Pandit Nain Sing Rawat

Long time back I had done this research, sharing it here as I would like if some one searching for information is benefited through this.


PRELUDE

Even today, after centuries of modernization, as China’s iron curtains, forbid the world the view of Tibet, it is with the eyes of these explorers that we still see this mysterious land. Their explorations are still the window to the world of Tibet.
Nain Singh was a man of strong character – where others admitted defeat, he persisted. Due to the clandestine nature of their work and because they were ‘Spy Explorers’ their work never gained the recognition due to such an important feat.
As these ‘Spy Explorers’ worked for the British, after independence their work was not given due recognition. The clandestine nature of their work made such important discoveries look unpatriotic. This can be the only reason why it faded in public memory.

INTRODUCTION

Life of Nain Singh Rawat, paraphrases the entire struggle for power not only in the plains of Hindustan but through the crucial and strategic Tibet, the high Himalayas and the Hindukush.
British were in a way paranoid about Russia’s interest in Tibet. It was a race against time for the Tsarist Russia and British India to claim this yet untamed territory. The odds here were greater- Tibetians were no fools, with a relay system that surpassed many a superior security systems. Messengers criss crossed the landscape with letters and messages. These men mounted on horses covered the 800 miles between Lasha and Gangtok and were forbidden to stop other than to eat or change horses. They wore a long sleeved Chogas inside which were tucked letters, the breast fastening of their overcoats was sealed to ensure that they did not change clothes. The officer to whom the letter was addressed would break the seal. A message took just thirty days to travel from Lhasa to Gartok, a special message would reach even faster, in twenty two days. The news traveled very fast due to this system and any foreigner who attempted to enter Tibet was reported and forced back to the border. The explorers were thus required to tackle this local resistance, prior to attempting the hazardous travel in this most unfriendly terrain.
However, this reluctance on the part of the Tibetian native did not always exist. Previously the Nepalese Kumaon was the only resistance the explorers faced. Once inside Tibet, they always reported of very friendly, warm and deeply religious people. In Akbar’s time the first Jesuit mission left for the search of the origin of river Ganga, their main concern though was the quest for the lost tribe of Prester John. The Jesuits had heard from wandering sadhus and yogis, of people in Tibet who had rituals and practices similar to those of Christians. To find out about this they were eager to reach Tibet. In 1624 Jesuit father Antonio de Andrade along with Portugese lay brother Manuel Marques and two Christian servants reached Badrinath disguised as pilgrims. After initial resistance from the officials of Raja of Srinagar, the two entered Tibet from Mana pass at 17,900 feet and were welcome in this isolated land. Andrade impressed the king and queen with his devotion towards his religion but could not persuade the king to convert. He returned in the summer of 1625 with more missionaries and the king laid the foundation of the first Christian church in Tibet. However, after Andrade left there was a revolt among Tibetan Lamas and the church was pulled down.
The tradition of employing natives for survey work started quiet accidentally. When the Maratha war ended the military engineers and draughtsmen became comparatively free to focus their attention on mapping newly acquired upper Hindustan lands. At Twenty four, when James Rennel was appointed the Surveyor General of India, he assembled a band of surveyors and draughtsmen to map the subcontinent. Rennel was awestruck when he first viewed the Himalayas from the plains of Bengal. He was curious about the origins of the Ganga, Indus and Brahmputra, which had their sources in Himalayas. He admitted his ignorance and even accepted the native belief that Ganga took it’s source from the holy lake of Kailash Mansarovar. Though he left India in 1777 due to delicate health, he continued to play a major role in the development of Indian geography and so is correctly honored with the title of ”Father Of Indian Geography”.
