A simple remedy for thousand ailments

Raise awareness. Work on it diligently. It gives you a nobler heart and more controlled mind. It’s a practice much like you build your physical strength through regular workouts. Natural instinct, almost similar to being inclined to be lazy, is to be caught unaware. It’s nothing short of blindness, just like going into a dark tunnel. Once you cannot see, you are no longer responsible for your actions.

Evil has roots in unawareness. Awareness is a disinfectant. A human being, while being fully aware, can’t kill, rape, rob or fight. It’s simply impossible to be aware and be at your worst at the same time. Goodness flows from awareness. It’s simply being in the warm light where you feel better and see everything crystal clear.

There is a fountain of happiness inside. It lies dormant under the crust of fears, lies, illusions and ignorance. All these are bred by unawareness. To sharpen your awareness you need to do the spadework. A lot of unearthing required. You need to dig. Stop, take a pause and dig again. It needs a long look within.

With just knowledge you can walk on the crust. It makes you simply competitive, wherein you want to win at any cost. It pushes you into a zone of being terribly self-centered. No wonder you become less humane.

Awareness breeds wisdom. You reach the source of happiness. Therein you just don’t run to your destination stampeding over the lesser things along the path. You have empathy and you care for the consequences of your actions.  

Unawareness is the root cause of pseudo-illnesses of the mind. In the long term these even turn into real physical ailments.

The soldier of peace

If avoidance of fight and quarrel is cowardice and escapism, then biting back a dog that has bitten you is bravery. If running away from fire is defeat, then standing in front of a speeding car is bravery.

Acceptance doesn’t mean defeat. It means taking control of yourself, sympathize with the self, giving yourself an understanding pat on the back, pause, sit down, rest and allow the storm to pass over. And then you see the light. Believe me, storms burn out too fast. And peace drags moments to eternity.  

When you get caught in the whirlpool of adverse situations, the more you struggle, the more are the chances of drowning. The perilous eddies are most dangerous on the surface. But sometimes allowing yourself effortlessly to be sucked in gives you a chance to slip out of the vortex, because the base is very narrow. Similarly, problems have an apparent broad surface, but in reality have a very tiny base below the surface. So don’t choose to waste yourself on the surface of issues and routine headaches. Just dive down. There you see the reality. Most of the seemingly mammoth problems eddy out of a very small, funny base.

So the cool soldier, be on your guard, lower your head and dive to survive and see your glorious sun some other day at some other point.

Repose, rest and creative imagination

Don’t be in haste, don’t run too fast, for in running too fast, always looking at your destination, you lose the real charm of your journey. You miss the real fruits that were placed along your path. You hardly realize the real boons coming across your path. Is it, in any way, better than a blind run? And mind you, no destination is defined just in itself, something lying at a distance in abstract. Every destination is the sum total of the experiences coming across the way.

So cool down, take a pause, and move restfully with respectful awareness. The things that light up your awareness at each step are as important as the final destination to which you mean to reach. The trees, birds, floating clouds, gentle breeze, sunshine, ponds, rivers, nice people, charming conversations, and what not. Your each step carries the prospects of the pearls of happiness provided you slow down your time. The time which is yours, defined by you, not by the clicking hands of the clock. Your time obeys you, not the vice versa. You can slow it down with your increased awareness. Stretch each second on the enlightened curve of awareness. Time then obeys you, giving you more in seconds than you ever watched and experienced in whole days.

Do you think a journey is accomplished by the running force you propel into? Think again if you say yes. It’s not possible to run forever. A run has to depend on rest to sustain itself. Do you think the accelerator paddle in your car takes you to the destination? No! It’s the brakes intervening to give restful pauses for safety to give meaning to your speed, to make it an organized run instead of a mad rush ever accelerating and crashing into some fatality.

The break, the pause, the rest, these are the basic ingredients to turn any random movement into a meaningful, assured, safe journey taking us to some destination. Miles and miles of mindless dash without breaking, restful pauses are meaningless crazy jump into the desert ending in painful mirages.

As you run without pause, rest and awareness, and with heedless hurry, you stress yourself out. This stress and tension kills the imagery. All tensed up and stressed, looking anxiously at the destination far-far away, you lose that dreamy imagery which makes each step a victory in itself. Do you think life is meaningful without restful reflections and creative imagination? It simply isn’t. If not now, you realize it later when unfortunately it is too late.

