A whisper for peace

 At the current rate of global warming, we will have ice-free summers in the Arctic in the next decade. The snows are drifting away from our planet. First it disappeared from the exotic peak of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. The glaciers are gasping under the heat. In the same series, the summer snows will vanish from the Arctic and so will the majestic polar bear. But for those who run this world it's almost a nonissue. Who cares for vanishing snows? Especially when there are wars to pacify individual and institutional egos, when there are more territories to grab, more mines to be dug into earth’s gut to take out the still remaining things of utility.

The modern Czar has burnt down an entire country in pursuit of impearlist dreams. Beautiful homes, lovely orchards and gardens have been charred by falling bombs and missiles. Homes have turned into rubble. Death and destruction is dancing freely in Ukraine. The ants, dogs, wild animals, homes, cities, gardens, agriculture farms all are charred to ghastly rubble of broken dreams and decaying humanity, while the Czar is going full throttle, creating present time hell to capture past glory.

Sadly, the mankind is ill-fated to live in disorder and strife. It seems to be in our genes. We abhor peace and harmony. To be human seems to be unruly, chaotic, aggressive and angry. We keep creating more and more chaos with modern inventions and discoveries. Power blocks and superpower aspirants are sharpening their swords to once again unleash blood and mayhem. Just like it’s been going for thousands of years. We seem to be under the curse of this self-destructive mind that keeps spinning out fears and phobias, prompting us to guard ourselves and attack others.

Despite all scientific advancement, we have the same archaic old malady of ego, violence, selfishness, hate and anger. Earlier we killed with stones and sticks. Now the same hate can annihilate entire earth by just pushing a button. What has changed? Nothing. It’s the very same fear, agony, insecurities and discontent. Modern civilization seems a pile of dry fodder to burn at mere sparks. All ready to defend themselves and grab more clout and influence. The plague of unrelenting ambition infecting each and everything; diseasing all from individuals to groups to nations to blocks. And a dying planet helplessly watches all this, sadly marveling at the species that got so ambitious to start chucking out its own house. A behemoth snake twisting and coiling to attack its own tail and devouring its own back from its front.

The air we inhale is poisoned, the food we eat is full of chemicals, the people we stay among have stressed, burnt-out minds, all ready to go blasting at the slightest provocation. The seas are polluted. The sea creatures die slowly. The polar ice melts. The polar bear takes last breaths. We too will meet the same fate if the way we run this world isn’t overhauled completely.

More missiles, more bombs, more jets, more hate, more anger, more greed. More noise while bird songs go achingly silent. What will be the outcome? Destruction. Strictly calculated from the scientific equation of input and output. Out of so much systematic hate only destruction can be the logical outcome.

Pristine forests vanished, beautiful birds became extinct, majestic animals went off the scene, and so did pure air, water and peace. On this dying planet, the natural physiology of the mankind will be unsustainable within a few decades. A weird semi-human, semi-machine species equipped with artificial intelligence will replace we the real flesh and blood ones. We have to take it as the game of evolution only. Take it any way but that’s how it will happen.

So as one of the last lucky generations to see blue skies, forests, streams and the free seas make the most of it. Cribbing won’t help. What’s done is done. Mother planet has suffered irreversible damage. So smile thou the last of real homo sapiens and make the most of what is left. Go into the forests and hug giant trees standing for centuries but won’t be there for long. Swim in the streams that aren’t stinking nullah yet. Inhale pure air in some solitary valley, keeping its secrets still intact somehow. Listen to the whispers of air that still has free oxygen.

And never forget to smile at people because they still are humans and would appear godly in comparison to the mechanized monsters of the next centuries. The new species will write our history then. It will be the sorry tale of a species that went extinct because of its inherent weakness to be stronger and stronger. But till then enjoy whatever little is left brothers and sisters. And let the angry leaders fight. They will fight come whatever it may.

