Another Day!

The heat is up today and even in these high-ceiling houses one can feel the difference. You feel like switching on the fan and just as the air inside the room is stirred, it gets uncomfortably cool and you switch off the fan. Strange weather! The laptop’s giving trouble it shuts down again and again. Nearing the end of the book and am in such a trance and just moving in a slowest pace possible, Gandhi is nearing death as he fasts for getting the Pakistan 55- million rupees that India is supposed to give it but withdraws fearing that Pakistan would buy armament with this money. He asks all the Hindu refugees to vacate the mosques and homes of fleeing Muslims they have occupied, all this is well. He was an idealist, he advises the defiled women to 'bite their tongue and hold their breaths till they die,'now this is something I don't understand. I know that he suggested all the European nations to willingly surrender to the Germans during world war so that there was no blood shed and at one point said that the only war that could be justified was one against the nazis. Dunno still tuck at this place and trying to understand what the old man meant by these statements that came through a lot of introspection.

Tomorrow. I will be visiting kids' school to get the book for my son who is in ninth grade. These classes now are considered very important here. is interest is in Maths and Computers, he wants to become an Engineer like so many men in the family. The coming years will be tough as there is a lot of competition for every single seat in good Engineering institutions and being from a high caste things are weighed against him as there is almost seventy percent reservation for the weaker sections. Sometimes people score in the negative and make it to these places whereas kids scoring quiet high are left with very few options. He is fine boy,the hormones make him arrogant and moody but he is one matured soul, always fair and honest. With releasing him into the world like a bird in the sky, to do some thing good for Mother Earth and everyone, I will accomplish the task entrusted to me by Mother nature. Today as we both sat watching pride and prejudice, I told him that is he came t visit me with his wife I would hide under the bed. He asks why, I say to him, as I am afraid of becoming a mother-in -law. He says yeah, you keep being scared all your life. Well we have these conversations and I have started calling Jayani Mic-mic, dunno why but that what I feel like calling her. Thought I would not be able to post today but here I am.
Dreamt of a volcano erupting and me gathering all food stuff and running, then floods as I saw children swimming, at one point I was lying on Earth watching shooting stars and thought how long it has been since I watched sky this way.


Souls

Souls travel alone
From body to body
and moment to moment
And yet a soul picks up
laughter, love, tears
Souls travel alone
in deep darkness of universe
silent, luminous fireflies
choosing wombs and words
For ripening silence
and lonely wanderings
Souls travel alone...

Days!

In the bright sun walked to get some tomato sauce and mustard oil. I cook the vegetables in mustard oil as it helps the joints and is better than most of the hydrogenated oils. On the way I saw my lady friend waiting for the vegetable truck to arrive, it is a facility that allows people to buy vegetables at slightly cheaper rates compared to the retail. I love sitting with them and chatting under the trees on the white-washed pavement, most women are well-educated and stay-at-home mothers as like me they don't want their kids to grow up cared by maids. Imagine how many jobs would go to offshore services in West if all Indian women staying at home choose to work. Another silly thought, dunno how right it is, I feel that before women like me work to earn, the families that are struggling to make ends meet should be given an opportunity. I plan to volunteer just to earn enough to cover for the petrol and commuting by taking workshops on something the Professor is suggesting.

Just saw the gorgeous petunias in purple, magenta and loveliest pink these were against indigo bunches of flowers. I never cease to wonder, one brown Earth and it transforms into such deep rich colours. Jayani just returned and after I took off her uniform and slipped on fresh clothes, I presented the cake, she is happy. Mother's live for such moments.

Can never read these lines from 'The Eve of St Agnes' without thinking of a bejeweled bride's groom gently removing her jewelry, getting her ready for the bridal bed.

Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,
Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed

This one I read when I am tense, it relaxes me transporting me to the school days when I would spend a whole afternoon chasing sparrows that were trapped in my room. With a towel in my hand, I would keep making them fly till they got exhausted and sat panting behind the curtains, then I would catch them and place them under baskets. A little bowl with water and grains to feed, but the poor bird would refuse to touch them, little heart jumping out of its breast. After touching the feathers and holding them in my hands, I would release them. Dunno why I did this but always loved holding animals and looking into their innocent eyes. My daughter gets that from me, she just grabs any bird or mammal. Think I'll get some gold fish for the bowl and yeah I need to start dancing for an hour, I love to dance and thats a very effective way to excercise, once I've put it here now I'll remember to do it.

Pic: Himalayas, would love to be there this moment and wander in pine groves inhaling the freshness of its resin, how I love the Himalayas...

Stray Thoughts

Mornings start with cooking, first the ginger-black pepper tea and then breakfast along with packing lunch for husband and the kids. These days I pluck spinach and coriander that is growing in the garden. I saw tiny white eggs, probably lady birds had stuck them on the underside, I remove them and stick them to other leaves. Tomorrow, Jayani starts her second grade and she is so excited, was making thank you cards for her teachers.

Jayani is very fascinated with aliens these days. She keeps questioning me about which stars might have aliens and what do they think about us. Animesh has a different world of facebook, foot ball and shared secrets with his friends. Strong sun is spreading across the garden and warmed pavements. Soon, there will be summer holidays for kids.

I remember those idle days when the noons are enmeshed in hot dry wind and sun beats down fiercely. You dread the heat but once you are out there body gets used to the sweat and the heated blasts of wind.The cobblers sit under trees in the shade and if you watch them stitching the shoes and repairing, it is a kind of meditation. Oblivious to the heat and dust they go on chatting and taking a sip from a tiny glass of tea or drawing deeply from the hand rolled 'bidi'.

How beautifully time and space have been divided, just when it is freezing in the high peaks of Himalayas just 400 Km away, it is scorching on the plains. When a human's eye takes in the perfect form of a solitary cloud floating against a stark blue sky, another human dreads the fury of nature, seeking last drops of water in parched desert. Mind, thoughts, bodies, planet and the cosmos all woven into this three-dimensional presence impregnated with sensations to make a linear movement of life. Just as I hear a child crying in a house nearby and watch my daughter engrossed in some cartoon character, The eerie feeling is that this is that warp and weft, of breaths and time, life...

Children

Yesterday, the meditation was good, the best things is one steps away from rituals and comes face-to-face with the essence. When you meditate, the first question you ask is,'am I a spirit?' If one has a strong gratitude for the nature that humbles with its beauty, it leads for strong love towards the creator. Somewhere in between one is absorbed in a bond that envelops the being with bliss. Nothing to do with the religion, this is a direct and pure realization of self and its source.

In the morning I and Jayani, now she is in second grade, we went out looking for baby plants to grow in empty cans and plastic cups. This is a kind of experiment. As I am reading this book and trying to adopt to some practices that Gandhi Ji suggested to his followers, what I am testing is-what are reactions of small children to these practices. I am encouraging an hour of physical labour in any form and it is well received. While Animesh, who is in ninth grade and a fourteen-year-old laughs at my suggestion and says " there were other freedom fighters too, there is nothing so great about Gandhi." Well, Jayu understands now when I talk to her about limiting our consumption as we both dig the soil and she appreciates that Mother Earth is giving us all that we have. As we dig, I ask her to feel the soil and explain tat this is where all the life dissolves. She smiles and asks, will God bless me for planting new plants, to this I say, yes the creator feels happy when he sees life being cared for, she understands.

I stumble at every step, but at least this is a beginning of introspection. Guess the best way is to take small steps, these help in creating momentum and inclination towards small changes. Right now I am nearing the chapter when Gandhi is assassinated. He is informed about a riot that is about to begin as the Sikhs are heading towards the Panipat to revenge for the atrocities they suffered as refugees leaving Pakistan. As Gandhi steps into the crowd brandishing swords and knives, enraged people ask if it was his wife who was raped and his children who were killed. He says, yes their women where his women and their children were his. He begs them to stop the Muslims from leaving for Pakistan and to embrace them.

