Stop amidst the flux....

Death is on my mind for a while but it isn't depressing. I'm pondering over the fact that Death is inevitable yet how we carry on with our lives as if it didn't exist. I know that I'll be no more some day--that day may not necessarily come after another 50 years, but it could be this very day. And I also know that all those around me will be no more--that I may actually be alive to face their absence. Yet I live, oblivious of the existence of Death.

I don't want to talk about it nor give it a serious thought. I'm not
interested in finding out where I was before I came here. I don't care where I'll reach once my heart stops beating. I know very well that I'm on borrowed time, but am totally unaware how much of it is still left. Yet I spend this precious time in pursuing mundane things, in cherishing silly ambitions. Much of my energy dries up in the desert of short lived pleasures/successes or in escaping equally silly anxieties. I don't want to know why I'm here, for what purpose, and whether I'm pursuing it or not!

And I carry on my daily life as if the whole eternity stretches ahead of me, waiting like a loyal servant, ready for-ever to pamper me!

The phone rings as I rush to the class. It's an old friend. I cut the line. After a while there's a message. 'Call me up when you're free.' I don't call up.

I'm reminded of this whenever I watch a latest commercial(I don't recall the product), which goes something like--'Age goes, children go, home goes, hope goes...........only friends stay.' No, friends don't stay. Even friends go away, friendship goes away. And it doesn't take much to lose friendships, to lose people...... Nothing remains as it is in this world where everything is in a flux. And that's the beauty of it all.

Evening. I walk over to the roadside vendor of bhajjis, hand him a five rupee coin and point to the heap of golden coloured, roasted, fuming onion bhajjis. He pulls out a piece of paper, plucks five from the mound, wraps them carefully. I cross the road, walk through the park towards my office, munching through the delicacies, observing the slowly descending mist around me. The cool breeze that laps up against me gives an added flavour and punch to the hot bhajji that melts in my mouth before descending into my belly, carrying a warmth with it. One of the things that makes my day is this short walk to this vendor every evening and the half-dozen bhajjis that I gobble up on my way back. And yeah, work sucks horribly. Period.

He opens his heavy eyes slowly, looks up from where he's sleeping, rolls over abruptly and sits back. Then looks around bewildered. If neither I or Archana pay any attention, he grunts once and slowly breaks into a wail. Usually one of us get up and greet him. He smiles and cackles. Beats his hands and mumbles something incoherently. Crawls towards me and lifts his arms. I gather him--at nine months, he's chubby and has a healthy weight. Kiss him--soft cheeks with a buscuit aroma--- and hold him tight. There's still some sleep left in his eyes. He rests his head against my shoulder and soon dozes off as I slowly pat his back.

Everything that happens, happens Here. Everything that happens, happens Now. I can do something, think something else, feel or grumble, hate or love....only Now, only Here. Not somewhere else, Not at any other time. Now!

Tea on a lazy saturday morning. Some work's pending so I've to go to the office for over two-three hours. All tv channels carry the breaking news of the five-year jail term for actor Salman khan and his preparations to surrender to the police. There's a swarm of media personnel outside his house, waiting for him to come out, eager to capture his depressed face, waiting for a sound-byte or two from him.... He looks lost, totally lost, as if he's staring into the eyes of death and there's still a great hunger for life left in him. Is he guilty? Not guilty? Is the verdict harsh? Will this serve as an example for the rich and famous that they aren't above the law? Is the judicial system going to save our country from going to the dogs? Tv anchors bark hungrily and commoners on the streets mouth stupid responses.

Amidst all of this, Salman sits huched up on a chair, staring into vaccum. Rich, famous, successful, role-model, spoilt, arrogant...and human.

After thought

'He's a 4-door, brass-plated, air-conditoned, 5-speed, 12-cylnder, turbocharged asshole!"

Scott adams has a post on Cuss phrases. The 700 odd comments that I browsed through had me rolling in fits, trying hard not to roar laughing and attract unwanted attention from busy-pretending colleagues.

