Earth Hour

March 29th saw several cities all over the world observed the Earth Hour. As part of the Earth Hour respective city administrations switched off the power in their cities and banned all traffic movement for exactly an hour from 8pm to 9 pm. It was hoped that this would generate awareness among the masses about global warming. India did not participate in this initiative but some schools encouraged students to write something to commemorate the event.


Here is what an 11 year old girl wrote:

Come March 29th as the clock strikes the 8pm hour,
some good folks expect us to shut off the power,
they want us to use the heat of the hearth
for all these electrical bulbs are overheating our earth.

We all bitch about all this pollution in the air
yet merrily buzz about in our cars without a care.
'There's way too much global warming' we all fuss,
Hey, Chill it Bro, all this is just because of us.

Astronomers cant see much of the outer space
because of all this crazy dust and haze,
our cities are at night way too bright
so we kids never get to enjoy a starry night.

Dear people, lets all work together to fight this pollution
and the Earth Hour is just a small step in that simple solution.
So please, please my fellow friends, stop all this worrying about,
lets do our bit and this pollution is gone without a doubt.

Aakanksha J.

Essense of Being.

Zen masters lived such simple lives that often it took a second glance to seperate the masters from their disciples. One such zen master, Kam-ban, dressed so simply that most of the times people mistook him for a common mendicant. They would fill his bowl with leftovers and then send him on his way. Had those people known who he really was they would have certainly invited him in and treated him like an honoured guest. Kam-ban did nothing to let those people know who he was but once alone in the forest he would often utter a word or two of such brilliance that the trees would seem to sway and stoop in admiration.

Koji was a bright student of Kam-ban. He was very protective towards his master and sometimes got into a fight with people who he thought did not accord proper respect to his master. Kam-ban would then rap Koji's knuckles with a stick and remind him of his vows.

Once Koji and Kam-ban were going through a forest and came across a waterfall. Both decided to stop and rest. Koji fell asleep for a while and when he woke up he saw his master standing at the very edge of the waterfall and much to his horror he saw his master slip and fall down the precipe. He screamed and rushed down to help his master. When he reached the bottom he saw his master calmly emerge from the pool. Koji admonished his master for stepping so close to the edge. Kam-ban calmly replied, ' the edge of the waterfall holds no fear for he who falls with the fall and flows with the flow'

What it takes to grow up

Growing old is mandatory.... Growing Up?, well that's certainly optional.

What does it take to grow up?. Truth be told, its about taking responsibilities, about beginning to own up. Growing up is therefore about situations and not about time. How we handle situations shows how grown up we are.


Being able to take responsibilities and being selfless are just two sides of a coin, they go hand in hand. The more self centered we are the less is our ability to own up to others. To be able to open up to others, to be able to walk a mile in their shoes is the pathway of growing up. As a look back, the path of the 'Grown Ups' is littered with lost opportunities for self appeasement. Its important to put oneself two steps behind and find happiness in the happiness of others.

Fatherhood is one of the greatest opportunities to grow up. It lends itself quite naturally. The moment you hold that little baby in your trembling hands, selfishness just leaps out of your life. The funny part is, that, somewhere along the way, as time passes by, the original feelings wear off and then being grown up becomes a conscious minute to minute effort. Every moment we are faced with the option to remain grown up or revert to infancy.

In all honesty, I don't think I have always done the right thing as a father. And I don't think its humanly possible to do the right thing all the time.

I just want to be able to say to myself, in all honesty, that I am constantly growing up. Just that.

Cafe Musings 401

The Thinker, my Buddhist friend, my sounding board, my conscience keeper, called earlier today and said just one word,

“Coffee?”

And that is how we ended up once again in that quaint noisy little café overlooking the market place. I, with my coffee and he, with his ice-tea. We were meeting after months and I know that he had been away in the Himalayas. As he sat there, he dipped into his pocket and presented me with a beautiful book on the interpretation of ‘om mani padme hum’ the most powerful Buddhist mantra. Tibetans believe that chanting of this mantra invokes in those that chant it a feeling of absolute compassion and a state of bliss. I asked him if this was true.

Like always, he smiled and waited while thoughts arranged themselves in his mind. He then dipped his finger into the ice tea and flicked a drop in the air, chanted the mantra and offered his drink to nature, returning a little of what had been given to him.

He then said:

“Bliss is not so much about feeling happy and satisfied; it’s more about a feeling that things can’t get any better. The moment one feels that something can’t get any better then one feels a tiny rush of bliss.

