Empathy, Solitude and Love

 

Feeling lonely? Solitude is somewhere in the same garden. With a lonely feeling you are depressed, which perilously borders on being destructive. Solitude, on the other hand, is creative. There is an art of changing your loneliness into solitude. You can even start with a peacock like I tell you.

Finding it difficult to empathize with fellow human beings due to many setbacks and disappointments? Well, don’t feel too low. Start with nature and its constituents who have been pushed to the corner due to our onslaught. Empathy is the mother of compassionate self. Nurture her well, and she will deliver a healthy, kind and considerate baby. As a gift you hardly get brooding moments to feel lonely.

Instead of just killing time, and as a result kill my own prospects to being better, I willingly sympathize with the evening guest, even though he won't have tea. I accept my share of the collective sins against Mother Nature. This very acknowledgment lays the first brick of the building of redemption. The biggest of trees sprout from the smallest of seeds. Similarly, mightiest salvations, and resultant boons, rewards and achievements, begin from tiny sensitivities. Sounds miraculous? Well, not to me, because I understand that they make up the persona over all. With the warmth of empathy, my solitude turns full of love.

I see groups of peacocks and peahens on rooftops and terraces foraging for survival in the concrete jungle. Farmlands cover almost all the countryside now. And there are hardly any reptiles and insects to feed upon. Landholding is decreasing. Population is increasing. Agriculture is becoming unviable. More and more chemicals are used to increase production. Commerce sees only the outstanding stats of production and profit-loss equation in financial terms. It overlooks the shadows under the shiny lamp where ecological destruction is writing newer and newer tragic tales. Chemicals give diseases to humans in the medium turn, but they kill reptiles and insects straightway. So where will the peacocks go? They take refuge in the concrete jungle. Ironically, almost every species now stands at the mercy of we human beings.

Well, the winter is slowly building up and the sunrays are losing their pinch. And the moment they lose their hot potency, your skin pines for a warm kiss. Welcome early winters! I have been writing for my blog almost through the day. Then feeling tired I decide to move around to take a tea break in the evening. And here comes the guy, the bald Romeo who has shed his plumage hence bothered more about food than peahens. No spare chapati, his favorite, this evening. So I offer biscuits. He takes a few unwelcoming bites. I try wheat grains. Lo, here he is savoring his evening snack. But I feel sad that he cannot have tea and be my tea party partner.

He has learnt the lesson: to survive you are at the mercy of humans. With his natural feeding ground, the countryside, turning into a chemical bowl of monoculture where poison kills insects, rodents and reptiles immediately in the fields—and humans also, slowly over a period of time as the toxicants enter the food chain and punish we humans for our collective sins—this beautiful multicolored wonder of mother nature enters houses, beating its natural fear of the two-footed most dangerous animal on the planet, and stands there like a well decorated beggar. What else to do? No option left.

The struggling farmers pour chemicals, pesticides and weedicides in the fields. Nothing is thus left for this free forager in the open countryside. So it lands on terraces and yards to get survival morsels. Sometimes when its hunger is unbeatable, it follows people well into their rooms, like a cute kid hankering after elders for chocolate. The last time it came, it had a huge bunch of shining and shimmering plumage, just on the verge of shedding it away. I could hear my mother requesting, "Arre pagal pankh hamare ghar gira ke Jaana!"

However, in this he is the master of his own will. So here comes the colorful Romeo without his burden. He has shed his plumage and looks like a nimble, flirtatious teenager. Moves freely, flies with lesser effort. But it comes at the cost of love. Peahens won't give him a damn look without his decoration. And of course my mother is angry that he didn't shed even a single feather in our yard. "Go to them whom you gave your feathers!" The poor thing gets reprimanded. She starts with her household chores, but not before handing over a chapatti (so it was there after all; or mothers have better eyes than sons in these regards) to me to honor the colorful guest.

With a sad smile on my face, I look at the guest eating the chapatti pieces. Possibly we have already done irreversible damage to the ecosystem. But then there is always hope as long as one sees such colorful wonder of Mother Nature. I decide to be happy and hopeful as it completes it belated lunch. Stretches and shakes its shortened plumage as a mark of contentment and majestically moves to the far end of the yard where it can spot a bucket of water. It always takes water after the meals, by the way. Cornered in a tiny eco-space, it may well be the last in its lineage, but then the sight is so beautiful that all the doomsday scenarios get dispelled. I smile with a contended feeling as it hops onto the wall and goes away.   

