The Unknowable

Talking about the ultimate reality, Osho said it’s that stage in the journey of a seeker when after knowing everything still more remains to be known. Material science tried to crack the code and frantically searched for the fundamental particle that cannot be further divided. If ever they arrive at the primary material constituent, they can claim to know all and everything. There won’t be any unknowable. But as they have found, there is no fundamental entity. All the previously assumed smallest entities kept on subdividing, finally merging into the endless depths where everything merged into nothingness, leaving them clueless where to spot the primary constituent. All this merges into the never-ending spools of energy, sparks, vibrations and frequencies. It’s a screen where even our thoughts, emotions and feelings—which itself is a movement of subtle energies as substantial as the gross manifestations of energy movement on the visible level—can project our own creations. And creations of physical sciences have created many means of convenience for us.

I would even deter myself from calling it maya, the illusion, because we can call something illusion only in relation to something permanent. There is hardly any permanent entity, apart from the unknowable rule of the rules which says the first part of the statement.

If there is no ultimate destination, one may ask, then why should one go on a quest to know, realize or feel the secrets beyond the boundaries of our ordinary sense perception. If all remains to be known after knowing everything then why take the path. Why this quest? In my opinion, it’s our humble attempt at upgradation. Consider for example, the routine life of someone defined by the basic driving forces of sense perception, the life set on the most basic, littlest stage where basic instincts of fear, greed, anger, jealousy and hate confine life into a tiny ghetto which is very engaging. This is no moral judgment against anyone who sets up life in a tiny cell. It’s never about morality or immorality or a higher life or lower life. In my opinion, it’s about the actualization of the potential. All are free to choose. If one can be joyful in the little so called prison, then what is the problem? Why then hatch a bigger one?

Coming to the life at the most rudimentary level, I however take it as a life spent in a tiny cell, its boundaries defined by self-set parameters, majority of them simply adopted in the name of conventions and prevalent beliefs. Where is the creator, the godly faculty with us, if we spend life merely as a product, as a creation? The problem with spending life in a little hovel is that there is hardly any possibility of becoming one’s best version. One doesn’t become a creator. The things that pile up in the congested space narrow down the space further. The grip of the prison turns to literally enslavement. As one sees things piled so precariously overhead in such a narrow space, we get further scared of its fall. We crib because we hardly have the space to move.

Doesn’t a prisoner feel very relaxed, if he is let out from the cellar and allowed to go into the yard outside? He feels relaxed. He will feel still better if put in a spacious garden, and still better in open spaces. Same is the case with us. We want to evolve, to liberate, to move freely, to feel relaxed, a sum and summary of that nagging pinch of restlessness that always reminds us that something is missing in life. Under the open skies and the vision set on the distant horizon, we get opportunity to create, the real destiny of mankind in this avatar—not in relation to anything in particular but freely as per our benchmarks. We know that there is still something beyond the horizon—and the horizon will keep shifting as long as we keep on moving in our quest—but we don’t feel imprisoned because there is no fixed boundary. The limitation of our vision to make us see till the horizon doesn’t create a fixed boundary. One can move on and on and be part of a larger and larger reality. This is what I call creation, the basic steps towards liberation. Liberation is not about reaching the boundary, the final destination, because in that case one will still be a prisoner with the ultimate wall blocking the view. Liberation is in moving towards an ever-broadening horizon. Out of the open possibility, we change the congested cell into an open panorama where the unknown doesn’t imprison, but keeps on beckoning us through a see through walk-able horizon in the distance.

I don’t differentiate too much between knowing and awareness. Knowing is the seed that sprouts the fruits of awareness. Knowing is the beginning of awareness. The awareness of more and more leads to the realization of something beyond even knowing and awareness. Call it Samadhi, moksha or liberation. The enlightened ones whom we revere are not the ones who have cracked the code. Nobody can. The honest ones will accept, the businessmen types will create more wordiness to drown the primary question within itself and earn some more respect from the followers. The revered ones are the ones who created the most. Who walked to the distant most horizons, who walked to the brink of liberation and realized that come whatever may, it’s the same circle beginning and ending at the same point. One spreads and spreads the awareness to finally realize the point. Awareness spreads so much to be sucked into a point. Realisation is all awareness condensed into a point. A divine sublimation. This is the creation of the little seat of godliness. They inspire, they guide, they heal, they do most of the things we believe them to be capable of, but beyond that all remains still as much unknowable as before. 