Robert Colebrooke and Henry Colebrooke were cousins deeply interested in Ganga. Robert was appointed Surveyor General of India in1794 and Henry was posted as Assistant Commissioner of Purnea. He was a Sanskrit scholar and the first President of Bengal Asiatic Society. Robert spent his time either sailing on Ganga or on it’s banks. He knew the river thoroughly and was eager to explore the source of the sacred river. His findings were a major contribution to Henry’s Asiatic researches. In1807 Robert Colebrooke sailed upstream from Calcutta, He was joined by twenty-two year old Webb of Bengal Native Infantry and fifty sepoys. They employed Captain Hyder Jung Hearsey, an independent freebooter who knew the terrain and the ways of locals well. His mounted irregulars also provided them protection against robbers and marauders. While surveying these unhealthy jungles of Terai, Robert Colebrooke fell ill. This development prevented him from going any further, so Webb along with Hearsay and an old friend Felix Raper from the old regiment traveled towards Himalayas with the instructions to explore Ganga. They were assisted from Haridwar to Gangotri. At Haridwar, they were lucky to meet the Gurkha Governor of Nepalese Srinagar who was visiting the Kumbh Mela. After initial reluctance he gave way and this party headed for Gangotri. The trail was difficult to say the least and just forty miles short of their destination, for reasons unknown, Webb decided to turn back. Here was the start of a novel method of surveying when “An intelligent native”, most probably Hearsey’s Hindu munshi was briefed about the use of compass and sent to look for the famous ‘Cow’s Mouth’. The remaining party of Webb, Hearsey and Raper moved towards Badrinath to locate the source of Alaknanda. They reached the Bhotia village of Mana and from here proceeded towards the source of Alaknanda with a local guide. They found the source in a narrow valley at the foot of Badrinath massif. The purpose of the mission was achieved, as Hearsey’s munshi brought back the information that there was no cow’s mouth at the Ganga’s source at Gangoutri. Thus the theory that Ganga took its source from Mansarover was proved a fable. There was indeed a Cow’s mouth – a vast cul-de –sac discovered by Captain John Hodgson and his assistant Captain James Herbert in 1817.This as the traditional source of Ganga called Bhagirathi here, with an enormous glacier shaped like a snout. of a cow. With Ganga’s origin finally traced back to the source now the focus of the British surveyors was on the inner Himalayas and on Tibet though it was a forbidden land as the Nepalese Kumaon did not take British presence lightly. These conditions led to the British policy of non-interference in these areas and when Hearsey and Dr Moorecroft, Veterinary Doctor entered Kumaon for ’Tour of hills’ as they called it, it clearly was not appreciated. Moorecroft was over forty, he was Vet Surgeon to the Government of Bengal, he had been irritating [troubling] the Agent to the Governor General with plans of a journey into the hills to find new blood from the hill strains and goats with long hair for wool. They were assisted by two native surveyors Harballabh and his nephew Hurruck Dev and the latter was given the unpleasant task of keeping a tally of the number of steps he took. He was directed to stride, the whole of the road at paces equal to four feet each because the Indian pace is recorded each time the left foot touches the ground, which is every two steps. Hearsay and Moorecroft were disguised as pilgrims Mayapori and Haragiri. They reached the Bhotia village of Neeti but were stopped from going any further. The Bhotias the traditional go between of the western Himalayas refused to offer any assistance to these suspicious looking men. While waiting here Moorecroft started treating anyone who came to him. He cured a young Bhotia boy for dropsy and this won him the gratitude of the boy’s father, a trader from the Johar valley, Deb Singh Rawat. Deb Singh Rawat and his brother, Bir Singh were among the wealthiest and most influential Bhotias in the region. Thus Moorecroft set the seal on the friendship between the British and the Bhotias.
They reached Mansarovar via Daba, where they traded the goods brought from India, with the large flock of sheep and fifty Pashmina goats. They promised the authorities at Daba to stick to the pilgrim routes. Moving ahead they reached Rakas Tal or Ravan Hrudb and found that none of the tributaries of Sutlej had its source in the lakes (it was later in 1846 that Henery Strachey would meet Deb Singh at Milam on his way to the lakes and find out that Sutlej did take its source from Mansarovar). They measured Mansarovar and found it to be an oval shaped lake and by circumnavigating the lake found that the two lakes Ravan Hrudb and Mansarovar were not connected by any channel (This was corrected by Henry Strachey, when he discovered that there was a large stream three feet deep and hundred feet wide flowing from
Rakas Tal to Masarovar. This seepage of water was missed entirely by Moorcroft and Hearsey as they had stuck to the shores and failed to see what was on the other side of the raised bank of Shingle). This brought to close the mysteries related to the holy lake Mansarvar and the belief that Sutlej took its source from the holy lake of Manserover was finally proved correct.






