Strips of thoughts

Cold has wilted the chrysanthemums, I walked on the cold stone pavement where beneath the neem tree a puppy scampered to its mother, who licked his scruffy fur. They both followed me for a few steps. Cold gathers like shroud these days, stealing the warmth, there are children at the crossings selling useless pens and pencils or begging for anything while their mothers warm their hands and bodies near the wood fire. I watch a young boy part with a biscuit pack as he watches an old man digging in this freezing cold and the gall of bitterness leaves me, there is hope and love still there in world and kindness. Now I do not have full bodied thoughts, actually I do have thoughts but no time to fix them on this space, so I make do with these strips snipped here and there as I glaze through the texture of the day.

Stray puppy...

As I an Jayani were walking to National museum of art to see the much talked about Anish Kapoor exhibition, we saw a tiny puppy whimpering in the bushes. We tried to hold him as there was fast moving traffic where he was heading. The puppy would roll on its back and with its paws in the air, he whimpered louder. A man passing by helped us hold him and we brought him home. Jayani fed him some milk and bread and placed him in a card board box. He had a wound on his shin. The three kittens that move in and out of our house got really curious and when I tried to show him the puppy, he scratched my finger.
In the evening I looked for his mother in the servant quarters and around the strech of road where we had found him to no avail. Had to bring him back,as we can't keep him inside, Jayani and I swaddled it in rags and placed the box near the hedge. I hope he is warm and not hungry. I have placed milk and bred and biscuit next to the small box, there are three boxes that I have placed one inside the other. I feel sad when I see these innocent creatures abandoned. Am always amazed by their resilience and their beauty. God creates the simplest of creatures with so much grace and life.

Life and how it escapes comprehension...

Just as I walk to work, I come across people and situations that make me reflect. Mostly I end up enmeshed in web of thoughts, I trip over many times and yet most of the things don't make sense. I walk past a leper begging on the street, crossing the underbridge people shrink as the buses and cars splash the drain water that collects on this road.yet, life goes on, no one makes a noise about how filthy this is, why people who are paid to do the repairs don't do it! A girl bangs her head on a hoarding placed at five feet on the pavement.She walks quietly and I see that there is no bleeding so I walk ahead quietly.A woman I her has bled to death durring miscarriage of her fifth pregnancy, she had four kids already, a muslim woman she probably could not say no to another one.
Sun rays climb tree tops, that's beautiful, sun rays get stained in the massive sewage water traveling to out skirts of city, that is ugly. Every single thing that sees human interference turns ugly.

These days I am reading a book, 'Shantaram'.This book is about a fugitive and I have read just a few pages where he is in Bombay, getting acquainted to the underworld, drug mafia and call girls. This man was a writer in Australia before his marriage broke and he lost custody of his children and turn to drugs and crime. To see Bombay through his eyes is interesting, but the things that amaze him, amaze me too. He talks of visiting a slum where he watched children brought from drought stricken places, these kids are sold to Arabs who make them race the camels, when these races happen many children die as they are trampled by camels, many girls are sold into prostitution. All over India children are sold by the parents for peanuts in these disaster struck areas and brought to this city. Reading this I sensed why I have never liked this commercial capital, something very mean and inhuman about this place.

It is when I meditate that I am able to leave these behind and move into a plane that has no impurity and strained existence. I dream that I am meditating and am surrounded by green mountains, peaceful and spiritual. The sound is the sound of falling water and mountain birds, the fragrance weaves delicate carpets over wild flowers. Seems my soul belongs to another plane and body is at another plane.
I often console myself of positive things that come through living in a society,raising happy children, security, progress, but when we look deep enough the corruptions of life corrode away the seed that comes with each soul. Very few like Gandhi managed to carry that seed and sow it to heal others, most can't get past the firs few gusts of decay and greed.


Black blue sky
A gray heart
black blood
and green bones
decay froths
rusted time
In this contaminated pool
A lotus blooms inhaling fetid steam
Exhaling fragrant breath
Defeating human labour
to convert all living to dead...

