A MUSE FOR THE DAY

 Life has taken such sudden turns in the past few months that now I don't feel like I can plan things anymore and that anything ever is in my control anymore. Life can turn better or worse at the blink of an eye. Things I could never imagine were building up at the moment, just around the corner. Kind of like the old game we used to play as kids, peekaboo. Ready or not, here I come! Sometimes Life hits you like a hurricane, in all force, destroying to bits everything you have gathered over time. Your possessions, your persons and your spirit at times. But just like Life is destructive at times, It is also renewing and regenerating. I can't help but think but of the tree stump that was left when a flowering tree was cut in our front yard. I remember being disappointed that all that was left of that tree was just a dry stump but if you were to visit our house any of these days, you would see a thriving tree overburdened with little white flowers, just like it used to, just a few months back. Those little flowers that sway happily in the wind, look like the carefree grandkids of pain. Young and free, they have not yet met Life at it's harshest. Happy and carefree, they sit on the shoulders of their grandparents. They may not know of the struggles the previous generations faced but they are happy because of their grandparents and then their parents met adversity headstrong. When you look at the tree, as it stands now, it still has the markings of the axe that hit it, the exact memory of the many times it was hit and in what way. All of that is now hidden under new leaves and branches which have grown back to their former size in time, slowly, from a few shy shoots that grew out in the sun, winking at it indirectly, making sure not to catch it's eye. I was really happy the day I discovered that the site of the 'wound' was green again. Not meaning that the injury was fresh again but that Life had chosen to take over and grow from under the ointment Time itself had rubbed on it the minute it lay bare, devoid of all what was his.. all shoots and leaves, flowers and buds, sunshine and shadows, wind and rain. So much of memory chopped off in one go. It's unfair how one person can stop you in your tracks. Time and circumstances sure can, but what hurts the most is when your natural movement, your natural progression is stunted by what one person thinks and how they expect you to conduct yourself. But in all this struggle for existence and identity, the one thing that thrives is your willpower. Your willpower to start afresh, take a different rout, find out what works and prevail, come what may. Because whatever the seasons may be, the harshest of them are not stronger than Life itself. Life always finds a way. And so will you. You just have to believe that there is a way, even when you cannot see one at first glance. 

Hello Again!

 I am writing in again after a time gap of almost seven years! Seven years! Perfect seven years! So much happened in my Life over the past seven years! A few things I made happen and a few things that happened on their own.. in their own perfect time and symphony! I will admit that I was pleasantly surprised to find this blog. I had totally forgotten about this. Just like the way I had forgotten about writing and how happy and complete it made me feel. I was specially happy about the name of this blog. The black sheep legacy. I connect with every bit of that name. Throughout the past three and a half decades of my life I have always stood out in a group.. either in a very nice way or not. So that's a bit about the name.

The Right Guy!

Do you know?’ He said, taking her hands in his, ‘Do you know what it is to love someone and never, never! – be able to give them peace and happiness? Do you know what it means to not feel like you are the Right person for someone?’

The Right guy is never wrong. The Right Guy makes things last. The Right guy makes it all Right! The image of the right man, the tough man and the true man are all rolled into one man in our fantasies as ‘The One’. The need to look for ‘The Right Man’ is as old as our dreams themselves! Since we spend so much of our young life wondering, waiting and evaluating men in the cast of ‘The Right Man, is he?’ , my Muse for this week is : Who is the Right Man and how do we stop lookin’ for one!

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AT THE TRAIN WINDOW TIME RACES ME BY...

I am sitting in a train and we are passing others by. Just meeting for a moment and passing everyone by. Deliberately. Like a self-absorbed Traveler through Time.. Impervious to History. The cities are like nebulae. A diffused mass of light and darkness radiating Life ... throbbing in all wavelengths. And at the fringes of city-ness, blobs of light in pockets of darkness giggle and run away in the opposite direction. We have met and we have parted. Non-attachment. Journey. Peace. More hellos and no goodbyes.

VASUDHAIV KUTUMBKAM (The World is One Family)

Namaste!

meaning.. ‘I honour the place in you in which the entire universe dwells; I honour the place in you which is of love, of truth, of light and of peace. When you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, We are One.’

