Mahakumbh Snan

 

February 25, a visit to the Mahakumbh mela. The more we feel the pangs of profligacy, the more we feel the need of rituals awaiting antiseptically to treat the germs of guilt born of an inner feeling about our wrongs in actual deeds, thoughts and emotions. The growing spasm between the set of moral values that we worship and our actual deeds is impulsively held tight under our instinctive dive into the pool of rituals. No wonder we have a buxom blossoming of rituals even in the modern age. Sullied with sins, we take holy dips to absolve the self from sins.

Even tragic news are attractive. Many holy-bath aspirants have died in stampedes. But instead of deterring the people, it’s attracting still bigger crowds. The government of course has a political agenda, which is its right just like any other political party, in publicizing the event. Millions throng a limited space on a daily basis. Irrespective of untoward instances, the arrangement is commendable.

Since it’s the shahi snan on Mahakumbh’s concluding day, there is extra rush to Prayagraj. The bus starting from the town is full. There are many old people. A group of young revelers on the last seat in great festive spirit. They shout Lord Shiva’s name in not so decent slang, raise a ruckus, shout, play cards, drink alcohol secretively mixed in coke bottles.

A man is travelling with his wife. He finds the drunk din rising from the last seat offensive. There is an argument. A policeman—in civil clothes—is also going to purify his body and soul. I ask him to intervene. The couple is offered a seat in the front section, away from the din. The party at the back goes as before.

By the time the bus stops at a rundown dhaba for dinner an old man is moving on unsteady legs. He is clearly drunk but still has a quarter left. He buys a small coke bottle, empties half of it as an offering to mother earth and refills it again with the contents of liquor from the other bottle. He was the most sober voice when the brawl took place earlier in the journey. He had spoken like an elderly sage, ‘Brothers you should mind the fact that he is traveling with his wife. With a woman of course one would have less digestion for such fun and cry. Even you would have found it offensive if you were in his place instead of being the merrymakers on the last seat.’

Two farming women seem to be really loyal to their bedtime. There they lie to sleep in the narrow aisle, shaken to sleep by the rattling tin cradle. About 80 km from the destination the clutch system of the bus gives in. One can see smoke near the driver seat and a burnt smell fills the bus. The engine stops. Now is the time to chant Shiva’s name with pure intensity. The older passengers remain inside. The rest of us get down to push the bus. The driver has given up hope and wants us to push it to a patrol station a few hundred meters away, visible with its hazy mercury light. He intends to park it there. And then allow the things to take their own course. But surprisingly the engine flutters to life after a few meters of pushing. It continues to run till 100 meters from the Nehru parking, the final destination. We are happy to reach despite the technical snag. I have been chanting Mahamrityunjay mantra all along the journey. So I take it as my reward for my chanting the Lord’s name with focus and dedication. 

They are minting money at Prayagraj. From Nehru parking, we ride a bike (200 rupees/passenger), travel for 12 km across the post-midnight mercury-bathed sleepy holy town and get dropped about 3 km from the sangam ghat. It’s about two in the morning and a huge crowd is merging on the point of salvation. It’s a shahi snan day and everyone must be having the thought of stampede deaths that occurred a month back. One can feel nervous air around the mass of pilgrims.

Millions of people have been visiting daily for the last month and a half. The facilities have been stretched thin, almost to the breaking point. Temporary toilet boxes are literally gas chambers. They can blow you off your senses. A person with delicate nature will surely faint within a minute if locked inside. Most of the babas have gone to Banaras to pay homage to Lord Shiva at Kashi Vishwanath temple. It feels good. The probability of being beaten by an irate naga sadhu without any provocation is very less now. Many videos have gone viral showing the nagas abusing and hitting people without any reason. They seem to be enjoying the show like little children. It’s good that most of the people take the beatings as blessings.

The crowd moves carrying a hum of faith, almost sleepwalking into the arms of divinity. Me and my friend take many dips. Millions of Her children have dumped their sins in the stream of Holiness. The water is murky. But it hardly matters to anyone. It’s about being here with openness and acceptance. Emptying yourself of your strong sense of ego and Her blessings flow in like water filling an empty vessel.

Thousands of more pilgrims arrive with each passing minute. The administration is tense. There is a public announcement going on asking the pilgrims to leave immediately after taking holy dips to avoid overcrowding. As we get out of the bathing area, thousands are moving with us, humming with happiness for having taken the holy dip.

Again a bike ride to the parking lot. And just as we reach the spot, a UP Roadways bus to Delhi is waiting to be filled. We get the last seat. The suspension system looks rudimentary. It bumps up and down like a cart even on the smooth road. The jolts put the intestines in a knotted, defensive posture. It makes the task of forgetting the morning’s call of nature quite easy. The bowl movement gets driven out of rhythm. It shuts off its operations to deal with the jolting emergency. Because in such a crisis the intestines have to save themselves first. Performance is secondary. It helps though, because there is hardly any usable toilet all along the journey. The system would stabilize only after a night’s rest.

I’m happy that I went for this holy bath. It had been playing in my mind for the last many weeks. It’s better to let the desires flow out instead of letting them stay in your system in a twisted form.

A little lesson on life and living

 There are people, lot many in fact, who have already died to almost everyone around, long before their soul leaves this body. The dead-alive or alive-dead, I call them. They are already buried under earth. Their existence just a little mound, a tiny bump—an unnecessary interjection on the landscape. Once in a while someone stumbles upon the tiny protrudation, pauses briefly, tries to find some familiarity, recognition or relatedness. But just a little earthen mound it is. He or she simply passes over.

There are so many graves of the living dead on the footpaths and in the slums. The least one can do is to acknowledge their life, their existence and hence save them from a complete death long before they shed this body. A smile, a greeting, a slight bit of acceptance of the little space they occupy is all that is needed to confirm their living status. That is a ray of hope, light and love—a tiny beam of light let into the grave. It saves the still living corpse from rottening.

Nurture life. This much you can do if you are lucky to be still alive to those around you. You save them from getting eaten alive by the worms in the feed trough of oblivion by temporarily unifying your lucky existence with the unlucky ones to give them a momentarily enhanced being. It’s healing in nature. They get a little respite from the rupture, fracture and parting from the living part of social fabric.

They have a hope in their heart struggling to meet the light outside. Their heart under a layer of dust forming a hard cake of dirt between the two. By pausing and acknowledging their existence, even by as small a gesture as a kind look, you let out a whiff of air from your mouth to remove the dust. Even that is sufficient.

Wounds are the cut marks but portals for new opportunities, new saplings, new shoots to grow—like a stream of life raising it little head from a branch grafting. They are an avenue for growth. Their—the living dead—entire existence is a big wound. The sun in your eyes and the compassion in your heart, just by a little gentle friendly brush with them, might help them in growing a tiny shoot.    