The sage of bottom mud in a sea

 The sea cucumber fellow is a weird creature so much so that even the most laughable sea-dwelling guy would find him funny and worth cracking endless jokes. His face, if one can call it a face at all, is always stuck into the mud at the sea bottom. The guy with its clumsy courage got so busy in grazing the bottom mud that forgot to respirate through mouth or nostrils. So these vanished over the millennia and, as nature would have it, his other opening, rectum, began to function as a breathing hole as well apart from being the usual excreta dumping point, both functionalities operating with reasonable integrity. Call him a weirdo, a contrarian, a spirited non-conformist or anything sounding funny, he is perfectly unperturbed by all the dirty disclaimers flung around. He isn’t bothered. He would ignore gales of giggles and shivering squalls of laughter from those who stare at his bottom and stop to crack jokes.

As it funnily turns out, the same dumping-cum-breathing hole becomes a grand opening, an opportunity, for another creature.

Sea cucumber is like a gentle, snaily rock, all happy with its snout stuck in the mud. Hardly anyone is bothered about it. But the pearl fish cannot miss the opportunity. It’s a little fish. A docile slim thing, it’s always at risk from many predators. And like all those little ones facing risk from bigger predators, it’s looking for suitable hiding places. And the sea cucumber’s double functioning rectum comes to have third utility: the pearl fish’s hiding hole. The little fish houses itself for safety; a very interesting interlacing of fun and expertise.

Sometimes, a couple in love, shy and afraid of the big world out there, takes shelter in the opening provided by the non-objecting sea cucumber that is happy to enjoy its mystic innocence in the mud at the bottom. There they make love in perfect safety beyond the fiery incandescence of the game of survival. The sea cucumber is thus a slowly moving den for the pear fish lovelorn couple, a kind of love hotel, to hide and enjoy naughty moments. Wonders of nature: the rectum with a roomy rectitude to harbor soft, vibrant, seductive moments and space for another species.

The bottom of the sea is full of mysteries brimming with their dilapidated grandeur and we know just a little fraction of what all that goes unnoticed in the silent majesty under the turbulent surface full of crusading carousel, the survival game. 

Braving the hot winds

 The red-vented bulbul is a brave, noisy bird with lots of heads-on attitude. When the heat is at its peak in the afternoon, it sits grandiloquently on the dead boughs of the dry neem tree and bravely faces the sun. Maybe it challenges the sun to burn its wings. I have seen it in this position quite a few times. Or maybe it wants to get tanned to look handsomer. He looks a mystical comprehensor of strange realities, sitting under the hot afternoon sun, staring into the distances.

A swallowtail couple tried the feat on a nearby electricity wire. They looked a nice pair and much in love as they sat side by side, his tail wire prominent and hers barely visible. They gave competition to the sun-daring bulbul for some minutes but then the lady gave in to the heat. She flew away with a lovelorn song-girl’s quintessence. He too swooped and entailed her balmy beauty. I’m sure they flew away to chatter in the shade of some leafy tree. Lovebirds have better things to do than challenging a crazy bulbul on a hot afternoon. But the bulbul noticed their flight and taking it as his victory and their defeat gave a shriek of laughter.

As the loo sighs with its chauvinistic attributes and cruel determination, carrying pools of scorching heat to bake the village, the honeybees have to fetch water to save their larvae in the heat. It’s a busy bee-world around the water bucket in the yard. A lot many tumble into the water, many swim back to safety and many die. But they have to carry on. They live a collective life and that is the main reason of the survival of their colony. I try to keep the water level to the brims so that those who get a tumble into the water can swim back to the rim edge. It’s a happy sight to see them coming ashore, all panting, sloshed with water, their wings cutting the water like oars. They shake and flick their snouts and wings to dry themselves and get on with the mission.

