Life and times in solitude

 You always need new angels in your life, or rather we turn ordinary people into angels to fill the vacuum in our life, to rub off the slate and make it clean of the image of the former Angel-turned-dark angel-cum-demon. Our mind is a very suitable instrument to create new realities. We are very innovative with our justification for this dusting, cleaning job. Well, human mind is a wonder indeed. No wonder, we have so many parallel realities. A kind of complex web. Like spiders weaving web to catch prey. But spiders are better weavers than us because they don't get caught in their own weaving generally. While we get tangled in our own yarn usually. So fellers, keep your web simple. It's difficult to walk out of it.

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Life is like a rubber string. It’s dead and limp without any stretching, taut tension in it. So guys if u feel stretched just enjoy the pleasant pull because that simply proves your lifefully throbbing status. We can enjoy this string-walk as long as there is tensioned tautness under our toe-hold. The pull and tension gone, we just crash-land and turn maggot feed. But tension under our toes is one thing, tension on face is quite another. We just have to be careful during the rope-walk. Later on we can even learn to smile while walking carefully on the rope.

**

If you relegate luxury of life to the paradise after death, believe me you will not be lacking in spirits to turn your as well other's lives into hell here on earth. Joy postponed is embracing pain in the present. If you live just for outdated principles, customs and dogmas in the hope of hitting the jackpot of joy in paradise later, you are missing the point of life. Make love, compassion, joy, care and happiness the tenets of your living and you create your paradise here only. Why wait to die for all this. The only religion of life is to live a meaningful and happy life. God's and paradise are better left alone in peace. The paradise must be crammed to the ceilings because there have been billions who chose to suffer on earth to get a ticket to paradise. Why be in such a hurry to join an overcrowded place. Our little earth still has a lot of spaces left for love and laughter to bloom fully. All we need I just to realign and reshape this life.

**

A gloomy grey dawn. All silence except the lonely katydid who still kept its hopes alive for a mate through it unhurried breep breep. The sky hung spent. It overexerted itself in breaking September rain record. The earth below soaked full and lay sleepy like an overfed kid. No rockchats for their pre-dawn birdy chatter. Then the faint traces of a new day filtered across clouds. A handsome oriental magpie Robin took over the chorus from the tired katydid and the dandy black and white bird's teasing, naughty chitter broke the ice. Instantly a couple of peacocks gave gruffy hoots. A crow kawed. A dove sent its docile notes. A white wagtail chipped in. A few sparrows gossiped across the branches. The morning chorus singers increased in number and variety. It's the birds who announce a new day most beautifully. Listen to it. They always seem wishing you the best of a morning!

**

I can never recall a more rainy September day as today on the 11th. Continuous rains since 5 in the morning and still going well into the afternoon. There have been just few pauses in between. Everything is soaked to the hilt. Trees stand with bowed heads. And a butterfly, taking a chance during a few minutes of rain break, flits around. Hail life! Such wispy wings not only survived the watery onslaught, it comes out to claim its life and living as well, and imagine when it's still drizzling...now who says there isn't inspiration in life? I find this butterfly full of life and unmindful of the odds against it. Lesson learnt, we can always do better in any situation. It's windy...still drizzling...but the butterfly has to have its long delayed breakfast. So here it goes to take a few hasty sips from soggy flowers.

**

If Taliban is all for medieval forms in all forms of life, no problem with that. They aren't comfortable with modernity and Western values. Again no problem with that. It's their choice. But then they have to follow the same principle in fighting also. Why don't they fight with swords and spears, the medieval weapons of war? Why use the latest weapons? These are modern tools and mostly manufactured by the Western countries. I respect your medieval choice. But then you have to fight the enemy with your own weapons. Take up swords guys. We will applaud your endeavours!

**

I'm a common man with modest means and common people have to be conscious of their deeds that may justify their philanthropic conscience. They have their limitations and need to look for small avenues to satisfy the good spirit. I am no exception. I collect my tiny grains of good deeds. A potted rose feeling extremely thirsty, its buds and top leaves drooping despiritedly. Pour water with care and consideration. Within fifteen minutes you have the results. The branches straighten and leaves turn taut, the buds raise their heads again. They will smile fully tomorrow. Now who says good deeds don't fetch beautiful results?

**

Birds sing beautifully most of the time, except when they fight or are scared, which isn't too often. I can't sing. But I can at least say something about their songs. And I can write a few lines about music. Well, that makes me happy!

**

The day 

holding its last ray,

The dusk 

at its mellifluous cusp,

The breeze stops

to welcome dew drops,

To the nest

birds return for rest,

The leech

also has to reach

a place safe,

To crawl

cling and brawl

on a new day.

**

A richly yellow, thick, grand old guava leaf lets go of its grip on the branch and tumbles down to create a soft tonk on the car roof. The completion of a journey! Well, I believe some stately wise old man also died peacefully in sleep, after completing a joyful, meaningful life, in some corner of the world at exactly the same time.

**

My dear human-centrist theorists, please recognize that this earth and the drama of life on it is a bit larger atomic arrangement. There is hardly any qualitative difference between a simple atomic arrangement and earth as such. They are just numerically different. If you feel too large for your skin, stand on the terrace on a clear dark night and stare into the starry distance. To the cosmic immensity, an ant and an elephant on earth are the same. Well, but the ant and the elephant are entitled to their grandiose plans here on this little mud ball. You, me and all of us are entitled to the same. Play your drama joyfully. Don’t miss the little things that bring a smile. Appreciate the smile of a flower, applaud the airy dives of a butterfly, hail the rains and go stomping in the monsoonal mud, feel the kiss of gentle kiss of the breeze on your skin, salute and acknowledge the ferocity of storms, roll in the green hilly pastures, bathe in mountain streams, enjoy your tea at a roadside tea  stall, bless a child, give a coin to an old helpless beggar, throw grains to the chirpy birds, chase away the bully feral dog and come to the aid of a meeker one, share your food with others at the office canteen, congratulate the office peon for looking smart and energetic, the list is endless my dears. Little thinks that can give us a smile are countless, so why wait in vain for the bigger reasons which are so few. Little causes of smiles are the sinews that will one day make the nest of your happiness, which one day gets us joy, appreciation of life and gratitude for being alive. Keep smiling my dears!

A mundane-morning of a common man

 A Common mormon, a black butterfly for the uninformed, lands on my bushy grey shack of hair. How do I know that it’s there? I see it in the landing pose coming straight from the front. It must have grossly overestimated my saintliness and sat a few ant-paces from the hairline. That is the most beautiful burden ever to carry! I hold myself still to prolong its stay. My neighbor proves he has a nice eyesight. ‘Hey there is butterfly on your head!’ he points out from the terrace. I just smile in response. It must have been a tired butterfly stopping to take a pause only. Soon it realizes, it’s no saint and takes to its colorful dives. I see it and wish it the best of a morning.

There is a monkey on the parapet, very relaxed with its legs hanging down the wall. One hand is taken back and the palm spread on the wall top to support the relaxing posture. What about the other hand? Do you think a monkey has enough patience to keep its both hands relaxing? Never possible, I tell you! He is fondling his endowment. Scandalous. Now I now from where our lust comes from. It comes from the monkeys because we share 96% of our gene pool with them. Monkeys have sex in their mind as well apart from their bodies, like we humans who have more of it in our mind and far less in the body. That’s disturbing a bit.

The kittens give a nice lopping exercise to their tongues as they get busy to lick out even the steel metal apart from the milk. They find it shameful if some drops remain in the bowl. Then one of them moves away with majestic contentment. It arches up and then downs its back, stretching its paws, opening its jaws to the full. I think it’s a kind of digestive cat-yoga that helps them in bearing up with the ill-effects of overeating. The other one moves away sluggishly. Probably, in order to give a stiff competition to its sibling, it has overfed itself to the extent of finding cat-yoga impossible for the time being.

On the terrace of a house in the neighborhood, there is a long bamboo pole fixed at a corner to serve as a cloth-line. A cloth-line doesn’t require this kind of length to sustain itself. The farmer must have used the whole of it, deciding against cutting it to lesser size, so that it can be used for some other purpose also, like thatch rafter or even breaking the rival’s head from a distance in the drunken street brawl, which are in plenty by the way. For the time being, a crow is using this extra length to its benefit. It spends most of its time on the top of the bamboo pole. I was wondering about the reasons for its taking this point as its favorite. I think I have found one. Right under the pole, there is an open-air bathroom in the corner. The farmer has four adolescent daughters. They are full of life and giggle mischievously at anyone from the age of 10 to 60, or maybe even beyond because I haven’t seen the older ones getting the benefit so far, provided the object of their giggle belongs to the opposite sex. Well, that’s just being young. What’s wrong in that? I hope even the crow hasn’t been emboldened by their free-spirited grins and sits there, waiting patiently for the roofless bathroom to be occupied. Well, if that’s the case, I find it really objectionable. I have learnt to take their grins at me to be cuddly daughterly ones and from that relationship I feel like shooting the crow down with my sling-shot.

