The abandoned hut

 

Kaka Maharaj, the old sadhak who stays outside the village fell out with worldly elements and left his hut in anger, the hut that he had groomed with so much love in solitude. He stayed here for decades. It's a high energy place, its energy one can feel the moment one enters it. I have been trying to convince him to come back because I feel that he ought not to abandon his spiritual seat; it’s a cocoon of love for his guru Kude Bhagat.

The other day I went to check the hut and sat for meditation near his fireplace. It was a sad sight to see the place abandoned in one stroke after decades of careful nurturing. The ramshackle gate closed. His old, worn out mismatched pair of footwear placed in front. The little grove of trees he has planted, which is a tiny forest now, sighed with sadness; the tiny rows of vegetables lying like an orphan without any protection. The open fireplace and the heap of dry fuel wood lying like the ruins of a historic site just within a few days of the master gone. I gathered few cheap, dented, blackened aluminum utensils that I found outside and placed them inside the hut, hoping for better days for them.

Sitting by the fireplace inside the hut is like plugging into an electric circuit of high energy. Despite my clear intension to sit still and meditate, I couldn't sit still. Involuntary movements would start the moment I closed my eyes and stilled my body. I just allowed myself to be a witness. It was surprising so I thought of recording them in order to observe as a neutral person later. The moment I shut my eyes, they would start of their own. I think the energy meridians try to get into alignment with the energy frequency around me. I suppose that's how the yogic movements were revealed to the mediators. They try to bring the body in alignment with the larger energy meridians. One feels light like air, almost flying. I think the conscious mind takes a backseat during these moments, opening the portal to the subconscious, which further builds up the possibility for the entrance to the cosmic consciousness. I think pranayam and yoga postures are a means of opening the portal to the subconscious.

In any case, I feel very sad about him. I prayed to his guru to bring him back to the hut. I prayed because I feel the decision was taken in anger, and he should come back to resolve this little chaos of negative energy that got unleashed due to those uncontrolled moments. I clearly feel that he has developed a lot of energy at the place, which will help him in his journey.

The story of a wounded tree

 

This is for the history-minded common people who care to know about small things. We trees are highly underpaid and under-appreciated. What’s something preposterous is that it’s we who have sired the evolution of mankind and now we depend on him for our survival. We are numbered now—from that countless status when mother earth was lush green earlier—and there will be a time when the heritage lobby will be fighting to keep our ruins as a memorial for the past when mother earth was alive. There will be machines all around and human brain itself will be replaced by the artificial intelligence.

I’m a seemal (silk cotton) tree standing by the canal-side pathway. It used to be a beautiful thin ribbon of solitude between the canals overgrown with few trees and lots of grass, bushes and reeds. A poetic man would walk in somber profundity on the path. Then the developers hoeing the dirty grind of parasitic business arrived. The sand mafia would arrive at night and scoop away the sand from the canals and the path between them. The chauvinistic pigs would scrape out as much grains of sand as possible to build their big buildings. The earthmover’s claws were lucid, pertinent and driven by soulless precision. It would work with pure sense of abstraction. Its zealousness would cut the upper lateral roots of we trees to dig out more and more sand to fill the truck to the brim. The solitudional luminosity for the lone poetic man was gone; the grass, reeds and bushes obliterated; the smaller trees fell and bigger ones like me survived the onslaught with cut limbs and big gaping wounds. The cast and crew of development are too big actors now.

When the poetic man came and saw my big roots exposed and cut, he put a healing sad hand on my trunk. The edifying notes of his love touched my innermost rings in the trunk. He made a very little effort, this is all he could manage being a poetic man, and sweated for a couple of hours to gather soil around my wounded roots. For me the spiritual symbolism of this love is beyond its physical limits. It feels good to be cared and one’s pain acknowledged. But a small group of thugs took away even that little heap of earth this man’s poetic hands had built around me. I think they did it specifically to make it seem self-mocking to the poet—that your kind of emotions are meaningless in the modern age; that this artistic outlet is nothing more than a speck of dust in the face of the horses of greed in full trot. Since then I have tried to muster up courage to the extent of granitic endurance just for that poetic man who sometimes comes and puts a friendly hand on my bark. But I missed my flowers this season, the beautiful big red flowers, one of which I had intentionally dropped on his head as he walked under me. That’s when we became friends. So there have been no flowers because I have been using all my energies in keeping myself up with the remaining roots. My foliage also has been the same for the last one year. It’s pale without any new shoots. I’m still in mourning, you know.

