The smile of a stone

 

Life invincible 💪 A crack in the concrete wall. Some chance seed of a flower. Rains. Dew. And you have a little flower on the top of a tiny plant. The triumph of life, the urge to manifest from unknown to the known. Is the flower separate from the stone? No. It’s mere extension of the stone from its cracked lip, its mouth open to the possibilities. I would say it’s a smile on the stone’s lips.

Even in its barren womb the stone has the probability and potential for life. All it needs is a little crack, some drops of rain and a chance seed to transform that potential into reality. The stone smiles. The flower isn't something separate from it. It's merely an extension of it.

Manifestation is just a set of probabilities coming together from the infinite, ever evolving fabric of potential and probabilities. And of course it needs a set of appreciating eyes to witness this Leela...to complete one little circle within the greatest circle ever ... things going round and round...little cycles within the bigger cycles and still bigger ones to follow... going so big to again fall back into a point... nothingness and everythingness just the same same..  

Two frogs out of the village well

 

My first independent trip as a traveler came in the first year at college. Me and my uncle—more of a friend because he was of my age, being the youngest of a dozen children fathered by my granduncle—went to Shimla. We have saved enough from our paltry pocket money to give us courage to see the larger world out there beyond the boundaries of our village and the nearby town. As per the fashion of the times, we had long pantaloons, belts with elaborate shining buckles, leather shoes, printed shirts with side-slits to carry them well both in and out of the trousers. All this was topped with dark oversized sunglasses to make it a photogenic presentation.

I had a little red and black rectangular Panasonic camera to capture the moments pumped by the adolescence youth in us. We hit it off with a lot of spirits. Trekking to Tara Devi temple we soon realized that people already knew where we come from. The little shrine is situated ten kilometers down from Shimla on a hill from where Shimla glittered like a tiny heaven. I had been here as a part of the school children tourist group for fifteen days. That was a few years before and the pull of that free fun still beckoned me to the hill. During that trip, we had camped on a hill on the way to the shrine. It was a quaint British-time bungalow where we stayed. It was sheer fun. Well, of that sometime later.

Well, how did the people come to know where did we belong to without even having a word on the issue? Our actions speak louder than our tongues. We had been dislodging dead pine trunks down the slope. ‘You must be from Haryana! No wonder!’ a man exasperatedly sighed.

We captured the best dining moment of our lives at a restaurant at the erstwhile summer capital of the British India. It was a very high-end facility from our rural standards. The table had knives, forks, napkins. We hardly had any clues about this. But we felt bound to use them, so we followed others with a lot of anxiety. Then the beautiful aroma and wonderful taste of the food relaxed us, making us bold enough to click the best moments of life so far. Our bowls and plates had been wiped clean to do justice to the every paisa spent on the order.

There was a gentle hum of the urban people eating with dignity and perfect decorum. We had eaten too fast, we soon realized. The people basically talked and enjoyed the time there and took little bites in between. We had plainly gobbled down the food. The people who were already there when we arrived had barely touched their stuff. Sitting in a restaurant isn’t all about gobbling the food straightaway, first lesson. So we thought of prolonging our stay there. The bowls with warm water and lemon slices arrived. ‘See, they serve lemon juice as well to help digestion!’ we told each other. So this being our last item, we took elegantly stretched time to finish it like the real gentlemen do. We squeezed the lemon slices with a well-meaning look and sipped the digestive juice with a meditative muse. In fact we took many pictures of the cherishing sips. All this while a gentleman—a real one—casually looked and unhurriedly carried on with his lunch. A thorough gentleman not to get judgmental at all. His look didn’t betray even the slightest condemnatory hint towards our manner of treating a finger dip as a stomach wash. So we had a prolonged lemon juice drinking spree.

Then the moment of second learning struck with a nice punch. Very coolly the gentleman squeezed the lemons, expertly dabbed his oily fingers into the acidic concoction and elegantly wiped them on the napkin. The only saving grace was that he didn’t look at us even once while doing all this. A real gentleman, passing the message without making us feel embarrassed. Now it was difficult to stay there anymore due to our shame. We somehow managed to chicken out. Our entire schooling hadn’t taught this much as this visit to the restaurant did in a little time span.

