Uttaraayan

The dry leaves have been falling, all over the city, lining the roads, lazily swirling down on you like “snow”. You know what this means. Our brief Spring, and our Summer, are not far behind. The winter will be over in the blink of an eye, its last fog-filled mornings making you shiver.

The trees must know. They must have known since a while. The bare branches will soon stand out in all their glory, letting us see, for once, the water-like flow of their reaching out. The season of the beautiful shadows on the tarred roads, the ones we drive over, will be with us soon. To be a tree, to be beautiful in all seasons. In gain, and in loss.

The tabebuia trees must already feel their impending blossoms stir deep within them. The sap slowly rising to their finger-tips, to burst into a jubilant yellow inflorescence. Yellow, which is the colour of all our Februaries.

Utttaraayan (from the Sanskrit "Uttara" (North) and "aayana" (movement towards)), the six-month period following the winter solstice in December, when the sun starts its journey into the Northern hemisphere, is finally making itself felt. The dry leaves are the first sign. And then the hotter days.

Today is the harvest festival of Makara Sankranti, the day the Sun moves into the house of Capricorn. The official ending of Winter, the beginning of our brief Spring. A time of transition, an auspicious time. The sugarcane, which was in full silver bloom last month, has been harvested, and is lining our city markets and roadsides, all ready for the festival. Auspicious, its sweet freshness jolting us from our winter torpor. Thousands of brilliantly-coloured kites will rise up to the Sun today, celebrating his slow march to his full glory. Intricate kolams brighten up the drab footpaths in front of houses.

And it is the beginning of the Heat. Which many will complain about, but not you. For those of us Sun-worshippers, this is when we wait for our King to ride in, in his blazing chariot, blinding us at the height of his brilliance. He will teach us what it is to burn, burn, burn, what it is to be alive, open, seared to the bone with the honesty we finally allow ourselves, after we discard the protective cloaks of our vulnerable winter selves. He is not the preferred deity of the weak, the fragile, the ones who seek comfort and ease, the ones who shrink from the cleansing through fire. Few will make it to his altar.

While the traffic whizzes past all around you, indifferent, oblivious to this celestial transition, you align yourself to the caravan of the Sun. You will take his gifts, and his blows, the sweet, with the bitter. And you will wait for the yellow of the flowers, that will replace the yellow of these dry leaves. For everything, a season.

Rain trees in January: https://picasaweb.google.com/106491954401233999557/LookUp

Kolam Album: https://goo.gl/photos/nYQr3vugBrDFuxje6 

Uttaraayan Abum: https://goo.gl/photos/V3BuQRY7e1ZS3Dew6

Aavaaz Do!

Haruki Murakami, the well-known Japanese novelist, in his speech about the creation of nuclear plants in an earthquake-prone country, and the inability of the government to enforce strict regulations, talks about the importance of rightful anger. "I don’t know why Japanese people rarely get angry. They are good at being patient but aren’t very good at getting angry."

Anger.

Those of us "Shiva-worshippers", who routinely turn Anger into Energy, know something about it. It is easy for us to understand that if there is an outrage for which protest has to be Visibly Registered, to begin with, you go stand at street corners, with placards and candles, shout out Aavaaz Do! (Speak Up!) with the crowd - because not being Present, failing roll-call, is failing to help with the ultimate tangible Tipping Point of all Change - Public Protest, Physical, Real, Powerful.

We didn't need an Egypt to prove that physical public protest works. There once used to be a Man amongst us who got up and said, Follow me, we will walk together, without weapons, our sheer strength will be the Message. He proved (and how!) that non-violent protest works - remember?

Your deepest regret, that you weren't born at that time, that you were not around to leave everything and follow him, to join in the quiet assertion of what it means to be Human, to claim Freedom.

A life of Cowardice, Indifference, is but Death, known in advance.

Today, while protesting an outrage that only brought to light the deep-seated fault-lines of a disturbed society in turbulent transition, ironically standing next to the statue of a brave queen of yester-years, you remember Murakami.

Rightful Anger. There isn't enough of it - out there, on the streets, where it counts.

So what have you learned, through all these years of standing at protests?

Standing with strangers, whose words you repeated, you finally understood the essence of all those philosophy books from all over the world - that we are all Connected, that the same Life Force runs through us all, that the height of Evolution is finally understanding that there are no Walls.

