The material costs of devotional love

The Russian Hare Rama Hare Krishna follower sincerely loves Krishna and Mathura. She has been here for four years. She has sea-green eyes. But then you need a real-life Krishna in your life also. So she is on Tinder to seek a human manifestation of the divine love. An acquaintance of mine, an enthralled connoisseur of wine and women, is also looking for fresher pastures of love most of the time. They hit a match, exchange numbers and start chatting. He is in the deep blue of love, lust, companionship; name it anything, all these mean just temporary escapades of the modern man to help him run from his restless self. He is expertly pulling at the long strings of his expertise in handling women to his advantage. His words are sweet and slippery like exquisite muslin. 'Female spiritualists in casual low-necked T-shirts are very attractive,' he shares with me, almost water-mouthed. Ambling along the tidal fury of raw passion he is slowly pulling the lines. But these are classy fishes needing still classier baits.

‘Most of the people are chronically materialistic,’ she quips, with a mysterious light emanating from under her shadowy eyelashes during their chatting session. The guy sounds apologetic each time she utters the word ‘materialistic’ because he is always after money and women. ‘I need a MackBook laptop for translating my guru’s teachings into Russian…for larger good,’ she tells him as they seem ready to take on each other, testing each other’s worth at many levels. ‘And I need to go to Thailand for some time to mediate in peace and silence,’ she further elaborates her plan, expecting her sex-obsessed Indian Tinder friend, prominently cherishing a fling with a white woman, to come gallantly forward to spiritually meet the materialistic costs of this ascetic scheme. Well, the material cost of this immaterial wish—the gourmet choices of the stomach prevailing like the shadows of metaphysical hunger of mind—is at least two lakh rupees. The guy beats a hasty retreat. This love of a Krishna lover is too much for him. The immaterial demands of a devotee are too overwhelming for him.

I tried my level best to encourage him to fulfill these little demands of a devotee but he won't listen to me. 'See, I know you are very clever like an old fox. You will even convince me to lose this money with a smile. So it's better not to listen to your sermon,' he quipped and ran away from my sermonizing self. 

Brave summer flowers

 The last week of April with its baking hot 40°C days. The sun seems to have insatiable appetite to vaporize the entire pool of moisture from the face of earth below. The moment you step out it feels as if you have been put in an oven. So those who can help it have run to take shelter in the shade. But the wheat-harvesting farmers cannot help it. They have to face the apocalypse to beat the demon of hunger both in their stomachs as well teeming millions over the planet.

The pale, yellow, still left out leaves wilt and droop under the fiery onslaught. Submissiveness and surrender, in the absence of any alternative, is the mantra of survival and resurgence when the situations change in the future. Big trees fall in a storm. A blade of grass survives because it bends to the storm knowing fully well that it can have no say in the beginning or stopping of a storm.

Seamlessly and ceaselessly blazes the sun. The heat touches its peak between two and three in the afternoon. The streets get deserted. But right under the baking sun, two brave beings hold the baton of life. A boy is flying a kite. His boyhood’s armature blunts the heat’s knife-grinder to spin mauve loops of laughter and fun. It’s windy and the kite with its long tail sways to the hot endearment of the burning, sighing wind lashing against its paper. A little white butterfly also defies the fiery diktats and goes kissing nectar from little bulbous groups of red peregrina flowers. Well, let’s make it three—the boy, the kite and the butterfly. That’s what living is—swimming against the tide.

Put your feet on the ground, the skin may peel off. The sand is on fire. Exactly for this purpose, to save the humanity’s soles from burning, a hawker of bathroom slippers is plodding his laden bicycle with bright, attractive, multicolored footwear. His hawking tagline, punch-line rather, is very interesting. ‘Chappal lyo, gents lyo, ladies lyo!’ he shouts with confidence and brave clamor. Well, beyond meanings in spirit, in letter it means: ‘Buy slippers, buy gents, buy ladies!’

There is some water in the narrow, open water drain outside the yard wall. Beyond that there is a little patch of semi-wilderness, the last refuge of the snakes in the village. The snake must have been very thirsty to crawl out on the hot sand to take a few lolloping sips of water. It left a majestic crawl-art on the sand. A liquor-lover coming gyrating in the heat’s eddies sees the curvy lines drawn on the sand. I run out to stop him from breaking the rickety iron gate for he is banging with fists in all seriousness to warn me of the snake. ‘A huge black snake got into your garden,’ he warns. ‘The line stops at your gate. It’s surely inside your house,’ he wants me to faint with fear, looking expectantly into my eyes as if baiting out utmost fear and phobias. In the evening many people talk about the snake in different colors and sizes. The color varies to cover the entire range of spectrum. The length of course is stated to vary between a dozen feet to its half. The girth between thigh and bicep. Well, I think that’s how myths develop.

There are sun-burnt flowers still holding onto their belief in blooming and smiles. The bonsai bougainvillea has a bouquet of wispy-petaled violet flowers. I bought it from a nursery keeper who had worked in Pune for some time. The way I carry myself, I look barely a senior school passout.

The stay at a big city makes you feel more enlightened about things of knowledge and facts. Even though he may not have passed even primary school but that stint at Pune makes him take himself very seriously, especially about the names of his flowers. As we bargain about the price of a bonsai bougainvillea he has to correct me multiple times. ‘Yea, it looks a nice bonsai,’ I agree. ‘Yes, very nice bone size it is!’ he corrects me. During the time it takes to strike a deal he has corrected me at least four times. He is sure that I’m not educated enough to pronounce its name correctly. ‘Bone size sold really well in Pune. Very important educated wealthy people were my regular customers for this item,’ he is very proud of his bone size plant. ‘Thanks for the wonderful bone size,’ I correct myself at last. He is relieved at teaching me the correct name of his much esteemed plant.

The brave sadabahar in the crack in the wall looks unperturbed of the heat. Used to the extremes, I suppose. The garden trees have lost their shade. Thanks to a neighboring house, I can sit in the shade till late in the morning. At least in the morning there is dead-leaf charm and autumnal joviality which a person of poetic sensitivities can barely afford to miss. Despite the fire in the air, there are butterflies, simply because we have at least sunburnt flowers.

An episode of love and war played on a yellow parijat leaf nearby. It’s a horny flea couple. They take a tumble on my newspaper and finish the action while still rolling and fly off.

The ants want a pucca house. Who doesn’t these days? They have drilled a hole in the cemented bricks in the yard. A tiny heap of sand, a mark of the excavation work undergoing below the ground, stands as the testimony to their worksite. It’s a busy world with the ants happily carrying grains to their new granary.

The Indian robin, almost a resident bird of the small garden, hops around and tastes a few ants along with the grains in their mouths. But the ants aren’t bothered. They are so many as to not miss the few odd ones that go missing on the labor line.

Maybe there was a lizard on a branch near my shoulder. The shikra dives and lands on my shoulder like a missile. Both of us get startled beyond imagination. He struggles away angrily. I am not aware of the lizard’s fate.

A fat brown male cat comes panting, mouth open and the tongue hanging out due to the heat. He checks the yard and pees on the wheel of my scooter, sniffs at many plants and deposits himself on the wet ground under a hibiscus in a corner. He looks all set for a noontime sleep. 

Romancing with peace

 

Remember the wonderful time you spent on a beach facing a calm, bluish lagoon? Its soft bluish ripples gently tugging at your soul. Silence and peace seeping into your ruffled, wavy self. Remember walking on the soft sand of a desert on a wintery, windless day? The sand cotton soft and the sun kindly warming the rigid clods of pain. Away from the hot sandy blizzards, the mirage buried under the sand and you joyfully watching the footstep trail, gently tugging at your soul. Remember rolling on undisturbed pastures on a balmy noon away from the icy shrieks of windstorms? The grassy softness assuaging all hard knots of suffering inside? Remember a calm lake? Its soft ripples gentling tugging at the aggrieved self, asking why are you so sad? Remember the spotless blue sky of the spring season, looking amusedly over the colors that have sprouted below?

Stormy seas, heaving lakes, disturbed desert or wind-lashed pastures hardly beckon us. We move away from them. They remind us of the storm within our own self. Most of us carry tiny invisible storms within, invisible storms let loose by the onslaught of nervous energy. There are waves of random thoughts, overbearing emotions, fears, insecurities, complexes. That’s why the symbols of peace represented by the kind, peaceful face of nature appeal to us so much. They are like a healing pill, a medicine of peace that we soak, inhale and gulp down to do away with the stormy sea inside.

