Nine Million Bicycles in Beijing

Waiting for your friends to wake up, in a cozy upstairs apartment in Brussels filling up with beautiful summer morning light, you go through a heap of cards stuck on a board above the computer table. You realize they are birth and death announcements. Each one so exquisitely and imaginatively designed.

The death announcements move you by their sheer lyricism. A photo on one side, a poem below or on the opposite page. You read the ones that are in English and Flemish. What a beautiful way to keep a loved one's memory alive - a card gifted to everyone who comes for the funeral, or mailed to everyone who knew them. With poetry on it. Celebrating who they were, and the love we have for them.

The collector of poetry that you are, you wonder - which poem would go best with each of the people you love? And what would go with you?

A woman passes away. A little girl is born. Time passes. The wheel turns. And through it all runs Love, our love that even the gods envy.

You remember how in the mythologies and folk tales across the world, there are gods and celestial beings who have chosen to come down to live a human life with all its struggles and pain, just to experience love. There is no equivalent of it up there. Heaven is right here.

There are nine million bicycles in Beijing
that's a fact
it's a thing we can't deny
like the fact that I will love you 'til I die

Katie Melua

Teach me to dance. Will you?

At the traffic signal, a man alights from a long-distance bus on the right side of your car, with a small bag in his hand. Freshly bathed, neatly oiled-down hair. Probably North Indian.

And then suddenly he starts doing this slow dance, turning round and round, shoulders high, arms in the air, as if to joyous festival music that only he can hear. Right in front of your car. Your driver and you stare at him in astonishment, spell-bound. He doesn't look drunk. But then what is happening? His small jig over, he bends down, touches the ground, and kisses his fingers.

And then walks away, a half-smile on his face.

He was just happy. Happy to be back, happy to have found love, success, whatever. And he was showing it.

This is exactly how you feel, every time you return to Bangalore.  But you don't dance on the road to show your happiness. Why not? His joy was so infectious. Every one of us watching this man anxiously ended up smiling from ear to ear. Our morning transformed.

You had forgotten Zorba the Greek, your old role model, your reminder to live life to the fullest, whatever befalls you. And then this stranger dances in front of your car, unabashedly showing his joy.

So much pain, so much fear, so much anger, all around.  Yet Zorba's answer to both delight and disaster, was always dance.

Zorba's Dance
The classic "Teach me to dance. Will you?" scene, after the failure of their catastrophic irrigation project.
3.28 mins 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6K7OC-IKnA

Gilbert, of course, said it best. 

"...We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world.

To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.

We must admit there will be music despite everything."

'A Brief for the Defense', Jack Gilbert

Photo from here. 

Zorba the Greek: The book, and the movie.

8. And the light comes and goes...

After weeks of increasing summer sunlight and dryness and silver silk cotton floating in the wind all around you, today there is a stillness, and a coming and going of the light. The monsoon will soon be upon us. There is something in the air that spells change, or rather a readiness for it. 

The babies seem to have all left their nests. The barbets are rarely seen or heard. There is less activity on the trees around, except for the kites that seem to dominate the silk cotton tree. They are the guardians of this huge fortress. And oh, do they look it, these majestic creatures.

There are huge bee hives everywhere, especially on the silk cotton trees in the park. Is there a season for bees too? On one Sunday you see a bit of a hive lying on the cement platform. Its intricate perfection holds you spell-bound. To think that without these small beautiful creatures, plants will not be pollinated, and we would have no food to eat.

Last Sunday, a mother and child stop to observe a man who's going around the small banni tree to worship it. The child is curious. The man tells her it is a sacred tree and he is praying to it. She walks around it too, following him, hands folded. As they leave, the mother asks, don't you know the story of this tree? And she says No. "I'll tell you on the way back", she says and they walk away slowly, hand in hand, an intimacy you are privileged to trespass upon.

Today you see an old man holding the banni tree close and pressing his cheek against it. Which is exactly what you do with the silk cotton tree, every time. Two trees, one sacred for everyone else, the other for you.

And as the light comes in in waves and disappears, as you lie down under the tree and watch it, you remember the 35-year-old Siddhartha meditating under the Bodhi tree for 49 days, to discover the source of all pain. 

"According to Buddhist texts the Buddha, after his Enlightenment, spent a whole week in front of the tree, standing with unblinking eyes, gazing at it with gratitude."

You can imagine why.

And you remember Pico Iyer:

"...The Gospels, revealingly, tell us little of Jesus' spiritual formation and concentrate mostly on his words and actions. The Buddha story, by comparison, places most of its emphasis on how Siddhartha came to enlightenment - the process (which anyone can follow, even today, in principle) - while the particular details of his subsequent teachings and wanderings are often barely mentioned.

