Cats in my garden

 

A friendly feral cat visits once a day, eats a chapatti or whatever else is on offer, and brushes against the legs of anyone who is comfortable with the feline touch. It has been going for the last few years. Every year she brings her kittens, leaves them in the courtyard, goes out to hunt for rats and squirrels. The rest of the dietary supplements are taken care of by her foster human family.

This morning her three children have arrived to fill up this year’s quota. It’s sad news for the garden lizard couple that has the entire courtyard to them. They would spend most of the time on the ground. The kittens are enough grown up to maul them to a funny chameleon pickle. They better be aware of the danger.

The tiny hunters are snoopy and are searching every nook corner. Suddenly they spring in the air and snap up some little house lizard baby or some complacent cricket from the wall.

There are nests in the yard. Squirrel, silverbill, spotted munia and tailorbird couples have their nests among the clump of trees in the unkempt garden of this nondescript, countryside poet. Obviously the bird parents are panicked. The squirrels are continuously tik-tikking and chit-chitting. The tiny chits of tigers roam the little forest with their typical hunter’s attitude and poise. Full of caution and opportunism. One of them was seen eyeing the silverbill couple with such amusing greed that I burst out laughing.

Well, it’s nature’s play. The cat has timed her delivery at this time of the season when there would be enough rodents to hunt. The birds have laid eggs in the monsoon season to cash on the abundance of insects. Little loops of food chains, overlapping, giving rise to this entire gamut of survival games.

The kittens sometimes spend a few weeks, sometimes a few months. When they grow up sufficiently they scale the walls to taste the feline freedom of a feral cat that is comfortable with human touch sometimes.

Imagine how it was just a day before the kittens’ arrival. It was a silent little garden. The birds had their nests. A squirrel also. The birds sang. But everything changed since the kittens’ arrival. Now It’s just an endless noisy day full of birdie distress calls. The garden lizards have vanished. I saw one of the kittens vomiting a semi-digested stuff. It looked like rotten lizard pickle. So my forecast comes true.

The squirrels who used the cloth line to go to their nest on the tree are playing safe. The tailorbirds, the prinias, the robins, the bulbuls all have to use a major part of their energies in shouting warning calls all through the day.

One of the tiny hunters was seen escaping with what looked like a sparrow tail in its mouth. Was it one of the prinias? I can’t hear their meek peen-peen-peen sounds today. The miniature leopards are taking full advantage of their light weight and reach nests tucked among the highest branches about 25 feet above the ground.

Not that I haven’t tried to bribe them with malai milk, that too pure buffalowala, in order to keep their hunger satiated. They but prefer the raw furred delicacies. They move away from the milk bowl with a mocking smirk and go hunting. It’s a play as well as dining for them. A lethal combo.

In just three days it’s a different world in my small garden. Even slugs get unnecessarily slain, for sheer fun because the tiny marauders don’t eat them, they just kill them for practice I think.

A shrew has been a garden resident for the last two-three years. I took it as a lucky sign. I’m preparing myself to come to terms with its mauled corpse one morning any day soon.

I just watch them helplessly. They are all male kittens. That makes it even more troublesome. Girls behave slightly better. I get annoyed at them for slaying the peace in my birded garden. I’m sad for the fate of my little winged friends who give me so many tales and poems to write. But when the big fat rascally feral tomcat came to kill them to keep his harem intact and unrivaled in future, I contrived with my brother to teach the lampoon a lesson. He got a stick strike on his bum from the hands of my brother.

We feel like protecting them; we feel like caning them for killing birds and lizards. It’s a strange feeling. They play. They kill. That’s nature. But it’s heartbreaking to hear the distress calls of my bird friends. I can just watch helplessly. I know this is natural. But would I be a poet if I accept this fact so easily? Well, I only pray that these hunters grow soon and leap away on hunts beyond our garden. Then me and my birdie friends will take a sigh of relief. But will they leave any bird alive till that time comes?

A few weeks down the line. Stronger and more lethal, one of the three rascally kittens, who have forcibly taken over this village poet’s garden, is sprawled in the yard as the king of this tiny forest around him. An image of utter relaxation, hind legs drawn backwards, the front paws sprawled out, giving maximum rest to spine and the rest of the body. The birds and squirrels all agitated meanwhile. Its one second of rest coming at the cost of restlessness of dozens of creatures.

All the garden lizards are gone, few of them unnecessarily killed for fun, some puked out half-digested forcing the poor poet to clear the mess. The squirrels lost all their kids, except one squirrel brat that doesn’t dare to come down from the tree. One of the rascals is always sitting there under the tree for a non-stop watch.

The frogs get mauled. The senseless maulers don’t eat them, they just play cats and frogs. A new game. A grandfatherly bullfrog used to come into the garden from outside, sneaking under the iron gate grills, after the night fell. The village poet saw it usually while having his post-dinner walks to and fro like an old retired lion in a cage.

