A youthful spirit in an ageing body

 

Greying, thinning hair and pepper and salt beard. These are the changes in me that I reflect over. It's just natural to spot the change within and without. But aren't the little saplings of banyan and peepul that I had planted are handsome young trees now? Yes, they are! They are the expression of my youth. They are me. If you ever get bothered about age, do something fresh and young in nature, where you will always see the traces of your youth expressed in those creations. Plant trees, for example. Keep doing it periodically so that you always have some young tree lad youthfully swaying to the breeze as an expression of the youth of your spirit. 

Ravan's little lamp of righteousness

There is a beautiful episode in Ramayana. Sri Ram looking for Sita Mata finally reached the southern coast of India. There was a vast chasm of the sea separating his monkey army from the mighty Ravan’s bastion, Lanka. There were two choices for him to get back his wife: First, through persuasion if possible; second, to wage a war if that was the last resort left. As a righteous man, Sri Ram sent his ambassadors to persuade the Lanka king and return Sita without unnecessary bloodshed. All options were nullified by Ravan’s ego and pride. So war was the only option left.

A daunting task of erecting a bridge and fighting Ravan’s mighty army faced Sri Ram. Before starting on such a huge test, it was thought befitting to seek divine intervention in his favor by performing an elaborate puja and other rituals. It involved performing a yagna to propitiate Lord Shiva and seek his blessings. Only Ravan, the best Vedic scholar and Brahman, was suitable to conduct the rituals and the grand ceremony. To Sri Ram’s council of war advisors and other allies it was totally outlandish to seek the priestly duties from one’s enemy. They were shocked and surprised to hear the Ayodhya prince’s intention to have his enemy as the officiating priest for the ceremony. They were but mere mortals having a typically defined sense of one’s enemy, of seeing one’s opponent in binary colors only. But Sri Ram, an evolved soul with enlightened self, saw a persona in totality. He could see one’s utility above the boundaries set up by ego and pride. He could see the littlest star of light shining in a dark personality.   

Hanuman flew with the message. The proposal was met with much consternation, guffaws of laughter and peels of anger in Ravan’s council. Everyone expected their powerful king to spit on the proposal and insult the carrier of such a preposterous scheme. They were shocked when the Lanka king looked serious and gently agreed to the invitation. Ravan, the proficient Vedic scholar Brahman, was no ordinary being. He well understood that as a Brahman he was duty-bound to accept the proposal to officiate a yagna ceremony. He himself was great in his own ways beyond the strict confines of arrogance and pride through which we know him usually. Even at his worst with his pride, arrogance and haughty demeanor he remembered his duties as a Brahman.

So here was Ravan surprisingly at the puja venue to officiate and conduct a ceremony meant to seek blessings for the victory of his enemy. His role as the conductor of those rituals and ceremonies demanded a flawless approach, an approach that should not be allowed to be tainted by his other self as the head of the army that would be fighting against Sri Ram’s soldiers. So he gave his best as the officiating priest of the ceremony conducted to get Lord Shiva’s blessings for victory in the impending war.

Ravan expertly inspected all the arrangement and found something missing. ‘You have made the arrangement quite nicely O Ram. But there is something very important missing. As the host of this ceremony, you cannot install Lord Shiva’s idol without the company of your wife. As per shastra edicts, however high and mighty a person is, he cannot perform this ceremony without his consort,’ Ravan explained the missing link required for the successful performance of the rituals.

Sri Ram, the ever-poised and mentally balanced sage warrior, kept his composure and thanked the great scholar on his pious sense of duty in his role as a conductor of ceremonies. ‘O Lanka king, you have righteously followed your duty to make it a flawless arrangement and pointed out the thing that needs to be attended to. Now kindly suggest a solution to the problem because it also is part of your duty,’ the graceful Ayodhya king gently said with a smile.

Even in the face of war with his rival Ravan knew his dharmic duties and suggested a solution. ‘I shall arrange to get your wife here for the successful performance of the ceremonies. But you have to give a word that she will be allowed to be taken back to Lanka after the puja is over,’ Ravan said. Sri Ram agreed to it.

So all the arrangements were made and the great scholar Brahman expertly conducted the ceremony. The flawless performance meant that Lord Shiva would be blessing Sri Ram’s army with victory. Moreover, as the chief officiating priest of the grand ceremony of exquisite rituals it was Ravan’s duty to bless the puja host with victory. To Ravan it was a challenge to fulfill his dharmic duties as a priest even if it meant blessing his rival with victory. ‘Vijayi Bhava!’ Ravan fulfilled the last of his priestly duties. To him it was nothing short of victory in the game of ceremony proposed by Sri Ram. The great Brahman in him knew that he was cursing himself with a defeat by blessing the enemy with a victory.

Ravan was now convinced that he would be killed in the war. Such mystical levels of puja to earn the blessings of Lord Shiva would surely bless the puja host with victory in the war. On top of that he himself had to bless the host with victory. One more puzzle faced him. As the officiating priest he was duty-bound to accept some dakshina from the host. He was in a dilemma. As a rich, proud king he had been a giver of charity all his life. But now he had to adopt the role of a humble Brahman receiving the charity from the puja host with full humility. Taking any material wealth would have wounded his pride because he had imprisoned Kuber, the lord of wealth. But he had to perform this duty as well. As the officiating fees for the puja performance he asked Sri Ram to respectfully stand near him while he took his last breaths in the battle. Later, when Ravan was dying on the battlefield Sri Ram kept his word and respectfully stood by the mighty Lanka king. The victorious Ayodhya prince stood there in utmost humility and paid respects to the departing soul. His supremely balanced self didn’t show any trace of pride and haughtiness that we usually see in victorious kings and princes. No wonder, we worship him as Bhagwan.

From this episode we can say that there is no absolute evil, there is no perfect darkness in a persona. Ravan, whom we portray as the symbol of all-pervading darkness, had his own light of truth and duties deep inside his soul.

We are part good, part bad. We have to keep lighting the lamp for the good in us, to help it maintain its righteous glow. And we have to keep fighting against the darkness of the bad in us. This is the war of the soul to attain a righteous self. After defeating the enemy within, we have to emerge victorious and reach home, triumphant, like the great prince Ram coming back to Ayodhya after winning all the wars. Then we are entitled to light lamps in celebration of conquering the darkness. Then it’s the festival time for the soul liberated from the darkness of fears, hate, anger, jealousy, judgments. Then we become the rulers of the kingdom within the sanctified precincts of the soul, our very own Ayodhya. 

Keep the little lamp alive

 

Light a little lamp of friendly bonhomie and care among your small circle of friends and family. We should always remember that there are a few people who would have tears of sympathy for our pains, smiles on their lips for our gains, a friendly hand to help us rise among slippery rains. It's a very tiny lamp burning with its little wick, throwing gentle pale rays around us, helping to light a stage, a tiny stage in the infinite darkness around, the stage that defines our existence, a stage that is set up for us to understand the meaning and purpose of this life. It's a very small lamp and needs tiny drops of the oil of trust, support, encouraging smiles, tears of empathy, gentle words and an assurance that we are there around you, keeping you safe from the darkness ready to encroach from all around. It's a gentle light, with soothing rays. But it lights up our lives like a bright sun, helping us move over the little troubling pebbles of life scattered on the path. Keep this little lamp burning. It's a delicate, fragile light but has the strength the beat the darkest clouds of loneliness and pain. And like all delicate things it needs a very careful, gentle attention and protection. Keep your little lamp of hope and friendliness burning. Keep it safe. Keep your palm around the glow to save it from chance winds. Keep supplying tiny drops of love, care and share. This is your little lamp to help you on your journey. Praying for the light of your tiny lamp. Keep it glowing. People will come and go from the little dim-lit stage around the little lamp. That's inevitable. But you have to keep your little flame alive so that you aren't in dark when someone passes by you. Maybe others need the light of your little lamp. Keep it alive. The flame of hope, love, belief in people, happiness and joy. And when you light lamps on Diwali tonight, see the sanctity of your little lamp in all the flames around. Wish you all a very happy Diwali!

