A Buffalo High on Cannabis Leaves

There have been lots of rains this winter taking the short-lived, effervescent Indian spring well into April. So much so that temperatures have been lenient, pushing the real north Indian summer into the latter half of May. This and the fact that lockdown saw very few people scampering around gave cannabis plants full freedom to encroach every nook corner in the village. Suitable temperatures, sufficient rainfall and less human footfall, that's what the plant of artificial pleasure needs to mushroom around.

Wine outlets were closed for almost two months due to the lockdown, so many a people took recourse to chewing cannabis leaves as an alternative to beat their boredom with life. They chewed like goats absorbed in the greenest pastures. Mother Nature is always kind; even if she has to punish us mildly, she keeps lollypops also to bring a smile to the crying errant kid whose ears she has just twisted. So she gives cannabis growth at every nook corner in this phase of pains and miseries.    

In our extended family, auntie has a well fed, pampered docile buffalo. The bulky creature is gentle and well behaved. No wonder, auntie treats it like her daughter. But then these are testing times for all of us. New problems surface with effortless ease presently. The docile daughter too takes an off from her well-groomed domestication etiquettes. She feasts on wild cannabis plants for a change of taste and gets a high. The affable, gentle daughter gets drugged and misbehavior unspools. The black beauty gets naughty and plays truant. Poor auntie was pinned in a corner, not exactly with the intention of hurting her critically.

Even a buffalo has her version of playing mischief after getting high on substance. Auntie was holding the horns and the buffalo pushed and prodded with enough force to scare her out of her wits. However, the mischief was surely purposely short of really harmful force to avoid breaking bones.

Auntie's other pet, Labrador Tuffy, thought the buffalo is going to kill his godmother. He pounced in defence and pinned his teeth on the offender's hind leg. The buffalo felt insulted. Her drugged light bantering spirits withdrew to allow raw anger to surface. She must have felt terribly insulted on being treated like a substance addict by the canine moralist. The aggrieved buffalo chased the dog around the compound with the intention of killing it. The poor chap panicked and got onto the fence and jumped. It is seen limping now. The buffalo too carries her battle scar on her hind leg. Thank God, animals forget and forgive! Had they possessed memory like we humans, it would have turned into a long standing bloody feud.

Drugged Monkeys

The vendor’s auto laden with fruits and vegetables is chugging with a shaky drooling sound on the tiny village square. A monkey chides and grimaces at the cornered Homo sapiens and escapes with two bananas. But he doesn’t eat them with the typical hurry and greed of a thief on the run. He claims a well calibered ownership of the provisions in his hand. The pink-bummed ruffian carefully sniffs at the stolen fruits as if doing a thorough chemical analysis. The expert lab in his brain gives a clear signal and he peels them and eats with relish. Emboldened with the fruit giving him instant energy, he stalks a woman who has her purchase in a polythene bag. The broad daylight robbery is avoided as a man runs to help her.

Question arises why did he go for the sniffling analysis of the plundered property. Surely the message has been circulated quite well among the Simian population of the village. A couple of days ago, two broad-backed, thick-bummed, pink-balled rascals paid the price for not doing a thorough sniffing analysis. They had enlarged their domain of chronic mischief to include even tasting the skin on human calf muscles. These two stood out as the main plot-hatchers who probably thought they can do a coup and scare the humans away to have the entire village to themselves. Nothing wrong with the intentions by the way. They have a right to whatever we humans do. But we are smarter than them. The drugged bananas found them out of senses sloths on a porch. They were nicely packed in a gunny sack and disposed off to a far off place.

The rest of the Simian populace seems to have learnt a lesson and they have agreed to go for a chemical analysis of whatever we bigger monkeys offer them.