CHAPTER 1

LIFE OF NAIN SINGH RAWAT

Rai Bahadur Nain Singh Rawat was born to Lata Burha in1830 in Milam village in the valley of Johar. This beautiful valley in the Kumaon hills is located at the foot of the Milam glacier from which the river Goriganga originates. The Rawats ruled over the Johar valley, during the reign of Chand dynasty in Kumaon, this was followed by the Gorkha rule. In 1816 the British defeated Gorkhas but maintained a policy of non-interference and friendship towards the Johar Bhotias. The famous Bhotia explorers mostly belong to the village of Johar.
There is a history to how the Bhotias came to this valley and became the trading link between the Tibet and the rest of the world. When Mohammed Ghori invaded India between 1191 and 1193, there was a mass exodus from the Hindu Rajputana. The Rajput ancestors of Nain Singh, settled in a place called Jawala Bagarh. Around 1680, a prominent family member Hiroo Dham Singh went to Kailas Mansarovar for pilgrimage. The pilgrims in those days travelled in caravans fully armed to protect themselves from robbers. The Tibetians were being troubled greatly by Chinese invaders at this time. Hiroo Dham Singh along with a large number of fellow pilgrims and retainers helped Tibetans drive away the Chinese bandits who were looting and stealing the cattle, horses and sheep. Hiroo Dham Singh’s guerilla warfare tactics helped Tibetans in driving away these Chinese marauders. The Tibetans returned the favour by giving him trade concessions and thus a Lion’s share in the cross border trade with Gartok in Western Tibet. Hiru Dham Singh was also honored with the title of ‘Pradhan’ from the Government of Lhasa. While returning from this very beneficial pilgrimage, Hiroo Dham Singh and his party passed through the Johar valley, east of Nanda Devi. He liked the place so much that he settled in Johar with a large number of his clan members. This fateful incident led to the foundations of a flourishing trade being laid.
After leaving school, Nain Singh helped his father. He visited different centers in Tibet with his father, learnt the Tibetan language, customs and manners and became familiar with the Tibetan people. This knowledge of Tibetian language and local customs and protocol came handy in Nain Singh’s work as Spy Explorer. Due to the extreme cold conditions, Milam and other villages of the upper Johar valley are inhabited only for a few months from June to October. During this time the men used to visit Gyanima, Gartok and various other markets in Western Tibet. Each Indian trader of Johar, had a ‘mitra’ or colleague in Tibet. Initially, the splitting of a stone, each keeping one half, marked their partnership in trade. Henceforth, the Indian trader or his representative would carry the token to sell his goods in Tibet market only to his ‘mitra’s’ representative who would fit his half of the stone to the Indian’s.
In 1855, Nain Singh Rawat, now a well-disposed and intelligent man of twenty-five years, of traditional Bhotia mould – short, stocky and stubborn, was first recruited by German geographers – The Schalaginweit brothers. Baron Humboldt had sent these German scientists, to the office of Survey of India, which reluctantly allowed them to proceed for the survey. Adolf and Robert Schlagintweit had met old Deb Singh Rawat in the Johar valley, who even showed them a thanks chit signed by William Moorecroft and inscribed ‘Northern foot of the Himachal Mountains near Daba in Chinese Tartary, August 25th 1812.’ On his advice they recruited three members of his family for their expedition; Mani Singh Rawat, Dolpa and Nain Singh Rawat. Nain Singh’s first exploration trip was with the Germans between 1855 to 1857. He traveled to the lakes Mansarovar and Rakas Tal and then further to Gartok and Ladhak. After the exploration with the Schalaginweit brothers, Pundit Nain Singh Rawat joined the Education Department, being appointed as the headmaster of a Government vernacular school in his village at Milam from 1858 to 1863.
Before we embark on the Nain Singh’s journey with the British, let us have a closer look at the dynamics of the political climate of those times. British and Russians were engaged in a battle of one upmanship, in the vast desolate plains of Central Asia. It was Lieutenant Arthur Conolly of the 6th Bengal Native Cavalry who first coined this tussle into the now famous phrase ‘The Great Game’ in a letter to a friend. The secret missions and hawkish eye of the opponents led to wild speculations among the two adversaries. Some materialized, while others were mere presumptions of these ultra sensitive players of an equally ambitious and vague ‘Great Game’. Though Russophobia was on the rise with the successive generations of company men, just as the trail was getting hot, it was also becoming increasingly difficult to send officers on clandestine missions of map making as the risk factors were too great. If captured it meant certain death for these daredevil men. Secondly, the detection of such missions also meant political embarrassment for the British. Sir John Lawrence, Viceroy