Woman with the Lamp/Glow of Hope by SL Haldankar (watercolor,  1945-46)

A day in the life of a writer

 Even my small publisher flatly said ‘no’ to publish my next book. Well, he has a right to discard almost non-selling writers from his list and start dreaming big. To grow you need to have authors who give you numbers, who themselves build a social media brand for themselves with their own efforts thus increasing the sales. I hardly did anything in this regard and he felt very much let down by my lack of interest in starting YouTube channels, giving interviews, getting paid reviews. Of course all this needed money and I always feel my contribution to a book ceases the moment I write, rewrite, edit and re-edit it to my capacity. I don’t care much beyond that. Then I shouldn’t complain. The market also wouldn’t care and didn’t. But this is no hall of shame to be an unsuccessful writer.

So absolutely no problem with his decision. He had a reason to drop diplomacy and bare the truth. After all, it’s his business. Just that I wasted five months in the bargain. The manuscript was typeset and a nice cover design was finalized. It was in line for printing when he suddenly changed his mind. The onus, as I have already told you, is on me. Despite many attempts I couldn’t give him even a single book that sells, forget about best sellers. He became sure that there was hardly any chance that I will ever give a profit-making book, not just to him but to any publisher. But so what? That’s not a catastrophe. The hell won’t break loose for the lack of a best seller by Sandeep Dahiya. And will heavens bloom on earth with the presence of a best seller by me? It wouldn’t. A few people find my writing meaningful and that’s enough to justify my sincere efforts for months over a book. Moreover, writing is a kind of distress-dissolving exercise for me. All of us have our Ikigai, our distress dissolver when one forgets the drag and drudgery of life.

These days I don’t even think of approaching the mainstream publishers at the top rung. After decades of torturing their mail boxes with my endless submissions, I finally realized that the exercise can be safely avoided for peace at both ends. They have their smart editors who have their own notions about what sells. And rightly so. They work so hard. Good content is just a small part that decides a book’s success. I think, beyond what you have written, it’s more important who has written the book. And to become that influential ‘who’ you have to create more than content. I frankly cannot do this. So why should I crib?

The nearest I came to be published was when a commissioning editor at an upcoming name in publishing, with many successful books and a major presence on digital platforms for books and stories, showed some real keen interest in my submission. There was a trail of mail exchanges on the official mail and then some interaction on WhatsApp. ‘I need to know more about you,’ she wrote. Of course as the commissioning editor she had a professional right to know everything about the writer she was going to publish. Mainstream publishing is a small cozy circle sustaining on socializing and networking. But what would a small-time writer staying at a village know about these high-end things. Of course my reply should have been ‘ok, let’s meet’ because that’s what she meant. But I hardly had any clue to it. What I did was that I bared the soul of my journey so far in an audio clip. I talked like a pulpit preacher lithely revealing the real meaning of life based on my sweet-sour experiences. I heard it a few times and it sounded like iconized encapsulation of absolute truth. I sounded femininely sensitive yet manly. Or maybe even immeasurably impassioned. I thought I may win more than just the publishing contract. It was one hour long and very happily I sent it to her, dreaming of the big thing that a reputed publisher will at last take up my script. But what would she do with a low-quality audio crackling with the suffering notes of a defeatist sullen-voiced writer? I don’t think she even heard it to the last. Maybe it just sounded like a dry rill, a paranoid testimony to my unsuitability to be a bestselling author. So I dropped her a message on WhatsApp. ‘Did you listen to it?’ I asked. ‘Kindly drop me a mail for any query regarding your submission,’ she wrote. I must have sounded like a hostile parishioner to her smart, suave urban self. So I wrote a formal mail. The script was summarily rejected, as you can understand. After that I haven’t had the courage to approach any big gun.

So, after my fallout even with my small publisher, who didn’t charge me anything because I submitted print-ready files which gave him some courage to publish maybe 100 copies, I chose a still more welcoming platform for my latest discard. So there won’t be even 100 copies to begin with the first edition. It will be strictly print-on-demand. But even that will do. A book is a book after all. The book is published. It’s available online on Amazon, Flipkart and the publisher’s website. That’s more than enough for me, to be frank. Like your child is the best in the world, my book is nothing short of a bestseller to me.

Then I celebrate the occasion. I carry a virtuous spring in my walk and requisite resilience in mind. A friend has to go to Delhi and his car has time and space for a few hours. So I take celebratory drink after maybe four-five years. Two bottles of cold beer in the cool confines of a little car, with old lyrical but sad-with-acumen songs blaring as it went gently over pot-holed roads. The musical highs and lows whispering, ‘Why be in a hurry? All the time is yours.’ In boozed spirits I didn’t miss to vent out my grudge against the editors of big publishing houses. ‘Bloody supremacists mired in pathetic indulges lying in their silly slumberland,’ I mutter. My friend has no clue to the target of my ire. ‘What?’ he asks. ‘Nothing,’ I reply. For a few moments vehement and vitriolic bitterness seemed to catch hold of me, taking me off guard during my eased-up spirited moments. But I overpowered it within a few minutes.

Then we had hot burger from a ramshackle dusty food corner in the suburbs. The owner, believing in the impossibility of anyone disturbing him at noon to order something, was soundly sleeping under a brooding, sad-looking keekar vaulting above his food cabin. As we got him back from his five-star restaurant owning dreams he looked at us quizzically. Then the reality dawned upon him that there are guys who would get burgers from him at a dusty noon. All sleepy he made two sloppy burgers. They tasted rusty, as my friend told me later. But to me they were amazing. After two bottles of beer and in celebration of a self-considered best seller who won’t find any kind of burger at the pinnacle of taste? Foster your faith well. Why be bothered about the supreme excellence of best sellers. Write your books anyway. Keep your mood happy. That’s in your hands. Don’t allow it to be exiled to the filthy fury of dirty drains by other’s views and opinions. Be dismissive and feel enchantingly courageous.

And all this was condoned by the skies above as well. As I celebrated the launch of my book, a light thunderstorm applauded and greeted me with raindrops. The boiling May-end heat had turned it almost a sizzling cauldron. The dusty rumble of clouds announced some relief in celebration of a book launch. I could count the number of drops on the sand around my feet. Doesn’t that make them so precious? Then under the spell of dust, some raindrops, rumble of mediocre dusty clouds, a glass of Juse, a burger from the ramshackle dusty eating point, two bottles of beer and the launch of a new book on a platform that’s kind enough to accept all submissions, I remembered that I can club the occasion with my month of birth as well. Instantly a feeling of wellness hit a high vault. The uneventful birthday had come and gone without notice almost three weeks back. There is a thing called belated celebration. I got a third bottle of beer and drank to my birthday and would have dozed off if not for the Juse.

I had Juse you must be wondering. He loves his sugarcane juice machine. He has designed his signboard all by himself using the skill of his hand and all the education that he still remembers from his few years of schooling. ‘NIKKI JUSE CORNER’ it says. A big TAJA in Hindi follows. He is true to his word of freshness. His Juse is far better than the nicely packaged and branded juice available at famous juice points and malls. I pointed out his Juse thing to him. He is slightly embarrassed for a moment, then reclaims his natural juicy demeanor. ‘See brother, had I known the correct spelling, do you think I would have been a juse-maker?’  

A sad little story

 Parveen’s left leg is afflicted with polio. Earlier he had a seventy percent invalid card that entitled him for a little pension. Further, there was a possibility of getting a small government job under the disability quota. But at the time of the card’s renewal, the CMO at the district civil hospital was in the foulest of a mood. Was he beaten by his wife on that day? No. He had been publicly shamed by the health minister who suddenly arrived for an inspection of the facility. Having lost his composure and looking for the means to scatter his woes upon those who stood at the mercy of his mood, he looked at Parveen from a new angle, an angle of vendetta, and found him just thirty-five percent disabled. As if angels suddenly materialized and healed Parveen overnight, as if providence was on a pleasure tour and half-cut the poor boy’s bitterness. Parveen thus lost his little pension as well as the slim chance of getting a peon level job in some government office.