Most of us carry a choppy sea inside, tossing the boat of our existence. The wind howls and waves shriek as the nervous energy moves randomly like in a puzzle game, seeking a way out of the troubling alleys and corridors within. Shaken by this stormy onslaught from within, it’s quite natural for us to run around in order to seek solace. It primarily is the base of our eternal urge to connect, interact, build relationships, friendships, setting families, careers and all that we engage in order to make it somehow meaningful.

There are people within whom the storms have died; so much so that they are a human representation of all the peaceful scenarios given in the first paragraph. They possess the peace of silent, bluish lagoons in them. They have the serenity of a wintertime desert on a windless day. They have the gentility of gently rolling pastures. They have the flowering of joy like the spring season. They have the summer warmth of kindness and empathy to melt others’ icicles of pain. They have the autumnal surrender and detachment to carry an unconditional smile. They have the coolness of winters to undo the burning hot turmoil in others. The best of natural peace out there gets sublimated inside their persona. They come to represent the calm, peaceful, assuring, healing aspect of mother nature.

Won’t the people feel these peaceful vibes coming from such souls? They surely will. When we talk of enlightened sages and benevolent saints, maybe we have the vast picture of calmness, peace, tranquility, stability in a human form: A human representation of all the beautiful things in nature that heal and assure our tossed self. The gentle sea, the calm desert, the peaceful lake, the softly musing sky, the soft carpet of pastures need not say anything to us to undo our pain and suffering. They pass the message just by being there. Similarly, the vastly stabilized self of a spiritual person gently, invisibly strokes our hair, kindly embraces our presence without any judgment. They are not left with any possibility for judgments because these are born in a tossed self only. No wonder, the people will look for such gentle souls. They might be hiding in forests and caves but we somehow seek them out. Just to watch them, be with them and feel their presence. Because it heals. It pacifies the storms within.

Postscript: Inspired by the interaction with a gentle soul who is on the path of becoming exactly such a person.

Summerstorm

 The sun is getting hotter with each day as if driven by obsessive self-admiration over the heat and brightness. The noons are dazzling with soaring luminosity. The leaves are baked dead by the forty degree plus sun. The noontime is no doubt a big oven with everything for a nice roast. Just a gentle hot breeze and dry leaves rustle with a song carrying the essence of crumbling, charming prodigality of mortality, of shifting forms, of transfigurations and transformations. The parijat is a mere leafless sketch in black and white. A sandstorm in the evening and what remained of the pale leaves still precariously perched on the seat of life on the branches was also forced to let go of its worldly clasp and flow away. A bare almost lifeless tree it seems but there is semblance of aged but wise and graceful profile of an old man.

In the morning next day, I see a tailorbird’s nest-cup on the ground. The storm can break the branch but the nest is intact. It’s for nothing that we call them tailorbirds. They are meticulous in their art. A laborious, expertly weave of grass, hair and cotton. As I’m marveling at the master tailor-work, I see a tiny beat of life. A hatchling—mere half of the human little finger—is lying on the ground. The pulse of life itself has a big force even in tiny frailest of bodies, and that’s why maybe the ants kept away waiting patiently for the pulse to die down, as if paying respect to life, following a dharma. Well, it was lying on the ground throughout the night and surprisingly still possesses the beat of life. Where were the ants? Maybe they were busy somewhere or were conscientious enough not to eat something alive.

There are two more hatchlings nearby. One of them is considerably small and dead, the other has some movement. But these two are sticking to a thick strand of a buffalo’s tail-hair that had been utilized in nest-making. I hold the bigger alive one and its dead, almost weightless sibling dangles, swinging to the breeze, already on the path of dust-in-making. I know any effort to pull the dead one away would almost result in tearing the living one.

Since there are nestlings alive, I deem it my duty to fix the nest. I try to fix the nest, consisting of three parijat leaves stitched together with strands of buffalo hair and swabs of cotton, among the crumbling dry leaves on the sad-looking tree. It needs some tailoring skills to reattach a tailorbird’s nest to a branch. I use a needle and a thread to sew the system to a branch and put the survivor hatchlings in it including the dead one.

The parents return and throw lungfuls of abuses at the human whom they suppose to be the one who tossed away their house in the dark. They straightaway get into the business of parenting once they find that the nest is funnily reattached in an artificial manner. They soon arrive with worms in their beaks to feed their kids. Thinking about the last evening’s storm isn’t part of their nature. They live in ‘here and now’. After some time, while they are away, I get onto a stool to see the position of the household inside the leafy cup. The pair of the dead and the barely alive, strung together by a hair strand, is gone. The only healthy baby is sprawled comfortably inside the nest. Most probably they discarded the dead along with the half-dead, not having the means to undo the hairy entanglement. That shows their love is perfect, yet very practical in nature, bound to some primal laws of survival of the fittest.  

Clangy-blangy fall of a farming vessel

 The farmers keep a big tin pan, a basin rather. It’s used to gather cattle dung in the barn to take it to the dump site. We call it tasla. Not a great item to look at, on account of its task, it but is as important as the brass plate in the kitchen. When a tasla falls on the ground, it makes a thunderous sound as if war has been declared between two groups of rowdy farmers. It freezes the moment in the entire neighborhood. Its clangy-blangy notes spread out with the intensity of a mini-bomb’s explosion. Sometimes it startles love-cum-fight sessions between the peasant couples to whom there isn’t much of a difference between love and war. Lovemaking happens to be a type of war. And sometimes not just humans, the birds also get stalled in their beautiful moments by the storm-surge of a tasla fall, like it happens this morning. A beautifully fan-tailed peacock and a reciprocating dull-looking peahen standing face to face on a wall and just on the verge of a cheeky-peeky-beaky kiss. A tasla bangs on the ground in the locality. As the noisy tempest is unleashed, the kiss gets lost and the startled love-birds run for life.

We aren’t sure how many farmer couples, sparring on the charpoys, leapt out of their duels, but yours truly can see at least one more effect on a helpless animal. It’s a heavily pregnant cat slowly moving on the top of a seven-foot high yard wall, carrying its sweetly overloaded stomach with the majestic mien of maternity. It need not be told to be careful; natural intelligence at work. It’s there in every ounce of existence. But the clang and bang of a falling tasla can spoil all natural equanimity born of inherent intelligence across species. It jumps as the tasla slays peace, or even secret wars on charpoys, in the locality. But as a mother it has to be careful. It seems uncertain whether it should go down or not. It then very cautiously slips along the wall, her front paws scratching the wall plaster. The feline would-be-mom neatly lands with a very soft jump. And we humans think that our knowledge is a product of our thinking. In fact our thinking overshadows the infinite natural intelligence pervading around. Remove the dust and see the bigger picture. But not when a tasla falls. We all including humans, peacocks and cats share a commonality, a common trait of getting frozen for a moment when a falling tasla slays the status quo.

A skirmish between liqor-lovers and honeybees

 The liquor-lovers suddenly realize it’s very hot. The question of sweating like pigs during the drinking sessions can no longer be dismissed airily under the colossal caveats unleashed by boozed self. There they go expressly head-hunting for a solution to the problem. ‘As you sweat in excess, the alcohol inside seeps out through the skin-pores and that’s the reason we no longer get the feeling of sufficiently drunk these days,’ one of them explains in a metronomic tone. The nippy swirl of hot winds seems to conjure disaster by pouring out all the alcohol from their innards through sweating. They have enough willpower to go looking for a solution and find one in fact.

There is an abandoned storeroom in the locality. They decide to fix an AC in its back wall. As they break an opening in the wall to fix the air conditioner, an anxious and jostling crowd of honeybees attacks them. The group is semi-drunk while all this happens. They get defeated and retreat from the battlefield. The next day, they look indescribably beautiful—in their own ways of course—with swollen and strange-shaped eyes, noses, lips, foreheads, cheeks and chins. They appear to have come under a deluge of whiplashes by the angry insects. But it’s not over yet. The party with weirdly beautiful faces returns to the battlefield to settle the scores. It’s a war that is being fought over two days. The bees won the first battle skirmishes on day one.

The new-faced liquor-lovers raise a huge pal of smoke under the bee-comb. Many honeybee soldiers fall down beating their wings, gasping for breath. Under attack by the killer deluge of the smoke the honeybees move away, leaving behind their larvae and stocks of honey.

It was a very safe hideout for the bees, both against the heat as well as the honey buzzard. But then the liquor-lovers’ right to beat the heat proves stronger than the bees. I sometimes wonder that this creation is merely a series of bigger rights imposed over lesser ones, a kind of blatant supersession and expansion moving from lower hierarchies to bigger ones.