In a nearby town, my friend has a sorry tale of Simian wrongdoing. Tortured by their ever-breeding ways of both progenies and mischief, the locals gave a contract to a professional monkey catcher. He but turned out to be too smart for both the monkeys and the humans. He would drug them with fruits, gather them in sacks and dispose them in the dark of night at a nearby town. Now, the townspeople there also had given him contract for the same. Here also he did the same and offloaded the fainted offenders at the former town. The business went smooth. But this continuous drugging left the Simians very irritated and aggressive. During the lockdown, these aggressive and drugged monkeys literally ruled the streets.

That friend of mine was brushing teeth bent over the sink. An irritated rascal, in lugubrious high spirits, jumped from a height of one story and landed straight on his head. Poor fellow fell headlong. The offender ran away screeching with glory. ‘A monkey has a lot of weight man!’ is all that poor fellow can muster up with his jolted senses. On another occasion, his mother paid a big price for breaking the lockdown curfew. Poor auntie walked with apprehension as she crossed the deserted street now ruled by monkeys. Can you believe it? Look at their guts. They pinced her down and sat on her. She was just an ounce short of having a heart attack. People ran to save her and salvage Homo sapiens’ price. Luckily she wasn’t bitten.

   

International Losers Day

Well, someone has to lose. What would we have if there are no losers? There will be all winners everywhere like potato mountains in the market to sell at dirt cheap price. Who will price them as gold? Gold retains its value because there is simple, poor earth to give the yellow metal its aura and image. To have winners, we have to have losers. Aren't winners overpriced and losers too much underpriced. I see them equally important. For what does a triumphant smile of victory mean without the salty beads of sweat? What does a glistening grain mean without the dirt, dust, soil, stalk and chaff that is thrown away? No man, you can applaud the winners. I just sit by the losers and see them rising again to be winners themselves or be the half-part of someone's win. Hail losers! Let there be International losers day.
PS: And who are winners and losers by the way? A winner is simply a less loser; a loser is just less winner. Two simple points on the same line. Look carefully, all dualities will be found the same phenomenon varying just in degrees. Look at life and death. They too aren't antipodal as we assume. They are merely two seperate points on the same lines. With our limited sense perception we see only one point at a time and interpret them as opposite of each other.

A philosophical fart and the senses went tart!

It’s better to have a cold war than a fully fledged hot war scattering trees, bones and earth by the raucous blizzards of bombardment. So China and America are full time busy in the cantankerous but innocuous cockfight. America is probing many a Chinese company to delist them from its stock markets. China’s foreign ministry releases aggressive statements on a daily basis in return. It releases the pent up, extra energies and assuages the ego a bit because each side can salvage brawny verbal points. Mind can invent as many victory points as possible. So what is the harm in formulating more and more!

As both the US and the Chinese try their level best to forge their truths, as all of us do, the fate of international geo-strategy hangs suspended pretty weirdly. At the grossest level of existence, 'Truth' is a little candy held tightly in the fist of the hand that is 'Powerful'! Let’s see who turns out to be more powerful to get the copyright over truth.

To keep India busy in the sweet sour cute cold war, China has been throwing chili now and then in the boiling pan of Sino-India relations by patrolling more aggressively along the rugged LAC in the Himalayas. Stones are thrown, abuses hurled in strange languages, and pushing and jostling takes place in Ladhak. Nepal and Pakistan are ever so happy to appease the Red Master. China proclaims Mt. Everest as its own. The democratically elected communist coalition—hatched by the holy land of communism itself—of Nepal doesn’t mind this diplomatic misdemeanor; rather they take it as an appeasing rap on the knuckles by the supreme aka. In a lopsided relationship, with one side almost a cringing servant and the other a bully master owner, a mild strike on the bum by the latter appears like an encouraging pat, like egging the ox to pull the cart harder. Nepal knows that China is a very hard taskmaster. So they pull the cart still harder and raise objection against the Indian road to Lipulekh pass. It’s our territory they say. To further rub salts on Indian wounds, the cringing communist head of Nepal claims that the Corona mutant from the Indian territory is more lethal and it has created immense damages in their territory. I hope he won’t demand war damages from us! The Red Master must be very much happy and would throw more Yuans in their famished pockets. A prominent Bollywood heroine of Nepalese origin gets carried by the patriotic fervor—a nice opportunity to sow the seeds of political career anywhere in the world—and supports her motherland. Many an Indian baulk with irritation accusing her to insult the land that has given her name, fame and life’s fun game.  

