A New Day

 

The morning turns best by default when you wake up after eight hours of dreamless sleep. Even a semi-cloudy musty day appears as bright as it is on a full sunny morning. The flowers give you a better smile than you remember. Aren’t they the same flowers? But the eyes looking at their smiles are fresher today.

A butterfly, a common mormon to be precise, is resting on a sadabahar leaf. It’s a beautiful black butterfly with whitish spots running across the hindwings. Its wings are spread, not drawn taut together in an instinctive mode to fly away at the slightest danger. A resting butterfly with spread out wings is a great treat to the eyes. You get a chance to observe its colours and patterns more closely. While flying, it’s a teasing flirtatious speck of colours that titillates the heart but deprives the eyes of the beautiful patterns.

A small grass yellow eurema hecabe, drunk with youth, is all impatience and eagerness as it makes the most of its short life through airy dives and nectar sips. Probably, the resting common mormon is middle-aged like me and knows the importance of rest and repose after flying high.

The Indian silverbill, a cute little pale white bird, has redecorated the globular nest of the scaled munia, the previous occupier of the nest, and is happy with the proceedings so far. The monkeys have rarely allowed a successful hatching of these cute little birds so far. They are too restless for other’s peace. They just snatch away the nest. But all is well at least today and that’s more important. Tomorrow may have bright sunshine or a storm, that’s time’s problem.

A pair of angry tailorbirds darts in and sits on both sides of the refurbished silverbill house. They are angry over something and have a lot of complaints. They are too loud for their tiny size. The silverbill just trills feebly like the jingling anklet on the ankle of a little girl. Maybe it’s a bully pair of tailorbirds who are still angry because their well-hidden leafy nest was spotted by the monkey and torn away, throwing away the chicks. As I ran to turn its bum redder for the crime, I could see one chick in its hands. If it’s a rascal monkey, like they are without an exception, it will have its breakfast. If it’s a kind monkey—which is the most improbable thing on earth—it may raise the chick and create history like the wolves did in rearing Maugli, the jungle boy.

Well, the angry tailorbirds are too much for the meekly trilling silverbill. The bitter anguish and pain of losing one’s home and kids is understandable. Maybe they find the silverbill docile enough to vent out their anger.

This world is but full of bigger bullies. The tailorbirds’ pinching shrills attract a few babblers. There they arrive on the scene to settle the scores. Can anyone match a babbler’s boisterous anger? Not at all! They can give even the most querulous, cantankerous peasant woman in the neighbourhood a well-heeled run for her money.

The tailorbirds are outshouted immediately and they leave the field. The silverbill sneaks into its nest. The babblers sing the song of their victory for a few more moments, challenging any more mai-ka-lal to take panga with them before flying to arbitrate in some other quarrel among the lesser bullies on some other tree.

And thus picks up another fresh day on its slow march to speed up later to go slumberous again at the dusk.

Angels, Dark Angels and Demons

 

Time is the master ultimately. In the long term, lush green forests give way to barren deserts, mountains get broken, and mighty boulders become puny, round, kickable pebbles. Nobody and nothing can have a way against time. All we can do is to make the most of what has been given to us on the scale of time, like one takes a fistful of water from a swift running river. Splash a bit of it on your face, take a tiny sip to drink and sprinkle a bit to play like a child. That’s what we can do at the most.

Even the oceans will dry one day, that’s time playing football, scoring goals after goals. It plays the same trick with our life also, and most significantly does the same to our relationships. The once shining angels turn into dark angels, finally to become demons to be shunned altogether.

But we have some choices here. We can stall the rampant march of time over our lives. That’s what we can do with our consciousness. Finally, it will have its say, no doubt about that. But we can play our own interesting football with the fistful of time that we have in our grasp.

Time will of course play its tricks by putting horns on the heads of the smiling angels in our life. Things will surely change through shift in situations, circumstances, needs, goals, ambitions and many more. But we should try our level best to at least avoid the shining angels from turning into full-throttle demons in our lives. Let time do its tyranny, we can but stop the degradation of someone’s status in our life to become a demon. It can be any relationship. Let’s fight against time’s tyranny and stop a bit short of allowing someone become a full demon in our life.