They have cut a little square on my bark, a sort of numbered nameplate declaring my number, a kind of my leasehold to stand on this small portion of earth till they decide to terminate it any time. I sanctify their insinuations and grotesqueness by oozing my sap, my tears, through the square marking. This disquieting incision on my skin keeps reminding me that I’m their numbered property under some forest law that easily allows some thugs to lacerate me. I have a message for the bloodhound. I let out a yellowish sap through this little square of licensing cut. It coagulates to a meaty sanguine blob. I have obliterated their despicable number that they had assigned me. It’s my revolt. I don’t agree to their lease contract under whatever forest laws they have. The law that doesn’t provide me any protection and leaves me open to be vandalized by any thug whose spirit itches to play truant.

The poetic man sometimes comes and puts his gentle fingers on the protruding sanguine crust from my guts. I see his mournful countenance. This human touch is astonishing. It snaps off the thread of pain for a few moments. How I wish more humans could touch we trees like this! How I wish that more humans realized we are half of their lungs!

Vrindavan Verve

 

Last drops in the leaking bucket of memories

 

Tau Hoshiyar Singh is almost hundred now. There is a langar organized at the village. He was walking in that direction as if driven by the sense of smell. He is nearly blind but still manages to walk in the streets groping the pitfalls of life with his stick. He has four sharp senses to guide him apart from the majorly damaged fifth, sight.

Today he seems to walk effortlessly. Maybe the fragrance of fresh laddoos emanating from the community feast’s huge cauldron did the magic trick, allowing him to walk just like anyone else. I offer him a pillion ride to the destination on my scooty. He smartly clambers for the pillion ride, shaking the scooty with the force of his still reasonably broad skeleton. Clutching my shoulder with one hand, he holds his lathi over my head.

Jat elders have an inclination to prod the ribs of the youngsters with the end of their sticks. I have to be very careful. Beyond all the warnings by the doctors regarding sugar intake he is tremendously receptive to sugar-saturated laddoos and jelabis. At the community feast, he eats with elegance, with methodical precision, out of reverential respect for the prasadam. Not a little crumb escapes his attention. Doing full justice to his generation he has finished six laddoos while I’m still struggling with the first one.

A laddoo is simply a ball of sugar. We have our phobias that restrict us; he has none. Most importantly, the laddoos leave only one effect—on his tongue. On the other hand, we have many in the mind.

‘Tau take two more and put them in your pocket for later use,’ I whisper in his ear. Tau has a loud voice. His whisper comes dangerously close to a public announcement. As a result, the entire gathering takes a mulling pause as Tau is heard saying, ‘Why should I have two in the pocket? I have many in the stomach and have already fixed the desire. Why don’t you take a few in your pocket and fulfill the quota. You have just one in your stomach.’ So he has been keeping an eye on my plate as well! Not as blind as I suppose him to be. Now everyone comes to know what I have been telling him. Many villagers stare at me. Everyone knows what I have been putting into his ears. I’m completely washed with embarrassment. I think Tau has taken revenge; retaliation against my election-time joke at his cost.

The last to last assembly elections took place about nine years back. Tau has been very vocal about support to a regional satrap on caste grounds. He even raised his lathi to strike when I crossed the boundaries of vote-canvassing, asking him to vote for someone else. On the voting day I took my revenge as he lined up to vote very early in the morning. ‘TauI hope you are enjoying casting your final vote in this life!’ I taunted. He was around ninety at that time and I felt sure about my calculations regarding his future voting chances. But he has been around for one more decade  and has cast multiple votes in local, state and central elections. The state and central elections are due in 2024. Now I’m sure Tau will be there in support of his favorite candidate.

