Recover, Recuperate, Re-surge and Rejuvenate

What if the roomful of miseries appear immovable at the moment? Understood that the room having thick walls is beyond your might to shift and change. You cannot push its walls to change its shape and change the interiors. You might even be incapable of removing the darkness inside having lost the light of enthusiasm, the sunrays of your will power, and the brightness of your passion. It is not necessary to be a revolutionary fighter all the time. You can very well sit in a still darker corner of the room full of your own miseries, most of them invisible to the uncaring world outside. But then sitting in a dead dark corner is being dead and we have no business to be dead before we actually die. Temporary shelter in the lap of a deathlike stale corner might be of some utility, but not more than allowing the tears and anguish of self-pity and helplessness to flow out through the feeling of being a victim.

This little puss out of your system; after this it has no purpose. A little bit of crying after being overpowered by the feeling of victimization helps. Crying helps in letting out salt from your injuries. It also clears the eyes. After the watery outpour you are supposed to see better and clearer. You have been on the hospital bed, taking a bit of rest for the diseased, afflicted self, now you are supposed to step down, wear your slippers and walk away to claim what you lost while you were forced to take a rest. Looking beyond your dark corner in the dark room with immoveable walls, you can at least open the windows that either you or the situational winds have banged shut. Do not move walls, do not even try to bang against the locked door, just open the openable window to allow a bit of light, to expose yourself to the fine traces of light that will surely burn the fire in you again, that will definitely ignite your passion, enthusiasm and will power lying dormant. If you cannot lift your roomful of miseries on your head and throw it miles away, you can surely lift little-little signs of your worth and capabilities lying around your feet in the dark and look at these against the light from the just-opened little window. These are the imperishable seeds, these cannot die, and will surely grow into luxuriant harvest, provided you give them the moisture of you feeble self during the re-germination.

You might not be able to laugh to the full contentment of the self, but you can smile at the little world outside your tiny peeping window. Even the slightest semblance of smile will do. These are the flower buds that will surely blossom into full laughing flowers. Your hands might not be still ready to go agog and start breaking the mightiest boulders around. But you can raise your hands and wave gently at the world outside, it will wave back with grace and acknowledgement, giving back its share with kindest interest. You might not be still ready for the marathon, but you can shuffle your feet and count your steps and listen to your slow pace between the walls. It will prepare you for the longest journey that you might take. It will be a prelude to your first step on the winnable journey that you will definitely take.

Close your eyes and with an open heart accept your share in making things dark in the room. Nobody is perfect and we just have the bigger or smaller share in our miseries. We cannot change the universe, but we can definitely bring about a little reformation in the self. You might not be able to overhaul your personal self, but you can definitely change tiny bits of life in general. It will blow up the wrong shades, leaving you a totally different person. Close your eyes again and think of your positives, your advantages, your good qualities. There will be many I‘m sure. Look around with a gentle look, these must be somewhere around. You will surely spot them. Smile at the little basketful of your qualities. These are your weapons to help you win through the battles and wars. A mere acknowledgement of their existence will do at this stage. Just caress your qualities and look at these with a proud smile. These and many little things will help you. Forget about bigger things. These little seeds will grow into a bigger harvest. Just gather these seeds, hold them, they will take you back to the bigger world of baleful of roles, responsibilities, praise and achievements.

A Laotsian Bird

A master camouflage. The smallest of a rag tag inconsequential nest. Almost like the few remaining sinews of an old old nest. And a pulse of life throbbing to bide precious time. Each beat counts. It means a huge step towards free-winged flights in a few days. Here each second counts. It's a laughing dove hatchling.
Well, a dove is a dove indeed. A silent most stoic bird. I always wonder how come they even survive as rest of the birds appear to be angrily, enthusiastically and energetically competitive. Doves look like the ascetics of the birdie world, always sitting silently on the laid back sidelane. I even laughed at them as lazy ones, having witnessed seemingly half-hearted attempts at patching up a famished little nest that would allow the mother to put merely paws in the middle, leaving rest of her body out. But then i also had an inkling about mother existence's ways of squaring up things even in those apparently weak cases where the odds appear terribly against them. Now this hatchling clings almost unseen, barely at a height of 8-9 feet. Cats have been duped. Even a greater coucal, ill famed for spotting tiniest of nests in the foliage, sat a few yards away on the wall and missed it. Wonderful!
Well, these are Laotsian birds. They win by not fighting outrightly. Their strength is their patience, composure and calmness. They go about their nesting business almost imperceptibly. After the hatching, the already famished nesting hut has lost many more sinews to make it look like the useless wreckage of a many season old little nest. And on its edge, lost in the colours of deception, throbs the prospect of a life. The only clue to what is going on is the laughing museful song of the laughing dove parents now and then from a distance. They hardly raise a ruckus when i check out their little household, as if under a mystical realisation that that which can't be cured, must be endured. They stoically do what they can, and watch over the unmanageable without that typical browbeating.
Imagine, last season an oriental white eye had patched up the littlest of nesting cup. It was a wonder of nesting architecture. So small, hidden under the leaves. But its symmetry turned it outstanding. The predatory caucal spotted it, leaving me flabbergasted how come its radar caught this few grams of grassy cup weaved with such effort. And now this apparently clumsy jottiing of few dry twigs and pieces of dry grass, in the branches of a small tree, barely 8-9 feet above the ground, and not even hidden too much in the foliage, carries its success story so far. The altruistic attitude of doves takes them onto a path of surrendering spontaneity, a sort of open hearted acceptance, which hardly creates ripples on the stage of life, allowing them to carry out this cute coup. Well, may be they laugh so cutely to be named laughing turtles. Possibly, they laugh at this world competing on the scales of complexity, while they laze around in the hazy sunshine of early winter and laugh out into the cool air.

