chemical change in anyone or anything around. Even if we don’t show any outer sign of being afraid, but are scared inside, it can perceive the biological or chemical changes in our bloodstream. It then reacts to that fear.

It is commonly believed that wherever there are meditating spiritualists the snakes really like their company. Maybe they feel comfortable among those higher energies emanating from the yogis. I have read stories about meditating ascetics in the forests and as their mind goes into that state of equilibrium, that equanimity of temperament, that balance of mind and the consequent lessening of fear, a snake (especially a cobra) really likes those waves of higher frequency.

In the neighboring village there was a realized soul, Narayan Maharaj. He left this body about 25 years ago, but people accepted him as an enlightened human being. He used to meditate a lot when he arrived in this area as a young wandering ascetic. He used to meditate in a little scrub forest in the countryside. In his memoirs he has clearly written that when he would meditate there was a black cobra that would continue moving in a circle around him and that continued for at least five or six years. So it proves that a cobra has a special liking for those who are spiritually evolved or who are on the path of spiritual evolution because there are certain biological changes as a result of the spiritual practices, which create a kind of divine atmosphere where there is no fear, where the snake loses its instinct of fear and biting. In this divine little space around the meditating yogi, in the spools of unqualified love, he tells us that he saw opposites melting and getting unified at certain nights—a snake and a mongoose playing like children; a little fox and a fearsome wolf playing on the grass nearby where he had set up his asana.  

I think the reason they show a naga around Shiva’s neck is that Shiva being a realized soul, a supreme  being who was hundred percent established within himself, so there was no fear and the snake would find him just like a warm rock during cold winter days, where it could relax since there was no fear, no change in that great yogi’s blood chemistry  or emotions or thoughts or energy field. As established as a rock he was. A live rock! So a snake would be near lord Shiva the way it would prefer to crawl on a rock. According to me, the main purpose they show Shiva with a naga is that he was a supreme personality that was hundred percent realized and established like an unmovable rock within his human body; there was no turbulence either in his emotions or in his body or in his energy field and a snake would be so comfortable around his neck as it would be relaxed on a rock during harsh winter days in order to soak the warm sunrays. The adiyogi established his chitta in all forms, to be like a living rock, a supreme fluidity inside a supreme stability. And with someone so blissful why won’t a naga fall in love. It abandoned its fears and biting instincts. And there we have our beautiful Shiva with a naga around his neck.

Some frost-bitten happy times

 

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

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

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

Slow ways of rapidly killing time

 

Those were the easy-going slow-paced days. Elegant and alluring with their nostalgic strains, still affable with their withering charm, those moments behold the enduring symbolism of goodness that shone always brighter in the past. Bathing on the well-curbs was a particularly socializing act during those times. Beyond the modern-day clanking and urging sounds, there was silence and power in those laidback moments. Time moved with a very slow, holistic elegance. It wasn’t slipping away. It was in fact so plentiful that one could kill it to one’s satiation. And if the bucket fell into the well, it would offer a still bigger opportunity to slaughter time en masse. A hook would be lowered at the end of a rope and many faces would calmly stare into the muddled water as the harpoon was dragged around the invisible muddy bottom. There would be just a few phrases of success in the incomprehensible paperwork of the entire set of probabilities. The rope would change many hands and it would continue for hours. A basket retrieved after dredging by many hands amounted to a very successful day in the life of all those involved including the onlookers.

The pandemic of hate

 If you breed hate and anger, among larger groups through narratives or build a cult of hate centred around a few leaders and ideological posturing, the result would be social conflicts. The Britishers groomed communal hate among Hindus and Muslims by pampering the vanity of their respective leaders. The partition-time mayhem followed. Two million people got killed and millions were uprooted from their birth soil. The deep state in Pakistan nurtured a cult of hate for India and see where Pakistan stands today, its society ruptured by violence, conflicts and poverty. There are so many other examples of hate that turned entire nations into rogue states. Entire nations have failed just because their societies buckled under the bug of hate. On the other hand, cities have acquired the status of big nations--Dubai and Singapore, for example. Do you believe Dubai and Singapore would be what they are if the rulers allow this type of virus of hate in their social innards? 