Since we are talking of the liquor-lover group, it won’t be misfitting to talk about one particular member of the group. As long as he can open his eyes, after getting sloshed to upper limits, he has enough willpower and strength to give a blow back for his wife’s attack. She is a strong peasant woman. So he full drunk and she all fury result in inconclusive fights. Both carry the marks of night battles to the next day. She then decides to tilt the scale in her favor. He is lumbering sloshed to guts and moves with unsteady steps, having just enough senses in him to somehow—miraculously though—maintain his shaky vertical against a fall. She welcomes him with a smile and lavishes the glory of her sweet words unlike the angry cat that gnawed at his face whenever he returned home fully drunk. She purrs like a joyful cat and seduces him to drink more. He happily complies and falls asleep, or rather not able to move or open eyes, a total blackout. With unconquerable dignity she then sits on his chest and slaps him to her heart’s deepest content. The next day he carried perfectly blue cheeks. ‘It’s the side effect of the spurious liquor that you drink. You are lucky that it affected just the cheeks,’ she explained.  

Take a long walk before decising to marry

 In the year 1988, a Serbian artist named Marina Abramovic and her German partner named Ulay, much in love and looking forward to marriage, egged on by the unfaltering command of mutual infatuation, fully enamored with each other and eager to share the paradisiacal joy of matrimony, decided to walk from the opposite ends of the Great Wall of China. They planned to marry at the point they met on the historic wall, considering it an aesthetical and classical culmination of a journey to mingle into each other at many levels. It was a nice trekking from both ends. They walked pleasantly and finally met at some point. But they met with the realization—airlifted into the momentum of newer truths—that they didn’t want to marry and returned to their places separately.

Seeing the life through a fresh kaleidoscope, after going through multitudes of dew-fresh experiences, you turn a stranger to your old self. You are no longer held at ransom by the beliefs and emotions that defined your former sense of being. Maybe walking on open paths, with their daring allurement, with their untrampled and wild prospects, makes you see the truth better. The long-eyelashed coquetry of flimsy, skidding emotions gives way to a healthy pragmatism. Inhibited and repressed truths about the self and the others sneak out as you lose your grip on them. The bindweed and wild clover on unpaved ways, which you dismissed earlier as inconsequential clumps of weed, guide you to a mysterious unearthly splendor which any well-planned, properly paved and designed rosebed, properly gated and guarded with the grills and railings of our fears and insecurities, would fail to accomplish. The floating façade made of large-scale assumptions crumbles down. And the absurdly overstretched, congested self opens to glorious scenarios.

So all the couples who are in a dilemma about marriage must walk for a few hundred kilometers from opposite directions and meet on the way. Walking on earth gets us grounded and makes us realize the futility of staying on cloud nine forever. As you walk and see the naked realities of life, without pretentions and hypocrisies, with each kilometer walked you get better like wine with age. Your vociferous ideologies melt down and the smart, savvy, lionized self reshapes to acquire more realistic outlines.

The story of a snakebite

 Shekhar would call me ustad. Later he proved it that he meant it and as a sincere chela got a snakebite by, probably, standing proxy for me by sheer chance or mischance. Our group of friends was young and conjured up the meaning of life through persistent, relentless, regular walks into the dark countryside every day without fail. Four or five of we friends would loiter around, sharing our disillusionment and anguish with a creeping openness, talking about our youthful follies in the dark on the field pathways crisscrossing the cropped fields around the village.

Once on a dark night, on the way back, me in the lead like a genuine ustad, followed by four friends including Shekhar and my younger brother Amit. It had rained heavily. It was a narrow submerged passage of hardened cement sacks and stones, standing as a sort of fording point in a low-lying area around the pond. The rains had partially submerged the rudimentary step bridge. It was a world of brattish, tentative jigsaw puzzles, beyond the claustrophobic set of care and caution, torches or mobiles. A free world decided by the crucibles of dark and deep vicissitudes of fate, beyond the security and systematized steps as we have presently. Now even a rope would seem a snake in the dark and during those days even a snake would be taken as a mere rope.

As the leader of the party walking in a file, I would have stepped upon a snake fitted in a hollow among the partially submerged stepping-stones. But then chance denied it an opportunity to dig its fangs into my foot. As I took the step that would have trampled the snake, my forward foot in the air, the other foot slipped over the edge of a stone. In order to avoid a fall I took a long stride, almost jumped in fact. It meant I leapt over the snake hiding in the submerged crevice among the sacks and stones. Sometimes destiny extenuates you, quite surprisingly, despite all your hypocrisy, brazenness and indolence, and puts the share of the consequences of your very own step in the platter of someone else.

Shekhar, following immediately after me, walking behind step-in-step like a true comrade, completed the job pretty firmly. The snake bit him hard and repeatedly on his calf muscles. He gave a long and loud shriek and went hopping over the water like a misfired rocket. The pond-keeper arrived with a torch. Shekhar’s calf bore many bleeding bite marks because the reptile was trodden over very comprehensively. In this manner, my friend stood proxy for me for the dreaded experience of a snakebite.

My brother is a strong man. He being the strongest of the group took the responsibility of carrying Shekhar on his back, running over the pond’s earthen embankment to reach the road. We ran ahead to stop some vehicle to take him to the venom-curing doctor. Shekhar thought he was dying and supposing dizziness, which was in fact his acceptance of the fact that one turns dizzy by degrees after getting bitten by a snake, to be the call of his end of innings on earth whispered his death-bed wisdom in the ears of my brother. ‘See Sufi is a soft and kind guy. Take care of him after I’m no more!’ Well, I’m sure he didn’t know that he had stood proxy for me for the bite otherwise he would have spared this kind departing-time injunction.

In any case, we took him to the countryside snake venom doctor, famous for treating snakebites with his secret herbal concoctions. He prepared a bucketful of horribly smelly and terribly bad tasting brew and force-fed Shekhar the entire lot. It included some cuss words and raptor-sharp nape-grazing palm attacks on the patient’s stooping figure as he protested against the atrocious concoction. There were mammoth rolling waves of revulsion inside his innards and he vomited like a tube-well. It was the countryside method of detoxification. Shekhar survived the episode. Either the concoction was effective or the snake wasn’t too poisonous. But the incident left a spurious shadow of fear of reptiles on his psyche and he felt its direct effects on his physical health for almost six months. He would be justified in claiming that his snakebite treatment lasted for six months. In the meantime, he gulped down all the horrendous venom-antidote preparations, whose ingredients were family secrets, made by the vaidyas in the entire state. Thankfully he recovered to a position to claim full health. But he says he feels sleepy if he eats stale, cold kheer in the morning.

However, now he won’t stand proxy for me for a snakebite anymore. It’s a well-wrought lesson. Almost twenty years after the mishap he suffers from reptile phobia, and rightly so. Recently, on a balmy winter noon we were strolling by the canal. The canal had been desilted so a smooth silvery bed of shining sand was layered over the embankment. Usually dozens of harmless water snakes can be seen basking under the sun on winter noons. The soft, silvery canal sand was etched with slithery, crawling marks as the reminders of the reptilian sunbathing. As we neared the crawling lines, his phobia flashed live snakes in his brain as he saw the snakes drawn on the sand. He swears to this day that he saw real snakes. I am but equally sure to have seen only lines and no live snakes as it was broad daylight. He yelled in panic, jumped as if the crawling marks under his feet were live, writhing snakes and this time, playing safe and no longer willing to stand proxy for me for a snakebite, jumped up and got onto my back, drawing his legs as much above as he could manage. 

Selfie with a cobra

 A few years back we had lots of selfies with a cobra. I know most of you would term it as a bigoted banishment of the common sense. A cobra obviously isn’t an obliging, fake-smiling celebrity to gratify the demands of perky fans. Its anger has a lot of reach and range. In addition it has lots of attitude and arrogance which has a high chance of not adjusting to the demands of a selfie. But then it was a tired cobra, like an old aristocrat sitting among the ruins of his palace in an era of crumbling feudalism. Moreover, it was full of gratitude as we had done it a big favor. I would say that it was a mature reptile because it found itself bound to oblige us with a selfie in lieu of the favor done to it.

The cobra had fallen into a deep well. After two-three days of tiring drudgery to stay afloat, the seething spirit to hiss and bite ebbed down to the lowest point and there it lay like an almost dead rope. My cousin tied a neem bough to a rope and dropped the anchorage for the tired, sulking cobra. Forgetting all the malignant elements of the dangerous equations between the reptiles and humans, it got onto the bough and coiled itself safely among the branches. It was then hauled out and was cheered and applauded by the fans outside. It acknowledged the presence of the rescue party with its tired but taut hood. As a reciprocation for the act of kindness, it didn’t let out blasting, hissing sounds. It was so tired that it won’t get off the branch, taking it to be the ultimate savior. So we picked up the bough and had lots of selfies with the condescending cobra. It just stared at us with a mysteriously concerned curiosity. After an extended booming and euphoric selfie session, we put down the branch among some bushes, and suddenly it came out of its hypnotization and quickly came to life and dashed away at full speed. Maybe it was a wise cobra who knew the value of the favor done to it and rewarded us with some fan moments. 

