Your tiny nest of wellbeing

 

Try to build a little nest of friendship that would cozily hold a few friendly people who would always care. I think friendship is the bedrock of all relationships, be it lovers, husband, wife, children, siblings. It’s the foundation of all that survives the vicissitudes of life. Don’t ask or expect too much from yourself or the other person. Just be a friend first, and all partnerships acquire a better shape by default. And be such a good friend that if at all circumstances force you out of a partnership, even with all the related losses you still are at least left as a nice old friend. Friends to begin with, friends to end with. Not a bad situation I suppose.

Silent zigzags of a village night

 

The village has spread on both sides of the road as it grew in population. The district road got upgraded to become a national highway without adding to its width because of the houses on both sides. So there were a lot of crushed bones of humans and dogs, and sometimes even crows. It was almost bumper to bumper traffic comprising a broad range of vehicles from massive trawlers to two-wheelers and bicycles. The road looked busy till deep into the folds of night. Speed bumps were set up to check their rampant prowl. Then the bypass circuiting the village got operationalized. It was a kind of savior. The woes of the peasant woman crossing the road with dung heaps on their heads lessened a bit. The dogs too stood a better chance of survival while loitering around the road. The traffic lessened as most of it took the bypass to avoid the bottleneck congestion.

But the villagers who resided by the side of the road felt some discomfort. They had become so used to the noise that now when the nights turned still and silent, they got a feeling as if ghostly entities were on the prowl. What has happened to make sannnatta so weird and spooky, many thought. We are now habituated to the noise so much that silence scares us. I hope the villagers find peace with silence. I’m reasonably away from the road so the silent nights are still better. And now when they are getting used to the silence, any noise hits their ears more effectively. The road-bumps don’t have white strips to make them visible from a safe distance. So now and then some trawlers jump over the speed-bumps with full speed. And a loud thump goes booming across the silence of the night. The people in the roadside houses jump with the vibrations, taking it as an earthquake. As a result, the new sarpanch has been requested to remove the bumps. He is very keen to launch public work initiatives and the request has been accepted. The people have calculated that it’s better to have a few more dead dogs, with a human fatality in between, rather than being jolted out of their sleep thinking the world was being shaken out to the limits of annihilation. To be more sure of being there on solid ground, they have removed the speed-bumps.

Reparation and redemption

 

Greying, thinning hair and pepper and salt beard. These are the changes in me that I reflect over. It’s just natural to spot the change within and without. But aren’t the little saplings of banyan and peepul that I had planted are handsome young trees now? Yes, they are! They are the expression of my youth. They are me. If you ever get bothered about age, do something fresh and young in nature, where you will always see the traces of your youth expressed in those creations. Plant trees, for example. Keep doing it periodically so that you always have some young tree lad youthfully swaying to the breeze as an expression of the youth of your spirit.

An ounce of snail-shell solitude

 

The new sarpanch has rewarded a man for casting vote in his favor. The man has been appointed as the shouting announcer of public news in the village. He is around fifty and has spent most of his time as a goatherd. He walked with his little flock of goats and sheep looking for ever-thinning strands of grass and bushes. The world sped by. The people who rode bikes, now travelled in cars. The people who had mud houses, now stayed in big cemented ones. The world was up for grabs and those with strategic intent and higher occupations made their realm more impressive. All through these decades, he was passing his time in the silence of still remaining patches of wilderness, just whistling or making clucking sounds with his tongue to guide his herd. Then the last tufts of wild grass vanished and he found it difficult to keep his herd alive. He sold it and there he stood on the shiny stage of life, feeling lost and wondering how much the world had gone ahead on the wheels of progress while he was slowly moving with his herd.

So now he is there on the main thoroughfare of village life. He takes his shouting job very seriously. The problem is that all his front teeth are gone and decades of shouting one-word instructions and clucking of tongue in various ways to guide his flock have put him in a position where he sounds clucking his tongue to hark attention of the entire village folks whom I seriously doubt he finds like a big drove of sheep. He is loud enough to be heard across a few streets but his words slip out in a strange shape. It’s a big challenge for the people to make a head or tail of the public announcement. You have to give full focus with your entire attention to latch onto some odd word and then build-up your version of the information. At least he trains people in the art of focus and a kind of brain exercise to build up a meaningful narrative out of the strange smatterings of words. Well, he seems happy with a feeling that he is herding a bigger flock of sheep now, while we try to nibble at his smatterings of words.

Congratulations Global Elder

 As a non American global citizen I respect the Americans' choice in electing Trump. I can't analyse on bigger issues but I think the major gain from being mere Trump to become President Trump is that he will be able to terminate the federal legal cases against him and suspend the state cases till he occupies office. As a layman I view it as the major take away: the ability to become above law. That I think is the real Power. Wish you a powerful, bombastic, fantastic time in the seat of Power. Our leader is also a big fan of yours. So we see benefits for India unless you get irritated about us. But yea now I believe you were supposed to become the American President. Fate saved you from death just by a millimetre. It had plans. To reward you with power over millions of square kilometres on earth. Sometimes being one millimetre short of death means trillions of square yards of powerful life. The world will be at the mercy of your temperament. Please rule with mercy, benevolence and wisdom of an elder. Because you are the Globe Elder now.