That isn’t possible by the way. The Chinese sling-shot let me down on its first instance of usage like Jinping dumped Modi’s Phafda affection. The sling-shot was hung on the wall like a Knight’s sword, unused since it arrived from China with much promise of performance. It came out of its scabbard for the purpose of turning a rascal monkey’s red bum still redder as it threw around things on the terrace for the sheer rascally fun of it. A full criminal, I tell you. Like Jim Corbet, monkey-hunting this time for a change, I aimed to the last limits of my eyes and hands. The instrument gave its best. The tension was gone both from the weapon and the holder. The pebble was safely in my hand. The rubber snapped. Chinese rubber, why the hell I even expected much of it? The criminal just walked away over the parapet fence, unpunished, and most importantly, with the same shameful redness on its bum. I couldn’t contribute to the color. So I felt really disappointed.

Well, someone just asked, ‘Why don’t you tweet on Twitter?’ ‘I am not a sparrow, so I can’t tweet much. I am a frog rather, so I croak. Let them have a Croaker first then I will croak,’ I told him my real reason for not tweeting much.

Just now the kitten has crash-landed into the yard from the fence. It’s out of its wits and dashes straight into the barn to hide in the safest corner. A pack of babblers is after its life. Now it realizes that birds aren’t that delicate as its mother must have told. They aren’t just soft, juicy meat. They mean plenty of shameless expletives as well, as the pack of babblers prove now. They hang around in the barn for full five minutes, throwing choicest abuses and challenging the cowardly kitten to come out. It but won’t come out. Never mess up with babblers little cat.

The beginning of a new day

 The morning turns best by default when you wake up after 8 hours of dreamless sleep. Even a semi-cloudy musty day appears as bright as it’s on a full sunny morning. The flowers give you a better smile than you remember. Aren’t they the same flowers? But the eyes looking at their smiles are more fresh today. A butterfly, a Common mormon to be precise, is resting on a sadabahar leaf. It’s a beautiful black butterfly with whitish spots running across the hindwing. Its wings are spread, not drawn taut together in instinctive mode to fly away at the slightest danger. A resting butterfly with spread out wings is a great treat to the eyes. You get a chance to observe its colors and patterns more closely. While flying, it’s a teasing flirtatious speck of colors that titillates the heart but deprives the eyes of the beautiful patterns. A small grass yellow Eurema hecabe, drunk with youth, is all impatience and eagerness as it makes the most of its short life through airy dives and nectar sips. Probably, the resting Common mormon is middle-aged like me and knows the importance of rest and repose also after flying high. The Indian silverbill, a cute little pale white bird, has redecorated the globular nest of the Scaled munia and is happy with the proceedings so far. The monkeys have rarely allowed a successful hatching of these cute little birds so far. They are too restless for other’s peace. They just snatch away the nest. But all is well at least today and that’s more important. Tomorrow may have bright sunshine or a storm, that’s time’s problem. A pair of angry tailorbirds darts in and sits on both sides of the refurbished silverbill house. They are angry over something and have a lot of complaints. They are too loud for their tiny size. The silverbill just trills feebly like the jingling anklet on the ankle of a little girl. May be it’s a bully pair of tailorbirds who are still angry because their well-hidden leafy nest was spotted by the monkey and torn away, throwing away the chicks. As I had run to turn its bum redder for the crime, I could see one chick in its hands. If it’s a rascal monkey, like they are without an exception, it will have its breakfast. If it’s a kind monkey—which is the most improbable thing on earth—it may raise the chick and create history like the wolves did in rearing Maugli, the jungle boy. Well, the angry tailorbird are too much for the meekly trilling silverbill. Depression of losing one’s home and kids is understandable. Maybe they find the silverbill docile enough to vent out their anger. This world is but full of bigger bullies. The tailorbird’s pinchy shrills attracted a few babblers. There they arrive on the scene to settle the scores. Can anyone match a babbler’s chirpy anger? Not at all! They can give even the most querulous, cantankerous peasant woman in the neighborhood a well-heeled run for her money. The tailorbirds are outshouted immediately and they leave the field. The silverbill sneaks into its nest. The babblers sing the song of their victory for a few more moments, challenging any more mai-ka-lal to take panga with them before flying to arbitrate in some other quarrel among the lesser bullies on some other tree. And thus picks up another fresh day on its slow march to speed up later to go slumberous again at the dusk.

Time reaping the furrow: Angels to dark-angels to demons

 Time is the master ultimately. In the long term, lush green forests give way to barren deserts, mountains get broken, mighty boulders become puny, round, kickable pebbles. Nobody and nothing can have a way against time. All we can do is to make the most of what has been given to us on the scale of time, like one takes a fistful of water from a swift running river. Splash a bit of it on your face, take a tiny sip to drink and sprinkle a bit to play like a child.

Even the oceans will dry one day, that’s time playing football, scoring goals after goals. It plays the same trick with our life also, and most significantly does the same to our relationships. The once shining angels turn to dark angels, finally to become demons to be shunned altogether.

But we have some choices here. We can stall the rampant march of time over our lives. That’s what we can do with our consciousness. Finally, it will have its say, no doubt about that. But we can play our own interesting football with the fistful of time that we have in our grasp.

Time will of course play its tricks by putting horns on the heads of the smiling angels in our life. Things will surely change through shift in situations, circumstances, needs, goals, ambitions and many more. But we should try our level best to at least change the shining angels from turning full throttle demons in our lives. Let time do its tyranny, we can but stop the degradation of someone’s status in our life from turning a demon. It can be any relationship. Let’s fight against time’s tyranny and stop a bit short of allowing someone become a full demon in our life.

Of course, the once shining angels cannot stay the same forever. Things change. Circumstantial winds are too fast to allow the wick glow steadily forever. It will shake in response to the weather elements. It is helpless in that regard. Change as we know is the only law. But we can avoid the time’s all out tyranny in our lives. Allow time only this much tyranny to turn your angels into dark angels, nothing lower. An angel is still an angel, and a dark angel is far better than a demon. The last one will give us stabbing pain with its sadistic glee. The former will give a mild, tolerable heartburn.  

The demons in our life are far more damaging to our own selves. A demon hardly cares about itself because it is a demon in our perception. Within itself our demon may be somebody shining angel for the time being. So whose loss it’s in petting a demon in the mind?

If there is a demon in our life, it’s fed by our own anger, guilt, hate or jealousy. It will harvest more of these to fatten itself and pacify our ego through injured pride and bruised vanity. The equation of anger, hate, guilt and jealousy is beyond the factor of ‘whose fault is this’. All these are the same termites of the same species that eat into our physical and mental fabric.

Life is far better without demons in our lives. Life is a bed of roses with a few angels in our lives. It’s relatively worse with dark angels in our life because they feed on mild doses of anger, hate, guilt and jealousy born of our past with the angel-turned-dark angel. Life cannot be perfect. But it shouldn’t be messed up altogether. So retain your angels as long as you can and later on be kind and considerate enough to keep their status relegated to dark angels only. Don’t allow further degradation because this degradation comes at our own cost.

A rainy day

 The night was surely tired as the pre-dawn hour approached. So were the crickets after a licentious night-long song and revelery. Their throats had given up and they had fallen silent. A couple of Katydids however still carried on with their periodic bleep-bleep, breep-breep sound with so much regularity that it could be easily taken as beeps of medical instruments by a patient bed in an ICU. Probably a new love-couple that isn’t still tired of each other’s song, I thought.

Then the night decided to extend its stay as dark clouds marched in aided by the swift winds. ‘We will help you in hijacking the day,’ they said with rumbling, lightning mischief. The day’s march was stopped at a sultry, wet, gloomy dawn. The sun seemed on a holiday on this Saturday.

The sky surely had rainy diarrhea on this day, September 11 to be precise. It started raining at 5 in the morning and the day would stay stopped at its early morning grey till noon. The katydids lost their song, preferring to save their lives for the day and make love some other day if they survived. A few rockchats, who like to gossip heartily while others are asleep in the pre-dawn darkness on normal days in the neem tree nearby, kept their tongues well in check and huddled in the branches.