What happens to Another, happens to You - You, as in not just the lone physical body you inhabit, but the Collective Soul whose existence, until then, was too esoteric for you to comprehend. That, if you fail to speak up for Another, you fail to speak up for Yourself.

Standing there, amongst strangers, you saw that Activism is Philosophy in action. Lighting your candle from the person next to you, you redefined the word "Stranger". You learned that every little step counts, that every positive action transforms you - and you, are Society.

"Aavaaz Do! Hum Ek Hai!" (Speak Up! We are One!)


Brother

On a bright sunny morning in the mountains, when you walk under the trellis of a bountilful harvest of bitter-gourd, you feel you have walked into a house of light. The golden rays trickling in through the thick foliage of leaves above you, lighting up the wavy ridges of the bitter-gourd, the glow that permeates this safe space, the arms of gold and green within which you are enfolded. Where no harm can possibly come to you.

You were on a most unusual walk that day, in the Nilgiri mountains. You'd gone to visit an old friend who belonged to an organization that works for the ancient tribes of those mountains. You do not remember why and how the walk was planned, but she said let's go to my friend's house in the coffee estate tomorrow, she’s left the key. And so the next day morning we find ourselves setting out on the winding forest paths, my friend Anita, François, a young Belgian doctor who was volunteering at the tribal hospital, and Manoharan, who worked at the NGO with my friend.

You notice the tremendous sense of ease you feel walking in a group that was mostly strangers. Conversation is easy, you are drawn into it as if they always knew you. Up and down the rolling hills you go, an easy chatter punctuated by comfortable silences. Manoharan has a million things to say, he is funny, he is bursting with stories, and recognizes a listener. You know that feeling. O Brother, you think, your heart melting.

In a valley you come across vegetable fields. You stop to admire them. And then you see the thick-leaf-covered trellis, with the bitter-gourds. You walk into this house of light and stand for a moment, transfixed. You have no words. It is like standing in the flow of grace streaming from heaven, the radiance. You feel this huge connection to the universe. 

Walking back up another hill, you pass a village, and stop to pack food. Kothu parottas, a snack you love. And then you enter the long winding roads into the coffee estates. At the old white estate house, Anita searches under a flower pot in front of the main door. Yes, the key is there, where the owners said they’d left it. You are amazed. You city-dweller, stranger to trust. The house is old, with old furniture, books, spaces of warmth and coziness. You sit in the verandah at the back and unpack the parottas, while François has us all in splits, pronouncing each punctuation with funny sounds, like this man.

Later on we go back into the house, and each of us settles down in a different room, reading, looking at things. You remember lying down on the cool red-oxide floor in an almost-dark room with old furniture, and falling into a deep sleep like you have not known in a very long time. When you wake up, you notice this huge happiness flowing through you in the absolute stillness, a happiness that had to do with space, and connectedness. And a feeling safe, like you’ve never felt, before or after. Silence, but somewhere in the house, the others, all kindred souls. It was enough.

For the second time, you feel like you are standing in radiance, in the path of grace, washed over by it. You remember thinking, you can never be this happy again, your quota of happiness is over.

Later on, you get up, you have more conversations, you walk to the stream full of rocks and gurgling, you watch a Malabar squirrel. And then you return, the long walk home. Manoharan continues his stories. He had planned to go back home, but at the last moment he changes his mind. “I’ll have dinner with you, since you’re leaving tonight”.

We have dinner at Anita’s place, delicious food, as always. Later, you start your return journey. Replete. You’ve never had a completely perfect day in your entire life until then. You just had one. A day when you possessed no one or nothing, but you stood in the stream of life, you belonged. 

Manoharan sends you the newsletters of their NGO for a long time afterwards, with small notes written in all the margins, like he couldn’t just finish telling all he had to say, he was bursting with stories, overflowing, he could not be contained. You understood. You know that feeling. You who are known for your long silences now.

 Last month, you learn that Manoharan passed away of cancer this February. And that he used to ask about you. Manoharan, whose sense of humour stayed with him through it all, who kept up the spirits of others throughout the ordeal. “He made such fun of his cancer and laughed his way till the end.” (http://readmusings.blogspot.in/2011/09/manoharan-monk.html)

A friend once tells you, with all the wisdom of youth, that he’s seen you happiest when you’ve had a friend to listen to your stories.

I hope you were done with telling all the most important ones, brother. 

