Idyllic Thoughts

Mysore haunts me even after a year of my estrangement from the city. The roads where I walked and waited all those interminable hours for that elusive bus, the marble Swami Vivekananda statue which stood forlorn and forgotten in the circle until one day it was discarded in a nearby park and replaced with a huge bronze one, the amphitheatre (Vanaranga) at Rangayana where I spent many a lost evening, the University paths where my sis and I collected gulganji seeds and searched for knowledge among the old buildings once frequented by the greats of Kannada literature... I miss all but one part of the city - the so-called litterateurs and intellectuals who claim to be an authority on all and sundry under the sun. I once asked a colleague about the books written by a famous 'litterateur' of Mysore and she replied she didn't know. Nobody knew. I searched the net and found the titles. They just talk, talk and talk. Why?

Some people are so straight-forward and truthful that they tend to see everything in black and white - the truth and the lie - the black truth and the white lie. Confusion and chaos exist only in the colours which contain hundreds of shades. I consider black as truth because there is nothing to hide in it: it is plain and shadowless. Whereas white is a lie because it can hide behind many shadows, and is also the meeting point of all colours - in short, chaos too which arise from the untruth (as pointed out by my hubby).

What is so unattractive about silence that people fear it? Why is there so much chaos around us -- the cacophony on news channels, the jumble of words trying to express a feeling thru speech or songs, the mind-shattering music praising god and man, the chattering of a thousand minds where everyone wants his/her opinions to be heard and to be mattered, the honking of horns and quarrels on the roads, the calling out of hawkers and bargaining of shoppers, the chants in places of worship and in the seeking minds... Why is it so difficult for us to be silent? To communicate with others without the help of words (or mild words), to put our point across without arguments, to converse with god without hymns and tolling bells, to immerse oneself in the clear, unmuddied waters of silent contemplation where solutions can be arrived at within, arguments are done with the self and the beauty of this world taken in without the help of words? When will we learn to shut up and speak... thru silence?

I believe the Socialist Republics of the world failed because they gave too much importance to the lazy poor, not the poor people who worked hard and yet failed to earn enough to sustain themselves. I see the same thing happening here in India. I see mobiles with fancy ringtones and wallpapers, tight jeans and even bikes with young men of the poorer class. And the government gives out rice at Re. 1/kg for them, allowing them to spend the rest Rs. 99 on luxury rather than necessity. They work for a day, earn enough to tide them through the next few days of non-working, loitering around in tea shops and then go to work only when that money runs out. They neither save for the future nor worry about it. Why don't our youth have a commitment towards work and its ethics?

One fine day, we all will look out of photo frames adorned with jasmine garlands and burning incense sticks. People come and bow to us -- shedding a tear or two if we are lucky -- walk away with solemn steps, hung heads and drooping shoulders, to stand in groups and whisper about our merits and what a sad situation it is. The spring in their steps returns when they step out of the premises and instantly forget the face in the frame. I sometimes wonder if grief too is just a show-off. I don't blame them, for life goes on... with or without us. 

The day before yesterday, I wrote about my paradise. Yesterday, while cooking, I was listening to Phil Collins' beautiful song 'Another day in paradise.' Do we, in our utter indifference or denial, live untouched by the homeless, the hungry and the aged who have nowhere to go? May be we have conditioned our minds so that we can effectively block out the sufferings of others. May be that's why we remain largely untouched by the deaths and destruction. May be denial is our natural protection against insanity. Because even the most compassionate of them all will have to keep it impersonal to remain sane. 

Work. Eat. Read. Sleep. Wake up to a rainy morning or a cloudy evening. This has been my routine since many days. I wished to fit in blogging too, but my mind seemed peaceful and content enough to idly wander. Right now, the most important things in my life seem to be running to the door to watch the numerous peahens prance around in our garden, waiting for the lone peacock to spread its feathers on our coconut tree, a drive along the wet path towards a happy beach which is being kissed in proxy by rain drops... Who wishes to bother about the problems of the world when one is in the midst of paradise? The bustling world and its numerous shortcomings seem to exist on another planet. Sayonara.

The glory of the past is an illusion. So is the glory of the present. --Edward Johnston. I always thought that it is human folly to look back at the 'glorious' past and rue the hardships of the present. We forget that the same past was once the hated-present which we wished would change into something better. Do we humans have a selective memory, storing all the good memories and deleting the bad ones, or rather creating a wall of forgetfulness to block them?

Life has no pit stops, only the inevitable destination.

While cleaning out old papers and magazines, got a Week magazine of 2009 which had stories on Kargil war. Felt proud that our government took the right (and bold) decisions at the right time, not bending to Big Brother's pressures; proud of our soldiers who lost their limbs, lives but not their true spirit in the face of a Stinger. Felt tears brim over at the pride of their parents. When will we learn to respect our soldiers instead of silver screen idols and heroes of the pitch?

"Wherever they might be they always remember that the past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth in the end." --- Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014) The best way to pay tribute to a writer is by reading his books. I had just finished reading Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" when he passed away to his own realm of magic realism. Reading the pages of the book was like riding a roiling wave which touched two worlds of reality and fantasy thru its crests and troughs. Look up and you can see the invisible gossamer separating the worlds.

Silence is the best way to communicate.

There was a time when we used to frequent my granny's house every weekend and holiday. Being young, I had no other companion of my age group except my young sis whose idea of playing was planting a flower and watering it, watching it every hour to check if a plant has grown out of it. My friend was the nature around me. I would lie on the huge boulder and watch the skies for hours, imagining that I was alone in the whole wide world. I would walk thru the woods, climb trees, pluck cashew apple and indulge in its juicy pulp and searching for wild fruits like the maroon Karjikayi or the tiny white Bemmaralu. And now, I'm back amidst nature and it calms me and makes me happy to watch the flowers bloom amid green leaves, tiny insects crawl out of them after having their fill of nectar, leaves sway in the mild breeze and glow in the mid-morning sun. I love the early morning ritual of watering the trees and plants, with glistening droplets falling on me; making me proud that I'm

A few evenings ago, I was sitting on the porch reading a book. When I looked up, I saw a black cat with white streaks which often runs around in our compound, crouching, staring at something intently. Its front paws were folded and eyes narrowed in concentration. It stealthily moved forward. A tiny bird was perching on the ground beneath a Crape Jasmine tree (Nandi Battalu). Fully engrossed in the book, I couldn't at first grasp the action or rather the inaction of the cat and when it dawned on me, I tried to shoo away the cat. Disturbed out of its intense concentration, it looked at me accusingly and without any further delay, pounced on the bird. However, the bird alerted by the commotion, flew away. Looking at the disappointed cat, a question arose in my mind. Did I just snatch away its natural prey and was it wrong from the viewpoint of nature's food chain? I don't know.