Tea-time musings on a breeze-swept day

 With softly pining majesty,

silence sings a song,

Shadows grow long,

Her soft fingers brace my face

and go along a tear's trace.

Delicate tip of her finger bears the jewel,

A tear,

The tear that would have been

lost as a salty line on my face.

**

If the situations and circumstances around you are muddy, count yourself lucky because you have been picked up to blossom the lotus of life in that mud. Ever saw a lotus smiling in clear waters? So guys just splash playfully in the mud. I promise it is worth it. Did you see a pig rolling in the mud? Well, that is bliss if ever there was any. It owns it mud fully. It doesn't hold partial purity of future. It clings to its present mud with full passion. The pig just loves wallowing in its mud. Let the purity seekers waste their lives in reaching the holy pools to cleanse their souls. Let them ruin their present for a promised future. A pool of mud at hand is better than mere promises of holy bathing in uncertain future. Love your circumstances, feller. Try your decent bit and see whether you can change them a bit to your liking. If you manage it, well and good. If you can't change them, simply roll in them like a pig. It is blissful. Believe me!

**

The sun playing hide and seek among floating clouds,

The humid air wispily whispering a smart secret,

The land lying languidly with overdose of love;

its pining thirst quenched

by the sky's countless kisses and love-drops,

A dove pair mating,

lost in the silent majesty of lusty innocence,

And he holding her hand

with a soft touch to cover stony realities,

A gentle kiss follows

to hide the mutual lies told

to make each other happy and joyful

for the time being.

**

Whoever pleases and pacifies the Demons in us becomes our Angel!

Teatime Trills

 Greedy, lustful gust of wind 

clasped the fragrant petals 

of the full-blossomed flower. 

Covetous currents of its dark passion 

tore the tiny vase of beauty and perfume.

Petals fly with dust in all directions. 

The storm doesn't win 

and the beauty doesn't lose! 

The former loses battle over time and distance

and dies with thorny imprints 

left by the stem on its viciously throbbing heart,

The latter spreads its cozily surrendered self 

in the limitless folds of peace.

**

If you lag behind, they will trample you.

If you run with the pack, they will try to push you to the sidelines.

If you outpace them, they will pull your leg.

Well, that's human society for you!

**

क्या कहेंगे लोग?

यही है सबसे बड़ा रोग।

**

Lynched by loneliness,

I surrendered to the 

sweet tyranny of solitude,

The wounds healed,

The suffering receded,

They moved away 

like shifting shadows,

Painful memories lagged behind

and turned milestones on the foggy path,

Of course sweet breeze blows sometimes

and carries sweet memories from behind,

They leave a smile on my lips

and are again left behind, as I move on,

like sweet pathside flowers,

I look back, 

They wave a sweet good bye

with a still sweeter sigh,

And thus we have to move on,

All alone

to our destination next,

And pitch our tent at one fine dusk

and go for a long, long sleep.

**

I know this is in contradiction to aesthetics. But then we have to acknowledge the dark as well. So couldn't help sharing this tantalizing piece of grey shades. By who else? GD Roberts in Shantaram:

"The best revenge, like the best sex, is performed slowly and with the eyes open."

The great game among errant kids

 Let’s talk about Afghanistan from the geostrategic point of view. Please don’t feel bad if the life of an Afghani citizen is seen almost inconsequential in this talk about ‘the great game’. Geostrategic maneuvering is primarily about the interests of the superior powers. The interests of the hosting yard, where the game is fought, are inconsequential. Whoever goes to Afghanistan doesn’t go there as an enemy of Afghanistan. He goes there as someone else’s enemy. The Britishers went there as the enemies of Russians. The Americans went there as the enemies of Russians. Presently, Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran are there as the enemies of America. Pakistan has more reasons to meddle there. They are there as the enemies of India as well. The Afghan tragedy is that nobody has gone there as a friend of Afghanistan. It is always some outsider’s enemy. And enemy’s enemy makes a very shaky friendship. China and Russia will realize it during the coming decades. For the Russians it will be a repeat lesson if they cross over the line again. And a superpower intoxicated China has to learn this Afghan lesson inevitably if it really wants to claim superpower status.

The Afgahnis have more or less accepted poverty as their most prized asset at the cost of their fierce pride, clan loyalty, spirit of independence and a culture of killing and dying. Dying and killing isn’t too much a shock in Afghanistan. It’s very easily digested. Craze is craze. Someone fights for superpower status, the Afghanis fight to keep their ideology and medieval principles. It’s their opium. They love taking long draughts at it. It’s good that Americans have packed their bags. Instead of having their army in the enemy’s backyard, it’s more practical to have a lethal naval unit that can move to any part of the world with effective deterrence. On top of it, take a quantum jump in space warfare. Be several years ahead of the nearest rival. Be in a position to harm the enemy’s space assets. It’s just like sitting on high ridges from where you can easily those coming up the slopes. The formula is: Be up there in the skies, higher than the others and trample down your enemy if they dare to stare at you in the skies.