Vaccine for a new virus and an old ideology

The total number of Corona infections is around 3 million, a third of these in America itself, and majority of the American cases in New York, the symbol of its socio-economic and modern-day cultural might. The death toll stands around 200,000, a quarter of these in America itself. This is an oddity and leaves the field open for interpretations even by amateurs like me. After the jolting shock, now the narrative shifts to the real cause. A French Nobel prize winning scientist has termed Covid-19 as a man-made virus from a technical point of view. It’s a scientist’s conclusion, not some willy nilly amateur thinker like me. A team of Indian scientists has also pointed out the unconventional nature of the virus, i.e., it’s something man-made.  

It makes the Chinese fruit market theory almost groundless. If their fruit market theory doesn’t sell, they will go for the second best option: accidental spread from the lab theory, assuming that an accidental death is more pardonable than an outright plain calculated killing. But we the targets will use our brains to see beyond the China manufactured narrative, which in any case is bound to be substandard like any of their products. Even if we accept their accidental theory, a common sense question arises. How come Beijing, just a few hundred kilometers away from Wuhan, stands almost untouched, while New York, thousands of kilometers away stands ravaged so terribly? Let us not forget, accidents are accidental in their ramifications also, not so selective to target cities thousands of miles away and sparing congested, crowded urban corridors in the vicinity of the accident site. No wonder, questions are being raised about China’s culpability in the biggest bioterrorism case till date.

Millions of people have travelled from Wuhan to the rest of country, still how come it got localized in Wuhan only? If it is so contagious as to board a flight and spread from dozens of fliers to millions in a span of two three months, how come the rest of the Chinese territory stands untouched? Is lockdown so effective as they claim? India’s experience with lockdown proves that it certainly is effective to an extent but not like Wuhan where very soon things turned almost normal and the rest of China almost untouched. Despite India’s strictest in the world lockdown measures, the virus has spread across 430 districts out of 550. Just lockdown is not sufficient to contain it like the Chinese did. There definitely is more to the story. In 2019, there was enmass TB vaccination program in China. Was some vaccine served in the guise of TB mass vaccination?

Many are the loopholes in a democracy, even if it is a superpower like America. There is a tendency for things coming into the open. The political aspirations of the opponents always keep door open for ventilation, secrecy hardly finds a suitable closed door here. But a hardcore dictatorial communist regime has all the time and resources to hatch any evil design in leisure time without bothering about any pull from political, social, moral or legal strings. It’s not about the relative good or bad of a political ideology. The simple possibility is that power tends to be misused. And unquestioned power corrupts absolutely. The suffering world needs vaccine against Corona. The suffering Chinese masses need democracy.

If just a few hundred international flights from Wuhan to the rest of the world can create such mayhem, imagine what will thousands of domestic flights, in addition to rail and road transport networks branching out of Wuhan, will do to China? The Virus seems to be very lenient on the mainland. Or is it a different strain than the one which turned too adventurist to turn a globe trotter and board a flight? The site of the accident hardly bears any signs of the accident, while far off places have the tell tale signs of mayhem! Strange! Usually we have things messed up at the site of the accident. This incongruity itself leaves enough scope for suspicion on China and makes it liable to give clear answers by default. This doesn’t seem to be some accidental leak from the Wuhan lab. Had it been accidental, by the natural consequences of it, the maximum effects would have been in Beijing, not New York. It is however another matter that they will try to create new pockets of infections in China in a controlled manner in order to avoid an eventuality where the road accident site appears absolutely safe and clean and the glass, blood and bones scattered in another country. That is crazily funny.

The Chinese government hasn’t forgotten to make money even out of this misery. Faulty Chinese testing kits are slapped in our unsuspecting faces as if these are the aides of Corona. India rushed to buy 600,000 testing kits. Can you believe it, the accuracy rate of the testing kit is a miserly 5.4%. In their zeal to export as much as possible, they hardly care about quality. We always knew about the sorry tale of their quality. However, substandard toys is one thing, quality compromise in life saving equipment is a sin. But do they even have this term ‘sin’ in their red book? More than 63,000 PPEs out of a big stock India has imported are found totally unusable. Same story is told by many other countries. Even when the entire world is suffering in this pandemic, they remember profiteering through the same use and throw substandard Chinese goods. There is a sorry tale of faulty masks also. China the ambitious exporter has exported a terrible googlie this time. Company shares are crashing world over, China is all eager to make gold out of misery. They are running to take over downed companies. They rushed to sail in many Indian companies also. They tried to buy shares in HDFC, one of the biggest banks in India. The Indian government had to bring out a mid-night resolution to change the FDI norms to stop the dragon from eating many an Indian company. The dragon cribbed and condemned it as unethical as per WTO norms. Look who is talking of rules and regulations?!