We are no longer used to the heavy rains. Monsoon has lost its sheen over the years in the north Indian plains. But climate has ruffled feathers, thanks to global warming, and we can expect drought or flood with equal probability anywhere in the world. So dear readers it started raining cats and dogs. The clouds rumbled, lightning flashed, wind blew, a kind of cyclonic stormy rain it was.

It hummed on the tree canopies and gave muffled drumming sounds like a massive umbrella was under the watery onslaught. After half an hour there was a brief pause that lasted for a couple of minutes. A tailorbird let out its accusative tittering, probably angry at the skies for spoiling its breakfasting hip-hops among the bushes. The clouds punched back with an angry growl and a full throttle cloud burst. The tiny bird must have pissed out definitely.

It rained on and on till noontime. I even got worried about a watery deluge. It was just one watery fountain. The kittens ran in, scared to their wits, their tails and hair up. They must have thought someone was trying to kill them with watery hits from above. A cat simply hates getting wet. It has to give its tongue a lot of effort to make itself presentable again. The kittens ran in so speedily and went into hiding among the things put in the verandah that they would have beaten even a snake in slithery sneak into its hole. I hardly had any clue where they went.

You have to bow down to rain. It carries its majesty and pride. Our adamancy might turn it prejudiced and then we are up for it. The trees stand in mute servitude as long as it’s raining. A peacock did the same. It sat on the roof fence and hid itself among the overhanging branches to avoid direct hits by the rainy catapults. It looked funny because it was shedding its plume. Only two long feathers were left apart from some shorter one. There it sat for a sunny day and full plume when it would again be able to woo the ladies with the fantastic display of colors of its jingling fan. And the rain went on drumming.

We are no longer used to big time rains. Looking at the roof drainpipes we become worried of some mishap. The houses leak, the snakes creep out of their flooded holes. Earthworms give the best of their sprints and move towards higher ground apprehending the mythical flood. I nearly killed one with my slipper, mistaking it for a snakelet because it was almost sprinting in panic. I had to give many a careful look to confirm its status because it had some serious urgency and purpose in movement. The mice and rats also jump from the sinking ship of their bushes and sneak in like the kittens do. The errant and nuisant monkeys also get thoroughly bashed up by the rains. They look so funny when they sit all soaked up and have to settle for good behavior and consideration for others.

Hundreds of frog hatchlings romp around the yard in hundreds. They come hopping into the verandah like jubilant children after the school. There they go around to go still farther from the rains, that’s into the rooms. A lot many manage to occupy the rooms also. They are almost domesticated frogs. You cannot afford to have an unkept yard and its charm to yourself only. You have to share it with many of the gardening and wilderness ilk. I have to be careful not to step over baby frogs.

I remember this frog feller who had made a comfortable home in the kitchen. That was before the rains started when there weren’t that many frogs. It stayed indoors, hiding behind baskets. It would hop out and have a tea time snack of flies while I had tea. It really considered the kitchen of its own. One day it was on an outing and found the door closed. It knew what it was up for. I found it hanging by the wire mesh of the door frame, peeping in with a surly look. I had to allow it in. After that it behaved well and got back well before the closing time. A nice frog it was. Then the rains came and it too came of age. A young frog has to woo its lady. It went out in all excitement and never returned. Probably a lot many of these baby frogs are fathered by him only. His children occupy the house now.  

A stray dog howled in the street. Probably its patience was wearing thin very rapidly. So it howled its imprecations. The rain meanwhile looked set to improve its all time statistics for the month of September in the region.

Around noontime, the sky thought we earthlings had enough of bathing so relented. The show of life that had been overtaken by the rain slowly crept out to take a look at the wet slippery stage. One kitten came out and I saw it going towards the flowerbed to relive itself. It gladdened me that it behaved well and held the urge till the rain stopped and didn’t mess up the place it had hidden in. A monkey came out of the neem branches and sat on the balcony fence of a neighboring house. It raised my spirits to see the foe so thoroughly soaked and well beaten. It will take an entire day for it to reclaim its foolish spirits, I reckoned. The birds arrived with their usual song, delayed though today. The peacock too shook its royal blue coat to expel the extra load. It looked surly and walked around the yard. The kittens looked at it with suspicion and fear from a distance. The peacock shed even the two long plumes in its feathery gear to look less funny now because now it had a few shorter ones only. A peacock feather is a treasure. I ran to collect them and put them in my room for faith and aesthetics.

The peacock must have felt bored because it invented a play to divert its attention. It went in front of the black glossy rain-washed glossy tiles—shiny enough to give a reflection of the onlooker—by the side of the inner gate and used it as a mirror and started kissing at the strange she-peacock in the reflection. It must have been giving it a lot of pleasure for it gave continuous rapping pecks at the lovely lady who reciprocated in equal measure. The requited dose of love and kisses uplifted the peacock’s spirits and it gave an effort and lifted itself to the garden fence, before launching itself onto a larger tree outside the boundary. A peacock is too big for its wings. It’s primarily for colors, not flying.  

In the afternoon, I went out into the garden to check out the rain-mauled garden. The plants were thoroughly beaten but already there were signs of resilience. The branches were getting their business back on track. They have no business to complain against the rain. They exist only because the rain is there. A potted geranium is sloshed with water. Its vase is still full of water. I get down to help the plant and a serious attempt is made at my life. The fighter scouts of the stinging hornets tried their weaponry at my head. Thank god I have overgrown my hair to make it look like the unkempt yard. Had I been ganja they would have gathered their prey very easily. There was severe angry buzzing. I now found that my head was almost touching their new-fangled nest even though I was stooping to tend the plant. The rains had brought down the branch bearing the nest. It needed to be removed. Either they fly or I stop walking in the yard because that was in the direct way. I am selfish enough to retain my unrestricted rights to roam around my yard. Here I declare war on the stinging hornets. I drape myself in a big chador like a Muslim lady in a hijab and wear my bike helmet on top of it. Then I pick up a long bamboo and walk down like a brave Knight to the battle field. The battle is quickly over and I win handsomely. The branch is broken in one clean strike. The enemy citadel falls. They are also reasonably angry and attack my helmet. I chuckle like a wicked witch from inside the helmet. They got their teeth broken also in the attempt.

As I came in triumphantly, the kittens but found me as an apparition. There they went hurtling over the garden fence, one of them even falling and rolling for a good few yards in panic. Only at night they could dare to peep over the fence because the memory and aroma of cow milk beats any fear. Even while drinking milk they took pauses and straightened their ears to look around for the ghost that had entered the house. 

A lazy walk to no-goal!

 In my forties now I realize that it’s not that important to go all the way. It just burns you out. It overheats you and you go panting like a sick mule on a treacherous slope. All that matters is that we take steps. There never was a final destination, nor will ever be. We just hold the baton for some time. Journey well feller!

The main cause of discontentment and unhappiness is that we are too hard on ourselves most of the time. We have almost something of everything in us, but we are always looking to change that into everything of everything. I should have that car, I should have that man or woman, I should have that designation, I should possess that much in my bank account, I should become a bigger star, my children should be world beaters, and scores of all and sundry matters that define our life keep us away from enjoying what we already possess. Always looking too far into the future gives many stumbles in the present and welts and bruises as well.

If you can’t have happiness and joy with what you already possess believe me running after the mirage is a futile exercise. I am not saying one shouldn’t be competitiveness. Just compete with a belief and gratitude that you already have many things, that life won’t be a mess if you don’t reach the intended target. Run after goals but always remember that you already many things that allow you to even think of going further. Stay in gratitude.

Why be tortured to be a perfectionist when you have your friendly sweet-sour amateur self goading you on the path of life? A joyful amateurish clown may turn out to be perfectionist one day. It’s very much within the grasp of normal laws, nothing miraculous about it. Be a happy joyrider, not a grumpy one. The latter only creates nuances on the pathway for others as well.

Why think in terms of the best cook masters in homes and hotels and thus never give it a try yourself? Bake your bread. It may come near the funniest boundaries of the weirdest country or region in the world. Does the tongue discriminate between the best shapes as it turns the best and the worst in the same saliva-saturated mess? Make it eatable to a degree first. Set your own parameters of improvement. Eat your funny bread with gratitude. Give half of it to the dirty stray puppy, mauled by the bigger bullies in the street, lying coiled up near your gate. I do the same. It makes up for the lack of taste born of my amateurish effort. Boil your soup, make your sandwich, fry your eggs, prepare your vegetables as per the capacity of your hands and cooking aesthetics. Hold this slim chance in your hand. One day you will cook to the satisfaction of many people around you if not the entire continents. Isn’t that success?