PS: He has done it. The vote I mean. The other day I found him negotiating the village street with the help of his last remains of senses and stick. He had gone to the village barber to get shaved. I shouted in his ear and put up a task whether he can recognize me. He dropped the bucket of effort in the deep well of memories. The rusted iron bucket is leaking and by the time it comes out only little dribbles of memory are left. He can just recall my grandfather's name-de-plume Masterji. I'm about to comment on his fading memory but his face is extra stern after shaving and his grip on the stick is quite authoritative. So I let go off my teasing itch.   

Your tiny nest of wellbeing

 

Try to build a little nest of friendship that would cozily hold a few friendly people who would always care. I think friendship is the bedrock of all relationships, be it lovers, husband, wife, children, siblings. It’s the foundation of all that survives the vicissitudes of life. Don’t ask or expect too much from yourself or the other person. Just be a friend first, and all partnerships acquire a better shape by default. And be such a good friend that if at all circumstances force you out of a partnership, even with all the related losses you still are at least left as a nice old friend. Friends to begin with, friends to end with. Not a bad situation I suppose.

Silent zigzags of a village night

 

The village has spread on both sides of the road as it grew in population. The district road got upgraded to become a national highway without adding to its width because of the houses on both sides. So there were a lot of crushed bones of humans and dogs, and sometimes even crows. It was almost bumper to bumper traffic comprising a broad range of vehicles from massive trawlers to two-wheelers and bicycles. The road looked busy till deep into the folds of night. Speed bumps were set up to check their rampant prowl. Then the bypass circuiting the village got operationalized. It was a kind of savior. The woes of the peasant woman crossing the road with dung heaps on their heads lessened a bit. The dogs too stood a better chance of survival while loitering around the road. The traffic lessened as most of it took the bypass to avoid the bottleneck congestion.

But the villagers who resided by the side of the road felt some discomfort. They had become so used to the noise that now when the nights turned still and silent, they got a feeling as if ghostly entities were on the prowl. What has happened to make sannnatta so weird and spooky, many thought. We are now habituated to the noise so much that silence scares us. I hope the villagers find peace with silence. I’m reasonably away from the road so the silent nights are still better. And now when they are getting used to the silence, any noise hits their ears more effectively. The road-bumps don’t have white strips to make them visible from a safe distance. So now and then some trawlers jump over the speed-bumps with full speed. And a loud thump goes booming across the silence of the night. The people in the roadside houses jump with the vibrations, taking it as an earthquake. As a result, the new sarpanch has been requested to remove the bumps. He is very keen to launch public work initiatives and the request has been accepted. The people have calculated that it’s better to have a few more dead dogs, with a human fatality in between, rather than being jolted out of their sleep thinking the world was being shaken out to the limits of annihilation. To be more sure of being there on solid ground, they have removed the speed-bumps.

Reparation and redemption

 

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.

An ounce of snail-shell solitude

 

The new sarpanch has rewarded a man for casting vote in his favor. The man has been appointed as the shouting announcer of public news in the village. He is around fifty and has spent most of his time as a goatherd. He walked with his little flock of goats and sheep looking for ever-thinning strands of grass and bushes. The world sped by. The people who rode bikes, now travelled in cars. The people who had mud houses, now stayed in big cemented ones. The world was up for grabs and those with strategic intent and higher occupations made their realm more impressive. All through these decades, he was passing his time in the silence of still remaining patches of wilderness, just whistling or making clucking sounds with his tongue to guide his herd. Then the last tufts of wild grass vanished and he found it difficult to keep his herd alive. He sold it and there he stood on the shiny stage of life, feeling lost and wondering how much the world had gone ahead on the wheels of progress while he was slowly moving with his herd.

So now he is there on the main thoroughfare of village life. He takes his shouting job very seriously. The problem is that all his front teeth are gone and decades of shouting one-word instructions and clucking of tongue in various ways to guide his flock have put him in a position where he sounds clucking his tongue to hark attention of the entire village folks whom I seriously doubt he finds like a big drove of sheep. He is loud enough to be heard across a few streets but his words slip out in a strange shape. It’s a big challenge for the people to make a head or tail of the public announcement. You have to give full focus with your entire attention to latch onto some odd word and then build-up your version of the information. At least he trains people in the art of focus and a kind of brain exercise to build up a meaningful narrative out of the strange smatterings of words. Well, he seems happy with a feeling that he is herding a bigger flock of sheep now, while we try to nibble at his smatterings of words.

