Idyllic Thoughts

It was raining and mom was walking on the road. At a place where road work was going on, a one-year-old baby sat on the wet ground defecating on the road side. It was oblivious to the fact that rain was pouring on its head. A few steps further, she saw that an older child was eating puffed rice, unworried by the rain drops falling on the eatable making it sogged. The child went hopping and skipping to its father who was lifting soil along with his wife, took a handful of puffed rice and put it into his mouth, laughing happily at the ordeal. Aren't we just a wee bit too worried about our dress, our behaviour, our language, our hygiene, our wealth, our position, our showing off, our opinions, our attitude and our life? What matters and what does not? Why are we self-involved?

Three tiny tots climbed the sharing auto I was travelling in today morning along with their mother. Two of them were girls. Seeing their innocent faces and the whisperings of confidentialities between themselves as if it was a State secret, I sighed. How beautiful is childhood ! And I hoped that the girls would turn out to be ugly when they grow up to be maidens. I hope they don't get mired in this world of cruelty, uncertainty, fear and insecurity, and remain ugly and happy; may be disturbed only about their ugliness of face but not fear the consequences of their beauty. You think I am cruel? No. I just saw a photo of Aarushi Talwar and feeling sad. Such a beautiful girl lost her life for what? Who knows? If she had lived, may be she would have been an achiever. A life nipped young. 

She walked in the sand She walked among waves She walked till she could walk no more ....till she could float no more ....till she could sink no more ....till she could breathe no more

Two days ago, I was watching a Chinese film 'Shower.' It's a story of an old man and his mentally challenged son running a bathhouse. The old man's elder son who had migrated to city many years ago in search of fortune arrives one day. The misunderstandings between father-son, the love of elder brother towards his sibling, the younger one'e clear sense of right and wrong are a delight to watch. The old man narrates his wife's story to his children — a story of villages in China suffering for want of water. With very less water found for even drinking, the families in villages never take bath. However, it is their custom that a bride should take bath on the night before her wedding. The scene where the bride's father and little brother go door-to-door seeking water is heart-rending. They carry two casks on a mule, give one large cup of rice in exchange for equivalent amount of water. After going to so many houses, they manage to fill up the casks. It is sh...

Mornings and nights in Mysore are just wonderful. With hot and nauseating middays, it is a relief to come out at night and relish the cool breeze which seems to have a tiff with the sun as it refuses to meet us when he is present. The breeze peeps out to check if its archrival sun has disappeared, and slowly flows out. Early morning walk is quite enjoyable with no sign of commercial activity except for the long-drawn, oft-slurred cry of the woman who carries leafy veg in a basket, newspaper boys who would bring gold in Olympics discus-throw, men who walk wobbling on the road after a boozy night inside a ditch, daily wage labourers who arrive in city from various sub-urban villages wait for contractors squatting on roadsides... Though all these were a common sight to me every morning at 7.30, today it was quite different, delightful and clean. After a night of rain god's fury at its best, I was waiting to come out of the house and enjoy the bus ride to office. Fallen trees and scat...

Many extol the virtues of a beautiful sculpture carved out of stone. They say that only when a stone endures the strikings of a sculptor's chisel and bloom into an attractive form can its life (!) be fulfilled. Don't you think its 'fulfillment' is quite unnatural? What the stone finally turns out to be is the dream of the sculptor, not that of the stone. The thoughts and aspirations belong to the sculptor. The stone, which though was 'deformed' earlier in the eyes of the beholder, had its own individuality and freedom which was lost when the chisel touched it for the first time. Did the stone want to become a beautiful, 'meaningful' statue? May be, may be not.

At last, India has become a Ramarajya - no, not the ideal kind but the kind where a Sita who crossed a 'boundary' was banished, where an unsuspecting Ahalya was turned into stone, where a Draupadi who loved Arjuna was married to his brothers too, where a rape victim is blamed to be the cause for her ordeal; in sum total, where a woman's opinions are not sought or heard, where a woman is supposed to be the epitome of silence and subservience. Wonder what makes people to think that love is shown through body and not mind? I also wonder what made sage Uddalaka, who too lived in an ancient era alien to women's freedom and equality concepts, tell his son Shvetaketu that "a woman is free to do as she pleases" when his wife went off with another man. When Shvetaketu questions his paternity, Uddalaka answers, "It is not my seed that makes you my child, it is my love.” Who is great? A person whose confusions regarding relationships were given the name of dharma...