Eat in moderation, your food, money and even designation. Don’t overeat any of these. It gives indigestion of both stomach and mind. I tried gulping down an entire little of pure cow milk in a few sittings in a day and got to know that I need just half of it. An extra visit to the loo reminding me the difference between need and greed. So the kittens that have occupied the unkempt yard are the beneficiaries of this realization. Their mother doesn’t visit them anymore. Grown up as they are. They are learning the art of life in the yard before jumping onto the larger stage of life. Till then I can play a bit of part time role in getting them still bigger. Looking at them cutely gulping down the milk, their moustaches having milky dews, the milk in my stomach gets an extra digestive juice to give me more benefit.

I am learning the art of giving the extra. It stops the stomach from bloating up as well as keeps my pride and vanity within tolerable limits. If we disburden ourselves of the extra, believe me we will have a far more joyful journey than we expect and will go several extra miles. 

Life is nothing but a funny, farty play. Enjoy it!

 

Matter and energy overlap each other so holistically, so comprehensively, so thoroughly that one is the other looking backwards. The unfolding phenomena make them appear different. In essence, though, they are the same. Matter is nothing but energy in hiatus with the foundations of atomic and molecular structure. It’s a transitory state from uncertainty, probability and full potential of the pure energy in the void chambers of nothingness to a kind of fixity, certainty and harnessing of the already-existing potential in the form of visible particles. It’s a mere fluid pause of energy in space and time.

Energy is matter free of its molecular and atomic bondage at the lowest rung of visibility. As we move up to pure energy from the material manifestations at the lower order, going through various transitory states at the quantum and sub-atomic level, the fixity goes on decreasing. You may say ‘from everything to nothing’ in our laymen terms. Patterns, certainty and identity melt away. The last of the tiniest quarks give way to almost nothingness, pure energy, pure potential. The visible matter is just a fruit on the tree of pure potentiality that defines pure energy in the vacuum of nothingness.

Take earth for example. You have water, ice, air—different transitory states of the same element—in the environment. Beyond our planetary atmosphere we have the dark void defined by cosmic rays and dark matter. This is an incidental bubble in the pop-up play of creation. Gravitational forces and other favourable factors help retain this bubble. The sunrays provide fuel to the cyclical game of matter-energy transformations within the bubble. A beautiful system of regularized events and phenomena emerges. At the cosmic scale, it’s a bit more sophisticated atomic and molecular arrangement of energy, nothing more than that.

So my dear human-centrist theorists, please recognize that this earth and the drama of life on it is a bit larger atomic arrangement. There is hardly any qualitative difference between a simple atomic arrangement and earth as such. They are just numerically different. If you feel too large for your skin, stand on the terrace on a clear dark night and stare into the starry distance. To the cosmic immensity, an ant and an elephant on earth are the same. Well, but the ant and the elephant are entitled to their grandiose plans here on this little mud ball. You, me and all of us are entitled to the same. Play your drama joyfully. Don’t miss the little things that bring a smile. Appreciate the smile of a flower, applaud the airy dives of a butterfly, hail the rains and go stomping in the monsoonal mud, feel the kiss of gentle kiss of the breeze on your skin, salute and acknowledge the ferocity of storms, roll in the green hilly pastures, bathe in mountain streams, enjoy your tea at a roadside tea  stall, bless a child, give a coin to an old helpless beggar, throw grains to the chirpy birds, chase away the bully feral dog and come to the aid of a meeker one, share your food with others at the office canteen, congratulate the office peon for looking smart and energetic, the list is endless my dears. Little thinks that can give us a smile are countless, so why wait in vain for the bigger reasons which are so few. Little causes of smiles are the sinews that will one day make the nest of your happiness, which one day gets us joy, appreciation of life and gratitude for being alive. Keep smiling my dears!        

The Lone Pine

 ‘Embraced by the pining silence

and stillness of these mute hours,

my detached self grows more independent,

free and aloof like these misty distances

virginally spread out under the moonlight,

The silvery mists kiss my prickly needles

with love free of pride or prejudice.’

Thus mused the lone pine

and felt absolutely fine!

Fasting Day Musings

Life can be a bit good, provided we know how to save our goodness from being eaten up to fatten someone's badness. It's always a fight between good and bad.

**

The dam of my patience breaks. I get an ecstatic ease after the release. But someone's life gets flooded.

**

Some people are so practical and smart that their brain seems to be scattered all over their body. From that standard, I find myself pretty dim-witted.

**

By chance or choice, a baby pink bloom stands out among its spotless white siblings on the hibiscus. It looks dandy with a stardom of its own. Some things and people get an advantage right from the beginning.

**

All of us were angrier once. Ageing is a coolant. It's supposed to be so. If we don't, there is risk of getting burnt out. So cool down my grayish middle aged peers!

**

What a day carrying such climatic contradictions! Harmonious blend of opposites! The sky laden with the darkest of clouds sailing in an azure blue sky. Darkness and brightness embracing each other to have a feel of the opposite! Sudden drizzles as a dark cloud lingers over, only to be swept past by a naughty gust of wind. Suddenly the just-wet foliage of trees shines under the brightest of sunlight as the September sun peeks curiously and in wonderment how just-bathed nature looks like! So this shifting canvas defines this September morning: intermittent interplay of clouded dark and azure blue and the winds carrying clouds in gay abundance. Drizzles and immediate drying act by the sun. Cool opposites!

**

There may be plenty of nasty people around. But I'm pleased to tell you that there are far more beautiful people, so many that they will instantly turn the nasty ones into a pathetic minority if all of them are visible at a time. They are the hidden gems. The nasty ones are more visible because it's a kind of shit put at a public square. To make it more pleasant, this society is run by beautiful people. The nasty ones are mere speed bumps on the road. In fact, they serve a purpose in limiting the speed.

**

Today I just got curious to know whether Bond Sahab has undergone Covid vaccination. I think he is the best one to tell about his experience in the easiest spirits, with so much ease, simplicity and beauty that even Corona would lose its spikes and appear a cute tramp.

Learn to Smile

 A geranium needs just a few beams of the early morning sun to spread its smile inside a dispirited room. A sunflower, on the other hand, has to dare for a full stare into the sun’s fiery orbs to grin, smile, laugh or whatever these flowers have the nomenclature for this expression. The night jasmine loves spooky midnight dark to chuckle mischievously perhaps. The sadabahar is unpretentious altogether, no nakhras at all. It is happy to smile all across the year at all places ranging from flower pots to weedy uncemented brick paved  yards to even dung heaps. No wonder, the one smiles the best, who does it with least conditions. This smiling spirit gives it the name that translates to ‘ever in bloom’. A garden rose surely is coquettish and has lots of nakhras. It has to pampered with cuddlish care. One has to get many a prickly pinches in managing a smile on the garden rose. But then it compensates very well with its beauty and fragrance. The hibiscus stands as a pretty good smiling lady if you manage her well through her slippery adolescence, given her susceptibility to get in the company of pests and aphids who love her soft soots. Be with her through this naughty time, she then becomes a big-hearted beauty having broad dimpled smiles. The butterflies have a whole lot of petalous boulevard to give rest to their wings on her big petals. The bougainvillea hardly throws any tantrums. It has strong genes for many clusters of smiles. Even the traffic exhausts don’t intimidate it once it gets it smiley momentum. The marigold is the sweet nice eater of nutrients for it eats well to become a dark green fatty boy before it shows its cherubic grin. Mind you, flowers aren’t all about only the velvety soft colorful landing sites for the butterflies, colors for our eyes and scent for our nostrils. Aconitum, the devil’s helmet, kills and viciously chuckles. Nerium oleander is the scented killer. Castor oil blooms can definitely castrate anyone’s pride. Sum and summary is that all of us are good and bad in our funny, quirky ways. We the eccentric pop-ups have an idiosyncratic blend of strengths, weaknesses, negatives and positives, smiles and tears. Blend well with your surroundings. Being joyful is a habit. We can regularly remind ourselves to feel happy on principle. Make joy a hobby, a kind of propensity through practice. Start with flowers. See, how happy they seem all the time.