So brother and sisters, life is lying around in countless forms for us to provide a bit of meaning to our own self. It has unlimited potential to give love; has limits for our greed though. Go, pick up the small wares and build the palace of your happiness.

My Mom is still there to help us!

 

Ma is still around and taking care of us even though she left her body almost two and half years ago. The other day, one of my aunties in our extended family lost her gold earring. Now it’s a catastrophe for a woman to lose her gold ornament. Apart from the economic loss, they take it as a bad omen also. Give her two for her lost gold piece, she but will still be sad and sullen about the lost one. My aunt is a very hardworking woman. She has a set-up routine of household chores like my mother had. Aunty gets up early and her day involves morning walk in the fields around the village, visit to the temple, many rounds around the cattle barn at a distance from the house and the rest of the routine tasks in their sprawling countryside house. Given her large area of movement over the dusty village streets, even to think of pinpointing some specific location where the probability of finding the earring was higher than others seemed a futile exercise. She and the family looked into all nook corners of the house. The temple premises were scanned and so were the streets and paths where she had walked on that day. Much disturbed auntie tried to sleep at night but sleep was nowhere nearby. She was in tension. Around half past three in the morning, she got a short span of sleep and my mother appeared in her dream. Auntie says my mother was seen brooming the streets on the side of the house and the little square falling on the other side of our house. Mother always cleaned the surroundings after cleaning the house. Young women less than half her age won’t even think of cleaning the neighbourhood streets for others to walk. But that’s how mother was. She lived a life that wasn’t strictly chained by mine or your boundaries. Cleaning the street in front of the house, mother said to auntie, ‘Don’t take so much of tension. Now go to sleep peacefully. You will find your gold earring. It’s lying near the platform fronting the street in front of our house. There is a splinter of bamboo near it.’ Well, around eight in the morning auntie recalled the dream and went out to the said place. The earring was found exactly at the place mother had indicated. Just imagine dozens of people had been passing the spot and nobody spotted it. But nothing can miss a mother’s eyes. She is still around, keeping a watch over the proceedings of our follies from a higher dimension.  

The Path Leading to Silence and Solitude

 

Some sweetly humid moments on a rainy day in the countryside can provide more solace than biggest joyrides in concrete jungles. Nature’s bounties guys. Accept the offer. Like I do. It enriches you with observation, understanding, realization and glimpses of the ultimate truth.

There is a mystical silence behind all this little drama. The pathway to that zone of silence is through this amazing thoroughfare. Take your journey through it. You will reach the point of your solitude. There you will see your true self, the real loving self. I for one never miss a chance to allow the sonorous cooing touch the strings of my soul and feel the mystical harmony sizzling through my heart.

Life is never greener and more colorful in my small yard than during the monsoons: luxurious green of harsingar, motia, jasmine, duranta, guava, kari patta, tulsi, murva and the ubiquitous sadabahar blooming out of proportion. Well, the rains have been good. Butterflies dart around, flirting with flowers and their mates amid airy swirls. Even the irritatingly prickly and boring keekars are luxurious green like a new bride.

There are more birds breeding in the safe and overgrown greenery. I can even see a kite hovering in silent, serene majesty, its wings spread out in embracing comfort of Mother Nature. Even in the countryside the sight has become a rarity and I cannot remember many during the past decade. So it's a positive sign for the birdie world.

There are two pairs of oriental magpie robins chhrrring around. A treepie gives its strangely sweet ululation. A pair of Asian pied starling muses from the electricity line. A white wagtail flicks its tail and gives a sharp preening shriek of ecstasy as it picks up some insect from the ground. A group of bee-eaters dart and free-dive after the flies going footloose in the open skies. A bee-eater sits silently and swoops suddenly to catch a dragonfly. It then sits on a dry mulberry branch, the prey bigger for its beak, thinking over what to do now. It then starts beating the struggling pray on the branch, striking its beak on both sides by rhythmically moving its neck sideways. It appears more like bird yoga.

