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)?