Several voices have now started surfacing to make China pay for this global suffering. American state of Missouri has filed a lawsuit against China and asked for reparations. Of course, China has scoffed at it. It’s like a little boy throwing a pebble at the fiery dragon. In return, they have increased patrolling in South China sea, intimidating smaller countries in the neighborhood. The US aircraft carrier Roosevelt had to be taken off the stage of Chinese hegemony here. The aircraft carrier was prepared for the biggest military threat from any quarters, but Corona turned too smart for its cosmos-hunting radars. Hundreds of sailors got infected. So in the open waters of its personal pool it consolidates its forces now. Its warships are coming dangerously close to little Taiwan. Although America is reconnoitering the area through its B-52 bombers, but is anyone in a position to say anything if China grabs South China islands or even attacks Taiwan. They hardly bother about humanity’s recovery; instead they are carrying out military exercises. Possibly they expect retaliation later or sooner. Their already iron-hard firewall, keeping their subjects well caged, turns steely and sprawls further to take a deadly grip even over gaming platforms because the users can chat with the players from abroad. They must be propagating their own narrative like communist states usually do.

Corona is lethal, but the Chinese communist ideology is even more lethal. For the former we need a vaccine, for the latter, democracy—a very feeble pill though it is—is the cure. As the world stands victimized, we should not forget that the Chinese common people are equally victimized. In fact, their tale of victimization is hardly known and spreads over many decades.  

Mindfulness: The next frontier in our evolution

During the ancient times, when our ancestors roamed merely as one of the animal species, saving themselves from the stronger animals and managing to stay alive on roots, herbs, fruits and killing the manageable games, the only fear to plague their mind was the instinctual, plain and raw fear to preserve life. It was the raw fear of fierce animals and horrible weather conditions. It wasn’t forged in the workshop of mind. It existed on the little stage of life, something concrete. It instinctively popped up like it does in a deer on seeing a lion: The plain raw fear instantly triggered by the sight of an object, animal or inclement weather.

The special neurons in human brain then started firing pretty extravagantly, giving us cognitive abilities within a tiny span of time, a sort of leapfrogging on the small-paced changes on the evolutionary scale. While the rest of the species would just react in the typical fight and flight manner managed by their limited neural abilities, the humans learnt to respond, not just react, in multiple ways, a whole lot of combinations of fight, flight and many things in between. The genesis of the scheming mind! We could defend also, mixing fight and flight in suitable proportions. Most importantly, we would remember the precious lessons learnt. We would remember to repeat something beneficial. We also remembered to avoid the harmful. This discretion, this mental evolution, provided another dimension to evolution which turned the physical dimensions of evolution almost redundant. Now the mind evolved. The shadows grew stronger and more substantive than the actual substance. The shadows took the lead and the physical body followed. A peculiar reverse engineering! In amazing series after series of cooperation and using exceptional neurons in the brains, most of the physical threats, the source of raw fear among we primates during the initial phase of our evolution, were managed. We set up institutions of various kinds as we followed the shadows created by mind and trampled and dragged the poorly littered around physical substance, this planet, along us in the wake. We contrived real weapons to defend the shadows and attack the virtual opponents. We set up social, economic and political institutions to strengthen the shadows. Religion was set up to reinforce the real concrete fortifications to save the shadows created by an ever-working mind.

Now we rule over every nook corner of the planet. All the species are subservient to us. The weather elements are explained through climatology. There is hardly anything to create a sense of raw physical threat in the natural world around. We seem to have done amazing things. Are we better placed than our ancestors?

