Land of Sacred Burials- A Red Indian Lament

Land of Sacred Burials- A Red Indian Lament

 

“ I have risen like a Phoenix from this land and this soil now yearns for my dust. There is a spot reserved for me here even as I trample it today. I run around and plunder, walk majestically on it, and insert my tent logs on it, but this place knows I will return to it like a baby to the loving arms of its mother. I should thus know and protect the urn that will eventually hold my ashes. To it, I return, glad and in gratitude, that in separation, it nourished me. While living, I am the land, and so too this truth shall hold when I cease.

 

This walk between Heaven and Earth is guided by the star light of my ancestors; for I do not exploit this land or conserve it. I am same as it be and as it be to others. In soil and land, in fellow beings, in trees and Jaguars and plants and insects that I roam with and inherit collectively, I see myself and my ancestors. So, when I step on it, I feel guilty; when I kill, I apologize; when I am pushed off the land, I resist.

 

My manners and clothes, my etiquettes and companions, food and customs – they are not polished or refined, but I walk this Earth now – a free man – to the Sun, the Wind, and the Earth, the Water. This is the Earth that gives mute Salmons the voice that raises in my throat; this is the parched land that I shall roam with my buffaloes and squirrels and horses and loved ones and all forms made available to me.

 

The place of my kneeling down is decided by fate, though my life is not a wait or a return journey to it. It is transformation, a cosmic change for me – from one joy to other, from one form to next. If I grow wings, or if I can slide on marshy swamps, or hunt with the predator eye of the night moon, in all these manifestations, I will remain the same.

 

Eventually, the land shall remain – this soil I hold, this land is me and not mine; I hold no right or sway on it except the gratitude of rest; When the final song is sung, when the fingers will curl brittle and soft with age, when the birds of the nest shall await the gloomy night, and when it will be my turn to depart, I will rejoice that I shall be returned to my ancestors on this Earth, who lovingly await my joyful, joyful return.”

World of Books

The world of books

 

The world of Books is dense and visually rich for the initiated….

 

Among the ordained literati of such nature is the belief that this world of symbols and interrelated metaphors is a code that speaks only to them…(not true)

…and only for them (not necessarily)

 

..and once in a while, for a novice wanderer in the bibliophile land, (the notion held is that) a tweaked ray of words and gestures seeps in and he or she is transported for a brief moment into the complex, albeit delightful, twinings of the Book forest.

 

..that it is chance that illuminates the pitiful minds of the neo-illiterate, who won’t read.

 

..not true again.

 

What bibliophiles need in such trying times is humbleness..

Humbleness to realize that the writing world looks actively for the uninitiated novices

(and if I may add) not for people like they..

 

The  wheel of literary world is oiled and kept churning in longingness for the Amateur and uninitiated – for the glare avoiders of the Sunforest world, for people who do not want to be even near books lest they catch an evil shadow of the falling words..

 

What forever-readers should know is that these are the people, the torch bearers to the Book world and that they themselves were one, when they began the journey..

 

The Book land held their hands when they had none..

 

The twist of this fleeting world (is) – the longer you linger in this world and absorb it, the more amateurish you become.

 

The book world is for the brave and the illiterate, who can be swayed by one glow or glimpse of a profound observation – for people, who, in an opportune moment in life, opened the book and found a line or quote in the myriad labyrinth of pages and letters – a phrase that set their world on fire.

 

Welcome to the uninitiated – welcome to the first book that you picked up – thank you for doing that.

 

It is for you that the word exists and not for well-entrenched, socialite well-read bore.

 

Please wander as a Nomad and feel free to close the pages..Keep the walks alive into these galleries of imagination.