The old frog—it looks really old—proved his wisdom when he stopped sneaking into the poet’s yard after the dark. But last night it committed a folly. It came in. And one of the rascals had the time of his life with the old gentleman. It hopped like a springbuck and would land on the old frog as it tried to sneak out with its tired gallops. The miscreant would go scampering over the yard and would come jumping like a springbuck with firecrackers tied to its tail and there it would land on the poor frog. Look at the expectations! Wanting playmates after such killing and mauling sins! At one point they vanished in a bushy corner and weren’t seen for many minutes. The helpless poet feared for the frog’s life. But they finally came out. The feline nuisance wanted the poor fellow to play with it and do the same kind of ecstatic jumping. Somehow the frog managed to sneak out of the yard after almost 15 minutes of playful cuddling by a cat brat.

The birds and nests are gone. The nostalgic poet hears only angry warning cries of birds from the surrounding heights alerting one another to avoid the forbidden yard where three killers roam.

The rainy season used to be the time when the yard and little garden had many birdie residents allowing the poet to watch lots of lovely tales of winged parents raising their kids. But this monsoon it happens to be the season of slaughter in the poet’s yard. Oofs! And look at the shower of relaxation drenching this hero who basks in peace after slaughtering joy from many birdie lives. Phew!

The poet wants nagraj, the big old cobra that stays in the messy clump of trees, grass and bushes right in front of the gate, to sometimes pay a visit and teach them a lesson. Nagaraj’s hooded hiss will see them tumbling over with fear and maybe wet and soil their pants.

The primordial paternal urge

 

Flatworms are hermaphrodite—one individual having functional reproductive organs of both sexes. Each flatworm guy (or call it a girl) has egg-producing ovaries and sperm-producing testes.

As a result of this unique biology, they engage in a fascinating competitive process of mating. It’s a ‘penis-fencing’ duel. The rivals try to stab each other with their two-pronged penis to inseminate the opponent. The winner carries the tag of being the father. He lacerates the loser’s skin with his lust-lance and injects his sperms. The loser becomes the mother carrying the burden of fertilized eggs.

They fight to be father because pregnancy and being a mother costs much at the level of investment of life energy. Being a father is an act. Being a mother is a tough process. As a mother, you launch the next generation by burning your own life fuel.

In nature there is this fatherly greed and lust to pass on the genes at the minimum energetic costs of reproduction, while being a mother involves huge amount of energetic contribution including pregnancy and post-birth rearing of the newborn.

The willing-to-be-father lancers raise their bodies to flaunt their two-pronged penises. The combatants give their best to stab the opponent. The successful stabber injects sperms into the rival’s circulatory system.   

Sometimes, both combatants end up lancing each other and carry the proud tag of being mother and father at the same time.

Basically, at this level of life’s manifestation, it’s about being stronger or weaker. Today’s strong guy is tomorrow’s weakling in the face of a smarter, stronger opponent. So being father and mother occurs in succession, or simultaneously in too closely contested matches.

The penis-fencing duels may last an hour sometimes. So this is no lovemaking, it’s plain war. Sometimes the smaller guys turn out to be more agile and get a better chance to lance the big, burly rival. Small guys also can win, as they say.

The swift horses of autocracy

 

Strong leaders get themselves elected, and reelected: through media manipulation and misuse of autonomous institutions in democracies; through purging rivals in the name of corruption and changing party clauses in autocracies.

It is clearly visible that autocracy is a big inspiration for strong leaders in the democratic world to try to become all-powerful potentates because the concept of ‘power’ itself is built on the foundation of ‘becoming all powerful’. So the ultimate dream of a strong leader in a democracy is to become an unquestionable leader. It’s a natural progression: beginning with a leader to become ruler to turn an all powerful potentate.

Earlier there would be some odd strong leader in the democratic world and some odd extra powerful leader in autocracies. Following international norms of diplomatic language and behavior was the norm. A leader was expected to speak, act, behave and present himself in an image built on globally accepted norms of diplomatic protocols. And any adventure on part of some strong leader would be instantly viewed as misadventure, unbecoming and uncouth.  

However, in the present decade that critical line has been breached. In a world full of strong leaders trying to be extra-strong—using fears and phobias nationally and internationally—any type of verbal misadventure is now a simple reality; it doesn’t automatically get cast in the mould of diplomatic breach like earlier. No verbal adventure is misadventure now. Adventurism is now the new norm.

Putin started it on a big scale after honing his adventurism domestically for decades, clinging to power, crossing all limits to decimate opponents and become a new-age Czar. Then he carried it beyond the Russian borders by flouting all international norms such as sovereignty of a country by attacking Ukraine. It primed the world for offbeat behavior by powerful leaders.

Many world leaders now speak publicly like common people yelling on public squares. It’s quite normal now to see big leaders squabbling like irked neighbors. That typical image of a responsible, restrained, diplomatic leader lies in dustbin. The UN is operationally redundant. We have retraced our steps to the era of WW II. It doesn’t feel like we are led by guiding leaders; it feels like we are pushed by strong leaders.