An old dog in the hills

 

High in Uttarakhand mountains, in a little hamlet situated in seclusion of one kilometer steep climb from the nearest road, a native Bhutia dog has reached the ripe age of twenty. Earlier it was a common dog owned by the entire hamlet. A common asset for vigilance against langoors and bears tearing the bark of apple trees. But for the last two or three years it has stayed at my friend’s house. Almost blind, most of the teeth gone, stiff weak joints. The dog has become a perfect representative for old age.

They say that for the last few seasons they have been expecting the old dog to call it a day. It would appear almost dying. But it has always sprung a surprise by coming back to life. They say the reason for this is that the dog has a good appetite and doesn’t stop eating even when it looks taking its last breaths. The black dog with rheumy eyes and long shabby fur soaks sunrays during the day and gives a proof of its good digestion by eating thrice a day.

They have another dog, a golden retriever. It’s very moody about eating and is all focused on playing and socializing. The old dog keeps sleeping even while the young one is jumping over it. In human terms, it’s as old as someone at least 125 years old or even more than that. I’m saying him bye, ‘Please be here when I come back again!’ The old dog can’t see properly. The old canine gentleman looks deeply at me, and having failed to see me clearly with its almost blind eyes, twitches its muzzle to smell the sense of what I say. It then shakes it old, bushy tail. Maybe it understood what I said and felt happy about it. Again it raises its muzzle in my direction and inhales the smell of the well-wisher who is expecting it to survive another season. Maybe it has clearly understood what I’m saying. I won’t be surprised if it understands human language after spending two decades with them.

My friend’s wife laughs loudly to hear my wishes for the old dog. But she is very positive about her responsibilities and I’m sure the old dog will get proper care as long as it is alive.

The haughtiness to this and that side of the center

 

When things are ‘wrong’ at socio-economic (and politics as a result), you have the far ‘right’ taking over, claiming to be the remedy for all that’s wrong. I’m right, I’m right, I’m right it says and everything else is wrong. When things go ‘very wrong’ at the socio-economic and political fronts, you have far ‘left’ taking over to bloodily undo all that has gone wrong by unleashing still bigger wrongs. The best political representatives for a stable society are the centrists on both sides giving each other tolerable, within-limits, bound-by-law punches.

The drunken torpor of existence

 

If you feel all the layers of sorrow spread around, you might feel gutted and minced with wet earth. Or you may see the light of love—sharp, pointed, clear, a shiny spot on the fabric of darkness. A white dot on the blackboard. The blackboard perspective. Or you can have the whiteboard view—feeling the joy that oozes from everything around. The dot of pain on this will be like a tiny dark well that sips little rays, eats them in fact. The whiteness having a black hole; the darkness having a white hole. They sustain each other. We have to accept them.

The prize-winning bull

 

Father’s death anniversary falls on March 1. Me and my brother go to a gaushala for donation. Here things are challenging and cramped for gaumata. But something is better than nothing. Hundreds of cows get food and shelter at least. And we can think of improving the conditions as long as cow shelters exist.

There is a bull whose front leg is broken from the joint leaving it as a crooked and unusable stump. It’s a sad sight. The caretaker is from Bihar. He has been working here for the last five years. He holds a scrubber in hand to give them a nice scrubbing. He tells the story how the bull got injured. The villagers bring their cows for mating. This cow was in heat and was tied at a distance. The farmer then untied the bull. It ran too fast in excitement. Love is blinding after all. Risky. The bull slipped on the uneven brick flooring in the compound and met a nasty fall. It broke its leg. Now it’s a very difficult handicapped life.

Golu, another bull, is standing nearby. It has won many prizes at cattle fairs. The last was a first prize of 51,000 rupees at Kurukshetra cattle fair. There are far more bigger and muscular looking bulls at the cow shelter. But Golu has beaten all of them here and at other shelters because it has a huge hump which gives it the USP and the top prize. Thus Golu is a revenue maker. One can feel that it carriers extra confidence in comparison to other bulls.

The obstinate colors of life on the face of derisive death

 

Mid February. An adamant winter giving a gentle, pleasant rebuff to the summer slowly treading ahead. The mornings dawn condescendingly on the vegetable market at the town, the town that’s itching with urban lust to become a city, then a metropolis and finally merge with some mammoth urban megalith. The clutter and chaos going up with the rising sun. There is an ineradicable typical smell of a vegetable market in a town. The seasons change but this smell remains the same. A myriad-colored smell—the smell of fresh vegetables entwining with decaying organic discards, mud and dung. It unleashes its assault on your olfactory senses with a squinting spurt. The dealers and sellers shouting hoarsely. The monkeys nimbly crawling on the wires, doing antics and jumping down to run away with something eatable, or at least fir for giving it a try to chew at.  

A bleak, pathogenic, primordial smell pervading the congestion. Paddlers and roaming hawkers arriving with their carts to buy vegetables wholesale and sell them in the streets in the neighboring villages. Householders, directed by their budget-calculating wives, arriving on bikes and cars to buy a week or ten days of vegetables in one go and store them in refrigerators and thus save money. An economizing tussle.

Life trying to ward off death. A dreadful chasm between the two. There are many who have fallen in it. The outcasts, born in hideous circumstances. Their faces speckled with haunting melancholy. The broken pot shards that feel they can still hold water in their shallow curves defined by jagged, broken, sharp edges. A soundless cry on their dark, unwashed faces. It’s a group of children. They walk around with imperious timidity. They compete with cows in salvaging the castaway fragments of stale vegetables from dirt heaps.

Are they Rohingyas, or Bangladeshis, or some tribals from India itself? Whoever they are, they carry the same passport of misery. Their eyes full of innocent but still vile determination to beat the stray cows and bulls in salvaging the castaway, stale, spoiled chunks of unusable vegetables. It’s a childhood copiously fed on spoonfuls of sorrows. Their lightless serious eyes furtively darting around on the filthy ground looking for their treasure hunt. Aaah, poverty the depraved seducer! The dung-smeared bulls move around with a sleepy enchantment and languor. Emphatically moody monkeys crawling over cables, jumping on the tin sheds with clang-bang jocularity.

Furiously flaming frenzy of survival. Harassing, haunting, gnawing, devouring. Horrible paroxysms of the will to live—an eternal tenderness beating somewhere deep down in the womb of worldly garbage. The ground-sloggers amidst rack and ruin. The hawkers and middlemen shouting with burbling, stinging energy. The capricious coax of currencies mollifying all vileness and crossness faced on the path.

It’s a bearable world as long as you can sell your stale vegetables dabbed in acidified colored water to make them gleaming fresh with false promises of health and nourishment. Consumerism sets forth lynching questions. The bloodhound is baying for your blood in the tumult. Scuddling along, it’s always sniffing at your strained smell. Its bestial fangs ever-present, ever-lasting. You have to keep abreast of its swift trot. Either you eat someone’s chance to life through adulteration, giving them a slow dose of poison—your buyer whom you give such a nice welcoming smile—or get bitten by the spiteful hound and find yourself in death throes.