Of course, the once shining angels cannot stay the same forever. Things change. Circumstantial winds are too fast to allow the wick glow steadily forever. It will shake in response to the weather elements. It is helpless in that regard. Change, as we know, is the only law. But we can avoid the time’s all-out tyranny in our lives. Allow the time only this much autocracy to turn your angels into dark angels, nothing lower. An angel is still an angel, and a dark angel is far better than a demon. The last one will give us stabbing pain with its sadistic glee. The former will give a mild, tolerable heartburn. 

The demons in our life are far more damaging to our own selves. A demon hardly cares about itself because it is a demon in our perception only. Within itself our demon may be somebody’s shining angel for the time being. So whose loss it’s in petting a demon in the mind?

If there is a demon in our life, it’s fed by our own anger, guilt, hate or jealousy. It will harvest more of these to fatten itself and pacify our ego through injured pride and bruised vanity. The equation of anger, hate, guilt and jealousy is beyond the factor of ‘whose fault is this’. All these are the same termites of the same species that eat into our physical and mental fabric.

Life is far better without demons in our lives. Life is a bed of roses with a few angels in our lives. It’s relatively worse with dark angels in our life because they feed on mild doses of anger, hate, guilt and jealousy born of our past with the angel-turned-dark angel. Life cannot be perfect. But it shouldn’t be messed up altogether. So retain your angels as long as you can and later on be kind and considerate enough to keep their status relegated to dark angels only. Don’t allow further degradation to make them demons because it comes at our own cost.

A Rainy September Day

 

The night was surely tired as the pre-dawn hour slowly approached. So were the crickets after a licentious night-long song and revelry. Their throats had given up and they had fallen silent. A couple of katydids, however, still carried on with their periodic bleep-bleep, breep-breep sound with so much regularity that it could be easily taken as the bleary beeps of medical instruments by a patient’s bed in an ICU. ‘Probably a new love-couple that isn’t still tired of each other’s song,’ I thought.

Then the night decided to extend its stay as dark clouds marched in, bounteously aided by the streams of swift winds. ‘We will help you in hijacking the day,’ they said with rumbling, lightning mischief. The day’s march was stopped at a sultry, wet, gloomy dawn. The sun seemed on a holiday on this Saturday.

The sky surely had rainy diarrhoea on this day, September 11 to be precise. It started raining at five in the morning and the day would remain stopped at its early morning grey till noon. The katydids lost their song, preferring to save their lives for the day and make love some other day, if they survived. A few rockchats, who like to gossip heartily while others are asleep in the pre-dawn darkness on normal days in the neem tree nearby, kept their tongues well in check and huddled among the branches.

We are no longer used to heavy rains. Monsoon has lost its sheen over the years in the north Indian plains. But climate has ruffled feathers, thanks to global warming, and we can expect drought or flood with equal probability anywhere in the world. So dear readers, it started raining cats and dogs. The clouds rumbled, lightning flashed and the wind blew. A kind of cyclonic, stormy rain it was.

It hummed and drummed among the tree canopies and gave muffled drumming sounds like a massive umbrella was under the watery onslaught. After half an hour, there was a brief pause that lasted for a couple of minutes. A tailorbird let out its accusative tittering, probably angry at the skies for spoiling its breakfasting hip-hops among the bushes. The clouds punched back with an angry growl and a full throttle cloud burst followed. Definitely the tiny bird must have peed out of fear.

It rained on and on till noontime. I even got worried about a watery deluge. It was just one watery fountain. The kittens ran in, scared to their wits, their tails and hair up. They must have thought someone was trying to kill them with watery hits from above. A cat simply hates getting wet. It has to give its tongue a lot of effort to make itself presentable again. The kittens ran in so speedily and went into hiding among the things put in the veranda that they would have beaten even a snake in its slithery sneaking into a hole. I hardly had any clue where they went.

You have to bow down to rain. It carries its unique majesty with easy pride. Our admance might turn it prejudiced and then we are up for it. The trees stand in mute servitude as long as it’s raining. A peacock did the same. It sat on the terrace wall and hid itself among the overhanging branches to avoid direct hits by the rainy catapults. It looked funny because it was shedding its plume. Only two long feathers were left apart from some shorter ones. There it sat for a sunny day and full plume when it would again be able to woo the ladies with the fantastic display of colours of its jingling tail-fan. And the rain went on drumming.