Many strong leaders, who haven’t so far taken their behavior beyond national borders, are testing it domestically. They are flouting all norms followed so far. They are setting up a new normal of systematically curtailing free speech; robbing the autonomous institutions of their objective, neutral character; setting up capitalist oligarchies to boost their political agenda. All in all, it seems a scary world.

The herd of sheep

 

An experiment was carried out to assess the individual and collective evaluation of a situation or decision making. There were some jars full of coins. The participants were individually asked to estimate the number of coins in jars of various sizes. Surprisingly the estimates swung between two ends—too much and too less off the mark.

Then the sum total was carried out to calculate the average estimation. The average came very near to the exact number of coins. The plus and minus cancel each other to take a balanced position. But it’s possible only when there is no homogenizing influence to tilt the individuals’ opinion, calculation or way of thinking.

Democracy originated in small Greek and ancient Indian republics in the Gangetic plains. The population was small. The tools of mass influence didn’t exist. The majority assessed the character of a contender as per their own set of individual or little group beliefs, expectations and motives. The various ends of the spectrum came to a healthy average—the choice nearing the best leader of the lot (in strictly relative terms).

I would call it the utopian form of democracy. But things have changed drastically now. Under the onslaught of mass media and other influencers like the social media tools, very few individuals think independently these days. The people feel comfortable and safe in becoming part of a narrative, ideology or shrewdly set-up framework by the power aspirants.

The media, social media and various other tools of influencers now influence the masses in a way that thoughts become like factory products—mechanized, on a set pattern. So when millions go to vote to elect their leader or representative, it’s not the competition among millions of choices to give a healthy, impartial average choice. Rather, it’s simply a clash among a few categories of choices—just a few dozen on the basis of ideologies and narratives that are served to the masses through media and which the masses consume so copiously.

The minds of the masses are fabricated to act, believe and think as per a few set patterns that serve the interests of the power contenders. It’s about diluting the individual’s independent, sovereign choice and opinion and implant a pre-set option in him. So millions of individual choices have trickled down to a handful of options.

To what extent an individual can be influenced or primed to act in a pre-determined manner can be gauzed from horseracing punters’ cleverness. The cleverest better puts very high stakes on the weakest horse. His cronies spread the word. The crowd takes the weakest horse as the strongest contender. They put high stakes on it. The smart guys meanwhile win sacks of money on the real contender whose bets were ignored by the majority under the spell of the false narrative.

Well, democracy is about individual choice. But presently there are efforts to chuck out that choice.

The puzzling game of life and death

 

12 June, 2025. Air India Flight AI 171 takes off at 1:38 pm. It was all over in a minute and a half. The flight was airborne for maybe just 31 seconds. It crashed killing 241 (of the 242 people onboard) and dozens on the ground.

A 40-year-old occupant of seat 11A, named Ramesh, walked out of the mountain of fire, alive, not seriously injured. But who can have an idea of the extent of scars and injuries on his soul? His brother sitting on seat 11F perished in the crash. Such a huge wall between life and death!

I don’t think the fire, explosion and the impact gave him even a fraction of a second to see, feel or know anything about his brother. Their mother’s heart torn in two—one happy for the son saved; the other crying for the dead son. Such tragedies mercilessly divide the same heart! But pain has bigger, stronger swiping powers. I’m sure the mother’s heart is all doused in sorrow. Her survivor son emerged limping from the mountain of fire and smoke. A strong man in white T-shirt, crew-cut hair, a patch of red (blood most probably—his or someone else’s?) on the right shoulder blade, oil marks, burn injuries slowly coming to visibility on his face and arms.

The survivor walked towards an ambulance, not yet back to life, still numb by the heavy hammer strike of death on hundreds around him. He waved off such puny, small motives of the onlookers trying to get a news byte from the luckiest man on earth that day. The hunger of professionalism tried to evoke some response. The crowd impulsive with the rub and rut of life where everyone always feels oneself farthest from the claws of death.

The miraculous survivor went dismissing mikes and phones raised towards his face to get a news-making video. Getting bombarded with questions while he still has to come to terms with the fact of his life among hundreds of deaths around him. Is it the time to pester him with such questions? Would he even be able to speak?

Irrespective of what happens to a few lives, it would still be the world as usual.

The plane was airborne for just 31 seconds after its tyres lifted off the runway. A few passengers were live on Facebook videos, feeling so close to life, full of excitement, sharing their joy with family and friends. It was all so-so normal till the last second. The nastiest and hastiest handover of life to death. The videos show happy chatter, smiles, the earthly objects slowly getting left behind. Then suddenly an explosion. Fire. A few cries. Not enough time for full panicked cries. Gone. Like a puff of wind blows off a candle.

Another video shot by a lovely cabin crewmember showing the staff walking with confident steps into the airport with their trolley bags. All happy people, walking with grace and poise to join the journey of hundreds of others.