What kind of conviction this man had to never care for his life and walk into most dangerous situations. He read books like Bible and Geeta and whatever he saw, he immediately put it to practice and when he found that it was an answer to how humans should achieve peace and love, he suggested it. Will try and share whatever I am able to grasp with my limited understanding. Blessings all...

Writing

There is this tricky thing about writing, today in the morning I was thinking about something I wanted to share and was very excited about it. Now, even when I am thinking hard the though evades me. Memory is like a flood of winged seeds passing by you, only when you hold one tight and jot it down, it remains to take root.

There are days when I feel so worthless and worn out. I must confess that such sad days I visit my lady friends who are frustrated and somehow made cooking, gossip and becoming just Mrs xyz their aim in life, I feel some solace. Thats sadistic or whatever but then I fell, well you are not faring too badly. This should not be the thought process, this relative sense of being productive should not be the source of fulfillment but as I said I confess, it sometime is. Then, I try and coax them into applying at places. Reading sometimes opens up another way of life, right now I can see what I do to feel better as I can compare my life with Gandhi. His devotion to working not for some personal gain, but out of compassion he felt for all those who were at the receiving end of an unjust society. Hope these purify my own comfort seeking ways.

Just wondering but maybe the way we were meant to be, just as nature is, animals are, that was the way to exist in the moment. We deconstructed it and created all artificial system, those which were never meant to be and created causes of unhappiness. Reading Gandhi, I am trying to do compulsory physical labor everyday and it feels good. Still scanning the memory files for that cheerful thing I wanted to share!


Heart


Somedays when it is silent and leaves turn dark
I sit by my heart and whisper smiles
It is alright to be tired, brittle and even broken
It is alright to palpitate and tremble
Frozen heart, thaws and speaks to me in tired beats
Yes, it is alright to tear you apart
I smile and we survive pain with pain
Easy as that!

Pic: A migratory bird on a silk cotton tree near my house.

Life...

Dusk gathers over the dense green treetops. Spring flowers are blooming in the garden, once in a while mild fragrance of sweet peas and mary golds travels lightly on evening breeze. Moments trickle, sometimes I feel that after childhood, when time seems to crawl at an easy pace, life is like that sublimation in chemistry lab. One day and then one year flits by and you are gathering the strands, children, buying for the house that feels like a bottomless pit and some rare silent moments.
What is it about being adults that steals away the joy and excitement of living each morning, noon and night like a child does. I remember as a kid I had this friend Sapna, she and I were so happy together that our parents had a difficult time taking us to home after a get together. What did we do? We roamed the vast wild fields fingers entwined and mostly were in a dream land of our making. A building under construction would transform into the most intriguing place. The drums with white lime would become boiling milk as we stirred them and poured more water to see the foam rising due to the reaction. We tried to avoid her brother who would tail us relentlessly and howl complaints to our parents. In scorching heat of summer, we would look for broken pieces of glass to make a funny watch, dunno why we called it a watch as it was just bits of colourful shards beneath glass. We would move our fingers till a round space cleared and we could see bits of coloured stuff. These were the most joyous moments. She and I would lie in the noons reading comics and I adored her for a special habit, she would endlessly comb my hair with her fingers. Amazingly that bond of affection is still there and no matter how long we have not spoken to each other, when we talk it is like continuation of that sheer joy of playing together, just doing nothing special but being in that moment. At one point we even took a silly vow of marrying, it was dusk and the sun dipped beneath the green running track. The sky was peach and we were so stirred with our friendship that we took vows to be together, seeking sun to be the witness! Now I laugh at our sincerity while we imitated adults, but it was pure joy in all its splendor. I will call her now to remind her of those silly vows. Hope that innocence visits me and you again with all its pure bliss and beauty.

Thoughts

Warm spring breeze caressing the blossoms. There are days when the heart's soil is so numb. Why we live and why we die, no one knows. Funny how so many elements get together to create a collective 'me' and this me goes through the ferocious storms raging in mind and soul.
What do I want with my life? Reading Gandhi has led to a realisation that life is just not about self. There is little time years have gone by without sharing and now time is ripe to start giving away. If this body is given the grace to live and enjoy, it better spent itself in giving and making a difference every day, as a start and every hour when one reaches that plane.

