Rotdu dog

 Barking is synonymous with being a dog. They just love barking! God knows whether it’s out of anger, joy, fear, need or frustration. While the rest of them are in a merry chorus, as we humans get jittery during Corona times accompanied by dozens of mild earthquake tremors in the Delhi NCR, indicating all is not well under the earth, this brown-white dirge singer has his own ludicrously howling composition. It appears as if he is offering his doomsday song well in advance. While, the rest of them go into long spells of yodeling and barking in varying joyful notes, as if they can smell the soon to break in fault-line underneath, this champion vocalist but stays on his same old frequency. While the rest of them are shouting ecstatically, we can pick out this one’s piteous howls as if he wants to spoil their game.

Offer him a chapatti, its anxiety and god knows what pains spurt out through a sad whine that beats even the customary dog’s tail-wagging on being offered food. So the moment you offer it a chapatti, it will start eating but give you a guilty feeling as if you have given it something very bad in taste. It whimpers, whines and then lets loose a screeching note of howl in gratitude. May be he is not comfortable with anything at all in the canine as well as our human world around and goes cursing. Eh, the perennial naysayer!

Growling also is the sovereign right of a dog. They assert their arrogant dogliness through it. What dog is that which doesn’t growl? This one doesn’t. He can’t even if he tries. Because the moment he puts pressure on his vocal chords, the muscles appear to have stuck up at one place to give the same very old whine, whimper and howl. Suppose some skinny outsider dog enters the locality and all the natives are barking out their machismo spirit at full speed, and there being almost no danger as the skinny outsider cowers in the street drain, this champion participates in the defensive force with his full-hearted wretched howls, as if he is on the side of the pinned down outsider. In this he unsettles many of his companions, who give a break to their lungs and actually stare at him to find out if they have bitten their own buddy by mistake. His lowest of a rumble automatically catches onto a sad song of pain and cries.

When a weirdly dressed gypsy hawker enters the locality, the dog squad gives more pressure to their coiled tails and set after barking in a line after the hawker nomad. He doesn’t mind their barking. He walks confidently, thinking of himself a majestic elephant who isn’t bothered about barking pathetic dogs. They on their part think this strange one will have a share in their chapattis and ladies so needs to be thrown out at the earliest. The nomadic hawkers hardly bother about barking dogs. But even he is forced to abandon his detachment from such mundane settlers’ ways and look behind carefully, his ears picking the piteous howling cries among the proudly ringing din. May be some aloof and unattached gypsy will also start crying after hearing these sympathetic notes. Wonder of wonder, the poor fellow actually believes that it’s barking as can be seen from its taut coil in the tail and proud bearing during the citadel defense. It can’t help if it comes out as a whimpering, irritating howl. May be some unique vocal filter fixed by nature to do some experiment!

The rest of them have wide range of vocals to vent out a range of emotions from the best to the worst. But this one’s joy, sadness, curiosity and of course frustration are all expressed in the same crying tone. His groans give a clue to his discontentment with life. Suppose a dog fellow approaches him with the intention to play, this one reciprocates with his own innocent intention to play. But how will he stop his sad howling. Those playful sighs again come out as piteous scary whines and whimpers and the fellow leaves him, accusing him of being a habitual crier.

Amidst all his teary whimpers, he is a loser in love game also as can be expected. During the mating season, the dandies break many a moon to woo their sweethearts. This one also, driven by his biological instincts, tries the same. But the lady runs away during the foreplay itself as his pining moans start with piteous howls as if she has just pierced his heart with her paw. You have to believe me on this. I have actually seen it happening. Otherwise, why would I be interested in maligning his character on social media? I call him Rotdu, habitual crier, by the way!

You are a winner

 Why should winning be just defined by finishing the line ahead of others? Finishing the line with your best, even if it means coming last in the list, is also a win. And beyond finishing, the will to touch the line, even if you fall on the way, is a win. And even the will to participate is a win. And if you don't participate at all and do something else that also is winning. Why talk of defeats? It's winning-winning all the way, in one form or another. Because to be alive itself is a win. Life is a winsome game in totality. Count all your disasters, tragedies and pains. Add them. However high the sum is, it will still fall short of nullifying the big positive number, life. You all are winners I tell you.