The fire of death so pervading that you lose your moorings. A drop of water in the fire; a dewdrop of luck eaten by the sea of bad luck.

A girl missed the flight just by ten minutes due to traffic jam in Ahmadabad. You feel happy for her. For an instant. A dewdrop on your parched skin burning with anguish. Then again your conscience is swallowed by the mass agony, for the hundreds who weren’t lucky that day.

Hundreds of common happy stories turned into uncommon tragic ones in an instant. The senior pilot aged about 50, a bachelor. He lovingly cared for his 90-year-old father. The neighbors are all praise for him. Recently he had told his father that he will take retirement soon and will take full care of him.

A man came to India to fulfill his dying wife’s last wish—to immerse her ashes in Narmada.

A doctor couple with their three little children. The father worked in London. The mother practiced in India with her three kids. She had quit her job here. The family was now on the way to a united living in London. A happy family. Five happy people, as the last selfie in the plane shows, on the way to a fresh chapter in life.

A man had come to India for his father’s cremation.

A family coming home to celebrate Eid in India with their relatives.

A mother going to meet her daughter in London.

A sick man wanting to pass his last days in the land of his birth. His wife brought him to his native place. He passed away a month ago. His wife was on her way back to restart life in England along with her daughter-in-law and granddaughter.

Happy parents going to join the house inauguration ceremony at their son’s place who had worked so hard to have a home away from home.

A wife on the way to celebrate her husband’s birthday.

A nurse going back to rejoin her duties after spending lovely time with her family.

A young talented girl going to pursue her M. Tech degree. Her father a poor rickshaw puller. She had been supporting her family by taking tuitions during her studies. They had taken loans to help her meet the dreams of higher education.

A crewmember who always called her friend, a fellow crewmember, after safe landings. They would call each other before takeoff and after landing. It went for 21 long years. One of them is left in the world now to hold onto those memories.

A young Indian-origin British couple visiting the land of their ancestors to celebrate their engagement.

Two doctor friends eating lunch together side by side in the hostel canteen where the plane crashed. One finishes his lunch early and leaves. His friend is crushed to death under the falling debris.

The cook in the mess left to deliver tiffins to doctors, leaving behind his wife and granddaughter to manage the canteen. Now he is waiting for their bodies to be recognized at the mortuary.

Dozens others perishing on the ground including doctors and relatives who happened to be there, including a 15-year-old son of a woman tea seller who operated her cart in front of the ill-fated hostel. He had brought her lunch. She went for some errand nearby leaving the boy to look after the stall. The calamity struck. A car is just lucky to turn off from the margins of death. A few more yards and it would have joined the inferno. The woman is running by the car’s side shouting for her son’s help. The son dies. She is trying to find him, bearing incalculable weight on her soul and fifty percent burn injuries on her body.

The bodies burnt beyond recognition. The relatives facing the trauma, giving DNA samples to identify their near and dear ones. Just a few bodies recognizable. Are they the lucky ones in the mayhem?

The flight will no longer be called AI 171. It’s AI 159 now.

The world as usual. A minister gets his impressive reel shot—with background sound—while visiting the crash site. The VIPs love photo shoots. Their presence is well marked. The plane’s tail tip jutting out of the gutted building. The VVIPs stand under it looking pensively into the scene of tragedy, asking questions maybe. The questions that they never like to be asked by others. The photographer must have lain on his back on the ground to get this historic angle. The VVIPs and the only remains of the ill-fated plane. The impressive photos cover the front page of newspapers the next day. Of course these are social media days.  

Sunjay Kapoor posted a sad, sympathetic condolence message on the tragic air crash. He wrote about life’s brevity and fragility. He died shortly after the message. A wealthy businessman, he died in the most unexpected way. He was playing polo; didn’t fall from his horse to suffer injuries. All nice buds of life encouraging for survival, joy and happiness around him. A safe cocoon, except a little dot of bad luck—a honeybee. He swallowed the bee while playing the elitist game. The bee stung him in his throat. The swollen windpipe choked him. A cardiac arrest followed. A chance arrow of bad luck (death) picking out a life from the arena of joy, laughter and prosperity.

In contrast, the seat 11 A survivor, sitting on the least preferred seat in the unluckiest aircraft that day—they say seats 11 A and 11 F are least preferred because they are right in the middle and the passenger can be easily the last one to deboard—survived. The luckiest man that day, surviving due to a chance arrow of luck (life) among the mayhem of death and fire in which hundreds were charred to death around him.

Two mysteries at two opposing ends, drawing the thread of good and bad luck (agony and joy; pain and pleasure) between them. The irresolvable ironies of life. A drop of water surviving in a sea of fire. Chance. A dot of fire surviving in a sea of water. Again chance. We can just marvel at the stroke of luck. The flash of hope. But that’s brief like a shooting star. Very soon we are blanketed by the weighty silence of darkness. The pain and suffering of so many for little strokes of luck for so few.