Fate seems to have found him an easy target to rob him further. Parveen was doing a job at a warehouse of second-hand books, performing his job very seriously. He was riding pillion with an office colleague when a speeding car hit the bike. He now has a big fracture on his strong right thigh and a rod implanted to support his bone. Sometimes, the fate’s affrighted whimsies take fancy for you and your miseries just pile up. And you will have angry CMOs and speed masters, all safe with their stylish criminalities, spoiling your little world, robbing you of even the little-little pieces of life’s joy. I have seen him trying his level best to be self-standing in life. An honest boy with limping normalcy, a kind of smooth peculiarity. But as of now he is totally dependent upon his family.

The ATM Guard's Igloo

 The temperature is almost 50°C and the heat index is still higher. You can feel the heat creeping into your bones and turn them to ashes. You can say it’s a burning fire almost. The ATM booth has a full blast of air condition. It’s practically a snowy Himalayan cave. The moment you open the glassed door, the greeting gusts of cold welcome you. And you, standing half in fire, half in snow turn a statue for a moment; paradoxes get paraphrased into the quizzical look of your eyes. There is no cash in the machine. Thankfully. The guard has put a ‘No Cash’ board on the machine and is peacefully sleeping. Snoozing serenely in his refrigerator because that’s what it’s as of now. He is safely cocooned inside his ice-pack and outside the blindingly envious loo whimpers and challenges the people to face it. ‘I will burn your eyelashes if you dare to face me!’ it roars. Well, this happens to be one of the few perks of being an ATM guard. One can sleep in a refrigerator when the world is on fire outside and there is no cash in the machine.

The forgotten icecream

 Nevaan’s father has promised him to get ice-cream on the way back from work in the evening. The first day he forgets and promises to get it the next day. The same thing happens the next day but at least he remembers and promises to get it the following day. The same thing gets repeated for three days. On the fourth day, his father, as if at complacency’s cusp, not only forgets to bring the ice-cream, but forgets to verbally renew the promise of bringing it the next day. It means, with the promise gone, he won’t bring it at all. Now this is too much for little Nevaan. His kaleidoscopic dreams shattered, his ballooning robust optimism gone, he is inconsolable and keeps crying for half an hour, face down on the bed and the sheet almost wet with lamentations. His small body is swaddled with waves of sobs cusped with censorious overtones. They have no clue about the reason for such teary outpour, so keep asking why is he crying. Finally he shouts with meaningfully accelerating pain among flooded sobs, ‘I won’t tell! And I won’t eat it even if you bring it!’

Diwali musings

 Pick up a dry leaf and take out the carpenter ant that has got into the toilet seat. I sometimes rescue even house flies and mosquitoes. They will be a nuisance, one may say. But the chance to be a savior is too big a reward for such deterrent considerations. I try to keep my foot on a hold as a beetle crosses, or a slug crawls away, or a frog hops away. I know a tread of caution is for my own benefit. It will save me from a fall sometime in future. If you learn to not walk over insects and beetles on the way, you will surely escape the thorns and potholes of life that come your way. If you can rescue an insect or bug of your dislike from a basket, basin or drain, you are prepared to forgive people. These tiny acts of salvage hone the spirit of sympathy, love and care in you. They blunt the edge of apathy and neglect that sees us turning a blind eye to so many unbecoming things around us, where we can bring a positive change without creating too much turbulence in our lives. It’s better to have a little bit of time to stop and take out a drowning beetle. If not for this, you will hardly try to save a drowning man in future. Goodness is a habit. It can be practiced. The vast workshop of life has so many tiny tables for us to carry out our little experiments. To me rescuing an elephant and saving an ant is more or less the same. That particular savior emotion is the main thing. So watch your step and avoid crushing insects unnecessarily. You gain a lot from it. You learn to be careful and responsible. Most of the times when we think we are helping others, we are in fact helping our own selves.

@

The first half of November is supposed to be the best. The winter is opening like a soft bud. The birds sing at their best. It proves it’s the best part of season. A beautiful, fluid mix of balmy cold and warmth. But we have turned it the worst. The metallic haze and toxic smog grips the skies like the steely talons of an eagle strung over the soft fur of a rabbit. The eyes burn. Throats ache. The sip of life, the air, turns a slow dose of death. The north Indian planes look like a huge prison. The sun looks pale and sick-faced as it peeks weakly over the polluted planet. But then even on such a sickly gloomy morning there are thousands of swallows flying in the sky. So many of them! With so many birds, it seems as if everything will be all right. The sky seems to bless the earth through these freely flying birds. It’s the time to plant more trees and flowers. It’s the time to walk a bit slower and do something that will leave the planet worth staying for the coming generation.

@

Most of the time our hate for someone is merely an instrument to undo and hide our own guilt about the incidents and happenings which took us to a point of unbridgeable differences with that person. Hate is a very convenient tool. It’s fuelled by anger. With the tools of hate and anger, it’s very easy to put all the blame on someone else for the fallouts. In our own court, the hammer of hate and anger sets our conscience free while holding the other party culpable for all the wrongs that have befallen.

@

From the ones who sound most affable to the ones pounding your nerves with obnoxious ferocity, all of us are equally distant from the most presentable best 'truth', simply because there is no absolute 'truth'. The only absolute truth may be that there is no absolute truth. The so called truths are merely flimsy bubbles floating in the sky. So guys glide freely cacooned in the bubble of your truth with only this much caution that you don't crash too often into other's bubbles floating around. This is what good and bad might be all about. Otherwise, this existence does not even care what this hypothetical talk is about the absolutes, sin, piousness, etc., etc.

@

The utmost exciting and the most forgivable weakness--Love. If love be thy weakness, let it be. You won't miss being strong.

May Musings

The perch-pole’s length has been increasing as the temperature rose in May. It’s a very high, lofty platform for the white pigeons to enjoy the lower world from a higher platform. These are docile, domesticated pigeons with clipped wings. They fly with a lot of flutter, out of habit, the birdie habit to fly, and land on their little perch point after a few sorties in the sky. The struggling flight carrying faint rebelling undertones as the languidly looming horizons cajole with the prospects of free flights. But the attitude of gratitude for the owner is strong enough to quell the spirit of freedom. They land on their little open cage. Domestication piles up habits, loads of habits in fact. The roots blended with a sense of uprootedness; the sweetened taste of petty vagaries. It gives a sadistic penchant for taming punctualities. Out of sheer habit the pigeons sit on their high open platform in the merciless noontime heat, even though there are shady trees around. The boy should fix a shelter box on the open, flat board which the pigeons consider their home. Otherwise the sun may roast the pigeons and the eagle will arrive to enjoy roasted meat. Why persist with the habits that give you sunstroke or even roast you alive, I wonder.

Not much bothered about the white pigeons getting roasted alive under merciless noontime sun, the parijat shows new leaf shoots. As if apprehending burning fires and the last drop of water getting vaporized at the peak of the hot season, it went into a panic mode and in mad frenzy to dodge the death’s dragnet shed its leaves that dropped almost endlessly. The garden bore a sad autumnal look. So many hardy big dry leaves as would make a little mound. From its luxuriant buxom look it turned into a skeletal sadhu doing penance in the Himalayas; a lean and fragile monk with swordfish spirit. I would term it as stoic detachment to green foliage. If it gets too attached to the luxuriant canopy, it will lose so much water to even die and unable to hold its seeds. Nature is unsparing. It demands sacrifices. Each thing, plant, tree, grass blade, stone piece, everything in fact has to bow down to the laws to retain its shape. As a concerned and caring parental entity, the bare skeletal tree carried its dry pods of seeds, so many of them that even though each gust of wind scatters hundreds every minute, still many will be left to keep its lineage alive.

It’s the young lad of a tree carrying its palpable adolescence. And with the new shoots coming up you can enjoy reading newspaper under it in the morning. New shoots carry a unique, fresh aura. After its tapasya, the young tree seems in excitement of love and procreation. Its dark brown button-shaped seed pods fall in a drizzle—an orgasmic surrender; a sort of foreplay among the hot sighing winds. Then the monsoon will arrive like a bride with its large-hearted surrendering overreach and conceive its offsprings. A mother with springing affections. A fresh enthusiast of new life. A carrier of entrepreneurial dynamism. The seeds will come to life. Some seeds fall on my head also. Misplaced enthusiasm, at the most. Maybe the tree wants to take roots in our minds from where mother nature’s concern has been severally uprooted. Or maybe the tree is playing some mischief by hitting me on the head.