There is so much perfection all around us that we don’t have to look very far to see something that can’t get any better. Almost everything in the nature around us is perfect, there is bliss everywhere. We just need to unite with nature.

Just like the river unites with the ocean

Just like the wind unites with the fragrance of the flowers

Just like the dawn unites with the warmth of the sun

Just like the prayers written on the flags unite with the winds

Just like the shrill call of the eagles unites with the peace of the valley below

Each loses itself while trying to unite but eventually gains so much from the union. So it is with the realization of bliss. We go looking for perfection and when we find it, the discovery leaves us filled with awe. We wonder in the ability of nature to awe us with its tiniest creation and it is in that realization, my friend, where bliss hides”.

Gusts of wind

I have always been fascinated with wind and what it can do with light things like a feather, or a leaf, or an empty plastic bag. I like the way it will make these things swirl and float, make them rise or dive, twist and turn, literally make them dance to some ethereal tune I cannot hear. I don’t know why this should fascinate me or why I should see beauty in it but I do and that is how it is. Sometimes when I write I get the same feeling, as if my hand is the wind and as it writes it takes those words and swirls them, turns them, makes them float about. As the work progresses I see all those words I wrote dancing, rising and falling, happy and free.

There was once a friend who did the same with the spoken word and as he told stories he would hold us all in a spell. His eyes, his hands, his face, in fact his whole body would weave those words into complicated ‘maya-jaals’ that would capture us, binding us into tight little bundles totally at his disposal.
He loved to tell stories but he loved more the way he could cast a spell on us. Unfortunately he took things a bit too far when, a few years ago, he was in a village in Rajasthan and was as usual telling stories. Caught up in is own omnipotence he dared to make eyes with the nubile daughter of the local thakur. The thakur didn’t like that and had his tongue nipped off…. Yicks!! Now my friend is trying his hand at writing but the magic is just not there.

One of his favorite stories was about a Buddhist monk who was on his way somewhere along with his young disciple. The path was through a forest and since it had been raining for a while, the path was quite slushy. At a particularly muddy intersection the two monks came across a very attractive young woman in a beautiful kimono. Obviously the woman was pondering whether to cross the intersection and risk dirtying her kimono. The older monk sensed her dilemma so he promptly hoisted her in his arms and crossed the intersection. Then he dropped her on the other side, accepted her thanks and carried on. That evening when the two monks had reached a monastery the young monk opened his mouth to speak.
He said “My reverend master, we are monks and it is forbidden for us to touch women, let alone carry one in our arms”
The older monk gently replied, “My dear fellow, I left that woman at the other side of the intersection but it looks like you are still carrying her.”

One of the best storytellers I have ever known was my great grand mother who, even at the age of 86 years, loved to spook us with her ghost stories. Every summer all us cousins would get together at our ancestral village and come evening she would light a lamp on the terrace and we little kids would, like helpless moths, gravitate towards her. She would then commence on some spook story, her voice clacking like a witch, her misshapen teeth and her several facial warts and wattles would add to the effect and in no time we would be jumping with sheer fright at every shadow, at every squeak, at every rustle of the leaves. Come bedtime and several beddings would be rolled out for us all on the very same terrace. None of us were brave enough to shut our eyes and how we swore we would never again listen to her stories but come next evening she would light her lamp and call us in. Such helpless moths we were.

A cup of tea

There was once a university professor in Tokyo who was known for his knowledge and understanding of practical sciences. He often mocked religion and spirituality. One day he decided to go and challenge the then existing Zen master Nan-in.

Nan-in invited the professor and served him tea. He poured the visitor's cup till it was full and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the cup overflowing until he could no longer restrain himself. "Its overfull. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

Zen and the art of getting your wish

Everybody advised him that she was way out of his league and he'd best stick to his own, not that any of that mattered to him. He just politely heard them and then carried right on. Somewhere deep down even he knew they all may be right, but that too had no effect on what he did. Just like with everybody else, he politely listened to his mind speak and once it had done saying what it had to, he turned around and went straight to the local grocery and paid the checkout girl to get the latest list of the stuff she had bought just a little while back. Another day he struck up a conversation with the librarian to find out what she had been reading recently and then he got all those books issued to himself. He read every word and thought over every word. He did the same with the local music shop, the video parlour, found out what she had ordered at every restaurant she had been to in the last three months. Things weren't always that easy. Sometimes his charms failed him and people didn't give him the information he wanted. Some got angry, others got wary and some even had him thrown out. He took all this in his stride and carried on just the same. He knew the names of each member of her family, her relatives and her friends, and he knew much more about those that he thought mattered to her more than the others.