So guys watch your step. And look around you. Countless things and phenomena await to enrich you. These are the things which make your journey fruitful and meaningful in the true sense. The destination stands defined only in terms of the process of journeying and the experiences gained alongside. And when you reach your destination as someone different, almost a victorious king, from the one who began the journey, it’s only the experiences before the final goalpost which have turned the scale in your favour.

The nutshell is: Enjoy the journey fella. Don’t just close your eyes to the surroundings thinking about the destination where you presume to become happy some day in future. Forget it. No destination can give you happiness if you haven’t been happier while journeying.

Happy journey!

Life, love and living

Many, many years ago, a sage was meditating on a Himalayan peak. Majestic dales and solitary vales sprawled around were all aglow with the divine streak.

Though the birds chirped songs, and rain poured down in throngs, he was unmovable, lost in a deep trance.

In winters, icy cold storms blew and the snow around and over him was all aglow with its chilling primitiveness. His soul but was safe somewhere in the cosy warmth of transcendental realisation.

In autumn, wind-fallen leaves sailed down with slumberous tumble, and ripe fruits fell proudly, adventurously for a juicy, pleasant crumble. He still was somewhere else when the nature opened these marvellous jewels from her treasure trove.

In spring, wild flowers fully unfurled their fragrance and smile, and honey-bees engaged in dawn to dusk toil. He but was unmoved and transported into a state where the ecstasies of natural bounties don’t mean anything anymore.

Summer’s warm days sprayed desultory, eerie uneasiness around, and cool nights proudly embraced this son with his soul heaven-bound. Still it didn’t matter. He was undisturbed and was silently moving on his meditative path.

Once it was a full moon autumn night. A fairy was flying amid milky delight. A perfect calmness pervaded the solitary vales. Everything was asleep, bathed in the softest fluffy shades of white. The fairy flew low over the peaks glowing under the moonlight. The seer was lost in his trance in front of his cave, the beauty of nature sprawled around meaningless to him.

She saw him and hovered around the sanctimonious air of his sagehood. A small, harmless mischief rustled in her young, innocent heart. She circled in the air above him. Her laughter touched the milky sea around and created soft ripples. Her unbelievably soft dress rustled in the gentle breeze born of her circles. It but did not have any effect on him. He was engrossed too deep in the cosmic balance beyond the sensory contradictions and dualities. The more she looked, the more was the urge in her to bring him back to the beauty of this world, to fetch him from the deep ocean where his soul had dived.

His exquisitely masculine physique and persona created tempted sparks on her magic stick. She tried all juicily leering feminine tricks. But her desire-lorn swirls in the air failed to move him even a bit. Helplessly she descended onto the earth. There were almost tears of helplessness in her beautiful eyes. She sat in front of him with those rose-red lips pursed in a heart-breaking frown.

Her marvellous eyes were lost in his handsome, bearded, well sculpted face. It was mesmerizing. There was not a single worldly trace on his face. She herself was caught in a trance and lost the sense of time and the laws of the fairyland. The night sped away as if in a jiffy.

The day rose. The sun arrived with full earthly delight. There was terror in her eyes. The hope to return to her realm died. She had broken the law of her land by not returning on the same night after the brief terrestrial sojourn. The realisation crashed against her soft self like a thunderbolt. Her utmost sensuous bare shoulders heaved under the tremors of this unpardonable fault. A cry involuntarily tore through her slender throat. And then it was a still bigger violation.

His serenely flowing meditative phrase met this sinful, full-stopping dot. His communion with the divinity was broken. His long-closed eyes opened. The world of his penance lay scattered. His fiercely burning eyes stared at the flower in sobs and sighs. Her large, flooded eyes pleaded for mercy. But the fire in his unforgiving eyes was unrelenting and cursing.

The fabric of his serenity was torn. The sage thundered, “You proud, vain woman of egoistic beauty, become an ugly bush of thorns!”

Mowed down by the spell of his cursing energy, an ugly bush stood in place of that angelic beauty. All shaken and ravaged, he left the place. A thorny branch, meanwhile, got entangled in his loin cloth, as if for meek, pleading forgiveness and brace. He but scornfully jerked it apart and headed to some other place for a new start.