We had shiny clothes, large shining belt buckles and still bigger glasses for our brattish faces. Now here was this beautiful Mall Road boulevard humming with tourists as the evening handed over the baton to a mercury lit arena. A perfect night for a lighted boulevard. But dark goggles are for shading the sun, the night is already shaded. To us a picture was incomplete without sunglasses, especially if you possess them. So we imitated an entire set of filmy postures with our hands on the hips and the legs positioned in varied ways to do justice to the sunglasses. All this while two girls, urban girls a bit senior to us, swankily clad in T-shirts, kept staring, giggling, saying something to each other. Now I realize that it was plain flirting and teasing to get us onto some encouraging frequency. But we weren’t exposed to such fine nuances. We felt offended. We thought they were joking at our expanse, making fun of us, little did we realize that teasing girls are a boon for the boys. It was a belated lesson, which I realized a few years later, as I vividly recalled their behavior, that it wasn’t an insult. It was a beautiful bait of youth. It was a tantalizing teasing. As urban girls and maybe a few years senior to us they knew far more in the domain of boys and girls. So quite foolishly, we felt insulted, scorned at them, threw daggers of hate at them, muttered our dissension in their direction, left the scene to carry on with our photo shoot at some other location.

Enlightenment is just a step away: Awareness

The early mornings in the beginning of 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 irritated 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 mumbling 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 the others as the cause.

It’s deeply humbling to be caught so wrong-footed, to be found 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 ignorance spun by a conditioned and customized self; made of the threads of limiting beliefs, fears and insecurities. Unawareness is draped around us like a chador’s folds and hides the towel of our real self. And thinking that the towel has gone 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 is 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. It showed me 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, while we had futilely covered miles after miles searching for it.

A journey with a Naga sadhu

 

I'm walking to Jhilmil gufa. In order to take a shortcut I end up taking a long-cut as it usually happens. The hill forests are mischievous. The tiny foortrails are green leafy mazes where they will try to keep you busy in solving the puzzle. Then a baba arrives from some other trail. I ask him about the caves where sage Gorakhnath did tapasya for many years. Incidentally he is also going to the caves. 

He is one of the most friendly babas I have seen. It's surprising given the fact that he is a Naga sadhu, the warrior ascetics who worship lord Shiva. Within a few minutes we are talking like good friends. 

Baba Shambhu Giri is from Jalna, Maharastra. He was a sickly child in a poor family who couldn't afford to get treatment for him. His helpless parents offered him to the holy fireplace at the ashram of a Naga baba. The baba took care of him from the age of five, treated him with herbal medicines, and initiated him into the order. He turned out to be a robust sadhu. His guru left his body, leaving the ashram and its 41 acre agricultural land under his care.

'I'm a farming Naga baba. I don't believe in asking for alms. I do farming on the ashram land,' he shows me his tough farming hands. Nagas have fought many times to upkeep dharma. 'Only a person from a warrior clan, the martial castes like Maratha, Jat, Sikh, Rajput, can become a Naga,' he says with pride as he walks with force in his steps like a soldier sage. 

I was surprised to know about the level of their opposition to Brahmins. I will avoid the details of that discussion because my Brahmin friends will get angry about this. I'm from a Jat family and to be frank at the level of community we too have lots of things to say against Brahmins, just like Brahmins have against us. He is happy to learn that I'm also from a martial caste. We Indians can't help getting into the casteist talk even when we are in the hill forests and happen to be a Naga and a spiritual seeker. So we have our share of bitching against the Brahmins. The details should always be avoided. The summary I can say is that Naga baba told me that Brahmins come from the lineage of daityas and in Maharashtra about 75% of people avoid getting a Brahmin for officiating at havan on auspicious occasions like marriages and other pujas. So that should give you the level of our bitching. Caste is a factor even in talks between two strangers in a forest. No wonder caste decides who rules the country. 

'The ashram land gives enough money. Then there is charity which we sadhus get so easily just sitting on our bums whether we deserve it or not. I use the money to manage the ashram, getting poor girls married and other charity work. And once a year I come out on my wanderings like this,' he is very honest about what he thinks and feels, be it money or caste. I like his honesty about most of the things. He just says what he thinks inside. No pretensions. 

Suddenly he gets excited like a boy and goes to a bush nearby. 'Bichhu buti, scorpion plant, I got myself bitten by it yesterday. It's very discomfiting and painful but I won't get any disease for the next six months,' he tells me. Who won't wish to have free, natural insurance against all diseases for six months. I ask him to get me bitten by the buti in the right proportions. He is hesitant. Then agrees. He holds a little shoot softly and gently allowing one tip to touch on the back of my palm. He removes it before it barely touched the skin, like a father would be careful not to harm his child. No effect. I pester him for a bit higher dose. So this time the touch is bigger, and still bigger on successive trials. I don't wince with pain. I don't get my free insurance. Both of us are disappointed. 'This is no bichhu buti. It's some fake plant imitating a famous one,' we concluded. 