Pic: My morning walk haul, loved this tree against morning light...

Wanderings...

Long ago I had visited a home in a small town nestled in Himalayas. In the household there was an invalid man, his second wife(as first had died a painful death through burns and it was rumored that it was a dowry death, which in India means that a bride is abused and tortured and sometimes she accidentally burns in the kitchen while cooking! It is easy to prove that she died while cooking and was not burnt to death by an angry husband or a malicious in law), a teen aged girl( is daughter) and her younger brother living with their spinster aunt. Even when they extended a warm welcome with the wife and her sister-in-law slaving in the kitchen( wife being ordered around by the much married looking sister-in-law, why is it so with spinsters that they look more married than married women?), dark with soot, whipping up delicious food.

The projected happy family just didn't hold as there was a lingering shadow of frustrations, pain and anger. The son would sing melodious songs as we had tea in an over decorated living room with wife's embroidered table clothes and daughter's paintings made during the class tenth summer holiday at the local art teacher's coaching class. The man was all politeness and manners so much so that it failed to convince! Something about that sad little home was quiet bitter and quiet hidden. The wife had wrinkles on her weather beaten face, weathering that age and surviving suspended without security and love brings about. The smiles were stretched too far, brittle almost to the breaking point, it is easy to read the story that faces tell, just have to look a bit longer and deeper.

The wife, completely over run by her sister-in-law, most probably hailed from an economically weaker background. Children had the same pale aura of being repressed. When a mother is suppressed and smothered, children draw from this state and with the blossoming of their youth there is a wilting of spirit that is unmistakable. Was it this interference of a controlling spinster that lingered so heavily everywhere, in the kitchen, in tiny bedrooms and the kitchen garden with a parrot caged near guava tree, or was it the silent suffering of a woman who died by fire that hovered over this house that was painstakingly projected as a happy house but peace evaded it like water on lotus leaf. Now, the daughter is happily married and the house hold that I have not visited for a while might be a little lighter with children free of the silent agony.

Yesterday,I took Jayani to two drawing competitions. She is wonderful with colours and paints. The work she does is quiet matured for her age and I have appreciated her always. When she did not win any prize yesterday, she was disappointed. What she did was paint by imagination. At one place she painted the usual mountains, setting sun and trees, at the other she made a huge flower that she often makes at home with multi coloured petals. The flower she erased as she was impatient with colouring the whole thing and made stringy creepers at four corners. She was disheartened that she did not get any prize for this. I told him that she had not done the flower with care as she was impatient, she did not take criticism well as she was saying again and again that mamma did not like my painting.

I had a delicate balancing to do here, I know her potential is immense yet she does not like practicing and it is this I wanted to instill through this experience. I gave her an old letter of my brother where he had sketched a mouse with a bag that is spilling grains on path. He used to write these stories for my son in his engineering days and send them. Son had mastered drawing this mouse and would get prizes for this. She tells me why did you not tell that I had to practice a thing for a competition, I said it's not late, you have to learn to practice all things as human mind is made that way that if you do not practice, you forget! She seems to have understood this and the visit to the art competitions was not a waste. At these moments I often doubt myself. I thought about the praise I shower her with when she comes up with those beautifully executed works, she is a natural, sometimes such talent cant 'perform' on demand, but as a child it means a lot to hger to 'win' I do not want to take that joy away from her, so I gave her the clue to winning such competitions where children draw what they have practiced and perfected at home. Hope I am not wrong and her natural talent is not disturbed but enhanced with the practice and discipline...


Cold sunshine drips down the window
Inhale the white flower and the wild rose

Birds nest, bees roam
My heart too wanders, sun-dappled lanes of memory..

Dusty, damp, dark streets, sun filters in
Turning dust to gold, a solitary tear to ice...

Jayani rubbing nose with her fave kitty

A strange poem...