Then the plumber-cum-labor man arrives to fix a broken tap. Regular work with shovels, spades, pick-axes and pipe-wrenches bestows muscular arms and strong hands. There is an imposing crocodile tattoo on his hand. I complement him for it, telling him that the great crocodile looks suitable for his work-hardened limbs. He is slightly embarrassed and tells me, ‘Well, I asked the tattoo maker at the fair to draw Shiva but he was high on afeem and Shiva came out like this!’ I stare deeply and try to find out any semblance of the great God’s supreme stature in a godly niche in the skin graphic. There is hardly any trace of Him here. But with the mind’s intensely intellectual excretions one can spot, or even innovate in imagination, eccentrically methodical designs and patterns conveying meanings of other dimensions, just like abstract art, to justify whose strangest lines and shapes one has to have a huge mind to spin out new meanings or even blindly babbling speculations. So it looks a masterpiece of abstract painting. I get inclined to view it as the modern art form but my reverie is broken by the bearer’s gentle tone. ‘It was sinful on his part, so I gave him a hard beating. But he was very professional at least in digging deep. The ink is so thick and deep that it won’t go away however hard I rub,’ he clarifies the entire story behind the tattoo. Indeed the high-on-substance tattoo maker has left a well-rooted heritage on this man’s skin. His free-flowing hands drawing a plenteously aesthetic design as per the diktats of a free spirit, carrying soft blends of awareness and unawareness. 

The ditched lizard

The late morning sky looks down with stern infinitude, somehow with a heavy desultory feeling as if overloaded with the immensity of its own reminiscences, the weight of its past and the ever-exploding present.

Probably his girlfriend got angry with him. I saw her crawling down the curry-leaf tree with a moribund mindset and move on the ground to sneak out of the garden passing under the iron gate’s lower frame. He followed her after a few minutes later. Of course, you are supposed to go following your girlfriend. But he doesn’t go out. From under the gate he looks out for some time and turns back to take a survey of the garden. ‘Rascal, already thinking of new love to fill his life,’ I think.

I’m sitting on a chair a few feet away, reading a newspaper. He is not excited in love at the moment and looks pretty ordinary with his dusty earthen color. A kind of arid angularity of defeatist nature clung to his persona. I draw his attention. He looks at me matter of factly. He isn’t scared, I can see. What is there to feel scared about those who simply read newspapers, the long sheets where even engineered pogroms and bloody vendettas are presented as almost harmless random chance happenings? Why be bothered about the one who gets intimidated by the smartly customized narratives of an increasingly regressive world to tame mass psychology? Why take seriously the one who tries to write his agonies and responses and makes silly attempts at assumed joy sometimes? And who is a small-time writer? Well, he is an innocuous byproduct of the agonizing agencies of fate, institutions, norms, customs, expectations, jealousies, hate and failed attempts at love.

I glide a very small round clod of earth in his direction. He isn’t bothered. He has turned into a statue, almost miraculously motionless. If your girlfriend has left you in bad mood, you hardly care about struggling writers trying to boost their spirits by playing with sullen and surly garden lizards. Well, rolling the little piece of earth suddenly reminds me of the past that I once played marbles. I pick out tiny soil granules and take an aim, the marble-throwing aim. A few bombs land very near to the target but he isn’t bothered about me even now. Then one lands on it. Not much in the league of giving pain because of its tiny size. But it hurts and affects his sense of dignity. He faces me straight. The hero raises his torso and tail in a manner that is at least aggressive to me. He seems like a little dragon in fact. ‘He has turned suicidal after meeting disappointment in love,’ I think.

Jilted lovers can be very dangerous. They have a peculiar set-asiding quota of sadistic sweet pain that makes them turn their face from life. They may dash to get squelched under tyres, wheels and even feet. But if the latter happens to be the case they may give a bite, thus pouring out all their pain, anger and suffering in the form of that bite, before getting trampled to death. I raise my feet and put them on the chair. But it’s a tricky world. The garden lizards aren’t so lucky to deal with small-time writers only. A cat has been sleeping in the corner behind the overgrown hibiscus. So here it springs up to grab its share of joy in the world. The aggressive romeo takes to his heels. The cat follows him across the garden and then the trees. It’s a youngish cat. I can feel its palpable adolescence. But the lizard is lucky to escape. The sporadic spirals of life and death, love and loss, agonies and ecstasies, that’s what life is about. He has to survive first to make love some other day. He should hang out there, who knows she may come back. The cat has sharpened its claws on the soft trunk of the parijat tree marking it like the leopard in the Morni hills. Well, let it be more resilient in spirits for the next hunt. I’m happy for the jilted lover. It’s good that he ran away without showing attitude. 

Boxing the ego

 Box your own as well as other’s egos because it’s the same entity. And defend the ‘faith’ because it again is the same. Ego: one common darkness. Faith: one common light. Strictly prescribed as per the guru-shishya parampara.

Our gurus at the village school tweaked our ears, pulled hair, smartly took us to the cane, made us murgas, shouted, fretted and fumed. They broke our budding egos just like their own had been broken by their gurus and so on and so forth. Well that was past. And now when I come across one of those gurus, coming slowly bent with old age, my only impulse is to touch his feet and give him a gentle hug. Because all that was to make us, even though it meant breaking some canes in the process.

It’s not that I’m a promoter of fist-work by the gurus. All I want to say is that it was a far tolerant world, a simpler world where people carried their heads a bit lighter, where the students were forgiving enough to forget the beatings and get a clue to the harsh realities of life that kick at us, a world when the parents didn’t explode with rage when they saw their kid’s cheek redder and understood that making of something is always a bit painful.

All in all, it was a gentler world even with the gurus’ beatings, a world having human pliability, a melting fluidity, not like the present time’s rigid temperaments and rude bloom. Despite all the beatings and shouts, the school still carried subtle shades of some courteous pageantry. I can only say that dry branches just fretfully shake to the wind’s playful shove. Leafy green branches gyrate and sway even to the pulls of stormy winds. The juice of life. It’s playful, mischievous, swaying.

Artificial creativity

My first line ever on an AI-assisted tool happens to be a question.  ‘In what way you are different from a human’s creativity?’ I ask.

ChatGPT is very honest, I must say. It replies:

‘As an AI language model, my ability to create and generate content is based on statistical patterns and algorithms derived from vast amounts of text data. While I can generate language that appears to be creative and original, my output is ultimately limited by the data I was trained on and the rules programmed into my algorithms.

In contrast, human creativity is often driven by personal experiences, emotions, and the ability to think outside the box. Human creators can draw inspiration from a wide range of sources, including their own imaginations, personal perspectives, and interactions with the world around them. They can also intentionally break the rules and patterns of traditional language to create something truly unique and original.

While I can generate content quickly and accurately, I do not have the same level of intuition, emotions, or personal experiences that drive human creativity. In this sense, my creative abilities are fundamentally different from those of a human being.’

I, yours truly, find it more honest than most of we humans. But it can be misleading, brutal, inhuman in the ways we can’t imagine. Perfect lack of subjectivity has the potential to take it to the threshold of limitless objectivity, which in turn may undo what we have created so far, or change the meaning of all the elements of human civilization as we know it. Of all our inventions so far, this one has the potential to turn the tables against the humans, as it introduces a mechanical replacement for spontaneous emotions, open-ended volition, fluctuating feelings, teasing mysteries, ever-chiding curiosity and numerous other checks and balances that keep the destructive monster in us under check, somehow. 

Now we want to hand over even our thinking to the mechanized tools. And get busy in creating solutions for problems born of our brain-substitute. AI-generated mail drafts, chatting messages, planning documents, summaries and reports are now spreading with a malignancy. It will standardize the way we act, think, behave, even feel: a mass-produced new-age mentality and emotionality. But then maybe it’s inevitable. It was fated to be. In our craze to surpass all life forms on earth, we were always expected to create something even above the mankind itself.  It’s not a doomsday portrait helplessly drawn by a poetic man. I would accept it as one more dimension in evolution.  Moreover, it seems a pretty communist concept, this AI: a mass standardization of ideas, thoughts and emotions.