Futile human desires, ambitions, fears, jealousies cast shadows even on death, forget about life. Kuki-Meitei ethnic conflict, which has ravaged Manipuri society for years, has transgressed into the corridors of this air tragedy. Two female cabin crewmembers of the ill-fated plane, two beautiful young women, came from Manipur. Nganthoi Sharma was Meitei. Lamnunthiem Singson a Kuki-Zo. Local administration, police, and community leaders are holding talks to resolve the issue.

Hundreds have died in the conflict. Thousands displaced. Kukis have left Imphal and surrounding low areas and have gone up the hills. The Meiteis have done the reverse. They have their own armed militias for security. The central forces working like a buffer between the two warring communities.

Where will Singson’s body land? That’s the question. The Kukis don’t enter Imphal. Earlier her family lived in Imphal but they fled to the hills once the violence began. The police promised them a security cover in case they were ready to receive the body at Imphal airport. Imagine the plight of the bereaved families. The dead deserve dignity and respect.

There was a fear that they will be attacked if they went to Imphal. Even if the police gave them a cover, there was a concern that their own community members might get angry about their Imphal visit.

Kuki Students Organisation was helping the family in receiving the body. So it was a community matter now. They didn’t seem comfortable about taking the body first to Imphal. They suggested that the body be first flown to Dimapur airport in Nagaland and then take it by road to her place. The route didn’t have any Meitei areas on it. The other roads from other airports nearby passed through Meitei areas.

The girl had lost her father early. They had to leave their house in Imphal. The house was looted. It shows to what extent the societies are fractured on social and ethnic basis. Even the dead bodies can’t create a natural sense of respect and security to facilitate their passage. Perhaps people have seen so much blood to turn callous in soul. Hardened souls. They finally settled for the safe option—taking the body through non-Meitei areas.

The mankind has not been satisfied with being human. He wants to create something far more powerful—machine. The machine is more important. The proud creator. The creator of the religion of the machine. An entire system of business rituals around the Goddess, the brutal machine. Profit making, the sole dharma.

Aviation corporate is one of the biggest money churners on the planet. The budget of leading aviation companies can surpass the financial worth of entire continents like Africa. To keep the money-churning religion of machine going, the mankind takes the blame on himself, or puts it on fellow human beings, thus saving the sanctity of the machine.

Whenever there is some aviation accident all efforts are employed to keep the machine’s image and reputation intact and malign the mankind—the human error. This case is no exception. The narrative of one of the pilots deliberately turning off the fuel switch has been let loose in the news market. Even though aviation regulators had raised concerns about the plane maker’s fuel switch locking system.

Who cares about the reputation of a deceased pilot? He was a small fly. The corporate is a behemoth. The latter has to be saved. So an individual can be sacrificed on the altar to appease the goddess. Who cares about thousands of flying hours that made crores of rupees for the employer and helped thousands to reach home safely?

The aviation company’s stocks shouldn’t fall. The man is liable, not the machine. Money, money, money. Only money is left, mankind is no more there. It’s an obituary to the collective death of humanity among the Homo-sapiens by this poetic man.    

Luscious Ladakh

 

People run away, or rather try to run away, from multitudes of putridities and puerilities plaguing their mundane lives. The plains sound like cradle of corruption and the hills, clad in mysterious miasma, beckon with solitude and salvation. They have become the charging ports for the hapless society feeling sapped of enthusiasm for life despite all the material progress taking place around.

Ladakh, with its immutable serenity in the fertile womb of its outer barrenness, offers broad avenues to the ruffled soul to dilate the self and be in a dimension that is accepting, healing, motherly and solacing.

Me and my brother plan an yearly sojourn to take reinvigorating sips in the land of monasteries and mountain passes. One need not be a globetrotter to unwind the suffocated self and qualify as a typical ‘traveler’. Just open up yourself to the places which you can afford to visit. You simply have to block the strains of indiscretion and each place unblocks its wealth of experiences and lessons for your gain. Each place is a kind host; provided we are willing to be courteous guests.

Luscious Ladakh, full of pristine emptiness! So close to the unmanifest! A Zen-like peace echoing through its rarefied terrain. It pulls we brothers during summers when the lofty passes open the door to the outside world. The wintertime desolation melts and streams flow with ripples of hospitality, warmth and inexplicable joy.

A drizzle in Leh is as special as a mystical rainbow! A numinous feast for the eyes. I look and marvel at this heavenward arc of truth and beauty defined by human endurance, faith and rituals. I’m standing in a monastery overlooking Leh from a lofty craggy peak. The scented breeze of spirituality emanates from the ancient wooden balcony of the Namgyal monastery overlooking Leh from the top of this high hill.