He did all this for six months and during all this while he never made even the slightest attempt to catch her attention or get her to notice his presence. Then one day, when he was ready, he wrote her a story. The story was about a girl who woke up one day and realised that she had the power to live her life just as she pleased. In the story, he got the girl to express what mattered to her, what she wanted to do in her life, the places she wanted to visit, the things she wanted to eat, wear, do. The things she wanted changed.

As she read the story, she slowly saw herself emerge out of the pages in a way she had never seen herself. He ended the story by getting the girl to express her ultimate fantasy...to meet a man who knew her almost as well as she knew herself.... as she read this, tears flowed down her eyes... for that was her wish too.

Nothing happened for a few days but then one day she picked up the phone and dialed the number that came with the story to speak with this stranger who had written it.

That was the break he was waiting for.

They met and soon she had met the man who knew her almost as well as she knew herself.

Do I really need to tell you what happened thereafter?

Music of the Soul

A narrow dimly lit lane leads to the hovel where Qasim Miyan stays with his wife and children. Qasim met me at a mushaira and invited me to his home during Ramzan. Qasim was a Sufi Qawaal with a clear leaning towards ‘mausiqui’, the spiritual part of Sufism.

So on the 19th day of Ramzan, come iftar, Qasim and I partook a frugal meal of dates and milk. We later sat and discussed music and as he spoke his face transformed, a glow seemed to wipe away all his wrinkles and his eyes took a faraway look. He spoke of the nuances of shayari, how ashiqui (the ode to the beloved) transcended to mausiqui. How the great shayars through out time had a personal relationship with the almighty and how for them there was no difference between pursuing a consort or communicating with the almighty.

It was getting dark and Qasim called one of his sons to get a few lamps. In the flickering light of the lamps I saw Qasim sit in a corner, faintly clicking his fingers and nodding to some tune that was playing in his head. He signaled his sons, a mere flick of a finger, and with perfect understanding they trooped in with a set of tablas and a harmonium. They handed Qasim a sarangi and soon all three were busy tapping and tuning their instruments. I just sat back, waiting for the music to begin. As he sat tuning his sarangi, Qasim looked up and said;

“bhaijaan, hum sub toh thaireh qawaal, humare ehsaas hi hamare ruh ki jabaan hain, aur yeh ruh hi hamari sachayi hain (brother, we are just qawaals, feelings are the language of our soul and our soul is our truth). You see poverty all around me but do you not see my feelings that are overflowing straight from my soul, do you not see how my feelings are reaching out and speaking with the almighty and how that truth is the real essence of my existence, my soul…”

With these whispered words he began to sing a couplet by Khusrau. In the flickering light of the lamps his face was lit up, the tiny beads of sweat glittered like some shining jewels. His fingers flew over the strings of his sarangi and every once in a while his hands would abandon the sarangi and reach out towards the sky entreating the almighty to accept some offering, his fingers weaving in the air, sometimes beseeching, sometimes urging. His voice reverberated through out the tiny room, his words swirled around, strangely echoing as they hit the walls and returned to envelope me again and again. The flames danced as if swinging to the words…. Rumi followed Khusrau, then came Niaz, Hafiz, Hasraf Mohani, Zaheen Shah…. All words straight from the very soul, all words of absolute truth… they talked of submission, of bewilderment, of the almighty’s power and his grace, his beauty and his mercy. The tiny room seemed to expand and grow, the little flames danced till they seemed to light up the whole world, the music became a conversation between galaxies…. And I sat, unblinking and mute.

When I finally left Qasim Miyan’s little hovel I saw that hours had passed. Quite surprising really, I swear I felt I was in there for just a few moments….

Joy of Ageing

Nowadays everybody wants to be young. So much so that even the young are looking old in an effort to remain young. Its almost like a miasma, silently floating among us. Stopping every now and then to breath its foul spell into our lives, forcing us to run towards the newest thing that is on the shelf, a tall promise to shed years off our skins.

It aught to be lovely to be old,

to be full of peace that comes of deep experience,

and of wrinkled ripe fulfilment.

It aught to be lovely to smile,

that wrinkled smile of completeness,

a smile that follows a life lived undaunted,

a life lived with accepted lies.