Even non-Christians may know some of Jesus' words, while typical Buddhists may know hardly any of Buddha's specific discourses. Buddha is a precedent more than a prophet; and where Jesus came to earth as the way, the truth, and the life, the Buddha came to suggest that the way is up to us, the 'truth' is often impermanent, and the light comes and goes, comes and goes, until we have found something changeless within."

Pico Iyer, 'The Open Road - The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama'

And then you see this little squirrel picking up the laddu pieces one of the banni tree devotees have left at its base, and eating it from its small hands. Its prayer, its very life. 

The full series here: http://whiletheworldisgoingplaces.blogspot.in/search/label/Notes_from_a_Ritual

Brass Band Happiness!

Had an hour of Pure Joy this morning listening to a military brass band play at the Bandstand in Cubbon park. I saw them walking down in their beautiful military uniforms, and ran to the bandstand - trees, squirrels, kites, everybody forgotten. :)  Sat on the stage, literally at their feet, next to the speakers, and smiled for one hour straight. :)

I am crazy about brass bands, not sure why, they just get me. They are the Pied Pipers I could follow into doom. The big booming drum especially.

They indulged me, played my requests for old Hindi songs, though they were out of practice. Thrilled me to bits.(Here they are, playing Chaudhvi Ka Chaand for me)

At the end when they played Saare Jahaan Se Acha, I jumped up and stood to attention. And from the corner of my eye, I notice that the audience sitting on chairs behind me, and the people on benches around the circle, all standing up one by one.

In the early morning sunlight, amidst a sea of green, a circle of people standing up for the nation, with a shining brass band in the center. My quota of happiness must surely be over.

Before leaving, a couple of the band members shyly came up to me to thank me, smiling. All of us could do with such absolute devotion once in a while, I guess. :)

Afterwards walked around in the park for a while, just to get myself to stop grinning like an idiot and put on a sober face to face the world. And then I see this little boy riding like the wind along the rain tree boulevard because Sundays are traffic-free in the park and the entire world belongs to him now and he is wild and free and happiness is all he knows.

I didn't see the point of a sober face after that. :)

Album: https://photos.google.com/u/0/album/AF1QipPqGtnyPy4Yo9wspcu06H2VwaHkvHMdtzRAhYk

7. To be porous, opened

 

16 May 2015

The park looks different today, as you enter from the rain tree avenue. The grass has been trimmed, and the fallen leaves taken away for compost perhaps. The kites are shrill above the silk cotton tree, they are flying around in circles. You notice that strangely there is very little cotton under the tree today, though it had just begun to fall last week. The unseasonal rains have probably played havoc with the summer cycle of the tree.

Right next to the silk cotton is this small tree that people worship, probably the sacred Banni tree. There is always a garland of flowers around its trunk, arranged inside a string someone has tied. People walk around it as if around a temple, hands folded in prayer. Someone or the other keeps adding new flowers. It is amazing that circumambulation is a ritual that cuts across all religions. Did we learn it from the earth, the sun, this going around, this centering ritual of wonder and worship?

There are more mosquitoes today, and you have forgotten the repellant, darn. You need to keep moving around, if you want to stay un-bitten. :) The barbet is very active, going inside its hollow frequently, and the calls are loud, there are others on neighbouring trees. The kites are seated at their favourite perches up there, the squirrels running around as usual, as if their tails are on fire. :)

You discover a new bird today, which you earlier thought was the sun bird. It is small, has gray and black stripes, and its chirping is lovely, lilting, joyful. You follow its path from tree to tree and then you notice that it goes into a hollow in the Copper Pod today. The same one where the mynhas and the squirrels live. Such an ordinary-looking tree that no one gives a second glance to, perhaps you alone know that so many birds and animals live inside it, it is a universe by itself. You manage to get a shaky picture, and a bird-watcher friend identifies it for you, the Cinereous tit, Parus cinereous.

The small and the big, the tiny fragile bird and the powerful raptor, all living around a single tree, in perfect harmony.

You notice a mynah bird walking around in the grass. And twice it comes very close to you, without fear. It picks up insects fairly close to your feet. You are so moved. This is the trust you were hoping for.

Your favourite saint has always been St. Francis of Assissi, the patron saint of animals. If anything makes you feel honoured, it is the trust of animals and birds, a trust you usually win easily. They know you without words. With them, you just have to be.

Happiness
Jane Hirshfield

I think it was from the animals
that St.Francis learned
it is possible to cast yourself
on the earth's good mercy and live.

From the wolf who cast off
the deep fierceness of her first heart
and crept into the circle of sunlight
wagging her newly-shy tail
in full wariness and wolf-hunger,
and was fed, and lived;

From the birds
who came fearless to him until he
had no choice but return that courage.

Even the least amoeba touched on all sides
by the opulent Other, even the baleened
plankton fully immersed in  their fate -

For what else might happiness be
than to be porous, opened, rinsed through
by the beings and things?