Well, all our cognitive evolution and growth was triggered by our response to the raw physical threats around us. The networking within individual brains and within a group on the basis of shadows tamed many a substance around. In mind-born reverse engineering, we could contrive physical laws to pull the substance by the swift horse of the shadows. If hatching physical laws to prove substance from shadows has been our unique mind art, framing of social, economic, political, religious and cultural laws is merely a cakewalk. It’s as easy as putting air in any vessel as per the suitability. So the juggernaut moved on and we prevailed over one obstacle after the other.

We have been so relentless that even our fear appears to be scared of us and sunk deeper into the zone of virtual domain. It has learnt to survive, if not tangibly like earlier, but intangibly by spreading its mutants. It has crept stealthily into the complex networks of our psyche. All this while, as we triumphantly claimed one victory after another over all the physical adversaries on the planet, the cunning fear was mutating into something beyond the boundaries of innovations—I don’t prefer the term discovery—to physically tame the fierce animals and adversaries. It was breeding larvae in the cells of our very own mind which we so bravely used to tame the external threats. It is like the doctor herself catching the illness.

The solid block of ice, the raw fear, melted first and later vaporized to sublime forms and filled the very air we breathe. It infested the mind, the very same mind that claimed to have won the battle for us. Plain fear of physical threats, the mere substance, changed into the lengthy spools of shadows in the form of insecurity, hate, greed, lust, distrust, anger, jealousy, apprehensions. These are the phantoms of the poor raw fear. The more we broke the ice blocks of physical threats, the more copiously the phantoms did the round. Fear mutated very horribly from the physical dimension to the virtual dimension. There it acquires infinite ways and means to take any shape triggered by any little external stimulus. Earlier a mammoth created raw fear. It was a tangible solid block of ice. Now a mere look by someone can self-start the fission reaction along the phantoms of fear in the virtual dimension of the mind. The mind that hunted animals is now hunting itself. It has evolved to hunt, to stalk. Now it connives. It creates virtual enemies, the shadows, and attacks, defends, reacts and responds in crazily littered orbit. It has the fatal addiction to eat its own tail. It’s prone to grab any stimulus, some remark by someone, some bruise on the ego, some strain of jealousy, and boom-boom goes the explosion. The entire civilization load is a virtual fuel tank. A crazy machine it has become. It just needs a little sip of external stimuli, a tiny self-start, and the engine purrs to life like it has been doing for the last many millenniums.  

Now the externals—the little patrol for self starting stimuli—lie within the human society only.  Gone are those prehistoric real physical threats. We are more bothered about someone’s image in our mind than our ancestor was about a fierce mammoth. The mind cannot stop its factory of manufacturing war tools against the phantoms in the virtual dimensions. We have imagined the best and hence all these beautiful things that make life physically convenient at least. But alongside we have imagined the worst also. In lieu of one smile, we hatch dozens of tears also. Mind hasn’t stopped on its momentum of contriving solutions, reactions and response to threats, if not physical now, against the virtual opponents. It innovates its own opponents to keep rolling along the same direction. Because that is its tendency. That’s how it has evolved. But rampant growth in the virtual dimension loses its footing as the substance pulled along gets disconnected. How long the virtual shadows will pull the real chariot? The latter will lose its wheels. And once the chariot falls on the physical plane—with the cord broken—the kite of shadows takes death dives. Reverse engineering falls flat. Shadows can die easily because they never existed.  But the substance dragged along, battered and bruised horribly meets our eyes. We feel defeated. The leftover from the cognitive revolution!

No wonder mindless, undirected race of the mind has turned self destructive. Anything turns fatal beyond a limit. Same is with our mind. It innovated to kill. Then it innovated to save. Only to start innovating on something bigger to kill with. And then solutions again. It has been very clever along the way. It has set up the modern society in a way, through its blind competition, rapacious ambition, herdish education, plundering politics and everything else, that all our efforts to be human take a long detour to churn out bigger virtual enemies so that it keeps on handing us nice tricks to checkmate the threat and remain relevant and so dear to us.

It’s high time that we break this self-destructive momentum. People have been trying it individually through spiritual practices, the arts of managing the mind. However, the collective mind of Homo sapiens is so powerful that it swipes away individual efforts like a rapacious, spiteful flooded river tosses away little boughs and branches of the fallen trees.