Congratulations Global Elder

 As a non American global citizen I respect the Americans' choice in electing Trump. I can't analyse on bigger issues but I think the major gain from being mere Trump to become President Trump is that he will be able to terminate the federal legal cases against him and suspend the state cases till he occupies office. As a layman I view it as the major take away: the ability to become above law. That I think is the real Power. Wish you a powerful, bombastic, fantastic time in the seat of Power. Our leader is also a big fan of yours. So we see benefits for India unless you get irritated about us. But yea now I believe you were supposed to become the American President. Fate saved you from death just by a millimetre. It had plans. To reward you with power over millions of square kilometres on earth. Sometimes being one millimetre short of death means trillions of square yards of powerful life. The world will be at the mercy of your temperament. Please rule with mercy, benevolence and wisdom of an elder. Because you are the Globe Elder now.

Mutterings of a poor voter in thawing democracy

 Jinping wins (Tibet atrocities and Xinxiang concentration camps), Putin wins (Ukraine massacres), Modi wins (Godhra riots), Trump wins (Convinced felon)😰😨😓😥😢😨😧😩😫😷🤕🤒🤧😪 Now is the time for us to be like three deaf, mute and blind monkeys 🙊🙉🙈 or shift to some other planet, for which unfortunately there is no choice except Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos... But Musk won't take that option. He is the bright eyed super genius of mighty Trump. The rest two beware. Take your rockets out. In any case the mighty four have the power to dispatch anyone to some extraterrestrial planet - I mean if not in body but soul at least.😀 The super-strong guys are actually eligible to share the same table and have relaxed talk over wine. Modi of course will have milk. Then who will be their common enemy? Maybe small people like you and me who think they have their own mind and feel like speaking the truth. Democracy will get diluted like never before. It has already thawed quite significantly in the world's biggest and the strongest democracies. I think Putin and Xi Jinping are the trend-setting big, bad guys, inspiring the rest to follow in their steps. Who will they hunt if not each other then? Because the most powerful can't help hunting. They have to. Almost natural. I think they will hunt the little voices of liberalism, freedom of speech, truth, human rights, equality, gender parity etc. Putin will be allowed to retain whatever he has captured in Ukraine. China will be allowed to take over Taiwan somehow (with the shamshow of American opposition to that). If India plays its cards well, it might have some more chunk from PoK. And America? It will be allowed to have the symbolic chairmanship on the table of the four. The mighty tigers then will be free to play cat and mouse with little liberal intelligentsia mice😂 But who knows the aliens, who have been taking reconnaissance of our small planet for decades, will finally step in and present a common challenge to the four. 😜 Then it will be quite interesting.

A creepy, crawling encounter

 

There must be cockroaches in the house otherwise why would a big rascally centipede enter the house. Well, rural houses usually have many claimants including snakes, rats, lizards, frogs, spiders and many more. Maybe the centipede got angry for not finding a cockroach. An angry x, y, z is almost suicidal, be it humans, reptiles or animals. And if there is an angry creature nearby, you feel the pinch. I felt it. A sharp pain in the left big toe. I’m watching news, sitting on a chair, right leg crossed over the left, leaving the left toe open for attack by the angry centipede. The body seems to be its own master. We overestimate our conscious, voluntarily done efforts to save and preserve it. It knows far more than we think. My conscious part is absorbed in the political slugfest going on the television. But my toe has independent authority to save itself from a big, bullish centipede. I find myself jumping in the air. The toe knows how to save itself from a centipede that has decided to bite the hell out of it. The automatic vigorous shake by the toe and its ally foot and their bigger sister leg is enough to undo the centipede’s brazen attempt to taste my blood. There is a needle sharp pain. Thankfully it couldn’t pierce the skin.