If people live without accepting lies,

they would ripen like apples

and be tasteless and rotten in their old age.

I pray and hope and I pray again,

that a young girl would say,

"It must be wonderful to live and grow old,

look at my old mother, how beautiful she looks"

that a youthful boy would think,

"My father is wrinkled for he has faced many weathers,

what a lovely life he has lived"

It indeed aught to be lovely to be old,

to be full of peace that comes of deep experience,

and of wrinkled ripe fulfillment.

Divine Conversations

A mother to the Creator once said,
"I wish I had your power"
The Creator then to the Mother replied,
"Raise my Good Woman, but its you I envy,
I create, but cannot undo,
for yours alone is the right to scrutiny.
As powerful as I may be,
mistakes are but a part of me.
To you is that divine power,
While I wait and despair,
you provide perfection to all I do."

Flight of Fantasy

Come, together lets undertake a flight of fantasy,
tucked away among the meadows I have,
a wee little plane just for two,
you need merely to think and it takes you there,
its a secret invention just for us two.

It has no complicated gadgets to engage the frivolous mind,
it has but two chairs but with ample leg space,
it has a tiny fridge and a warm stove,
its little windows have red silk curtains, tied and tasseled,
and a wee little door to let us explore.

It flies fast yet its safe,
no rules, but those of joy, to it apply
its fuel is a smiling face,
its brake.... the tiniest frown.

It needs no landing place, nor any guiding lights,
to it, the directions are to run wild,
its coloured bright red so we know its there.
not the scorching desert heat deters it,
nor the frigid cold of the arctic blue.

It needs no company except us two,
all we have to do is think and it takes us there,
no treasure can dream to buy it, for its ours and ours alone
tucked away among the meadows I have
a wee little plane for two.

Keeping in touch

Came across this, thanks to a dear friend....

It really got me thinking.. When was the last time i had penned a letter to someone I care about... a note or even a scribble??? It was a long long time ago, so long ago that i don't remember exactly when... now i have, maybe, five different ways of keeping in touch with those I care about, there is the phone, the e-mail, the Gmail chat, there's Skype and finally there is(and I am least proud of this one) the ubiquitous and the extremely abbreviated Mr SMS.

All of them are about bits of binary codes or radio waves swirling about and ferrying my affection across. Very efficient, very quick and very very Hi-tech....

But since when is affection about being Hi-tech, about being quick and about efficiency?.. will somebody tell me that?

When both of us were young and filled with all sorts of silly notions and feelings, how we poured them into long letters that we wrote to each other. How I waited for those letters to arrive. How I suffered when they didn't and how i rejoiced when they did. I knew the postman by his bell and I knew he was there when the faintest tinkle reached my ears. He was still far off, just about getting into my lane and still with many houses to call on before he reached mine. But I would race down and wait for him, impatiently swinging on the iron gate. As he got closer and he met my eye, I knew I had a letter, if he didn't then today was not the day. How my heart would break when he would keep his eyes glued on the road ahead as he passed my house on his stupid rickety cycle, ringing his stupid rickety bell. And I would have to wait another whole day to know if you had been thinking about me...a whole day!

That is the bitter sweet magic of a letter. That is what this image reminded me about.

Its time I conjured up that magic all over again.

Its time I wrote you a letter...

Strange Connections

Who is she to you?, that's what a lot of you have asked me. Frankly, I too wonder the same. Many an hour I have pondered over it as I sipped several tall glasses of ice-tea and stared at the green patch that reluctantly rolls out on the small terrace garden overlooking her room.

It's not really her room. It was just another room in my house till one day she kinda slept over and then on it just became her room. It now has so much of her stuff that I cannot imagine anybody else claiming that room to be theirs.

Her room can be accessed directly from the street. There is a spiral staircase that leads from the driveway to the terrace garden and from there to her room. Some nights she gets into her room from there and I realise she is back only the next morning when she walks lazily down for some breakfast. I would be sitting at the table in the kitchen, with a cup of coffee, a bowl of cereals and some fruit, reading the newspaper and she would gently creep up from behind, plant a tiny kiss on the top of my head and reach for a fruit. Sometimes instead of reaching out for a fruit she would instead gently rub my shoulders while both of us read the newspaper open in front of us, her warm breath tickling my ears.

Generally both of us treasure the morning silence and its takes a lot for either of us to disturb it. So we would continue like this till one of us would, with a wave of the head, indicate to the other that breakfast was over.