Trees are holier than human saints

 I am sure most of us have seen a sweet-sour tug of war among a group of trees in a narrow space. Much as different trees push and prod to kiss the sunrays, they are ready to recede and be on the backfoot at the same time. They are ready to take frontfoot with as much enthusiasm as they are ready to go on backfoot. Much as they try their level best to go straight to kiss the rays of survival, they are equally prepared to bend down to the necessity and take a detour in the face of obstruction. It’s a beautiful balance between surging ahead and surrender. All this is beyond winning and losing, a marvelous equilibrium. Ego, the phantom malady of we humans, cannot survive on such a beautiful line drawn with unqualified composure. No wonder, it’s beyond winning and losing. These are the fallacious categories mischievously hatched by the existential forces to put testing hurdles on the path of our evolution. It’s as simple as a constraint on a plant or tree that faces natural limits and hurdles to its growth. A plant grows egolessly, unaware of the terms of winning and losing, and hence there is hardly any suffering in its journey. We are a bit more aware egoistic plants, popping out to grow and be so much more aware to lose this restricting ‘limited awareness’ of cutting down reality in poor fractions. To be frank, a plant or tree appears more evolved than us in this regard. What we aim to gain after intense spiritual practices is naturally available to a tree. So who is more evolved? In my opinion, it’s the tree! In fact, the spiritual model of evolution—in which we take mankind as the more evolved species after having traversed through the lower realms of plants and animals—may indeed be the reverse. Like, we may be at the base and by shedding our illusionary mindwork, we are moving to higher states of egolessness, crossing over to animals to trees to grasses to dust to nothingness, on the path to become part of everything by shedding all sense of ‘I, My and Me’. I at least feel like worshipping trees more than I feel prostrating before any of the so called holiest feet on earth.

Don't be a lone wolf

 "The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives." We have evolved like herd animals. We need to fit in a larger group to survive by bonding with others. We need respect in a group. We need sweet approval from our family, friends and peer groups. Don't commit the mistake of going separate from your  sweet little tribe. It might literally mean a death sentence. So many lonely people die unnaturally. So enjoy sweet collaboration and bond with your little group for safety and opportunities. It's one of the most basic laws of prevailing as an individual as a part of trusting group.

A poet batting on a slippery wicket

 

The tiles are getting so oily smooth in fashionable houses that I have to walk like a heavily pregnant penguin waddling on the Antarctic ice to avoid a fall. But we are up for leaving a grand impression on the house fashion scene, or for that matter in all types of fashion in all spheres of life. That's being cultured; otherwise you are a Sentinelese prehistoric tribal in the Andaman and Nicobar chain of islands. In fact, the floor tiles have become so slippery these days that I feel like a goat being taken to a slaughter house if some fashionable person invites me to their house.

But credit goes to we humans. We are a gutsy race. We take risks. We are ready to take the risks of broken bones for being most fashionable in the neighborhood. And so many slip and break their bones in fact. What floor is any worth if it doesn't carry the slipping potential and break bones and wink with a flashy smile as you fall? And we shouldn't forget that broken bones are a boon for the medical fraternity.

What car is worth its tyres if it can't go like a rocket and carry the prospect of trampling as many as possible on its glorious journey? But the naughty trampling cars are a boon for the insurance industry. Isn’t it?

What music is worth its rhythmic hop if it can't burst a few eardrums? What dress is worth its salt if it doesn't make you look like someone from the farthest galaxy? And the dress that actually covers the body is no dress, it's an old hag. So poor clothing is up for a big challenge. It has to show all and still appear to hide everything. So we are busy fixing it. It's a very serious question. How much of cloth goes off from the bum-side to cover the soles of feet. Or how much goes from the chest to cover armpits. One half of the mind working overtime to bare all, while the other half trying to devise an airy dress to avoid a complete fall. Imagine how much creativity it requires! What an art man!

And what is this boring, old-model plain skin? It's a big canvas for art. Why waste paper for painting when we have our dear skin ready for the sadistic pleasure of the tattooing needle? So human body is the canvas now. Some tattoos go deep in the skin in proportions to the transient emotions in the heart. But we have shifty hearts. So when the clouds of emotions scatter and take a new shape, the poor tattoo taunts as a sign of infidelity. So it has to be vanquished. So tattoo removers have become as important as tattoo makers. The other day when I put out my hand to give some money to a beggar I got a shock. He had a dragon on his hand. He appeared so empowered in comparison to me. My poor non-tattooed hand won't dare to go ahead. So I just walked away. When I see people with their sophisticated tattoos coming on the way, I involuntarily find myself moving away in awe and wonder to give them space to walk. They appear a completely new race to me the old model. Maybe tattooed bums, biceps, breasts and tummies have gone berserk and are now revolting to claim new versions after getting fed up with their boring old self.

And what gun is a gun that can't pierce a hill from a distance? So the human mind is making the best of a gun. But then what bulletproof jacket is that which can't stop a cannon ball on the chest. So one half of our collective brain is making the deadliest gun, while the other half is busy in making the best of bulletproof jackets.

We are a very busy race. We can't stop. We have to scatter litter in the first place, so that we can devise the most efficient ways of waste management. We ought to rechristen ourselves as busy-sapiens now. We have to first go into war and killings and then make UN and the entire set of peace talks and diplomatic corps for peaceful negotiations.

I sometimes wonder maybe we are basically looking to create more avenues for problems, so that the genius of the human brain can be actualized in managing those problems. I think the autonomous human mind is smartly using the slavish human body for experiments, like we do with the toads on dissection tables, putting us in weirdest situations just to find whether there is a solution to this and that. What an experiment going on! It really is a big drama.