Time then took to its heels on swift horses. The seasons changed. The spring’s colourful patterns were rearranged. The summer’s warm kisses melted the snows. The autumn’s harvest uncomplainingly fell to the air’s chiding blows. The winter’s snowy blanket covered the peaks. And rains lashed down in stormy freaks.

This pleasant wavering of nature, however, couldn’t shake the sage from the meditative maze high there in the hills. Faraway down the hills, the accursed bush was shrouded in thorny haze. It struggled to sprout fruits and flowers. Even cursing has a testing time against soft, innocent glow of purity. How can something having a fairy core remain ugly and thorny for too long? Her pure soul entombed in that thorny shrine prayed for penance. And see, a flower of her fruits sprouts forth!

A flower blossomed among the thorns. So beautiful! It lit up with life among the thorns and deadly pale dark brown branches. It appeared juxtaposed by a miracle, like it had dropped from the heaven and got stuck there. It was the day when the enlightened sage arrived from the north. Contented with his cosmic realisation, he came down the beautiful dale. As he passed the bush, his purified soul sensed the thorny shrub’s plaintive wail. His feet disobeyed him and he couldn’t move. The lone flower among the thorns fell at his feet in holy-most obeisance and greet. He picked it up and was lost in its fragrance.

The thorn was ugly. The flower so beautiful and fragrant! What contradiction! Flowery heaven and thorny hell together! The latter born of his cursing condemnation; the flower born of the beauty behind the thorny bars. It was a jolting earthly realisation. Hadn’t he broken the beautifully set laws?

Torrents of repentance cut through him. He bid penance at the altar for a long time. His repenting self set around a reformative shrine. His soul drenched in painful chime. He braced the thorns with the love and affection purest of the pure. It gave him bleeding fingers so many times. He caressed and cared for it like it was the beautiful most flowery shrub. He was practicing his penance now, of love, of surrender, of repentance. What else can be bigger than these?

When his soul had been salvaged of the sin, nobody could bet against her for a win. There she blossomed in front of him. Beauty, charm and grace filled to the brim. Her smile was forgetting and forgiving. It was the beacon of her penance, of love, of beauty. Inside the stony walls of his heart, a new luminosity was now thriving. The sage embraced her. She, who had been separated from her loved ones, got the earthling she had fallen for. Happiness, bliss and calm opened a new door to the start of a fresh cycle of life, love and humanity.

All but the sage had been extinguished by the cataclysm. The lone and forlorn survivor, he had been striking at the doors of heaven with his endless questions. Now there was no more pursuit. The endless had manifested itself in a small sip of love. Now they lived as a man and a woman. New hopes, aspirations and offspring began to thrive.

Thus were sown the seeds of another spell and cycle of life, of creation. Their unchecked love in those flowery vales left countless exotic trails. Gurgling brooks gave company to her primordially sensuous laughter. His instinct’s procreating sprouts mingled with the mirthful waters of her receptiveness.

The pregnant baby

It’s an effort to pass it off as a mall in this town of Haryana, even though it is no more than a street urchin is not a self-sustaining, mature confident young man. Delhi isn’t too far, and almost everybody, to whom the issues like malls matter, especially the teenagers and young adults, has been, one time or the other, to the famed Ambience and Sahara in Gurgaon and scores of others in Delhi. But you just cannot scamper away to those famous places every time your eyes burn with desire to watch the latest release; your tongue lets loose a stream of saliva to dab into something chatpata, some pizza burger sandwich chicken fry; your wallet appears too heavy and eager to shed some bucks to get some famous brand, some trousers, bra, lingerie, underwear, undergarments, jeans, shirts, tops, trackpants, sneakers, and more. We get as much itchy to spend as we are eager to earn. That’s where the consumer culture draws its lifeblood from. And these days you don’t want to hunt around in a dusty sweaty market to get your cravings fulfilled. There are too many shops and too many provisions. You need too little items and of many types. You want it at one place. So even a small town, with its inhabitants having seen the luxury a mall offers, has to have a mall.

And here it comes up like the first tottering steps of a toddler.