Humour can be decent and civil but the punch felt in a non-veg, profane joke is beyond parellel. Like this one, to end a crappy week:

I worked at a gas station when I was 14 years old, and one old fart once asked why we were closed on a certain day. He told me he came by and "the place was locked up tighter than a bull's ass".

A short prayer........

It's a special friday. We're worshipping Goddess Mahalaxmi, the wife of Lord Vishnu who's the caretaker of the entire creation. Mahalaxmi is usually associated with wealth, with material prosperity. Or in New age terms(maybe borrowing a quote from Peale), she represents all the positivity and affirmative energy of the Universe.

Indian households worship her as a giver of bounty, of wealth, of a long fulfilling life. In worshipping her, we also recognise the positive intent present within all of us, and make a resolution to strengthen and nurture this aspect in us. And also express our gratitude for the grace bestowed by Mother nature, for the sunshine, the rains, dew, every breath we inhale, the trees and flowers, the mountains and rivers...And at an individual level, for all the unqualified and undemanding love we receive everyday from those around us and all the lessons and wisdom life imparts us every moment.

And we also pray...that we may rise above merely noticing this positive intent and ritualistically worshipping it through a form. That we may go to the next level of probing this deep mystery called life and experience the field of energy behind all forms, in all its splendour and vastness. Let us seek and know the 'truth' directly, the way one knows the rains when it splutters on an upturned cheek. And let's live this truth, this positivity without the burden of dogma, without the shackles of rituals, the way one inhales and exhales, without following a breathing religion.

Let the primordial intelligence of this positive energy field(call it Goddess Mahalaxmi) guide all humanity to the realization of its true nature.

Let there be Light!

Between here and there!

'It's like this', He said. 'I wanted to just travel north. Stay at a place. Teach those around me something that I know, something I've learnt. Then after a while move again. Stay at another place and teach. Again move ahead. This was the ideal. We were thinking of this possibility....'

Somehow we're excited. I jump up, almost interrupting him,'It happens in a movie sir, Japanese I think. There's a govt. official--honest and incorruptible. The higher ups cannot put up with him and his sincerity, so he's frequently transferred. What he does is--wherever he goes, he educates the simple folk around him, spreads a kind of awareness to resist corruption and to stand up to one's rights, so on. He's shunted from place to place but with that, he goes on spreading a movement....'

'We used to do small experiments,' He continued after listening to me keenly. 'We'd set out, without any money. Just board a bus or something like that, and with a firm faith that God would somehow take care. And actually it would happen. Someone would help us, give us something, take us to the place where we wanted to reach, etc. The thing was, we were experimenting with our faith....'

I have a distant relative who set out like this from my native village, travelling all over the country by foot, visiting the sacred sites of piligrimage. One morning he woke up and said that he had a divine inspiration to do so. When the news came of his impending departure, my dad rushed to persuade him to stay back. I was a kid then and I remember wondering why anyone should stop him. What was wrong in going away like that? The fact that he was in the thick of a family life, with grown up daughters never occured to me as a cause of worry. After all it was his life and if he felt it right to live it like this, why should anyone bother?

Eventually that guy went away, paying no heed to anyone's advice, threats or pleading. He left without a penny, travelled on foot far and wide, and returned nearly after a couple of years--probably much mature, wiser....Or maybe he was just escaping the drudgery of family life, we never knew. But whenever he came to our place, he'd narrate stories of his travels, all the fascinating stuff he encountered, the dangers he had to face etc. That was also the period of my growing aloofness and Dad worried that I too would follow suit someday. To top that, an astrologer had warned Dad that I'd leave home and go away; and Dad would've to travel north to find me....

The urge to do what pleases you against the obligations-responsibilities you've agreed to shoulder-- and balancing this in a short span of life--this theme fascinates and haunts me. How we crave for security, for the status quo! How we fear change or any upheavals! Not even daring to think beyond our boundaries, worried about opinions, secretly hankering for validation even
in our daydreams!

All these disjointed thoughts come flooding after reading this in Sun Magazine.