The Broken Egg

Pre-script: How I wish I could hold the monkey and give some exercise to my grandpa's oldest walking woody aid to gift the monkey the reddest bum on earth!
A bleeding crack that robbed a winged prospect of airy swirls by a life. The broken spotted munia egg. For weeks the parents matched the human efforts in building a skyscraper and built a safe globular grassy nest. Their feeble preening chirps looked up to upcoming more onerous duties of raising hatchlings. Then the storm came. Well, not windy. It was rather let loose by our genetic ancestor. The errant kid on the ladder of evolution, presently at a stage where we homo sapiens were a few millenium back. The monkeys. While rest of the species, fight merely for food and procreation, our genetic match goes beyond these two essentials to jump into mischief, fun and revelry. Out of a big horde that has raided the village, and most of the females proudly carrying their little ones, one gallant jumped into the Soft Parijat tree. The wood is soft. It must have enjoyed the breaking sound of its funstry like we humans do. The poor tree severely jolted. Some branches broken. The nest unhinged and scanned for some morning fluidy lollipop. I am sure it must have hardly the patience to even look seriously inside and take out what it intended to do while breaking the nest. A monkey carries the feeble imprint of human tendency to play errant to draw a strange sip of gratification. So the nest was blown apart. The eggs tossed around like tiny plops and shelled projectiles. Here lies the cracked egg. Out of instinct, the parents still flit around the broken nest entangled in branches. This is loss. Just that they don't suffer like we humans. Simply because they do all this without any sense of gain. Minh Ngo there is a difference between pain and suffering. They feel the instinctual pain of it, of course. But they don't suffer like we humans. Simply because they just follow the call of cosmic intelligence while putting that selfless labour in setting up the nest. They don't have a sense of gain guiding their routine unlike we humans. As all experiences stand on the duality, so in the absence of a clear cut sense of gain and profit, the sense of loss can't sustain beyond the momentary instinctual pain. And that saves them from the perpetual agony and suffering of humans, whose major portion we hurl into our environment and society. A major portion of what mankind does to nature is born of his own inner discontent and suffering.

Her Full Smile even with a Broken Self

Look at its injury. The spine almost broken. Forgetful and forgiving, it decides to move on. A little leafy bandage of hope and resurgence sprouts around the wound. A sort of bridge to keep the juice of life eager to move on and realise its full blossom. It's the flagpost of life and living. The accidental storm had snapped her spine. It but decides to live.
The brave Pink Purslane (Portulaca Pilosa) aka Kiss-me-Quick has her last smile. She has won it. She has retained her smile and pouts forth with an inspirational 'Kiss-me-Quick' tale of forgetting pains and conquering blooming heights.
What an inspirational story portrayed in a small corner by this tiny strand of this pink ground cover flower. A clear winner. The snapping, breaking tragedy has melted into the background. She has claimed her canvas to paint her bright smile. Well, that's a humungous life lived. What a smile against the breaking odds.

Her Reddest Lipstick and the Himalayan Yogi

A blissful creative moment and a babysoft sapling of life, love and living holds out its tiny baby finger to hold onto the mighty, grand old hand of mother creation. Well, all is well that ends well!
Actually, the brooding banyan plant appeared to have gone into an otherworldly detachment. Rains lashed. I also showered my affection. The sun also beat down nutritional beams. It but won't come out of its trance. Like a famished yogi in a Himalayan cave, it shed all its leaves. Keeping just one leaf as a sign of its still remaining attachment to this world. And then the yogi slowly opens its eyes after many months and sees this fleeting world through its softly sprouting eyes. The tiny shoot is now cradled in the care of fabulous September end breeze. Welcome back to this sweet sour worldliness Yogi Maharaj!

She has the reddest lipstick...ladies stay away...no competition at all...she is a winner all and out...keep smiling my girl, Canna Indica aka Keli....you win the pageant!