A Story of Two Roses

 

It’s a little story of two roses in my small garden, one deep yellow and the other profoundly pink. Both of them are Mother Nature’s expression of love, joy and smiles. But there is a fundamental difference.

The yellow flower is a result of mankind’s grafting his own desires, likes, dislikes and parameters of beauty on the basic stem found in nature. As we all know grafted flowers look beautiful, are sturdy, nicely patterned but they lack the soul of a flower, fragrance. The human touch somehow quells the free spirit. They are lively plastic flowers at the most. Yes, it looks good from a distance. It has been there for a few weeks in the winter. But go near it, and you realise it doesn’t offer you much beyond the first dimension of appearance.

The nectar suckers hardly have anything for them here. It’s a strong and sturdy, finely patterned fat rose. It withstands weather elements with a haughty head-on temperament. Mortality, but, is the law, so now it starts withering, its sturdy leaves still stricken to the stem turn blackish. They now turn discoloured and crinkled. One can see the agents of death spreading their tentacles gradually through it. It’s a sad sight to see it getting old, debilitated, diseased and disfigured. It seems it wants to stay here forever, a kind of human-centric tendency to occupy the planet forever, a mad race to leave permanent marks on the shifting sands.  

The desi rose, the pink darling, basking under the winter sun without any human intervention through the grafting technique, is spared of our meddling with the free-wheeling smiles and fragrance of Mother Nature. Its petals are velvety soft and fragrant. Go near it and it welcomes you with its mollycoddling smile and soul-tingling smell.

Its soft petals respond to the kisses of wintery breeze that makes it smile even more beautifully. The bees and beetles have a whole perfumery and brewery at their disposal. It’s a thriving little world in itself. Being untouched by the human tendency to own, occupy and control, it sprouts fully and blossoms to its peak. The design is simple. It stays for a week at the most but lives its life to the full. The design is so simple that it opens perfectly and almost explodes with ecstasy to scatter its being into a larger existence. The petals don’t wither. They fly away while still at their best in fragrance and splendour.   

The yellow rose clings and stinks. It doesn't want to give. It dies a painful elongated death. It doesn't surrender to change and holds its youth's bloom in a fist, a constriction, a knot, a stagnation. It will be there till it turns ugly. The glory of its past will be overshadowed by the piteous whine of its present. A painful event stuck up in the loop of time.

The pink desi rose opens up fully. It gives all it has to open up and scatter its still fragrant petals as a homage to gentle winds, balmy afternoon winters and keenly awaiting mother earth. It showers beauty. It's a drizzle of joy. It's not death. This is ecstatic disintegration for the larger integration. A process! A fluidity beyond the constraints of space and time.

And here we can draw a few little lessons dear readers. We can blossom up fully with life if we adhere to the basic fundamentals of mother existence. Yes, the struggle and challenges of survival in the modern world require certain tools and techniques of modernity. However, these are mere conveniences. These shouldn’t rob us of the spirit and fragrance of being human. The grafting of techniques has a propensity to steal our identity to turn us almost machines. No technological grafting should be strong enough to change the basic human in us. Use the modern conveniences to the best of your knowledge, education and skills. But stay grounded. Be a desi rose that blooms fully with open-charmed beauty, inherent simplicity and loads of fragrance. And once you live fully, death loses its pinch and scare. One explodes with joy and painlessly moves over to the next dimension of existence.   

The Lawless Love

 

After the first wave of the pandemic, the fear of Corona had lifted its anchor from the pools of mass psyche. After being stretched, and consequently being forced to forego most of the things that define our life and living, the world of we humans was reverting to its former position. As the winters approached, again the world got busy in rearranging the tit-bits that the virus had ruffled.

Politics emerged in open light after the forced hibernation. Polarisation, systematic nurturing of fear and phobias, churning out of suitable narratives and other schemes and manoeuvres once again started doing the rounds.

In the last week of November, 2020, an ordinance dropped like a hammer, forcing down a nail in the hearts that are yet to start looking at the world through complex divisions. Young hearts hardly see beyond the adrenaline-pumped soufflés. The UP cabinet approved a mischievous (but politically lucrative as all mischief are) draft ordinance. It sanctioned to outlaw the so called attempts to religious conversions through enticement, coercion, deceit and marriage.