 

Be Nomad in the Sun-baked land of books…

Delhi in Winter

It is that beautiful winter in Delhi - just beginning. The Raat ki Raani flowers are spewing perfume, the air is cold and fresh in morning, - today, I saw an auto rickshaw with 6 kids - all uniformly red and then one lad wearing a Ravana Moustache and a flash gorden pink pastel mask - and completely at ease. At Ram mandir near the house, the Dushera celebrations have begun - Time also for people to stuff themselves silly (in terms of calories) in the name of "fast". I love these winters. Indian Classical Music festival begins at Kamani tomorrow - imagine the Winter chill walk to Metro at 10 pm after getting treated to the melodious Jugalbindi of Pt.Shiv and Hari ji..all the world getting colder and being warmed slowly to the roasting taste of their flutes and Santoor - the magical realism of winter in Delhi..

No matter what people claim and say about passion and following your heart over money etc, one universal truth seems to be that if you do not earn money even for a month (doing whatever job you are doing, like or no like), all the hell breaks loose in your mind. You feel unworthy, do not want to meet people or friends, and become irritable - Worse, the passion you might have left all this for too seems risky, unsustainable, or crazy. You feel like a sinking ship and wonder if you have just made the biggest mistake of your life.

It is only for some to be able to reject the poverty of belly over the poverty of soul.

Another truth is both these classes of people (the passion over money AND the money is the passion) do well.

The ones who do not do well and live in insecurity are the ones who, by choosing one, long for the other. And vice versa.

Where are you my Friend?

A poem I write, friends..

Birds sitting on poles
ogling, scratching, tweaking the fibers of their wings for the long flight,
post the long hibernation, earthworms gleam sleepily to the morning sun
thinking if they should till the land or coze up to the darker mud beds,
Sparrows circling in gnat formations on fields lined with drying cow dungs
kept slanted to the land to gather the morning sun,
pups dashing across the fieldd, an arc planted like Halleys comet on the land,
their tails wagging chirily to the morning mist,
a squirrel precariously balanced on the office fence, runs quietly on the nails now
the way we stroll in the market place,
the wind is picking up rose petals and blowing them scattered to drying pools,
a lonely buffalo meanders in to the mud, massaged to perfection by a crane eating lice,
a crow lies dead, legs inverted and decaying slowly in the cosmic dance,
the whole world is in concert awaiting its myriad players..

Where are you my friend?

The Winter Rain

It is dark and rainy and winter in Delhi. And I am enjoying this - seems like Winter is receding faster and faster these days... To winter - my favorite season:

The Winter Rain

Shakespearean tragedies sublime?
may be
evil may live to fight one more day? ..
but
nothing is subtle
for the weather
today
my friend!
the gloom is in full bloom,
the greying sky is clearly gray
and thus Black and white,
an impending storm that rattles lighted office windows
is it?
the death of an illusion, the prediction of a certain Nostradamus
is it?
it is
farewell to waving fields
a last bow to earth from the tailing comet in a parabola of its own
it is night asserting in fury
a more than fair share of what it owes to sun

it is Christmas time that could not wait
it is the guarded joy on an introvert
who cannot laugh aloud and blow his cover
and
solitude that braves the brevity of life
and strokes one last darkening grin

a beautiful rainy winter slush it is!
Drink to full!

Security Guard - at my complex

The security guard at my complex stops me yesterday eve and asks me not to drink and slips away. I can see that he is drunk because I am holding a diet coke bottle. Some observations:
1. He is drunk but doing his duty of asking me not to drink - Such workaholism (or workalchoholism?)...(even a coke bottle is not beyond suspicion)
2.Do I look a drunkard in his world? is it my face or his swaying, which in a relativistic world (without inertial frame of reference) make me look like swaying to him? What Einsteinean approach..
3.Can he do his job only when he is drunk (individual potency and nature of work)
4.Is it revenge for something I may have done to hurt his ego in the past? And only a drunkard can get away post saying whatever..
5. Am I drunk? If we set aside how we behave in the external world, are drunkards and insanes different from sanes in an archimedean world?
6. Can any logic (that I am not drunk) be explained to him, when he is beyond rationalism and logical world no longer applies? Is there an illogic that an illogical gets?
..Should kiss his hand next time for making me think..