We are no longer used to big-time rains. Looking at the stormy roof drainpipes we become worried of some mishap. The houses leak, the snakes creep out of their flooded holes. Earthworms give the best of their sprints and move towards higher ground apprehending the mythical flood. I nearly killed one with my slipper, mistaking it for a baby snake because it was almost sprinting in panic. I had to give many a careful look to confirm its status because it had some serious urgency and purpose in movement. The mice and rats also jump from the sinking ship of their bushes and sneak in like the kittens do. The errant and foolishly gallant monkeys also get thoroughly bashed up by the rains. They look so funny when they sit all soaked up and have to settle for good behaviour and consideration for others.

Hundreds of baby frogs romp around the yard in gay abundance. They come hopping into the veranda like jubilant children after the school. There they hop around to go still farther from the rain, that’s into the rooms. A lot many manage to occupy the rooms in fact. They are almost domesticated frogs. You cannot afford to have an unkempt courtyard and its charm to yourself only. You have to share it with many of the gardening and wilderness ilk. I have to be careful not to step over baby frogs.

I remember this frog feller who had made a comfortable home in the kitchen. That was before the rains started, when there weren’t many frogs. It stayed indoors, hiding behind baskets. It would hop out and have a tea-time snack of flies while I had tea. It really considered the kitchen of its own. One day it was on an outing and found the door closed. It knew what it was up for. I found it hanging by the wire mesh of the door frame, peeping in with a surly look. I had to allow it in. After that it behaved well and got back well before the closing time. A nice frog it was. Then the rains arrived and it too came of age. A young frog has to woo its lady. It went out in all excitement and never returned. Probably a lot many of these baby frogs are fathered by him only. His children occupy the house now. 

A stray dog howled in the street. Probably its patience was wearing thin very rapidly. So it howled its imprecations. The rain meanwhile looked set to improve its all time statistics for the month of September in the region.

Around noontime, the sky thought we earthlings had enough of bathing, so it relented. The show of life that had been overtaken by the rain slowly crept out to take a look at the wet slippery stage. One kitten came out and I saw it going towards the flowerbed to relieve itself. It gladdened me that it behaved well and held the urge till the rain stopped and didn’t mess up the place it was hiding in. A monkey staggered out of the neem branches and sat on the balcony fence of a neighbouring house. It raised my spirits to see the foe so thoroughly soaked and well beaten. It will take an entire day for it to reclaim its foolish spirits, I reckoned. The birds arrived with their usual song, delayed though today. The peacock too shook its royal blue coat to expel the extra load. It looked surly and walked around the yard. The kittens looked at it with suspicion and fear from a distance. The peacock shed even the couple of last long plumes in its feathery gear to look less funny now because now it had a few shorter ones only. A peacock feather is a treasure. I ran to collect them and put them in my room for faith and aesthetics.

The peacock must have felt bored because it invented a play to divert its attention. It went in front of the black glossy rain-washed tiles—shiny enough to give a reflection of the onlooker—by the side of the inner gate and used it as a mirror. The Romeo started kissing at the strange she-peacock in the reflection. It must have been giving it a lot of pleasure, for it gave continuous rapping pecks at the lovely lady who reciprocated in equal measure. The requited dose of love and kisses uplifted the peacock’s spirits and it gave an effort and lifted itself to the garden fence, before launching itself onto a larger tree outside the boundary. A peacock is too big for its wings. It’s primarily for colours, not flying. 

In the afternoon, I went out into the garden to check out the rain-mauled plants and flowers. The plants were thoroughly beaten but already there were signs of resilience. The branches were getting their business back on track. They have no business to complain against the rain. They exist only because there is rain. A potted geranium is sloshed with water. Its vase is still full of water. I get down to help the plant and a serious attempt is made at my life. The fighter scouts of the stinging hornets tried their weaponry at my head. Thank god I had overgrown my hair to make it look like the unkempt yard. Had I been ganja they would have gathered their prey very easily. There was severe, angry buzzing. I now found that my head was almost touching their new-fangled nest even though I was stooping to tend the plant. The rains had brought down the branch bearing the nest. It needed to be removed. Either they fly or I stop walking in the yard because that was right in the middle of the way. I am selfish enough to retain my unrestricted rights to roam around my courtyard. Here I declare war on the stinging hornets. I drape myself in a big chador like a Muslim lady in a hijab and wear my bike helmet on top of it. Then I pick up a long bamboo and walk out like a brave Knight to the battle field. The battle is quickly over and I win handsomely. The branch is broken in one clean strike. The enemy citadel falls. They are also reasonably angry and attack my helmet. I chuckle like a wicked witch from behind the helmet screen. They get their teeth broken also in the attempt.

