Walking by...

Streets are heavy with dust, passing traffic. A cluster of women walks past, the edge of saree covers three fourth of their faces. It is December and I am back in this small town-Ghaziabad. The streets are congested, people, traffic, animals all seek space. As a kid I would visit the vegetable market with parents, learning to choose fresh vegetables from the piles, pressing the turgid lemons, smelling fingers to take in the lemon's fragrance. There are so many fragments of memories, like scraps of worn cloth. Some times when I try to conjure them the images sulk and then I sense that maybe when I am dying all these images, moments will come flooding. They say it happens when a human is gasping for the last breath. Time that carries quiet, pale noons, time that cradles first rush of hormones. Sometimes the time leaps from such spaces, a smell, a touch, a wandering breeze, dragging the mind to a long forgotten space. Copper rays on the faded bedspread, as the blood pulsates to a primitive beat of life, I sit wondering how a human life is entwined with time...

This picture is of my Grand mother with my only maternal aunt (mausi) and uncle( mausaji). I don't know how to express but words are my saviour. Yesterday evening I came to know she is no more. Feel a stifling knot inside that I hope shall release after I am done with writing. My first memories are of her sitting in kitchen near the log fire and cooking the tastiest meals. The slow fire would permeate the kitchen with aroma of cooking bhat and daal, even the simplest of things became magical in her hands and I at five or six years of age would slowly try to get as close to her as possible. Now, in Kumaon there are these practices that while cooking no one is supposed to touch the cook. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that earlier days to maintain the hygiene of the cooking area the woman who cooked bathed in the wee hours and started the fire, concentrating the attention of preparing the meal without any disturbance and contaminations through oter people touching the food without the needed precautions. My nani ( gandmother) cooked like this, I would inch forward asking her " why?, why should I not touch you while you cook? If you don't give me an explaination, I shall touch you". She would laugh and scare me with a stick although never using it. After this she would patiently feed my Nana ji ( grandfather). And then there were days when she would clean the kitchen and the coackroaches would be removed from the wooden beams of the mountain house. I would piously threten her," see you are killing these creatuures, mind you, you may suffer the ' paap' ( sin) of killing these. She would laugh at this,yes so be it! She was a woman of rare strength and perhaps we get that in our genes from her. I saw her very courageously stand by the right thing and I pray that God give me the same strength in my life. I would often hang around her, she draped in simple cotton sari and me asking her a thousand questions as she took out the stones from the rice she was cleaning in a thali. For years that I was at her house I saw peace and patience. There was a fun episode when there was marriage of my Devendra Mama ( maternal uncle), she was a good manager and had kept things in orderly manner in the store, the keys would be with her. I got to know that there were sweets, really rich ones that had been brought by some guest. I asked her if some one had got sweets, she said no, and then I kept a tab on where she hid the key, when there was a chance I took kids to plunder the store and we ate the sweets and carried the rest in our pockets. Then I placed the key where she had hid it. Later when she visited the store she saw the sweets were gone and the other things were in a disarray, but true to her word she did not speak a word of it, she smiled and smiled! Such was my nani! I remember visiting a quaint temple with her, the fresh flowers in pots all around the temple and the tiny brass bell strung all around are still fresh in my memory and there too I would incessantly question her, many time asking her not to believe in the priests. She would never discourage my questioning. Earlier this year I had a chance to visit her but I did not gather enough courage to let go of responsibilities here and simply visit her, wish I had done so. May Shrimataji take you in her fold Nani, I know you are watching over as tears finally make way. Although I could not visit you often neither bring a gift to you I love you, you shall always stay in my heart.

Just passing by...

Been a long time since I last wrote here. When you keep writing words rush to you like an eager torrent otherwise one has to seek them. Was looking at my blog statistics and was surprised to see a lot of traffic from Germany. Jayani, my daughter has wrapped some seeds in wet cotton, a delicate bean sprout has emerged and she is observing it elongating shoot. Since morning cotyledons have shriveled up and fine veined leaves are emerging. Children bring to us the magic of every-day miracles, within two days the seed has grown into a beautiful plant. When one observes all the ego that one can identify with, dissolves. When all that is truly difficult happens spontaneously, then who are we to mark each deed as ours. Any thing and every thing that a human is capable of doing is insignificant compared to all constant miracles that keep emerging around us, delicate patterns on smallest of insects. Shelter for tiniest of creature, this breath flowing in and out, all...As evening gathers, dust settles and birds chirp perched on branches, sky darkens and stars emerge one-by-one. What beauty surrounds us each moment and we have damaged our senses enough to be oblivious of such divine grace, how and why? They say we emulate the creator when we love as the longing is similar to seeking the source of all, long time back tried to figure out how while interacting with a friend who was hopelessly in love and this friend came to me weeping, there is no sense in love, all it gives us is heart ache, she wailed. We discussed and this friend counted the expectations, I could not be judgmental as I too was equally at loss as to how this friend would be consoled. In the end we faced the facts that since she was seeking, love happened and as it grew so did the expectations, here was the deal breaker: now there was love but unfulfilled expectations that caused this breakdown. So along with her I discovered that expectations killed what she had come to know as love. There was no sense in hating or grieving, she had to let go and move on as whatever it was, it hurt more than it healed. When one just observes in a detached manner, it makes sense when spiritual giants like Ramana Maharshi, here's a gem: One who renounces desires actually merges in the world and expands his love to the whole universe. Expansion of love and affection would be a far better term for a true devotee of God than renunciation, for one who renounces the immediate ties actually extends the bonds of affection and love to a wider world beyond the borders of caste, creed and race.