Nor could he forget those other companions,
the shifting, ethereal, shapeless:
Hopelessness, Desperateness, Loneliness,
even the fire-tongued Anger -

For they too waited with the patient Lion,
the glossy Rooster, the drowsy Mule, to step
out of the trees' protection and come in.

Page 45, 'The October Palace'

The full series here: http://whiletheworldisgoingplaces.blogspot.in/search/label/Notes_from_a_Ritual

6. Skin

10 May 2015

Of late you have been observing how the bark of each tree is so different. The striations, the texture, the design, the various methods of protection. The feel of them against your cheek. How they look dry, dead, tough, but hold so much life inside them - ever-growing, ever-changing life.

Skin. How it envelops everything we are. How we hope it will protect us. How we say we have no skin, when we feel vulnerable. How on our stronger days, we are tough-skinned, and nothing can hurt us.

How the skin shields us, but at the same time is also our biggest means of contact, connection. How we crave touch, its reassurance that we are real, we exist. How suicides experience un-real-ness in their increasing isolation. How babies that haven't been held enough never recover from the feeling of un-wanted-ness, all their lives.

And how we struggle to get the balance right, of openness and safety.

Trees

To be a giant and keep quiet about it,
To stay in one's own place;
To stand for the constant presence of process
And always to seem the same;

To be steady as a rock and always trembling,
Having the hard appearance of death
With the soft, fluent nature of growth,

One's Being deceptively armored,
One's Becoming deceptively vulnerable...

Howard Nemerov
 
Today when you approach the silk cotton tree, the first thing you notice is that there's cotton on the ground! And small tufts of fluffiness floating down from far up above, passing through shafts of morning light. You imagine the bird and squirrel nests lined with silk.

The kites are fairly quiet today. Though you follow the one with the twig and discover the second nest. You notice how they never come directly to the nest, but fly out in a graceful arc, return, sometimes to another tree, and then finally to the nest. Their guard is never down.

The barbet is busy, going in and out of its tree hollow. You wonder whether there are babies inside, or whether it is still building its nest. It is amazing how it goes into the small hollow with its head first and then flies out again - the hollow must be big inside for it to turn around so easily.

The kites are being chases by the crows. You wonder why.

There are mosquitoes now, you never noticed them before. You must remember to bring mosquito repellent, if you want to watch birds and squirrels. :) You must be still and merge with the background of their small beautiful world. And hope to be blessed by their approach, the reciprocity of trust.

The full series here: http://whiletheworldisgoingplaces.blogspot.in/search/label/Notes_from_a_Ritual

5. The end of all our exploring

3 May 2015

All these unseasonal evening showers have resulted in a burst of green on the park floor, new life germinating all over. Today you notice that the tamarind trees are arrayed in their tiny pale green new leaves, one of your most favourite sights. And under them, the seeds have started to sprout into small tree-lings.

The green barbet's kutur kutur call has been very prominent of late, you have been noticing it on your morning walks. The park is also full of them. Very difficult to see these birds that merge with the foliage and move around quickly, but their loud call is unmistakable.

The path to the silk cotton tree is now lush green, the grass has grown.

The first thing you notice when you arrive at the tree is that the foliage is much thicker. You cannot see the new kite nest being built. But there are more kites today, more twigs being collected. New nests are probably being made up there, you struggle to see through the leaves.

And then you notice a barbet going inside a hole in the tree on the side, its nest. And a parakeet going into another tree on the left. And while walking down to look at the parakeet, you notice a mynah nest!

The birds have a home only during the breeding season, and then they abandon them. Unlike us, for whom home arouses strong emotion, whether home be a place, a person, or a state of mind. Millions are forced to leave their homes and their countries every year fleeing war, torture, poverty. So many die on the way, like those on the many overloaded boats that so often sink in the Mediterranean. Others try to recreate home in a new place where they have no history, no known smells, sounds, tastes. Our nest, a basic need, our only sanctuary amidst change, flux, impermanence, all that characterizes our emotional and social lives.

The squirrels are up and about as always, in constant movement, preening their fluffy tails in the sun, jumping across the grass in that funny way, sending high-pitched signals to their mates. There is no joy like the joy squirrels bring you. You are very reluctant to go home. You want to stay here all day, with all this life milling around you, these tiny creatures with whom you belong. You do not ever remember feeling alone under the silk cotton tree.

You were always known for your love of travel, your eagerness to discover new places. You were the official organizer of trips, the guide for people who wanted to explore. All that has stopped. You have been discovering the city you have lived in for twenty three years, all over again. Noticing things you never noticed earlier. Seeing, like you never saw before.

There are calluses on your knees for having knelt down in gratitude, again and again.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T.S.Eliot, 'Little Gidding'

The full series here: http://whiletheworldisgoingplaces.blogspot.in/search/label/Notes_from_a_Ritual