The sun shining for mother Spotted Munia

The evening is laden with drizzling moments. After the day-long watery bonanza, the sun casts a momentary glance to find out how much more water may be needed. A pale yellow streak spreads under the black curtain of clouds. The spotted munia comes out and sits pensively by her hut. Chocolate brown and white and black speckled underparts. She utters feeble chirrups. The nest is a disorderly globular structure, possibly to confuse predators, with a semi-closed entrance hole. There are eggs under incubation. Probably she has come out to enjoy the rain-soaked evening with a silver lining.

The lady takes a break from incubating warmth to give shape to the formless liquid in her eggs

PS: There are three hatchlings. I can recognise them by their distinctive frail notes. The nest is a masterwork in deception. The outer rag tag globular structure having the main entry hole gives the look of an abandoned nest. The real seat of residence lies in a safer cocoon inside. I saw a curious squirrel enquiringly snoozing by the hole. It sneaked in and came out on the other side of the loose top ends. The little ones didn't so much as even came out of their sleep. Or they prefer to remain mum in Mom's absence. Hail cosmic intelligence. The flawless fabric.

A bit of sun at the day's end, splashing the horizon with pale yellow shine 

Grey dark skies and the new journey of tiny wire tailed swallows.

Perfect outing on a rain-lashed day. With excess of rains the day appeared even gloomy dark. But then the skies relented for some time in early afternoon. And a wire-tailed swallow couple arrives with their little ones. They fly swiftly but are yet to get the wires in their tales like their parents. Ma and Pa are swiftly darting in the overcast skies to catch midges and flies to feed the little ones. Parental duties going on swiftly. The birds are so colourful: glossy steel blue above, chestnut patch on head and glistening white underparts. Well, it's always a better world with more and more birds around. A shikra, crow-sized hawk, was seen around. The parents darted around and send warning whistles. Within a minute dozens of swallows arrived on the scene and darted in their majestically free ways to confuse the transgressor. They are always there for each other, without fail, despite fight, quarrels and brawls for midges. They never betray their instincts of love and care for each other.   

Wire-tailed swallow nestlings...out in the world

The stately Papa (lite typical males he is braggish with longer wire tail) giving a picture of poise and confidence

The happy family. Mother (as they are always, busy) hovering above.

Eying the same midget

Wire-tailed swallow... courtesy @ Salim Ali's book The Book of Indian Birds

Well, Modi Sahab will make it again simply because there isn't any alternative

I'm not much of a political person. Nor have I any tangible stakes in politics, like majority of Indians don't have any. So putting myself somewhere at the centre of the political arena, and looking around for relatively better leadership--mind you it can only be relative, because governance simply cannot be perfect on the scale of our expectations--I can very easily surmise, without any iota of doubt, that we need Modi Sahab as the PM, not just for the next 5 years but at least a decade. Strictly for the better of the nation. For the simple reason that he definitely is the best chief administrator of the nation as of now. Not the I absolve BJP and its RSS affiliates of the tactics of polarization on religious grounds which divides society and even results in violence now and then. It's the collective bane of Indian democracy. All political parties have their divisive and polarizing tactics in one form or the other. Issue based politics has never been the trend in a country where masses have struggled for the seven decades after independence. These are generational changes and with economic prosperity and better literacy we can only hope that things will change in future and real issues will take centre-stage, pushing the divisive tactics to the periphery. 

However, the state BJP government in Haryana has been a really poor show. In every sense of the term. We have not felt the warmth of effective governance so far. Khattar sahab is too honest, straightforward and simple to be a political head. I respect the honourable PM's decision to install a colleague from RSS days as the state CM. But then real governance is far above shiny nationalistic ideologies. You need a crooked, wily full time politician to run the show. And in the Haryana assembly we have a big bunch of such BJP politicians who have the calibre to outshine any other politician in being crooked and wily fox. I won't be surprised if they face some chin music in the next assembly elections. The only chance is Modi Sahab's charisma which may save the boat from sinking in the state.

The funny game of breaking the walls which don't even exist

It’s not a wall, this body, separating the world outside that our illusionary ego, the sense of “I” makes us believe, exclusively separating the self from the other. There are no separating walls. They appear so on account of the conditioned mind and the limited perceptions thanks to our sense organs which interpret the fragmented parts perceivable to them in the forms of feelings, appearances and shapes at certain frequencies. The latter are nothing but concentrations of energies at particular frequencies. Otherwise, it is the same cosmic energy, vibrating, evolving, transforming in endless chains. It’s nothing but an ever existing evolution, with balancing counterpoints all along the way. The apparent creation and destruction, the dualities, are nothing but the balancing acts as cosmic design unfolds. You can compare it to a pole-wielding rope-walker. The movement is onwards, but at each step the pole sways between the dualities to manage the balance and movement ahead.

So let’s start with the cemented identities of the separation of the self from the big scheme out there. At least accept that there are windows in the wall. Accept that it’s not an unbreakable stone wall around your flesh and bones. Open the windows and let the light flood in. By taking windows as walls, we just keep on piling a crust of illusions around our apparently exclusive self. Then it becomes a fortress, created solidly by the mind. A dark, sooty psychological crust around the self. It’s a narrow, confined world of insecurities, jealousy, self-centeredness, hate and complexes. The things which should hardly matter become life-defining parameters. Under the tar of illusions, our real self, our real potential, our gateway to success, plus peace, lies dormant in the dark.

The crust becomes too hard. But its brittleness increases with its thickness with the passage of time, as our age and experience tell us later. It is bound to crack. And when it does, we feel the pain. Our assumptions of happiness and success turn out to be flimsy and childish. It seems we just ran after a mirage. No wonder we die in pain and agony.

So guys start hammering down the crust. Practice opening the windows in the illusionary wall. Let the let pour in. It’s there, everywhere, the real you, with your potential of greatness and peace. As much as you pursue dreams in a competing world, return home to your real self in the evening for rest and repose. That is your root, the real origin. Nourish it. Leaves, branches and trunk are important. But these are the manifestations of the potential of your roots which lie there in the soil of unity and totality of one universal energy going on and on in countless transformations, following the same laws, diferent transformations at each stage. So nourish your roots to the real self. The branches will be sturdy, the leaves healthy and shiny.

Go and embrace the tree near you. It is the same energy, utilizing the five primal matters like yours, manifesting its tree form at a slightly different frequency that yours.

A sad pink-bum

I politely refused him guava from my small tree because last time he nearly dislodged it. This chap is too hefty, as broad-backed as a man. So he smirks from the neem tree and doesn't give a good pause to click him. Sadly looking at the raw guavas. Last time he just picked them raw and then threw these like grenades. The way he is looking at them, I'm sure he will return. By the way his bum is soooooo sooooo pink! This colour is the pick of the day.