of India banned the British from venturing into these lands, his political view being that if they lose their lives, we cannot avenge them and so lose credit. It was Captain Montgomery who proposed to his superiors, a novel method to train the natives in scientific western methods of survey. These natives he had argued were far less likely to be detected than an European, however good the latter’s disguise. Moreover, even if they were unfortunate enough to be discovered, it would be politically less embarrassing to the authorities, compared to if a British officer was caught red handed making maps in these highly sensitive and dangerous parts. This was approved and the foundations were laid for a new era of cartographers, relying on the intelligence brought back by the trained natives. In 1862-63, Edmund Smyth was in correspondence with Captain Montgomery, who wanted some trustworthy men to train as explorers. Smyth strongly recommended the Bhotias, as they knew Tibetan language and were allowed to enter Tibet. Smyth selected Nain Singh and his cousin Mani Singh. Here it needs a mention that Education Officer Edmund Smyth was the first to realize the unique traits of the Bhotias. His own views were:-
The Bhotias have Hindu names and call themselves Hindus but they are not recognized as such by the Orthodox Hindus of the plains. While in Tibet, they seem glad enough to shake off their Hinduism and become Buddhists, or anything you like. They pass their lives in trade with Tibet and they are the only people allowed by the Tibeten authorities to enter the country for purposes of trade. From June to November they are constantly going over the passes, bringing the produce of Tibet (Borax, salt, wool, gold dust, also ponies) and taking back grains of all kinds, English goods, chiefly woolens and other things. The goods are carried on the backs of sheep, goats, Ponies, Yaks and Jhopoos (across between the Tibeten yak and the hill cow). Their villages are situated at an elevation of from 10,000 to 13,000 feet, at the foot of the passes leading into Tibet, though only occupied from June to November in each year. During the remainder of the year they move down to the foot of the hills and sell their produce to the Buniahs or traders.
In 1863, Nain Singh Rawat along with his cousin, Mani Singh Rawat were sent to the Great Trignometrical survey office at Dehradun where they underwent training for two years. This included training on scientific instruments and some ingenious ways of measuring and recording and the art of disguise. Nain Singh Rawat was exceptionally intelligent and quickly learned the correct use of scientific instruments like sextant and compass. He could also recognize all major stars and different constellations easily. This had all been possible due to exhaustive practice and a drive and determination in the hand picked men that are difficult to explain –
A sergeant major drilled them using a pace-stick, to take steps of a fixed length which remained constant even while climbing up, down or walking on plain surface. They were trained to record the distances by an ingenious method using a rosary. This rosary unlike a Hindu or Buddhist one, which has 108 beads, had just 100 beads. At every 100 steps the Pandit would slip one bead, so a complete length of the rosary represented 10000 steps. It was easy to calculate the distance as each step was 31½ Inches and a mile was calculated to be around 2000 steps. To avoid suspicion, these explorers went about their task disguised as monks or traders or whatever suited the particular situation. Many more ingenious methods were devised. The notes of measurements were coded in the form of written prayers and these scrolls of paper were hidden in the cylinder of the prayer wheel. The Pundits kept this secret log book up to date. The compass for taking bearing, was hidden in the lid of the prayer wheel. Mercury used for setting and artificial horizon, was kept in Cowri shells and for use poured into the begging bowl carried by the Pundit. The thermometer found place in the topmost part of the monk’s stave. There were workshops, where false bottoms were made in the chests to hold sextant. Pockets were also added to the clothes used during these secret missions.
Thus prepared and trained, the Pundits traveled for months at a stretch collecting intelligence in most difficult conditions, travelling closely with the natives in caravans. What was to follow, were some of the most glorious years in the exploration and mapping of Tibet and all its river systems and indeed some of the most fascinating explorations worth recounting. In 1865-66, Nain Singh traveled 1200 miles from Katmandu to Lhasa and thence to the Masarovar lake and back to India. His last and greatest journey was from Leh in Ladhak via Lhasa to assam in the years 1873-75. For his extraordinary achievements and contributions, Nain Singh was honored with many awards by the Royal Geographical society.
Nain Singh Rawat died of a heart attack in 1895, while visiting his Jagir, a plains village granted to him by the British in 1877.