Sadhus have a free passage to the place of other sadhus. An ash smeared Naga baba is performing a havan for a seemingly rich man. It's a big fireplace, the trishuls are big and ferocious. We sit in front of our host, he with friendly ease and me with apprehension because I have heard about their inflammable tempers when disturbed. But my Naga baba friend is an insurance against getting shoved away by the tip of a trishul. The ash smeared Naga is calm, focused on his rituals. He nods to our greeting and without stopping the process, gives us soaked grams and raisins as prasadam. To be frank I took almost as much as would fill my cupped palms together. I was hungry. Prasadam as food. The Naga baba watched it with muse. So I have my food and my friend baba has prasadam. 

We take leave from the baba and move onto our path. Then he suddenly points to a place where he faced a leopard during the Corona period. The world of humans had retreated and animals came out. 'It was standing there and snarled. I knew it could injure me if it didn't run away. Had I turned my back to it, it would have reached me in three strides. So I stood upfront and took up a stone. Never look away from a predator and never show your back. And hit it on the nose if it approaches you,' he shares the story. 

Then baba's chappal gets broken. I am wearing shoes. I feel guilty in walking in shoes while the baba has broken chappals. But surprisingly he walks as if it's not broken at all. Once in the gufa he tells me all the stories related to the place. We had tea in front of the Baba Gorakhnath's fireplace. They smoke weed. The cave's resident sadhu is a good host. Again the matter of caste comes up. 'Brahmins and householders aren't allowed to touch the holy ash in the fireplace,' the Gorakhnath order sadhu tells me. The casteist bugs in me are getting fattened today. I nod with glee, almost happy, even joyful about the fact that Brahmins don't hold monopoly to our faith. They maybe manage more of the ritualistic part of it. So we have to accept the fact that casteism is deeply entrenched in our Indian soul. It decides things from caves to presidential palaces. They are on a meditative high on weed, my head spins just with the smoke. My Naga friend will stay here today but I have to walk back. So Baba Shambhu Giri introduces other caves to me like Hanuman gufa and Ganesh gufa. And guides me to the trail that would take me to Neelkanth from where I could easily walk back to Rishikesh. I take out 500 rupees before taking leave. He isn't interested in it. He has enough he already told me. 'Maharaj, your chappal got broken while sharing this lovely journey with me, so it's my duty to give a replacement,' I request in all sincerity. He agreed. 'Ok, if you say so. I will buy good chappals in your name,' he laughs. We take leave.

I had a babboo stick with me as a companion on the way up. But I forgot it at the caves once I met the Naga baba. Now I missed the sturdy stick as I waded through a steep, faint trail among lots of bushes under the forest. And when I reached the place where he had pointed out the leopard I missed my stick even more. What will I do with a stick in the face of a leopard? Well, at least I would try to hit it on the foe's nose as suggested by the baba and get a solace that I die fighting. But there is no leopard and I quickly move through the feeble trails to get to the main path.

Evening shades

Evening shades...a musical silence...a pleasant sadness...a shifting stability...a solitudional companionship...a sweet loneliness...a whisper...a dewy smile...a place where light and dark have a date..

From the banks of Maa Ganga

 

Well, he performs better than at least me in smartly lopping water from a tap😃

And I always thought only I devoured books at a furious rate...well, there are bigger claimants 😂

A Bala Yogi

 

The most mischievous Bala Yogi...a Naga....he didn't speak..just hums like a black bee .. continuously..I laughed that he is actually a black bee hovering over the divine flower to sip the nectar of self realisation...

A sole Buddhist among Hindu Babas

 

Bhola Rikiyasan, a sole Buddhist among hundreds of Hindu mendicants...he recently said to the group of saffron clad sadhus around him that all of you are not at peace and that's why you people are wandering around. An argument started, turned into a brawl and soon would have changed to a fist fight, from the side of Hindu friars who looked very spirited to defend their dharma. A Hindu mauni baba negotiated peace with his lovely presence. 