The three-storeyed mall has come up to at least partially fulfill the shoppers’ and idlers’ dreams. It’s an adolescent town running to meet its mature city self down the decade. One side on the ground floor has garments, footwear and a couple of saloons. The other side has struggled. Subway struggled there, so did pizza wallas, and so did the franchisee-less efforts at cuisine by enterprising dish-makers. The peda and lassi wallah left. They left with more enthusiasm than they opened. A Patanjali store, sure of its brand, on the upswing, has taken the space of three stores, by removing the walls in between. It has more display cases and rows than the number of people at a time. Still we survive for future. The brand gives all indication of growing, growing and still growing. Let’s see how long it goes.

On the second floor, one side is ready to take shoppers in. But it is all shuttered up, no takers so far. The other side is yet to have its separate blocks of shops. Even the floor tiles are missing. You just have the all-clear view across the class front along the outer side. We missed the basement part. It has a huge, stuffed to the gills, provision store. The rest is parking lot where hardly anyone parks, apart from those who have set up business here. Teenagers just try to get suddenly invisible, now standing here, now gone, and steal some kisses behind the pillars in the basement. A boy and a girl kissing, though still a considerable scandal, is no longer the sin it used to be a decade back when it fetched honor killings as consequences. Now it fetches leering, jealous remarks and sniping hooting. That much is digestible for a godamm kiss. Of course there are many, who don’t have a girl in their lives, even in this freeway decade, when many successful macho boys claim girls are better available than even brandless shirts in rundown stores, who prowl around to catch it preferably on camera, and leave it in the endless stream of the social media.

Domino’s arrived with a bang, “Try all new Dominos”. The had the push of their brand. Unfortunately not many takers. It closed. Displays are still there, waiting for a new player to relieve them of their wasted duty. On the glass-fronted marketplace side of the mall, Looks Unisex Saloon is displayed in white letters on a tar black board. Its plush interiors and golden embellishments invite with a modern smirk. To surpass the rickety level of modernity, both males and females are welcome. Well, that makes it modern by default. It’s a humungous effort to catch up with modernity. The rate of change has lagged a bit in the society lynched by patriarchy. By the salon’s side, New York Slice are gone. Unique Collection, the garmenters, look over the counters to spot some serious buyers. The staff at Giani’s since 1956 broom the not so stamped floor, trying to make it swank clean. They are trying to look damn busy, thinking their up to the marl seriousness will draw people. By its side Satyam Medical Store sells condoms, I-pills, toffees, chocolates, napkins, but hardly any takers for medicines. They must selling some headache pills and ENO to survive.

In the lobby flex-board covered cubicle welcomes you. It’s Batra Lemon Corner, a red cubicle with price lists of nimbu lemon, jeera lemon, milk rose, pista rose and many more displayed all along the upper half of the set-up. The lower half of the cubicle still carries the signs of its past. The previous entrepreneur, Sip and Bite, tried to seduce young boys and girls with patties, aloo patties, macrony patties, chilly patties and still more. The past that never was, it hardly began, and ended. It but still survives to remind some bored eyes that there are patties in this world. On the ground floor some shutters are closed, but they have displays. These are shops in making. Auram, by Nisha. No clue what it may mean or stand for. Time will tell. It may remain anonymous, the entrepreneur may decide to call it quits at this stage only. A nail art saloon, D’nails, get any design on your nail. It seems progressive. Till a decade back those who look at the board didn’t even realize the importance of decking up face, forget about nails  which got broken while dealing with buffaloes and bulls in the fields. Dollar, always on top, upcoming. These are rich red letters bordered with white on a pitch black board. An aggressive style statement for the undergarment brand. They have been around for some time, so may storm through the initial apathy of window-shoppers.

Like a dead, open-mouthed whale the green Subway cubicle has been closed with more enthusiasm than it was started with. Or is it open forever? Sub in white and Way in yellow, in a white elliptical background. Metal chairs and plastic tables are neatly stacked inside. At least there is grace in closing down. The owner seems to be a diligent person. There is also a plastic room cooler and glassless display case. It was a world which saw its end coming even before it was born. Nearby, Amazing Kids is yet to come with its collection of kids wear. The starter must be keeping a close watch over the kids loitering around holding the fingers of their parents. United Colors of Benetton, the spacious interior has enough kindness for privacy of flirtation among the sales staff. Shopping wise there isn’t much of botheration. Priya Retail Store, shop and save. The invitation is very sympathetic. But is there any saving after shopping. Ever? Anywhere? It’s about spending. Baker’s Hut has nice, suave, white, brown, grey tiles. Who cares. The attendant is yawning like he has just woken up, even though it’s almost lunch time. City Heart Restaurant has claustrophobic interiors. An LED blares as if in the musty back eats of a disc. Teenagers just sit around to watch some song, drink water, do their stuff under the tables and go out. In the garments store, even the notice of 50% discount offer repels more people than it attracts.