Namah ~ bow

Te~ (to) you

Namaste~ I bow to you

In our country, Namaste as a gesture is used to greet one another. It’s a gesture of respect that can be used between people of all ages, since it totally encompasses the belief that “we are one” and that we belong to each other. And herein lies the beauty of the greeting! It has the power to unite people across all boundaries of age, race and experience. A simple greeting that we exchange without thought.. but which has the power to unite us all and engender love and respect in our relationships. If a daily greeting to the old, young, rich, poor can mean the same thing, i.e., you and I are the same spirit at the core, then this is the single most peaceful act that can and must be practiced. Our world these days is divided into too far many boundaries of caste, race, language, religion and color. The ‘Us and Them’ divide is so strong that it has rendered many people at the margins of social existence. It makes me hang my head in shame that even after 65 years of free existence, many people in the country are still untouchables. These attitudes are a part of an old mindset which does not belong to the present century. In fact, today the world needs collaboration like never before to surge ahead. In times like these we must remember to go deep, forget our prejudices and remind ourselves that we all share the human spirit. In many ways we are all the same. We all want to be loved, accepted and validated for who we are. So why not concentrate on our similarities and build bonds rather than identify differences and create walls? Let us remember our spiritual heritage and remember that we are all one.. co-travellers on this journey we call Life. So let’s join our hands and embrace the world. This feeling of Oneness will take us far into more happiness and collaborative productivity. Namaste!  

THE BLIND MAN

He was walking ahead of me.. and I was rushing in my usual speed in the direction that usually led me home. It was a particularly busy crossing on a sufficiently hot morning in October...and it was not long before I overtook him- I walk fast- but somehow, I kept losing my pace. Déjà vu? I stopped long enough to afford a look back. He was blind.. he was blind??!!

I vividly remember staring at him.. Did he know where he was? Or even, what gave him the (over)confidence and exaggerated hope that he could be on a crowded street, surrounded by people of dubious propensities controlling the steer wheels they were at, wanting to own a share of the road to get to the places they wanted to go to any which way…overtaking from the left, over-speeding, carelessly driving themselves off the road? What really gave him the assurance to venture out as such, unaccompanied? I thought it was particularly overoptimistic(!!) on his part to choose a time and space that were clearly not suited to asserting his independence or whatever.

But, could the irony have been any starker? I saw him feel the road - choc a bloc with traffic zooming all around oneself- with his white stick and take small, concerted steps in the direction he purportedly wished to go. Blindness…ohh. I could read his face.. his doubts.. his questions.. I could read them all. I could hardly move an inch. I stood right there, planted in the soil, paralyzed, still staring , Maybe I had stopped just to help him if he needed it anytime soon. But ah, there was something else to it all. I usually find myself in a similar catatonic trance when something, anything around me belongs so much to me that the distinction between our separateness in time, space, dimensions or even physical manifestation disappears. Or if something holds a mirror to me that reflects back an image so stark and honest in its manifestation that I freeze for a minute to soak it in. I can’t but help feel thankful to the instant and the mechanism that fills the thought in me. A blind man on a street is no supernatural phenomenon. It may come about fairly easily. But things like these do not escape me pretty easily. For a great while I could not escape the irony of it all too. This man lacks eyesight. This man…lacks…eyesight. I rolled over the thought in my brain as if schizophrenic.. He lacks eyesight... But is he really different from the rest of us? Of course, blindness is an unfortunate physical deficit. It shears off the color in your life. Color that may or may not lend beauty and advantage. But it certainly makes the living experience more complete. Returning back to the experience, I suddenly looked out for more blind men around. There were, of course, scores of pairs of eyes looking around in the light that was illuminating half the world but not his. But indeed some lack eyesight and some vision! In both the cases the groping and the sense of futility and helplessness are the same, only qualitatively different in character. Eyesight and vision must make the world a brighter place. Let us all stop for a minute to examine where our lives are headed. Let us examine our ‘vision’ once again. Let us stop ‘groping’ in the dark. Let us not be ‘blind’, even if restoring ‘vision’ must need assistance. The ‘power’ here to streamline our life with a unique mission- a ‘vision’ to self-actualize, to be on our own despite our ‘blindness’ of physical or any other manifestation, to cut off from unnecessary herd activity, to differentiate ourselves in our own capacity and to lend individual meaning and purpose to the undefined construct that life is..
.. I remember looking at him again and moving on.. happy that maybe I shouldn’t judge him and take layers off him in the way I had been doing. His life maybe is more complete than mine or what I think his is. I, for one, have a lot of dreams and a vision too that needs sharpening over time…(but I lack courage).. This man lend that to me in some measure! I reckon, one should not just be satisfied with an eyesight. A Blindman with a vision may see a lot more.