Rikiyasan is from Gaya, was a Shiva devotee for 26 years, felt stuck up on the  path and converted to Buddhism six years back. Maybe that's the reason the Hindu Babas dislike him. Religious conversion is a  serious issue in India. But look at the great syncretic tradition of India, he still has Bhola, Shiva's pet name, in his official name. Well, he is 75 -- I checked his ID to confirm it because he doesn't look 75. 'One meal a day and meditation to calm the mind are the reasons for it,' he says. He looked at peace and joyful about life. I saw a thick wad of money in his wallet. 'Just 10 rupee notes. Won't count for much!' he laughs. 'I'm collecting money for making a little Buddha shrine at my village,' he justifies his collection. Well, all of us are after money for our reasons and I have talked to hundreds of sadhus, most of them are after money to make ashrams and temples. Householders are after it for building houses and buying cars. I hardly see any qualitative difference between the two.

A couple of days ago he was bitten by a dog in the wee hours as he was walking in the street after taking a bath in Ma Ganga. A few hours later I found him standing desolate at his corner with his brass begging bowl. He had tied a strip of cloth at the wound...it was all bloody. A big bite. I hope his Hindu baba adversaries didn't set a dog after him. He said he will have to walk towards the other bridge, almost a kilometre away, because if he goes from here the auto would charge 50 rupees and from there it will be only 10 rupees. But he could hardly walk. I understood that he would delay his treatment because he was in pain and could barely walk. And one needs vaccination at the earliest after the bite. (Why would he still bother so much money even in such a situation? Well, I think baba or no baba, money is a big issue in the world. And like ordinary householders, Babas have every right to think that it's their hard earned money because they have to stand throughout the day to get alms). And He needed vaccination so I hired a scooty to take him to the government hospital, requesting the scooty guy to take him to the concerned block and guide him through the process. By this time he was in much pain and looked all ready to shed this miserable body. "If I die that would be good. This poor body will be shed!' he looked depressed, sad and sullen. 

And the next day I find him all freshened up with three anti rabies injections, one on his left chuttar (as he put it with a feeling of insult and pain) and one each on both arms. But the urge to live and be joyful and meditate had returned. He looked contended and at peace with life. I advised him to carry a stick... maybe that can help him in religious debates and brawls with Hindu Babas as well...

The mendicant with a dog

 

One hand supports the head like a loving pillow...the other fanning the dog to sleep. People got amused and laughed, thinking him to be a crazy baba. To be frank I also thought so. When I returned after a couple of hours, he was still fanning the dog to sleep with the same loving passion. I thought there must be something wrong with the dog otherwise why would it lie so still with closed eyes in broad daylight with hundreds of feet tapping the narrow street. So I sit down to chat. 'Maybe the dog is sick,' I ask. He laughs and points to a big food bowl, 'No Badal ate too much and who won't sleep with fan air and palm to support?' The dog's name is Badal. 'This also is Bhagwan's avatar. If you can't love a dog, how will you love humans, and if you can't love humans, how will you love God,' he elaborates his simple spiritual equation. He was offered to Joona Akshara at an early age. I ask him does he miss his parents sometimes. He cracks a big laugh, 'What a question! He is the biggest Mai Baap!' He brandishes his fan towards Lord Shiva's statue above us. I feel embarrassed. Yes he is under the protection of the biggest Baap!

A real Gau sevak

 

There are sadhus in front of an ashram that serves food in the morning daily. And there are cows also. The sadhus are having the routine sweet sour chit chat while having food. The cows are chewing cud, contended. There are drops of dung around. Then a cute rolly polly baba arrives, his presence silent and peaceful. He has a unique attire, a piece of sackcloth tied like ancient Romans, a wollen cap, and a piece of cloth on the bare shoulder. His left hand isn't visible. To be frank, I'm not sure about its status. It might be missing; it might be tied along his stomach in penance to take this worldly yatra with a single hand. I give fifty fifty chances to both probabilities. 

He has a lovely way of walking, a kind of spirited ease of a child. A trace of smile doesn't leave his face even for a single moment. He is a Mauni baba, so by default his tongue is restful, which in turn avoids unnecessary fuel to the chattering mind. There he comes and starts picking the cow dung with the joyful ease of a child playing on the beach. He uses his free hand to pick up cow dung and drop it into the garden across the street. The street is soon clean. In fact his lovely walk to and fro works like a cosmic broom to clean the air itself. 

There are gau rakshaks who take to violence in the name of holy cows. I would say most of them are people with violent tendencies and take shelter of the mother cow's name to hide their violence. Gau mata doesn't need rakshaks, she needs sevaks, like this lovely baba. 

The baba then cleans his hand under a tap, caresses the cows with the feel of a boy touching something precious. That's when the wagging tongues between the Hindu Babas and the Buddhist monk start the fireworks and before the tongues could handover the work to fists, the joyful mauni baba comes in between and dispels the heat just with his smile, silent nods and gentle wave of hand. It's a lovely feeling just to be present in the presence of someone who is at ease with himself.