PS: This isn’t tech-phobia. My only concern is that we get easily addicted to tools. So within a generation, we will be acting, planning, thinking and emoting the way algorithms want us. Then will we be the same humans, or some new avatar?

Givers and Takers

 I have seen a few wonderful old women beggars—even though calling them ‘beggars’ would be almost a sin but given my inability to find a suitable title for them I use the word beggar—who would put out their hand with such grace, dignity, motherliness, humility, kindness, gratitude and smile that it appears like a mystical treasure, almost a blessing like a saint. Remembering them I feel that it would be incorrect to call them ‘takers’ because even though a coin passed onto their palms they gave back something far more substantial and deep, something that touches your soul, enriching you in a profound way. And after getting softly, gently touched by their presence, as you walk away, the material burden on you minus by a metallic coin, you feel enriched in a mystical, soulful way.

In contrast, I remember many materially rich people travelling in costly cars, clad in brand clothes, adorned with gold and platinum, the ones whom we mistakenly term as ‘givers’. When they give something to a poor person, something very small that wouldn’t even match the cost of biscuits to their pampered dog, there is almost a malicious frown on their face. The frown, the outer lines of the poverty of the soul inside, conveying deep sense of fear, insecurities, dis-ease and absence of joy in life despite all the material wealth around. They appear to ‘give’ something but do they actually ‘give’? In fact they seem to ‘take’ something from the poor palm spread in front of them. I think with that look of hatred and repulsiveness they take away the last semblance of dignity and self-respect still surviving in a corner of the destitute person’s heart. They take away the smile and belief in humanity somehow still lying in tiny bits in the soul of that poor person.

So we have to think and observe it carefully. Not all beggars are just ‘takers’; many of them are ‘givers’ of some invisible substance comprising genuine smile, blessing, gratitude and kindness. They appear to take a little coin or morsels of food but in reality they are returning something very-very big in its subtle proportions. Also, not all rich charity givers are just ‘givers’, they are takers, almost robbers, of the last traces of humanity lying in a poor person. They appear to give something but in reality they are taking back something far more precious. 

The missing towel

 Early mornings in early winters have a mild chill. So here I’m draped in a chador, the best way the farmers and their ilk feel warm. Give them the best of a thermal clothing, which would keep one warm even in Antarctica, but the farmers would feel unequipped against cold in the absence of chador or blanket load over them. It only shows the level of habits in shaping our realities.

So here I’m draped in a light chador picking up fresh clothes to wear after a bath. The set of clothes slung over my arm, I’m looking for the missing towel. The towel has gone missing. It gives me concern as I go searching over the place. Then the concern turns to irritation for the inconvenience caused due to the missing towel. Then arrives self-justification. I’m sure that I always place my things at their proper place. So the reason for the missing towel must be someone else, not me. My family members can hear my uneased exclamations over the missing towel as I wander around looking for it. It’s not to be found anywhere. I’m sure that I cannot be so careless as to put it at a place where it cannot be found. There is a prompt conclusion that someone else has misplaced it—the very same old habit of putting the blame outside of one’s own self. ‘I always place it here, someone has misplaced it for sure!’ they hear my summarized mutter over the episode.

Then it’s found. All of them are staring at me as it’s found. It’ there on my shoulder, hidden by the fold of chador draped around me. That was the first item I had picked up but then the chador corner must have slipped over and while adjusting it the towel got hidden. So here I stand with my lost towel found now. The towel that was always with me. But for whom I had already gone searching out, looked for the missing cause outside and already made judgments about others as their cause.

It’s deeply humbling to be caught so wrong-footed, to be caught so unaware. It only shows the level of unawareness we carry with ourselves on a daily basis. Then we go for a frantic search over the missing towel, the towel that was never lost. We go out on a search outside and naturally look for the reasons for its misplacement in other people.

Well, the towel is always there. But it’s hidden in the deep folds of the chador of unawareness. The chador of unawareness spun of a conditioned and customized self; made of the threads of limiting beliefs, fears, insecurities. Unawareness is draped around us like a chador’s folds and hides the towel of our real self. And thinking the towel missing, i.e., our real essential self, we go on a frantic search. We believe it to be outside. And when we don’t find it, obviously we blame others.

Like the missing towel we have lost touch with our real self. The hiding blanket of unawareness draped around us gives us a false sense of security against cold and vicissitudes of life. The towel of our real self hidden among its folds. And we going on a futile search, feeling restless, wading our way through the network of family, friends, relatives, acquaintances. Assuming them or the larger world outside to be the cause of the missing towel. And we won’t feel the real rest till we find the missing towel. It but is nowhere to be found. How will it be found outside? It has been with us all along this time. But we have moved far and wide. We judge and blame others for the missing towel. We try different occupations, careers, faiths, belief systems and relationships to find the missing towel but fail.

The experience was deeply humbling. How our unawareness is the cause of all the unhappiness. From the missing towel to the estrangement with our true essential self, it’s the same germ of unawareness that begets us unhappiness and suffering. We just need to watch, understand and be aware of all that goes within and around us. Then maybe suddenly we find the towel slung right there on our own shoulder for whom we had covered miles after miles. 

The sunburnt rose

 I’m a sunburnt rose in the little garden of a common man. My smile is singed with scorching May heat. These are the scorched edges born of my battle to survive and smile and spread fragrance and give nectar to these little creamy white butterflies that flutter around. They draw life from me and I take inspiration from them. Aren’t they small flying petals bravely flirting with the hot wind in this scorching heat?

I won’t say the margins of my petals are burnt. I would say they are the embroidery work born of my flirtatious ways to kiss the sunrays.  Well, no shame in that. My law is to smile, flirt, kiss and get kissed and spread fragrance. If that gives me burnt lips that’s no problem. And no problem with the sunrays either. They are what they are. I don’t blame them. Their law is to warm, mine is to smile. Don’t they give life to my frozen petals in the winters after a frosty night? When the frost melts on my lips to make me the seductive prince in the garden.

Well, that was then and now is now. Why compare dew-fresh lips with parched ones? Both are beauties in their own ways. Most importantly, both are smiles in different conditions. So no problem with the furnace of sunrays. Now they give me this beautiful embroidered smile, marking their craze for me over the borders of my petals. They can’t help it. They are in love. I look majestic with the mark of their love on my lips. Don’t I? I do, I know.

We are a few flowery soldiers fighting for love, truth and beauty on a branch. I’m in the front and would take the lead in getting my authenticity singed and branded on my petals by the fiery kiln. Then my deputy stands in wait. He would be leading the smiley charge once my burnt petals scatter to the winds. And after him, the little bud that you see just getting ready to hold the baton for love and beauty will take charge.

Love, beauty and truth are what we convey and carry across our generations. No wonder, we survive as a single entity named ‘rose’. A symbol of beauty and love. And of course smile. So we have to smile at all costs under any circumstance. If a rose won’t smile, I’m afraid smile would vanish from this small planet.

‘I’ and ‘we’ smile simultaneously. ‘I’ and ‘we’ are just the same. Due to this sameness between ‘I’ and ‘we’, I can still enjoy the full handsome youthful smile of my deputy as if it’s my own. I’m happy that all of us are roses only, not Mr. or Miss x, y, z, etc. For then our smiles would scatter and turn to pieces and my smile would become different from other roses. Thankfully we are spared of that fate.  

A smile isn’t just for full, luscious lips. It’s there for dry, parched, thirsty lips as well. A smile on parched, thirsty lips is a smile of bravery, conviction, wisdom, fortitude and determination, like mine as of now. A smile on full, luscious lips is a smile of youth, of romantic dreams, adventures and excitement like that of my deputy. A smile on a child’s lips is the purest, a rose itself. See, can you see it in the little daughterly bud? Now forget all the nagging facts of life and smile for a moment. If I can do it under the hot fiery sun, you can at least do it with all the equipment there to help you keep safe from direct bombardment by the sun.

The book of life

Aha the book of life! Every day a new chapter. Each incident, happening or phenomenon a fresh sentence with profound meanings.