Taiwan’s nationalist leader Tsai takes oath for the second term as the island nation’s President. The Red Bull is chagrined beyond limits across the 200 Km strait on the continental mainland. More Chinese aircrafts are loitering like rampaging locusts, ready to chuck out the ripe harvest, Taiwan being such a beautifully managed developed nation. She but is a gutsy lady. It’s very scary to even think about the little island’s precarious position as the mighty mainland nation acts like a land mafia, always eying the territories of its neighbors. They are even itching with communist chili to grab Hong Kong well before 2047 as per their agreement with the Britishers.

Long before the cobra raised its hood, Dostoevsky had predicted well about the great eyewash that would set the stage for the grossest misuse of power in an institutionalized manner. Looking at the seeds of communism, one of his characters in the book Devils forecasts:

"...a final solution of the question of the division of mankind into two unequal parts. One tenth enjoys absolute liberty and unbounded power over the other nine-tenths. The others have to give up all individuality and become, so to speak, a herd, and, through boundless submission, will by a series of regenerations attain Primeval Innocence, something like the Garden of Eden. They will have to work, however. The measures proposed for depriving nine-tenths of mankind of their freedom and transforming them into a herd through the education of whole generations are very remarkable, founded on the facts of nature and highly logical."

Well, flawless forecast by the maestro! The experiment has been hatched in China exactly like he predicted 150 years ago. The one-tenth communist cadre and their cronies push the docile and disempowered nine-tenths like a herd of sheep. Nine-tenths of Chinese are the gentlest and most docile citizens of mother Earth. One-tenth are literally devil incarnation. God save us. And God save my Chinese brethren! There the best and the worst are living side by side.

O Almighty, let there be subtle strains of democratic vaccine against a diseased ideology! Cure is on the way! Hong Kong erupts again after the Corona-enforced curfew. I see a happy, healthy and restful China sometimes in future. My Guru Dalai Lama may bless His birthplace once again, and I may get blessed by bathing in Lake Mansarovar. Well, both postponed till democracy cures the dragon!

We have our very own nursery of communism right there in the heart of Delhi. JNU-type intentional untidiness—which they foolishly take as a mark of intellect and wit—gives, at the most, bespectacled morose look, guttery stench in armpits, rotten swab of wool in the navel (and somewhere unmentionable also), lice in hazardous hair and the communist bug in the soul. All that is required is disinfectant jet sprays for the body and Ramayana, Mahabharata and Gita lessons for the soul! The Pro-Hindutva Vice Chancellor appears to lie in wait for the same like a leery, happy fox.  

The US, nursing its wounds and looking for ways and means to maintain its superpower status that has been shaken a bit by idiotic Corona, is pumping up zeal into its lethal most aircraft and humongous gladiatorial aircraft carriers in South China Sea. Back home, the land of supreme individual freedom, is helping people to step out and breathe easily in free air. Any kind of restrictions on its citizens appears so unlike America. Americans love their individual freedom. Even their government can’t keep them tamed for too long. There is a drive-in theatre in a US stadium. The giant screen plays a movie. People drive onto the sports turf in their cars and watch the movie from inside cars, face masks and all, and nobody allowed to step onto the turf. It appears a new game. This life itself is an ever-unfolding game. So always be prepared for new twists and take it as a game only.