The state Governors are always waiting with a glee for anything landing on their table to ink their stamp. Usually they are an offshoot of the party running the central government. Things turn very funny if some opposition party rules a state. Then it’s a puppet show between the Chief Minister and the Governor. No wonder, to appease the appointing masters at the centre, the Governors stamp any kind of ordinance with such gusto as to even pierce the stamp through the paper. Even the tables bear the permanent marks of this enthusiasm. They probably visualize the opposition face on the paper. Under the force of such an overzealous stamp, any leap in interfaith relationships was now at the risk of 10 years of imprisonment.

India is a very spirited, perky and easy country to live and prosper now provided you have just enough brain to accept the narratives built by the party in power without any questions or suspicions. On the other hand, you have to guard yourself against a lot of brickbats if you have a questioning mind.  

The right wing activists had successfully created a narrative through the token call of ‘love jihad’. It meant, they claimed, a diabolical plan by the Muslim men to seduce Hindu women and girls, forcing them into marriage and relationships resulting in conversion to Islam. So the UP Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance 2020 started scanning the interfaith relationships with its blinding flashlight to find out the strains of a conspiracy that solemnized the marriage primarily to effect religious conversion. It was supposed to maintain law and order and ensure justice and dignity for the women. The constitutional right to choose one’s partner across faiths was now infringed by a new zealous clause.

An over-zealous nationalism is a steel-frame. It’s a sturdy jingoistic wall of defence against the outside enemies. It, but, very soon seeks to define the enemies within to keep the heat on. One feels the hardness of its steel bars, especially if you have that much of independence of mind and liberty of soul as would take you at a plane from where the narrow parochial compartments look silly to you.    

As per the ordinance, the offense being cognizable and non-bailable, the police officer had the authority to arrest the suspect without a warrant and could start an investigation without seeking the court’s permission. The DM could even award compensation up to rupees 5 lac to the victims of such forced conversion. An interfaith union seeker was required to apply in the prescribed format two months in advance before the planned conversion. The violation of this clause carried imprisonment between 6 months to 3 years and a penalty of 10,000 rupees. In effect, the stern eyes of law found all interfaith marriages as mere false pretext to force the gullible Hindu women into religious conversion through sham marriages. The constitutional right to the freedom of religion had a questioning iron sickle held against its throat. The term ‘love jihad’ was slowly getting a foothold in the form of a legitimate concern over marriages by lure, force, fraud or instigation, all to ensure religious conversion.

Armed with the provision, the right wing activists now waited with glee to swoop upon the infiltrators into the zone of illegitimacy to prove their enthusiasm for the cause of cultural war. And the opportunity came just hours after the promulgation. The police said a Hindu man has accused a Muslim man of putting pressure on his daughter to convert to Islam. They knew each other from their college days and he had been troubling her for a couple of years.

The girl’s father accused the Muslim man that he threatened them with dire consequences if they opposed the conversion. A prompt action was taken. The threat to religion was immediately quelled.

A relationship between two young people of different faiths has multiple layers to draw meaning from: Parental recrimination, social sanction, fear, patriarchy, bigotry and criminality. The matters of the heart were thus put on the anvil to be hammered under the pretext of beating the malware of coercion, inducement, fraud and allurement.

Why should one get disconcerted by religious polarisation only? Our democracy has always thrived on polarisation since the beginning. Caste, class, region and ethnicities have been the driving forces of our democratic process. The Congress used these very lucratively for almost six decades to rule almost unchallenged. Now the present dispensation uses the religious factor that suits it the most. Unfortunately, it may sow the seeds of another division of the country a few decades down the line because an insecure minority is like having termites in the foundation of a nation. 

The government even considered to scrap a scheme that played a nice role in facilitating and promoting inter-faith marriages for the last almost four and half decades. The Intercaste and Interfaith Marriage Incentive Scheme 1976 by the national integration department in UP had operated for almost five decades to facilitate and promote an India belonging to the Indians only, not Hindus, Muslims, Chamars, Brahmins, etc, etc. To avail the incentives, an interfaith couple can apply to the local DM within two years of marriage. The official would then verify and sanction 50,000 rupees after his satisfaction. Last year, there were 11 couples getting the incentive. This year was a frigid blank as no amount had been released.

It shows the immovable iron walls emerging between different communities. The buffer zones are vanishing. The intermixing buffer zones are the ones that sustain the external boundaries of a nation. Hard lines within the body weaken the outer boundaries apart from laying the foundation of separatism within.

