Kickstarting a dog's bark

 

The dove sits perkily on the small, flimsy nest. Two eggs are visible from below as I peep into the nest, precariously perched just a bit more than a couple of feet above my head. The cats have a dependable eyesight I have heard. Let’s see when will the cat have his nasta.

A sadhu comes knocking at the gate asking for alms. He is lucky in receiving twenty rupees over the gate but luckier still in escaping unhurt. The dog that howls only thinks it suitable to taste his calf muscles. Of course, it doesn’t growl before the intended bite. But it doesn’t howl also. However, he misses it. A tiny scrape of the sadhu’s loincloth comes in its mouth. The sadhu gives a nice strike with his stick. The dog has a sound reason to howl then. But then it barks! The first time I hear it. Well, maybe his is a reversed canine equation.

Pure volition

 My tiny Tulsi forest! The beauty about lovable volition, the bhav of love, is that it takes you above physical limitations. With pure volition of love this little group of tiny plants is as big as Amazon forest. It becomes as pure as any holy site on earth. If you can relate and feel like an ant crawling through this tiny patch of holy leaves, then you of course turn a little child wandering in a big forest. It's only about bhav beyond acts, deeds, words, scriptures, holy pilgrimages. If you are in that bhav, this little group of plants instantly turns your Gaumukh, Badrinath, Kedarnath, Jerusalem or any other holy site. Right here, this very instant. A pure unconditional bhav takes you above the limitations of space and time. Karma gets unattached from your consciousness during those moments of pure volition and you have moments of liberation. Call it samadhi, enlightenment or any other words. Words are mere pointers. As I stare into this little patch of green and with pure volition muse over a little insect going through it, I'm a pilgrim going through a deep forest. As I take bucket bath and chant Ganga Ma's name with pure heart, I'm bathing in her holy stream. I don’t have any doubt about it. As I walk by a little ancestral shrine in the countryside and bow my head I know I'm having a Darshan of Badri, Kedar, Tirupati. If you establish yourself in that unadulterated bhav, Mother Existence gets everything for you right at that very spot. But we have to walk around a lot ultimately to realise and come back into stillness and divine pause at one point, that pure volition. Then you aren't anywhere but still everywhere. Then it hardly matters where you are, what you are, what others think of you, whether you are moving or not. The small acquires mammoth proportions to inspire holy awe. The big becomes small allowing you to marvel and analyse at the level of mind. Well, that's the beauty of pure, unlimited volition.

A ceremonial feast for wilful defaulters

The story of a blind man

 

Ram Mehar is a robust 77-year-old man. He is visually challenged since birth. A big loss indeed but at the same time he gains a bit, even though it is no compensation, by being spared of the frazzled and faded travesty of the visible life around. He has an almost infallible skill at the rest of his senses minus the sense of seeing.

His main challenge is to stay updated with the changing nooks, corners and bends in the village streets. He has to keep the latest changes in his mind. To recompense him for the loss of light in his eyes, destiny has given him an ability to pronounce Hindi words almost perfectly, which is an oddity among the farmers whose hair-raising linguistic anecdotes give enough proof to the fact that theirs are the tongues especially made for slowly drooling, rumbling, intimidating, abusive sounds in Haryanvi. Chaste Hindi is farthest from the reach of their tongues. Ram Mehar speaks best Hindi in the village.

He has inherited two acres of land in his name. As per local custom and belief, marriage is mandatory to attain moksha after death. They got him a purchased bride when he was sixty or a bit more than that. A well-washed, scraped, brushed and dainty Ram Mehar led the marriage party to the poor girl’s native place in neighboring Uttar Pradesh. It was a rocking milestone in the empyrean torpor of his many decades on earth. Many farmers enjoyed sweets and cheap liquor. It cost him about one lakh rupees, out of which fifty thousand rupees were paid to the bride’s father as purchase money.

Selling girls for marriage in lieu of money is an established profession. The brides usually run away and the agents get them married again to some needy guy. It’s a lucrative business. So the bride-buyers keep a strict vigil lest they run away. People had sympathy for blind Ram Mehar, and hence many eyes kept a watch on her. As a result, she couldn’t run away.

After two months, she being not able to slip away of her own, her wards arrived to call off the marriage. The villagers demanded the money back. ‘What money?’ she snapped. ‘Only if you guys knew how did I manage! A servant would charge at least twenty thousand rupees for two months. For the rest, don’t force me to open my mouth. He is a young rascal “there”!’ she pointed at a part in his body. ‘His night funs won’t come at less than five hundred rupees per night. So that makes it another thirty thousand rupees. That settles it; we don’t owe anything to him.’

That indeed settled it as the villagers got impressed with his power and forgot about the main issue. He lost the money but got some new reputation for being very young and strong ‘there’. In fact, the people bestowed him more respect after that.

अपना फेफड़ा खुद कत्ल करने का सरल उपाय

 जो लोग गाँव में रहते हैं, उनकी धारणा है की वे शहरों की तुलना में अपेक्षाकृत स्वच्छ हवा में रहते है। लेकिन गांवों में भी चीजें बहुत तेजी से बदल रही हैं। गांवों में भी प्रति परिवार डिस्पोजेबल प्लास्टिक की मात्रा बढ़ रही है। किसान अपने घरों से कुछ दूर गोबर के ढेर रखते हैं, जिसका उपयोग वे नई फसल के मौसम की शुरुआत में खेत में खाद के रूप में करते हैं। प्लास्टिक को खेतों में जाने से रोकने के लिए वे हफ्तों तक छोटे-छोटे ढेरों में प्लास्टिक को जलाते रहते हैं। प्लास्टिक के कचरे को खेतों में भौतिक रूप में देखने के बजाय हवा में अदृश्य करने का एक बहुत ही सरल उपाय ढूँढ लिया है गाँव वालों ने। इसलिए मैं दिन में कई बार जहरीली प्लास्टिक के जलने की गंध महसूस कर सकता हूं। उन्हें इस बात का एहसास नहीं है कि वही प्लास्टिक अब दूसरे रूप में उनके फेफड़ों में चला जाता है। वह दिन दूर नहीं जब किसी गांव में बेहतर हवा में सांस लेने का काल्पनिक विचार अपनी प्रासंगिकता खो देगा। जब तक हम अपने प्लास्टिक के निपटान का बेहतर तरीका नहीं खोजेंगे, तब तक गाँव शहरों की तरह प्रदूषित हो जाएंगे। यह उतना ही सरल हो सकता है जितना कि अपने प्लास्टिक कचरे को एक बोरी में इकट्ठा करना और इसे निकटतम शहर के पास गांव के बाहर कूड़ेदान में फेंक देना। लेकिन इतना झंझट कौन उठाए। हमें इन दिनों हर चीज के लिए तुरंत समाधान चाहिए।