Morning Post - March 1 2013

The peripherals always swallow us so completely- house work, this and that, blah blah. It requires effort - dedication - and constant guard to stay focused on one task - any momentary lapse and we are engulfed by the inessentials. The focus always needs to be on the sun and the tree and the moment that sweet smelling orange will ripen and fall on your lap. Neither the barking dog - neither the call of the loved or the sprinkle of the water - neither the sweet smelling lush grasses or rolling hills or regret of something you should have done better.

If you are hungry and if you need salvation of the oranges, this is the way, Warrior.

Bhimtal and Nakuchiatal

These are a few snaps from our visit to Bhimtal and Nakuchiatal (March 27 to 31). There is something about the Pahadi way of life that seems so authentic - the simple food, a laid back “take it as it comes as I have all day to tackle this” kind of Amish stillness, the way birds wake you up with the morning rush from the tal. While the local politics, the goons, the commercial success (ice creams, beauty parlors etc) have eroded the thoreauvian Walden and Tolstoy farm kind of outlook, there are still birds that swing to the morning charm; the shop keeper who has added a wood block inside the shop ceiling so that the loving pigeons could nest (by throwing wet mud on the walls). The world is still alive and beaming with stillness – the way the mountains drop to both sides of the road, the way pahari women get together on the ground in the eve and sang “holi geet” (all the while smiling at our attire, on the way back from Nakuchia taal), the way Kailash’s bhai’s house balcony freezes at night from Tal’s breezy dispositions.

Morning Post - Ap 12 2013

Pond on the fields outside the office - a lone duck swims on black uncharted waters (no one near by, and in scorching summer heat). If we are doing things according to our nature and at our natural pace, we can charter any path with ease. The duck sends a gentle ripple along (as someone who "glows" in his natural genuineness) as it pecks at planktons, overshoots, and small aquatic insects. It's loneliness is not a matter of concern for it, probably did not notice it even; for it rejoices life immersed in an external environment in its natural skill (fortified by its gene trait) - It just cannot lose..because it longs not for the joy victory brings...

Morning post - May 16 2013

Office window today (8 am) - cranes flying like drones over an agricultural swamp - with a few dogs sitting like UN observers amidst tall grass - A lonely cow grazing and lost amidst orange-leafed tree in a background providing stark optimism- a squirrel hopping rapidly across the asphalt-lined inlane office parking (so far from loved ones, dear?) - and semi dried cow dung cakes staked up in batches facing the sun like a tibetean stone prayer flag (minus the hills) - What a day of possibilities to work with...

Sarojini Ma'am

For all those who loved Sarojin Ma'am's english classes and lessons in school (8th class onwards) - Addsion Barnaby and Maori villages and poems and Addison Barnaby the secret agent and the "Muddlehead"..

The man from Petushkee shouts "Kister Monductor" in the ears at office so many years later,
When I look out of the window, I see Lucy Gray waving her hands - guiding people lost in snow even in her demise,
When I travel, the train poem of Humayaun kabir changes tracks in my mind so many times,
The hot springs of Maori villages is what I wanted in the snow peaks of Tungnath,
and Did I stand with Addison Barnaby's murderer in the non existent Balcony?,
Did they share the seventeen oranges with "pips and peels" with me when I was hungry?,
Are we all Ozymandiases - chasing glory and stuck for aeons in sand and mud in half forgotten world?
When life scatters its arms and welcomes you from oblivion, do you sing like Nightingale of Oscar Wilde- with a thorn in the rose heart?

..Cheers to great teachers!!