The things are getting tougher for selfless love these days. They are not easy for the freedom of thought and expression either. Truth will give you some vague solace in heart but a bluish bump on the head. The art of politicking is getting far too smart and powerful now. Liberalism is almost a synonym of sedition now. And all those who claim to have originality of thought and independence of spirit better watch their step now because they are the black sheep by default for not mindlessly kowtowing the grand march on the attractive thoroughfare of boiling emotions, cascading patriotism and itchy heroism. 

How will you judge and evaluate the amount of lure and brainwash to convert involved in any inter-faith relationship? The law in letter always has the propensity to be twisted around to serve the opposite in spirit.

The right-wing activists jumped with glee to add more patriotic feathers in their hat. A zealous group on the path of nation-building stopped the registration process of a Hindu-Muslim marriage and took the offenders to the local police station. A short video showed the activists questioning the woman in the police station.

‘Have you read the new law? Show us the permission of the DM to convert religion!’

They have a video of fearsome bearded men dragging a helpless Hindu girl out of her house in Pakistan. The girl cries as they drag her in the street in broad daylight.

‘Do you see this? This is what they are. Look, what they do to Hindu girls there. She is kidnapped in broad daylight and will be forcibly converted to Islam to be put into the harem of a toothless old man! Shameful that you bring stigma to our name!’

A young man raises a slogan to defend Bharat Mata. There is big round of religious, patriotic sloganeering.

Does someone’s committing a murder justify my own act of killing? The biggest harm the fundamentalist Islam has done is to inspire reactionaries in the otherwise peaceful sects and streams of faith in the modern world. Now the mobsters among the resurgent sections of various faiths justify their hard stand by saying, ‘The Muslims slaughter for their faith and we cannot even throw stones to protect our religion.’

The poor girl was at a loss to say anything. The mother, the inspector said, had complained that Rashid impersonated as Sonu to entice their daughter to force her into religious conversion. The girl maintained that she was of age and married of her free will and had come to register marriage in the court without any pressure.

Her marriage registration process hijacked by the right-wing activists, she was taken to the government shelter home. Muskan, the girl in objectionable love, not only lost her smile, she lost her baby also. Under the onslaught of these traumatic events, she miscarried her three-month pregnancy.

The law added to its credentials through this little episode. The parents of the girl had the satisfaction that they did all that could be done to keep theirs and the society’s fabric intact. The offenders had scars: She in her womb, he on his body. And the complex world kept on its path towards further complexity.

There are, and forever will be, good and bad Hindus and Muslims. However, it’s indisputable that goodness has far bigger chunk in both populations. The main problem with miniscule badness is that it sets up a symbolism far too big that casts a cloud of suspicion over the majority good part. In these grey areas, facts get fabricated and ideologies hatch that leave a cascading effect to shake the entire social fabric. Of course, all this serves the purpose of a few vested interests. Of this, the biggest vested group is the power aspirants, the rulers. 

A Miracle on the Ganges

 

Fed by the heavy spates of rains in the Himalayas, the holy river Ganga flew with full life and vigour. Its waters fervently rushed past, creating torrents of devotional fervour.

The evening Ganga arti at Parmarth Ghat, Rishikesh, is an important milestone on a typical day at the pilgrimage town.

Everything is routinely settled for the evening prayers on the holy river’s bank. The yellow robed young monks are ready to chant delicious mantras to enthral the congregation held on the marble steps overlooking the majestic river. The tourists and pilgrims are set for a delicious dose of religious musicality.

At half past five in the evening, the hills to the north get clouded by dark gray clouds. The air mass moves down the valley. A strong wind blows. The arti has just started. The rain lets loose a pining, pleasant outpour. It’s a torrential rain buffeting the earth with new life. It pours down with open heart. The opposite bank becomes almost invisible. Meanwhile, the arti continues under the waterfront pavilion as the people rush to take shelter under any portion of roof available. The people stand, sit and recline and clap to the rhythmical chime of the mantras. Brass prayer lamps with hooded snakes projecting over the fire bowl burn with unaffected charm and imposing vigour. It warms the cold air gushing into the valley. The hymns are captivating. The Ganges becomes one with the falling dark grey torrents of water. It seems a conduit to the awesome super entity above. Everything is thoroughly washed. 