As John Milton also said, On His Blindness

WHEN I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,—
Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?
I fondly ask:—But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: God doth not need
Either man's work, or His own gifts, who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. 0

.....They also serve who only stand and wait.

LOOK INTO MY EYES!

“I want you to eat me!” – said no animal ever! ~ This is PETA’s new punchline for Animal Rights!

Sometime back, I had shared a status on Facebook that was prompted by a friend’s retort when I asked her about how many birds she ate in a week! While that conversation was tongue-in-cheek, the more I question this, the more similar answers I get. I guess enlarging the sample size only proves my theory! Man thinks animals are a part of the food chain he rules, so it’s a given that his rules rule!

I get told, “I eat animals and you eat plants! So you are ruthless too!”. Well that shuts me up for a minute I agree. “But tell me that only when you stop using toilet paper (trees) to do what you do with it!”  I say that to friends ONLY ;)

You may still have the ‘plants pain too’ argument but my heart just bleeds when I see how we own animals and use them to our advantage as if they were created not for their own lives but to slave for us, entertain us with their habits and colours, decorate our walls and floors and titillate our taste buds. Just when have you really gone close to an animal and looked in their eyes in a way that hasn’t made them defensive. There’s so much love there!

Animals nuzzle and kiss their young like we do with our babies. It arouses such a great feeling of empathy in me. Think of when you have come home to your pet dogs. Don’t they just jump and slobber all over you with wet kisses! NO ego. NO SULKING! Only unconditional Love! How adorable! Or cats! And how royal they (think) they are! Or funny monkeys, uninterested cows, and huggable rabbits?

Animals feel like we do. For instance, the largest animal on our planet has the largest heart! Elephants! They are highly intelligent and emotional. They form close knit social bonds in their group and share  a strong sense of family and death like us. They also feel many of the emotions we experience. Each one among them is a unique individual with a unique personality. They can be happy or sad, volatile or placid. They display envy, jealousy, throw tantrums and are fiercely competitive, and they can develop hang-ups which are reflected in behaviour. They are indeed very sensitive! Indeed, it is widely known that these Great animals die of heartbreak when someone close to them dies. There is a lore popular amongst couples. They talk of the great white Swan who has a single companion for their entire lives. They swim together. Raise their young and when one dies, the other goes along! Is there a pain any greater than that of Love? If they love each other so much, why don’t our hearts break to abduct them and put them up in cages in zoos, shoot in the air and bring one down for fun, pluck out the feathers of a live bird and put them between two slices of bread? A living feeling animal!

I live in Banaras! The most spiritual city in the whole wide world. But it does not mean Banaras is not bleeding of insensitivity. Every morning, going to office I pass by a slaughterhouse; I just shut my eyes and say sorry for not being able to save the screaming animals! Birds pulled out from cages and pulled apart as it were only carrot leaves being plucked! Ahhh..

We wear fur, we make medicines out of tiger bones,  jewellery with rhino and elephant tusks! But human needs a tusk just like no animal has the sadism to need to sleep on human skin!

A month back I saw an old movie with a friend. Hatchiko- A dog’s story. It's a real-life story from Japan. Hidesamuro Ueno brought his dog, Hachiko, to Tokyo in 1924, and every day when he left for his teaching job, Hachiko would stand by the door and watch him go. Then at 4 p.m. the Akita would arrive at Shibuya Station to meet his owner. A year later Ueno died of a stroke at work, but Hachiko continued to return to the train station at 4 p.m. every single day, searching for his owner’s face amid the slew of passengers getting off the train. It’s the story of how a loyal Japanese dog is not able to get over the loss of his human friend and waits for several years outside the station gate for him to come back. Follows smells and tracks and trains to look for him. Eventually, the stationmaster made the dog a bed at the station and began leaving him bowls of food and water. Hachiko returned to the train station every day for 10 years until he died in 1935. By the time the movie ended, I shut the laptop down; we hugged each other and cried bitterly for ten minutes.

Just love animals! Please love animals!