Lives and Commerce

A late magenta dahlia is blooming in the garden, I usually bend down and feel the petals on my face, inhaling deeply for any fragrance, knowing fully well dahlia doesn't posses any. A though came to mind, are not humans like these flowers, the most flashy ones holding no mysteries, all colour no fragrance, all external perfection, no substance.

Nainital, a tiny lake town nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains, Sun light slept on the gentle waves, sluggish snails lugging their slippery gray shells came to the shore where I waited for them. I would run down the cobbled street falling like a stone and hide in the dense foliage looking at these lazy snails. Sometimes there were empty shells and I would collect these, put them in salt water and they would still smell of the slime. red and yellow striped yachts drifted on the cool waters. From the window of the convent where I stuck to the window as I could not understand what the teachers droned about.

Long time back as a child I had read this story about Buddha, once his disciples asked Buddha, " why do you preach non violence towards all the living things?" To this Buddha replied that we as souls pass through so many bodies that every living creature has been our dearest and most loved one at some point of time. About many people who have blessed me in the present life, I have had strong feeling of having known them for too long. I recognize a mother from previous birth and have visions of being brought into existence through her body. Might sound completely far-fetched but then I had this experience, my daughter was just born and I was healing, she was few days old and I had this voice telling me, ask your mother about seventeenth September and your brother, he has come as your daughter(I had a younger brother who was a blue baby and we lost him when he was three). I was too scared to speak about this to my mother, later I asked her and she told me that he had died on the seventeenth of September. I was cold and speechless for long.

I believe we have many lives and sometimes when you feel that you know people whom you have barely met it is those past bonds that come to life. Unknowingly we play the same roles picking up the silken threads that cross lives and space. Bodies come together and part but soul keeps the count it seems.

Commerce

A pregnant stranger cat rubs its swollen belly,
against my leg and purrs for milk
I shuffle out in the night gown,
sleepily pouring milk for her
Love is so easy to achieve
How did we converted it to commerce?

Pic: Nainital lake and leaves dipping into the green water, me and a kitten that looked exactly like this cat.