The people, a teasing mix of natives and foreigners, gather and dive into the devotional enthusiasm with equal measure. Incense smell wafts across, pleasantly plummeted around by the wind blowing down the valley. The spears of rain pierce the heaven-bound fragrance to keep it lingering on earth for a little bit of more time. The simple rhythm of mantras and devotional songs vibrates the chords of faith in many hearts. It’s beyond language, religion, caste and culture. The people are sitting on the bathing steps, lost in devotion, staring at the fervently rushing waters of the holy river. All are part of the devotionally surcharged air.

Even though you try your level best to surrender, your uncontrolled mind is encouraging you to have more expectations through the righteous set of rituals, entitling you to more blessings by the higher entities.

There she is: An innocent, pure, unadulterated being, beyond the maladies of unchecked ambitions and the bug of fight for some more space in the world. An accident at the time when she was conceived puts her on the sidelines. She isn’t a participant in the buzzing game of life; she is a mere presence.

She is a girl around 14 years in age; her ‘being’ defined by the clinical symptom named autism or may be cerebral palsy, I’m not sure. Whatever it’s, it makes her a special child and sidelines her, puts her beyond rampant desire, the devil bug that infects the modern mankind and despite best of our efforts stays side by side with our imposed goodness.

The swift currents of prayers have captured the mundane souls around. But all this, more or less, is meaningless to her. Or does she have her own share of meaning that we can’t understand and perceive?

She is a beautiful special child. Her identity would have been still more significant in the mundane, worldly sense of the term, had she been in a position to gather the traces of her individuality with the cord of self-interest.

The doctors may call it some debilitating clinical symptom, she but is just the way she is. Unconcerned about the fight for larger stakes through the crutches of faith, she looks the other way. She stares into the tiny side-lane where she has been pushed into by the birth-time biological accident. She has virtually no claim over the life’s bounties that we so brazenly fight for. This look of detachment appears a punishment to the normal world burdened with its mountainous pettiness. Holding her head at an awkward angle she looks away. She has no reason to be too serious about the clouds of surcharged prayers.

The girl has beautiful eyes, a perfect nose and an attractive face-cut. Overwritten is the imprint of her special ability that we take as disability. Her lower lip hangs loose. It’s an opening into her disarrayed persona. It’s a clue to her not being in control of her identity. A bit of saliva drips down. With an effort she moves her hand to wipe it with the back of her hand and muster up some control. She then fiddles with the towel hanky given by her mother sitting next to her.

Her limbs and head move with mechanical pauses, not with that fluidity which pushes us into the stream of commonness. Looking at her helplessness, everyone around appears to own a sea, and she merely a drop. How will you accept such injustice on the part of nature?

Her family appears to have enough sensibility to take care of her needs, but that is no justification. She doesn’t even realize what she has lost right from the beginning of her innings in this life.

Lost in the oblivion of her own special world, she comes gasping on the surface, awkwardly tugs to draw her mother’s attention, who has learnt to ignore such disturbances on her girl’s part.

It’s a particular challenge to raise a special child. You need unending patience and the tank of maternity should never be empty, otherwise the special child has no choice other than suffering.

There are girls of her age, fleeting around, full of life, sweet-sour experiences of life waiting with excitement at the threshold of adolescence. The people are floating leaf bowls containing flowers, incense and a tiny lamp. One tear in her unseeing eyes is more substantial than the Ganges itself.

The sea of her loss drowns me in its endless waters. My own tears add to that sea.  My own bickering and bitterness feel such a meaningless thing. There is everything around, but she cannot so much as take a confident, solid step to claim her share, while everyone in the devotional crowd is busy in a stampede to collect huge piles.

The evening Ganga prayer is over. The rain has stopped. Her family gets up. She also gets up with an effort, her movement standing somewhere between a human and a mechanized robot. It’s not a confident, fluid run. Every moment has a full stop, a kind of an end of the journey. Walking absorbs her in its own world. There she goes with unsteady steps, her hand on her mother’s shoulder to get that support which she will need forever.

She can survive only as long as there is love and care in a fellow human’s heart. It’s more vital than the oxygen, water and the food she eats.

What is the meaning and purpose of her survival? Perhaps, it’s to keep the banner of love and care flying in this worsening world.

The night is falling. Her language includes just a few efforted sounds. She can merely respond to the language of love and more still to hate and anger.