The beginning of Summers

 It’s the burning first week of April. The short-lived spring is more of flowery symbolism, a very delicate metamorphosis, far more in allegory than substance. In future it will be remembered through the poetic approbation of sundry sensitive souls. Gusts of wind loop around with a thirsty probity. Once out of the winters, the roses have given their best. They had ravishing, oracular dew-laden smiles to fulfill their commitment to the short-lived spring. Now they get some respite at night. But during the day the 40°C sun soaks away life and smile from the roses that still try to keep their smiles. It’s a slow-burning pyre now and they lose their color rapidly, the petals get crinkled.

A few pots of petunias have unleashed a rainbow of red, pink and violet. They are lucky to be placed by a wall where they have to see through the scorching sun till noon only. After that there is shade and the sun-beaten, bowed down, drooping flowers slowly regain their smiles as the afternoon approaches. They recover completely at night to smile at their best, all fresh, and welcome me with innocent fresh smiles in the morning before the sunrise. The little sadabahar flower in the crack in the wall has welcomed spring with high spirits. It has grown taller to be around one foot and has a cluster of little purple flowers. The thin crack in the plaster is its lifeline. Acknowledging and honoring its formidable willpower to survive, I sprinkle a handful of water around the crack. It’s just enough to moisten its lips but it seems enough to help it keep smiling. For sure it looks happy in its little world.

I look solemnly as the short-lived spring gets sucked dry by the thirsty sunrays. One must have sympathetic eyes to witness the fading signals of the retreating spring. Three butterflies go gamboling in the air, flirting with the eddies as if out on a pleasure party, going to dine on a few discharmed, sun-ravaged flowers that still keep their posts for their patron season. These are creamy white butterflies. I hope it isn’t a naughty play—a colorful threesome demonstration. What is a butterfly, I ask myself musing over them. It’s just the air taking colorful wings and fly around in a form so that we can see it.

A ladybird has fulfilled its quota of representing the air. It’s an illustrious form of earth now—orange with black dots. It’s a beautiful pattern in the soil as I sit by it to pay homage to a life that completed its journey. Well, the dead need to be honored. I pick it up on a leaf and leave it to turn to common soil in a safe corner among the still remaining flowers.

These are the times for the triumph of ‘extremes’. As extreme heat builds up, the sunburnt roses give a sad sight. The hot wind swipes its airy hand and scores of dry leaves tumble down. A green ladybug also tumbles over. As someone who is trying to keep his eyes grounded for smaller things in life, there I find it kicking its legs in the air. All it gives him is a backstroke movement on the ground. It may look good in a swimming pool but on the ground this expert maneuver gives scratches on one’s back. With the help of a dead leaf—everything happens for a cause; maybe the leaf fell near the ladybug to avail the services of my fingers to save the little colorful insect—I help it turn over and there it goes showing its beautiful back and scampers into the security of some plants.

The ladybug has to be thankful for not being spotted by the forlorn magpie robin who goes flying restlessly in the locality. There is plenty of urge for love despite the heat. But there are more claimants (takers) of love than givers. No wonder there is a shortage of love which has come to acquire the shape of a commodity these days. The ladybug was lucky in having an extended backstroke swimming exercise on the ground because the garden magpie robin has been busy in fighting for love at that time. He is fighting with a rival. They pinned each other on the ground, locking each other in a wrestler’s hold so forcefully that they didn’t move at all for at least two minutes. They are lucky that a cat isn’t around otherwise the love game would be the end game. The lady in contention looks curiously from a distance. They are a couple, I think. Our magpie robin is unnecessarily trying to snatch away the rival’s girlfriend. It seems to be fed up with its lonely nights on the parijat tree and decides to fight for a better half at any cost.

The purple sunbird couple is usually seen flitting among the trees and plants in the garden with their prodigiously arduous chipping notes. They are extremely chatty birds and are impassively in pursuit of each other from branch to branch. Either there is too much love or too much domestic bickering between them. There is a limitless barrage of swish-swish-swish-swish notes, a kind of rolling ruckus that startles even the noisy tailorbird. I’m not sure whether the couple is adherent of the religion of love or advocate of husband-wife animosity. But these spurts of either anger or love cooings peter out after brief intervals. It’s very challenging to maintain either love or hate at an intensified, pointed peak. People get tired of their hyper-excitement and come downslope, mostly on opposite ones. I would say it’s better to come down the same slope with experience and an understanding that staying in the clouds is too much asking. Be realistic. Don’t drift away, just come down to the level plain. You won’t be alone at least. Coming to the birds, if it’s a quarrel then they are drifting apart after tasting the peak of togetherness. If these are love songs, let’s see how long they maintain the tempo.

The game of love unfolds on an unusual and inexplicable chessboard. The pawns, we humans and even animals, birds and reptiles, are shuffled around for hits and misses, for brief pleasures and long pains, by an unknown hand that sits on the playing seat with unremitting zeal, playing for both ends, being victor and loser both with the same sadistic excitement. Love: toughest in philosophy to understand and simplest in feeling. As of now, it seems so simple in lovely companionship of a mynah couple. The top end of an electricity pole is their place of dating and the time is late in the evening when the sun has lost its sting. It has been a week since they have been arriving to meet on this tiny square at the top end of the electricity pole. They relax in close proximity and let out beautiful foundational notes. Brahminy mynah is a very talkative bird and they have a wide assortment of notes to converse in their birdie language. They must be having wonderful tales containing descriptions of the unobvious.

With broadening connotations of our taming spirits, confidently holding the hangman’s noose to tame the darkness on the surface, we are throwing beams to light up the stage for our ever-unfolding mind-work of creation and destruction. The village has street lights now. As I stand on the terrace at night, I can see the unfolding spectacle of our beams pursuing the darkness. And darkness seems to be retreating under the baffling barrage of our lights. But then maybe it’s creeping inside, vacating its posts on the outside, giving us a false sense of victory and is seeping through our skins to take a counteroffensive position in our hearts.

Well, I remember perfectly dark nights, real nights, in the village during our childhood. The streets were completely dark and the simple houses fought the dark with flickering oil lamps. And now we are fighting against the nights to have 24-hour days on earth. We may lose our nights altogether due to light pollution. Lights hold the enduring legacy of our stepping out of dark caves to enter the un-blushing charm of the brightly lit palaces of convenience and comfort. Lights, lights everywhere: street lights, bazaar lights, vehicle headlights, mast lights, blazing skyscrapers, fiery rockets, lights-lights and more lights. Now even oceanic depths are disturbed. The unshaded light flies off into the sky only to be scattered back by the clouds, gases and dust molecules in the atmosphere. The LED lights are bright but glow at the blue end of the spectrum. It gives them more penetration into darkness. In future when urban centers will dot all nook corners on earth, we will have far milder nights or maybe not altogether. Work-life balance rapidly falling in favor of work, the unsparing work culture will welcome endless days. China, cringing with egregious cynicism, in fact is trying to develop an artificial sun to keep blazing 24-hour non-stop over a city. A scenario of ‘no nights’ is highly likely and plausible in future. Just light, light and more light. Then darkness will be sold like bottled water is sold presently. We will have doses of darkness in closed chambers as remedies for the diseases born of too much light. 

A little pilgrimage

 There is an open large sewage drain, the mother drain of all the smaller sewage drains and nullahs, in the town. It flows with its black, stinking sludge. An eliminatory canal taking away the waste and refuge emanating from the overworked urban bowels. People grimace and cover their noses as they pass near it. But this impurity is what defines the purity of holy waters. There are little temples nearby. Here the people enter, open their soul and breathing to the incense smoke in front of the idols. 

I walked for a considerable length by the big open sewage nullah. It's a strong smell. The smell of our stress, pain and struggles. Of overburdened humanity. Of mass transformation of life into mere struggle. I love walking by holy rivers. But this also is an avatar of mother stream. The all-accepting avatar of primordial mother who is happy to accept all the dump Her children put on her. A mother unbothered about the urine and shit dumped on her by the infant child. My head spins due to the strong odor after 15 minutes. But this also is a little pilgrimage for Maa's blackened avatar. She is smiling even with all her filth. But she is after all the very same mother whose divinity flows in crystal clear mountain streams. As I move away it seems like a little pilgrimage I have performed.