As I came in triumphantly, the kittens but found me as an apparition. There they went hurtling over the garden fence, one of them even falling and rolling for a good few yards in panic. Only at night they could dare to peep over the fence because the memory and aroma of the cow milk beats all fears. But even while drinking the milk they took pauses and straightened their ears to look around for the ghost that had entered the house.

The Journey with fewer Extras

 

In my forties now, I realize that it’s not that important to go all the way. It just burns you out. It overheats you and you go panting like a sick mule on a treacherous slope. All that matters is that we take steps. There never was a final destination, nor will ever be. We just hold the baton for some time. Journey well dear readers!

The main cause of discontentment and unhappiness is that we are too hard on ourselves most of the time. We have almost ‘something’ of everything in us, but we are always looking to change that into ‘everything’ of everything. I should have that car, I should have that man or woman, I should have that designation, I should possess that much in my bank account, I should become a bigger star, my children should be world beaters, and scores of all and sundry matters that define our life keep us away from enjoying what we already possess. The proclivity of forever looking too far into the future gives many stumbles in the present and rewards us with many welts and bruises.

If you can’t have happiness and joy with what you already possess, believe me running after the mirage is a futile exercise. I am not saying one shouldn’t be competitive. Just compete with a belief and gratitude that you already have many things, that life won’t be a mess and tragedy if you don’t reach the intended target. Run after your goals but always remember that you already possess many things that allow you to even think of going further. Stay in gratitude.

Why be tortured to be a perfectionist when you have your friendly sweet-sour amateur self goading you on the path of life? A joyful amateurish clown may turn out to be perfectionist one day. It’s very much within the grasp of normal laws, nothing miraculous about it. Be a happy joy-rider, not a grumpy one. The latter only creates nuisances on the pathway for others as well.

Why think in terms of the best cook masters in luxurious homes and super-luxurious hotels and thus never give it a try yourself? Bake your bread. It may come near the funniest map of the weirdest country or region in the world. Does the tongue discriminate among shapes as it turns the best and the worst in the same saliva-saturated mass? Make it eatable to a degree first. Set your own parameters of improvement. Eat your funny bread with gratitude. Give half of it to the dirty stray puppy, mauled by the bigger bullies in the street, lying coiled up near your gate. I do the same. It makes up for the lack of taste born of my amateurish effort. Boil your soup, make your sandwich, fry your eggs, and prepare your vegetables as per the capacity of your hands and cooking aesthetics. Hold this slim chance in your hand. One day you will cook to the satisfaction of many people around you if not the entire continents. Isn’t that success?

Eat your food in moderation. Don’t hold your money too tight; let it be a nicely floating part of the bigger economic river. Don’t go crazy about your designation and authority. Don’t overeat any of these. It gives indigestion of both stomach and mind. I tried gulping down an entire litre of pure cow milk in a few sittings in a day and got to know that I need just half of it. An extra visit to the loo mutteringly reminding me the difference between ‘need’ and ‘greed’. So the kittens that have occupied the unkempt yard are the beneficiaries of this realization. Their mother doesn’t visit them anymore. Grown up as they are. They are learning the art of life in the courtyard before jumping onto the larger stage of life. Till then I can play a bit of part-time role in getting them still bigger. Looking at them cutely gulping down the milk, their moustaches having milky dews, the milk in my stomach gets an extra digestive juice to give me more benefit.

I am learning the art of giving away the extras of life. It stops the stomach from bloating up as well as keeps my pride and vanity within tolerable limits. If we disburden ourselves of the unnecessary extras, believe me we will have a far more joyful journey than we expect and will go several extra miles.

The Liquor-lover’s Gift

 

Once a nicely sloshed farmer was seen lumbering zigzag in the muddy street. The mud on his clothes proved his difficulty in managing his vertical. Anyway, he approached nearer and I saw that he was holding a banana sapling in his hand. Whether he really meant to carry it on purpose or it just got into his hand after a fall, I’m not sure. In any case, he seemed to carry it on purpose as he would grab the article again while getting up from the latest fall. He must have loved bananas.