A typhoon in the Bay of Bengal seeks attention by its furious winds and storms. It ravages West Bengal and Orisa to push Corona from people’s psyche in that region. The honorable PM comes out to take an aerial survey of the devastation in the east. He has stepped out of Delhi after 87 days. He looks eager, enthusiastic but drained out after almost sleepless fight against the deadly virus. An air crash in Pakistan, killing more than 100 people, even breaks the ice between India and Pakistan and the Indian PM offers his condolences over the Paki loss. PM Modi has broken the ice. You can very well imagine the level of frigidity in the relationship between the quarrelling boys of South Asia by the fact that even a condolence message counts as breaking the ice.

Till there is a branded separate cure for Corona, the medical fraternity is juggling with alternatives. Some take Remdesivir as the wonder drug, others shout for HCQ, including President Trump who takes the latter to keep his armor braced for the Corona salvo that might be fired at him.

Afghanistan appears to shake off the dust of hardcore, unrelenting religious zealotry as it acts with common sense and turns practical to save life by cancelling state celebrations on the occasion of Eid. In any case, the holy message of Eid be better carried out in practice and celebrated in heart than in fulfilling mere rituals while carrying hate and malice in heart. Pakistan, as can be expected from the champion land of Islam, allows mass gatherings for namaaz to appease military and mullahs. Of, Eid Mubarak to all Indians! I hope I am not breaking some patriotic vow in greeting!             

People and governments seem to have come to terms with the Corona reality. The rising statistics hardly create scary ripples down the spine. Even misery has a saturation point. Too much of it stops giving pain and suffering as its sharp fangs lose their pinch. Even misery should know the rule of moderation; otherwise it melts in the ubiquitous sands of the rutted path.

People have surged out like a dam bursts suddenly. The cases in India are rising at the rate of nearly 7000 every day. It would have given heart attacks to government, administrators and people two months ago even to think of such a figure in a day. So even though India stands as the 11^th worst affected country in the world, people and government don’t find it too scary. Most importantly, business, life, office, desires, needs and cravings are more forceful than the fear of Corona. So people, having drilled their minds about basic precautions, are jumping over the fence during this transformative stage of Lockdown 4.0, before fully melting into the freedom of normal time again. Good thing is that the recovery rate is going up in India at around 40%, with people sneezing, getting feverish, breathing with difficulty and coming out healthy again. Strange are the ways of human anatomy, a thing that is fatal to someone causes just mild dis-ease in the other.

One more thing, the cases are hugely underreported in India and so must be the number deaths, given the shape and size of our demography and the puzzling socio-economic and cultural knots in between. It’s not possible to exactly document the Corona ravages across the teeming millions in the cauldron of poverty. Poorest migrant workers have scattered across the country, leaving hardly any trace of their pain, losses and miseries. Who will trace their footsteps to exactly chronicle the losses they have suffered, ranging from the loss of livelihood, hunger, fatigue and death? So this portion of Corona damages stays outside the pale of Corona management.

The issue of migrant workers’ miseries has finally roused the dormant political turtles, who were sulking for the last two months, their neck withdrawn into the hard shell and the sulking face lost under the cover. So the political opposition has finally something to croak about and the very same ear-busting debates have started on the news channels. Little does anyone realize that there are scores of poorest migrant workers—who waged the most lethal battle of their lives in reaching their home states, jumping over the lockdown fences, falling, getting wounded, walking hungry, sick and ill, injured and many perishing on the way—are quarantined in tarpaulin sheet tents without any basic facilities and left to fend off both Corona and hunger on their own. The fire is too far from the political citadel. It doesn’t burn the august occupants of the castle. It warms their spirit and lights their stage to go into politicking again to create fabulous careers out of the rutting miseries on the ground.

A gleaming golden fact out of the mangled remains of the global economy! It should also be taken into the parameters of economizing, profit and loss theories. There has been the biggest fall in Carbon-dioxide levels. Give some credit to Corona man! There are bitter lessons it has taught us. The plot is written in poignant phrases. A father is carrying his children in baskets tied to a pole carried over his shoulder. He has miles to cover in the sweltering heat. A tribal couple, bored with lockdown, decides to dig a well. The well is 15 feet deep and 5 feet across. Like a cute pair of sand beetle they wheedle out earth for ten days to reach waters for their tiny kitchen garden plot, their goats and a few swigs for other people in the dry land around them.  

