Remembering a winter walk

 

You cannot be more welcoming than to the sun that shines brightly on a winter noon after dispelling the frigid fog that has eaten away the earlier part of the day. I’m walking with solitary musings on the sunlit trail across the still surviving thin ribbon of wilderness running along the thirty feet wide space between the canals. This and the still narrower lines of wilderness running along the outer embankments of the canals provide solace and succor—a sort of last refuge to some reptiles, birds and a solitary journeyman like me in the area.

A majestic cobra has sprawled itself in the open for sunbathing. Is it the same that had shed its slough a month back. I had found the seven-feet long snake skin completely intact from the tip of its tongue to the end of its tail. I keep it coiled up like a real snake in my library among my books. In case there is some book thief, he will run away after seeing a snake among the books.

I arrive at a bridge and take a narrow road running through the farmlands. There are mushroom farms. A big poultry farm is buzzing with plenteous cacophony of cocks and hens sending out dinning chimes of mortality and suffering. The stench of poultry feed and bird drops overpowers any sense of pity.

The yellow of mustard and the green of wheat show mankind’s strength and grasp over nature. The vehicles rattle past and the drivers find someone still walking slowly a misfit, or even a lunatic because only they seem to walk along the roads these days. Human legs may turn extinct over the coming centuries.

I reach the brand new multiple-lane expressway authoritatively cutting across the farmlands around my village. It’s all about more and more speed. The passing vehicles rattle your bones with the windstorms raised by their speed. The tyres raise a nefarious noise to keep you scared all the time. This is the same dusty little potholed road where we had seen bicycles, buggies and carts in our childhood.

There is a little puddle of water among the bunch-grass and shrubbery by the road. A coot, a moorhen and a lapwing still hold the post for the birdies. Further on, a larger pond is lucky enough to survive. There is algae on the surface. The black catfishes are stoically floating on the surface. They look awestruck and surprised with their mouths wide open. They are actually allowing the algae to enter their mouth, just like whales open their mouths while passing through the shoals of smaller fish. I would call it peaceful hunting.

The bush-covered waste ground where we used to roll and play throughout the day is buried under the cement, asphalt and mortar of the swanky new expressway as it loops around the village pond. The village pond has more water than ever but not a single water bird. There used to be thousands of water birds in it during our childhood.  Now it’s tamed under pisciculture by a farmer who has taken it on lease from the local body.

The banyan on the mound is scarred. The mound on which it stands has been chopped from all sides to create more water space to rear fish. Its strong, thick roots are exposed like opened innards at the water margins. The majestic tree is holding its world through three or four stumps, made of its hanging roots that have dug into the earth. The tree seems scared of a fall and looks to save itself by placing its hands on the ground as more and more roots are exposed to rear a few more kilos of fish. Aren’t we actually eating into our own innards?      

Settling the account forever

 

In its dealings with a person, destiny keeps its account book always open. The account is never closed from her end. It's always open. It needs a tapasya to close the account by the person himself, wind up the calculations forever, come out of karma's loop and take an indefinable shape on the canvas of eternity.

Sleeping in a cinema hall

 

Dada Lakhmi Chand (1903-1945) was a famous ragini and saang artist from Haryana. People call him the Shakespeare of Haryana for his folksongs. He nailed many bitter truths of the contemporary society. Further, the folk bard, in an oracular manner, sang about the harsher truths of the coming age also. Kaka Maharaj, who stays in a hut by the canal, is an ardent fan of Lakhmi Chand’s raginis. So when a movie based on the life and times of the famed artist was screened at the brand new multiplex in a mall at the town, I offered to take him for watching the movie.

He hardly leaves his hut and very rarely goes to the town. But he agreed for the sake of his folk hero. As I drove him through the town, he found it changed beyond his expectation. ‘It’s a new town altogether!’ he exclaimed like a little boy. He was stumped by the swashbuckling mall and still more by the elevators and lifts. It was all antipodal to his grass hut by the canal. But I think he graced the worldly set-up with his naked feet.

Waiting for the show to begin he had tea with a sense of bewilderment. It was a prime seat in the uppermost row. The movie was about the life and times of the great folk artist—a little biographical treat. He but had come expecting a full show of his raginis only. He found it meaningless and funnily dramatized. So he cozily folded himself in the chair and slept peacefully even among that ear-bursting din in the cinema hall.    