Face to face, I smiled and he laughed. I stood awestruck by the majesty of his gaiety and he gyrated with full spirits as if mocking at my colourless life. Then God knows why he turned abusive and gave a full display of the choicest expletives. Even my well-poised demeanour was shaken a bit, forcing me to give a mild rap at the back of his head. It coincided with his next fall. He would have fallen in any case even without my effort. But the timing of the mild rap and a hard fall matched to a class that made it look like the effect of my hit.

He thought he had been hit so hard that it dusted him in one go. He panicked. I saw the fear in his eyes as if I was a slayer of the drunkards. I got down to assure him that my proceedings in the matter stood ended. Then he cried. ‘You are so kind, you are almost a God to help me!’ he howled. I helped him stand to his feet—for the time being at least, as it was my duty to help him regain his vertical for at least once after contributing to the cause of his latest fall.

He would have again fallen if he hadn’t clutched me with full brotherly force. ‘You are my brother. You are for me while all of them abandoned me!’ he embraced me tight and sang a sluggish, frothy, smelly song of brotherhood in my ear. I tried to extricate myself from the claws of his drunken love but he won’t let go of the long-lost brother he had been looking for so long. I tried pushing him away but he was really hungry for human affection.

I had to push him, which I did to good effect and again he went down and cried once more for being stabbed in the back by someone whom he respected more than his real brother. I found it appropriate to take my presence off the scene. As I walked away, I felt his gift tucked into my shirt around the collar, a bit of it out grazing my nape. I pulled it out. The banana sapling! Maybe he was trying to crown me with it on my head and make me the King of all drunkards. However, he misplaced the item a bit.

I looked at the banana sapling. Despite the mistreatment and mauling, it seemed reasonably well in shape. The leaf would open up as the root was intact. Without thinking too much, I just allowed it to stay in my hands. So that’s how my dears the plant changed its master. I wonder if the banana spirit had a role in playing out this drama.

After changing the masters, the plant very well managed to get a new root-hold in a fresh yard. There it stood with its half-mauled single leaf. Drunk with the gay spirits of its erstwhile master, it blossomed up. From a kid to a boy to an adolescent to a dandy young man, it just sprinted towards claiming more of life and living. Its huge green leaves swayed to winds like majestic banners of the banana kingdom.

A couple of years after its arrival in my garden, the rains turned out to be very, very lenient. It just grew and grew through the rainy season. The lateral shoots from its roots grew forcefully to push out the bricks around. It wanted to become the king of bananas, I suppose. It was a big clump now and furled its leafy sails for a life well lived and enjoyed. It gave the unkempt courtyard a wilder look than it really was.

Well, then maybe a krait snake was also duped in taking it as a really wild place. It slithered in to stay in the clumpy banana encroachment. It had to be dispossessed of its free-hold with much fearful action. Then another little baby snake was also found.

A suspicious-looking neighbour gave his expert verdict that one day a cobra will also greet me. ‘Why do you have such an overgrown banana in your garden? It attracts snakes like a magnet pulls iron!’ he admonished.

‘Really!’ I nearly trembled and looked at the banana.

Snakes can surely put us out of our wits. My mother’s rusted wood-cutting scythe was brought out of retirement from a musty corner in the barn. I was expecting resistance from the resident reptilian tenants in the clump. My strikes were shaky. Thank God there weren’t any more snakes, or if there was any it must have gone out with its girlfriend to give her a kiss of venom. I decided to remove all the lateral encroachments and leave only the sleek central trunk to avoid the complete murder of a tree. I had to save my nature-loving aesthetics as well.

A banana is no woody mass. It’s a herbaceous plant, a mere layer after layer of the leafy fibre forming the trunk. The rusted scythe looked full of vengeance and easily cut through the soft juicy fibre like a knife does to the butter. Imagine, such a soft trunk would bear storms and high winds! It’s because nature hasn’t got sharp edges like us. It pushes and prods in a circular way that even a blade of grass would weather the mightiest storms.

The banana clump bore the sharp edges of my fear and insecurities and the bushy clump turned into a single sleek strand. It still smiled. Thank God, the trees aren’t vindictive like we humans, otherwise they would stop producing oxygen as we put them to axe. We survive because the rest of the creation is far more adjusting and tolerant than us.

These trees never miss their smiles. A gust of breeze ruffled the leafy banners. A big leafy overhang brushed my face and aired my perspiring face as if to say, ‘Why worry so much. You are all right and so am I!’ I think they forgive very easily. I took the consolation that a single strand of banana is better than no banana at all.