Accepted that it has helped us reach the top on the planet. We are grateful. Now let us stop its juggernaut before it’s too late. Let’s break its age old momentum of first seeking enemies, virtual now, and then give us a helping hand. Let’s redefine education and learning to help spiritual pursuits of mindfulness. Mind is a wonderful slave and a terrible master. We never needed mindfulness more than now. The individual and collective mind has been allowed to function too mindlessly. It has become a despot. Absolute power corrupts. The mind has been corrupted in its reckless ambition. Let’s make it answerable to all its tricks. Let’s restructure socio-economic, cultural and political norms in a way that the mind sees the fundamentals of life instead of the infinite puzzlement in the virtual dimension. Don’t get scared that our ability to innovate will diminish. It won’t. It will increase as we will have surplus energy left out in our reserves. Come let’s tame our mind, systematically and institutionally. Individual salvations have been ineffective in bringing larger common good. Let’s target collectively now. Let’s put substance before the shadows. That would be more natural. Let the mind be tamed a bit to help this earth survive as we know it for some more centuries. Happy Earth Day!       

An antidote of democracy against the communist bug

China is crafting a suitable narrative to the Corona suspicion theories. As they find that the suffering world's prying eyes are now sternly focussed on the deliberate, or inadvertent, unleashing of the virus from the Wuhan lab, they are drawing the discussion and accusations away from the Lab to the animal market theory. They have raised the death toll in Wuhan by 50%. They want the world to believe that the only wrong they did was to cover up the number of deaths at the most, and that the virus spread accidentally from the food market, so that the bigger accusation of the virus being deliberately unleashed from the Wuhan lab gets into the background. So that the most serious accusation against them comes out to be that they tried to cover up the seriousness of the issue and consequently suffered themselves first. They are accepting a lesser fault in order to cover the main one. A note for sceptics who may say why would they allow their own people to die in order the wreak havok outside. We shouldn't forget millions have been eliminated under the communist ideology. So allowing a few thousand of their own people to die in order to achieve làrger targets is very much of a routine task to them. They themselves are infected by a more serious thing, which they consider more serious than Corona. It's the democratic movement in Hongkong. The antibody of democracy was eating into the vitality of the communist bug. They were scared that this bug will bite their mainland. So who knows they might have put a bigger bug in the global body. Just like they helped Corona spread through the world, the entire world should come together to facilitate the antibody of democracy against the communist bug. Right now we are in need of a vaccine against Corona. But the world peace in future needs the antidote of democracy against the communist bug in China. As they stand culpable in the Corona pandemic, punish them by forcing them to adopt democratic reforms in the country. Multiple voices are always more effective in forging a narrative. Build the narrative of democracy in China. It will be good for the Chinese people, 90% of whom are the most diligent and nice type. Just 10% communist thugs are holding the peace of their own people and the world at large at random. As the entire globe suffers Corona effects, let the Chinese communists also face the consequences. Let them get huge injection of democracy on their pride-swollen ass.

Some boring lines from a Corona-shadowed corner

You read, hear and say only the same word these days ‘Corona’. All other words appear to have lost their footing. Thoughts and emotions are solely defined by the word ‘Corona’. An entire planetary culture hijacked by a single word! All discussions, opinions and analyses are centered on the same. News channels hold the highest TRPs, of course being given a tough game by Ramayan and Mahabharat. Three decades back, the roads in India would go empty when these were initially telecast. Irony, even now the roads are empty, for a different reason though. And people have Corona as the modern version of the evil in their mind as they feel angry at Kauravas and Ravana.

All fears have withdrawn and merged with the big river ‘Corona’. The small tributaries of mundane fears falling into the mammoth gorge of Corona to make it the most powerful stream at the moment. I hope this mass focus on ‘Corona’ isn’t feeding the devil. Such mass concentration on something on the basis of collective phobia, and resultant feeding of negative emotional energies, might be energizing the evil item of focus at the subtle level of subatomic movements of energies. Main thing is that our moral is very low presently and the enemy seems very confident and strong.

Right now with over 2 million infections, with one third in America only, it’s going pretty tough for human. It seems vital organs of the modern human body have caught infection and the rest of the body is shaking with fear. With all manifestations of consumer culture and materialism out of the scene, and humans locked up in their houses, things appear very bleak. It gives a feeling like a humungous elephant, a sky high pre-historic mammoth, has collapsed under its own weight. Lesser species meanwhile creep out of their hiding and smell and snooze around with part fear and part excitement.