I fall sharply
Cutting the sky beneath cliff
You catch me by your lips
My name
Hangs there sandwiched
between the fall and impact...


Sharp wind lifted my hair just above my brown jacket as I jogged on gritty red sand. I jogged to run past an older woman, walking faster than me. A forced thing to confirm my younger age. Jogging I crossed her many times till she would briskly walk past me when I resumed walking. The bliss of gentle fog laden morning changed into the compulsion to compete. My eyes grazed the yellow and orange marigolds lined by the road and suddenly I could disengage from this forced thing of running ahead of her. Was thinking, isn't is same in all the things. We always have a choice from things that engulf us like the pseudopodia of an amoeba, we always have a choice of taking our thoughts and attention to things that blossoms into some thing beautiful. I picked up my old hobby again today and it is such a divine feeling, of joy, peace and contentment of creation. Here is the painting that I have been busy with today. Another older one that I had painted when Jayani was a new born.

Facebook update: I even wrote a blog on that yesterday but then I had disengaged my self through nature-taking in the bright yellow beauty of marigolds, when we stood side by side waiting for lights to tun green, I complimented her on her stamina and she complimented me on my running, saying I can't run now. We shook hands and told our names. Morning frustrations of watching her walk past me changed into a possibility of a new friendship!

Morning...

Got up at four and the good thing about getting up so early is you are filled with bright energy all day. Meditated for a while and burned some incense and camphor as my throat felt hoarse. I hurry to the kitchen then, start the water for tea and warm up the milk on the stove. I have kicked out the microwave as it was becoming the favourite haunt of tiny cockroaches. Can't spray insecticide in there, can I? Eggs for boiling replace the tea and I make a crisp 'parantha' with folded dough and bishops seeds and a bit of salt, I smear it with honey for son and float some chocos for daughter, both have different breakfasts. Next, I slice the buns and put jam for one and butter for the other and place them in their lunch boxes, this is less elaborate than some things I send and which are brought back untouched, so this! I place these on a tray with two glasses of water and try to wake them up. they dig still deeper into the blankets, I bring my boiled egg and tea to the bed to keep at the constant song of 'get up Jayu, get up Animesh, it's your work not mine to get ready', to no avail. Then I read the clock to them, it's six fifteen, now you will miss the bus, no effect. I zip to start the geyser for hot water and bring in their uniforms, socks, underwear and spread them on bed. Again, the same song, get up, you will miss the bus, I think they dream of missing the bus. I manage to make Jayu sit up and place the water glass near her lips, she sips a little and opens an eye. I spoon chocos and then the eggs and place the tooth brush with paste in her hand. Next, I give her a bath and ask her to dress and smear some cream, she obliges. Meanwhile son has arrived to have his break fast and whines about everything. I write a note in Jayai's diary about the money she has to carry for buying crayons and then com her hair. We rush out with the belt in hand...

Sun Worship

Worship of sun in Aryan vedic rites always felt like an ancient ritual to please the elements. Looking deeper, it seems that at some subtle level all the energy and matter work very closely (every living thing has derived energy from solar energy) so at some level gross expression of respect and gratitude is a form of communication.

A flower that I had floated in a crystal bowl draws its petals inwards in the night even when it is not attached to the plant and is away from sunlight. How come the cells of this flower detect the sunset? What is the necessity in a plucked cosmos to draw its petals at night? Maybe cells of our body, with the proven fact that each cell has memory and gray matter, communicate with the source of energy. It is just a thought that consciously aligning our mind and spirit to this subtle communication , brings us into balance and harmony with nature and elements. Maybe this was the reason that all the ancient religions had rituals where they revered the nature. Have also observed that when we communicate the need to be healed to nature, it is herd by some intelligence and works out somehow. When I venture out in sun, I sens its rays and feel that they cleanse all negativity, it seems we should not fear elements but know that they are an integral part of our being, this way the elements work to keep us disease free and young. Dunno, came to me as I was watching sunlight bath treetops in mellow pale glow.