A day in the life of a peacock

Pre-monsoons have been kinder this year. Just at the beginning of the rainy season, the air is humid and clouds display teasing games of surprise and showers in the sky. For the last one week there is lull period though. It’s unbearably hot and humid. Mother is busy finishing the first-half chores for the day. The peacock lands in the courtyard with its riot of colours. It arrives with a small storm that airs the desultory weather. Unfortunately there are no chapattis left from last night supper. This particular peacock likes chapattis more than the grains. She knows it from her experience. It hardly put its beak into the grainy offerings in the past. Chapattis, on the other hand, it relishes almost like humans. She feels sorry for it. “There are no chapattis son!” But the feathered son follows her in the courtyard. She even tries to shoo it away so that it can reach some other door-step and beat its hunger at the earliest. It’s terribly hot and humid. The multi-coloured guest is panting. It cranes out its royal blue neck to search for the chapatti pieces. They aren’t to be found. It then follows mother to the innermost recesses of the house. It seems to have run out of its options in the wilderness. Pesticides in the surrounding farms. Hardly any option for the poor national bird. Hunger is a terrible pusher. It changes one from what one generally is. The fear of hunger is worse than most of the other fears. So the big bird, having run out of natural options, follows her. With panting beak, beating its natural instincts to be scared of the humans, it kow-tows her to grab the moment of her generosity. Her heart melts. “No chapattis today! And you don’t eat grains, but still try these today.” She puts a bowl of multiple grains including wheat and pulses. When you are really hungry, the choice and type of the food don’t matter. With quick beakfuls, even not caring to crane out its neck to ensure safety, the poor thing gulps down the grains. Mother looks sadly at it. “Poor thing isn’t cribbing about food.” It just wants to beat the hunger. Having eaten to its full, it takes some pecks in the water bowl left on the courtyard wall and swoops away with swooshing the air and glitter of its colours under the sun. It has ensured a day’s survival in a world where its next generation has almost no place. 

Farts of a village frog

There is an independent will pervading the universe, expanding with the cosmic expansion it elopes with the infinity. Its particles sneak into our subconscious mind, leading us in directions where we won't go consciously. No wonder our minds are such restless, unreined, unchecked horses. Thoughts just float around. It’s a chaos. Disorderly mess. The mind is the sea in constant upheaval. There are storms of thoughts, ideas and emotions. The challenge lies in taming the self, in building strong ramparts against the meteoritic onslaught of the rampaging soldiers of the universal free-will. The citadel of the self has to be strong to withstand the barrage. Once the meteoritic showers stop their random crash-landings in our brain, it will turn a cool, tranquil, peaceful and calm pond where one can see the real self reflected in crystal clear waters.

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One minute of hate and anger comes at the cost of one hour deducted from life. Hate is the choice of the worst; love is the smilingly picked up gift of the best. The journey from the worst to the best doesn’t cross seven seas. It’s just an arms-length endeavour. You just let go hate from one hand and hold love delicately in the other. It just requires this much for the biggest transformation, from the worst to the best. Choose to be the best.

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In the farthest fathoms of my being, a steady lamp is aglow with its soft mystical rays. I but kept on looking heavenwards for light and guidance, ignorant of the tiny torch carrying the cosmic flame within. Blinded by the worldly blaze outside, I fell headlong. Even the tiny inside lamp toppled and put heart on fire. Don’t worry guys, it gives just acidity. A bit of heartburn. Maya mili na ram--the end result!  

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Two honeybees drowning in the water bucket. I take them out and they fly. Not just saving two lives, I create the possibility of an extra honey drop for this bitter world. Goodness is complete in itself. It doesn't need the outcome to qualify it. Do your good deed. It might be almost invisible, but it carries a positive outcome in some corner of the universe.  

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Strong lies are better than weak truths. It’s nothing but about the support and confidence in your truth which can be different from someone else’s truth. Your truth is truth as long as it survives on the life-force of your trust in it. Strong lies are nothing but the tombstones and graves built on the dead truths buried safely for convenience.

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After socialism you have to build capitalism. Ever saw anything more contradictory? Look at all the socialist societies. After the class wars and purgings, and decades of torture and robbing people of their free-will and independent choices, they plant the seeds of capitalism again. Why? Because there is simply no other way. Efforts at socialism are all like burning down the previous harvest, weeding out endlessly, tilling, breaking clods, preparing the seed-bed, only to plant the previous seeds again. Damn funny and tragic. If all this ends at the same point then why all this blood-bathing?