Trickster on the banks of Maa Ganga

 

Mutterings from rishikesh: 

A woman ascetic with a brass kamandal tried to plunder money...she approached like a realised mother, all made up of course and asked for money.....she asked food for five of them. 'We are five matajis, so 20 rupees for food for each of us' she says. These are navaratra days, so I give her 100 rupees without bargaining...she probably thinks that I'm a sitting duck for cheating...meanwhile she took a thief's peek into my modest wallet as I took money to give her...I want to move but she puts her hand on my head... trying possibly to play some energy or magical trick ..sort of hypnotic meanouvre so that she could plunder more money...I have enough energies in my head...she starred shivering 😂..'Please take out two notes from your wallet. I take a vow in the name of Ma Ganga that I will give them back,' she says. And already she is tying a mauli dhaga on my wrist asking, 'Are you married?' I'm not interested in her queries about my matrimonial status. 

I don't have change in my wallet but since she has taken a vow in the name of Ganga Maa while standing on her banks, I give her two 500 rupees notes expecting her to return them...the moment the notes landed in her claws she folds them in her fist..the way she holds them makes it sure that they are in her greedy talons not to be returned. Now I realise the tales of thugs who take money and play the magic trick of making it disappear with the clap of a hand. 

I remember an incidence from early youth in the village. A street magician took 100 rupees from my friend and a clap and the money vanished. He had a lovely python and a flute to add to the charm of his street show. Now 100 rupees of those times were a big issue. So we manhandled him, his pagri fell. One guy was just ready to break his flute on his head. That's when the poor magician realised that Jatland isn't suitable for magic tricks. And the money comes out of his gullak. He holds the python's mouth, pries it open, puts his hand in and draws out the money. Imagine the smartness. Magic money goes into the python's mouth!!

'We will go to kedar with the money,' the female thief in saffron says. To me it's not about money. It's about taking a false vow in Ma Ganga's name. I don't know what Ganga Maa thinks of me but I feel I'm Her ardent devotee. I shamed the woman for being a liar, looting money in the name of Ma Ganga. I got really angry and in no nonsense terms asked her to return the money as promised. Somehow she hasn't been able to make the money vanish. Good that she hadn't a python with her. Somehow her trick of making the money vanish failed. Maa Ganga's blessings! 

She gives back one note, like I'm plundering her. I am firmly against such a shame sadhu...so I point my finger at her and asked her to return the other note as well. She is trying to make me feel ashamed for getting angry, for losing control of myself just about money. Why should I be. I'm not a saffron clad saint to be ashamed of my well deserved anger on cheats. With a broken heart she hands back the other note all crushed due to the pressure of her talons. ' I was just checking your manas for money,' she says as if I had failed her test of my desire for worldly things like 500 rupees notes. 

Then she tried to give me a Rudraksh bead. I told her I don't need anything from her. Neither her blessings, nor her bead. I don't want at least from those who tell lies in the name of taking vow of Ganga Maa. Had it been a male sadhu I would have snatched away even the hundred rupees. But these I left with her as a grace mark for her being a woman.

But Maa Ganga knows how to spin her lovely magic and change mutterings into musings.

I'm walking sullenly about cheats on the banks of Maa Ganga. But She is such a kind mother. She knows how to uplift the spirit of Her child. I'm walking in the crowd and suddenly see the autistic girl I wrote a story about...a few years back I saw her with her parents on the banks of Maa Ganga. She looked so unjustifiably deprived of her slice of joy among all that festival aura... and with tears in my eyes I prayed so sincerely for her during my entire stay at that time...and wrote a long story of blessings on her...she is a woman now...I had prayed for the faith and health of her parents so that they could help her in her journey for as long as possible because nobody can take care of a special child like her parents. And there I see them carrying her in a wheel chair in the busy bazaar...she looked healthy and beautiful...she is a young woman now...her parents in good spirits and healthy, happily carrying their responsibility... imagine out of thousands Maa Ganga presented them before me ..to let me know that She remembers my prayers of this family...

