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".

Happy Valentine's Day

Someone once told me that nothing happens just by chance, also that nothing ever happens that has no significance somewhere, somehow or to someone. I believe its true, that indeed when a butterfly flaps its tiny wings somewhere in China, its sets off a series of cause and effects that leads to, maybe, a thunderstorm somewhere in Brazil...

Is a thunderstorm in Brazil a good thing or is it a bad thing? I don't know... depends... but the point is 'cause and effect'.... that whatever I do will have an impact somewhere... and that makes me feel responsible... I am no longer just a mute and dumb spectator in this theatre of life...

So on this day of love and peace I will go out there and do something, something I may have never done before.

I am sure it will have some impact.

Just imagine if a whole bunch of people, a BIG bunch of people, all did something today, something they never done before, just imagine how many ripples that will set off, how many new directions the 'cause and effect' stuff will fly, imagine the chaos, this is stuff that can shake the very roots of who we are and how we are....

WHAM!

I don't know for sure if what happens from all this will be good or bad... but what is the worst.. things will really go bad... well, we are at the very edge anyway, at best this will tip things over and BOOM, we are all history. Great, then all of us can dust out hands and begin all over again....

So lets go out there and do something....

Smile at a stranger, better still smile at someone you dont like.

Take the stairs instead of the elevator,

Hop instead of walk

Dig a hole, plant a tree

Yell "BOO" at the top of your voice

Buy handloom

Call a person you haven't spoken to in a long time

Schedule a reading at an old age home

Skip a meal

Bake something with your child

Cry at the plight of a stranger....

....

....

....

What, my friend, are you planning to do???

Chill Connection

I take a walk to the park on most mornings and on my way there I have to cross a traffic junction. As far I can recall there has always been this old frail woman who sits in the corner soliciting alms. She has this plaintive pathetic look which follows you as you cross and that look simply melts your heart.

I, however, have some rather firm ideas about never giving money to beggars and I really couldn't think of any other way of helping her. So when on a cold winter morningI saw her all huddled up and shivering in her usual threadbare sari, I knew right away what I had to do. Later that day I went over to the flea market and picked up cheap but warm second hand sweater. This I gave to her the next morning. I thought that was a nice thing to do. So the very next day imagine my surprise when I saw this woman still in her threadbare sari, just as cold and shivering as before. She told me that her son had taken the sweater away from her. I said, that's fine, I will buy her another one. She said what's the point? someone else will take it. Who cares about an old widow keeping warm.

As I walked away from her my shoulders felt very heavy, as if a collective guilt of the uncaring humanity was weighing it down. I changed my route so I never had to cross her again.

A few months later I was at a gathering and the talk turned to beggars and I related my story of this old woman at the junction. A friend who works with street children told me not to worry too much. She said that its a well known fact in her circle how the beggars simply look forward to winters. They sit out there all cold and shivering and melting our hearts. She told me that all beggars make several times their daily take in the winters. The colder it is the better, the more they shiver and the more money they make. She also told me that's why the old woman would never have worn my sweater even if she was the only person left in the world.

Cafe Musings 301

Its been a few months since the time I willingly gave into silence. Silence of words and silence of mind. A peaceful sensation that breeds thoughts. Thoughts that are simple and beautiful. Beautiful because they are my own and simple because they are without pretentions and without any need to impress.

My Buddhist friend (The Thinker) must have liked the ice-tea at my favorite noisy little cafe because when I met him again after all these months and asked him to join me for a cup of tea he promptly suggested the same cafe.

So here we are, he with his ice-tea and I, stirring my my coffee and searching in my mind for something smart to say, to start off our reunion with that 'A-ah' sentence.

He just saw right through it and with a smile he said;

"simplify"

"what??!!"

"be simple, if its not simple its probably not very good"

I just couldn't help laughing. He had got me again. But try as I might I just couldn't think of something simple to say. So I just stared at my coffee and admired the way it looked.

One of the nice things about keeping things simple is that everything flows so naturally. Once I had given up looking for that 'A-ah' thing to say, words and thoughts just kept coming up and before anyone knew it we were back to talking, just talking. Nothing in particular. I, sipping my coffee, and he letting his ice-tea go flat.

He spoke of a Lama he had spent his last winter with. He said lamas like to live on their own because its easy to be simple when you are on your own. He said this lama had a very unique way to attain spirituality. His measure of spirituality was a clear conscience and for him spirituality manifested in being able to sleep peacefully night after night knowing that there was nothing he did during that day that if done in some other way would have made things better than they already are. For him the pursuit of spirituality lay in being able to extend the scope of his involvement in ever increasing circles around him.