Home

At 5 in the morning, the streets were deserted, at the Tibetan Refugee Camp. The four of you are up, wandering the lamp-lit streets, to be in time for the early morning ritual prayers they said happen at the main monastery. And from the darkness, this old monk in maroon robes walking into the light, to stop in front of you. Big warm smile. And he invites you home for tea. He says he’ll take you for the prayers, but "first have tea". The others hesitate, but you gravitate towards warmth, as you always do, and say Yes, we will. He is absolutely delighted, his soul flowing out to you, mingling in the mist with yours.

So we walk in the darkness from one yellow pool of light to the next, to arrive at his small house, set tightly among many others. We bend and go into the cluster of small rooms. In the semi-darkness, photos of the Dalai Lama everywhere. Old furniture, old vessels, old relics from Tibet. The Buddha and the Taras. The infinite beauty of Tibetan art, an abundance of colours. Old black-and-white family photos. Carpets. He brings in a huge flask full of tea, and pours it out in small old ceramic cups for you. All the while chattering away about his home in Tibet, the Dalai Lama. The majestic mountains. The snow. The prayer flags. The ancient monasteries. The colors.  His parents. The very air. Home, the most beautiful place on earth.

Then we go out again, with our self-appointed guide. As the dawn slowly breaks in thin orange slivers at the horizon, he takes us to the main monastery, opens doors only accessible to a few, takes us to rooms where the ancient musical instruments are kept, rooms where the Dalai Lama holds audience whenever he visits. And then from a balcony within the massive building, we see the huge hall below with hundreds of monks in maroon robes sitting in long lines facing each other, chanting their morning prayers. Goose bumps are probably the only befitting response.

Looking out of an upstairs window, he pauses, points to the acres of fields all around, on undulating hills, and tells you, “Beyond that, is India”. There is a silence. You who had not for a moment felt not-at-home, standing on soil you believe have every right to be on, your birthright. Which you have never imagined anyone will take away from you. A security you have never for a second questioned. You who otherwise never take anything for granted. You are struck dumb by the enormity of what you have, and what he doesn’t.

By now you have become his most eager listener, the only one who keeps pace with him. And he is talking non-stop, the stories flowing out of him like a dam suddenly opened, you are one river without boundaries now. The others are tiring of his non-stop chatter, in an accent difficult to follow, they lag behind. You know this want, this need to make your stories come alive in the narration. For everything that is uttered, at last, attains reality, it is no longer something you just imagined. You will not deny this kind stranger this joy, this comfort. You will not set conditions for this connection.

He takes you all around the refugee camp, the various temples, the shops, he wants you to experience the best of Tibetan culture. And when the sun is firmly up in the sky, he finally takes leave. You feel you have lost family you have found after years.

A few minutes after he says his goodbye and leaves, another monk stops us on the road. He asks if the old man was bothering us. We are puzzled. He says, “I’m sorry if he was bothering you, he does this to all strangers. He’s mentally imbalanced, he’s not well. He’s been in this camp since he was a young man, and had to flee Tibet, walking across the mountains for weeks. Ever since he’s realized he can never go back home again, he’s not been okay.”

It tears you up. You want to go down on your knees and cry. Home. A wish you can in no way help him fulfill. You cannot even just buy him a ticket, because that, you would’ve done instantly, wiping out all your savings if need be, without a second thought, to hell with reason. You are fighting against forces so powerful that can so mindlessly crush an innocent man’s desire to go see if his parents are still alive, or have been killed, whether their souls have departed without the necessary last rites of passage into the other world, unprepared for the bardo of Fear.

Madness, the only way out of that desire to go home. And a reaching out to people, who will listen to your stories, people who will help you recreate that space into being, people who will watch over you kindly while you trip over words, clearly not in control of yourself.

Many many years later, when you listen to the fiery young Tibetan activist, Tenzin Tsundue, at a film screening at Nani Cinématheque about a march to Tibet, you remember the old man walking around at the Refugee Centre, desperately seeking a kind ear who will watch over him while he re-builds his sand castle called Home.

Before the next wave washes it away. 

I was a Stranger, and You took Me in

"I will tell you a story that will make you believe in God", the old man tells the narrator, in the opening chapter of Yann Martel's novel, 'Life of Pi'.

Let me tell you a story that will make you believe in Kindness. Well, probably just for a short while, before the soot of skepticism settles down again :)

..........................................................................................