The last prehistoric kingdom on earth

Far away from the Indian mainland in the watery expanses of the Bay of Bengal lies the last outpost of the prehistoric times. A tiny place where the world is still exactly as it was 50000 years ago with a few minor exceptions. It’s a little island named North Sentinel Island, a little earthen dot in the lap of sea measuring 60 square kilometers in area with an approximately squarish outline. It’s inhabited by a prehistoric tribe called Sentinelese.

Let’s call it the Kingdom of Sentinelese. The prehistoric kingdom’s population is estimated to be about 50 to 200. Its seashore is roughly 50 meters wide. It’s bordered with littoral forests which lead to dense tropical evergreen forest. Its citizens are hunter-gatherers who use bows and arrows, collect seafood, wear bark strings on their handsome black nakedness and carry daggers in string waist-belts as a mark of confidence and courage. Their homes are poorly contrived huts having leaf-covered roofs. And in brush with the other-worldly civilization they scavenge for metal that washes ashore—to them it must be just like any other offering by father sea—to make tools, spears and metal-tipped arrows with it to go for hunting pigs on the land and making canoes for lagoon fishing. Imagine they must be thinking the metal is a produce of the sea just like fish!

There is no clue about their language. It’s primarily based on lots of gesticulations, exclamations and body movements. They are happy in their world and aren’t interested in interacting with the outer world.

Their history, in our chronological terms, starts in 1771 when an East India Company’s hydrographic survey vessel, the Diligent, observed ‘a multitude of lights…upon the shore’. It happens to be the old civilization’s first brush with history.

Wars and battles are defined in proportion to the level of upheavals they carry for the geography, lifestyle and population of a particular place, region or country. So the tiny isolated place with its tiny prehistoric population has a right to term its minute skirmishes with the outer world as wars and battles because they shake the very roots of their existence.

The Battle of October 1867: An Indian merchant vessel named Nineveh got stranded on a reef off the coast of the North Sentinel Island. The passengers and the crew landed on the prehistoric kingdom’s beach. On the third day as they lazily started their breakfast, there was an assault by a group of naked, short-haired, red-painted inhabitants. It was a confident breezy assault. The Sentinelese bowmen forced the ship’s captain to escape in a boat. The defeated head of the rival army was later rescued by a brig. The Royal Navy sent a rescue of party. They took all the survivors on board. Thankfully the stranded crew had somehow managed to repel the attackers with sticks and stones. There were no fatal casualties on both sides apart from cuts, wounds and sore throats born of constant shouting and cuss words. As the civilized man departed from their primitive shores, the Sentinelese must have celebrated their first victory over the enemy coming from the wombs of the sea in their strange vessels.

The Assault of 1880: It was more organized and target-oriented encroachment by the outsiders. Andaman and Nicobar’s colonial administrator Naurice Vidal Portman—who had his own administrative reasons to scout the island falling within his jurisdiction—arrived on the shore with an armed group of convict-orderlies, Europeans and Andamanese trackers from other indigenous groups who had been brought under the yoke of ‘civilization’. It was big and a well-organized army this time. The islanders fled the scene. So that would go as a shameful defeat in the annals of their history. After days of futile search they caught an elderly man, woman and four children. So that accounts for first mass kidnapping of its citizens—given their tiny population. Away from home and exposed to strange diseases, the elderly man and the woman died but the children somehow survived. The colonial administrator sent back the children with gifts from the other world. I’m sure strange myths and legends would have spun in the prehistoric kingdom based on what the children saw ‘outside’ and the things brought with them. Maybe certain stories, including strange Gods and demons based on these experiences, do the rounds among the tiny group. Or maybe particular descendants of those returned children would claim more privileged status in the tribal society because their ancestors fought their way back from the enemy from the sea.

The triumph of 1896: A convict escaped from the penal colony on the Great Andaman island using a makeshift raft. The lone runaway landed on the North Sentinelese beach. This time it was easy for the defending army. He was easily slayed. In the coming years they successfully accomplished arrow piercings and throat cutting with odd convicts who landed on their shore by sheer bad luck. I’m sure the Sentinelese bowman whose arrows killed these unfortunate convicts must have claimed a heroic status in local myth and folklore.

In between, various British colonial administrators landed on the beach—not with the intention to rout and kill them altogether because had they wished it, it could have been done easily—with the purpose of academic research and a keen sense of curiosity, almost like searching for a new animal species in the forest. The prehistoric tribesmen would retreat into the inner parts after shooting arrows and angry gesticulations. And when the research parties went back to the other part of the cosmos, i.e., the sea, they must have felt proud of their natural fortification and would have imagined that the enemy retreated because of the fear of their arrows and spears.

After independence, the Indian government declared the island a tribal reserve for anthropological research and studies. So they are protected under the Indian law. The Indian coast guard maintains an armed patrol to prohibit travel within three nautical miles off the prehistoric shores. During their protecting patrols the Indian coast guards have taken photos of naked men aiming arrows at them. The kingdom of the Sentinelese have every reason to believe that they are continuously warding off the enemy with their sticks, stones, bows and spears who dare not come onshore to meet them in a battle. Well, isn’t our imagination bound by the extent of our knowledge? They must be having regular watch posts and parties to ward off the enemy who are their protectors in reality. If not for them there would be intruders and a little party with automatic weapons would destroy the prehistoric kingdom. But this assumption that their strict vigil parties keep the patrol parties away must have given rise to a rudimentary system of army, posts, watch parties. What a way to keep busy on the bases of imagined realities! We too are doing the same, by the way—at a bigger scale though. Who knows a far more advanced and evolved form of life somewhere in the cosmos has declared us to be a tiny reserve to protect us and watch with amusement all the savage antics going on our small place? The UFOs might actually be the space patrols—like Indian navy patrols around the tiny island to protect it—to keep the intruders away. And just like the Sentinelese are happy in warding off the outsiders, we too are beating our chests with pride for having defended our place so bravely.  

The Battle of 1974: A National Geographic team approached the island to a make a documentary. The chief modus operandi was to give them gifts to earn their trust. As the motorboat broke through the surrounding barrier reef and entered their calm fishing lagoon the Sentinelese advance guard launched a barrage of arrows. The crew but landed at a safe beach. They left behind an interesting assortment of gifts—a plastic toy car to catch the fancy of some prehistoric kid, a live pig to make their mouth water, a doll to arise the fancy of some little girl and aluminum cookware to tickle the kitchen nerves in a woman. They responded very wisely. They launched a fresh barrage of arrows. One of the arrows hit the documentary director in his thigh. The man who had hit the director proudly laughed from behind a tree. Others speared the pig and buried it with the doll. But they took away coconuts and kitchenware. God knows what will they do with the utensils! But it was a handsome victory. The Sentinelese bravado had once again saved the motherland. The brave man who had injured the enemy commander must have been given extra coconuts as war booty that day. And these little-little victories against the small parties of outsiders must have acquired the bloody proportions of pitched battles won with lots of efforts and bravery. I’m glad that they aren’t aware of million strong armies, automatic guns, artillery, tanks, fighter jets and nuclear weapons. Our reality seems to be framed on the basis of what we ‘don’t’ know. 

Famed anthropologist TN Pandit is known for his pioneer work among the indigenous tribal groups scattered over various islands in Andaman and Nicobar. Many hitherto untouched tribals agreed to his gentle, friendly touch. He slowly, silently crept into their little world and danced exuberantly with bare-breasted Jarawa tribe women. He acted as a scholarly bridge between the so-called the civilized and the so-called primitive man. The untouched tribals would dance with him, take off his clothes, examine his anatomy to find similarities between the outsider and and themselves. The Jarawas slowly got assimilated in the society. Then Jarawa women started giving birth to the babies of the settlers. They picked up clothes, dropped their bows and arrows (and their raw pride and freedom with it). Their raw dignity and freedom was gone. Many were turned to beggars or mere showpieces for the tourists to marvel at. But these are the spin-offs of modernity. The earth has to turn a mono-culture, and primitiveness chucked off from everywhere. But at least it is preserved still in a little island far off in the Bay of Bengal.

Mr Pandit led many academic attempts to connect with the Sentinelese between 1967 and 1991. He knew how to connect with the aborigines and had won the trust of many raw, animalistic tribes of the region. But the Sentinelese were the toughest to approach. They always wanted to retain their prehistoric ethos. Mr. Pandit made several friendly expeditions in 1980s and early 1990s. Maybe the fair Kashmiri Pandit definitely carried some raw prehistoric fragrance in him which allowed him to win the trust of many other indigenous tribal groups. He would leave gifts on the shore. It was a shaky love-hate contact. Sometimes they would throw away the gifts into the sea, shouting, aiming arrows, flashing their genitals at the boats reading them through telescopes from a distance. Sometimes they waved and took  few of the gifts and leaving the rest. Sometimes they turned their backs to show a defecating gesture. It was a kind of no-welcome gesture; maybe a type of message that we take a dump at your civilized society. Sometimes they would start swaying their penis, as if proclaiming their utter freedom, thus challenging the civilized man to do the same.