The new sun rising on a misty morning arriving with the message that there is always light after dark to help us see and realize the illusions and unwarranted fears that we imposed on us in the dark.

The setting sun saying ‘a smiling bye’ with a message that one has to accept and willingly dive into oblivion after a dazzling day, after touching the peak of brilliance, after a full-hearted bear hug with life, after completing an innings in career or a relationship. That a ripe fruit has to drop, that once very dear people will go out of life, that smiles will be followed by tears as well. Accept. That we have to accept this play of existence in totality and that includes smiles-tears, win-loss, falling in love, partings, birth-death. Everything.

The shifting shades and reshaping clouds in the sky brimming with the message of change and impermanence, of new forms overtaking the old ones, of a smooth transition, of the old changing into the new without any drama, without any hassles.

Mother earth holding this portion of existence on her maternal palm with unconditional love and the undying spirit of just giving all that Her children need. The message of giving! How much more satisfying it seems in comparison to taking! That we evolve by a great margin just by giving a smile. And ‘taking’ also is highly undervalued. If we ‘take’ with a smile and gratitude, doesn’t it create a ‘giver’ who became joyful for the act? Mother existence prefers a graceful and full of gratitude ‘taker’ than a cranky ‘giver’. Give with a smile of kindness and empathy; take with a smile of gratitude. To mother existence these are simply two facets of the same coin.

The chirping of birds conveying the spirit of keeping songs alive on one’s lips even while engaged in the day-to-day commitments and routine practicalities of life. Their free flights spreading the fragrance of freedom, the urge to fly on one’s own path.

The trees with the message of growth irrespective of the changing environment and the divine instinct of giving fresh air, shade to the weary traveller, inspiration to artists, nests to the birds, fruits for the hungry. A new shoot sprouting from the cut on their bark. The message  that we too can get fresh colors and shoots to our personality at the points of cuts, wounds, adversities.

The flowers with the message that smiles carry the touch of divinity, that fragrant petals and nectar fuel the colorful sorties of many butterflies, that we too touch many lives positively with our gentle manners, smiles and sweetness of temperament. That our rainbowed touch can make many people joyful like nectar-satiated butterflies. We smile, say soft words, treat them gently and they soar high and become joyful.

Beautiful relationships with the message that our travel-weary heart, mind and body need a soft touch, a cool brace, a healing bonhomie; that friends, family, relatives, partners, lovers are all there to help us cross a milestone on our eternal journey and then melt and get reshaped like clouds in the sky. But we carry the invisible imprint of their persona on our selves. It’s firmer than a line on stone. People might have tears on account of you, once the pathways have parted, but ensure that the tears are accompanied by a smile as well so that the dry tears don’t singe someone’s soul.

A river in the hills, furiously cutting big boulders, passing the message that we have to raise a blizzard of karma to later enjoy a peaceful flow in the plains and later merge into the bigger serenity of the sea. That we have to cut karmic stones to come out of the stones, walk joyfully on the plain of relationships, kindness, care, share and finally sleep in the lap of mother sea.  

The silence in a forest loaded with the message that this is what all the words and languages point to, the language of silence, the mother of all sermons and preachings.

The exotic chaos and cluttering noise in a city heavily pregnant with the message that all of us are destined to wade through inner conflicts, puzzles, trauma and tension like common people beautifully engaged in the sweet-sour poignancy of the cities.

Falling in love loaded with joy, pleasure, care and share. It tells how important these feelings are for our wellbeing. Just recall the feeling of bliss while freshly in love! Isn’t that wonderful?

Falling out of love, tears, pain and suffering passing the message that we always could have been better lovers. In any case, it’s always for the best in future. We just become better lovers after partings.

Everything around us is full of messages. The book of life! Observe it, feel it, understand it. It opens the experiential dimension in life. With experiential knowing the phantoms of intellect and mind take a backseat. They always bow down to the confident sovereign, the soul, the observer now fully aware of its kingdom, its colors, shapes, hues, everything.

The beauty of carefully reading the book of life is that we learn to touch our own self, our own body, mind, thoughts and emotions with more empathy and self-love. We fall in love with life overall. We simply come out of the definition of life within this particular body and feel related to the life overall. Then we touch many lives very-very positively. We become healers without trying to do it intentionally. It’s just a natural state of being in that dimension. Happy reading the book of life!

Balance. Balance. Balance.

 Uncontrolled emotions will turn us suicidal, depressed and at the most a brooding misfitted poet. Uncontrolled mind will leave us open to the chance workshop of the devil. Anything negative may come out as a dark product. Uncontrolled energies will see us lunatics. Uncontrolled biology will find us turning into sex maniacs and rapists. Having control over life is only meant to avoid a 'part' of our nature or existence from becoming 'everything', thus shadowing all other dimensions of life. We get hijacked by one impulse. Then it's a stunted growth. Holistic growth, call it evolution, needs Balance among various aspects of our existence. As Buddha said Balance is the key to a really joyful life. Keep the parts in place. Maintain all the impulses firmly in place. Don't deny any part of your existence but please don't allow just 'parts' to be 'whole'. It's a multicolored bouquet with fresh flowers of body, mind, emotions, energies. Maintaining Balance among them gets us a fulfilling life full of nice relationships, jobs, growth, faith, love, kindness. If we are driven by just one impulse then it acquires too big a force, driving us in one direction, imbalanced, and we turn mere products of our impulse and randomly developing circumstances. Use all the 'parts' of your existence and we become creators of our own self. Because there is no excess of one particular driving force. As humans we can grow and evolve only as creators, not as circumstantial products. To be a mere product would be degradation and disregard for the tremendous potential of awareness that mother nature has given us. So again remember: Balance, Balance and Balance. At least listen to Buddha if not me! Everyone talks of Balance but how to do it, one may wonder. There is a very simple technique for it. Allow yourself to be softly braced by various aspects of life that touch and test the different parts of your existence. Live an experiential life in totality and allow mother existence to caress your multilayered and multidimensional self in various forms at the level of body, mind, emotions and energies. Don't run away or shun any particular aspect of life. Embrace the experiences that come your way. And where all are sovereigns, nobody would emerge as a tyrant to manipulate your life in an imbalanced way. 

A dandy lizard on a summer noon

 A shikra is a light-built hawk, ashy blue-gray on the top and rusty brown underside. It loves open, meagerly wooded country. It’s a swift flier, almost incredibly elegant, with quick strokes of wings ending in a glide. It flies close to the ground and shoots upwards to grab a perch upon a branch with solitary sovereignty. Hereafter, it gives a desiccating look for any mice, small bird, lizard or squirrel who, perchance, lowers its guard for a moment that may allow it to sire a successful hunt. It may seem to carry a kind of effeminate nonchalance for a hawk but its birdie persona is interspersed with enough skill to dispense with the life of any little rodent that turns careless even for a moment.

The predator gives a piercing, harsh, challenging call. Well, now it eyes a love-struck pair of garden lizards in the branches of the curry leaf tree basking at the peak of heat with its exotic elegance. Tiny clusters of whitish flowers leave aromatic pools of air around the couple. There are honeybees and butterflies enjoying the feast even in the noontime heat setting up a lifeful rhythm. Tiny guys expertly, uncomplainingly facing life’s gubernatorial challenges. The bees, the butterflies and the in-love garden lizards make it festively buoyant. A melding interface of food, love, death; the elements juxtaposed so nearby, side by side. I muse with a stoic smile: a circumstantial texture peppered upon the small tree; dismal indices of smallish ironies; and God’s inherent instinct of eternality above and beyond all this.

The noon is meticulously bright. Swathed in the distressing pools of longing, the male lizard is bright orange around its torso, she a shy soft pink. Hypnotized by the jingling placations of love-lust combo, they are perfectly oblivious to the hawk eye peering at them through the leaves from a top branch in the tree. Then the hawk falls through the branches like it has been shot dead, a free fall. They are lucky that the tree has enough leaves left on it to make it a noisy fall. The sexual energy quickly transforms into panic and they forget the tentacles of love and take onto their heels, individually, separately, for life. They become invisible. The hawk changes many look-out positions to spot the runaway couple. They are not to be seen. Changing colors in league with the times, a nice tactic to dupe and survive.