The bulbul family is still around, improvising newer and newer calls. The mother bulbul is very possessive of its offspring and entails it all the time. The wire-tailed swallow family is often seen with their swift dives and faint chipping sounds. There are lots of flying insects. So the young fellows are being fed well. Tiny tailor-bird tweets with the best effect among all. A lovelorn male Indian Robin is persistently sending love notes to attract a mate. The other day, it was drizzling and the lonely bird kept sitting on a high dry branch in the rain and continued with its pining notes. Well, let's hope lady luck smiles on it soon.

The unperturbed stoicism of the dove pair is inspiring to a meditator like me. The babblers and crows are noisy though. The stern looking mynah always appears with an air of aloof, single point focus on her own affairs. Another pair of spotted munia has set up a new nest in the Parijat tree's upper branches.

So the slow pace of life unfolds in its rustic majesty in the countryside. Then to top it all, there are the love notes of the lonely oriental magpie robin. Beautiful symphony of monsoonal love notes. The long drawn love notes are flying in air to catch the attention of an interested female. The guy is so absorbed in his love search that I reach just 3 feet from it. Only then it realizes that there are more important things than love and irritatingly flows away to continue its mate-searching song from a nearby tree.

Each moment is precious. Each instant is full of endless possibilities. Come on, try to observe all that is happening in such little moments. You will soon realize the richness of time. You will learn the art of getting the maximum of each single moment without feeling hurried and burdened with the daunting task. A natural effortlessness will seep into your way of doing things. But for all this to happen, you have to open your arms to the little wonders of life. These are the atoms that constitute the bigger dreams around.

The Fort-maker on a Rainy Day

 

Looking at the blisters on your hands as you slog out and feel like carrying the burden of the whole existence? Wait! Everything and everyone from the mightiest to the lowest is entitled to this feeling. We are doing things because rest of others are also busy with the same tons of sweat. Problem is we put too much of pondering over even the smallest of things that must be simply followed in a natural sequence. It saves energy for the pleasant aesthetics of life. Love and consideration are simply flowers in the garden of aesthetic sense.

I see a fort-maker on a rainy day, and all my extra sense of being a tireless worker scampers off. It has all the fundamentals of making a big human fort on the hilltop. Watching it I get to realize how endowed we humans are as a part of society and civilization, where our collective self guarantees so many entitlements and conveniences. A tiny insect on the other hand braves it all alone. It makes me feel protected and pampered. I feel gratitude. And gratitude is the loving buddy of your compassionate self.

Existence weaves the web of creation with endless patience and infinite diligence. Both are same by the way, not contradictory.

It's hot and humid, the sun sweltering over rain-lashed earth. There is a well-digger in my yard, sweating it out since early morning. The sand-wasp works more efficiently than a human earth-mover. No noise, no pollution. Simply going in and coming out in reverse with a sand-ball tucked between its snout and the foreleg pair that it uses with the efficiency of hands. And freshly hued damp yellow sand growing up like a tiny mound. It appears as a hill of its efforts. 

It's unmindful of me taking a picture from a close quarter. Given its single-minded focus, I wonder I may have a tiny hill and a spring—because water table is very high in rainy season—in my yard. Best of luck well-digger! But please don't dig too deep to make a hole for a small snake to fit in.

On further enquiries I find it's a friendly insect, doesn't aggressively bite like bees. Now I see why it's unmindful of my presence so near its sandy altar. It also preys upon mosquitoes and houseflies. So continue bro, dig a long tunnel for your larvae and then prey upon our common enemies. In full support with you! Cheers!

Now I see it closing the gates of its fort, for new life, new cycle. While closing the gates, it takes a few breakfasty bites at a couple of ants also. Possibly it has missed breakfast today. After closing the gates, it hovers over the mound with the elated buzz of a triumphant US military hawk helicopter. The fort-maker then scraps a depression around the freshly dug cave-mouth to close it temporarily. Possibly it is meant to, I am not sure, guard the site during its absence. It is then gone for the time. Not to loiter around, I am sure. There is something in store in its scheme, which I cannot understand at the moment.

And I am proven right. It's never chalta hai attitude in nature, unlike humans who take shortcuts and apartments and bridges collapse. The sand-wasp went out to get some preys that it collects nearby under the windfallen leaves. To keep its hole safe and guarded in its absence, it puts up a temporary earthwork by its opening. Coming back, it removes the part-time gate and gets into business again. It will lay eggs and leave food there. The larvae will eat, grow big and pop out into the world.