Then arrived the first soft brace of the old with the new. January 4, 1991. Perhaps it would go down as the ancient society’s brief truce with the enemy. The first touch! Very tentative though. A young woman named Madhumala Chattopadhyay was part of the scholarly expedition. Maybe they found a woman’s presence assuring. She seemed to have convinced them that there was no danger. As a symbol of ceasefire a Sentinelese woman fighter pushed her arrow down on the beach sand. A man followed by burying his weapon on the beach as a symbolic gesture of holding fire. They approached the scholarly party without their weapons. Coconuts were distributed hand-to-hand, the outsiders in their boat and the islanders in the sea walking towards the boat in neck deep waters. It turned a gift, not a charity throwaway like earlier. Maybe Mr Pandit and Ms Madhubala appeared to them having saintly touch. The islanders must have named them favorably as some reincarnation of their deities. Further expeditions without Mr Pandit were not met with friendly bearing. Maybe they still remember Mr Pandit as a friendly man from across the seas. Then the government of India closed all voluntary approach methods to reach out to the islanders, leaving them in peace to preserve their prehistoric ways. The Sentinelese army must be basking in pride for having finally defeated the enemy from the waters because they no longer bother them.  

The Sentinelese must have a name for their world, for their kingdom. That isn’t known to us. But for our convenience, an official surveying party fixed a stone tablet on a disused stone hearth to declare it a part of India. Maybe a far more intelligent and developed life form has left a similar tablet claiming earth as its territory, while all of us quibble on the small place like the Sentinelese must be doing, thinking all their existence is guaranteed because they can fight with their arrows. While in reality maybe we are merely left as a little prehistoric dot of earth for academic amusement and anthropological interest by a far-far advanced life-form.

Sentinelese expedition and exploration of the outside world (1981): On August 2, 1981, a cargo-ship named MV Primrose laden with chickenfeed from Bangladesh and bound for Australia ran aground off the island. After a few days the captain gave a distress call for firearms. It was the first organized takeover attempt of an enemy object by the prehistoric tribe. About fifty islanders prepared their boats to take over the ship. They launched the attack. Luckily strong winds deflected their arrows and prevented their canoes from reaching the ship. The thirty-one member crew held off the invaders with axes, pipes, flare guns and lots of cuss words and abuses which come very handy during wartimes. A civilian helicopter evacuated them after a week. The tribal army must have felt jubilant seeing the enemy flying away scared of their arrows in their strange vehicle. The shipwreck lay about 90 meters from the shore. Of course now it was a war booty item for the aborigines. They triumphantly got onto the abandoned vessel and scoured it for metal pieces to upgrade the next version of their modern army, the metal-tipped arrows and spears. Far away in the outside world, a dealer won a contract to dismantle the ship. This work would last for about 18 months. Maybe at this period of time the Sentinelese army was led by their bravest general so far. He must have acquired cult proportion in the society because under him they were going out to face the enemy instead of defending from their fortress. Two or three days after the work began, at low tide, the contractor saw three canoes bearing around 12 Sentinelese brave-hearts about 50 feet from the shipwreck. He offered truce over the war booty. As a signal of adjusting their claim on the vessel, which they thought to have won after a battle, he offered bananas. The brave soldiers accepted the tribute of submission and came overboard and began to take what they thought they had won after the last battle—the smallest pieces of metal scrap to modernize their army, leaving the rest for the enemy from the sea. They visited twice or thrice every month while the dismantling work progressed.

The doomsday of 2004 (Tsunami): It must have been their day of pralaya when the existence burst and a new phase started after it. There were tectonic changes to the island. It got enlarged after merger with small islands. The sea floor got raised by 1.5 meters. The coral reefs were exposed to air thus destroying their fishing lagoons. The government of India carried out aerial expeditions to provide help and assess their casualties. There must have been deaths for sure but many had survived as viewed by the flying choppers. But the survivors turned hostile and aimed arrows at the reconnoitering helicopters. I think they imagined this catastrophe as the handiwork of the enemy from the sea, who having failed in all its earlier attempts to defeat them now launched some watery attack to annihilate them.

Taking revenge on the enemy soldiers (2006): A fishing boat carrying two Indian fishermen drifted off into the shallows near the Sentinelese kingdom. They were killed, their bodies put on stakes facing the sea. It was a stronger message for the outsider enemy. They must have thought that the enemy was trying to snoop on their debilitated strength after the Tsunami strike. A helicopter sent to take away the bodies was pelted with arrows. They won’t take any chance with the enemy anymore.

The war again organized religion (2018): Chau, a trained American Christian missionary entered the prehistoric kingdom illegally without any permit from the kingdom’s unseen protector, the state of India. He paid money to the local fishermen to take him 500-700 meters off the Sentinelese coast and then continued alone in a canoe. On his first approach he received a hostile reaction to his gifts. As his diaries would later elaborate, another time they received him with a ‘mixture of amusement, bewilderment and hostility’. He sang worship songs and tried to converse with them in Xhoba (some basic tribal language spoken among the so-called civilized tribes in the Andaman and Nicobar group). They would giggle, and made high-pitched sounds and gestures. His last letter says that when he tried to give fish and other gifts, a boy shot a metal-headed arrow which pierced the Bible he was holding in front of his chest. What a clear statement! We aren’t for any organized religion here! The fishermen looking from a distance last saw his body being dragged on the shore. An attempt to retrieve his body was aborted. I think the graves of the few people like him must be serving as the proof of annihilation of the enemy who came to conquer them.

This is the history of the last prehistoric kingdom on earth. I think that’s how myths, histories and legends develop at a larger scale as well on the earth in its various parts. Our assumed reality seems to be framed by our ignorance.

Reading the book of life

 Passing through a poor locality in Delhi is always revealing. To feel gratitude for whatever God has given us, we ought to visit slums and pavements crowded with the homeless people. Then we realize how lucky we have been in receiving all that God has given us. To feel gratitude for whatever bodytype God has made us, thus blessing us with a vehicle to complete this phase of journey, sometimes visit the hospitals and see the sick and diseased. It helps us in feeling thankful for whatever Almighty has gifted us in the name of physicality.

 Alittle kid, barely 7 or 8 comes pulling the rickshaw carrier. Empty plastic cans at the back and the little lad just going almost half way down on each side to complete the paddling circle. More child bread earners washing dirty plates by a kulche chhole stall. It is early in the morning and instead of getting breakfast before going to school they are earning their bread. Littlest of kids taking a bath at a public tap after a late night stint at the eating point. Childhoodhad has withered in them. They are old before they realize. These are dhaba boys. Getting their skins hardened with heartless, unsympathetic, antisocial strains...fed by the scorns and abuses of their merciless masters. Watching them makes us feel so privileged in having parents that saved us from all this experience, who gave us schooling, shelter and made us free enough to pursue our journey. Watching the miseries around should open us to kindness. But it should open the floodgates of gratitude also for whatever we have received just by being born in relatively better circumstances. If you have a personal jet, watch people who have just cars. If you have a car, feel the struggle of those having just bikes. If you have bike, feel the test someone is going through in just having a bicycle. If you have a bicycle, see the homelss walker who hasn't anything at all. If you ever feel sorry for your poor footwear, feel the pain of someone who hasn't got even legs to wear even the poorest of a footwear. And millions will die today over the globe. So feel privileged to have this sip of life under the fresh sunshine. Gratitude is very very important. Without it we cannot groom self-love. And without the foundations of self-love we face a lot of challenge in building the citadel of love for others. All of us know it theoretically but we forget it easily. To make gratitude an essential element of our daily life we ought to look below as well, daily, to make it a habit. Look above daily to remember the impermanence of life by watching the shifting and melting clouds. And daily look below to feel gratitude for great boons we have received during this interval between birth and death. There are messages written around. Ahha, the masterbook of life! The codes of ultimate reality are written so clearly for everyone to read. Happy watching above and below--daily.