I have seen them a few times earlier also, enjoying the moments of togetherness; looking out for a healthy moment to join their bodies for the full fruition of love-lust combo. Seeing them together is almost mirth-exuberating spectacle. Looking at the way he has to change many colors, I feel that he is forever trying to deal with fresh tantrums from her bountiful books. As a dandy lizard, the male carries a lot of confidence of cosmic magnitude, a sort of self-assured, heraldic march, especially when its girlfriend is around. It raises its head and stares at you head-on. I have no doubt that it wants to impress her with a brave stance against we humans. I have faced situations where he has stared at me with gutsy posture from just a few feet away. Comfortably ensconced in a successful love’s saddle, anybody would give the impression of a king feeling robustly positive and on top of this world after self-coronation. Aaah, the heat, follies and dew-moistened rosy auguries of love, or maybe lust, maybe both together, sometimes one over the other and sometimes the reverse! In fact the combo is highly shapeless to define it in a particular way. But I’m happy that it didn’t repeat the same folly while facing the hawk and showed a clean pair of crawling paws, otherwise the lady would have lost her love necessitating her to go seeking love again after a few sad moments. 

A sunburnt summer flower

I consider myself a summer flower on account of being born right in the middle of summers on May 5. Fiery summers making me feel like a sunburnt summer flower. But a little astrological fact sooths with its cool brace. It was the Budh Purnima day when I arrived for my current innings on earth.

Here I’m basking—sedate, pensive and sensitive—in the solitude of pale fallen leaves, sunburnt roses and some odd butterflies still darting about on this late morning of my birthday. It’s a small corner, a little peaceful niche in a world embroiled in lawsuits, lamentations and calumnies. Here I sit as a sovereign of my dwarfish, puny world; the sun a bit short of the baking point at this moment of the day.

The curry leaf tree is laden with clusters of little white flowers. These must be very succulent. Hundreds of honeybees are quenching their thirst on them. It creates an opportunity for the red-vented bulbul couple. The two of them stretch out their necks to pluck the bees. Four butterflies are also tastefully busy in enjoying a breakfast. The purple sunbird couple looks somewhat irritated at the nectar-sucking pandemonium. They think it’s their prerogative only, so they harangue their witticisms from nearby branches. It’s a buzzing, delighted, entranced little world at the cusp of gastronomical delight; a world with its refractory charm standing wholly for me with its indispensable fidelity.

The same tree bears the fragile little nest that allows the doves to lay eggs without putting an effort to make a new nest. One more couple lands to inspect. Denounce the dolts for their laziness. I always do whenever various dove couples lay eggs in the same nest, one after the other, only to lose them to cats, crows, gravity, et cetera. Thankfully, the tragedy is postponed for some time. The locality seems busier than their liking. In the stingy hubbub, a few bees bump into them and they flutter away, noisily clapping their wings, the take off somewhat loud for their peaceful nature. The butterflies and the bees also bump into each other. Well, everyone is entitled to participate in the feast on my birthday.

A tailless cat is eating the top ends of some still green blades of grass in a corner in the garden. The old women, they are all gone now, used to say that the cats and dogs eat grass as a medicine when they have stomach issues. He makes plenty of weird faces while taking his medicines, like children make while taking bitter pills. This particular cat is thoroughly wicked. Thinking that his poop will be mistaken as the deeds of my favorite cats, getting me angry enough to give them a hiding, the pettifogger relives himself on the terrace. But I know his tricks. Despite his vices and faults I allow him to take the grass medicine because depriving an indigestion patient of medicines would be a sin.  

Undaunted by the fiery summers, like rose-hearted guys still surviving in a stone-hearted, artless, brawny world, the petunias in five pots, making full use of their favorable circumstances—they have to face direct sun only till eleven in the morning—have enough blossoms to beat the sultry shades of sadness born of a yard littered with dry, pale leaves and a lonely birthday boy among them. Their infallibly pure, sprightly, indomitable, bright smiles wish a very happy birthday, gently offering lolling sympathies; a soothing balm over the burns, cuts and wounds, the result of strange antipathies presented by fate.

It’s a little flowery shrine with a potted tulsi in between: a live shrine with a living goddess with her living bouquet of flowers. They have to do a little less than half-day’s wage to survive. The sun can try to wither the blooms till only a bit past eleven in the morning. Till then they obey the law and bow their heads in reverence to the God of light, waiting for the wall shadow to creep over the edge. The rest of the day is manageable once they are out of the direct onslaught of the fiery streams. The tulsi reinforces her holy status each day as a sesame oil lamp is lit under it at the evening twilight. The holy incense smoke adds beautiful smell to the smile of the flowers around the venerable plant. So as good neighbors they share their part of offerings. That makes it a very happy neighborhood. Dozens of petunias of varied colors flash their smiles, beating the hot winds with their colorful spirit.

A lizard stays among these pots and the portion of the wall nearby hidden by the flowers and the pots. It’s her happy world carrying a unanimous and cordial air. Safe also. The fleas and mosquitoes who fall for the flowers end up finishing their journey here. She rarely misses her dinner. The bright oil lamp always has some moth or two, drawn by their passion for the flame, and then it’s the turn of the gecko’s tongue which is equally passionate about jumping at crazy, infatuated moths.

During the day, the life-giving sun tries to soak away all the life donated by it. It’s only the jollity, verve and optimism of the children that brings us back from the lolling lackadaisicalness onto the stage of life in the evenings. Rooftops and terraces are overtaken by the kite-fliers. And irremediably sullen monkeys, in heroic abdication of their foppery, peep over the parapets of the roofs, lost in deep deliberation to find places where there are no kite-fliers. They bear a sullen look, considering it as an infringement on their rights to rascality on the roof-tops.

There are two boys representing two types of kite-fliers in the locality. The one is the kind, his childhood in full bloom, who suddenly picks up a stone and throws it. In the same groove, he loves kite-flying without tail. The dives, ups and downs of a tailless kite present a real chance for fun and frolics. It’s challenging and adventurous. There are flurried notes with forceful, quick pulls and prongs of the cord. The other boy is a well-behaved one. He would just look over a stone on the way and thus maintain the level of happiness as before. He uses a tail for his kite, proportional in length to the speed of the wind. He wants a steady flight. The kite is safe against the playful windy shoves. The holder’s hands are relaxed because not much action is required. The adventurous one then decided to fly his kite in a windstorm. And taking inspiration from the kite-tails of the other guy, he used a forty feet long tail to give his kite a chance at survival in the storm. The windstorm ensures that there is even more excitement and fun with a tail this time. All this seems to be done in celebration of my special day.

Suddenly realizing that I may become a shuddering bystander in the game of life, struggling against the grip of self-denial, chastity and privations, I receive a special treat in the evening. A most welcome one: a few drops of rain in the season of dust-storms and hot loo. The drops feel icy cold and hit the sand to create one of the best smells, the smell of mother earth. The dusty leaves get a bath. It makes everyone very happy. A 100-year-old gypsy woman missed the moment though. She was dusted like the trees around; soiled with a century of age in addition. So her daughter-in-law, once the sudden downpour passes off, puts her on a charpoy by the side of the busy road passing the village, takes off her clothes and gives her an unhurried washing. Nothing special about it, it’s almost as normal as a little boy or girl getting a bath at a public place. A 100-year-old woman is shrunk to the cuteness of a baby. So a baby bath it is, at the most. 

Everybody has an allergy

Farmer Ranbeer drops in the morning. ‘Haven’t met you since many weeks, so came to see you,’ he greets me in my yard. He seems apologetic because he can easily read my mind that is full of thoughts whose summary is that the host doesn’t approve of the guest’s visit and considers it a waste of time. But farmers have thick skins. They don’t get bruised by such subtle hostilities. Theirs is a tough world where something has to be loudly visible and concrete solid to be taken seriously. So my feelings and thoughts are irrelevant and his arrival is supposed to be born of my invitation and his acceptance of the same.