The ever-hungry questions

 जिन प्रशनों के उत्तर खोजने पड़ते हैं, वे जीवन पर्यन्त प्रशन ही बन कर रह जाते हैं। वो चंद मुट्ठी राख में खाक बनकर किसी पवित्र नदी की धार में मिल कर अपने अनसुलझे प्रश्न का हल खोजते खोजते अनंत सागर की तरफ बहे चले जाते हैं। और  जिन प्रश्नों के उत्तर स्वत: फलीभूत हों, इतनी स्वाभाविकता से जैसे कि बगीचे में एक पुष्प खिलता है, वे मनुष्य की चेतना को सत्य के और निकट ले जाते हैैं।

The questions whose answers we have to seek, remain mere answerless questions for the entire life span. They turn into fistfuls of ashes that float in the holy waters of a revered river and keep moving in their quest to find the answers. The holy torrents take them to the ultimate sea where they rest finally with the river itself meeting its resting place. On the other hand, the questions whose answers fructify naturally of their own, like a rose blossoms in a garden, they take one's consciousness to the brink of the ultimate truth. 

Aim for a better Taliban and the worse of other terror outfits in the new superpower's backyard

 How to make yourself appear more presentable if you cannot absolutely bring out any change to your own self? Well, our cognition and interpretation of reality is relative and comparative in nature. Use it. Make yourself stand by the side of a still messier persona and emerge as smarter—apparently though—without any change in substance. You will be at least symbolically better. Well, Taliban are far smarter than the last time they were bundled out two decades ago. To make it better for them, they are learning politics pretty fast apart from firing guns. So they may be up for a better innings this time. Given their past, they were almost unacceptable to the world outside Pakistan and Afghanistan. They cannot change their skin altogether. So what was the option? They allowed IS-K, a far bloodier version of terrorism, to stand by them and appear more acceptable and less savage. A very smart game. Please don’t commit the mistake of categorizing terrorism in good or bad terms. These are plants from the same nurseries. Taliban, IS-K, TTP, LeT, JeM and many others are simply different colored plants in the nursery managed by Pakistani generals and the ISI. These are mere chess pieces, move up one, take back the other, sacrifice this one, abandon that one as per the varying situations. The more pieces you have, the better it is. That’s why Pakis keep many outfits under their patronage. You cannot just rely on one. In the face of the gruesome bomb attacks at the Kabul airport by the IS-K, the West now naturally finds Taliban a bit more digestable because may be they are apparently less bloodthirsty. The West should not be too bothered about who rules Afghanistan. They should forget about it for some time. If at all you can do something, facilitate the safe exit of those Afghanis ho want to leave the land in turmoil. Then leave the field clean for the nursery of fundamentalism to thrive unchecked in the backyard of China. Terrorists have no friends. China may think that its clout in Pakistan will be sufficient to keep its Uyghur plans intact. The concept of Islamic Jihad is above and beyond alliance or falling out with outside powers like America and China. China is temporarily part of the scheme just because America is out of it. Its temporariness they will surely taste for much bitterness in mouth with the passage of time despite tea sharing with Taliban leaders. Did you ever see a case where there was a fire in a house and its immediate neighbor did not feel the heat? The Chinese will also feel the heat. About Pakis we need not say anything because to them feeling the heat is a normal part of life. They are used to it. The Talibs have as much a right to rule as the Americans, Russians or Britishers if they can capture Kabul like they have now. Let it be the way it is. Why force a change? When the land is ready for it, the change will come from within. Give resources to the Panjshir valley group to retain their freedom so that this can be used in future. Don’t allow Ahmad Massaud’s land to fall in the hands of Taliban. The West still needs a bit of foothold in the backyard of China. This little space should be sufficient. Use it for geostrategic purposes, focus on ETIM. If you have the guts and resources to nurture it, do it. Recognize Taliban and give them the protocol driven respect a ruling group deserves. It will make them more responsible and bring less mayhem in the lives of ordinary Afghans. Why douse fire if the water you throw also aggravates the embers. At the moment we can try for a better Taliban. It’s prudent to stop the ‘no Taliban’ strategy. Their political office in Qatar has given them some training and experience about how to handle things diplomatically instead of talking through guns all the time. Slowly they will loosen the Pakis grip on their wrist because a grip by an outsider is the least they want. Now they have been focused on ousting America, after some time and cool Afghani deliberation they will prefer to have their hands free of the Pakistani grip. They just cannot help it. They have to shake off any foreign grip. Pakistan has been handy so far in reaching Kabul. But if they stabilize their power for a considerable time in Kabul, Pakistan will be less handy.

Tea-time musings on a breeze-swept day

 With softly pining majesty,

silence sings a song,

Shadows grow long,

Her soft fingers brace my face

and go along a tear's trace.

Delicate tip of her finger bears the jewel,

A tear,

The tear that would have been

lost as a salty line on my face.

**

If the situations and circumstances around you are muddy, count yourself lucky because you have been picked up to blossom the lotus of life in that mud. Ever saw a lotus smiling in clear waters? So guys just splash playfully in the mud. I promise it is worth it. Did you see a pig rolling in the mud? Well, that is bliss if ever there was any. It owns it mud fully. It doesn't hold partial purity of future. It clings to its present mud with full passion. The pig just loves wallowing in its mud. Let the purity seekers waste their lives in reaching the holy pools to cleanse their souls. Let them ruin their present for a promised future. A pool of mud at hand is better than mere promises of holy bathing in uncertain future. Love your circumstances, feller. Try your decent bit and see whether you can change them a bit to your liking. If you manage it, well and good. If you can't change them, simply roll in them like a pig. It is blissful. Believe me!

**

The sun playing hide and seek among floating clouds,

The humid air wispily whispering a smart secret,

The land lying languidly with overdose of love;

its pining thirst quenched

by the sky's countless kisses and love-drops,

A dove pair mating,

lost in the silent majesty of lusty innocence,

And he holding her hand

with a soft touch to cover stony realities,

A gentle kiss follows

to hide the mutual lies told

to make each other happy and joyful

for the time being.

**

Whoever pleases and pacifies the Demons in us becomes our Angel!

Teatime Trills

 Greedy, lustful gust of wind 

clasped the fragrant petals 

of the full-blossomed flower. 

Covetous currents of its dark passion 

tore the tiny vase of beauty and perfume.

Petals fly with dust in all directions. 

The storm doesn't win 

and the beauty doesn't lose! 

The former loses battle over time and distance

and dies with thorny imprints 

left by the stem on its viciously throbbing heart,

The latter spreads its cozily surrendered self 

in the limitless folds of peace.

**

If you lag behind, they will trample you.

If you run with the pack, they will try to push you to the sidelines.

If you outpace them, they will pull your leg.

Well, that's human society for you!

**

क्या कहेंगे लोग?

यही है सबसे बड़ा रोग।

**

Lynched by loneliness,

I surrendered to the 

sweet tyranny of solitude,

The wounds healed,

The suffering receded,

They moved away 

like shifting shadows,

Painful memories lagged behind

and turned milestones on the foggy path,

Of course sweet breeze blows sometimes

and carries sweet memories from behind,

They leave a smile on my lips

and are again left behind, as I move on,

like sweet pathside flowers,

I look back, 

They wave a sweet good bye

with a still sweeter sigh,

And thus we have to move on,

All alone

to our destination next,

And pitch our tent at one fine dusk

and go for a long, long sleep.

**

I know this is in contradiction to aesthetics. But then we have to acknowledge the dark as well. So couldn't help sharing this tantalizing piece of grey shades. By who else? GD Roberts in Shantaram:

"The best revenge, like the best sex, is performed slowly and with the eyes open."

The great game among errant kids

 Let’s talk about Afghanistan from the geostrategic point of view. Please don’t feel bad if the life of an Afghani citizen is seen almost inconsequential in this talk about ‘the great game’. Geostrategic maneuvering is primarily about the interests of the superior powers. The interests of the hosting yard, where the game is fought, are inconsequential. Whoever goes to Afghanistan doesn’t go there as an enemy of Afghanistan. He goes there as someone else’s enemy. The Britishers went there as the enemies of Russians. The Americans went there as the enemies of Russians. Presently, Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran are there as the enemies of America. Pakistan has more reasons to meddle there. They are there as the enemies of India as well. The Afghan tragedy is that nobody has gone there as a friend of Afghanistan. It is always some outsider’s enemy. And enemy’s enemy makes a very shaky friendship. China and Russia will realize it during the coming decades. For the Russians it will be a repeat lesson if they cross over the line again. And a superpower intoxicated China has to learn this Afghan lesson inevitably if it really wants to claim superpower status.