Cooking Mythology!

Mixing turmeric in the vegetables before smelling the salt to add it to simmering potatoes and aubergine, I resisted the thoughts on Hindu mythology. There are two massive epics, The Ramayana and the Bhagwat Geeta. Stirring the lentils and counting the whistles as I poured a cup of rice into heavy-based pot, measuring two cups of water, I thought, how strange most children born in the narrative of bhagwat geeta are out of wedlock. Most women choosing powerful deities to father the children over their husbands! Did we have a civilization where marriage was not as 'sacred' as today and good genes determined whom the women in wedlock would mate with, to have gifted and healthy generations. Chopping onions, de seeding tomatoes and slicing green chili, I brood over the stern, dry values of Ramayana. Ram, the avatara of Visnu, an ideal king was sent to fourteen years of exile by his step mother so that her son would rule. She enters a 'kope bhavan' a palace where the queen would retire to when she was angry and discontented. She reminds the king of a promise he had made while on the battle field as she saved his life. The politics reigns and the virtuous Rama along with his devoted wife Sita move to the forests. A demon abducts Sita and carries her to Sri Lanka, after a fierce battle, Sita is overjoyed to unite with her husband. Rama stuns her by asking her to marry anyone as he could not take back a woman who had stayed under another man's roof! Sita is enraged. I mix milk with whole wheat flout and take off my three rings to knead the dough. Sita jumps into a fire as she thinks it is beneath her to accompany a man who has so publicly raised a doubt on her chastity. Fire cannot touch her and the fire god, the 'agni devta' appears praying to Rama to take back his wife as she was pure as pure can be. It's time to pack husband's lunch and I wash the steel containers. Sita, cools down and accompanies Rama to Ayodhya. Four containers, two I fill with rice, a little pickle on the side and one with 'dal' the lentil soup. Once back all is quiet till a spy reports to Rama of a washer man who refuses to take back his wife as she had been away under another man's roof. " I am no Rama" he says, "to take back a tarnished woman". Fourth container, I fill up with the potato and aubergine vegetables with a bit of tomato and onion that I saute in mustard oil. Sita, pregnant with twins is abandoned without an explanation in a forest where she is found by a sage and given shelter.

It is time to serve breakfast so I pour cold milk and two spoons of coffee and sugar to the blender and switch it on. Mythologies churn in my mind and cold milk swirls in the blender. The bhagwat geeta they say is 6000 years old and Ramayana older than that and what a contrast in value systems. After the radically logical approach of Krishna in Bhagwat Geeta as he encourages ' Arjun,' his disciple to wage a war against those who had cheated the five princes of their land and humiliated their common wife-draupadi. He uses all the tactics, negotiation, guerrilla warfare, threat and when nothing works sly methods to cheat the enemy just giving back the enemy taste of their own medicine.

Coming back to today when there is so much ruckus on just sketching portraits of a prophet, I do not know weather to laugh or feel frustrated. The very idea of not having idols is to identify the creator with the non manifested, a much higher state of awareness, whet could be more contradictory that create mayhem on an approach that was just to establish a stream of thought that self realization could be attained through either means, through devotion or though meditating on the abstract manifested creator. I pack the lunch and stuff the dough with onion-tomato-green chilli and roll it into thin parantha, a little butter in the flat pan and I press it to crisp both sides. Golden 'parantha' on white plate with cold coffee, husband says it tastes good!

Pic: The valley of flowers, clicked by son and husband.

Wanderings and Night...

Red ants get angry as I spray water on wilting leaves, they bite my flesh. Since morning they have been carrying their eggs and larva, holding the creamy oval things in their pincher(yes, that's what they are called!)There is dust everywhere, you can taste it on the warmed furnace blast-like air. There is no breeze just a warmed stillness saturated with humidity. As labourers slog near fly overs and roads, their children play in scattered shade. Every time I pass a cluster of such children playing with sticks and sand piles, I pray to whoever watches over their safety.

Sometimes just looking, really looking at things makes one think. Was adjusting the ruby ring on my finger and suddenly it occurs to me that the gold and the ruby both have come from the depths of this Earth. Now, circling my finger, what a long journey and after my life, its journey goes on.