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At least be a living room dissident. It saves the soul against the evil. This is just some practical advice to those struggling again undemocratic governments. For example democracy supporters in Hong King. It keeps the flame alive for more appropriate times.

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Imagine a philosophy student working in a boiler-plant, or a pianist working on radio circuits. Such wonders are possible only in a communist society. It’s only about killing the freedom of mind and choking the spirits to mass produce zombies who don’t understand much about what human life is all about. Left-leaning Indian intelligentsia ought to be put to some manual labour to get the rust off their ideology-clogged brains.

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"A communist is someone who's read Marx, an anti-communist is someone who's understood him."
Svetlana Alexievich

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When it rains in Haryana, the most chilled out people are the electricity board for they cool their heels and bless us with 24 hour power cuts, always everywhere in the villages at least. Possibly the belief is that once blessed with rains the farmers don't need anything else in life. Anyway it doesn't pinch too much because even on the finest day we have at least 14-16 hours of power cut. Our CMs have changed but they are all comfortable with the power cuts at least. A very suitable agreement on certain policies, I see. It was the same under Chautala, Hooda and remains the same under Khattar. Possibly some things are better left unchanged.

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Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich. The book is elegantly fat, white, hardbound and seductive. Lose yourself to its charms. It will open up the communist-time horrors of stifled emotions, imprisonment of the individual soul and loss of the natural ability to even make sense of what freedom is. Hope the caricatured Indian version of communism does some soul-searching after such revelations.

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That which is best, the universe conspires to preserve it. Same is the case with Taoism. Uprooted from China, it will survive in India. Buddhism was India's best export. Taoism can be our best import.

The Elixir of Life

A look of hate snatches and steals a part of life; a look of love adds something good to life. A hateful thought kills; a thought of love saves life. Hate is the evil collaborator of death; love is the bright-smiled custodian of life. Nurture the good and the best in you. Like most of the things it can be practiced and learnt. Practice smile. It’s a small pill of wellness. Learn to look at things with love. Start with your food, water, whatever you drink, or whatever you eat. Before you eat or drink, take a minute’s pause and look at the thing, the instrument of life, the helper of your survivability, the soldier of your life, resting before you on the table. It’s there for you, to help you get strong and survive and live another day. At that moment there is no better friend to you in the universe. Accept its friendship and brotherliness. Embrace its camaraderie. As you chew, swallow and gulp it down, it will become a part of you. It’s something that will be you once you have it in your guts. The moments before being eaten, it becomes a sacred part of your extended self. Accept it. Look with love. Take it as a blessing from your guardian angel to help you beat the negative forces hankering after your demise. The food taken with such love and affection becomes the elixir of life.

Dumplings on a rainy day

There is no absolute truth. All we have is just a pliant, relatively swaying sea of fractional truths. We draw out our suitable share of tit-bits of truths from this sea to complement our sense of identity with the self, i.e., ego, self-consciousness, our perception of the things, our vision of the world and the people around.   

  

Women are humanist!! Almost perfect except one thing! Their humaneness crosses the zone of perfection and slightly touches an arena where bitchiness for their own sex starts in free flow. It is here the man's chance to appease his women opens up its welcoming arms. A man has to realise that it is more practical to say a few negatively critical remark about other women than millions of appreciating words about his woman!!

Happiness is when everything is soaked in rain in the morning and the diligent boy hands you a copy of dry newspaper. You feel like proclaiming him a champion and yourself a lottery winner. You just grab your slightly damp copy--newsprint is so soft that it soaks some moisture from the air itself, so the delivery boy cannot help in this--like a prized possession. Life is not about mountains of mighty triumphs. It's about tiny molehills of such small pleasures. Learn to be happy with scores of little, little strokes of luck that come your way on a daily basis. Simple mathematics is: At the end of the day, the sum total of our little fractions of luck is more than the big shitty stroke of bad luck. Appreciate your tiny sinews of luck for they tie the rope of your survival and sustenance. If not for them things can go wrong in as many ways as the vastness of this universe.
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In the burning whirlpools of the desert storm, some tears shed by a suffering heart vaporize and go high in the sky for rainy prospects. Don’t get senty guys, it’s just an airy oasis.
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Don't take victory for granted. She is a very choosy bride. She has her own, sometimes illogical, criteria to pick up the groom.
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A nuclear bomb undoes all other types of technical superiority in conventional warfare. Similarly, leaps in space technology will see a country undoing various technical superiorities in the hands of rival countries on land.
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To escape boredom, a man has to just extend his normal schedule; the same extension, which overlaps a woman's effort to tide over her boredom, turns her into a sinner.
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The best compliment for my book Faceless Gods was by my friend's six-year-old daughter. 