The Afgahnis have more or less accepted poverty as their most prized asset at the cost of their fierce pride, clan loyalty, spirit of independence and a culture of killing and dying. Dying and killing isn’t too much a shock in Afghanistan. It’s very easily digested. Craze is craze. Someone fights for superpower status, the Afghanis fight to keep their ideology and medieval principles. It’s their opium. They love taking long draughts at it. It’s good that Americans have packed their bags. Instead of having their army in the enemy’s backyard, it’s more practical to have a lethal naval unit that can move to any part of the world with effective deterrence. On top of it, take a quantum jump in space warfare. Be several years ahead of the nearest rival. Be in a position to harm the enemy’s space assets. It’s just like sitting on high ridges from where you can easily those coming up the slopes. The formula is: Be up there in the skies, higher than the others and trample down your enemy if they dare to stare at you in the skies.

The ‘graveyard of empires’ is surely going to be the graveyard of the next superpower also. Taliban know that they aren’t supporting Taliban as such. The Chinese are merely opposing the Americans. In this, the Chinese are repeating the American mistakes of nurturing a genie that is sure to go against the master at any cost. In future, fundamentalist Islam is a bigger threat to China than America. America hasn’t reformation camps for Muslims. There an ordinary Muslim goes about his/her routine without too much pressure on their faith. The insurgent groups in Central Asia and Taliban are well aware of what is happening to Uighur Muslims. It’s a temporary accommodation on their part to take China as an ally. One, but, must not forget that fundamentalist Islam’s first priority is keeping their faith intact, however objectionable the outer world finds it. So China will surely realize it later. A badland of blood thirsty Jihadis isn’t that much of a threat to America as it’s to China. Superpower status definitely costs you the sleep of a few nights. Let the situation keep worsening in China’s backyard and its flares will surely reach the Red bastion. In fact, by being there America was doing a bigger favor to the Chinese than to itself.

What about Pakistan? They haven’t learnt any lessons from their fire-mongering against India, which ultimately destroyed them to the extent of making them a vassal state of China. Wait, China is a very tough taskmaster. Imran Khan, your Red Father will extract the costs with a nice rate of interests. Chinese are not Americans that they will pour billions of dollars in the name of fighting terrorism while you keep sheltering Osama Bin Laden. They know how to take more at the cost of giving less. Very strict businessman, I tell you. A democratic creditor will at the most pull your ears and shout at you for bunking your payments. However, an autocratic creditor will spit at your face and put its index finger in your ass for the littlest error. So take care!

What about the modern, educated, cultured voice of sanity in Afghanistan? They have no option. They have to leave and set up their world at some other place. Simple message for them is ‘please leave at any cost, however possible.’ Pakistan you be careful of TTP. They will continue pulling your beard. China don’t count off ETIM like you have done so far. Taliban is a great encouraging example for them. They have an idol now in the form of a triumphant radical Islam. India, keep supplying the Northern Alliance with material help because as a regional power aspirant you too are helpless. So to keep your interests, you supply guns to the Northern Alliance. America, you please keep a low profile for some time and focus on your technologies. There is no need to get into a street brawl with the Red bully who wants to dissipate you. You just mind your own business for some time and don’t get instigated by the puns and pranks about your so called ‘defeat’ in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, victory and defeat mean almost the same. Their own defeat is no defeat. And the outsider’s victory is no victory. Why the hell people go there to fight. It looks like a circus ring now. Abandon it. Of course, help those who want to come out, give them visas and facilitate their rehabilitation. But allow the medieval species to lead their lives as they deem fit. And the fight for world supremacy has better avenues. This barren land is very boring. Go and write success stories on the sea. Have countless submarines, aircraft carriers and destroyers. There is more mobility. Now please disturb the aquatic world. There has been enough terrestrial mischief. And run to the high ridges, I mean go higher into the skies and throw pebbles from there at your enemy’s pot. Well, in any case space wars will acquire legitimacy very soon. So why bother about these poor Afghans. Leave them at peace in their caves, elder councils, medieval beliefs and chuckled smiles at both dying and killing.

Why do I like my corrupt politician?

The urge to rule and dominate used brutal force in the ancient times. Then we started getting civilized and the concept of outright blood and gore to dominate and rule was challenged by the civilized norms of peace, harmony, rights, responsibility, equality, ethics, etc. Of course there is still blood and war in different parts of the world but the voices opposing it are very significant also. Politicians are far better than the outright savage killers. They, at the most, draw invisible white blood instead of the red one. Politicians cut the masses vision, to keep it suitable to their purpose, instead of gauzing out eyes altogether. They try to cut down your thinking to reshape it on their anvil instead of outright beheading. Apolitical power aspirants have hardly any inhibition in pulling out eyes and cutting throats. As a chicken-hearted writer I always prefer non-physical cutting over the physical one. I am always in gratitude to our politicians for they have spared my limbs and allowed me to retain my croaking. With their clever as well as cunning acumen they may push me into the corridors ignominy and pathetic survival. However, at least I still get a chance to keep croaking. Politics is the craft of creating mammoth mountains of symbolism out of tiny molehills of facts or even fiction. It's extremely cunning but very creative work. The massive loafs of cloud then roam in our minds, covering the real from the unreal. The sun of truth stays above and in the shadows fractions of truth, beliefs, conventions and set up narratives mischievously condition the mind to think in a definite pattern for big gains for the politicians. And all this allows them to claim power and its pelf in majorly bloodless ways, save some minor aberrations here and there. What I fear most is the apolitical power aspirants like religious fundamentalists. Do you think Taliban will allow any unbecoming croaking to their ears? Never! They are perfectly apolitical. And believe in drawing direct, real, red blood. In comparison, our khadi clad politician rulers seem angels. Learn to love your political rulers, fella. Ask those who haven’t political rulers sitting over their head and instead have apolitical direct power claimants. Ask any educated Afghani person, running away from the land of misery, what it means to be ruled by ‘active fists’ instead of ‘scheming minds’. You will have all your answers. 

The Pleasure and Pain of being Human!

 You may say that an ant has a tiny memory span of mere 6 seconds. After this brief interval, it reclaims its natural impulse of seeking food. It forgets that you had put a finger across its path and in reaction it stopped sensing danger. But this memory lasts just for 6 seconds after that it has a new start. In comparison, the Homo sapiens possess a memory span of not just this lifetime but massive pools of memories from our previous births in the form of subconscious and unconscious chambers. It instinctively keeps on taking us into past, thus depriving us of the present time’s bliss that the so called lesser species seem to enjoy. One may wonder, is such forgetfulness, the kind enjoyed by an ant and other species, is the real bliss.

Well, of course they have more fulfilling lives. They have the existential limits; we have the possibilities beyond the world of mind-born miseries. They face physical threats to their survival. We have the great faculty of still feeling insecure despite all the securities around. We but can't compare life at various hierarchies of evolution. An ant's karma is bound around 6 seconds of memories. Ours is a bit more. There is just quantitative difference. But there is hardly any difference qualitatively. Look at her passion for life, unswerving focus, her ability to lift weight. Its short, life's each moment is full of unwavering karma. Nature expects the same from us. What are we? We are simply bigger ants with a bit bigger memory. It's never about bliss as such. According to me, what matters is what we create out of that has been given to us by the accidents of birth, this body, our family, our circumstances. Beyond compulsions, if we evolve to a level of living by choice, this according to me serves a big role in whether we live a joyful or miserable life. We have already crawled as ants in the form of consciousness attached to this human body of present. I, you and all of us have already enjoyed ant bliss in previous births, don't worry dear readers. This cosmos has a tendency for moving to complexity. So our individual consciousness is also moving from the simplest body forms to a complex human body. And the journey continues. Journey well you all!

Please don’t get dismayed at my calling our birth an accident, merely a chance event in the cosmos. Beyond the loopy tales of inflated egos, all of us are mere mortals in the scheme of mother existence. We are mere drops for her overall existence, like the drops in the sea effectuate the universality through their individuality. Nobody has a claim over 'more evolved' or 'less evolved' soul. We are mere work in progress. Now, coming to your 'dismay' about our birth as mere accident. There is a lot of difference between 'letter' and 'spirit'. Yes, our individual consciousness has had a specific journey, across various body forms in different births, whose momentum has carried us to the present coordinates of mind, body, soul, circumstances. With that kind of cause and effect linearity, we cannot say our birth is a mere accident. But, ironically we hardly remember anything of our past births, so given this human frailty, in laymen terms, birth appears accidental because we don't know the causes of past karmas as such. We just know the effect, this birth and its circumstances. That's why our birth appears accidental. It appears so, but it is not. When I say that we have to be a creator beyond the incidental throws at us, I just emphasize the human faculty of conscious decision and choice making to be a better version of ourselves.