Hard-driven by destiny, withstanding the shameless stumbles, spirits all cheerless and discharmed, absorbing the acute pangs, you try to emancipate the sour most morsels with some weird dignity. Destiny dastardly debased. The migrants pulled in by the delightful roar and potent frenzy of the bazaar. Running away from the monstrosities of life drooling at their native places. The frenzied, spasmodic, sobbing circumstances swatting them away like a gunshot pierces through the fabric of peace in a forest and scares away a flock of sparrows. Running away from nightmarish tormentors of deprived life, they land at a distant place and try to cope with the ingenious cruelty unfolding at the new place. Miseries hop along with a frenzied scampering.

They squat on a little space in the open area in front of the vegetable sellers. With a groaning and grinding effort, like the persistent rub of a rope leaving a mark on a stone, they wriggle, relentlessly haggled by the rival claimants, to get a foothold—their self-marked space to set up a temporary establishment in the morning. There is no legal right to it. It can be swiped away like any garbage heap on the market compound. They also have to pay some monthly money—some kind of protection money to the neighborhood bully who controls the unofficial market affairs—to further cement their claim. Then they have to fight with the visitors who come to purchase vegetables and park their vehicles exactly on top of their little space where they have been cleaning the ground before setting up their shop. They sell cheap clothes, utensils, groceries to the people who are exactly like them but are struggling to survive through some other means.              

They have to arrive early, lest someone takes their marked place, necessitating a brawl. They carry a swaggered dark, grimy look in order to ward off any competitor to the space just with a mere look. They arrive with huge bundles of their wares—clothes, groceries, toys, utensils—heaped on carrier rickshaws, pulling in with purpose. It takes about an hour to clean the dirty floor, pitch poles, draw strings and ropes, put their products in presentable order. They do it with a strained and flustered expression. They count upon the footfall of their own types who work as laborers in factories and farms.

Two little boys, aged six and eight at the most, confront the falsehood and misery of life. Their father has pulled the heavy sacks of clothes laden on their carrier rickshaw early in the morning. He has left them to set up the shop and gone to attend some other task that will add some more bucks to their meager purse. The boys are clad in their school uniforms. They perform the task masterfully. Setting up poles in the cemented holes, cleaning the ground, drawing ropes, spreading a tarpaulin sheet, laying shirts, pants, jeans, shorts, socks, caps, hankies and belts in nicely segregated order. The other day it’s their mother who pulls into the ground with the cart and does all the stuff by herself. She has a dull and drowsy look on her weather-beaten face having fine features.

A thickset short old woman sells peanuts, gazak, grams and colored rice crunchies. She scans the passersby with one eye; with the other she tracks the monkeys who rob her at the slightest lapse in concentration. She holds a big stick to ward off the robbery. She says that her son has betrayed her for his wife. To further worsen the already strained relations, he operates a rival stall nearby. Her husband is partially paralyzed. He moves dragging his left foot. Another paralyzed man operates a tea stall. It’s a tiny sheet iron box on a mobile cart.

Young shop helpers are rubbing potatoes in sawdust to give them a freshly dug look after dousing them in acidified water. These are then sold as fresh arrivals from the fields. All the sellers are looking to sneak in a percentage of stale products into the fresh ones to increase profit. While the monkeys scamper around to cut that profit by a little margin.

Spiritually, ritually buzzing Banaras

 

We deboard the bus and stand on the outskirts of Mahadev’s land. To reach the famous Banaras ghats we need an auto. Waseem the kind autowallah agrees to take us for 150 rupees while others charge more than 250 rupees. Political Hindutva is very aggressive. We can feel that he, as part of the minority community, is on the back foot. A biker bearing a big tilak on his forehead misbehaves. It’s his mistake but instead of apologizing he unleashes a sharp reprimand through his gutka-filled mouth. Almost hisses. At a crossing a carwallah almost bangs into the auto and carries on with his aggression through his obscene tongue. We came so near to a collision—his rash driving being the cause—that I closed my eyes. Waseem doesn’t argue. He just moves on with his business: to earn bread and butter for his family.

There seems to a tacit understanding that as UP Muslims they have to play safe. We brothers try to give an impression that India is still reasonably secure. We chat with him in a polite, friendly way. We ask him about the famous eating points in the city. So still on the way there we are sharing a lovely, mouthwatering delicacy with him at Bengal Chat Bhandar. Further on, we all three have tea at a place of his liking. He comes out of his shell, talks happily and shares his personal story. He used to work in Delhi but Corona epidemic forced him to move to his native place. It’s difficult to provide for his three children. ‘Corona took away everything… wife, Delhi job!’ he says with sadness. He remarried for the sake of his children but his second wife won’t love and take care of the children. To avoid the daily drama he decided to separate. Now his mother takes care of the children.

I think the key to unlock the treasure chest of goodness in someone is smile and kind words. The same applies to another auto driver Suresh. Give them respect and generally people would go out of their way to reciprocate on the same frequency. He tries to do his best to show us the beauty of his city. Like an expert guide he points out the famous landmarks falling on the way. The people are looking to share their stories with sympathetic souls. Very soon he is telling us about his family. He praises his wife because she takes care of his ailing parents. He is in gratitude to Mahadev that his daughter is lucky to get married in a good family.

On the ghats we come across a Tamil baba with an imposing danda draped in saffron cloth. He asks for chai, which means 10 rupees. He is very happy to get clicked. The frank baba is very honest about sharing his personal information. He takes drinks liquor two-three times a week, eats one vegetarian meal in a day, is not addicted to ganja but happily takes a few draughts of weed when offered by someone. He is very pleased to see his pictures on my mobile, gives his friend’s number and asks me to forward them to his friend on WhatsApp. The baba is joyful that his latest pictures have landed in his friend’s phone far away in Tamil Nadu and points to small gulls following boats in Ma Ganga and says, ‘I fly like those birds. I feel very light!’

Two babas in black with ash-smeared faces. You click their picture. Give us chai, they demand. One baba in orange with a carefully painted face is sipping tea. ‘Pay for my tea,’ he says while I click his picture. I don’t have change. The tea seller doesn’t accept digital payment. The baba gets angry and throws a cuss word. I hurry away lest he beats me because he seems capable of doing that. A baba with a long tower of hair braids is reclining on a platform. He naughtily waves at two white women. ‘How do you feel looking at them?’ we innocently ask. He gets offended and flares up, ‘All bitches have the same thing.’ He fumes. We placate him with gentle words and 10 rupees for chai. One ash-smeared baba is sitting on a stone bench right in the middle of the crowded bazaar opposite Daswamedh ghat. I raise my phone to click him. He brandishes a warning finger. ‘Then why are you sitting in this crowd with all this make-up?’ I feel like asking but think better of it because they have a right to beat anyone without any provocation. It’s good that common people have the patience to take their slaps as blessings.