There are so many other examples such as Punjab and Srilanka where facilitating with dangerous elements proved so disastrous for the Congress leadership. And now Manipur and Gurgaon. And many episodes in between including Sikh riots of 1984 and then Gujarat. Spreading hate in the society is the hashish of politics. It gives instant high of political power. But it wrecks the system. The body realises a few years down the line how much cost it has to pay now for those momentary highs. The same with building social hate to kick-start social conflicts. It gives instant highs of power and perks. But the society feels the damage it has caused to the social anatomy with the passage of time. So as the agents of hate spin narratives to stroke the fires of division and conflicts in society, just like the Britishers did before independence, the brown rulers in the same seat do exactly the same by holding the nation-making wand of nationalism, beholding the pride of religion, racial excellence and what not. It's just the same. The only consolation is that we can try to convince ourselves that at least our very own people are doing it. In practice, freedom is the ability to do what others had been doing earlier. Right or wrong isn't part of the picture.

Anything for the country

 And finally I see a nationalist-brand rastrabhakt sacrificing for the cause of the nation. Communal violence has hit Gurgaon and the surrounding areas. Migrant workers from the minority community, poor people who work in households, restaurants, construction sites and factories, have run away to save their lives. The rastrabhakt was vocal in shouting and flying saffron flag to protect the country in a procession in the safety of police protection. But he loves mutton more than anything else on earth, be it wine, woman, country or the entire humanity. But now the mutton sellers are gone. He misses mutton. 'But anything for the nation's cause,' he helplessly says, with a faraway look as if trying to imagine a rotund Muslim skinning a fat bakra and rows of choicest raw mutton hanging from hooks. Well, who says, the paper patriots don't sacrifice for the country? They do, I bear witness to it.

GREATNESS IN PRACTICE

 

The honorable Chief Justice of India with his wife and adopted daughters.  These are the real heroes of India. The Honorable Chief Justice of India is like a lotus smiling in muddy waters. He is known for the honesty and integrity becoming of the beholder of the Supreme Seat of Justice in India. People like him are the true bullworks of democracy and humanity. As we pay salutes to him let's forget about the traders of hate who serve opium of darkness and illusions to blindfold the masses and then rule over them. 

Two daughters Mahi and Priyanka want to visit their father's place of work. To fulfill the wishes of his daughters, the loving father takes them to his place of work, the Supreme Court of India. The two daughters visit their father's workplace and are overwhelmed with joy. Their happiness is boundless today. One can see the glint of pride in their eyes for being the daughters of such a great couple, a combination of power and compassion. Father is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court - Hon'ble D Y Chandrachur. Mother is Mrs. Kalpana Chandrachur. And two beautiful smiling angels under their parents' care and love. The picture is taken at the Supreme Court complex. 'GREATNESS IN PRACTICE, NOT IN THEORY'.

The small world of a little boy

 

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

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

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

Well, two boys with a broken heart between them?

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

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

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

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

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

The pleasure of spotting a new bird

 

The knowledge of a new bird species is joyful. If you are studious type, you stand on sturdier conceptual pillars. I feel more evolved and loving, at least. Great Salim Ali’s book helps me a lot in this regard. It’s as comprehensive on the subject as the freewheeling flights of the entire range of birds in the subcontinent. Each word carries an enriching streak. The pictures give a brilliantly crisp snapshot of the ultimate birdie reality.

Here I see a new bird on the fence wall. I take long and short notes of its colors, wings, feathers, beak and everything possible about its appearance and run to pick up the masterpiece. With a great sense of an amateur birdwatcher’s emotionalism, I flip through the picture plates to spot anything matching my mental notes about the bird. Great Salim Ali will never disappoint you even if you remember a few basic points about the bird.

It turns out to be a white-browed fantail-flycatcher. It has a striking white brow. It has a distinctively white forehead and white underparts. It sometimes joins mixed hunting parties of insectivorous birds. So it possesses a pretty flexible, smart, circumstantial attitude. It flits, waltzes, pirouettes from branch to branch and tree to tree. As a tuneful tribute to the free-spirited winged birdie gods, it makes graceful sallies. Its call but is a bit harsh, a sort of authoritative chuk-chuk. But when it’s in love it makes delightful chee-chee-chweevi notes. Everyone mellows down after falling in love. Well, he is always welcome in my small courtyard and little garden as long as he catches flies as suggested by his name. There are plenty of them around.

Fahien, the legendary scholar-traveller

 

This is something from the yellowed pages of an ancient traveler’s book of life. With an unflagging persistence, he has written an indelible footnote in the book chronicling the cooing of adventurous spirits to know more of the world. It must have been astronomically breathtaking when he crossed the Himalayas and the Central Asian highlands. It’s about the legendary traveler, Fahien.