I’m lost in the sad sea of her loss. I try to swim to find some justification and meaning to all this. I find none. It’s blank, pointless. Tears are streaming down my face. Her image haunts me. I sit to meditate by the Ganges. The sea of sadness surges in. A daughterly affection for her engulfs me. My hands convulse to bless her with all the happiness possible in the world. My lips move to kiss her forehead and sip down all her agonies with my fatherly prayers.

This seems to be the meaning of her life. Melting hearts, creating selfless torrents in the hearts caught in the selfish quagmire and make people feel grateful for whatever they have got in life.

As I close my eyes, more tears stream down, washing my soul of much of the bitterness I hold on account of my own losses.

I feel like a helpless father who cannot give a portion of the world to his daughter that she surely deserves. I implore mother Ganges to pour all blessings on this little angel; to fulfil the endless abyss of her helplessness with all the happiness and joy possible for a girl. I pray for the long life of her parents, for only the parents are best suitable to feed the vulnerable lamp with the oil of love, affection and care. I pray for her family’s economic well being and the overall luck and fortune so that satisfied with life, and hence less bitter, they turn more loving and sweet and she gets her share of love and life from that happy pool. I pray for her younger brother to grow up to be a sensitive human being who will take the baton of love from their parents. I pray for him to have an understanding and loving wife who will help in keeping the flame of love going on to enable the flower survive happily.

At the top of all this, I put my faith in Ma Ganga:

‘Ma you have a soul. You are so full of life and carry miraculous powers in your holy waters. Your force can cut mountains, so it can definitely help this little flower take control of its destiny in her small hands. Do a miracle Ma! Let her be cured gradually so that she takes her portion of happiness on her little palm. Do it slowly to make it appear like a digestible fact, a kind of little surprise medically, if you don’t want to make it appear too miraculous!’

The blissful torrents of Ma Ganga ripple past. With the tears streaming down, I pray for that little angel of love and affection. My tears have absolved me much of my bitterness. I open my eyes and look helplessly into the darkness. In the dark, Ma Ganga feels capable of performing miracles. I want her to be miraculous.

Next evening, I visit the arti ghat again to see the angel more than anything else. There she is! I look at the angel with a peculiar mix of sadness and happiness: A strange equanimity, equidistant from pain and happiness. I may have forced myself to believe in a miracle. I am happy with it. I can sense a small instalment of Ma Ganga’s blessing going to her share.

Today she isn’t looking with sad indifference into the side-lanes of her unparticipating existence. She looks closer to the world around. She is looking into the praying mass. She appears a bit closer to have her own share of happiness, all by herself. She laughs, shakes her head, hardly making any noise. She tries to clap, rapidly bringing her clenched hands together without actually hitting them. She pulls at her mother’s sleeve with more authority. She looks belonging to this world and ready to see and understand it at her own pace and conditions.

As they get up after the arti, and as she follows her mother with efforted steps, she pulls at her shoulder and points to her waist. Her mother turns and adjusts her pyjama. There they go at their own pace.

It’s better to believe in miracles because sometimes that is the only option left.

For the remaining part of my stay, I fervently pray for her to the limits of my soul. On the day of my departure, at five in the morning, I walk down the steps to reach Ganga Ma, wash my face and pray again for the angel. The holy river looks very calm in the pre-dawn darkness. It looks as if she is able to hear my prayers in the absence of all the din and noise. 

Even while moving on the road along the opposite bank, I keep lighting the lamp of my prayers.

She is in her own world surrounded by love and care which I believe will only grow with the passage of time, making her happier. More importantly, the miracle of Ganga Ma will work. It may happen slowly but it is inevitable. With the passage of time, she will become capable of having her share of life and living at her own terms to give back the love that has kept her alive.

Any memory of her doesn’t go without praying for her. I feel enriched and evolved by her sight. My bitterness has poured out and it has made me more loving, full of gratitude and more open to the belief in miracles. For, ultimately only miracles count. It may not appear like this, though.

GOD BLESS HER!

MA GANGA PLEASE CURE HER!

LET HER BE THE PART OF THE COMMON STREET!

LET HER COME OUT OF THE TINY SIDE ALLEY!

Miracles are happening all the time. What is quite miraculous is that most of them pass off as ordinary occurrences. Perhaps, that’s how it has been planned.