The ghats are crowded and polluted under the throes of spiritual business. Ma Ganga is polluted beyond reparation point. The water is muddy green. I miss Her bright blue and green waters that one sees at Rishikesh. Touts literally drag you by force into the boats sadly chugging in the polluted holy river. The evening arti is elaborate in operations involving chanting of hymns, big prayer lamps and expensive rituals. A naga sadhu angrily shoves a few Brahmins roaming in the crowd with plates bearing arti lamps and receiving charity money. The ash-smeared naga seems angry and pushes the Brahmins to gather the donations himself. Most of the ash-smeared babas are very intimidating. They take it as their right to collect money and bathe first in the holy river.

The burning pyres of Manikarnika ghats have multiple pyres burning on big mounds of ash. It’s a chilly mid-December windy night. Standing near the burning pyres gives you warmth and the realization of death hugs you from very near quarters. The next day is Purnima and thousands of poor women from the villages are jutted against each other along the ghats amid stinking urine smell to take bath early in the morning next day on the auspicious full moon occasion. They huddle like a flock of sheep, taking warmth from each other under an open sky on this chilly night. Many are singing folklore songs and dancing. That’s how they will spend this cold night. The power of faith is warming their souls.

The renovated Mahakal temple complex is mythically grand and lofty in spiritual stature. Gyanvapi mosque built on the same complex is clearly an Islamic dome set up on a pre-existing Hindu temple. It’s as clear as anything else in broad daylight. Why do they even need archeological digging to prove it? The lower part clearly shows a temple structure and pillars. It doesn’t need expert digging by the Archaeological Survey of India to prove that a temple was vandalized to erect a mosque’s dome on top of it.

We have taken a mediocre hotel near the ghats. The hotel owner is an old gentleman. He doesn’t like Modi and angrily says, ‘We have been voting for him but he just tells jumlas, doesn’t work on his promises and this time was simply lucky to win from here through…’ I remember the honorable prime minister’s claims that he will make Kashi clean like Kyoto. But Banaras is stinking with pollution. I can hardly see any improvement apart from the temple corridor.

Banaras is so congested that going to Sarnath, just a dozen kilometers away, gives a totally new and refreshing experience. It’s almost opposite to the pleasantly chaotic, noisy Banaras ghats. The place seems very symbolic of the historical truth: peaceful Buddhism was churned out of the chaotic, noisy, hyper-ritualistic storm of Hinduism. One can clearly feel it.

Chaukhandi and Sarnath stupas bear testimony to the mythical whisper of silence and peace. Rows of east Asian monks going chanting mantras around the stupas. The sprawling lawns around the stupas still carry the layers of peace and tranquility that Buddha spread here centuries ago with his first sermon. The museum is full of grand Buddha statues dating back to many ancient centuries. There was a time when this land had millions of Buddha statues, temples and monasteries. Was it wiped out of India by force? Or did it naturally fade out? Or was it assimilated into Hinduism again? I believe it was a slow, almost natural process involving all these factors. Also, there are reasons to believe that aggressive Brahmanism helped in systematically dismantling it by force, cajoling and even spreading rumors.

Naresh is a small, gentle, patient guy selling Buddha souvenirs. He allows you to check his items even if you are clearly doing a free eye shopping. He even plays the instruments to give us information about them including a big conch which he plays with nice skills. He seems to be soaked in Buddha spirit and is happy to get whatever lands in his purse at the end of the day. A small conversation with him is sufficient to make you feel that he is a good human being.

Ashokan pillar is a 15.25 meter monolithic pillar of polished chunar sandstone with a tapering cylindrical shaft. It was once surmounted by an adorned lion capital which serves as our national emblem. The shaft is lying in the lawn around the stupa, the national emblem in the museum. The pillar’s broken lower shaft bearing some fragments in Maurayan Brahmi script warning the monks and nuns against schism in the sangha.

Chaukhandi stupa is a four-armed terraced brick structure. It was here that Buddha met his five disciples. The outer walls of the terraces are ornamented with niches having Buddha images. A brick tower, bearing an Arabic inscription, erected by Raja Todar Mal’s son to commemorate Humayun’s visit, stands on the top of the stupa.

Dhamekh stupa (Dharma Chakra Stupa) commemorates the place where Buddha gave his first sermon. It’s a solid brick-made cylindrical tower around 40 meter high. The circular stone drum at the base topped with a cylindrical mass of brickwork looks sturdy against the winds of time. Carved stones with geometric designs of swastika, leaf and floral patterns, birds and human figures create an aesthetic nostalgia for the ancient past. The East Asian tourists and monks are chanting hymns on the peaceful lawns and many are doing parikrama around the stupa. It’s wonderful to share the peace of this place, the place where the seed of Buddhism was sown from where it grew into a massive tree spreading the shade of its faith to far flung countries in the east.

Sarnath is a lovely open small town, its peace palpable as if drawn from the Buddhist sutras of love, kindness, peace and joy. There is a sad-looking Chinese Buddhist temple here. It was made in 1939 by an abbot from Beijing. It bears the traditional Chinese temple feature of entrance gate pagoda. The Boddhisattva hall has double pagoda roof and a monastery around a central courtyard. The walls are adorned with Chinese motifs. Hieun Tsang’s journey is pictorially depicted in attractive murals. The temple’s land was owned by China. Now a lone monk with hennaed goatee looks suspiciously at the visitors. He has central Asian mongoloid Muslim features. An interesting character, has shifty eyes and looks anything but a monk. He tells me that he is from Delhi and is taking care of the temple for the last decade. ‘A Thai monk is in charge of this place. He planned for the construction of a grand stupa. But he hasn’t returned after Corona. I myself almost died of gall bladder stone. Nobody cares,’ he is angry and sullen. I can clearly feel that there is more to it than he shares. After all, the complex is built on 12 acres of land. So definitely there are property issues.

Angarika Dharampala (born 1864, Sri Lanka) found the Buddhist sites in a deplorable condition. He established Mahabodhi society to rebuild Buddhist holy sites and restore sacred places linked to Buddha. The Bodhi tree’s branch cutting was taken to Sri Lanka by Ashoka’s son and daughter and planted at Anurudhpura. In 1931, a branch from the same tree was planted here by Dharampala to commemorate the place where Buddhism was born. Sarnath deer park, housing a few deer, is mobbed by some students on a trip. It was here that the first sermon was given. The first sermon of Sakyamuni Buddha, the seed, has germinated quite well and the mammoth tree of Buddhism is now luxuriantly spreading its branches for global peace and harmony. The tree is the grandson of the Mahabodhi tree at Gaya where Buddha attained enlightenment. I collect a few dry leaves that have fallen on the ground. I touch them with love and care—for inspiration to be on the middle path. I feel that I have a small connection with Buddhism for being born on Buddha Purnima.     