She loves to fiddle with her hair and would often wind a strand around her finger, starting at the bottom and going all the way up till her finger would jam against her head. I have always found this habit of hers mildly irritating and many a times I have gently tapped her finger to make her stop. She would invariably pout and very reluctantly let go of her hair.

She read somewhere that chewing a gum was an effective way to keep her teeth clean and thereon she became a fanatic gum chewer. I would carry bits of paper in my pocket and pass her one whenever she wanted to get rid of the wad in her mouth. She understood my need for cleanliness but that kind of stopped at her door. Once inside she would pull out the gum and merrily stick it anywhere out of her sight. These would eventually harden into dried pips and I always thought they looked like small microphones put in by some sinister undercover agent. Every once in a while when she was not in her room I would don a hat, put on some gloves and pretend I was some sort of a spy sent out to 'debug' the room. I would tiptoe around looking into all the nooks and crannies and let out a whoop every time i found one of them 'microphones'. In the beginning I used to have great fun and would easily spend an hour looking for the pips but now I know all the little places where she is likely to stick her gum and can clean the place up inside of ten minutes.

Some evenings when she is home we would sit in the living room and play a board game or solve the Scrabble or just laze and listen to the Hi-Fi. Sometimes while listening to the music she would slide up and snuggle into my shoulders. When that happened, she would always shiver a bit and I would gently hug her hoping to drive away the devils inside her. We both like to listen to the music with our eyes closed and every once in a while she would doze off and I would have to lug her all the way up to her room and tuck her in. I don't sleep much, so often I would pull up a chair and watch her sleep. These were the only times both of us were in her room together and I would get this desperate urge to hug her. But invariably I would just walk out and go to my room downstairs and catch up on some work.

Often she goes away for many days, sometimes on some project, sometimes just to be on her own and I would wait for her to return. If the waiting got too long and I was missing her then I would often go to her room and soak in her presence, sometimes I would slip into her bed and just lie there, mind blank. Once I lay like that the whole night and in the morning she walked in. She saw me lying in her bed and she had this amused smile on her face as if she had caught me doing something very naughty.

Who is the mad one?

During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director,

"What is the criteria that defines a patient that needs to be institutionalised?"

"Well," said the Director, "we fill up a bathtub, we offer a teaspoon, a teacup, and a bucket to the patient and ask the patient to empty the bathtub."

Oh, I see, that's pretty smart," said the visitor. "A normal person would choose the bucket as it is larger than the spoon or the teacup.. right?."


"No," answered the Director. "A normal person would pull the drain plug."


;-)


Gotcha....


Hey, my friend, I too flunked this test... but living, as we do, in this mad world, methinks all of us qualify to be institutionalised...

The Eaglet Story

A young naturalist once was on a field trip when he came upon a small village. At the edge of this village was a small farm where a brood of new born chicks were pecking at some grain. He looked at the brood and thought something was odd. So he called the farmer and told him that one of the chicks was actually an eaglet.

The farmer looked at the naturalist and insisted that they were all chicks, after all they all looked just the same. But the naturalist too insisted that one of them was not a chick at all but an eaglet and that he wanted to take that eaglet away from this brood of chicks.

The farmer shrugged his shoulders. What was one chick less to him who had several hens. So he let the naturalist take the little bird with him.

A few days later, when he thought the time was right, the naturalist took the little bird and climbed a tree. At the top to the tree he whispered to the little bird:

"You are an Eagle, the king of the Sky,
So my little bird, Spread your wings and Fly."

He then stretched out his hand and let go of the little bird. But the little bird just flapped its wings and tumbled to the ground. There it promptly began pecking at some grain, just as it had been doing all this while.

The naturalist waited a few day more and this time took the little bird to the top of a much larger tree and again whispered:

"You are an Eagle, the King of the Sky,
So my little bird, Spread your wings and Fly."

But the bird merely flipped and flapped its way to the ground.

So he waited some more and this time took the little bird to the top of a large hill. There he again whispered the same thing to the bird and let it go. This time the little bird flapped a bit harder and it felt a surge of wind below its wings. It liked the feeling so it flapped harder still and by and by it began to soar. Soon it was doing all that eagles do... it flew high and fast.

Way down below the farmer saw the bird fly and knew it was indeed an Eagle. So he rushed to the naturalist and asked him:

" My friend, tell me how did you know the little bird was really an eagle"

The naturalist simply replied:

"How does it matter what it really was, I just believed that it was an Eagle".