First he limited himself to making his own life better. Then he included his immediate surroundings, his room, his immediate community. Then the circle kept growing wider and wider. Every night he asked himself the same question, "Can I do something that would make things better?" The night he answered this question in the negative, that next morning he would push his circle a bit wider to include more things. When I mean things I just don't mean people, I mean everything. The animals, the trees, the stones, the water, the air, everything. He said that's why he wrote prayers on flags and let them flutter in the wind. That way the wind would carry the prayers away and the prayers would swirl around touching things and making them better. Things that were too far away for his hands to touch but things that were nonetheless on his mind, on his conscience and that deep down something told him that he had to help in making them better.

Cafe Musings 201

'The Thinker' and I have been planning to go on a trek to Tibet. We have been planning this for over an year. We now finally seem to have a viable plan and looks like we may end up doing it this summer. We like to prepare for our treks by spending a lot of time together. Sometimes discussing the details, the logistics, but mostly we end up, like today, just talking. Talking about anything. sometimes we discuss our previous treks, our shared experiences. He has been trekking far longer than I have so he has more stories to tell then I do. Often he tells me stories of his experiences, sometimes to prove a point, sometimes to express his fears or sometimes simply to enrich my knowledge.

Up in the mountains everybody is a guru. The awesome power of the mountains breed humility and humility is the preferred grounds where spirituality sprouts. Extreme cold and rarefied air make conversations difficult, so people speak as little as possible. But they converse as much as you and I, they only do it through their eyes and with slow clean gestures.

I once spent a whole evening with a family in Spiti Valley. They hardly spoke a word but everybody in that family, including a naturally exuberant 5 year old boy, did everything a normal family does. The father helped the little boy with his home assignments, the mother cooked and the daughter helped set the table.... all of it in a calm quite way. They politely smiled (the little boy and his sister giggled) while i foolishly wasted my energies trying to fill up the silences with my constant chatter. That was a long time ago. Now I am as comfortable with silences as they are.

Talking blunts all other senses and therefore its only by being silent that one observes better, perceives better, understands better. Mastering silence is at the very core of all evolved religions. Its through silence that one acquires the sensitivity to listen, appreciate and eventually advise.

Cafe Musings 101

There is a quaint little cafe I often visit. Its beside a thoroughfare leading straight to the bazaar. Its noisy but one can see a lot of interesting things. Its here that my friend, a practicing Buddhist, whom we all lovingly call 'the thinker', often meets us to catch up and chat up.

"You often talk of a rhythm of life, that everything is part of some cosmic dance and as that dance ebbs and flows so does life go through a change of rhythm, at once agile, at once resting. Sure, but my dear friend, look at this street... where is that rhythm?, that flow?, all that I see is chaos, discord and cacophony....."

As I finished speaking, he just sat there, sipping his ice-tea and staring somewhere in the distance. My heart skipped a beat... had I done the unthinkable... had I finally stumped 'the thinker'. Striking him mute with my profundity? I guess not, his eyes slowly focused into mine and he mumbled, almost to himself..

"too many dancers and too close, way too close". I held my breath, I didn't want to anything to disrupt the sound waves as they carried his message to my eager ears. His eyes slowly returned to that point in the distance.

"The aakar, he continued, is neeraakar unless its seen in its totality. It does not exist meaningfully in bits and pieces. What you are seeing are those bits and pieces. You need to step back and then you will see the rhythm. Imagine a dancer, her eyebrows are shooting upwards while her eyes are flared sideways. Her fingers are splayed out while her hands are folding in. Her head is thrown back while her chest is pushing forward, her lips are compressed while her teeth are flaring... all bits and pieces individually discordant but step back a bit and you see a perfect execution of the Vibhasaa Raas. So it is with the rhythm of life."

I couldn't help smiling.... if one peers at an anthill from up close it appears to be chaotic but stand back and the same anthill is all efficient movements. But I somehow don't feel like giving in... not just yet. So I combat verbally.

"Come on, look at this street, no matter how far one backs up its still going to be chaotic"

He looks at me, his shoulders slump a little, he can see that I am being deliberately dumb and he could choose to ignore me.... he chooses not.

"The true essence of stepping back is to loosen your grip over the details without losing your sight of the form. One appreciates a form not by merely adding up the details but by sensing the harmony that joins the details into something more that just the sum of parts. To see the rhythm in this street one needs to look for the purpose, the essence. That's when one realises that much of the chaos is purposeless and therefore does not exist in the larger picture. What is left then is the purposeful actions of people with a goal in mind and their movements are therefore efficient. All efficient movements are always graceful, always beautiful, always rhythmic"

He seemed a little out of breath. Its rare when he speaks for so long and that too in a single breath. He reaches for his ice-tea. Its gone flat, all ice having long melt. We ask for some lemon juice and sugar syrup. His ice-tea always ends up being nimbu-pani because he takes so long over his drink and keeps adding extra lemon juice and syrup after regular intervals.