In grace with mother existence

 

Enlightenment is a mere word, and like all words, it’s an indicator of some fraction of reality. So it’s practical to use the word ‘enlightened’ for the ones who are in a joyful flow of life. According to me, an enlightened one is someone who, in the real sense, ‘knows’ that he doesn’t and can’t know. Because existence is ever transforming (and the so-called knowledge is simply a skill born of the operational part of our brain, i.e., mind; a mere capability like any other skill that helps us survive). To know that one doesn’t know brings a grace and flow to one’s life. It gets one in peaceful sync with what is. It in turn gives a joyful being, almost unconditional.

Who am I?

 

Who am I? Or what am I? Just a common sadhak, a seeker of a bit more than I know or understand or feel. Or not even a sadhak because I don’t follow any particular path. What exactly I’m, I’m yet to know. I consciously know the identities given to me by others, but at a subtle level I know I’m not any of these. I feel just like a little bird flying on its own path, wondering about all this maya scattered around; curious, full of wonder, observant; just a bird of its own type like the rest are. Or maybe, a tiny humming bird, to be more specific; flitting among different flowers of faith; taking small sips of the nectar of truth from various-colored flowers; taking little independent sorties while going from one flower to the other; belonging to all and none at the same time; loving and being loved by all.

Traveling in a bus commanded by a lady conductor

 

It’s a UP state roadways bus plying between Agra and Delhi. The conductor is a woman in black; short, stocky but pretty in face and impressive in limbs. She is extremely efficient and confident about her duties. The tone is bold. She needs it to deal with unruly passengers. She manages it with impressive effect, keeps eyes on each seat to be filled, ensures each passenger pays the fare, guides and gives instructions about the further journey once the passengers deboard the bus in the puzzling maze of the Delhi NCR.

The bus reaches the boarding point outside Agra to take the Expressway. There is a slight misunderstanding. The driver has allowed a young man to board thinking there is one seat vacant. The boyish man panics when he finds there is no seat available. He finds it a betrayal. His father is some official in the roadways. He feels he has been wronged terribly in not being offered a seat. He calls his father on phone. A real papa’s boy. When will you grow up, you crying sissy? He gives the phone to the conductor. The father talks to the lady conductor. She expresses her inability to get a seat vacant for his dear son. The father official gets offended, feels insulted that his very own son has to travel standing. Shameful and unpardonable. What is the use of his position then? He fires on all authoritative cylinders.

There are checking officials waiting at the next toll gates. The bus is raided. The boyish man looks with an authoritative leer. They surround the lady conductor as if she has been caught smuggling banned items. They bombard her with accusations—the rules that have been broken in the episode. One of them is enlisting the probable actions that will be taken against her. She defends her position confidently. But they are like hounds. The very same patriarchal mindset. The lady conductor starts crying. A woman passenger seems to be trying to mollify the raiding flying squad.

It’s taking a bad shape for the woman conductor. She needs more people on her side. Me and my brother get down. Both of us engage two staffers and straightway get into accusations that they have delayed the bus, that we paid the luxury bus far to catch our train (there was no scheduled train to catch), bla bla. My brother looks like a six-feet tall wing commander in military style cargos. Imitating him even I’m smartly clad today. They think that even we have connections to be so full of confidence in confronting them. They turn defensive. They ask us to board the bus as if the issue is settled.

When I feel they are no longer on the front foot, I give them my sermon on women empowerment: ‘She is a very efficient conductor, manages it really well. Far better than scores of male conductors I have seen. She is a working woman. Don’t harass her in the name of performing your duties!’ I speak loudly at the mustachioed man, the most rascally looking in the group. The boyish man is puzzled. The lady conductor is shedding tears. We raise a ruckus. The penalties are forgotten. They find it advisable to stop the matter from taking an uglier form. The bus starts again. After half an hour we see that she is her normal professional self again. It’s good to help someone in having a normal day.    

Vaah Taj!!

 

The early December morning sun beating on the monument of love. Its beauty ablaze in full floral glory. The wonder in white marble with inlay ornamentation, carved plant motifs, inlaid creeper designs; silver and gold work on the ceilings; Persian inscriptions carved in ornamental cartouches; repetitive stylized creepers inlaid on borders; marble and precious stone inlay. How much your aesthetic sense can take in under the pleasant onslaught on your senses! The arches, windows, cupolas, panels with ornamental cartouches, incised painting in multiple colors… Keep watching and trying to have a knowledge of all these details. Then you give up. Not possible. It’s a sea of beauty, only there to be felt. So you surrender to the seductive arrows of beauty and then you simply feel it, bask in this white beauty.

Here you feel that stones have a soul, a dancing one. Go to Taj Mahal to see it and feel it. Tourists are loitering in awe on the spacious plinth around the shrine of love. With soaring spirits people look up to the Taj, lost in its majesty. This is pure appreciation. But there is someone who has crossed the threshold of appreciation, built upon it to achieve something more substantial—reverence. To him it’s a living temple of beauty and he the priest. The elderly white gentleman is in love with the deity, beauty. He is performing rituals. He has some physical disability which makes him walk with a slight droop on mildly moon-walking legs. He lights a lamp of love in obeisance to the shrine. As he and his friend move around clicking pictures, he stoops down to pick little pieces of paper and patches of green shoe covers which the tourists have to wear while going into the tomb of love. It’s his business to keep it clean, safe, at least as long as he is here; to contribute his effort in maintaining the sanctity of this place.

The tourists are simply clicking pictures, chatting, laughing, enjoying the proximity to this wonder of the world. But this man is in awe of the beauty in marble. Any scrap of paper is a stigma to the splendor of the shrine of love. It’s heartening to see him going slowly with his cleaning job. It shows the depths of his feelings for this wonder of the world. A girl hops onto a ledge on the monument from the platform. Her boyfriend starts clicking pictures. The shoe covers would spoil the picture. She removes them. The Taj might be spoilt but not the picture. The gentleman walks to her and reminds her that it’s forbidden to do so. We Indians don’t care about such things. They ignore him. He reminds her twice and then finding her to be inconsiderate enough to commit this illegality, he sadly walks away.

I would term him as the best tourist visiting Taj Mahal on this particular day; someone who felt the definition of love etched in its grand design, beautiful patterns and relief pictures. Every square inch on the beautiful memorial is a complete story of perfection and flawless faith to make something unparalleled. Every little flower, leaf or geometrical pattern shows the endless hours of artistic passion. You are lost in a maze of beauty.

The sanctum-sanctorum of love, bearing the graves of the emperor and his beloved queen, lies under the main dome. The lofty vault enclosing a rich history of love and pain. Every inch carved with chisels drenched with tears of ecstasy. It’s a sea. One can’t grab its immensity. So the casual tourist, clueless how to appreciate it or say anything, settles down to the base-level appreciation. The main high-vaulted chamber echoes with voices. So they shout their names and feel pleased to hear them echoed in the unbelievably lovely interior. Little do they realize that stones have petalous souls and these shouts count as pollution doing damage to this grand creation. If at all you have to say something, say the name of the person whom you have really loved and hear its echo.    