Was thinking about the string theory that speaks of parallel universes lying side-by-side like slices of a bread loaf. Well, actually just stepping out of the house, one feels it is already so, we do live on an irregular mass of molten lava covered thankfully with earth crust and rocks, but we live in different universes. It's just with us humans, if you place apes together, they will be just apes, but us, we will be this nationality, that skin colour, first world , third world and then all those strange equations of the ruled and the rulers. Yeah, there are dominant matriarchal or patriarchal structures in apes too, but those are not so rigid, mainly about territory and sex. The insecurity of a terror attack and deciding who are non believers or lesser mortals, that is a trait prized in humans. Dunno, maybe this is what evolution was meant to do to us. Looking closely, we are still in that maze of basic survival, tilted this way or that for convenience of some smart humans who decided how the society should be, thankfully these smart people were limited to some priests, religious preachers and dictators like Hitler. The damage they have sent rippling across the ages and generations validates the need to put them in same category. If people with wisdom were in charge of this earth, we could have survived here for millions of years. Is there a dearth of people who can take humanity as a whole. There is resistance against the very fact that human race is one species as power equations are involved, but naive as it may sound, at some point with dwindling resources and unmanaged populations, humanity will have to either face the problems or face savage wars like the first and second world war or just perish through natural devastation.

Had that same scary feeling of hanging in space as I woke up. As if there is no Earth, no place to belong to, probably that triggered these thoughts.


Night

Wide open like a white lily
Floating in cosmos
This night, my night
Woven with warm breaths
Still, with spots of jasmine fragrance
Throbbing stars laughing on petty human concerns!

Flesh sprouting flesh in shrill labour rooms
here, the night is silent
Storms blend the night into dust
Far away, there are frozen polar nights
and nights turn sweet, sour, bitter, sad
We make the darkness so
Giving flavours...

Drunk on dreams and desires
saucy, smelling of hormones
Old, grumbling lonely night
as the hormones go...
Coming full circle to a still night
Boats of dream tethered in the darkness
Eager to flow...

Thinking and Storm...

There are clouds above the dusty tree tops and birds are relieved, they chirp. I can hear a cukoo, a crow is building a nest in the massive silk-cotton tree behind my house, jet black and melodious cukoo is smart, she lays eggs in crow's nest, no hassle of bringing up chicks! The huge bee hive is gone and I think the bees were smarter as in the morning the four hives on another silk-cotton tree were larger. Human greed robbed their hives but they got shelter with the other bees.

Observing human nature these days, it is not difficult to destroy people, there are ways to control and keep one on the edge. Wonder why I never saw through these obvious ways earlier. Even now, I find it difficult to react to petty tricks. What does one think, can't I play the same games? It is easy to do that once you put your mind to it, but there are constructive things, meditation, sharing, interacting with children. I should not pay heed, what I am, no one can take away, at least not through projecting what I am not! Just that at this age it is difficult to see someone trying to control every moment, that can happen if I give in. Sometimes I do get tired. How much energy do these false hierarchies consume. All the time criticism as if this can somehow push you to a higher plane. A person's true worth is judged by the way he or she treats others when he or she is in a position of power. It is actually sad to be cunning, to knowingly lead others to wrong decisions, just to reflect in the glory of the false superiority. I have seen people say the opposite of what should be done and wait to see how their cunning plot unfolds. If you stop watching your back, they can be dangerous. So instead of doing something constructive, you have to keep a tab on what is cooking in this someone's mind that can harm you.

Problem is, when you know that all this is happening and yet you have to abide by social hierarchies,how do you contain the frustration about the importance given to people, who do not deserve it? How indeed do you respect such people? Maybe some people can, they are good at acting out things they do not feel in their hearts, but that must be such a strain. There is just one desire that I have before I leave this plane, to make some difference, not money, not recognition but my leaving should be accompanied by this beautiful Mother Earth becoming a better place for coming generations. Don't know how it will come about, maybe through sharing what God has so generously given me, maybe through some work or the field work that I aspire to do in Himalayan glaciers when kids are grown up. Just want to do this much before I leave and maybe that is why I feel, there are miles to go before I sleep...
Should always remember what Buddha said, we are not punished for our anger, we are punished by our anger. Even when so many things are so unfair...


Storm

Yellow dust swirls
A storm brews slowly
Gray clouds and a torrid heart
Raindrops comedown like warm kisses
Anger evaporates like ice in fire

Noon

A poem I wrote some time back. There are days when the magic of light and shadow transports us to a matrix where time stops and suspended in this warp we look at this existence differently.