* * *

Many thanks to Val for passing on this hat. The kind words and enthusiasm shown by friends like her have made these two years of blogging worthwhile, enriching and more enjoyable! A lesson from childhood--food that's shared tastes better than when eaten alone! Isn't that true always?

Aware

Days, unending yawns
Moments, shiver, fear
Darkness surrounds
Breathe

A faint glimmer, distant
Awake, a fresh morning
Dew drenched breeze
Tears. Smile.

Missed chances
Regrets, wet wounds
What if, What if not,
Blindness, hatred

Anywhere but here
Wanting to be someone
Searching, fumbling
Lost nowhere

Fighting, hard, with oneself
Aspiring, slipping, falling tired
Will I do it, Can I
Echoes

Clearing mist, Open
Warmth, a healing touch
Struggle no more,
Familiar whispers

Into wide arms
Comfort, Joy
Arrived but never left
Learnt but knew always

Time and again

Time is on my mind for quite a while. When I was pondering over the apparent lack of time in my workaday, I came across this article by Dave pollard. He argues that time is just a concept, a figment of imagination. Could it be so? How do animals and plants calculate time? Do they get stressed over the lack of it or feel relaxed and lazy about its abundance?

Spiritual texts tell us about different worlds and dimensions of existence in which time moves at different speeds. Thus time moves incredibly faster in our human world when compared to a higher plane. What it means is that, in a matter of one day in a higher plane, thousands (or millions) of years could've elapsed on this earth. Since we're sceptical of such knowledge unless it comes from the science community, here's an article that describes a similar phenomenon of time shifts.

I suspect that this time-gap exists even in this earth, for different living beings. Thus a mosquito which takes birth, completes a life-span and dies(within days of human time) could actually be viewing time differently--what a day is for us could be decades for a mosquito. Many organisms take birth and die almost immediately--as seen from our angle. But from their view-point? Maybe they're leading a life of a hundred years or so--and we see it as only a few moments.

Thirty two years ago, I came here, as if from nowhere. I grew up, learnt a hundred things, got schooled, got lost, found myself, got a job, married, kissed my child, read hundreds of books, watched countless movies, quarrelled, loved, learned, ate, slept, dreamt, fell and climbed, thought about a million useless things and a few worthy ones---and when I'm thinking what a long life this has been and what a long life stretches ahead of me--someone looking down at me from a higher level of existence remarks to his friend--'Look what this guy's been doing for the past 32 seconds. Let's see what he does for another minute'.

The enormity of time and space is overwhelming. We're stuck within their confines. How would it be to stand outside both time and space? I wonder, what would that experience be like? Is it possible and if so, what does it take to get there?

After the evening drizzle...............

A thin veil of soft mist hangs in the evening air. The downpour has just tapered into a drizzle before stopping. It's as if the whole world has been washed clean by the rain gods.

Freshness...a new life--everywhere. People move around briskly, with a spring in their steps. Evening walkers and joggers, students holding on with all their life to their notebooks, giggling couples, a shy boy and a worried girl, a busy executive barking on his mobile, a groundnut vendor, a little girl who walks around with a photo of God, asking for alms, an old man sitting alone on the park bench, a wide-eyed baby looking over his mother's shoulders.........this microcosm outside my workplace has suddenly come alive. I spend a little while longer walking through the parks and residential streets on my usual evening stroll. A strange silence amidst an active atmosphere. A freshness within too.

'I don't give a shit anymore.'

'Don't get antagonistic.'

'No. I'm not. It's just that I'm clearing some debris'.

'How're things otherwise?'

'Life's getting screwed up. I'm sick of the same routine that plays on and on, day in and out. There's no meaning ......'

'Have you tried to search for some meaning? Are you seriously on a quest to seek out this meaning? What do you want, honestly'

' First, to get rid of this nagging feeling on wastefulness--that there's no bloody purpose to my daily life, that I'm just drifting along....'