So that turns out to be its modus operandi: closing the fortress temporarily, digging an oblong depression around the opening, leaving the scene, and come back again after a couple of hours to start the task again.

In the afternoon it rains cats and dogs. A furious rainstorm jolts even robust farmers and big trees. After the storm I see the site lashed by rains, the small depression around the opening filled with sand and the sand mound washed away. I think it is over. In such a stormy blizzard, the little insect must have been blown away to a far place, I guess. Or most probably it is even dead.

However, the tough taskmaster shows that it is still around despite the storm. Back to business after the floods! The next day, I see again the trademark little depression around the hole’s mouth and gates temporarily shut. Well done! You teach me a big lesson in perseverance. I feel humble, and feel that everyone out there is doing his/her duties. A stone is lifted off my heart. It feels light. It then soars high to draw big swigs of happiness and contentment.

Isn’t everything around perspiring to pursue its destiny? So don’t feel burdened unnecessarily because that’s how things are all around.  

Love Spiced with Curry Leaves

 

Sigmund Freud: “We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love.”

A bit scary warning by the great reader of mind! Isn’t it?

Well, suffering and love happen to be defined almost synonymously. Most often heartbreaks, anxiety, depression and tears are the recurring speed bumps on the so called love-road. These appear inevitable because the way love has been defined in human relationships, it draws its sustenance from our needs, to fill up our vacuums, by taking something from the other. It's more of dependence, and less of sharing.

We try to love people in the same way we like our things. Suppose you have a chair in your room. Now you have every right to keep your permanent expectations from it because it cannot move of its own will. You can position it at the place of your liking and expect it to be there till you change your mind. Unfortunately, this very expectation crosses over from the lifeless to the sentient beings around. But then the living beings have their free will, they move, they change, they evolve. This change appears a betrayal against the fixed pole of our expectations. No wonder we feel pain.

We just presume relationships to guarantee love. We try and exclude others from the shower of our caring selves, taking it to be a duty for the exclusive people in our life, who are in turn duty-bound to not only reciprocate but return it with full interest. No wonder, we develop sharp edges to our persona in the effort. It hurts as much others as it does to our own selves.

There is a silent language of love and care in nature. Learn from it. It will broaden the horizons for you to spread yourself. And mind you, more space gives freedom only. It opens you up. The seed of compassion in you needs certain nurturing. It’s a matter of some practice. Learn from nature. Observe the love tales going on unsung around.

For example, I enjoy the love spiced with curry leaves.

Love is spiced with curry leaves. Love, love, love on the small kari patta (curry leaves) tree. The tree with aromatic leaflets adds a delicious aroma to various curries. It further adds taste to the precious moments of this tiny bird couple, a cute pair of oriental white eye, tiny, 8-9 cm, olive green birds with a distinct white eye-ring and yellowish underparts.

They pollinate flowers as they visit for insects, make a soft nasal cheer and love to bathe in dew and water on the leaves. What a beautiful summary of the feathered life! If we cannot spot godliness in such things, I have doubts about we getting it in mammoth size and forms.

In the afternoons, I spray water on the small tree, and they usually come and take a rubbing bath against wet leaves, prancing around, twitching their square tails, flapping their greenish-yellow coats. Then they peck and cuddle each other with their slender, pointed, slightly curved bills. Love is never enough. They raise their little heads in supreme abandonment, while the partner is busy cuddling the fur with its beak. Goosebumps, all pleasing and tinkling!

Let there be wars, hate, jealousy and bigger human issues around. Here they are, etching out a tiny, colorful love tale, with small dreams of a nest in their beautiful white-ringed eyes. They really love this afternoon bathing by the way. I have to spray water so that they don't miss it.

There are more important things to attend as well. After the lovey-dovey moments, they hunt gregariously among the foliage for insects and take sips of nectar from the over-blooming sadabahar flowers around. And of course in between are their softly jingling conversational notes, possibly taking birdie jibes at human follies of wasting time and energy in unnecessary hassles, while all that is needed is just to be in league with Mother Nature and get uncountable showers of happiness by default, as a rule of nature.