Secluded in the yard corner, far away from the maddening crowd, basking in the soothing gaiety and enormous serenity, I’m reading newspaper. To me he seems a loafer tramping around on a mission to slay all traces of peace from the remotest corners. My face wears gravity even though he carries an affable personage. He is slightly stalled—just a trace of it—by my quirky countenance, and quickly grasps the affectionate strings ever-available in his goodwill for me. He considers it to be a very friendly visit and drags the chair very near, as would do justice to a joyous smalltime prattling between two idle-most people in the world.

His left eye is watery and blood red. Lost in my covert conjectures, I surmised ‘Eye flu!’ It strikes me hard with cold disdain. Eye flu, the harrowing word, boldly italicized upon my once editor’s psyche on the page of my insecurities. Knowledge, apart from being the solution provider to many challenges, is also the cause of many of our problems in the modern-day life. The farmer isn’t bothered much about my unease. Maybe the idlers and loafers suffer the least weight on their brains. The world of knowledge keeps us on the edge. I give him malicious looks. ‘You should take rest and not loaf around,’ I testily tell him, almost rebuke him in fact, my knowledge of the eye flu’s contagiousness giving me anxiety attack.

‘It’s nothing,’ he laughs. It was nothing to his wife as well. Ranbeer had gone to the village chemist for eye-drops for some mild irritation in his eye. He got the drops, came home and settled on a charpoy to receive the eye-drops in his eye from the work-hardened hands of his farmer wife. She like all farming women was thrashed like a hefty heifer during her husband’s prime but now pulls all levers, including ears sometimes, as the hubby grows old and she still retains immense powers. In the Jat community the availability of power in the limbs is the main deciding factor in the game of life. You rule like an egomaniacal king when you have power and strength in your bones. You fall down to slavish level with the passage of strength from your body.

She has retained at least double of his, so she is a formidable and petrifying force now. Haughty, stern and austere, no wonder, she rules the kingdom now. From an earlier avatar of a tyrannical king, he has now fallen to the level of a grizzled old social democrat and she a ruling-by-fist communist autocrat. He has to hope that she soon acquires a weak memory of the past. Or if not, at least listens to the conscientious commotions of her female heart, forgetting all the poignant recalls from the past when the hubby was the king.

On his part, he cannot afford to fall into any misdemeanor born of habit. He has groomed a nice new trait in him: in response to her ravings he gives supplicating, meek looks of a puppy. He is ageing wisely, a kind of melting of the grand discordance (at least on his part) between a husband and a wife, a peeling away of chauvinistic sentimentalism, an ability to keep things normal despite the better half’s chastisements.  

She stares at the brand new medicine vial. She is illiterate but has pictographic memory. Everyone needs such skills to stay alive in this memory-crazy world. Her face turns very serious as if she is busy in solving the most puzzling equation in the mathematical world. She doesn’t open the medicine and carrying a doctor’s mien goes into the store room crammed with agriculture tools, barn equipment and discarded electric gazettes. She returns after five minutes from the dusty-musty place, some cobwebs jewelling her hair.

She is quite perturbed over Ranbeer’s spendthrift ways. She remembers his hard-fisted financial tyranny when he used to be the king. It resulted in her entire life being spent clad in a select few rumpled, worn out salvaar kameej and chunris. ‘It’s the same medicine. See, just same-same! Why waste a new one. There is a bit left in the old one. Use it!’ she commands. She isn’t, even with her pictographic memory, much concerned about the expiry date printed on the medicine. ‘The old medicine was at least five years older than the expiry date. But she has to spend the old one first otherwise our house will break down due to the wasting habit of mine. So in order to finish the old bottle, she drops the medicine throughout the day,’ he laments.

No wonder, his eye is blood red now. But worrying about such matters is not for them. He laughs away the petty talk as if nothing has happened. So it stands proven that worrying is basically a disease of the well-informed or rather too much informed. The farmer with a deep-red eye takes leave, jocosely looking forward to a restful day, leaving me still wondering and apprehensive about the transfer of the possible eye flu in his eyes.

It reminds me of my own episode of red eye and the people running away in office. I worked in the editorial department of a publisher during those days. It was an oral homoeopathic medicine that I was taking at the time. Editorial being a very taxing job for one’s eyes, I usually used some general eye-drops to relieve the eyes of the strain. One day, after a bad day at office and having lost my focus, by mistake I dropped the eye-drops on my tongue. My taste buds complained a bit, a small hint at change of taste, but not much. It was followed by dropping the oral drops in my eye. But the eye singed with pain. I had a blood red eye like Ranbeer. Next day my manager—always strongly explicit with disdain, disgust and aversion—ran away from me, grimacing with repugnance, as if I carried plague. ‘Eye flu, eye flu!’ I could hear him muttering. With my contagion strain I turned infallible and the manager a mere harmless slanderer. My teammates maintained a distance. ‘You should have taken an off. It’s clear-cut eye flu!’ my manager rued. I told them the reason but they laughed and took it as a joke. Keeping their sensitivities in mind I took three days leave. The ever-fighting manager, forever reaching higher and higher to the capricious cusp of his deranged self, temporarily forgetting his inveterate hate, morphed into a kind gentleman, in fact seemed very relieved about avoiding the eye flu pandemic in the office.

Ranbeer leaves but it seems a visitors’ day today. Very soon, Master Randhir, a retired teacher from a neighboring village, arrives and confidently occupies the just-relieved chair. His nose, turned bold purple due to the ceaseless rub of the hanky, is working to the fullest watering capacity. His hanky already sloshed due to his effort to stop the endless stream of water. It’s the nastiest cold, as worse as it can be. This is an apocalypse of pandemics, I shiver. To the hell with Corona-type symptoms! Socializing is very important. Go and live your life, embrace people in bear hugs, especially if you have a running nose. It shows how much you love your fellow humans.

The retired teacher is in his early seventies and hard on hearing. Doing me favors, he draws the chair even nearer. His major activity is wiping his nose all along. Nicely cornered, I resign to my fate, kill my irritation, slaughter my frowns and set out to entertain my guest.

Masterji is a considerate man, understands my feelings regarding pandemics—Corona isn’t too far in memory—and tries to assuage my apprehension. ‘It isn’t bad cold that others will catch. No virus and bacteria. It’s allergy. Nazla-nazla,’ he clarifies. Masterji is a long sufferer of this allergy, the triggering unknown substance lets loose his bronchial and respiratory system now and them, torturing him so much as to turn him on the path of spirituality. I bow down to the godliness in him for he thinks that I’m a great saint in making, despite my eye-rolling denials and even open declarations of my worldly shades, and wants me to cure his tragic allergy.

‘I can fill buckets of water with this tube-well on!’ he ruminates. ‘Santji there must be some cure. I know you can search and get me rid of this evil allergy,’ he looks expectantly. I feel sad for him. I feel sorry that I can hardly help him in this regard. But I can see that it has weighed very heavily on his mind.

‘Masterji, you feel sorry and bitter thinking that you the odd one has been chosen to suffer with this horrible nazla and that makes you feel sorry for yourself. But everyone has got a nazla. Some have the nazla of power, some of wealth, some of lust, of jealousy, of hate. See-see, everyone has got a type of nazla. Sab saale nazla se pareshaan hain. I can’t see even a single person who isn’t suffering from a nazla of his own kind. Go out in the street and spread your arms and shout ‘sabko nazla hai’,’ I spread my arms. Masterji cackles with laughter. He is consoled. He realizes that all of us have our own nazla, our own sufferings of mind, emotions and body. ‘Sabko nazla hai!’ he repeats and laughs as I see him off at the gate.

Just nearby a leery young dog, his tongue hanging out with paroxysm of obscenity, is locked onto an old hag of a bitch. The clumsy fellow seems to be repenting in the grip now and being dragged around—an aftermath of its inexpert endeavor, looking for a way out, its suppliant tongue out in submission. And she, the old, wise, clever and capricious one, has all the time to drag and publicly shame him for his impulsive storm. Aaah the hideous deformity of time—its seconds, minutes, hours (and weeks, months and years in case of humans)—after the love-ravage! The bitter fruits of basic instincts, gratuitously bequeathed by the still higher forces drawing the strings somewhere in the unseen mysteries.

Masterji is piqued for a moment but then regains his jeering spirits. ‘Inn saalo ko bhi nazla hai,’ he roars with laughter.