Never felt so fatherly before. I can feel the likeable pain of being a parent. Blessed is the parental pain!      

 

A Note of Thanks for my Dear Readers

 

Dear readers, your love and affection is the basic driver of my urge to keep posting on my blog. A few people tell me that my writings have brought a positive change in their life. That’s enough reason to keep writing. As I write this, we are facing lots of challenges due to the pandemic. These last two years have been very tough for most of us.

Things are rough indeed. But isn’t life only about successfully crossing a series of hurdles? And then reach home, finish that last line, with a smile.

What if the room full of miseries appears immovable at the moment? Accepted that the room with its thick walls is beyond your capacity to shift its location or change its shape. You cannot push its walls to change its shape and change the interiors. You might even be incapable of removing the darkness inside, having lost the light of enthusiasm, the sunrays of your will power, and the brightness of your passion.

It is not necessary to be a revolutionary fighter all the time. You can very well sit in a still darker corner of the room full of your own miseries, most of them invisible to the uncaring world outside. But then sitting in a dead dark corner is being dead and we have no business to be dead before we actually die. Temporary shelter in the lap of a musty, stale corner might be of some utility, but it’s not more than allowing the tears and anguish of self-pity and helplessness to flow out through the feeling of being a victim.

Once this little puss is out of your wounded system, it serves no purpose at all. A little bit of crying after being overpowered by the feeling of victimization at the hands of forces beyond one’s control helps. Crying helps in letting out the salt from your injuries. It also clears the eyes. After the watery outpour, you are supposed to see better and clearer.

You have been on the hospital bed, taking a bit of rest for the diseased, afflicted self. Now you are supposed to step down, wear your slippers and walk away to claim what you lost while you were forced to take a rest.

Looking beyond your dark corner in the murky room with immoveable walls, you can at least open the windows that either you or the situational winds have banged shut. Do not move the walls, do not even try to bang against the locked door, just open the openable window to allow a bit of light, to expose yourself to the fine traces of light that will surely burn the fire in you again, that will definitely ignite your passion, enthusiasm and the willpower lying dormant.

If you cannot lift your roomful of miseries on your head and throw it miles away, you can surely lift little-little signs of your worth and capabilities lying around your feet in the dark and look at these against the light from the just-opened little window. These are the imperishable seeds; these cannot die, and will surely grow into a luxuriant harvest, provided you give them even the moisture of your feeble self during the re-germination phase.

You might not be able to laugh to the full contentment of the self, but you can smile at the little world outside your tiny peeping window. Even the slightest semblance of smile will do. These are the tiny buds that will surely blossom into full laughing flowers.

Your hands might not be still ready to go agog and start breaking the mightiest boulders around. But you can raise your hands and wave gently at the world outside, it will wave back with grace and acknowledgement, giving back its share with kindest interest.

You might not be still ready for the marathon, but you can shuffle your feet and count your steps and listen to your slow pace between the walls. It will prepare you for the longest journey that you might take. It will be a prelude to your first step on the winnable journey that you will definitely take.

Close your eyes and with an open heart accept your share in making things dark in the room. Nobody is perfect and we just have the bigger or smaller share in our miseries. We cannot change the universe, but we can definitely bring about a little reformation in the self. You might not be able to overhaul your personal self, but you can definitely change tiny bits of life in general. It will blow up the wrong shades, leaving you a totally different person.

Close your eyes again and think of your positives, your advantages, your good qualities. There will be many I’m sure. Look around with a gentle look, these must be somewhere around. You will surely spot them. Smile at the little basketful of your qualities. These are your weapons to help you win through the battles and wars. A mere acknowledgement of their existence will do at this stage. Just caress your qualities and look at these with a proud smile.

These and many little things will help you. Forget about bigger things. These little seeds will grow into a bigger harvest. Just gather these seeds, hold them, they will take you back to the bigger world of shiny roles, responsibilities, praise and achievements.

These little anecdotes and my frank opinions posted on this blog are in celebration of life and living. I sincerely hope the time  invested by a dear reader in reading this blog brings about a positive change. Journey well and never forget your smile as you walk on the beautiful path that life is!

 

Musings on a Hazy Early-winter Day

 

If you can’t respect others’ thoughts, not a big problem with that. Just slog it out—even egoistically—to prove your point. But never do the same in case of feelings. Respect others’ feelings. There is a big difference between thoughts and feelings. You can trample your fellow human beings’ thoughts but please spare their feelings. Feelings are sanctimonious. Leave them unstigmatized and pure on the altar of heart.