So my friend's cousin's 84-year-old father-in-law goes missing one fine morning, from their flat in Delhi. His wife had died a few weeks ago, and he'd gone into depression. They had not taken him for the cremation because the cemetery was far away, and he was unwell. He'd walked out with no money, and no sweater, in the freezing January cold. Searching, police complaints, media ads, nothing yielded any results. The son and daughter-in-law go to pieces, not knowing whether he was dead or alive, or suffering. The only clue they get is from the cemetery watchman who said that yes, an old lost-looking man with no sweater had come there a couple of days ago.

A few days later, an auto rickshaw driver finds the old man fallen down at a bus stop, dehydrated, frozen. He takes him to a hospital which gives him basic first aid, but refuses to keep patients "with no bystanders". The police arrives, and tries speaking to the old man. He has no idea who he is, where he is from, where he needs to go. After many futile attempts, the policeman tells the rickshaw driver (who waited all this while) to just drop him at the bus or railway station, he'll find his way back.

He cannot bring himself to do that. What if this had happened to my own father, he thinks, what would he do? So he takes the old man home. The auto driver stays in a slum, in a small room he shares with 4 other rickshaw drivers. He makes place for the old man, gives him a blanket, and a share of his own meagre meals, for the next 2 weeks. He tries speaking to him every day, but the old man spoke hardly any Hindi, and the rickshaw man does not know English. And anyways, the old man does not even remember his own name, he is lost in another world.

In the meanwhile, the young man moves heaven and hell, trying to find ways of finding the old man's relatives, but has no idea what to do. And then he asks this lady, who works in an IT company, one of his regular passengers, if she could come home and speak to the old man in English. She agrees. She spends a lot of time cross-questioning the old man - all he knows is that he used to live with his son and daughter-in-law, and that he has two grand-kids. She asks him their names. The old man suddenly remembers one of them, "Govind", he says. And then he remembers that they stay in Govind Apartments. That was it, he retreats into silence again.

The lady googles for Govind Apartments in Delhi, and finds so many of them - Delhi is a vast, sprawling metropolis where millions live. She makes a list of all the Govind Apartments in Delhi, with their addresses, and gives it to the rickshaw driver. And tells him that if he does not find the old man's family, she will put him at an old age home that she knows.

The young man does not want to give up easily. Every day, for a few hours, he takes the old man in his rickshaw, to one Govind apartment after the other, across the huge city, driving hundreds of kilometers up and down, and asks the Security guards at each gate, whether there was an old man missing from there.

After many days, he finally lands up at the correct apartment block. The Security guards immediately call his son. The old man is back home, though still disoriented, with hardly any recollection of the weeks that had gone by.

The overwhelmed son tries to pay or recompense the rickshaw driver for all the money, time and care he has so willingly spent on his father for 2 weeks. He does not accept even a penny. "If this was my father, would I not have done so much for him? Just because he's your father, not mine, should I do any less?" - was the simple logic that made this a most obvious thing for him. He could not imagine taking money for that.

He goes back to his slum, leaving behind a stunned family, forever marked by a kindness that cannot but transform the way they view the world.

………………………………………………………..

While millions sit in spirituality sessions, struggling to understand "Universal Soul", "Universal Consciousness", the "Spirit that links all Sentient Beings", our inter-connectedness is seen, and preserved, in the most unexpected of places, as the most obvious and ordinary thing.

I often think - every day, in the mad rush of our busy lives, we cross people who could’ve changed our lives, if only we could hear their stories, or see the lamps that light them from within.


* "I was a Stranger, and you took me in": from The Bible, Mathew 25:35

Live, while you wait for the end!

Old piece, but this is exactly how I feel about life, still! :)

............................................................................................

Once upon a time, a few days after the Gujarat earthquake (2001), the office building authorities got a call that an earthquake was predicted at 2 PM in the afternoon. So all of us employees were asked to vacate the 8 storey building and get out and go die elsewhere. I mean, they put it very nicely and all!

Then some of us thought Hey, what's the point in going home because home could also fall on our heads and we could die just as easily at Divyasree Chambers as in the comfort of home full of unwashed clothes and drying teacups. Wasn’t it better to be outside where buildings won’t fall on us? So we went around and collected more people who succumbed to our unbeatable logic – “If you really got to leave, leave laughing!” - [okay, okay, I am the office bully!] - we took the office cricket kit, Sajid and I went and bought tennis balls from the corner shop, and we went and sat in Richmond Park under a nice flowering bottle-brush tree, so nice we didn't mind it falling on our heads.