Struggling to hold the fat book in her small hands, and lost in the dense text, she gave the expert review, "Uncle has got a very nice handwriting."
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Truth need not be salted. Even in its bland form, it's more vocal than any well-peppered, politically correct, hypothetically safe and socially convenient cuisine.
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Bigot, watch out, there is poison in your plate!

My dear terrorist, I have a very simple question for you. Why does killing come so easy to you? Each and every breath of a newborn is literally purchased by its parents and wards in lieu of love, affection and care which go beyond any monetary value. Why then you simply get ready to sniff out lives, the very same lives which have been taken care of tirelessly and unselfishly by parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, relatives and friends.

Killings in the name of religion is what defines we earthlings as of now. Quite surprisingly, the fundamental tenets of every religion aim to make the followers better human beings, better not just for the self, but for others as well. Religious texts seem imploring a person to become an instrument of betterment, a heaver of humanity forward on its march to better days. The core of all religions is meant to be love and compassion. Why then so much of hate and blood-bathing in the name of religion?

The walk between good and evil is very dodgy and testing. Like a rope-walker is inclined to fall, with each step it’s about evading the fall. There is a natural pull for the fall. Only with each careful step and awareness one can move on. Goodness requires practice. It doesn’t come naturally. Meanness has its own instinctive, convenient outlet through the little channels of ego pervading through our self-consciousness. Hate has its own natural pull. It just shoots off, gathering its own force once let loose, like a boulder rolling downhill. In hate you can do anything; it’s a terrific ignition. In anger you can rant endlessly.

In contrast, in love and peace you have few options. Love is going uphill. You have to hold it in your heart. You have to carry its weight. You pant and perspire. Man, it needs effort, simply because it doesn’t come naturally. Thousands of years of struggle to survive has genetically ingrained fear, insecurity and hate in the core of our being. Slightest trigger and the arrow is shot. Mention love and how many words you can speak out. Call of good deeds to be done around, you will twiddle your hair to find anything good to do around. Now mention hate, anger and destruction. And you have the options scattered around you to carry out ranging from verbally abusing somebody, slapping, screaming, breaking heads, throwing bricks to even killings.

Religion in practice is like the bamboo in the hands of a rope-walker. It is meant to stop the fall. It is supposed to prevent your fall with each step. It does so by making you aware of being good. So you take another step, then another and then another to complete the journey.

The religion in the hands of bigots doesn’t remain religion at all. It’s a poisoned pill. Condemn it in direct terms without fiddling with diplomatic maneuvering and falling in the clutches of impotent concept like secularism. Bigots are just simple mismanagers of religion. Throw them out of their authoritative seat. Hold them by their neck, kick them on their ass and spit on their version of religion that ordains killing innocent people. Not only they force a fall from the rope of life, they kill the soul. They kill the soul by sidelining love and replace it with hate. It imprisons the soul. It is skin deep addiction for some abnormal gratification of the sense. It pampers the evil side of the personality. There is always a choice to be either good or bad. It robs one of this natural choice. Only dark force with its ghosts of hate, jealousy, anger, insecurity and frustration remain in the fray. It grips you and makes you an instrument of the evil, a foot-soldier of chaos. You don’t see the light from within. You are a blinded, crazy robot, ready to strike. And when you strike you just kill, without bothering about who you are killing. They are mostly innocents.

When a child, who understands religion no more than the alphabets in her books, is killed in the unsparing spool of violence, what lines in the book of bigotry can justify the deed? When innocent people out for shopping, going to office and out there on the small stage of life get killed, which God in which heaven is appeased? If He is appeased, then to the hell with such a God!