Morning post - june 25 2013

Morning outlook from Office window - a crane is standing in the grass swamp - one leg up like a Zen Monk insistent on meditation ("Satori is nearby and will be in anytime")..buffaloes grazing for fresh grass of the morning dew - their backs white caked with mud as though they spent their last night studying for exams (slate and all) on the school room floor... cow dung cakes left standing oblique angle to the ground like solar dishes awaiting alien greetings..a bird sorties over the marsh bond - its inverted image flying accelerated and crashing to the mud banks in defiance of Einstein's meditation on relativity....Seems like the day's work is going to be good - Have a great day everyone!!

SunderDhunga Glacier Trip

At 16000 feet plus (Maktoli – the glacier edge is 6803 m), Sunder Dhunga (the land of beautiful stones0 is a serious trek by all standards. In about 7 days of walk ( from 8 to 26 kms a day – 6 hrs to 12 hrs a day) – we faced rains all day, fog and wind on crevice like grassland tops, slippery rocks on cliff sides with razor thin edges), and the scary walk on the snow glaciers. At times, this gets real tough and you long for burger and milk shakes back home (or the smell of garlic spiced hot daal and aloo ki takki – the foodie that I am). But, I will tell you what – the path grazing through the villages (where poorly clad grandmothers bundle up with even more poorly clad grandchildren) is scenic and very, very pristine in its hardship, greenery, and innocence. It’s a path devoid of any pretensions of swiss mountain-yashraj movie type romance. The mountain paths are narrow, the rock boulders block the way, and when it rains and snows, and you are huddled together at the top of a glacier in a Gaddi’s hut (with fire, 6 people cuddled to a poly sheet slant tied to the edge of an oblong rock head serving as the wall- and hand picked-rocks stewn in as other faces of the wall), you feel how will you go back to your base camp hut. The weather turns gloomy and you must go down that slippery glacier all the way back home, when you could have been watching your favorite movie in PVR at home on weekends couching on the sofa – sipping -eating and blurping on that popcorn and Coke.. what fun that would have been..(Oh! The jumbled thoughts we weave – being X at Y and being Y at X) 

 

But I will add something – The scenery and the tiring walks through villages (dogs following you through the trek , lured by your presence – caring for you like a friends – tempted to one biscuit or hug; old people joining you on the way and talking of the good old days when Curd was made with wooden vessels and cows grazed back home by eve all by themselves – the sheep dog following carelessly eyes all sleepy)) is among the most scenic. I was walking with friends closest to me – people I have known for 23 years. Other things I noticed – how mind tunes in so sharp to an image – the poverty of villagers, the guides and porters risking their lives for all); the way your parents put you together for this breath – this image that eyes see – this breath that swings out of control and in sync with birds and chirping sparraows); the brevity of life; the chill wind of the mountain tops that lifts your ponchos to the raining sky; water from a primal world as though droughts no longer exist or the Ansel adams image of the world that np one visist; 

 

Take this trip if you can – It is a great hard trip – but you will be so glad for the high intox for the next 10 years on this. Not that you “won” over the mountain – but glad in fear and comfort that there are things beyond you so mesmerizingly beautiful – goats that run on meadows, the beautiful mud houses of villages with log wood at the top and the zen mattressed floors with nothing else to have a go at. The scary stories of mountaineers who did not listen to locals and paid the price scares you, and the dark gaddi hut at Katlia where the rooms and kitchens are all dark all day with no windows leaves you tired. But, there are no roads – the water cannot be filtered but drank “deep” for tired souls. Right now, I am overwhelmed by images and memories and am unable to write linearly or rationally ), but I believe that I am so glad to be able to afford (physically and mentally) this trip with people I love the most – is this all that we posses in life or leave behind)?

Duck at the pond

Pond on the fields outside the office - a lone duck swims on black uncharted waters (no one near by, and in scorching summer heat).

If we are doing things according to our nature and at our natural pace, we can charter any path with ease. The duck sends a gentle ripple along (as someone who "glows" in his natural genuineness) as it pecks at planktons, overshoots, and small aquatic insects. It's loneliness is not a matter of concern for it, probably did not notice it even; for it rejoices life immersed in an external environment in its natural skill (fortified by its gene trait) - It just cannot lose..because it longs not for the joy victory brings...