All of us have to fight for our own stories and be our best version. This little girl takes firm steps, pedaling her way to stamp her signature on the fleeting currents of existence. 15 Year old Jyoti Kumari etched her new identity on the slate of miseries. Lockdown saw her stuck up in Gurugram with her injured father. Their home was 1200 Km away. She pedals to glory in 7 days, carrying her sick father on the carrier behind. The Cycling Federation of India Chairman has said that if the gutsy girl, an eighth standard student, passes the trial, she would be taken as a trainee at the state-of-the-art National Cycling Academy. Adversities flow between the banks of opportunities. We just have to force our way to the bank or perish downstream like a dead tree bough.  

And what do I do as a common Indian while all this is happening? I smile and take lessons from a beautifully blossomed red hibiscus smiling with little red bulbs of life against the background of cracks in the wall. Although there are cracks in life, she but smiles softly and whispers an assurance: "Don't worry, all is well!"

The tiny rose bud would have surely perished, if not for our tiny moisture of love that saw it being placed in the shade of a tree. The sun is firing on all cylinders at last to take the belated summer to its peak. The temperatures are over 40 degree Celsius. The bud blossoms to be a beautiful rosy lass and sprinkles her smile in the hot eddies of the pining sandy swirls. A smile is just one breath away, provided we give it a chance. Even in the fiery pits of burning summer, a blossom awaits our cool, caring shade to smile for life and living! I enjoy the smile of the sun-shaded rose! And when the afternoon sunrays come to kiss the shy, shaded beauty for a brief flirtatious moment, she opens her heart and gives a full smile. Guys don't miss to smile even at those who mean to rob you of your smile. Our own frown eats our smile, not other's intentions! After some time, the youthful full blossomed rose starts graying and a little bud opens just under it, shaded still further by the mother rose under the shade of a tree. Proud, protective Mama and her smiling angelica! Kindness leaves a sweet trail! Invest a few emotions of kindness and wait for the results!

Let China and America continue in their fight to save humanity from their own perspectives, I do my common man’s duty to sweeten my immediate mundane surroundings. A bucket of water lies under the tree shade. Hundreds of honeybees throng with a buzz to suck water and regurgitate it in their hive to save their larvae from a painful boiling death in this heat. To undo bitterness, we don't have to turn bitter and fight it. All it needs is to give sweetness more chances. Each and Every Honeybee saved means a sweeter world.

Dostoevsky states in Devils: "Forgive me for sins voluntary and involuntary. By sinning, every man has sinned against all other men, and everyone is at least in part to blame for the sin of others. There is no such thing as an individual sin. However, I am a great sinner, and my sins may exceed your own!" I take the onus for my individual sins as the contributors to others’ sins and do penance by looking at the selfless service of these little insects. Many of them perish to keep the hive buzzing. As parents, humans also do the same by the way! Let’s hope, we enlarge this family feeling to include more humans outside our families and then all of nature around!

A buffalo brays loudly. It must be thirsty. We farmers are very much obliged to them. They have been our lifeline. Moreover, a buffalo can take one to heaven also. Yamraj, the God of death, roams on a buffalo, and so does an enlightened sage like Paramguru Lao Tzu. Both take us to heaven in different ways. Yamraj does the deed like a tough peasant, Paramguru accomplishes the deed like a caring mother. I recall countless buffalo rides in childhood. Some were Mom type sympathetic and carried with affection and care. Some were nuisant and jumped, hopped and scattered their behind like the evil belle dancer to topple the rider like a coconut falls from the tree. Well, with buffalo being almost a living Goddess to my people, you can very well imagine our culture. Our culture is agriculture basically. And we have such pointed rough edges to our persona that nature appears to keep us to puncture bloated egos with our farming fangs.