Is our pursuit of happiness the cause of massacre of earth itself? I would like to say that happiness is never a part of what we have done so far. Have you ever seen a happy and joyful person going on to kill fellow human beings? A happy and joyful soul will be driven by 'needs' not greed. You may say that most of the people in their blind pursuits, whose ill effects are written large over mother earth, are under the impression that they are doing something that they like and love. So it's basically their pursuit of happiness that is the basic cause of present time chaos. No my dear sir, it's the pursuit of misery that has brought us to the threshold of mass misery. This is the fatal addiction, like an alcoholic spells physical and psychological doom under the impression that what he does is driven by his liking, and hence happiness, for alcohol. But would you term it as a happy choice just because someone likes alcohol. This is not choice. This is compulsion and helplessness. Only with a capable mind and body one can make happy choices. It's the helpless, compulsive pursuit that breeds disaster, not choice-driven attempts. With choice driven persona, one becomes a creator, a responsible citizen who knows the ill effects of his/her likes and dislikes. Whatever we like, do or intend to do is never strictly in the bracket of likes and dislikes. Most of the things that we do compulsively are mere escape routes from the agonizing bitter truth driven by guilt, fear, anger, hate and jealousy. There is a difference between what your soul craves you to do and what we end up doing under the primal compulsive instincts of anger, hate, jealousy, etc. My idea of happiness is only about following the inner voice of one's soul, not the outer compulsion driven pursuits most of us end up getting trapped into. The real happiness and joy is proportional to how much we create on the manifest plain following the sing-song voice of one's inner self.

Have you ever seen fragrant jasmine flowers flowering from a prickly acacia? All these prickly fruits of pollution, wars and diseases are the fruits of what we have sown. Their seed isn't pursuit of happiness. Their seed is pursuit of misery. The great mirage of our existence that presents misery as pleasure! We are unfortunately following mirages in deserts.

You may wonder that little animals and insects follow a code of conduct in keeping ecological balance, while we rampantly flout all norms. Is that all it means to be a human being? Is it only about winning over nature and destroy it in the effort? Don't worry ma’am, this creation isn't human centric. Ecological balances at the level of the so called less evolved species may appear a nice code game. In our cases, if you find Homo sapiens outstretching the natural balance, forces beyond earth will counterbalance our misdemeanors. This termite mole-hill that we call human civilization may pop out far earlier than we think, like it has happened many times earlier. So till then let's have a life of joy and purpose. Enjoy your journey!

The Return of the Native

 It must have rained really well to make everyone feel so happy, relieved in fact, after two days of heavy downpour. It rained so heavily that even earthworms thought it was the mythical rainy cataclysm and started crawling into the house, abandoning their hideouts in the garden. Tiny frogs seem to have literally fallen from the skies if you look their sheer number. They can beat even ants in number as of now. Either God brew their seeds in the pools of clouds and dropped them at our heads or the frog couples have been extra horny on earth this season. Well, they have taken over the garden and the ones who want better accommodation have crawled into the rooms and are jumping and hopping. We have to walk very carefully. We are as much of intruders to them as they are to us. In their little minds the house belongs as much to them as we have the notion of ownership in our slightly bigger minds.

Fed up with waters, all seem to say, request in fact, ‘No more water at the moment.’ The sky is still cloudy but one can see the sun making a dent in the cloudy fabric to reclaim its kingdom. It cannot allow the clouds to rule the skies for too long because they are good as visitors only, make them permanent citizens and there will be a big problem. Well, not for fish and aqua life. But definitely for we humans. The air is fresh, cool and windy. It feels like a massive air conditioning unit is blowing after the preceding hot-humid weeks. The weather had turned so sultry and humid as to put a frown even on the most joyful faces. It has been really baking hot and humid. Global warming is a reality and we need to come out of our comfort zones and do something about it. If we miss it, the next generation may not have too many options to avert the dangers. 

Luckily, rains have been very lenient this season. Even the prickly trees are decorated with lush green leaves to appear more presentable. They are no longer the crooked nailed quarrelsome old grannies. They are now buxom happy women of substance. Drunk with rain and nutrition, the branches sway to the song of air. Butterflies have extra air in the wings and loop, curve, dive and lift themselves with the sweet nectar of the rainy season. The dragonflies go with more linear determination against the wind like an adamant drone. All seem out to play after the rains. Birds have raised a pleasant ruckus. A tailorbird couple is hammering their prickly sequence of angry notes to distract some predator from their leafy nest. A squirrel is busy in tik-tik chorus. Probably its bullying neighbor stole its nuts. An Indian Robin chips with her coquettish glance from a wire. Peacocks hoot as the kings of the season. A peacock is under bigger risk during heavy rains because its huge plumes soak so much water. When it rains too heavily, a peacock sits like a statue without moving. That is acceptance of the forces beyond our control. It knows this rainy blizzard is just an aberration. There will be blue skies to fly and sing at the top of their voices. They do it now to the capacity of their lungs. 

Coming to the peacocks! Do you recall the peacock that sneaked into the kitchen when it was really hungry and after feeding it couple of chapattis Ma would chase it away with broom complaining, ‘You eat here and drop your plumes on the neighbor’s roof!’ Ma has departed for the journey beyond this plane. It has been nearly 19 months since she left us. The peacock stopped coming after she left. It didn’t come even once during these months. But here it is today staring into the kitchen. As I came near it won’t run away. Immediately I knew it is Ma’s peacock. He hasn’t forgotten. They have better memories than we humans. I sat on a chair and fed it a chapatti and a sweet pancake. It ate from my hands. I had tears in my eyes. Probably, it can see what we cannot and still feels her presence here. Now it’s sitting contently on the roof fence, its huge plume hanging down and its upper body lost in the neem and gulmohar branches above.    

A laughing dove couple is seeking a suitable branch for making nest as a follow up to their courtship and acceptance of each other’s love. A stern looking red-vented bulbul is feeding pulpy, rain-shod guava to her two young kids who are almost ready to take off of their own. Presently they follow their Mama across the trees. Their dependence has no meaning without her love. And her love cannot manifest without their dependence. A forlorn pigeon looks languorously from its perch on a railing. Probably his girlfriend has abandoned him to fly more joyfully with merrier wings. Another pigeon is playing with the wind. It flutters against the wind, going flip-flop and ascends almost vertically and then abandons its feathery self to be blown happily with the wind to enjoy an orgasmic glide. Is it the happy goon who has taken away the forlorn pigeon’s lady? Well, you never know. Probably they also rub salt on each other’s wound like we humans. 

Kitchens are busy. Various cooking smells waft as freely as the birds and butterflies. And that’s how the song of life proceeds to adopt another day with its tireless rhythm. All this makes this Sunday a real fun day. Icing on the cake is Rakshabandhan, the festival of brother-sister love and affection. Rakhi is a beautiful reaffirmation of the unshakable sibling bond. Wish you all a beautiful Rakhi day! Brothers, give a pause to your habit of spending money on goonish follies and unstring your purse to give a bit more than you are willing to give to your sisters. Give them all you have. It’s their day today. Beyond the customary money, give them the reassuring smile that you will be always there to help them realize their dreams.

A Miracle on the Ganges

Fed by the heavy spates of rains in the Himalayas, the holy river Ganga flew with full life and vigor. Its waters rushed past creating torrents of devotional fervor. The evening Ganga arti on Parmarth Ghat, Rishikesh, is an important milestone on a typical day at the pilgrimage town.

Everything is routinely settled for the evening arti. The yellow robed young monks are ready to chant delicious mantras to enthrall the congregation held on the marble steps overlooking the majestic river. The tourist-cum-pilgrims are set for a delicious dose of religious musicality. At half past 5 in the evening, the hills to the north get clouded by dark gray clouds. The air mass moves down the valley. A strong wind blows. The arti has just started. The rain lets loose a pining, pleasant outpour. It’s a torrential rain buffeting earth with life. It pours down with open heart. The opposite bank becomes almost invisible. Meanwhile, the arti continues under the waterfront shelter as people rush to take shelter under any portion of roof available. The people stand, sit and recline and clap to the rhythmical chime of the mantras. Brass prayer lamps with hooded snakes projecting over the fire bowl burn with unaffected vigor. It warms the cold air gushing into the valley. The hymns are captivating. The Ganges becomes one with the falling dark grey torrents of water. It seems a conduit to the awesome super entity above. Everything is thoroughly washed. 