The calculating and planning human has taken a backseat. It’s only the life force in the body responding to the emergency. The left foot is angry as can be understood. O God, the way it counterattacks! It swings into action. And the slippered foot is pounding the enemy, knowing exactly how rapidly to strike with full force. It’s done so swiftly. The centipede is a juicy mass in an instant. It happened so quickly. I’m staring at it as if someone else has done it. Where was I while all this happened? It wasn’t me who did it. The body did it of its own volition! Imagine the instinct of self-preservation ingrained in each cell of the body. And still we overthink and burden the mind about  preserving it. The way it strikes at a centipede in retaliation over a bite at its toe proves that it’s always on guard against the predators both visible and invisible. I think we can allow it more freedom in its functions and not burden its natural operations with our unnecessary worries.

I’m not sure how a saint would have behaved if attacked by a centipede. I hadn’t even stepped on it. It just attacked. Some karmic balance I suppose. Of course the saint’s body would have jumped in air at the bite. But I’m not sure about his foot going into retaliation of its own in an instant.

I don’t think I could have caught it alive because it would have crawled under the hideouts available in plenty in the room. As a normal person staying in society, you have to put a boundary beyond which the parameters of sin cease to operate. You have to take measures to maintain the safety of your place. Maybe that dharma is bigger than the killing of poisonous reptiles that sneak into your place.

Little Maira, my two-year-old niece, is enthused at watching her Tau’s body jumping like a monkey. She laughs. Thank God centipedes don’t have blood. It’s a watery juice of life oozing from the carcass. And a child would always take you out from the complex world of thoughts about sin, nobility, kindness, etc. As I’m staring at the consequences of my foot’s retaliatory strike, I hear Maira mumbling, ‘Tau isne sussu kar diya.’She meant‘uncle it’s peed’. And that lightened the moment instantly. Holding my leg, she is staring at the dead multiple-legged crawler mired in the watery discharge of its life force. We both laugh then. God would always pardon you if you are sharing laughter with a little kid, even if you are laughing at a dead centipede.

A snarling extension to one's persona

 

As if hundreds of stray dogs weren’t enough, the village lads have started keeping pet dogs, not with the cause of polishing the streaks of affection in them. The pitbulls and other fierce dogs—hardly needed for security—are a fierce snarling extension of their angry selves to present an intimidating picture. Two lads walk with their dog. Another one passes on his bike. ‘Take away this fat sloth!’ he taunts. ‘Saale, we will make him pee on your bum!’ they shout with derision. A fierce dog is an expression of raw, romanticized anger to them. And they flaunt it. It scares ageing people like me though.  

The weightlessness of a joyful, loving responsibility

 Osho tells a beautiful story of a Sanyasi named Bhavani Dayal. He was on a pilgrimage in the Himalayas.. it was a very hot noon and he was moving up the hill with his bedroll on his shoulder ...he was sweating and breathless because of the weight and the steep climb...in front of him a small hill girl was carrying her brother on her shoulders. She herself was small and that is why she was also struggling, panting, sweating ..all  breathless. The Sanyasi said to her, 'Daughter you must be feeling a lot of burden and weight on you.' The girl said, 'Swami ji the weight and burden is on you. He is not a burden, he is my brother.' The Sanyasi was shocked. A small girl taught him a big lesson of life. Where there is love, there is no burden in life. It was joyful for her to carry the physical weight of a little brother, while he joylessly struggled under the physical weight of his belongings.

Belated Diwali Greetings

 

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 the chance winds. Keep supplying tiny drops of love, care and share. This is your little lamp to help you on your journey. Keep praying for the light of your tiny lamp. Keep it glowing.

People will come and go from the little dim-lit stage around the tiny 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. Keep 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! Belated though!

Vrindavan Verve

 Vrindavan Verve...

A poet's walk through countryside solitude

 

Celosia argentea or Plumed cockscomb blooms in a corner. A bit of sunshine, dewy moisture, cool breeze and no human foot intruding...and mother nature offers a lovely bouquet of smiles to a solitary walker with poetic sensitivities...we humans might consider them as weeds but they are a perfect breakfast table for a flock of moths who are high on nectar..

A lonely tree...must be missing the company of its brothers...it will be a world when trees will be barcoded and numbered. No worries... let's make the most of what is left... thankfully we are the generation that is lucky to see unnumbered and uncoded trees.

Golden shades of ripe paddy...a prelude to nice, luscious aroma on your table.

There is light everywhere and darkness alongside...you have to position yourself in life to have your portion of light rays and your little puddle of shadow..