Sublime, solitary and unhurried world of peaceful monks at the Hemis monastery about 45 kilometers from Leh. An elemental and monumental urge to discover one’s loftier self in dreamlike isolation. In the museum in the monastery, I marvel at the fossil of Lak Khyi. There is an interesting Buddhist myth about a wingless vulture pup that crawls on ground following its mother’s shadow. It’s considered to be very auspicious. The enduring myth, as sturdy as these barren brown cliffs surrounding the monastery. The specimen looks quite realistic. They don’t allow it to be photographed. But it’s an unforgettable experience to stand silently in front of this fossilized remnant of the mythical bird.

Turtuk, the hidden gem, the earth-toned paradise. The little village carries cerulean charm of deep traditional hospitality, spiritually nestled in the trans-Himalayan hushed, raw, minimalist milieu. Here is the pair of a sparkling son and its muddy mother: a pristine, crystalline glacial stream emptying into muddy rugged Shyok river. The sizzling snowmelt crisscrossing the cliffs like a glittering thread of life in the cold desert. And down the valley, the untamed feminine fury of the Shyok river.

The pristine azure noon sky; the ochre shades of the setting sun on the rugged brown cliffs.

The wild and furious tempest of the spating Shyok river near Turtuk—water’s massive, muddy and ferocious push against mammoth mountains. We walk on a swaying narrow wooden suspension bridge linking the asphalt road to a little farming hamlet on the other side. The planks old, worn out but resilient like the indomitable Ladakhi spirit. The wind buffeting, howling its songs of sovereignty. The waves in the river so big that they nearly kiss the rudimentary planking of the bridge.

One has to forget the habit of taking quick steps and walk with meditative awareness and prayer-laden poise, feeling the pulse of silvery calmness under this roaring, muddy, frightening stream. Each step transporting you to a gentle dimension underneath this hoary, austere face of mother nature. It’s like crossing the torrential stream of life using the bridge of a stable mind (a steady psychosomatic composite self) to reach the other shore.

Diskit-Shyok-Durbuk road is one of the most challenging roads in Ladakh. It traverses the remote barrenness along the angry cuts of the Shyok river in the valleys bearing telltale signs of the river’s flooding and furious capabilities. The muddy and mighty Shyok is unsparing. The gurgling glacial streams emptying their stormy fury into the mother valley swipe away the road at many stretches. The trek is absent at many places across the muddy plains. But as they say, the hardest routes lead to the most beautiful views. Travelling on this challenging road leads to a blissful destination: Pangong lake.

Let’s ignore the worst part and focus on the best one: The BRO’s tireless work in the mountains. There are road stretches in the Shyok valley that can put even Delhi roads to shame. As you ride on bike in these stretches, ancient stillness whispers songs of boundless solitude in your ears.

Pangong, the multicolored liquid gem in the navel of mountains. The liminal lake (transitioning between worldly and the divine) and the surrounding panorama are ethereal, transcendental to the last core of their molecular structure. You feel a monastic timelessness while standing on the sacred lake’s shore. A sun-drenched remoteness taking you in its majestic, wind-carved folds. A stark vastness takes you in its embrace. A touch of nomadic, snow-kissed Himalayan houri sends sizzles of otherworldly desire across mind, body and soul. Words fail to do justice to the beauty of this high-altitude wonder of mother nature.

This landscape is a living temple and Pangong lake is a beautiful Goddess. On the surrounding bare brown ridges a mystical, wind-sculpted monastic hush is layered over the harsh weather elements. I’m glad that people travel thousands of kilometers to have Her darshan. And they turn very childish in having fun on Her banks. Still it’s better to have celebrating children, drinking and carousing on Her banks, playing in Her temple yard. It’s far better than wars and tragic bloodletting.

For hundreds of merrymaking children, all it needs is to be one grown up person to clean the dirt like a caring, capable parent once the children have had their fun. Pangong is a mother, forgiving, allowing the children to have fun and leave behind litter on Her banks. I inhale the untamed, high-altitude contemplative air, get the message from my refreshed conscience and start doing what ought to be done instead of just cribbing.

To me She is a luminous Goddess. And here I perform my rituals. I light a lamp by cleaning about one kilometer of Her holy banks. She seems very happy. As I meditate on Her banks, I know it’s a different dimension, an ancient and infinite one. My rewards are the fresh experiential strains of knowledge as I mediate on Her bank. Yes, I have it: Her blessings in the form of the otherworldly whispering of the infinite; a spirit-cleansing touch of divinity. A few moments of being in the confluence of earth, sky, spirit and silence. And still more blessings by the sacred spirits dwelling in Her waters! She never lets Her children go empty handed.

A man comes strolling with his wife, raises his thumb to say, ‘Good job!’ To me he is even bigger culprit than those who spread the litter. He isn’t an ignorant child. He understands. Still just wants to clean his conscience by giving a good remark and raising a thumb, as if his duty is done just by this inconsequential action. ‘It’s not an act in abstract. It’s meant to inspire others to do the same. I expect you to do the same,’ I say. He is eager to leave the scene without dirtying his hands. His partner is visibly embarrassed.

I’m not bothered. I just move with my load of plastic and discarded cans and walk like a contended, timeworn, unhurried pilgrim on a very-very solitary pilgrimage trail in some remote corner of the world.