The people, a teasing mix of natives and foreigners, gather and dive into the devotional fervor with equal measure. Incense smell wafts across, pleasantly plummeted around by the wind blowing down the valley. The spears of rain pierce the heaven-bound fragrance to keep it lingering on earth for a little bit of more time. The simple rhythm of mantras and devotional songs vibrates the chords of faith in many hearts. It’s beyond language, religion, caste and culture. The people are sitting on the bathing ghat steps, lost in devotion, staring at the fervently rushing waters of the holy river. All are part of the devotionally surcharged air.

Even though you surrender, your subconscious mind is encouraging you to have more expectations, entitling you to more blessings by the higher entities.

There she is: an innocent, pure, unadulterated being, beyond ambitions and fight for a space in the world. An accident at the time when she was conceived puts her on the sidelines. She isn’t a participant in the buzzing game of life; she is a mere presence.

She is a girl around 14 years in age, her ‘being’ defined by the clinical symptom named autism. It sidelines her and puts her beyond rampant ambition, the devil bug that infects the modern mankind and despite best of our efforts stays side by side with our imposed goodness.

The swift currents of prayers have captured the mundane souls around but all this, more or less, is meaningless to her. Or does she have her own share of meaning that we can’t understand and perceive?

She is a beautiful special child. Her identity could have been still better had she been in a position to gather the traces of her individuality with the cord of self-interest.

The doctors may call it ‘autism’ but she just is the way she is. She looks the other way. She stares into the tiny side-lane where the birth-time biological accident has pushed her into. She has virtually no claim over the life’s bounties that we so brazenly fight for. This look of detachment appears a punishment to the normal world with its mountainous pettiness. Holding her head at an awkward angle she looks away. She has no reason to fall prey to the surcharged prayers.

The girl has beautiful eyes, a perfect nose and an attractive face-cut. Overwritten is the imprint of her special ability that we take as disability. Her lower lip hangs loose. It’s an opening into her disarrayed persona. It’s a clue to her not being in control of her identity. A bit of saliva drips down. With an effort she moves her hand to wipe it with the back of her hand and muster up some control. She then fiddles with the towel hanky given by her mother sitting next to her.

Her limbs and head move with mechanical pauses, not with that fluidity which pushes us into the stream of commonness. Looking at her helplessness, everyone around appears to own a sea, and she merely a drop. How will you accept such injustice on the part of nature?

Her family appears to have enough sensibility to take care of her needs, but that is no justification. She doesn’t even realize what she has lost right from the beginning of her innings in this life.

Lost in the oblivion of her own special world, she comes gasping on the surface, awkwardly tugs to draw her mother’s attention, who has learnt to ignore such disturbances on her girl’s part.

It’s a particular challenge to raise a special child. You need unending patience and the tank of maternity should never be empty, otherwise the special child has no choice other than suffering.

There are girls of her age, fleeting around, full of life, sweet-sour experiences of life waiting with excitement at the threshold of adolescence. The people are floating leaf bowls containing flowers, incense and a tiny lamp. One tear in her unseeing eyes is more substantial than the Ganges itself.

The sea of her loss drowns me in its endless waters. My own tears add to that sea.  My own bickering and bitterness feel such a meaningless thing. There is everything around, but she cannot so much as take a confident, solid step to claim her share, while everyone in the devotional crowd is busy in a stampede to collect huge piles.

The evening Ganga prayer is over. The rain has stopped. Her family stands up. She also gets up with an effort, her movement standing somewhere between a human and a mechanized robot. It’s not a confident, fluid run. Every moment has a full stop, a kind of an end of the journey. Walking absorbs her in its own world. There she goes with unsteady steps, her hand on her mother’s shoulder to get that support which she will need forever.

She can survive only as long as there is love and care in a fellow human’s heart. It’s more vital than the oxygen, water and the food she eats.

What is the meaning and purpose of her survival? Perhaps, it’s to keep the banner of love and care flying in this worsening world.

The night is falling. Her language has just a few efforted sounds. She can merely respond to the language of love and more still to hate and anger.

I’m lost in the sad sea of her loss. I try to swim to find some justification and meaning to all this. I find none. It’s blank, pointless. Tears are streaming down my face. Her image haunts me. I sit to meditate by the Ganges. The sea of sadness surges in. A daughterly affection for her engulfs me. My hands convulse to bless her with all the happiness possible in the world. My lips move to kiss her forehead and sip down all her agonies with my fatherly prayers.

This seems to be the meaning of her life. Melting hearts, creating selfless torrents in the hearts caught in selfish quagmire and make people feel gratitude over whatever they have got in life.

As I close my eyes, more tears stream down, washing my soul of much of the bitterness I hold on account of my own losses.

I feel like a helpless father who cannot give a portion of the world to his daughter that she surely deserves. I implore mother Ganges to pour all blessings on this little angel; to fulfill the endless abyss of her helplessness with all the happiness and joy possible for a girl. I pray for the long life of her parents, for only the parents are best suitable to feed the vulnerable lamp with the oil of love, affection and care. I pray for her family’s economic well being and over all luck so that satisfied with life, and hence less bitter, they turn more loving and sweet and she gets her share of love and life from that happy pool. I pray for her younger brother to grow up to be a sensitive human being who will take the baton of love from their parents. I pray for him to have an understanding and loving wife who will help in keeping the flame of love going on to enable the flower survive happily. On top of all, I put my faith in Ma Ganga, ‘Ma you have a soul. You are so full of life and carry miraculous powers in your holy waters. Your force can cut mountains, so it can definitely help this little flower take control of its destiny in her small hands. Do a miracle Ma! Let her be cured gradually so that she takes her portion of happiness on her little palm. Do it slowly to make it appear like a digestible fact, a kind of little surprise medically, if you don’t want to make it appear too miraculous!’

The blissful torrents of Ma Ganga ripple past. With the tears streaming down, I pray for that little angel of love and affection. My tears have absolved me much of my bitterness. I open my eyes and look helplessly into the darkness. In the dark, Ma Ganga feels capable of performing miracles. I want her to be miraculous.

Next evening, I visit the arti ghat again to see the angel more than anything else. There she is! I look at the angel with a peculiar mix of sadness and happiness: a strange equanimity, equidistant from pain and happiness. I may have forced myself to believe in a miracle. I am happy with it. I can sense a small installment of Ma Ganga’s blessing going to her share.

Today she isn’t looking with sad indifference into the side-lanes of her unparticipating existence. She looks closer to the world around. She is looking into the praying mass. She appears a bit closer to have her own share of happiness, all by herself. She laughs, shakes her head, hardly making any noise. She tries to clap, rapidly bringing her clenched hands together without actually hitting them. She pulls at her mother’s sleeve with more authority. She looks belonging to this world and ready to see and understand it at her own pace and conditions.

As they get up after the arti, and as she follows her mother with efforted steps, she pulls at her shoulder and points to her waist. Her mother turns and adjusts her pyjama. There they go at their own pace.

It’s better to believe in miracles because sometimes that is the only option left.

For the remaining part of my stay, I fervently pray for her to the limits of my soul. On the day my departure, at five in the morning, I walk down the steps to reach Ganga Ma, wash my face and pray again for the angel. The holy river looks very calm in the pre-dawn darkness. It looks as if she is able to hear my prayers in the absence of all the din and noise. 

Even while moving away in the auto on the road along the opposite bank, I keep lighting the lamp of my prayers.

She is in her own world surrounded by love and care which I believe will only grow with the passage of time, making her happier. More importantly, the miracle of Ganga Ma will work. It may happen slowly but it is inevitable. With the passage of time, she will become capable of having her share of life and living at her own terms to give back the love that has kept her alive.

Any memory of her doesn’t go without praying for her. I feel enriched and evolved by her sight. My bitterness has poured out and it has made me more loving, full of gratitude and more open to the belief in miracles. For, ultimately only miracles count. It may not appear like this, though.

GOD BLESS HER!

MA GANGA PLEASE CURE HER!

LET HER BE THE PART OF THE COMMON STREET!

LET HER COME OUT OF THE TINY SIDE ALLEY!

Miracles are happening all the time. What is quite miraculous is that most of them pass off as ordinary occurrences. Perhaps, that’s how it has been planned.

Never felt so fatherly before. I can feel the likeable pain of being a parent. Blessed is the parental pain!