Awesome Agra

 

Taj Mahal Nature Walk street facing the eastern gate. We have to go to Agra Fort. The autowallahas are asking 150 rupees. It’s seven or eight kilometers they say. I see an elderly Muslim rickshaw puller going at a decent pace down the lane towards the Taj. It’s a slight descent and his rickshaw rolls with a song. I hark, ‘O rickshaw!’ He puts breaks. He says 40 rupees to the destination for the two of us. The autowallah is hovering nearby. He grunts and snorts accusatively as if the rickshaw puller has stolen his clients.

Autos are not allowed beyond the barricade about 200 meters from where we board the rickshaw. So they have to take a detour through the congested city to reach the fort. The rickshaw puller takes a chance. If he is allowed to cross the barricade and move along the Taj’s outer boundaries, he will need to pedal for just two and half kilometers.

He is going at a nice pace along the gentle slope. ‘O miyanji, turn back! As if you don’t know that rickshaws aren’t allowed beyond this point!’ one of the policemen manning the barricade hollers. The rickshaw puller gives a broad smile and takes an instant sharp U-turn. In fact he answers just through a broad smile to most of your words. He seems to take everything impersonally—nothing personal. He turns back with ease as he would turn around when faced with a wall.

So his shortcut has been belied—for which he asked just 40 rupees—and the only route left is the long-cut which the autos have to take. It means, as per the changed equation, he will have to heave the rickshaw for almost eight kilometers for just 40 rupees. For a person who takes things personally this calculation would immediately suck out fuel from his pedaling legs. But not this man. His smile doesn’t go. It was his offer. The route choice isn’t in his hands now. But he won’t back out from his word. So without any hint of disappointment or complain or any inclination to redraw the deal due to the changed route he focuses on pulling the load up the slope.

It’s a heavy pull. The rickshaw is crawling slowly. You can argue with someone who grumbles, frets about the loss-making deed. He isn’t affected in mind due to the changed situation. We feel his physical exertion. We have no doubt that he will continue pulling for all these eight kilometers without complaining or asking extra money. Such honesty and integrity to one’s word makes you sensitive to the situation. More than him, we feel the weight of his almost unrewarding assignment. His legs would possibly bear the weight to take us all the way for just 40 rupees. But our conscience won’t allow it. We feel the extent of his loss-making assignment.

He is all focused on pulling the rickshaw. ‘Shouldn’t we take an auto because it’s quite far from this side,’ we start discussing, expecting him to agree and propose it himself. But he doesn’t say anything. Just silently pulls. Then we ask him, ‘Shouldn’t we take an auto?’ ‘That also is ok,’ he says casually with a smile. His smile is unaffected by all considerations of the amount of fare, distance plied, weight, etc. He halts. We give him 20 rupees. He accepts it with another beaming smile. The very same smile. He is simply at ease with himself. With that ease of being, the outer flutter of leaves hardly disturbs the inner lamp.

Our spirits uplifted by this gentle brush with a tender and honest soul, giving us a lovely starter for the aesthetic senses, here we are at the Agra fort welcoming us with a marvelous dining prospects of medieval architecture. It’s a vast palace complex involving spacious courts with mansions around; designed brackets supporting the chhajas and lintels; large assembly halls with flat ceilings; glazed tiling and stucco along with ornamental stone carving; harem complex once guarded by chaste women and trustworthy officers. The past pulls you with musty but welcoming force.

Humayun was coronated at Agra fort overlooking river Yamuna. It has double ramparts with massive circular bastions; a broad deep moat, bearing drawbridges, in a semi-circle; four gates in different directions. You feel special while standing in Diwan-i-Am (hall of public audience) with its pillared halls with cusped engrailed arches on the façade and grand columns in triple-aisle deep complexes plastered with white shell lime (over red sand stone). The imperial jharokha (throne) chamber still has enough luxuriance, even after the dusty layers of centuries covering it, to give you an idea of aristocratic opulence. There is a private marble mosque for the harem ladies, enclosed for purdah. You can’t help but appreciate the water tank with cascade and the shahi hamam with its impressive water supply system—closed complex of octagonal halls, interconnected by corridors with jali openings on the river side. Then there is the chain of justice, the regal bell tied to a chain which could be pulled by the commonest of the common to seek justice by directly appealing to the emperor. How I hope that justice was as easily and directly available to the modern citizens; that we had some direct means of being saved from injustice instead of spending our entire lives in the unsurpassable judicial corridors. There are so many things I want to shout. I feel like pulling the chain but it’s not accessible to the visitors; just there for viewing.

And among all this grandeur, the sadness of the historical fact that Shah Jahan spent eight years at Agra fort as a prisoner looking at his soulful salutation to love, Taj Mahal, on the other side of Yamuna.

Memoirs from the Agra trip

 

The petha sellers of Agra think they carry a reputatious virtue, which makes them so bold and aggressive in soliciting your attention to their sweet shop that it literally makes them look like marauders ready to kidnap you and forcibly make you buy their mithai. Your courteous denials finally bid you bye and you start saying ‘NO’ in sour notes.

For a few hundred meters facing Taj Mahal’s eastern gate there is a lovely tiled walkway, flanked by trees, shops and restaurants. The lights are screened behind tall square columns of slab-stones. A subtle, subdued light emerges from the patterned holes in the screens. It builds a healthy prelude to your next day’s early morning visit to the monument of love. You might be lost in myriad tunes of history emanating from veena’s soulful notes of the past. But the shopkeepers will keep crying an encore, keep throwing their verbal bouquets, which finally begin assaulting you like bricks. It keeps pulling you down from the paramount constellation of emotions about the embodiment of living soul in white marble.

The present’s popular caricature boosted by consumerism is too noisy for poetic sentiments about Taj Mahal in the markets surrounding it like a tight noose. A sort of irreverent drabness sizzling through the grand monument’s mythical dimensions. I have been trying to keep focused on the crystallized voracity of romance etched in stones while being bombarded with almost kidnapping calls of autowallahas and sweet-makers. They look ready to force you into accepting their services.

Me and my brother have been walking on the Taj Nature Walk boulevard. At every step we have to say ‘no’ to an autowallah, petha seller or some hawker. Saying ‘no’ hundreds of times makes us hungry and finally we give into the insistence of a short but smart looking young man. They are all on the younger side in this dining establishment. We hardly expect the dinner to be anything but ordinary. I’m still baffled with my decision to agree to enter this restaurant. We sit and wait for our order to be served.