Paramguru Lao Tzu on His buffalo! It makes him a father figure to me, not simply by his philosophy that I admire so much, but by his buffalo-riding look that instantly creates a niche in my heart. To we farmers, a buffalo has defined our lives the way gold has defined the lives of the trading community. A buffalo is almost a family member to unleash brotherly affection when in good mood and lynch with a switch when in bad temper. Well, but it is never one way show. Buffaloes too have had their mood swings and the resultant bruised bums, broken bones and toppled carts. Hail buffalo for He carries my Guru!

As we are busy in the little kindergarten of life, a team of scientists has observed that "a fountain of high-energy particles erupting from the ice" in the biting cold of Antarctica may in fact be a solid evidence of a 'parallel universe'. The standard model of physics might be swashed away. It resembles to a unique phenomenon known as "upside-down cosmic-ray shower". On the surface it looked just a cosmic ray, like one sees in a reflection off the ice sheet. However, it wasn't reflected. Keep your hold on your logic; it seemed as if the cosmic ray was coming out of the ice sheet itself. Another Googlie from Mother Nature!

Dear physicists, stretch your imagination as much as possible. It's a never ending spool of energy. It won't finish. You will always have the cord in hand and still more to come. Keep pulling for fabricating more convenience of life that you proudly name as ‘science’. Beyond that, kindly abandon the illusion of hitting the last mystery! Keep pulling! Forever!

As all of us set out again to claim our portion of freedom after the Corona hiatus, a philosophical fart tarts my senses. Long before we release our kite to fly for freedom, we tie it with the bondage of string. Before we set out to liberate ourselves, we enslave ourselves to dogmas, faith and beliefs. Is there any difference between what we take to be freedom from what we know as bondage? Don't worry guys; I have mild symptoms of Dostoevskian mental diarrhea! Relax! Don't catch it yourself! Haaa haaa!

You can very well estimate my situation by reading the following excerpt in Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky: "Oh, gentlemen, do you know, perhaps I consider myself an intelligent man, only because all my life I have been able neither to begin nor to finish anything. Granted I am a babbler, a harmless vexatious babbler, like all of us. But what is to be done if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is babble, that is, the intentional pouring of water through a sieve?" Hope you got the clue for my mental diarrhea.

And finally, here is my recipe of a perfect human being: strong body, sharp mind and soft heart. I mean Shiva! Be a Shiva!

The stamp of a tiny lesson on the love handle

The lockdown has spared a lot of energies with us. We are just looking out for the ways and means to unleash the reserves. My brother decides to use his extra stock on an abandoned, old and archaic water cooler lying in the barn. He is eager to set it into motion again. He finds it the real creative thing after the boring spell of work-from-home software engineering endeavor to get us more and more lost in the dehumanized world of software applications. So last night he raised a plume of dust, almost a mini desert storm, sneezed and laughed triumphantly as the rickety thing was dragged out of its grave.

Like any storm, the dust-storm left a casualty also. A stinging yellow hornet nest was dislodged. These days they survive on our garbage and left-outs. Whatever is of no use to us, turns of full use to them. But then we consumerists try to salvage the last utility even from our own dumps. Since it was night, the odds were against them. They droned angrily for a few moments. One of them even took revenge. It bit him on his finger. The salvo left him with a painful wince. He rubbed his finger and then all gets back to normal. The insulted insects took to hide and somehow see through the night.