To others She is just a lake for having fun. But to me She is a living goddess and so I light my little lamp of faith by cleaning Her banks.

The bike ride from Pangong to Hanle gives you a taste of sepulchral, elemental vastness. Silence and solitude comingled with challenges now and then. The barren slopes almost intimidating you with their rarefied ruggedness. Not to stop you, but to give you lessons necessary to make you a better journeyman. Lofty brown slopes surrounding you like great ancestors, brooding with grand conjectures on their wrinkled faces. The bike labors. But the rider is kissed by sacred stillness emanating from each stone and crag in this enduring, beautiful barrenness. You go listening to stoic lessons of raw resilience to surpass all odds.

You come across some unique sun-bleached, wind-washed, pilgrimage-worthy landscapes, almost extraterrestrial in nature, enshrouded in a silent soliloquy. The wind carrying a mysterious and mystical whisper. Just the purring of your bike cutting a little line across the sandy plains seeped in otherworldly solitude. You can’t just help but inhale big draughts of nonbeing on this trans-Himalayan altar, the shrine of a goddess raw, silent and aloof but always there to bless you, guiding you with her all-powerful presence. 

Rezang La hill and memorial on the dusty plains. Major Shaitan Singh and his company of 120 soldiers attained martyrdom on a hill overlooking the memorial site. Carrying sky-hungry Himalayan spirit and bravery, they fought till the last bullet, killing 1300 Chinese soldiers in this most fierce battle of the 1962 Indo-China war. A heroic tale written in the majestic monochromes of motherland and duty. If not for their supreme sacrifice, we would have lost the strategic Chushul sector. People like you and me have the freedom to travel to this very remote part of Ladakh, which appears like Central Asian Pamir plateau, only due to the bravery of these soldiers.

Dizzying hairpin loops from Hanle to the world’s highest motorable pass, Umling La. They take you in their dizzying eddies and leave you uncluttered of the puzzles and anxieties you carry in your head. You just bow down, all reverent to the rarity of these moments on the roof of the world.

As you move upward, it becomes a journey inward. The peaks around don’t dominate, they instruct you, guide you. You soak silence once the initial inhibitions are shed and then you feel that silence isn’t absence of noise, it’s a pure and refined presence, your own undisturbed self.

The most trickily poised slopes and high peaks, almost standing equal to the sky, aren’t here to invite you for admiration. They just, like kids, need your attention for your own evolution. As you go spiraling across loops after loops in the highest motorable road in the world, you get the secret: Ladakh is a shy country girl. She won’t reveal all her charms instantly; she helps you master the art of patience by withholding her charms, leaving you in her pursuit across this fabulous vastness.

The Indus river moves somewhere hurried, somewhere loud, somewhere with gentility and patience. Cutting like ribbon of truth in the thin air. In the valleys, villages cling to barren slopes like firm belief against aggression and pressure.  

Somewhere, an unknown and unsung memorial of a martyred soldier far away in the cold desert. But mother existence seems to pay homage through little alpine flowers around it. A few moments of paying homage to this defender of the motherland. A tear. A bouquet from the soul.

Little alpine flowers in the meadows around a small village on the shore of a stormy water body, Lake Tso Moriri. Bright, gentle, slow mornings in the Ladakhi village. The soul-satiating hospitality, the warmth of wrinkled smiles on old faces, the calmness of lamas, the gentlest pace of life. The day almost a lovely picture.

Beautiful messages of wisdom and caution by the BRO and HIMANK, the two military institutions that can put to shame any corporate office in India in terms of efficiency, commitment and dedication to mission irrespective of the toughest odds stalling the progress. As you move on your path, it’s as good as reading the book of life itself. We move slowly and read the signboards by the roadside.

 

It’s not a rally or race,

Enjoy Ladakh with leisure and grace!

 

Heaven is a myth,

Ladakh is real!

 

Higher the hill,

stronger the will!

 

Slow is the speed that lets you see the mountains.

 

High roads demand low ego.

 

Nature ahead—drive as a guest, not an intruder.

 

Mountains forgive slowly; drive wisely.

 

Silence outside begins with caution inside.

 

One wrong turn can disturb a thousand years of calm.

 

The road is narrow, but your awareness must be wide.

 

Respect the height—life breathes thinner here.

 

Horns wake stones, not mountains.

 

Drive slow—beauty has no exit ramp.

 

Speed thrills briefly; Ladakh humbles forever.

 

These hills remember every careless move.

 

The lake reflects calm—match it.

 

Here, patience is better fuel than petrol.

 

You are crossing a landscape older than fear.

 

Fast driving shortens journeys—sometimes permanently.

 

In the land of monasteries, let restraint lead.

 

Every curve is a question; answer gently.

 

Altitude tests machines, wisdom tests drivers.

 

Arrive alive—Ladakh will wait.