Rajalakshmi Teacher - the fine white strands she weaves

Home – Oct 25 2012 – 8:34 pm

As much as possible – as much politeness as that can be shown by an enraged person, she told me that my parents had made a big blunder in spending so much money for my upanayanam or poonal (sacred thread). By not doing “sandhiya vandanam” (sacred pooja that Brahmins should do) once a day, forget thrice, I have basically wasted everyone’s efforts. And then, with a smiling sarcastic (even Sheldon in Big Bang would get the irony) twist, she gave me a brand new book of Shlokas – all about Sandhya vandanam.

Rajalakshmi teacher or Sanskrit teacher, as we called her, never minced words – you cannot get her to your side by resistance, by being teacher’s son (that I was), by praising her, by anything – except when she wanted.

The Shloka classes she arranged must have been an administrative nightmare . Lunch time – and getting students to recite Shlokams sitting in a mat (when they wanted to be freely roaming the ground or eating Churan from Sundar outside the school gate or Guava from Mai or Damodaran’s Dosai) – and at DTEA Lodhi estate – year in year out – with not even a thanks from students – must have been a daunting task for anyone, but the old lady had courage, dignity, and passion for the language she taught.

Not that I was particularly fond of her at that time – but over the years, I have been thinking about her at various junctures – meeting her informally at Santosh teachers house, he debates with Swami on various topics, her coming first to the school on Saraswati pujai days (when Damodaran would serve all of us at school – those hot coconut and kariveppalai filled sundals) – leading so many of us without the gladdening response of gratitude. It is downright amazing and very, very amazing to think of our dear “sanskrit ma’am”.

I remember in our Sanskrit periods, Murali was the only boy who would answer al the questions…. And hence would get to sit. Those who would not answer the vibakti-karak combination needed to stand on the bench – that basically meant the whole class except Murali. Her period in seventh class was the first one after lunch. And the whole class would be standing on the bench – TS once tried to close the exit door of the class so that others passing thru the corridor would not stare at the entire class standing up. She noticed and said if you guys loved respect so much, how about learning to earn it first – by disciplined study. That, of course, never came.

There is a generation of these teachers I can never forget – Rajabhai teacher and her geography class, Shantha teacher and Lakshmi teacher going for coffee break to Canteen after the first Maths class, Ramamurthi sir’s anger, Lakshmana sir’s legendary “TCs” for running on the corridors, Chelappa sir’s ear twisting, Anandam teacher’s wrist lock and pinching (till 8^th class after which my wrist grew beyond her grasp)..Sarojini teacher reading Addison Barnaby the secret agent – or hot springs at Maori villages – or Ozymandias or  Lucy grey of Wordsworth – still guiding weary should lost in snow to their destinations lest they lose their lives as she did. And who would forget Ganapathi raman sir in 5^th class OR the beautiful Jaimeera teacher for English?

 Our school was/is poor and lacked benches and admin staff (remember how Ganga used to sound the bell – using an iron cuboid? – how rotten egg smell of Sulphuric acid was permanently present outside the Chemistry lab – so much that no one went to drink water from he taps outside the lab) – these people came from far and near – simple honest people who went beyond their call of duty…and our generation grew and grew with them.

In my office, we are asked to address juniors and seniors – all by their first name. Fair enough. Yet, even today, I cannot call any of them without adding qualifiers – and I am going to hit 40 soon…it doesn’t matter..

Some of these teachers are dead – they live with us though – and hopefully would manifest as the love we feel for our children as we guide them through their education life… that in them will live these beautiful beautiful people.

Thank you – Thank you – teachers – Thank you for being there – we are here because you held us there that day.

Thank you for all this and the more to come – that we call life . We might as well as called these gifts “you.”