The injured bull

 

The real beauty of India. The faith, seva bhav, love. Sadhus and animal welfare volunteers come together to treat the injured horn of a bull. Coming from a farming family I have seen such scenes in my village. When pinced down like this by humans the poor cattle think they are getting slaughtered. I remember that fear in the rolled eyes. Those strong puffs of wind getting saliva and slime on the muzzle. But here the bull is somehow relaxed. Its eyes aren't popping out with fear of death. This I feel is due to the touch of sadhus. There is an assurance of safety, love and care. Their presence makes the bull behave well even in the face of such a painful, scary experience. Its eyes are normal. Its muzzle isn't oozing with slime which a cattle normally does with strong puffs of breathing under such circumstances. The bull seems assured of safety. The touch of caring sadhus. And the touch of caring animal lovers. It's in safe hands. The injured horn is dressed. And the volunteers move away slowly releasing the rope, leaving only the sadhus near it as it gets up. And the bull gets onto its feet with wonderful calm. The sadhus pat it lovingly. 'You are a good boy. Now don't fight too much over girlfriends,' says the young doctor. People laugh. The sadhus guide it to a relatively open space.

On the banks of Maa Ganga

 

Pre-script: Inspired by conversation with one of the best devotees of Maa Ganga 

Who wouldn't like to stay longer on the banks of Maa Ganga?! But She would like Her children to be active in the world as well. To me Her maternal touch is like prasada...even the little bit of it gives a feeling of getting satiated and fulfilled that buckets of normal food won't give. Frankly speaking dear friends I feel blessed and happy whatever time She allows me near Her for my learning and growth. Don't you see those who are born on Her banks and stay there since birth are even more common and worldly than those born in cities far away? I mean most of them are. Because to them Her presence is like food, not prasadam...they take it for granted. People like you, me and countless others who get Her presence like prasadam now and then are really blessed. She calls us now and then, gives lessons and new realisations, sends us away to find the meaning of life, come back, evolve a bit more by Her touch and go back again...a real prasadam...in small bits..and those who stay with Her all the time ...to them She is mere food...taken for granted. So bow down and be grateful for such beautiful prasadam She has given you. 

We go to temples...but not all of us stay in a temple to feel blessed...we can carry the spark of divinity that we get from the temple. To me She is a living temple. And whatever chance She gives to have Her darshan is prasadam..I know She would love me to do my worldly role...which I do with a very balanced approach...I just told my view dear friends... I'm not saying everyone should feel like that..

Maybe She sends us away when She feels that prasadam ought not become food... separation with an assured coming together: the loveliest subtle twine that binds the deity and the devotee. ...just like silence is the best language... 🙏👍✍️💛

Whose verdict is this?

The election results in Haryana don't represent the ground realities. There are very serious allegations of systematic manipulation and hijacking of process and machines. It's the election commission's verdict, not the people of Haryana.

It's very easy to make technology a weapon in pursuit of your goal. Israel used technology to put explosives in pager devices used by Hezbollah. Similarly, EVM machines are sitting ducks for manipulation. Save Indian democracy. Say no to EVMs.

Now sceptics and andhbhakts will mention J and K election results. There was no need to temper there. It's under lieutenant governor who has so many powers that the MLAs are mere symbol. Imagine the lieutenant governor of Delhi doesn't allow the Delhi government to function. The kashmir governor is at least ten times stronger. So they already have their government in effect there irrespective of who comes to power in the legislature. 

And if the EVM is so foolproof, why do the countries which are 50 years ahead of us in technology still use ballot paper? America landed a human on the moon almost 60 years back and we have recently landed an unmanned craft there. And America doesn't believe in EVMs right. Andhbhakts any arguments from your side please? The country that made EVMs for the first time - Germany - doesn't use them on the grounds that it isn't possible to trust its credibility.

Give Indians first a cheated fake result. Even the commonest of us have enough brains to discuss and chalk out the true success story of a fake result. We will then spin the success hypothesis to validate the false. You just need to cheat us and then leave it on us to prove with our shrewd acumen that it was no cheating, it was rather a masterstroke to achieve true, honest success. Well done Mr Kumar! You did your job, now we do ours😂

The Desert Dagger

There were killings, slaughter, genocide. Holocaust. From its fire a dagger was born. The Desert Dagger. Forged in the sandy, fiery furnace of killings, torture, annihilation. Enemies rasping at its edges from all sides to annihilate it. But that merely sharpens the edges. The Desert Dagger has a pointed tip, the pinnacle of all the sharp, serrated edges around it - survival. It has the soul of steel. It has one soul, one goal, one dream, one people - survival. It knows how to reshape its pain into hope and then turn hope into cutting edge technology - sharp, precise, surgical., unsparing. 