 

Ladakh silent like a prayer that has been held for too long; vast like an idea which refutes bondage; still like a monk’s gaze at the rising sun. The mountains rise like unanswerable questions against the sky. Prayer flags fluttering, inspiring the habitual clingers to ‘let go’ of the unnecessary stuff of life.

At night cold settles firmly but with a clarifying wink. During the day, the sunlight scatters forgiveness, arming even the hearts of big boulders with acceptance and receptivity. Then the night arrives again, coming like a velvet curtain to take everyone in its deep and absolute folds.

The path curves with the logic and reasoning of survival; the journey is not always straight, but involves essential bending and needful curves.

The polished mirror of lakes where the sky muses over its own existence. The snow is nothing but silence resting and made visible for the benefit of humans. Horizons stretched around like breath held by divinity in wonderment. Life prevailing like stubborn mantra, repeated over and over in chanting and prayers in monasteries. Rocks nothing but thoughts abandoned and lying useless, the stray thoughts left to their own little self. The desert opening its heart by stripping itself of all the secrets to reveal truth, unadorned and naked.

The monasteries sitting on ridges, seeming like punctuation marks in eternity. Silence the daily prayer. Mountains ancient monks. The valleys like bowls receiving eternal truths from the sky. The unguarded infinity showering from the sky. The lakes mystical mirrors to reflect on your troubled thoughts to wash them away. And high-altitude villages fragile yet firm pauses in time.

Memories float on the wind, not noise.

It’s a divine paring down of the worldly events: an exotic stripping from ornamentation of forests, plants, birds and animals. A slumberous vortex on the threshold of earth and sky. Its eloquent barrenness speaking more effectively than the fertile valleys and greenery far down on the lower altitudes.

Well, that’s Ladakh for you my dear readers.  

The last hope

 

The sea of greenery is receding very fast. The trees are vanishing. We are now living in a barren and brown world. Today another tree was chopped down. A blackberry tree that stood at one corner of a cropped field, lovingly shading the engine room. Here the farmer and his friends enjoyed cool shade and delicious blackberries in the summer. Nearby, some panels of a solar pump occupied a little portion of the field, giving a clean source of energy. Then the farmer calculated, like we humans usually do: ‘These solar panels waste the corner of the field where I can’t sow my crops. Let me put them on the roof of the room. That will clear the field’s corner for sowing.’ So he decided to chop down the tree because it shadowed the roof where he planned to relocate the solar panels.

And in this way, dear readers, the tree was chopped down. It was just preparing to give them another season of ripe, delicious blackberries. There it lay with its raw, green fruits. Its leaves losing life under the scorching sun. Wilting and melting. We humans very easily forget about all the things that a tree has given us for years—shade, fruits, clean air. We would chop down a tree to clear a few square feet of farmland to sow some more pesticide-soaked crops.

Mother earth has been critically overexploited. Every square inch is under stress because we humans have broken all sustainable barriers. Consequently, even the plants, birds, animals, reptiles, insects, bugs, fungi, bacteria and virus are fighting in a cramped corner. The birds are fighting for some odd nesting site that is available in the urban jungles. Under our barn roof, there is a mud nest clinging to an iron rafter. The swallows use the same nest season after season. Earlier the bird nests were just temporary camps set up by the winged nomads roaming freely in the skies. But things have changed. The skies have wires and planes. The houses are plastered. The trees are vanishing. So even nests are becoming costlier, on account of the rarity of suitable sites, and hence acquired the shape of almost permanent properties.

The swallow couple always returns for their next hatchings here. Sometimes the swallows fight among themselves to grab the property. It’s a very noisy fight. Then recently even house sparrows thought of taking it by force. Soon the fight between the sparrow and swallow couples tuned into a community affair between the two species. A few sparrows and some swallows fought for a couple of days. Finally, a sparrow couple has grabbed the property—after another battle among themselves. It’s a small mud nest. It doesn’t have enough space for a grass nest which the sparrows are trying to fix on top of it. They keep fetching dry grass and the stalks keep falling down. I am sure they will realize the futility of it all—that it was a useless capture. It’s so symbolic of what we do in our competition and fight with our fellow humans. 

These are the sad reflections of a poetic man walking on some odd uncluttered trail among the farmlands. But what does a poet need to uplift his spirits? Not much. Just coming across a new flower uplifts his spirits. I come across a beautiful painted leaf flower! A natural coating of bright red on the green leaf! A summer beauty! And we think we have innovated the art and craft of painting our houses. I think we are mere small imitators of the grand design that mother nature is. This flower helps me in regaining my smile after the tree-cutting episode.

And then the ever-smiling sadabahar says, ‘Don’t worry! Cheer up! There is hope for humanity till there is even a single flower on the earth!’

Further, these little trumpets of four o’clock flowers give a little pep talk: ‘See brother, we don’t lose our smiles even in this 40 degree Celsius heat. We have adapted our smiles to thrive in this fire. Similarly, you too need to adapt your flowery heart to the fire that’s going around in human affairs!’