The ‘graveyard of empires’ is surely going to be the graveyard of the next superpower also. Taliban know that they aren’t supporting Taliban as such. The Chinese are merely opposing the Americans. In this, the Chinese are repeating the American mistakes of nurturing a genie that is sure to go against the master at any cost. In future, fundamentalist Islam is a bigger threat to China than America. America hasn’t reformation camps for Muslims. There an ordinary Muslim goes about his/her routine without too much pressure on their faith. The insurgent groups in Central Asia and Taliban are well aware of what is happening to Uighur Muslims. It’s a temporary accommodation on their part to take China as an ally. One, but, must not forget that fundamentalist Islam’s first priority is keeping their faith intact, however objectionable the outer world finds it. So China will surely realize it later. A badland of blood thirsty Jihadis isn’t that much of a threat to America as it’s to China. Superpower status definitely costs you the sleep of a few nights. Let the situation keep worsening in China’s backyard and its flares will surely reach the Red bastion. In fact, by being there America was doing a bigger favor to the Chinese than to itself.

What about Pakistan? They haven’t learnt any lessons from their fire-mongering against India, which ultimately destroyed them to the extent of making them a vassal state of China. Wait, China is a very tough taskmaster. Imran Khan, your Red Father will extract the costs with a nice rate of interests. Chinese are not Americans that they will pour billions of dollars in the name of fighting terrorism while you keep sheltering Osama Bin Laden. They know how to take more at the cost of giving less. Very strict businessman, I tell you. A democratic creditor will at the most pull your ears and shout at you for bunking your payments. However, an autocratic creditor will spit at your face and put its index finger in your ass for the littlest error. So take care!

What about the modern, educated, cultured voice of sanity in Afghanistan? They have no option. They have to leave and set up their world at some other place. Simple message for them is ‘please leave at any cost, however possible.’ Pakistan you be careful of TTP. They will continue pulling your beard. China don’t count off ETIM like you have done so far. Taliban is a great encouraging example for them. They have an idol now in the form of a triumphant radical Islam. India, keep supplying the Northern Alliance with material help because as a regional power aspirant you too are helpless. So to keep your interests, you supply guns to the Northern Alliance. America, you please keep a low profile for some time and focus on your technologies. There is no need to get into a street brawl with the Red bully who wants to dissipate you. You just mind your own business for some time and don’t get instigated by the puns and pranks about your so called ‘defeat’ in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, victory and defeat mean almost the same. Their own defeat is no defeat. And the outsider’s victory is no victory. Why the hell people go there to fight. It looks like a circus ring now. Abandon it. Of course, help those who want to come out, give them visas and facilitate their rehabilitation. But allow the medieval species to lead their lives as they deem fit. And the fight for world supremacy has better avenues. This barren land is very boring. Go and write success stories on the sea. Have countless submarines, aircraft carriers and destroyers. There is more mobility. Now please disturb the aquatic world. There has been enough terrestrial mischief. And run to the high ridges, I mean go higher into the skies and throw pebbles from there at your enemy’s pot. Well, in any case space wars will acquire legitimacy very soon. So why bother about these poor Afghans. Leave them at peace in their caves, elder councils, medieval beliefs and chuckled smiles at both dying and killing.

Why do I like my corrupt politician?

The urge to rule and dominate used brutal force in the ancient times. Then we started getting civilized and the concept of outright blood and gore to dominate and rule was challenged by the civilized norms of peace, harmony, rights, responsibility, equality, ethics, etc. Of course there is still blood and war in different parts of the world but the voices opposing it are very significant also. Politicians are far better than the outright savage killers. They, at the most, draw invisible white blood instead of the red one. Politicians cut the masses vision, to keep it suitable to their purpose, instead of gauzing out eyes altogether. They try to cut down your thinking to reshape it on their anvil instead of outright beheading. Apolitical power aspirants have hardly any inhibition in pulling out eyes and cutting throats. As a chicken-hearted writer I always prefer non-physical cutting over the physical one. I am always in gratitude to our politicians for they have spared my limbs and allowed me to retain my croaking. With their clever as well as cunning acumen they may push me into the corridors ignominy and pathetic survival. However, at least I still get a chance to keep croaking. Politics is the craft of creating mammoth mountains of symbolism out of tiny molehills of facts or even fiction. It's extremely cunning but very creative work. The massive loafs of cloud then roam in our minds, covering the real from the unreal. The sun of truth stays above and in the shadows fractions of truth, beliefs, conventions and set up narratives mischievously condition the mind to think in a definite pattern for big gains for the politicians. And all this allows them to claim power and its pelf in majorly bloodless ways, save some minor aberrations here and there. What I fear most is the apolitical power aspirants like religious fundamentalists. Do you think Taliban will allow any unbecoming croaking to their ears? Never! They are perfectly apolitical. And believe in drawing direct, real, red blood. In comparison, our khadi clad politician rulers seem angels. Learn to love your political rulers, fella. Ask those who haven’t political rulers sitting over their head and instead have apolitical direct power claimants. Ask any educated Afghani person, running away from the land of misery, what it means to be ruled by ‘active fists’ instead of ‘scheming minds’. You will have all your answers. 

The Pleasure and Pain of being Human!