' I guess, you're running away from anything that's unpleasant. And all that you're interested in is some pleasant experience, something that gives you a thrill, a satisfaction even if it's shortlived. You want to feel wanted, feel important.You're after success, running like mad away from any notion of failure. Or you're oscillating between things you've labelled as Success and Failure, irrespective of their true nature. If you're stuck between these two, then there's no escape from your drudgery. You'll run in circles for the rest of your life, feeling satified when there's a kick, blaming the world or yourself when shit comes your way and deluding yourself that things are going to be fine some day in the future...'

' What'm I supposed to do, then?'

'Ask yourself over and over, in silence, in calmness. What are you searching for? What's that you want, truly? Where does your frustration with yourself and others stem from? Ask and keep asking until you feel you have a glimmer of an answer. You'll find it, soon. But begin to ask. Begin introspecting. Watching.'

'I've had these introspections earlier.....'

'Do it again, without seeking a pleasing answer,without expecting something familiar, something that fits in with the known pattern. Search for answers, even if they rattle you. Keep searching until something rings in from within as authentic.'

'Mumbo jumbo....'

'Never mind.'

Cynical

An ant crawls close. You push it away. It comes back, determined to cross the floor only in this direction. You push away, harder this time. Ten seconds later it's back again. You clench a fist and thump it hard....and throw away what's left of it.

Madness. Self-hatred. Squemish. Stand your ground. Take a deep breath. You'll not die, c'mon.

I'm not myself. I don't like it.


Unfinished...but started after so long....

The boy was unusually silent that morning. His favourite uncle was leaving and the very thought would fill up his dark, round eyes. He remembered his mother's words, 'Boys don't cry,' again and again but couldn't help shed a tear or two, as he sat in the courtyard, working out the math sums.

The Man checked his luggage one last time. The sky was overcast and the weather sullen. 'It shouldn't rain until I cross the mountains,' he thought, as he looked around one last time. Everyone in the household were carrying on with their work--even the little boy looked busy with his homework.

The mountains stretched from one end of the horizon to the other, encompassing 15 villages in its belly. Morning mist hung on the densly forested peaks, where only the largest birds could perch.

*

'Are you going away forever?' the little boy asked feebly.

The man thought for a moment and, not wanting to make him cry, assured, 'No, I shall return next winter.'

The Mist got denser every minute. The mountains stood cloaked in ....

This is good

'Angry?'

'Slightly.'

'Grow up.'

'I have.'

'How?'

'I'm not angry anymore.'

'You shouldn't feel hurt at all.'

'That's difficult.'

'But possible. Try it.'

'Next time I'll watch out.'

Through the haze

'He's a fantastic leader. We loved to work under him. Somehow he took care of everything and we never felt any pressure, any stress. And when he left, I wondered, how'd I stay here? I too wanted to follow him and work with him.'

I'd read 'Waiting for the Mahatma' in our college library, long back and this novel remains fresh in memory as if I'd read it yesterday. It narrates the story of coming of age of a young man, in the backdrop of the Indian freedom struggle. And his evolution happens in the company of Mahatma Gandhi--a man of collossal stature, yet one who attends to the minute details of the lives of his followers--a true leader who inspired an entire generation to brave all odds for a great cause.

A friend forwarded this amazing video of the Mahatma --about what could've happened if he had communicated to the entire human race. Maybe we'd be living in a much better world, with more awareness and a greater self-reliance. The fountain of positivity, strength and wisdom is present within each one of us. Until we find it, maybe we all need leaders like Gandhi to remind us of these possibilities.

And the opening quote is what a friend told me about our CEO.

In one moment of clarity, I seem to sense the futility of my everyday life. I stop for a moment to ask myself where I am heading and what I am doing with my most precious commodity--time. Many activities appear futile and monotonous--devoid of joy and meaning. I want to go deep into this, deep to the root of this frustration, and find how to free myself, find out the true purpose of my life and begin to live that purpose. Before I can do that I'm back to the treadmill, back to the flow of everyday life, lost amidst the never ending rush of thoughts.

'Catch it. Hold on to it the next time you face that moment. Drop everything and pursue that thought.'

'...............'