The Easter mass at Rome Basilica went as a silent affair. A masked Pope led the mass at an empty church. Easter Sunday went so silently as if any extra noise will boost the enemy moral. Christianity’s grandest feast was no feast at all. Let us hope there is a resurrection of dreams on the day of resurrection of Jesus. But we have to ensure that re-living after the interlude commes with changed priorities. Certain values need to be overhauled.

The same was the case with Shab-e-Barat. It’s celebrated as a night when the destiny of individuals for the coming year are fixed. Allah forgives the sinners. The Markazis must be over-hyped in their prayers today to seek forgiveness. The Muslim festivity was forced down with only a few errant kids trying the sneak into the graveyards to light candles on the graves of their ancestors. The police chased them away. The Mecca altar is empty. The devout throngs are missing. The spacious yard is able to see the face of the sky. Churches and temples are empty, godliness trying to regain its footing. This is the time to seek godliness within.   

There are stars in the darkness. They twinkle with a promise of light. They promise a fine sunny day. At Narmada, an eight month pregnant policewoman is waging a war against the pandemic by still going for duties. Of course, there will be an end to the night. The only question is: Will we go out into the sun with our lesson well digested?

Misti, luscious sweetmeats, still holds its charm for Bengalis. It appears to fuel their decent set of culture and rotund brains. In Kolkata, sweetmeat-starved Bongs thronged a sweet shop, braving police sticks on the way, to grab something sweet. Those who succeeded must be really cherishing the trophy. Much as they love to sweeten their tongues, hearts have soured a lot during the Corona-lynched times. At Asansol, people created a scuffle and big ruckus. They didn’t allow the return of 19 well quarantined and declared safe residents of the town. They will bring Corona, they said. The administration had to lathi-charge them to get the poor people in. Their neighbours will definitely stare them as the agents of Ravana for the coming days.

Police is trying its level best to locate the still missing Markazis. The UP government has announced a reward of 10000 rupees to anyone informing about a still absconding Zamati. The ever persistent communal virus gets an accomplice now, Corona. The cocktail is lethal for India’s social fabric. On top of that Pak would definitely spare no effort to help the virus in India. The Haryana government has slapped Article 307, amounting to culpable homicide, against the hiding Zamatis. It has something to do with deliberate act to cause death and can be help guilty of murder. Well, prisons seem to always smelling for blood. With the crime rate coming down, and prison cells feeling hungry, the government gets them the prospects of a few good ones, for the carriers of Article 307 bring a special status on their errant self onto the prison yard.

Prisoners are getting out on parole. The village has three native returnees. One murder charged man comes out from Tihar jail. One brat who was caught transporting illegal liquor into prohibited land of Bihar and who was languishing in a jail in Patna comes out. Another under trial for nearly killing someone in a family feud sees the free days for the time being.

Bhilwada and Agra model of containment have attracted international attention. It is basically about creation of hot-spots, sealing them foolproof and going for door to door testing. It means breaking the chain from building up a trail of infections. In Agra, a family was traced that had visited Italy. They traced the entire set of people who had got in touch with them. They completely blocked the 3 square km area and did extensive testing there. Hot-spots are the frontiers where the government of India is waging its war with its limited resources. It’s like attacking the enemy’s pickets and stopping it from adding to its army infection carriers.

With around 700 thousand infections and 25000 deaths, most of them in the financial and the modern cultural hub of New York, the superpower is on its knees. Wooden coffins are in shortage. They are using cardboard coffins and burying hundreds in long rectangular mass graves. An earthmover doing its duty solemnly. A person dying of Corona carries the ignominy of total alienation from near and dear ones during last days. To make it worse, the last rites get cut down to a mechanical affair with an earthmover replacing emotions and tears of many those who had known the diseased. It’s like dying an unknown death far away from home.

Delhi is feeling the Corona heat with hundreds of new cases every day. The CM has formed a 13000 member strong Foot Warriors to facilitate testing and quarantine. The administration is using drones to keep watch over curfew infringement in narrow lanes and congested bylanes because we Indians have a special liking for infringing upon the norms.

India’s stature appears to have gone up. Kuwait has requested the Indian government to help them fight the pandemic. The Indian government has sent a 15 member Corona Response team to plan, coordinate and train them in managing the affairs. High time that all governments keep pandemic response task forces in future against such emergencies instead of wasting precious resources on military build-up against enemies of the same species.