 You may say that an ant has a tiny memory span of mere 6 seconds. After this brief interval, it reclaims its natural impulse of seeking food. It forgets that you had put a finger across its path and in reaction it stopped sensing danger. But this memory lasts just for 6 seconds after that it has a new start. In comparison, the Homo sapiens possess a memory span of not just this lifetime but massive pools of memories from our previous births in the form of subconscious and unconscious chambers. It instinctively keeps on taking us into past, thus depriving us of the present time’s bliss that the so called lesser species seem to enjoy. One may wonder, is such forgetfulness, the kind enjoyed by an ant and other species, is the real bliss.

Well, of course they have more fulfilling lives. They have the existential limits; we have the possibilities beyond the world of mind-born miseries. They face physical threats to their survival. We have the great faculty of still feeling insecure despite all the securities around. We but can't compare life at various hierarchies of evolution. An ant's karma is bound around 6 seconds of memories. Ours is a bit more. There is just quantitative difference. But there is hardly any difference qualitatively. Look at her passion for life, unswerving focus, her ability to lift weight. Its short, life's each moment is full of unwavering karma. Nature expects the same from us. What are we? We are simply bigger ants with a bit bigger memory. It's never about bliss as such. According to me, what matters is what we create out of that has been given to us by the accidents of birth, this body, our family, our circumstances. Beyond compulsions, if we evolve to a level of living by choice, this according to me serves a big role in whether we live a joyful or miserable life. We have already crawled as ants in the form of consciousness attached to this human body of present. I, you and all of us have already enjoyed ant bliss in previous births, don't worry dear readers. This cosmos has a tendency for moving to complexity. So our individual consciousness is also moving from the simplest body forms to a complex human body. And the journey continues. Journey well you all!

Please don’t get dismayed at my calling our birth an accident, merely a chance event in the cosmos. Beyond the loopy tales of inflated egos, all of us are mere mortals in the scheme of mother existence. We are mere drops for her overall existence, like the drops in the sea effectuate the universality through their individuality. Nobody has a claim over 'more evolved' or 'less evolved' soul. We are mere work in progress. Now, coming to your 'dismay' about our birth as mere accident. There is a lot of difference between 'letter' and 'spirit'. Yes, our individual consciousness has had a specific journey, across various body forms in different births, whose momentum has carried us to the present coordinates of mind, body, soul, circumstances. With that kind of cause and effect linearity, we cannot say our birth is a mere accident. But, ironically we hardly remember anything of our past births, so given this human frailty, in laymen terms, birth appears accidental because we don't know the causes of past karmas as such. We just know the effect, this birth and its circumstances. That's why our birth appears accidental. It appears so, but it is not. When I say that we have to be a creator beyond the incidental throws at us, I just emphasize the human faculty of conscious decision and choice making to be a better version of ourselves.

Is our pursuit of happiness the cause of massacre of earth itself? I would like to say that happiness is never a part of what we have done so far. Have you ever seen a happy and joyful person going on to kill fellow human beings? A happy and joyful soul will be driven by 'needs' not greed. You may say that most of the people in their blind pursuits, whose ill effects are written large over mother earth, are under the impression that they are doing something that they like and love. So it's basically their pursuit of happiness that is the basic cause of present time chaos. No my dear sir, it's the pursuit of misery that has brought us to the threshold of mass misery. This is the fatal addiction, like an alcoholic spells physical and psychological doom under the impression that what he does is driven by his liking, and hence happiness, for alcohol. But would you term it as a happy choice just because someone likes alcohol. This is not choice. This is compulsion and helplessness. Only with a capable mind and body one can make happy choices. It's the helpless, compulsive pursuit that breeds disaster, not choice-driven attempts. With choice driven persona, one becomes a creator, a responsible citizen who knows the ill effects of his/her likes and dislikes. Whatever we like, do or intend to do is never strictly in the bracket of likes and dislikes. Most of the things that we do compulsively are mere escape routes from the agonizing bitter truth driven by guilt, fear, anger, hate and jealousy. There is a difference between what your soul craves you to do and what we end up doing under the primal compulsive instincts of anger, hate, jealousy, etc. My idea of happiness is only about following the inner voice of one's soul, not the outer compulsion driven pursuits most of us end up getting trapped into. The real happiness and joy is proportional to how much we create on the manifest plain following the sing-song voice of one's inner self.

Have you ever seen fragrant jasmine flowers flowering from a prickly acacia? All these prickly fruits of pollution, wars and diseases are the fruits of what we have sown. Their seed isn't pursuit of happiness. Their seed is pursuit of misery. The great mirage of our existence that presents misery as pleasure! We are unfortunately following mirages in deserts.

You may wonder that little animals and insects follow a code of conduct in keeping ecological balance, while we rampantly flout all norms. Is that all it means to be a human being? Is it only about winning over nature and destroy it in the effort? Don't worry ma’am, this creation isn't human centric. Ecological balances at the level of the so called less evolved species may appear a nice code game. In our cases, if you find Homo sapiens outstretching the natural balance, forces beyond earth will counterbalance our misdemeanors. This termite mole-hill that we call human civilization may pop out far earlier than we think, like it has happened many times earlier. So till then let's have a life of joy and purpose. Enjoy your journey!