The Desert Dagger cuts and writes its destiny on the book of life having sandy pages. It's a mighty pen held in one hand. It knows what it has to write - the book of survival, the manual of survival at any cost. Where does the Desert Dagger's soul, spirit and matter come from? It comes from the memories of millions who perished in gas chambers. It comes from the teary, rosy dreams in hearts - the dreams of survival of a race. It comes from the razor sharp logic in the mind - the logic of fight when surrounded from all sides and kill before getting killed.

Happiness

Happiness is primarily an acceptance of one's situation in life. It might not come to you even in a palace if you don't really settle inside the walls and within your skin.  You are a cranky host, so it will avoid you. And it will definitely come to visit your slum hut if it finds you an unashamed, guilt free, kind host. As an old, poor charwoman, whom Somerset Maugham meets after many years in 1949, when there had been lots of developmental works in the meanwhile, says to him: "They have cleaned up the slums and the dirt, and all the happiness and joy has gone with it."

Musings on a rain-soaked day

 I walk far more than any ultra-marathon runner. In fact I beat all the runners combined in terms of walking and running. I walk with my mind. I walk on the legs of thoughts. They keep me on the busy highway. The other day, someone complained, 'You hardly go out these days, always busy with books!' Now how to tell that person that I'm always walking, walking in the mind. The best test is just to walk with legs only with the mind shut off. Because walking with both mind and legs can be very tiring. Walking on legs with positive feelings is somewhat better. But there was Krishna who walked on a blood smitten battlefield. He just walked on his legs. With no feelings and thoughts. What detachment! No wonder we worship him as a god now.

@

Human mind is conditioned to hatch and plot more and more human-centric realities. Artificial intelligence and synthetic biology are the latest tools to further spread our intellectual wings and forge bigger realities. But ultimately the 'maker' will stand synonymous with the 'made'. Presently we can feel proud while looking at our products because they stand separate and lowly while we muse our our creations. But now there is a fundamental shift. The product isn't strictly outside our physiological body. The product is creeping inside us--into our neurons as artificial intelligence; into our cells as synthetic biology. We have been crazy about making something. And when there isn't anything left to make, we have started making a newer version of our own self. It's just like nature produced we humans on this tiny planet but got devoured by its product. Similarly the homosapiens will be gradually absorbed by a new product, a new species. Just evolution, maybe. So why worry. Make the most of it as one of the last real homosapiens generation on this small planet. Enjoy what life and mother nature has still to offer.

@

Language is used in pursuance of intellectual truth, an edifice created by the mind on the basis of sense perception. It's a mere utility just like the birds have wings to fly. With words you can make a career at the most, be it any field. And intellectual truth is just a portion of the experiential truth which one feels in the moments of dissolving the self in beautiful nature where nature is cooing its real secrets through sighing winds, rippling brooks, waving trees, playing clouds, solitary valleys, wild flowers and more. 

The moment we really feel, not just theoretically because that again is mindwork, that thoughts and their end product, intellectual reality, is a mere sense perception based functionality, just like an ant's single-sense based craze to seek a grain of sugar, we take a quantum jump into higher dimension. We enter the dimension of experiential reality which again is a portion of the ultimate reality but it's far far bigger than the intellectual reality. It's a portal to the unknown.

From words to silence to unknown. It's just a matter of rise in consciousness. Words speak of something limited, something symbolically fixed to help us understand a tiny portion of existence around. Silence speaks, wordlessly, of its own self. Open yourself to it. It will embrace you in its maternal loving arms and transport you into a far bigger dimension. And obviously one feels better at an uncrowded place. Don't we feel better after coming to a peaceful hill station, leaving behind the hustle and bustle of bazaar and cities? In the same way our consciousness is also seeking avenues to a broader dimension, from intellectual to experiential, from materiality to immateriality. 

Happy be thy journey from noise to silence, from running (both in mind and body) to arriving home, from restlessness to perfect ease.

The landless farmer

 

Harichand was a broad-shouldered, squarish man with an impressive bear paunch. Just like any other landless struggler in the rural society, shorn of any economic or social legacy, he had to pull his family cart in a way wherein the last step was just sufficient to push the next one, a painful but terribly aware living where the present grips you so hard that you barely get any time to either reflect over the past or muse over future. Clad in soiled dhoti and kurta he stockily squared up to the routine challenges of a poor household. He had many children and some of them grew up with us playing in the neighborhood.

One of his various vocations was to ply his tonga to the market town and carry cattle feed sacks for the farmers. He remember him walking stooped, cautiously, carrying a quintal of cattle feed sack on his back. The more the weight you can lift on your back, the lesser of it you have to carry in your mind. In addition to all this, for some years he rented a berries farm on the outskirts of Delhi. With the start of flowering, he would pile his horse-driven tonga with all the necessities of setting up a hut and start with his wife, leaving the children under the care of their grandmother.