Sanitization tunnels are being set up to clean the bug from clothes. Hope they could kill the bugs of blind ambition also that hatch larvae inside our minds and hearts. Some fashion houses are making designer masks, fearing running out of their business. I hope even fantasies take a bit of utilitarian course where they help in substance instead of just being virtual symbols of human desires.

Cases of domestic violence have gone up. On March 8, women in Paris had come out protesting on the streets demanding equality with men. Now they have been forced back in. There has been a 30% increase in domestic violence. The increase in violence shows that so many people are in fact staying like enemies under the same roof.

This year there are huge mosquito swarms droning around almost like the airmen of the Corona army bombarding the humanity on back foot. The dogs howl almost continuously. Peacocks hoot night and day. All these are considered ill omens for the humans. I hope they aren’t deliberately stalking we humans to instill more fear in our scared guts.

International food chains have collapsed. Stock markets are almost redundant. Oil well left undisturbed. Materialism is missing. People are simply surviving on the basic minimum. One thing is proven: it’s possible to survive without most of the modern day things which we find irreplaceable.

Most of the government officials are working from home. A new model is emerging. Higher functionaries are using video conferencing.

My 15 year old court case seems to have been chucked out by the evil Corona. It appeared to a friendly lady judge. She appeared fairly sympathetic to this injustice lasting for the last 15 years. Like stubborn incorrigible brats the government attorneys kept on asking for more time pretty shamelessly. It seems to have served their purpose. Corona has helped them by forcing the courts to down their shutters. The current judge most probably will be shifted by changing the roaster and get some easy to handle judge and pull the strings like they have done for a decade and a half.  

An overenthusiastic Nihang Sikh chopped off the hand of a policeman on duty as he tried the religious zealots from violating the curfew. His evil mind, blindfolded by misplaced faith struck the policeman with such brute force that the hand was severed in one brutal strike. Thankfully after a 9 hour operation the hand has been fixed. That’s the irony, those who can kill are found taking shelter in the holy precincts of faith.

On the banks of the Ganges, some foreigners come out and are made to pay for their offense by the police by getting them write sorry 500 times. I am happy that they get some homework done after years. All of us can learn something at all stages of life.  

In Surat, the unorganized sector workers are thrown out. They are jobless and hardly any money. They get out on the street to protest and draw attention. The well off are sulking inside because they cannot come out to get onto the bandwagon of enjoyment. The poor are sulking because they are away from home and lost all sources of income.

The Corona fear has sunk deep. In Ranchi, a crowd protests against the cremation of an elderly Corona infested dead body, saying they will get the infection in the area. The police had to arrange for cremation outside the city. In Chennai, people took their fear several notches higher. A frontline Corona warrior, a doctor, who has fallen to the enemy, is criminally denied cremation in the city. People are adamant that getting the body into the crematorium will spread the deadly Corona. There have been numerous instances when administration couldn’t get gravediggers to bury the bodies of Corona victims. They had to use earth movers to dig the graves. Fear and the instinct of self preservation brings the worst in us.

Presently there are about 25000 Americans in India and they feel safer here than America. Out of the scheduled 800 Americans to board a special flight only 10 took the flight. The circle seems to have taken a full turn. Will it be India that will be leading the world under PM Modi? There is a high chance for this happening. India as Jagat Guru again!

Today is the last day of the 21 day lockdown. The PM gave a public address and extended it till May 3. There have been terrible economic costs but the humanism shown by him has done wonders to curtail the pandemic. In contrast, the country heads who had more attention on economy seem to have done terrible injustice to their people. Today is Baisakhi and Dr. Ambedkar’s birth anniversary. The political and cultural festivity of both occasions is completely overshadowed. The opposing forces on the divide have melted under the Corona shower. All ideologies are running to take shelter under the same roof. All are the very same scared Homo sapiens. Why cannot we stay like this when things are normal?

The PM’s speech giving the seven point formula to defeat Corona is hardly over, at Bandra you have a scary scene. In the afternoon, many thousand migrant workers rush out and stampede around the railway station. Someone has spread the rumor that a train is leaving for UP and Bihar. So people rush to catch the train of life. The think they will perish here even though the government is providing food and shelter. I think these people have forgotten how to sit at home, without doing anything. Taking rest is obsolete. All want to die at their native places. Quite surprisingly, none of the few thousand have any luggage with them even though all seem ready to jump into any train nearby bound for any destination. Mischief mongers are at play to spoil the hard-earned little victories in little skirmishes against the enemy patrols at numerous points in the huge country.