' I said, he recognises that you've arrived, just by the sound when you keep the helmet in the corner.'

'Mmm'

' And look how he springs up, how he smiles now, after not having seen you for the whole day.'

Tejas lets out a loud shriek and guffaws. We make faces and he laughs uncontrollably. I begin to fake a hiccup and he shrieks again. We continue to tickle him until Mom scolds. 'Don't overdo it. Not good for him.'

'By next November, he'll be one year old.'

Where was this kid--two years ago? And now, he's so much a part of our lives, a part of our being. He's growing up--crawling, shouting, learning to recognise, eat, refusing to eat, indicating when he wants to piss, wondering at new faces and new sounds---the way we grew up. He'll learn a thousand things, become independent, make friends, discover life, experience the world, earn his living, find his purpose, create his destiny....and one day, he'll hold his baby in his arms and wonder similarly. Cycle of life.

'His first birthday is nearing.'

'Yeah, what's the plan? I don't like that drama-- cutting a cake, inviting all the kids of the locality, make them sit like dolls, give them something to eat---somehow it suffocates.'

'Then, how do you celebrate it, meaningfully? You can't ignore those around us, your parents, your people. The kid should not feel neglected. There has to be a celebration and if you choose, without formality, without artificiality.'

'Let's think over. We're used to one way. Maybe there are a hundred other ways. Something wherein the kid feels important, cared for and blessed. It should be a happy occasion for all the near and dear ones......'

Small talk....

The drizzle is now a steady downpour. Occasionally there's cold spray from the open window.

'Do you feel scared?'

'No pappa, I...I don't'.

'It's okay to admit your fears. Nothing shameful about it. Even if you don't express it to anyone, it's enough if you admit and acknowledge it within, instead of living in self-denial. To see that it's natural to be afraid, to be fearful of certain things. Making your peace with it. And then doing whatever your fear stops you from doing.'

'Pappa, are you scared of anything?'

'Constricted places! When you were a baby, there would be newsreports about small kids falling into open borewells. Some kids came out safe but quite a few weren't so lucky. I'd imagine their plight--stuck inside the belly of Mother earth, unable to move either way, gasping for breath, hungry, tired, bleeding, scared--it'd make my hair stand on end. I'd imagine myself in their places and it'd choke me. I don't think I'm over it yet, but it doesn't bother me.'

'.................'

'And of falling from heights. Not exactly the fear of heights. I'd hold you tight whenever we climbed up the stairs to our room, fearing at times lest there be a slip.......! And again, street dogs. There were incidents of kids getting mauled by streetdogs. I had a tremendous fear of these animals because there were a few dogs in our locality and all the kids would play on the streets every evening.'

'Is it okay to be afraid?'

'To be afraid means that you're responsive and alive. It means that you have an active interest in something. And as long as your fear doesn't choke you, doesn't keep you in a rut, it's fine even if you don't overcome it. For example, you may fear the dark. But if you can still walk across the dark passage from your room to the living room, without screaming, it's fine. Only when this fear makes you curled up in a corner should you take notice.'

'Then?'

'......'

'Then what, pappa? What do you do then?'

'Figure it out yourself. One thing you're sure, you can't live with that fear anymore. It'll stop you from living a normal life, doing what you must do, what you've always loved to do. So either you choose to live with your fears or you decide to eliminate them completely and live fearlessly, live a fuller life.'

'But how? How do I get rid of my fears?'

'There's no one size fits all answer. Each fear is unique, each person is. You figure out your own answer, you carve your own path to freedom.'

'...............'

' I'll tell you what a friend said, long time back. Each fear arises at a particular level, he said. And once you contemplate deeply on the root of this fear, you'll come across something you're attached to. Practice detachment at that level. Try and get rid of possesiveness towards that thing. Accept that that thing doesn't belong to you, that you came here alone and will eventually return alone. With this detachment arises fearlessness. But it takes practice. And dedication. And the result--the freedom from fear--is far more worth than the effort that goes into it. The joy of fearlessness. The adventure you'll have!'

'.....................'