***

In the book "Animal Farm" the pigs led a coup against humans, driving them away. Nothing to do with humans and anything related to them, they declared. The commandment included not to stay in the farmhouse once used by the human owner. Later when the group of pigs, the leaders, shifted to the rooms, their propaganda master said it was more suitable to the dignity of a leader to stay in the comfort of a house. Well, it reminds me of Kejriwal and his big official bungalow after becoming the Chief Minister of Delhi.

***

World is just set for fundamental changes. Even birds are taking short-cuts on natural instincts. A dove simply picked few sinews to tag them in the flimsy protection of the money plant clinging to our neem tree, just 2 ft above the ground, visible to wild cats and humans. Laying two eggs it just flew away not to be seen. I found one egg missing and the other somehow fruitlessly stuck up. We have done irreversible damage to nature and its constituents!

***

Among monkeys we grew out of our skin to rule the planet. Among us, now the politicians are evolving faster as a totally different super-species. Time is not far when they will stand out as winners at all levels. So fellows join politics. It’s merely a matter of making good choice in the scheme of evolution.

  

***

"When they measured my stature, they failed to measure my heart," NFL veteran Vernon Turner on the sports officials' doubts about his suitability for the game given his less than adequate physical attributes. He proved them wrong by not being a product of his DNA. He became a product of his actions. Go within and dab into the innermost reservoirs of your will power. It undoes any evident limitation imposed on the outer surface of our existence. Be tethered to your axis. That is what supports your spin. Forget about the periphery. Those are merely some revolving offshoots of temporary winds let loose by your axial forces.

***

I may not have the genes to be a world champion, but I have the option to act and be a smart, successful, happy, competent, confident and caring human being. And once I do that no reward stays unachievable.

***

Kafka’s unfinished novels are the fullest stories I have ever read.

***

The rich and powerful countries, not willing to engage each other directly in warfare, hit each other through helpless third world countries. They use them like hunters to strike each other. Problem here is that the back is of stone and hardly gets a bruise. The hunter but gets broken. See through the tragic plays unfolding among poor and developing countries. Funny and tragic. That's what modern warfare is all about.

***

Majority of our repentances are born of the failure to act in the past, rather than the actions that failed. So think, rethink, discuss with the best person you have around, and then just nail it man, simply act. The burden of regrets becomes lighter in future.

***

The mighty lord whispers in the softest voice,

My son grow thou stronger and sire chances for those without any choice! 

***

Though your enemy, I am sweet!

My neck thus deserves a softer treat!

***

You know why people kick a football? Simple, because it reacts and invites more kicky acts! And why don’t they kick a stone? Because it doesn’t react, only your toes get an ache! So fella become stones, controversies will find you untouchable then!

***

A well-timed realization:

Sometimes you have to nearly die to discover the meaning of life.

***

Expansion and contraction—

A raindrop in the ocean,

and a balloon in the air,

One mixing with the whole

to become complete and happily spread out,

The other capturing a part of the hole

to egotistically confine for a specific, limited self.

 

***

My religion is not so weak that in order to show love for it I have to take the support of hate for the religion of someone else.

***

Help your own self by adding little pieces to what you actually are instead of breaking mountains to be what you aren't.

***

The desert storm hunts around with painful fury. The burning beast! Ashes and ambers in its furnaced heart. Unquenchable thirst in its guts. Restless howls echoing in its sandy soul. Its existence defined by a futile belief in death and destruction—the absence and denial of supple, pliant, giving and forgiving waters. Its inflated vastness puffing out lifeless sandy blizzards. Poor thing doesn't know that a tiny oasis silently doing its lifeful duty is dearer to both humans and Gods!

***

In the calm core of my wind-lashed, stormed self,

some unmovable shadow defines the substance of my being.

I but have been running miles after miles,

chasing mirages to find my identity.

***

A dove couple is lost in the surrendering flutter of passionate love notes on a swaying neem branch decked with fresh, monsoon-fed leaves.

Dove in love.

Impatient he.

Teasing she.

Airy swirls.

Hugging frills.

Breeze free.

Passionate spree.

Almost a fight.

Soul's delight.

Love.

Dove.

Love.