The Lightness of Being

 Who doesn't appreciate the genius of Leo Tolstoy? Through his beautiful writing the sagely author continues to inspire millions even after a century. Undoubtedly a great human being. But his wife had a diametrically opposite view of him. To her he was the same normal, almost oppressive, husband. Does it mean that all of us are essentially the very same poor humans after we enter the privacy of our room, shed the clothes and behavioural bearing? We don't just cover ourselves with clothes. We wear multiple layers of thoughts, attitude, behavior, calculating mind, scheming intellect and maneuvering to maintain an image. This is a subtle clothing. Hardly visible like the clothes we wear. But this is the primary steel armour that we carry with us. Maybe it's necessary to wear it to survive in the struggle as a human. We have our jobs, duties, responsibilities to fulfill. There we need this subtle steel armour. But we get habituated to keep it on us, always, day and night, even within our walls. Its weight crushes relationships. No wonder we feel tired even while lying on the bed. Its weight crushing the soft petals of relationships. It challenges our own essential faith. The armour is still sitting on our chest as we enter the domain of our intimate people where we are supposed to be open, free and light. So why not go for complete disarming at least within the privacy of our rooms, in our little intimate group, with our closest dear ones? Join them as a very light being, almost naked like a baby with all your vulnerabilities, flaws, fears, insecurities, anxieties. To feel very light, to be disarmed of the heavy battle shield, to almost float in your secure, personal bubble. Drift like a cloud with your vulnerabilities within the security of your cosy bubble. Lay bare your soul open. Lift the iron chains from it. And just be. Becoming something is a necessity I know. But put it on as you come out. But stay light, open, honest, frank, see-through among the people you trust. Share your pain. Talk your miseries. Shower your ecstasy. Offer your smile. Show your tears. Present your kindness. Drizzle your pure emotions. Then one can feel the soothing solitude within the safe bubble. Make your little capsule of solitude and peace among all this meaningless crowd and intimidating chaos. It can be done anywhere with faith, love, care and share among the chosen few. And float lightly in it, like a balloon drifting to the ceiling fan's wind within a safe room. If we make it with a Lightness of Being, it's possible. Do it with vulnerable gentility, disarming smile, openness and baby-type nakedness after shedding the steel armour of 'becoming something' that we need to wear once we come out of our cosy bubble. Then go out with your behavioural clothing and perform the essential tasks and come back, put off everything and enjoy the Lightness of Being. This is the little workshop in the art of the Lightness of Being. The enlightened sages are the ones to whom the entire existence becomes such a cosy bubble. The entire humanity becomes merely an intimate, cosy bubble. They float freely without the need to become something. They shed the steel armour forever and turn baby soft. No wonder they float so restfully. That is a high degree in the university of the Lightness of Being. We the common people are in the schooling stage of the same stream. We have to pass the higher and senior secondary school exam in the art of the Lightness of Being. It's a low grade exam. It doesn't require research scholarship. It's a tiny assignment--to enjoy the Lightness of Being within a carefully nurtured little bubble. But believe me it carries the taste of the cosmic bubble. Trainee fighter pilots learn and practice in simulated indoor environment and then fly freely in open skies. If we learn the art and craft of the Lightness of Being in our tiny intimate bubble, maybe one day we will be floating free among the vast expanses of this existence.

The rainbow in a bubble

 There is hardly any qualitative difference between what goes in the sky above and what happens on the ground below. The sky shifts. It moves, it sings, it moans, it sighs. Sometimes it's relaxing and pristine blue. The other time it's gloomy, dark and dreary. Sometimes it cries and sheds tears in a torrential rain. The other time it sheds gentle tears of joy by drizzling over desert sands. Sometimes it floods with a fury. There is light, darkness, shifting shades over clouds, clouds drifting and reshaping, clouds melting, clouds forming, clouds vanishing, winds, breeze...a flow. There is something of everything in it. The same happens below...as if it's merely a reflection of the sky in the pools of earth below. There is sadness, joy, victory, failure, meetings, partings, smiles, tears, making,  unmaking, falling in love, falling out of it, birth, death...an endless shifting. The sky leaves a deep imprint of its ever-shifting shades on the earth below. See the clouds melting in the sky, watch them daily. It's such a big message written on the massive billboard for us to read and remember. But usually, we are seeking needles in the hayrack and hardly lift our eyes to read and remember the message. Don't the clouds bloom, get colors, travel and melt? They shower earth with their melted self, become flowers, perish and again become vapors. This bubble has to burst anyway to take another form. But before that it has to be. It has to live. It has to be tossed around by chance winds. It has to seek its way, its course. It has to do justice to its existence. And then it has to happily and lovingly give way to new shapes. But it can always remind itself that it was, is and will forever be in the shifting shades and shapes.

A wooden touch or soft brace of life?

I remember a talk I had with an elderly American Buddhist woman at Mcleodganj many years ago. A very ardent follower of Buddhism she had spent decades in India. The outer bearing, including the religious clothes, was pretty impressive. But she looked very stiff, cautious, even stern. I felt it was like someone going on the fathomless path with lots of calculations; following the principleless path with lots of principles. She stiffened even more as we shook hands. I could feel it clearly. It was a wooden hand that I held. I tried to convince myself of the loftiness of her soul because she had been on the formal path of religion for so long. But I couldn’t feel the warmth, kindness and smile from her persona. Maybe these emanated and I was too coarse or not sensitive enough to feel that.

I can still clearly remember the glint of pride in her eyes when she told me that she had spent years in sadhna and had been a celibate since the age of forty-five. She had spent a few years at Pune as well. The mention of Pune instantly brought great Osho to my mind. ‘So did you stay at Osho commune at Pune?’ I asked innocently. She recoiled with horror as if it was an insult to her hardcore, austere tapasya. She shook her hands and head in a vehement ‘no’ as if staying at Osho’s place would have meant a sin. O thou great Osho misinterpreted so much for all your elaboration of the naked truth as a means to nail down the illusions! Before mentioning Osho I should have remembered that she had been a celibate for at least two and half decades. It was the crest jewel of her path of renunciation. But the great Osho accepted the presence of sex in the human body and talked of its transformation instead of suppression for everlasting joy. So no wonder the celibate sadhak jumped like a rocket at the mention of Osho.

Well, sex or no sex, if you turn wooden and suspicious even at the age of seventy by the touch of a man of the age of your son it simply means you have missed a crucial link to liberation. If the suppression of sex has stiffened you, made you austere, not given you a genuine smile, sweetness of temperament or ease of being then one may need to revise the fundamentals of one’s faith.

In contrast I remember a woman from a neighboring village. A very beautiful peasant woman famed for her illustrious beauty and untamed sense of freedom regarding the basic instincts. The lore of her beauty and its exciting spin-offs had reached my ears. There were far more happy and joyful men, and very few jealous ones, having shared the unbridled sense of feminine charms flowing from her persona. There was a joke that she would occupy the best chambers in heaven for having made so many men happy.

Mother would usually won’t allow us to go into the fields taking all the responsibilities on herself. We the pampered ones had the easiest task in the world—studies. Mother must not have been feeling well that day otherwise I won’t have been there in the fields to get fodder. I was struggling to load the bale of fodder on my bike and failing at it miserably with my bookish hands. The beautiful peasant woman knew me because we shared fields across the village boundary. She walked quickly from a distance. That was the first time I saw her from close quarters. Her famed beauty was no exaggeration. She came smilingly and with a singular effort put the heavy fodder bale on the bike and tied it firmly without even putting a littlest strain on her face. What strength! She must have heard about my bookish ways. ‘These soft hands aren’t for such rough work masterji!’ she took my hand in her rough, peasant woman hands. I will never forget that touch. It was humane, strong, kind, palpable, supportive and understanding. And that friendly smile. And that naughty glint in the eyes. That color of mellowness and acceptance of life in its basic terms on her face. That strength of character in her strong farming hands. ‘And this is the woman the critics malign so much for her sexuality!’ I thought. Shyly I thanked her. She laughed and walked away to continue with her work.

The wooden touch and a full of life, sympathetic touch! The sum and summary is that beyond the debate of sex or no sex, it’s the warmth of our touch, the kindness in our eyes, an accepting smile on our lips that’s more important. If celibacy leaves you wooden and stiff even in old age then I don’t think the Gods would love you for that. And if full compliance with the basic instinct gives you a kind heart, genuine smile and ease of being then Gods won’t hate you for that.

Since we are talking about the touch of hands, it won’t be misplaced to mention His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s touch. When you hold His hand it seems the softest like a new-born baby. You don’t feel the slightest rigidity, tension, dis-ease or stiffness. It’s almost like a soft brush that a gentle breeze has with a rose petal. You feel divinity in that soft touch. Long live His Holiness!

The full game of life

 I don't exactly remember the name of that plant. But when we chew its leaves during childhood they tasted very bitter. But the bitter taste was just half part of the game. The other half presented sweetness when we drank water after chewing the bitter leaves. It was good fun. At the end only sweetness would linger in the mouth. Bitterness transformed into sweetness by water.

