Fire-spitting Dragon or just a Fat, Flabby and Jolly Bania

In pre-independence India, the people of trading class, Banias, were the stock markets, banks, treasurer, economists and much more, all rolled into one. Just a few households in every countryside settlement, they were the crown of the economy sitting affably on the head while farmers and laborers sweated out like ant swarms.

Caste and communities were not straightaway imposed on people randomly. These got ingrained with different attitudes and personal traits over generations. A farmer took pride in being called rough and rowdy that pacified his ego and he defined life in terms of keeping his temper and straightforwardness at the tip of his nose perched over mustache brimming with attitude, even if it meant surviving like a beast in the rough and gruff of a hard peasant life.

Some took pride in fighting and made it the illustrious element of life that validates one’s existence. They turned out to be Rajputs, the warrior clan. Others took menial jobs, probably finding these to be easier and less hassled, and came to be dumped at the bottom of caste hierarchy. Another matter that over a period of time these came to be cemented identities decided by birth and the social system fixed them as mighty disadvantages since birth. So the base sunk deeper and deeper into the pits of deprivation and miseries. Here we are concerned only with the way it started, not about the pains that ail the present time disadvantaged castes.

So casteism evolved as a sort of social Darwinism at play. In the same vein, Banias defined life in terms of gold and silver coins in their coffers. Their sense of worth, dignity, respect and over all identity came to be centered around money and the ways and means to pile more of it in their heavy metal chests set in lime and mortar fort like lakhori brick walls. A Bania won’t mind ill manners, abuses and disrespect by a rowdy outlaw kind farmer as long as the latter was indebted to him in his red-cloth bound account book that had the chronicle of many generations of indebtedness jotted down by his pen. From that standard, the farmer was simply a poor devil hopelessly indebted to the money lender. As long as the farmer kept pawning away his buffalo, grains or anything worth the appreciating eye of the moneylender to meet his emergency needs, his bad behavior hardly counted in the monetized version because it didn’t carry any price to the Bania. A farmer would keep grumbling obscenities under his breath, the Bania but would keep smiling and speak with sugar-coated words, all the while fully having a feeling of the foul words. To a well-meant spider the bickering of trapped flies hardly matters for anything.

The Banias kept lathaits, the muscled criminal type stick-wielding guards, their sticks well oiled and muscles twitching with wrestling pit acrobatics and push-ups. In between, the fat, flabby Bania chuckled good naturedly. He never intended to use the power for the sight of blood and broken bones. Never means never! Fighting wasn’t his domain. Trading and making money requires peace, gentle words and an ever-smiling countenance. A farmer would be the first to lose temper and a Bania would be the last. Well, that set up their antipodal positions on the economic ladder. The farmer used brawn and toiled all through life, thinking his rugged misdemeanor and arrogant attitude was all that mattered to define a human life. The Bania used brain and minted gold from the mine of peasantry’s drudgery. Nothing wrong at any end; just the difference between hard work and smart work.

Looking at the almost unused resource--rarely used and thus almost redundant--the stick-wielding group of outlaws, it appeared nearly unnecessary expenditure because trading was the theme not intimidation. It was primarily a symbolic force more for self defense because if you go belligerent you will kill the hens that lay eggs for you. To a Bania it only meant that the rowdy farmer would keep his anger to the limits of cursing and foul words even to the extent of these reaching his bodyguards’ ears. They won’t pounce till the farmer actually attacked the Bania. This possibility was rare because a symbolic force can at least stop the attacker. And if the situation developed to take the unlikely scene of a real physical fight, the Bania would in fact continue laughing in a jolly manner and ask his men not to attack and allow them to use force within the limits of repulsing the attacker only. The Banias indeed have had legendary patience. No wonder, Goddess Lakshmi, loves their peaceful households. The farmers have legendary uncouthness and the Goddess avoids their humble abodes.

The real threats to the Banias from the gangs of robbers—although always present theoretically yet farthest in practice—was more of an exception, since it happened just one or two times in the entire lifetime. For the rest of the time, the Bania was happy to be circled by his restful symbolic force and treated the peasantry like petty truants whose tantrums had to be tolerated to keep them there in the system of economy to continue raising their multi-generational debts. A Bania ate his bread out of his patience and smart work. A farmer did his on the basis of his hard work only.

China is that typical Bania. It has to earn profits and do business at any cost. It has a well-oiled army just like the Bania had his gang of muscle-men, who lazed under the sun most of the time. It cannot afford to kill its trading prospects by getting belligerent in the real sense in the form of  a bloody battle. I mean they may bellicose and create rhetoric like hell but they will surely fall short of an actual war; simply because they cannot think of losing their trade. With your priority to trade and make profits at any cost, you can’t be a belligerent hardcore soldier, however hard you may try. Money has its tremendous soothing effect on one’s senses.

The Chinese are the smartest Banias on earth and smart Banias never fight in the real sense. They just put up a mock show of aggression to keep trading. Even while investing the biggest sums of money in their military, the Chinese government basically thinks in economic terms. The economic and trading implications of maintaining a huge army, that’s the credo. A keen sense of trading automatically smoothens out lot many pinchy edges from one’s persona. One’s craving for profiteering allays the beast aside and puts precaution on the front. To be a really bloody fighting soldier one has to first be a non-trader, a loser in economic terms. The Chinese Red Army is the former and genocidal suicidal factions fighting in the middle east are the latter. You can calculate their economic worth. The Chinese calculate their defense expenditure as one of the overheads in the scheme of economy, where the armed strength and its symbolic visibility on the surface are more in symbol than in substance.

The current flare-up with India across Himalayan borders is a bit more than trading this time. Cornered by allegations over Corona, China is now engaged in these skirmishes to create dustier scenario of a war time situation so that Corona issue gets diverted a bit. Well, armies these days play more of symbolic role than they do actually on the battlefield. In fact, they are more useful in quelling internal dissent than in wading off external threats, which again are exception like an outright attack on a Bania by a robber gang that happened once or twice in his life time.

America keeps it army for all these and something more also. Something extra! Well, that makes it the superpower. About that extra, we will talk some other time!

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!