I put some dry stalks and parijat leaves to make a floating life-saving platform for those who might not make it to the shore by themselves. The world will be sweeter with a few more honeybees around. Isn’t it? In the natural scheme of things, life and death may look a blind roll of dice on the board containing deft expressions of destiny, but it serves the purpose of mother nature if we create chances for life’s thriving, however minute it is. If you actually act to save an ant, bee or some insect, it’s highly probable that you will at least have empathy and kindness for bigger species including your fellow human beings. 

The sacred non-events of an ordinary life

 The spring was at its peak when I got these five saplings of different colored petunias. These are delicate flowers, vibrant but soft and vulnerable. They make the most of the spring here, spread big lollops of un-fragmented love, and fill many a gloomy yard, balcony and little garden with hopes and smiles.

The woman at the nursery won’t give false hopes. ‘They will flower for one month at the most,’ she said. ‘And sometimes for a few months,’ she added after some reflection. She is proven right. They are still there, not at their smiley best though. We have to understand. They cannot smile at their best in all this heat. They are under the merciless bombardment of sunrays till noon. They almost melt under the impact of the fiery sunrays and droop down like wax, the petals almost ready to turn fluid and go running as a colorful stream. But when the wall shadow comes over to give shade and a sip of life, they slowly come out of their fluidy slumber, regain life and smile through the pining evening and thirsty nights.

There is hot sighing loo whirling around with a statutory, dry, ill-humored brusqueness. It sucks moisture from everything around. These are summer flowers, long doing their duty since their prime during the short-lived spring. Septuagenarian flowers full of wisdom and deep meaning of life in their petalous eyes. They are faded, beaten, stunted and shrunk with age; old soldiers with their sagging, drooping bodies but with wisdom in their frail bones. And to me they are flamboyantly heroic. They seem proud to have long beaten their stipulated time. It’s a big assurance to have them just in front of my verandah, welcoming like a dot of fresh spring; spreading their smiles around holy tulsi mata they look like an offering to the holy plant. They complete the stage of my faith at dusk when I light a little sesame oil lamp under the tulsi.

The resident gecko that stays in the flowery world creeps out and waits patiently for some crazy parvana, the fabled moth, to come near his beloved shama, the flame. Then it sticks out its tongue and licks the lore of infatuated love.

Well, these are the sacred non-events of my ordinary life. They enable me to vaguely surmise the eternity’s magnitude. Have flowers in your life for they will make you genuinely, perennially prosperous. In a stiflingly smart world, ever trying to reach materialism’s apex, forever fanning a chaos around, buzzing and howling with excitement, the flowers stand as little symbols of pause, tiny smiling commas pointing to love, beauty and truth.

In pursuance of faith

 Why do we seek God’s guidance? Well, maybe because God is the titular summation of all the profound mysteries, glorious ambiguities, inexplicable vagaries, celestial certainties as well as uncertainties. So where else we the poor mortals ought to go for guidance? Unmanageable monstrosities somehow slacken their grip from our fears and insecurities due to the multidimensional inspiration of the symbol of the unknown, i.e., God. Even profoundly ideological presiding deities in sects and shrines pump real-time flesh and blood into our systems for action, reaction and enterprise. The idols thus become more real than the people around. The belief and willingness to accept the reality of God beyond the vague shadows allows the soul to enjoy delectable dance. Many times it fuels a burst of rapid creativity as well.

As a poet, painter, artist of any kind, crusader, leader or anyone else you set up a fine cornerstone around the mammoth palace of Godhood. With the light of faith in one’s eyes one can overlook the thorns of life lurking around and see and smile at a dew-jewelled rose. Faith has some deep foundations. It allows even the façade of our terminal afflictions and fakery to stand tall and allow us a sense of becoming something, the process that we call ‘life’. You don’t dread the dry rasping sandy blizzards even when the spring’s colors have been drained out. You see an oasis beyond the ribbed sand dunes. You come to feel the deep throbbing of life in your guts, above and beyond mere gastronomic sensitivities. You see, smell, touch, taste and hear something in a higher dimension, beyond the dimension of mere sense perception. Faith maybe is the soul itself, or maybe God itself.