Today, as I was heading to IIT, at a crossing I saw some eunuchs begging, I gave some change but was about to ask her why she was begging when her limbs were alright, I dropped the idea.

Like a flower is placed on the feet of an idol, I bow this head and place it on creator's feet. Lead me to do what I was meant to do here on Earth. If the wisdom is lost, lead me to the light.

Salt

Salt in my heart grits the delicate beats
The ocean evaporated and salt remains Finished reading this book and it ends with the assassination of Gandhi. Feeble after the fast, he would still spin cotton on his wheel as he believed that ' bread taken without labour is stolen bread'. Reading this book that is as much about Gandhi as India's independence, I realised that he was a man who grasped the truth when he saw it. Once while boarding Johannesburg-Durban train an English friend gave him John Ruskin's 'Unto This Last', Gandhi read this book all night and made a vow, he would give away all his possessions. According to Ruskin riches were a tool to secure power over men. A labourer served the society as much as a Doctor or a Lawyer and the life of labour, of tilling the soil was worth living. Gandhi was doing very well as a lawyer those days with an income of 5000 pounds a year. This thought process had begun in his mind since the past two years. He would do his own laundry, cut his own hair, clean his toilet and had delivered his last child. He settled his family in a farm with few friends and Gandhi's life took on a pattern that would rule it until the death. A renunciation of material possessions and striving to satisfy human needs in the simplest manner, coupled with communal existence in which all labour was equally valued. He also took the vow of sexual continence, this had been nagging issue since he had questioned his indulgence in carnal pleasures as his father lay on the death bed. It is this force of truth that gave him such power over the Indian masses. During his fasts he subsisted on lukewarm water and bicarbonate of soda and as the life would ebb out, the masses would give up violence and gather around him and promise to be brothers. He loved with his heart every human and it seems he had risen much above the divisions of cast, religion and colour. Seems he had reached beyond the individual to the collective, where all living entities are merely extensions of a whole. I will be reading more on this great man and share it with all. Working on reuse, reduce, recycle, we got a blender jar for a very old mixer that husband had bought when he was eighteen. Amazingly we got a new jar that fits perfectly. This brings me to rural areas, it is just the Indian cities that are now into the Western mode of use and throw. The moment you move to the suburbs and villages, you see old plastic buckets stitched up, innovative use of things like plastic bags and another sore sight, mountains of non degradable plastic that cities consume and dump in landfills that pollute the suburbs and little towns beyond. Reading Gandhi, one thing is clear, the things he believed in would have led to a world where everyone was happy, not a fistful of rich people like today, who sadly lead a life that is happy(Is drug, indiscriminate sex and corruption happy?). Still, the illusion is being heaped with such deadly skill by equally corrupt media. Percolating from those strata to those who look up to this fancy world, not knowing that the woman who they want to emulate sleeps when drugged or the man who looks so suave racing his ferrari has a heart bathed in guilt, how he cheated the investors and is now cheating himself with this pretty toy. Falsehood upon falsehood and now they say its recession, the crooks think they are smart but the creator is smarter, unless we do not accept the balance, there might be passing moments of gratification but no real peace. Dunno just putting down what is going on in my mind right now. On a lighter note, have discovered rare pleasure in licking the plates with solidified jaggery. Why do we eat as we think humans should? As children I am sure all of us have licked milk as a kitten does or ran with bread just as a dog snatches and runs away with the prize! Dunno again but I love to smell my kids and act like a mamma cat or mamma dog frolicking with its litter. Am I a bit off centre or everybody does it? I even love to bark and tug at their clothes and lick their arms and hands. Maybe I was a dog in my previous birth, was a piled piper of dogs as a kid! Enough of this peace to all... Pic: A simple kitchen in a Himalayan village, the floor is pasted with cow dung and mud(it's scientifically proven, cow dung is anti septic). Thankfully such simplicity is every where except cities of India.