Very few people take the lift, after all it’s a matter of just two flights of stairs. But its door has advertisements strips arranged very nicely. These are city brandmakers: Family Dentist, Verma Pathology, Rawal Retina Centre, Bansal Health Square, City Computer Point. Small people with big dreams. Well, isn’t world made of such people only. Those who are no longer small hardly live.

The third floor is the most lively one. They have two screens of Max Cinema on the one side. Opposite is a long and spacious gym, running along the full length of the mall. You can see fat middle aged women, their children gone to schools, and husbands packed off to workplaces, sweating out on the treadmill to chuck out tummy and bum fat right there at noontime. It’s also about getting some Godsent opportunity of some fling to bear up the sinisterly boring tide of the creepy mid-life crisis and boredom.

Max Cinema entry is a bit livelier. They do some business at least. Not that they play nice movies all the time, but basically because they provide privacy and darkness. Icing on the cake. Couples with thudding hearts sneak in to get corner seats to hold hand and do a bit more as would not make them repent the cost of INR 300 for two seats. Two teenagers are stopped by the guard who asks them to take the Centrefresh out. “You put it on the seats,” he is in a position to chide. Those who don’t have a girl actually do this, possibly as revenge and a sort of rebellion by their teenaged self.  

National anthem before gets played before the movie starts. Nobody wants to court controversy, so all stand up willingly, unwillingly. They get down even before the great anthem finished. Nobody wants to lose even a precious second in the cool darkness.  

In the national flag, saffron and green are separated by white. How symbolic. There has to be peace between them. But who will play white?    

It’s the cinema that makes the story for this mall in its infancy. The heaviest footfall was when Dangal was screened. It was never livelier. What a crowed! The owners may have the first night of best sleep during Dangal screening.

Cinema is pushing the revolution of bringing boys and girls together. The surrounding area is deeply conservative. Teenagers and adolescents don’t look forward to hit films. They like those lean weeks when there is no hit spoiling their hideout by the surging crowds. They prefer flops, when hardly anyone comes for the show. The big, dark, cool hideout is the perfect bargain for 150 rupees. A lot of intimacies unfold, with just a few dozen couples busy with their expression of love and lust in far corners, in the middle of the rows, and anywhere a contriving self of a flushed adolescent deems it fit.

You may have the best of a girl with the worst of a guy, the best of a boy with a horribly thin girl, both good looking, both average, both funny. As many combos you can ever think of. It’s an eclectic mix. It’s not about choice. The floodgates have recently been opened, so you cannot be choosy. It’s only about having a boy or a girl friend. On principle. Choices, what, when, how, where and why come later.

Girls come with their faces covered with headcloth. Hooded for secrecy. The strains of patriarchy are still surviving. Honor killings are still not totally unheard off. It’s better to be cautious. The headcloth, which kept women in almost slavery for centuries, is now an instrument of freedom, of anonymity, of facelessness. With it you just become a girl, you lose your name. You cover your face and you lose your identity to become just a girl. So scornful eyes of the elders will just curse a girl generally, instead of you particularly. They wear jeans, suit and salwaars, awkward imitation of the world in the movies and the Delhi NCR. Some look terribly funny though. But it’s more important to assert your independence. It can come at the cost of sounding funny. A dignified slavery is worse. A funny independence is better. Somehow. Don’t have the logic for this. Just that it feels so.  

They loiter around, almost on tiptoes, keeping a strict watch from their hooded faces and eyes, lest they be recognized by some acquaintance. If they haven’t actually seen it, at least all of them have heard of honour killings that were rampant, as little back as 5 years ago, in each and every settlement in Haryana. So it’s about flying with the wings of age, of curiosity, of sex, intimacy, kissing and holding hands. The mall thus grows in operation, month after month more people come, making it less scandalous for the young ones. Let’s hope the theft becomes a routine affair of life, to draw it out from the illegal shadows of minds to turn it just a mere simple fact of life, to stop rape, to vanquish molestation.