His youngest son found the village primary school almost a prison and the yearly sojourn among the berry trees appeared the ultimate meaning of freedom. Harichand would use all tactics to deter his son from following the tonga. He started with shouting words and soon graduated to thrashing. It failed. He tried starting very early in the morning, thinking the little one would be asleep at the time. But the school-scared kid would smell his plan and he would keep awake all night. Then the concerned father tried to tire out his obstinate son by making him run after the tonga for many kilometers. On one occasion, he had to yield to the tiny runner after the latter had broken all previous records by following the tonga for almost ten kilometers. With this excellent focus and hard dedication, the little kid got freedom from the school for forever.

Then the times changed. The berries farm was gone for more lucrative land use. Now Harichand took farmland on lease within the village to make a living. He had a balding pate, snow white beard but stayed as robust as ever. Now his many children had children of their own. It was now a big family that couldn’t sustain at one place and they fell apart to take care of their own struggling course.

Poverty breeds further poverty. He kept working his own bit. He possessed the loudspeaker of a throat, very useful in scaring away the birds eyeing his fruits and vegetables. He used it to good effect in sending warnings to his children within a radius of one kilometer around the village, yelling their names, asking them to come home and attend to more important tasks than just playing. We played almost three-quarter of a kilometer from his humble house. Then his voice would come sailing over the trees, village school, the pond, threatening his children to immediately return.

He possessed a sword, but held it with a calm demeanor. We saw him standing with the weapon when a drunk Jat farmer tried to molest his adolescent girl. He stood composedly with the sword in hand while the offended girl gave a nice example of taking revenge herself by profusely hitting the erring man.

He also possessed a big bamboo bow and scores of clay balls to hit the enemy birds. We were inawe of his big bow and clay bombs. There was a rumor that he could catapult them to a distance of one kilometer.

During his last years he was leasing our twoacres of land to plant marigolds and vegetables. Then for the last two years he further sublet it to another farmer, taking the money in one lot, passing it to me in installments to have a slight economic advantage from the situation. That is all he saved from it. Just a chance to use that money for some months. I wasn’t aware of it and when I came to know this I took it as a little help that I could provide him. From the annual settlement, he still owed me INR 21000 from the lease amount. This time he hadn’t paid it on the promised date. So I thought of visiting his house. He was lying on a cot. ‘He has been having fever,’ they told me. From the folds of his dhoti—very near his genitals—he unfolded the roll of notes and handed over ten thousand rupees. It carried the sweat and smell of his private parts, the essence of his existence. ‘See, what are you forcing me to touch!’ I tried to maintain a funny touch. I asked them to drop the sweaty wad of notes in a polybag, intending to put it under the sunlight to dry.

He had kept it safe like it was his treasure. There were risks in the needy joint family. ‘What about the remaining?’ I asked. ‘I’ll give if I get well!’ he exclaimed ironically. ‘Of course you will get well! What can a simple fever do to your robust figure?’ I assured him. He sighed resignedly. Once outside the house, his son told me, ‘He has liver cancer.’ Harichand couldn’t fulfill his last promise because he died soon after. He died in early sixties, carrying a little debt to me and a few others. As a friendly gesture I freed him from the unsettled issue. That’s all I could do for him.

A balanced life

 

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 the 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 become ‘whole’. It’s a multicolored bouquet with fresh flowers of body, mind, emotions and 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 then 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 a degradation and utter 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 really ABLE girl

 The story of a champion. A very-very ABLE girl, daughter, sister, sibling. She is the real champion because even to reach the stage where most of us are born with natural privileges, she had to walk and then run through fire. Well, if you can't walk, don't stop, try to run instead, like she does! 

'Preethi has two younger brothers and an older sister and belongs to a family with meagre income. Her hope now is that her historic medals can bring her a sustained source of livelihood. 

"My father runs a small dairy. During Covid he was in hospital for 3 months. He is still unwell. He has diabetes and has to get injections often. A lot of it is caused by worrying for us. I often tell him that I will arrange for my sister's marriage. My second biggest dream is to be able to organise and fund for my sister's wedding to whoever she likes. I hope my medals can get me a government job. That is my prayer now. I have to take care of my family. I want my father to take care of his health and stay at home and my mother also should not have to go to the forest to feed our buffalo. I want to be able to give them some rest. They have struggled all their lives," she says.' 

(HT News)