More than one and half millennia ago, Fahien set out on an arduous journey. He had been ordained as a monk at a very young age. One day, he came across a very old, tattered copy of Vinay Pitika (the rules of monastic order). The sumptuous literary opulence drew his heart with its velvety cord. He wanted to have a copy of the book at any cost. Showing amazing fortitude for his age—he was already sixty-two—he set out for India, the land of the origination of his faith.

Bravely fixing the jigsaw pieces of a perilous journey, he managed to cross the Himalayas. He wandered all over India, visiting many monasteries to get the book. Finally, he found the book in Sanskrit at a monastery in Pataliputra. Sticking to his mould, he learnt Sanskrit, translated the book in his language and sailed back home. He deserved a relatively smoother sea-ride this time to go back home at the age of seventy-five.

The resident oriental magpie robin

 

The handsome dainty oriental magpie robin has picked out a particular bough for its night perch. It’s suitably located among a dense clump of leaves to give it a comfortable night stay beyond the feral cats’ encroachment. And the winter takes everything in its icy folds. The moon looks shivery with its beatific three-quarter smile. The winter means submission. The fast and the furious streak in us turns slower as if in proportion to the slower blood movement across veins and arteries. But then all of us know the seasons inevitably change. The spring is patiently biding its time at some virgin locales. We also have to wait and allow the cold to spend its freezing stores.

The lonely oriental magpie robin is a warm company to the forlorn writer in an old countryside house. I can feel his position. It’s sad to be alone at cold nights. I believe none of us is in dumps and depression. There is hardly any sun during January. The stars twinkle sometimes at night but then the fog quickly takes possession of the skies. The smog flaunts its vile vanities—even in the countryside around the Delhi NCR. The winter air is like almost being in gas chambers but still we aren’t paying any heed to the urgent climatic issues and with a flagrant indifference are adding to the concrete high-rises, spanking new complexes and thousands of new vehicles on the congested roads.

Beyond all these pressing matters, the oriental magpie robin spends his nights among a clump of kari-patta, guava and parijat branches. These intersect nicely at a safe height. The location of his favorite branch is proved by the bird-drops on the jasmine leaves below his nighttime shelter. There is a natural intelligence in creation, far bigger than our thoughts. For its nighttime homecoming, it need not look at a watch. Its coming-home time is exactly twilight, at 6:20 PM in this part. I have confirmed it a few times. It lands home exactly at twilight and breaks the eerily quiet moments with its blithely uttered charrr-charrr notes. It seems a kind of prayer before retiring to spend a cold night all alone and see another day.

Shooting the stars now

 

A pig is genetically modified, its genes edited a bit. Its heart is then transplanted into a man. Organ harvesting will be a routine thing in future. But it would be interesting to see how the pig hearts function in our anatomy.

An Italy court has pronounced noisy toilets as human rights abuse. Well, if there is prosperity and you have well off people around then you have to eavesdrop on neighbor’s toilets to have a feeling of human rights abuse.

The effects of climate change are no longer ignorable. Our technologists have a grand idea. They are planning to dim the sun by putting scattering particles in the atmosphere to reflect away the sunrays. Didn’t I say sometime that we have long crossed the threshold and our hopeless solutions to our self-created problems will create still bigger problems?

The scourge of communalism

 The aftermaths of the politics of hate and division. After Manipur now Haryana is burning. And with the slugfest 2024 for power looming large, I am afraid the communal scourge will continue spreading. It's not a question of how many people died from this community or that, or how many shops or temples or mosques were gutted. The main thing is the spread of communal virus. A murder suspect cow vigilante, sadly still out of the bounds of law, uploads a video on social media that he will be joining a religious procession held by the Hindu rightist groups across communally sensitive areas. It was a clearly inflammatory step. The administration should have known there would be a reaction against him as the minority community still remembers the charred bodies of two of its people. Moreover,  the recent ghastly killing of three innocent Muslim men by a security personnel on board a train in a hate crime and the subsequent communal rant on video must have also added fuel to the fire. Sadly, such social conflicts will rise in India. They help certain groups to come to power but in the long turn they are sowing the seeds of another division of India. Those who claim to be the protectors of this country are in fact eating its foundations like termites. President Obama is right in saying that India may fall apart if this type of systematic and doctored division of society isn't stopped. But look at the Iirony, those who really love this country and cherish the dreams of India being a progressive and integrative society are surely to be termed traitors by the nationalistic hyperboles in mainstream  media and social media. Only God can save us now!

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/communal-violence-erupts-in-haryana-s-nuh-district-spreads-to-gurugram-5-dead-dozens-of-establishments-vandalised-101690914548639.html