Noon

Smell of boiling milk

Spilling through the kitchen window

And your hands on the table

The window brings in the sky

And the warm sunlit breeze

Speaking of a blank dazed noon

When a black bird sang outside

And broke the silence blanketing us

Smells of paint, varnish and white wash...

Shadow dance of leaves on white bed spread

Your hands entwined on the table

Take me to that warm dazed noon

with pregnant curtains and stark blue sky

And us...

It Rained...

There was rain
And I got drenched
It was spring
And I wove flowers in my hair
Breeze was a river carrying me far
How could I stop rain from drenching me
Or stop Blossoms from raining
Or breeze from taking me
Where daisies bloom...
Fingers untangle the wilting blossoms
And the breeze shies away from me
It was so...
Believe me
It rained and I got drenched

The Earth Day Story

A few days back this story started forming in my mind and I never realised that it was Earth day today, posting it here as in other parts of the world now it will be celebrated. If you wish to read it to kids, you can substitute Himalayas with the mountains in your country. Read it to one hundred thirty kids today and then to another similar group in second and third grades. They kinda liked it, had added many more things as the story started building up through their questions. Had a box full of leaves, stems, berries, pods and distributed these as the story unfolded.

Bulbul's Summer Vacations

There was a pretty little girl. Her name was Bulbul. One day when her summer vacations had started and the sun was shining high in the sky, her mother asked her to help her in packing. They were visiting her father’s village in the beautiful Himalayas. She brought her dresses and neatly folded them, helping her mother in packing the suitcases.

Early in the morning Daddy loaded the suitcases. It was dusk and the birds were still asleep in the nest. There was a cool breeze blowing. Bulbul said bye to her plants and she hugged the stray cat that came to her for milk every morning. Soon they were driving towards the Himalayas from Delhi. Slowly, the sun rose in the sky and birds chirped in the trees. Bulbul sat near the car window, watching the monkey mamas jumping, their babies holding their mama’s bellies tightly.

She clapped when she saw a beautiful peacock cross the road. Her father slowed the car so that the peacock could cross the road. Mamma gave Bulbul a burger and a packet of chips (question: Where do you put the empty packets after you eat the chips?)She folded the packet of chips and kept it in a bag to throw away later.

Early in the noon they reached the village. Daddy parked the car near a dense pine forest. There was a stream of clear water in the path and Bulbul saw small colorful fish swimming in the water. She sat down to watch the fish move very fast in the water, She cupped her hands and tried to catch a little fish, but it was a very smart fish, it moved under a rock and hid there.

Bulbul loved the forest behind their cottage. There were apple trees and plum trees (Question: Have you eaten plums? How do they taste and smell?) In the cowshed, she discovered a white calf. She gave her green grass to eat. The calf was very happy and jumped and ran behind her.

Everyday she visited the stream; she liked the dark cool shade of the pine trees. Slippery pine needles made it fun to slide and reach the bottom of the hill. (Can you think why pine trees have needle like leaves?) Next day, she visited a temple with her father and in the way their car got stuck as a lot of rocks and mud had piled on the road. There were no trees on this hill. Bulbul saw a river flowing near the hill and all the soil was washing away in the river. She asked her father, “Daddy, why are rocks tumbling down to the road?” Her father explained, " Bulbul, trees hold the soil with their roots, even floods are unable to wash away soil when trees grip soil tightly. here all trees have been cut by some selfish people and that is why there was is way to hold rocks and soil and so the mud and stones are falling on the road and washing away into the river."

Bulbul felt sad. She loved trees and flowers, she helped her father in removing rocks from the road and the next day they planted a plum tree and many pine trees and watered them. Her cousins promised to take care of the plants.

A year later when Bulbul visited the village, the hill was green once again. There were happy birds singing on the plum tree and there was no mud flowing into the river. They had a bath in the clean river water and sat under the shade of the pine trees. Bulbul chased the fish in the river and ate fresh apples. She collected pine cones which were lying on the ground and ate the delicious seeds inside them. When it was cold in the night, she collected twigs and lit a bonfire. Now she knew that trees and the Earth give us all the wonderful things in life. She decided to plant more trees and take care of Mother Earth as she had come to know that Mother Earth gives us every thing we need to live.