Bitter situations are simply half part of the game. If we keep ourselves limited to the bitter part of the game, we would turn a grumpy, cynical and cranky person. It means we have lived just one half of life. Like a passive stone mutely weathering due to environmental elements. But if we take some steps to be a part of the other half and drink the water of patience, gratitude and understanding then sweetness follows. Then bitterness becomes a prelude to sweetness. It then becomes a full life expected of a human being. Then we are a flower blossoming by absorbing heat, rain, storms and dust and transform these into a sweet smile. 

Life will keep throwing its bitter situations. That's its nature. If we just react to these situations we become a sour, unhappy person. But if we respond by taking cool sips of patience and gratitude then sweetness defines our persona despite all the bitter experiences.

Dancing parrots and sulking crows

Have you seen beautiful, colorful birds courting their lady love? They dance, spread their amazing wings and tails in fabulous patterns and let out the best of vocals to attract and woo their lady love. With a negligible exception it’s the males who go into a great eye-catching show in courting the female. There is a thrower of charms and there is a receiver of those charms. So much for the scheme of this polarity!

That amazing range of play-acted maneuvers (under the impulse of hormonal throw of energy) is not what the male persona is under ordinary circumstances. They are an exception; just an ecstatic throw of mood and attitude to catch the female’s attention. These are momentary sprouts. They don’t define the normal traits of a common bird in its day-to-day life. For the rest of the time they are simple birds, doing normal things just like any other bird of the species. And I don’t think the female birds mind that. They are lucky that they don’t have memory like women to remember all this dancing.

The restless male energy is always looking for rest in the silent pools of receptive female energy. She too is looking for the wearied runner to walk home and rest in her receptive folds. It gives a meaning to her life. It fulfills her. It saves her from the restless void, the procreative emptiness brimming with the potential to manifest and create new life forms.

There is hardly any difference between a colorful bird pirouetting in dandy mode using the tail and wings and singing best songs and a man wooing a woman. At the peak of hormonal storm he jumps to fulfill all the columns of female expectations. That’s natural. But that’s not what he is in normal state. He is a normal guy otherwise.

Under the patriarchal system the man has convinced himself to be far superior to the woman. It’s factually very-very incorrect. There is a deep-seated acceptance of his inferiority and to cover that the system of patriarchy was built up. And to justify his patriarchy construct, he is trying his best to fit in the chauvinistic slot from as many angles as possible. When he covets a woman and goes into the process of wooing her, he adopts an emergency ploy to appear the best in all slots. He is helpless and it’s all about bright colors, bright dance, bright song, best attitude, best look, best behavior, best hobbies and much-much more. Truth and genuineness take a backseat. Falsehoods creep in long before we even realize. And where falsehoods creep in, miseries entail in good measure.

O thou poor dancing bird and the still poorer man! But a lady bird can be duped. The dandy can afford to be normal after the deed is done. But not so with a woman. She has a brain and a nice memory. She remembers the entire range of colorful somersaults that you have been doing to get her hand. And that becomes her benchmark to assess you. Now how long you will maintain the crest of your best version? Of course you will come down to a normal self as the fever comes down. Then you appear such a poor guy, almost a cheater who pretended to be what he isn’t usually. I think a woman can be more forgiving if she accepts that the poor guy was simply doing a wooing dance like a bird in the Amazon forest. He is simply throwing his message to have a partner. The content of the message isn’t what he is in reality. It’s just a catchy title to draw attention, like an eye-catching book title and its cover. The title might appear attractive but the story is usually mundane, very-very common.

The bird cannot be dancing forever at the best of its colors and the best of songs. Naturally it will become a common bird after the energetic storm is over. The beautiful parrot turns a boring crow. But brother, why did you try to be what you are not. You gave your best in wooing her and that raised the bar of her expectations. And expectations breed disappointments. She expects you to be the very same beautifully cooing and majestically dancing parrot. She is right in sulking over the dull crow cawing boringly by her side. 

The irony is that we get habituated to take the wooing dance as the primary characteristics in an individual, i.e., we take the catchy title as the story itself. Isn’t that a mistake? The excitement and thrill that one gets out of the bird dance is addictive in nature. We need to learn to be comfortable with normal people around us. We need to give respect and love to the ordinary humanity. Sadly we hold high expectations from people. To fulfill those heavy expectations he is all valor, grace, dignity, bravery, stability, unqualified giving and masculine handsomeness; and she is all receptivity, feminine grace, support, acceptance, care and share. Both sides trying at their best. Effort beyond a limit breeds artificiality. This artificiality then ends up in stumping each other. After all, how long will one keep jumping at his/her best? Ultimately we have to get grounded. The boring normalcy sets in. The dreams vanish. The colors fade. The songs turn to ugly croakings. Angels turn to dark angels. Then both sides part ways. Look for new partners, expecting the thrill of wooing exception to be the everlasting normal. No wonder most of us are a series of broken relationships.

That’s why it’s advisable to be just normal, the real self, even during the phase of courting a partner. Stay as you normally are. Honesty is a highly undervalued trait in the modern society. But primarily it’s the sole trait that decides whether we are carried as a miserable junk into the cemetery or a peaceful corpse looking at whom not many people get scared. I remember the face my mother after she had left her body. She looked angelic and so beautiful in her eternal sleep.

If someone accepts you with your dull colors, weird dancing and hoarsy songs that relationship has a better chance of survival for a longer time. Truth always serves well in the long term. It may appear to let us down in the short term, giving us little-little disappointments and let downs. But it saves us from major collapses in the long term.

One may wonder why this guy is preaching about relationships. Yours truly tries to speak from his own experiences. Experiential knowledge is very near to truth. I did my own set of fabulous dancing for seven ears—just once in life and with one person only. I can feel myself almost boasting about the fact. It simply means I have to clear more webs from around my eyes to see more clearly. It’s wise to learn from one’s experience.

Using my creativity I built up a grandiose avatar, almost like a shining angel, and became the crowning prince in her big eyes. In flying too high I burnt my wings. So couldn’t afford to fly anymore after seven years. When I landed on the plain of normalcy she felt cheated on witnessing my normal colors and mundane songs; her dreams broken, her shining angel merely a common person like anyone around, no longer able to maintain her beautiful dream. There was a normal crow cawing around her. But I’m happy that these are the days of women empowerment. Confident, self-standing, glamorous, with a smile to kill and eyes that could intoxicate a dozen men with a single glance, I saw her flying away with a beautiful swan who was flying on seventh heaven to fill up the slots of her expectations. ‘You idiot, you too will fall one day!’ I cawed from the ground. Even as a pretending spiritualist I am happy that he too fell within a couple of years. I take it as mark of victory for having flown more than him. I’m not bothered about other men but at least I viewed him as a rival.

Normal cawing has its own benefits. It taught me poetry. There were emotional storms in the tea-cup which I amply cashed by forcibly trying to be philosophical in nature. Lost love, or for that matter any type of loss, is invisibly preparing you for many other gains in many forms. There comes a day when you actually feel gratitude for those losses for what you late became. You realize that those losses were meant to make you what you are today. So I respect the past without any grudges, but I’m far happier with my present and give due credit to all the experiences I went through.

I also realized that maybe I had punched far-far above my weight in wooing and actually winning her. But how long you will keep the arena clear of rivals if the girl is such a head turner that there are at least a dozen men dancing to her tunes with their tongues out? To match her big aura I too had acquired larger dimensions like a porcupine spreading its thorns to look more imposing. All said, as a man I take full responsibility for creating those expectations. And as Buddha said expectations breed sufferings—at one end at least, if not both. Most importantly, I’m happy for her. Why should men have all the fun? The women have been subjugated for too long and they have lots to cover up in enjoyment and normal fun which we the men have enjoyed so far.

Thankfully, I seem to have spent all the wooing fuel in one go. Wise people don’t need to repeat the same experience to get the same lesson again and again. As far as beautiful girls are concerned, I am able to impersonally appreciate them like a flower, with a pleasant detachment. I connect more to old women with their motherly aura and saintly faces carrying the majestic wrinkles of age. Maybe losing my mother is a far bigger weight on my soul than losing the woman I loved.

These days, while watching the colorful birds dancing and singing in the documentaries to woo their ladies I become very conscious, even embarrassed. I cannot blame them. All of us are birds in the same way. But I always wag my admonishing finger and mutter, ‘Son, take care! You will have to pay for this!’

And now on a serious note. Retain your simple colors, ordinary steps and normal songs while wooing a partner. If he or she accepts you with your normal stuff that’s well and good. If not, give it a damn and laugh at all the artificially jumping lover-birds—ranging from birds in documentaries to the people around you—and go giggling about this funny game.