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...
When I used to live in the desert, I remember the dusty taste as you describe here. I also distinctly remember the smell of the air when the rain would sweep back into the area and mix with the dust. One of my favorite scents from childhood and one that I would be so happy to smell that I would look forward to when I saw the rain clouds beginning to form.
ReplyDeleteThe climate I live in now is much more humid, so that scent is not present like it used to be.
Humanity is full of selfishness, greed, and envy. Ours is to change ourselves, submitting to love, and encourage others to do the same. There is no peace in anything else.