In the morning, they are seen droning around angrily. They are aggressive and come very near the target, our foolish faces. ‘Don’t just take a swipe, even if it perches on your nose! It won’t have a reason to bite!’ I set out the instruction, having enjoyed the benefits of this approach many times in life. The principle struck very fruitfully even to ward off the angry hoard of the deadliest bumble bees, the big rascals of the stinging wasp family. Their group strikes kill humans even till date. And who can vouchsafe their deadliness more than my own family, having suffered directly. My great-grandfather, a tirelessly hardworking huge farmer, was returning in the evening after a day of ploughing the fields. The pair of bullocks had spring in their step as they mildly galloped back home for fodder and rest. The bells tied around their necks chimed the verve and happiness to get back home as early as possible. The sturdy great-grandpa had his plough on his work-beaten shoulder. An angry nest of bumblebees attacked them with full fury. The sturdy young farmer was bitten viciously. Well, that was almost hundred years back, my grandfather being just a child when he lost his young father. His terribly swollen body had hardly any chance of survival during those days when people hadn’t seen hospitals and doctors in their entire lives.

My ancestor’s soul must have nailed it in my little brain, I mean the instructions that I mentioned above. I was once cycling in my childhood and an angry scout party of bumblebees chased me down. They probably wanted to repeat the family history. But times had changed and even farmers had started to have some common sense. I had little common sense not to take a swipe or shake my head in any way. I just kept on cycling like before. They tried their level best to find any chink in my armor, and hence earn a right to attack. They devilishly teased the hell out of me. I could feel a few sitting on my hair. My face could feel the angry whispers of their drones. I but kept stuck to my credo. Thank you great-grandpa! You must have driven this little sense in my tiny farmers stock brain after having learnt the lesson in a tragic way yourself. So guys non-reaction saves lives. After a kilometer or so of them seeking a reason to strike, they were disappointed and left me on my fun ride.

This morning over tea, the topic turned to hornet bites. ‘These days bees and hornets have hardly any bite in their stings,’ my brother said while looking at his finger which looked almost normal. And both of us had our own share of horrible bites of master stingers in our childhood, when a bite would bloat the face and eyes for days. ‘Poor insects, they seem to have lost the battle! Harmless hornets and biteless bees!’ I had my Buddhist consolation and musing.

The talk then turned to our mother. A very strong peasant woman, who could walk 4 Km with 50 Kg fodder load of twelve feet long stalks of Jowar on her head, she had the softest, divine feminine heart of golden lotus and strong hands that could tame a male buffalo by holding its neck cord. But Mother had a weakness against stinging insects. We saw her crying after getting bitten by a hornet leaving me wondering, ‘How can Ma cry over a bite while she has the power to lift so much of load and tame buffaloes!?’ Lost in the fond memories of our Mom, I pointed out this fact about Mother in a little jest. She is part of everything now. I know she feels our pain for her leaving us. The moisture of love and gratitude for her must also be reaching her. In her lifetime on earth, she was too soft to teach even the littlest lesson to her children even at the grossest provocation! Well, now she must be looking at us in totality, and as a Mother must be feeling like mildly tweaking our ears for all our funny flaws. So she must have decided to teach me a little lesson about hornet bites after getting irritated over my remark. I would come to know about it an hour later.

I am doing kapalbhati pranayam in an effort to channelize my physicality to get it in sync with my spirit to raise my mundane awareness. My funny baby bump in the belly undulating with efforts to manage my prana. I have eyes closed and in fine rhythm. The smile is ravaged suddenly. I wince with terrible pain. My hand instinctively takes a swipe at the still funnier love handle by the side of my belly. I have been taught a lesson in a painful way. Hornets are painful man and no surprise Ma had tears of pain after getting struck. The rascal offending yellow stinging hornet has literally struck with full force. It seems to have fallen in Dracula type craziness after tasting my blood. I have to tear it away. Either it’s a love bite on the funny love handle or a kiss of revenge. Both mean the same if it’s a stinging yellow hornet. I am rolling in pain on the yoga mat, writing in funniest of body contortions, rubbing the raped love handle, doing God knows what type of asnas in pain. I would call it ‘Hornet-sting-asna’. The side of my belly getting a bump, as if in some asymmetrical pregnancy brutally sired by the rapist evil hornet.

Lesson has been learnt Ma! They are indeed painful and give tears after getting struck. Love you, and thanks for gently holding me by ears and still being there to keep guiding me in the lessons of life and living.