The establishment is garishly decorated. Not much footfall, we being the only customers at the moment. We can’t expect the food to be delicious. We just pray that please god let it be fresh at least, however bland it might turn out to be. Then the young man arrives with our order. The salad pieces are nicely arranged in circles. The mix-veg is no random assemblage of parts taken from other recipes. It’s prepared individually. The makka roti is lovingly laced with butter. The hubbub and helter-skelter of doubt vanishes.

We thoroughly enjoy the dinner. ‘It’s delicious food!’ we compliment and share our feedback. He isn’t used to hearing words of appreciation. The customers basically cringe and complain when they don’t like something. Criticism sits on their tongue-tips. But they turn misers and dumb while praising someone’s goods or services. As our feedback pours out abundantly and positively, he stands absorbing this unique experience. It stirs emotions in him. Tears are on the verge of toppling down from his eyelashes. Looking at his eyes, our eyes also get their share of moisture.

It’s a beautiful feeling. This human touch. I can feel these words of appreciation mean so much to him. There is usually an inundation of critical stuff from family, friends, peers, customers. The words of appreciation can bring new light and life in someone’s eyes.

Who knows what problems in career and family this young man has been facing. But our words of appreciation give him some hope and pride in his profession. Shivam Pandit is his name. We leave him more in love with his work.

Earlier in the day, I had given compliment to a woman in similar circumstances. Her husband managed the front end of the shop, selling tea, coffee and snacks. She ran the small kitchen at the back with a few tables and chairs in between. A Muslim woman used to work in the shadows, she prepared the omelet with ease and care. The taste was good. But the way it was served was unique—cut in little pieces, just big enough so that you can take it with a fork in one bite. Served with care. ‘Your omelet is really good!’ I said as we got up to leave. She was sitting in a corner chair looking at us eating, her eyes trying to gauze the standard of her cooking from our manner of eating and talking.

The people won’t praise when it’s good. But they will say a lot when they don’t like it. She was visibly surprised at the compliment. Maybe it was the first time a customer expressed his good words. It was a new experience to her and she didn’t know how to handle it. She just nodded with a little hesitant, shy smile. But I’m sure she will have enough time to digest this new encouraging pill. Won’t she find her work meaningful and feel proud of it? She will. Kind words of appreciation give people hope. Who knows what testing situations they are facing. And a few positive words can brighten someone’s gloomy day. She will find her cooking more meaningful. Just like Shivam would be happier the next day while manning his establishment.

You need not shower people with wealth, benefits or favors to make them happier. That’s asking too much from yourself. Making others happy comes without any cost at your end. Just give them the credit that they deserve on account of their product or service. Just this much. When someone’s karma is appreciated with contentment and joy, it dispels darkness and doubts from that person. It opens a little ray of hope. And even if you are a pessimist and don’t think it’s too substantial change maker in someone’s life, even then you have to accept that at least that moment is freshly lit when you deliver that feedback. Even that’s sufficient. Because NOW is all that matters.

Goodness buried under the weight of daily-dusting humanity

 

Me and my brother decide to take a shared Eco van from Agra to Fatehpur Sikri. It’s a well-worn, thoroughly used vehicle. The owner driver is named Lehri Singh Faujdar, a dark man with pan-gutka-painted red teeth. He flashes them with great effect with a smile. ‘I usually take 14 passengers,’ he forestalls any logical protest as me and my brother find ourselves bundled in the front sheet. ‘There are no more passengers today, otherwise I would have put one by your side,’ he informs me. The gear shaft between my thighs, tightly squeezed between him and my brother, I watch in dismay as he pulls the gear, pushing and prodding almost in my groins.

I start praying that let there be no more passengers on the way. My prayers are heard. He sees an old woman waiting by the road. Obviously she can’t be stuffed by our side in the front seat. She protests that there is no space in the vehicle and she will take some other convenience. Her protests fall on deaf ears. He has to have one more passenger to make up for having one less on the main middle seat. I thank god for sending this old woman as a passenger. The six passengers on the two side seats at the back moan with agony. He puts her heavy sack on the roof. The load lands with a thump and the roof bulges down a bit in the middle. He secures the load using tight ropes with expert hands. Then the six passengers at the back are pushed and shoved and the old woman is dumped among them. The back door is forced shut. It’s for them to adjust the old woman in any cubic meter of space available. They won’t fall. With jolts their bodies will acquire the most feasible shape to fill the space, settling down more comfortably.

The main middle seat is not cumbered much with human weight. A patient is lying here, his legs folded, nose taped and a nasal pipe still in it. He probably got discharged from hospital. He is seriously ill. The patient is accompanied by a man and a lady in burqa. Sitting at both ends of the long middle seat, they are holding the patient between them.

I take the van owner to be any other passenger-hunting transporter. He cracks his point—beyond which you can’t say much—flashes his red teeth with a challenging smile. ‘How many times you ply between Agra and Sikri in a day?’ I ask. I think that he is so passenger hungry that he must be relentlessly plying on the route till night. ‘I do just two rounds in a day,’ he says. Then he naughtily slaps his palm on the battered dashboard and says, ‘Irrespective of how many rounds I make up in a day, she will give survival crumbs only. More rounds won’t mean a big mansion. So just two for me. Two, four, six or eight will give just enough to see through the month. So why torture oneself?’ he again flashes his red teeth and gums.

By the turn outside Sikri he stops by another rental shared van, opens the sliding middle door and helps the sick man to be transferred to the other vehicle for the onward journey. I can see that it’s not just about fare. The fare would mean just stopping there, leaving the sick man’s wards to take care of the transfer.

I feel big respect for this man. We talk to him and then as promised he takes us nearest to the fort’s gate, gives us instructions regarding the return journey, warns us to stay cautious about tout guides who act as middlemen for the chador and flower sellers and cajole people into buying high-priced items to get their commission later. We have talked to him like friends and he reciprocates as a well-wisher. It has been a good experience with him. A good man, soiled under the dust of daily survival. You have to give a friendly swipe at the dust to see goodness in someone.

We have reached Fatehpur Sikri through a very decent mode—a good man under rough outer bearing due to the tough battle for survival on a daily basis. Before entering its grand courts, complexes and step wells another piece of kind welcome awaits us—the omelet served by the Muslim woman. The court complex is primarily in red sandstone—trabeated construction; designs evincing composite culture under the Mughals. It’s an open and airy luxury involving many arched facades (multiple-arch deep) and bulbous domes crowned by lotus petals and kalash finials. The imposing masonry walls, huge pillared halls, coquettish archways, sensuously carved pillars with inlaid designs, arched prayer chambers, the king’s tower (jhorakha darshan), sturdy battlements, geometric symmetry and aesthetic frame take you to ancient times. It’s redolent with multiple layers of history.

It’s advisable to visit the monuments of past—belonging to any dynasty, be it Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian or Buddhist—with an open mind and restful heart. It helps us to learn, to grow, to understand things better. I just look around, when I’m at such places, with a sense of wonder carried by a little student.     