Finally, the spring stands almost vandalized by the hot summers. However, all reasons have their unique charms. If spring has luscious pout of youth, summers have the graying wisdom of ripe old age. A pair of collared dove is caught in the love loops. They are seen together on the roofs scouting around for a suitable place to start nesting. The cuckoo sends its sonorous notes over the crests of hot air to catch the flirtatious attention of the lady. The kari patta has little pale creamy flowers baked by the sun. The delicacy attracts honeybees and a romantic pair of Pieris rapae, a white butterfly with black dots. They take nectar sips and go diving and dancing in the hot eddies of the summer air. The bats are overactive as the twilight builds up. We never had so many in recent years. Probably they are feeling empowered because of their Corona-carrier status.

A sun-beaten old rose stands as the link between present and past, between spring and summer. It tells its little story to the summer angels:

I was once luscious red,

Now the colours get shed,

Spring dews nourished me,

Delightful to see,

Now the colours turn pale,

Youth, how thou sail!

Sadistically sun-kissed and old,

Death takes me in its fold,

I but hold with grace,

                                               My wise, toothless smile up for a brace,                     

Earlier only my skin used to glow,

Now the entire self in mystical flow,

I choose to smile till last,

Let the summer sun go crazy with blast,

I arrived with smile on my lips,

Now the entire soul takes divine sips.

Somewhere, in the safe interiors of central Indian countryside, a Rahat, water wheel, is still chugging out buckets of water in a corner where life is still in slow motion and hence enjoyable. This paused life shines brilliantly against the background of Corona-driven gloom. Still not all is lost. Things of utility still fulfill their purpose. In the gleaming waters of the swimming pool of a posh gated colony, monkeys are professionally jumping from balconies and giving expert strokes. And they have spectators from windows who are even scared to get onto the balconies. Very obedient audience indeed! Leopards come out and have a look in the spacious empty Chandigarh roads. They have sensed the unusual calm and serenity from the last hideouts in the neighboring Shivalik hills.

In a summer beaten flower bed, like an old sage an old rose appears to give some lesson in life and living:

Then, dew-kissed youth fed by nourishing spring.

Now, sun-kissed old age forged in the furnace of summers.

Then, kiss of life, love and living.

Now, kiss of death and decay.

Mother's kisses are simply kisses,

Just that our ego fumes and hisses!

Enjoy nature from your balconies. Within a month things appear brighter and cleaner. But don’t go just by the visuals. Visuals give a part of the picture. Have a pan-shop of the panorama. Then close your eyes. The other part of the picture will unfold in the brain through birds chirping, sighs of breeze, swaying of branches and so many others. As she smiles through flowers, she sings through birds. Her smile is charming. Her song is very sweet. Those who love nature will at least never feel shortage of love in their life irrespective of any kind of circumstances.

Corona has stalked Europe. People are suffering terribly. But the skies are free for starlings murmuration! The moments when the laws of physics, chemistry and biology mix in the divine fluidity of the unknowable ultimate law. Certain things are left unexplained. A sense of marvel is all that we need to appreciate the phenomenon of higher dimensions. Murmurating Starlings! One of the most joyful moments in the world. Mother Nature's way of expressing freedom and liberation to the core. Allow her to smile. She will surely help us smile in return.

Life is supposed to be a big, fat, intriguing and interesting book. Don’t think this is the end of the world. It isn’t. Life is literally a cascading cocktail. More the chapters, the better it is! So if a particular chapter goes stale, wind it up and save your book from becoming boring. No need to waste energies on a plot that isn't building up. Create fresh characters. Start a new chapter. We are the writers of the book of life. So keep creating life and living out of the infinite pools of cosmic energy. Keep your book interesting!

The fights over faith and religion appear so hollow when all the shadows of our misdemeanors has shifted off the scene. Javed Sahab has full 'faith' in his 'belief'. Sadguru has full 'belief' in his 'faith'. All I can grasp is that they are saying the same thing in different ways. Two sides of the same coin! When did you think that mere words will resolve the unknowable mystery. The rest is just professionalism, either spiritual or film making. And words help us in establishing ourselves in this physical world. They are as much carriers of reality as toilet paper is!