Then we played many many rounds of antakshari and dumb charades throughout the nice sunny warm afternoon with yellow Spring flowers all around, and we laughed and we laughed like crazy mongooses out on a school picnic. Once in a while someone lying on the grass would say, did I feel a vibration or what, but when there really is nothing to do [like can we make the fattest guy sit on it and keep the earth from shaking or what?], why panic we said, so we went back to playing and singing with a vengeance.

In between we called up our colleagues sitting petrified in front of their TVs waiting for the announcement to come [like football commentary - "There it is, the Earthquake slowly making its way to M.G Road, narrowly missing St.Marks' cathedral, swerving left towards Victoria statue.....and.. before you know it….it’s a GOAL!!'].

When the sun came down a bit, we went to the playground and had a fantastic cricket match, including me, who had never held a bat in my life before but managed to hit the ball once, and was so stunned that I stood there staring openmouthed in utter shock, until someone shouted Runnn!!!!!! I got 2 runs, and the game ended, because my fellow batter, star cricketer Abhishek, ran when he shouldn't have runned, and that was that!!!

After a really good game, at 6 o'clock, with no earthquake in sight, we walked down to the juice shop tired and happy and hungry, and had tons of sapota juice and watermelon juice, I still remember how good and satisfying that tasted. Then we all wished each other a safe earthquake-free evening and went back home with the memory of a fabulous afternoon in the sun.

Waiting rooms need not be filled with dread. They can become living rooms too if you fill them with some Good Strong Happy Living.

March 2006

The Offering of Food

For my dear friend Peter, on his birthday:

Old friend from university days. She comes to meet me during my visit to a far-away city for a wedding. She takes a taxi and travels 2 hours up and 2 hours down with a fidgety son, to just spend half an hour with me, before I go away. And before leaving, she gives me two jars full of the ripe mango curry she made especially for me. She remembered that I loved it so much when I visited her place - and that was 16 years ago.......

A memory that returns every year, when I cut the first ripe mangoes of the season, in April. And like the April rains on parched earth, it refreshes me, reminds me that all is not lost, there is hope, there is still so much caring, so much giving, all around us.

I am always deeply touched by the offering of food. It moves me more than any other gift. A strongly etched memory from my favorite Amar Chitra Katha comic book of childhood days, 'Sudama' - the powa (flattened rice) that the poverty-stricken Sudama takes when he goes to meet his childhood friend, Krishna.

Sudama and Krishna were classmates and close friends at the sage Sandipani’s gurukula, for many long years. At the end of this period, they part ways, each to meet his own destiny. Krishna to become king, and Sudama a teacher, as befitted his caste and station in life. Later, Sudama and his family fall on bad times. The children are hungry; his wife has been borrowing food and money from the neighbors to get by.

Then one day she suddenly remembers, and asks hesitantly, "Maybe you could go and meet Krishna? Weren’t you very close?". She borrows some powa from the neighbour, which Sudama had told her was Krishna’s favorite food in childhood, so that her husband does not go to visit the great king empty-handed. Sudama sets off with the powa wrapped in a cloth bundle, tied to his waist.

Krishna sees him from the distance, from the palace balcony where he was enjoying the evening breeze with his consort Rukmini. This poor Brahmin in old clothes walking to the palace gates hesitantly, as if he feared being turned away. Krishna runs down with great excitement and rushes past surprised courtiers and guards, and embraces Sudama. While people watch in amazement, he makes Sudama sit on his throne, asks his wife to bring water, and washes his feet with great affection, like one does with an honored guest.

Overwhelmed, and surrounded by splendour, Sudama is embarrassed to offer his humble gift of powa to the mighty king. He is astonished when Krishna grabs at his bundle playfully, 'Hey, you have brought me something!', and then pounces on the poha greedily when Sudama offers it to him with great hesitation. Krishna is overjoyed, deeply touched that his old friend remembered.

"Sudama", he says, "the poorest of gifts given to me with love are dearer to me than the richest of gifts given without love."

All those who have fed me, with so much warmth, thank you so much. You have given me so much more than food.

What is your favorite memory of being fed, receiving food, from a friend or a stranger?


*Photo from Google Images