Soulless, hybrid beauty

 

A hybrid rose can have nice colour and exquisite design. But it lacks the basic essence of a flower, fragrance. The beauty is skin deep, a mere cosmetic effort at the surface. It's haughty and arrogant, a kind of constriction within itself, an insecurity, a fear, an aloofness, a separation. The soul is missing. They seem too self-absorbed. Like so many apparently classy, well polished gentry. They stand with touch-me-not attitude. And the bees and butterflies stay away. They find it totally unapproachable. The marigolds, on the other hand, are little humble, down to earth flowers. They aren't showy. They are common looking. But they have a soul, a depth, a delicate fragrance. Most importantly, they have nectar to offer to the butterflies and bees. With their openness and genteel receptivity, they are buzzing with little winged insects. They have broader connection to life and living. I can feel their soul through their soft fragrance as I sit by them. They exist in a dimension where they touch many chords in my heart. The smell-less roses are as distant and soulless as a beautiful pic of them or even well designed plastic flowers.

The illustrated contraries of chance winds

 

This woman in the neighborhood has indomitable spirit and is firmly full of vigor for A-division street fights. She looks like a world class wrestler with shrill abusive words. No wonder people usually try to save their skin and bones. This morning she has put a big heap of discards at the little square and set it on fire. A huge plume of dark smoke engulfs my establishment as the wind is blowing into the house. If you commit the mistake of saying something against her on the issue of a smoky fire in front of your house, she would be more than happy to upgrade her endeavor and shift the fire right within your courtyard.

She seems to possess unrestrained optimism about the chances of her victory in street brawls. Keeping silence minimizes the damage these days. I do the same and brace myself for smoke-choked house for some time. But then the wind suddenly changed and her own house was completely lost among the dark plumes of smoke. It remained so for half an hour. The wind changed again once the smoky affair was gone. Now when it blew again into the house, it bought beautiful fragrance of jasmine flowers from the wall of another neighbor. Well, sometimes coming from the unknown interiors of the womb of happenings, circumstantial winds favor you if you keep silent. And winds are winds. They dutifully carry all the illustrated contraries. No use of pointless jibing at its ways. They have a duty to carry smoke as well as flower fragrance. Bear up with smoke sometimes and you will surely have your share of beautiful fragrance another time.

The loss of soulful connection

 

You don’t need to have just ears to listen. You can do it far better with your soul. If not this, why would one listen to the beautiful songs of silence in solitudional woods? The voice, whisper and songs of silence that come embracing you to console, to befriend, to comfort, to reassure, to rejuvenate. You need to ‘have’ a soul to listen. Of course everyone and everything has a soul. By ‘having’ a soul I mean one is aware of its presence, its lively throbbing, its guiding light, its essence, its imperishable nature beyond the bodily encasing. Its real feel, its vibrant awareness is what I mean to ‘have’ a soul. The trees, plants, grass, flowers, birds, snakes, earth, sky, stars and all and sundry have a soul. And they listen. I sometimes say a few gentle, appreciating words to the flowers and they smile better. Yes, they do! But you need to have a soul-to-soul connection to feel that. I tried it with a snake but it scampered away and so did I after that brief period of calling it a ceasefire along the human-snake line of fear-fire, the very same primal fear blocking soul-to-soul contact. The next time I intend to use the voice of silence and words of gentility through the eyes instead of oral words. It might work. You never know.

But sadly we are losing soul-to-soul contact. The once beautiful relationships are falling apart. Words of love are replaced by hard rhetoric and arguments. And looks have changed. The eyes are more used to stare these days. A stare speaks for thousands of hateful words. There is distrust and insecurity. There is a sinister willingness to get fitted in the angry stereotypes being cast by those who would benefit from a divided society. In Delhi a young man stabs another. The trigger was that they happened to stare at each other. The crime acquires more serious proportions because the stabber happens to be a Muslim. Someone stabbing a coreligionist stands a chance of being defined as one-to-one illegality. But in case of the two parties belonging to different religions it becomes something far bigger than a crime. Communal haggling, shoving and pushing followed the incident.

Somewhere in the capital, a man pounces on a woman and takes away her gold earrings. But gold is very dear to our ladies. She desperately clung to the snatcher. Her two daughter-in-laws ran and all three of them clubbed him down. But maybe he loved gold even more than all three of them combined. He swallowed the earrings. Now the police have the added task of admitting him to a hospital and ensure that the precious items are retrieved safely at the exit point. They will come out provided the bearer hasn’t the appetite to digest it and make it a part of his anatomy forever. And if the gold comes out it will still retain its value irrespective of its latest exit point, just like heroin and illicit drugs capsules retain their market value after they are successfully retrieved from bellies, anus and vaginas of the bearer by the client.

Turmoil, turmoil everywhere born of the loss of soul-to-soul connection. In Nainital there is a gross abuse of animal rights. A Muslim youth is caught violating the modesty of a cow. A severe breach of conduct even punishable under the laws concerning animal rights. But from the religious point of view it’s a sin. So riots follow. The more we lose contact with our own and others’ souls, the less we pardon. We turn intolerant and unforgiving. We then just need reasons to get angry and hateful.

The social sediments settling after long last

 

The gypsies seem to be settling down after centuries of whirlwind roaming. This is the time to settle history for once and all. Forget the past and begin a new chapter. But they start from a very disadvantaged position. They don’t possess anything apart from a few items they travel with. It’s a world fighting for inches of land. Common people fight for a few yards and the countries fight over few square kilometers. They too seem looking to drop the anchor finally. They have boarded the sides of their tents along a road in the town. They know municipality guys and the police will push and prod them to keep moving like they have been doing for centuries. So they add some weight to the anchor in the troubled waters. The national flag carries a lot of weight. So they have the tricolor flying full mast. Holy cow also carries a big load of faith and reverence. There are cows tethered in front of their sacks. The children of course may have some milk from the dried udders of the famished cows. They expect the patriotic guys to come to their rescue in case a municipal operation is launched to evict them from the premises.

Dissolution, expansion, evolution

 Joyful dissolution of the self! A flower blooms up fully. Opens its heart to the elements around. Draws every ounce from its potential to smiles and fragrance. Opens up completely. And then painless dissolve! This dissolution is further expansion only. Now the petals fly around in a broader dimension. Beautiful, self-surrendered parts of its previous existence now lie scattered as pious homage to mother earth. That is the purpose of life. We have to give back something better than what we took. That is evolution, expansion. Like this flower offers fragrance and smiles to mother earth in return for the sunshine, soil and moisture. The sole purpose of our existence is to be a better version of ourselves.