A chronicle of general compartment

 

The crowded Jammu Mail at Subzi Mandi station in Delhi. There are many passengers waiting to board at ten in the night. The train has just three general compartments. These are already crammed to the gills. But surprisingly almost hundred more people squeeze and force themselves into its steely guts. Passengers everywhere. These are mostly migrant laborers with huge bundles and large families. You consider yourself lucky if you can stand on your toes somewhere.

A sardarji is standing, reclining rather in the sinewy opportunity available to fix his fat body in the twisting shapes of crammed space. His wife has a seat by the window. The children are perched on the upper berths. At every new station more people force in. Then a spicy chana daal seller arrives. The father gets a paper cone of spicy daal for his children. Onion, lemon, grams, chili. Mouthwatering. It lets loose a heady smell. It can tickle the water-buds even on the tongue of the most reserved elderly eater. His daughter eats with relish and he smiles forgetting that he is almost getting crushed by the bodies around him. The seller has to squeeze through the wall of bodies.

The tea seller has it easy though. ‘Boiling hot tea! Will burn your skin! So make space!’ he comes hollering the warning. And people further squeeze their limbs, making a safe passage for him.

A woman dozes off for many long minutes sitting on the floor. A poor woman. Then sleep overpowers her and she sprawls her body among the feet. Some people stand on one leg to keep the sanctity of a female body sleeping among boots and shoes.

A slim boy has fitted himself along the back of a seat behind multiplicity of bums. Some have forcibly occupied the entire upper birth and lie pretending to sleep so that nobody asks them to sit up allowing others to give rest to their bums in the freed space.

In such a tight situation, one can expect anything from the best to the worst. The same with the night. It has its own ways. As it moves towards midnight, the bodies relax, become less rigid, pliable and they flow to acquire whatever weirdly warped space is available among the mass of bodies. A strange solemnity creeps in silence.  

Changing tides

 

Capitalism was one of the hands—that too indirectly—which pulled the strings of the puppet of democracy. Of late, the capitalists have begun to pull the strings—directly. Individual powerful capitalists now are a parallel force in the world’s largest and strongest democracies. Democracy is now more or less capitalist democracy. Well, when the entire world becomes a bazaar, and tariffs and profiteering become the major geostrategic forces, the world will have major upheavals. Other democracies will be stretched thin in the wake of this reshaping of the two major democracies: India and the USA.

Against this background, communist capitalism will be viewed in new light. It might be viewed as far more normal than it has been so far by the world outside the iron curtain. It will no longer be an anathema merely on ideological grounds. Democracies will possibly lose the high moral platform from where they have been taking potshots at communist China. There will be more practical judgment of China and its system of governance. Basically, the greed for power, money and authority carries the same muscles, bones and tissues under the varying skins of political ideologies and systems.

Now the sun of blind profiteering will tan all types of skins in the same color.

We get bored with what we have possessed for a long time. So don’t get too surprised if the equations get reversed in future: democracies taking to communism and communists trying democracy for a change. 

Mighty Father's playful children

 

What happened in the past was relevant, if not altogether apparently good. It involved some learning, some evolution that needed some closed setup within challenging situations. And as you came out and took tentative steps towards healing, it was also good—a flow after the stay and stagnation. All was well; all is well; all that will happen will also be good. The tough episodes are mother nature’s indirect means to give us a gentle shove to nudge us to step out of the situational and psychological constraints and see more of life and living in this beautiful, exotic chaos of cosmos where we have to fix a few random pieces to make a meaningful life, to feel relevant, to be loved, to love, to live.

Go and pick the pieces of your sovereign choice; make anything you want. That’s your making, your independent free will. The random pieces lying around have infinite permutations and combinations and hence you have the limitless potential to create. As a maker of something lovely, specific and beautiful, you serve as an arm of God even though you are His children. Run on the beach of creation and play in the sands and give shape to all your imaginations: a castle, a house, animals, birds, machines, vehicles, anything for that matter. It will be there as you play with childlike joy. Of course, Father Sea will surge and arrive with His waves to wipe it clean for all the future children to play on a clean sandy beach. But till the high tide washes you and your creations into the bosom of the sea, play you have to with full enthusiasm.

A night journey

 In a passenger train starting around midnight from New Delhi. Just a couple of passengers per coach on average. Chilly air gushing into the almost open carriages. An eerie emptiness in the absence of jostling crowds. An empty passenger train, which is usually crammed to the ceiling, seems weird as it battles past the dark countryside. A sadhu settles on the floor by the wide open doors. He feels comfortable to sit cross-legged even though there are empty seats around. An educated person is holding discussion with him about God, ethics, religion and spirituality.

You need safety in an empty train at night. A burqa-clad woman comes scanning for a safe spot. She sees three of us in the coach and sits on a corner seat. The gentleman disembarks at the next station. The sadhu prepares to call it a day. He isn’t interested in occupying any of the empty seats. He spreads his cloth on the floor near the wide door-less entries on both sides. At the next station, a group of about a dozen adolescent boys comes rushing. They create a lot of turbulence. Crack lewd jokes, fake loud orgasms, imitate sadistic moans, dangle from the hand-support handles and shout with vulgar merriment.

The burqa-clad woman leaves in a hurry to find some other harmless corner in some other compartment where she can smell some harmless, protective human presence. The sadhu gets up and sits with eyes closed, trying to bear the disrespectful remarks, not hurled at him directly, but offensive generally just with their existence in his ascetic presence.

‘Shakeel… Ahmad… Waseem…’ The words acquire identity in the chilly night air. Now I get their religious identity. Razor sharp knife of polarization comes cutting the chilly dark air with silvery sparks of glee. Communal polarization. The Hindus feel victims due to the misdeeds committed during the Islamic rule in the medieval period of Indian history. The Muslims feel marginalized and pushed into a corner in the present nationalistic, hyperbole-ridden air. The future looks dangerous. I can feel that the Muslims as a community perceive themselves to be on the back-foot presently.

These boys must have heard lots of discussions about partiality against their community at home. The empty train gives them a space to pour out all the scorn. They do it with a rancid sense of taking revenge against the system. We keep mum. They seem primed for crime. The slightest reaction might flare up vagrant passions. It might start a chain reaction leading to a big communal fire. Only the common people burn in a communal churn. It’s wise not to jump into the fire; the fire that fattens the big and the mighty.  

Weird-shaped emptiness

 We carry a weird-shaped emptiness inside us; something we have hardly any clue about. And we keep filling it now with a dream, then some relationship, some desire the other time or some ambition or some man or woman or a friend.

We try filling it with some external shape, one after the other. But it never gets filled up, never gets a perfect shape to cover its emptiness.

A strange vacancy. Empty corners always stay, making the filling objects and people unsatisfactory after the trial at fitting. We just seek something appropriate to fill it up. The everlasting quest. Hence the restlessness.