Wintery reminiscences

 

Daubed with dual shades the winter moves on. It’s a concoction of good-bad, pleasure-pain, joy-sadness. Laroop followed his drinking passion to the extent of pawning away the landed property, social dignity and domestic peace. But he earned something as well—the title of the craziest speaker and shouter of the words prohibited in all religions, castes and creeds. Most of these obnoxious verbal volleys were directed at his wife. I think he called her a ‘slut’ at least a million times in his life. But she had taken her vows as a bride around the holy fire to be by him, through thick and thin, come what may. As he created a mayhem of all civilities at public squares and streets, she would be always there like an unseen shadow around some corner or behind some column, keenly observing the vulgarized air around her dear husband. Let someone intervene to stop Laroop from his hellish torrent of cuss words, she would swiftly emerge and firmly stand between the keeper of social morals and the slayer of all civilized norms.

Then one day, at the age of roughly sixty-seven, Laroop, sloshed fully as usual, fell from a tractor and broke his back. He was paralyzed but God was kind enough to allow his tongue still wagging for letting out the still remaining stock of vulgarities. However, he was lucky to get his deliverance soon. The doctors had ruled out any chance of recovery. The gentlefolks said it was a respite for the tortured body and soul. Let’s hope he gets a good beginning in the next avatar. He left behind a genuinely grief-stricken and grieving wife. One gets habituated to pain and insults over the decades. The cuts and wounds take such a real shape that one draws one’s identity from them and gets puzzled in their absence. So maybe she still misses him much for all the insults he poured over the years.

However bad it was, but it’s sad to lose a human voice. But God is lenient to restore a voice that had gone mute. As I have already mentioned Kala had got a facial paralysis, leaving him tongue-tied. His hard-worked vegetable hawking skills lay abed. The streets missed enthusiastic hawking shouts at least, if not his not-so-impressive vegetable items. By the grace of God he has got his speech back after three-four months. There are auditory signs of a slurred effort in his hawking list. But his words, though slightly affected, carry enough clarity to convey the message.

He went for a desi treatment like most of the country folks do. I have seen many people recovering after taking the secret potions along with faith-healing by these people. They strictly forbid the patients from getting saline drops which the allopathic doctors do to begin with at the hospitals. ‘Don’t get the drips. If you do, our medicines won’t work!’ they admonish the patients. Thanks to their mysterious potions Kala gets his hawking voice back. He has to take medicines for at least six months. Let’s hope he becomes as fluent in shouting out his list as earlier.

Elsewhere, a pack of asian pied starlings keeps the neighborhood pretty lively during the bright, balmy noons. They chat a lot. Maybe they love this season. The pair of treepies hasn’t yet returned from the Himalayan foothills for the wintertime stay. When they come, they don’t miss to intimidate the smaller birds in the locality. Imagine their natural GPS system that enables them to track this small neighborhood on their journey from the lower Himalayas. There also they must be having a little home among the few trees on a slope or in a little vale. They would return to it after the winter stay. Imagine the natural sense of belonging to a particular place!

Apart from all this, dear readers, there is a tiny jingling addition to the world. Feeble, soft trills of baby birds are a welcome addition to any yard or garden. Although winters are usually avoided by the birds for adding to their families, but there are some couples who take the odd way. Like this pair of scaled munias. Their globular grass nest has little munia babies, sending their softly tinkering notes swimming in the air. The squirrels stay away from the curry leaf tree hosting the nest.

There is a cat in the house. The feral cat considers itself to be a pet now. It was a scared, scrawny, feeble-hearted dark grey cat. The elders would have serious issues about its suitability as a pet from many angles. But then a year-and-half old Maira finds it very cute. The cat is afraid of the grown-up stiff fingers but it’s comfortable with Maira’s soft touch. The elders thus have to adopt it. It’s a laidback cat, not much interested in rats, girl cats or nests. It’s happy to have chapattis and sleep. It means the munias have a nice chance of raising a successful family. Anyway the nest is beyond the reach of even an adventurous cat.

Living with choice

 The things that we usually eat for our tongue ought to tasted, not eaten. The food that we are reminded to take for our stomach, must be eaten, not gobbled. But we do the reverse. We gobble down the things that must be merely tasted. And we flimsily taste the things that must be actually eaten! The forces on the periphery of our existence create desires that always drive us off the path, taking us into the puzzling pathways, where we end up spending our entire life and energy in banging our head against walls and moving just by chance, driven by random forces. On the other hand, there is the option of living by choice. The ability to live by choice increases in proportion to the distance we create from the outermost peripheral forces controlling our life. The more we move away from the fringes, the lesser becomes the chance factor in life driven by circumstantial winds.