When Murder is my Right

When you are trying to analyse a social evil like infanticide the problems of reliable statistics and factual study are tough to beat. The UNICEF statistics for infanticide have come under criticism by our establishment ( predictably) for inflation and sensationalism. While that may be true there is another problem - the absence of reliable background history of this problem. How did we end up here, not just as a democracy, a culture but perhaps as human beings.


Various sources agree that the Greek and Roman Empires openly allowed and encouraged infanticide in a bid to make sure only the fittest made up their citizens. Not just female but even male infants who appeared sickly or below the par were abandoned in a jar on the roadside to die of starvation. And we all know how these two mighty " Civilizations " eventually .....  Germany,Sweden, Native American colonies, Aboriginal tribes, Brazilian indigineous tribes,  Russia ,China .....  it seems the human race has this ONE  facet of history in common with our country.


And in every culture  the infants exterminated were perceived to be of lesser value at that point in time and reference . Relative morality at it's best. And, most IMPORTANTLY - the practice was validated by the customs, culture and in case of Greek and Rome - the FIRST democracy and republic of the world.


 Infanticide is thus not a sign of degraded, backward thinking cultures. 


Infanticide is a sign of an advanced civilization approaching decay.


All the above examples of civilizations and cultures were at their peak when the practice of infanticide, neither condemned nor shamed, rose like the Kraken from the deep. None of these cultures did anything worthwhile to arrest it. Because quite frankly - only the fittest deserve to survive.It was less than average males and females in Rome and Greece, females in general across the indigenous populations in North and South America, China, Arabic Middle East .... the list is endless. 


Female infanticide is no more heinous than the abortion of an infant discovered to harbour genetic deformities through sonogram. Today we don't leave them on the road in a jar to die. We establish, obsessively through the technology at our disposal that the future human in making is perfect to the last nail. And if we decide he doesn't deserve a shot because he falls short of genetic perfection we have the medical community, lobbyists and the LAW on our side. 


As parents we measure the quality of life on the scale of our self-serving whims and fancies, decide what it takes to live in the fullest sense. Then we decide if, in what number and what kind of children fit into OUR vision of a life lived well in the context of our point in time, our system, culture and civilization. We decide not to have children when we feel they will not contribute to our self-gratification as much as take from it. We decide how many of them will tilt the balance in our favor and at what stage of our lives.


It just so happens that some of us feel that girls in whatever quantities and qualitites will not add as much as deduct. Will not have much of a life anyway in the environment they are being spared of, much like a Down's syndrome boy won't be able to make the most of his privileged life in a first world city. Her parents think their system, civilization is more demanding on them and her than she will be able to meet. Just as economics forces some parents to avoid or terminate children beyond a numeric figure, these parents find her a losing proposition. All that investment in time and MONEY over  a second class citizen on par with the blind, deaf and handicapped. Who will not return their investments by caring for them in their old age or turning in their pay packets.


The world over, all countries that practice selective abortion irrespective of gender are approaching decay and rot like Greece and Rome. Where humans who don't contribute as much as they consume of the system are to be exterminated. Never mind their hearts are beating in vitro or out of it. 


Because there is Less of it for all of us.So only the fittest deserve whatever there is to have.


The need is not to change the laws, to punish the errant.The need is to arrest the ROT of the system where there are too many grabbing for too less.Education, employment, food, lifestyle. All nose-diving across the first, second and third worlds.


Our world is approaching ROT.


Female infanticide is not a women's issue for feminists to rail about. It is symptom for us as Indians to arrest the decay around us by examining and healing our own attitudes on life and living. 


Aamir Khan has put the bell on the cat. Now it's your turn.

From Spain to India to Spain

This is one of those full circles that will draw a bemused smile. Being in Kolkata is in many ways, an enigmatic paradox. A city so slow, an average Mumbaikar could loose his mind. Yet a cultural palate so shaukeen he would be at first bemused, then jealous. Where Sufi sangeet  and Cultural festivals are an annual occurence in Mumbai, a luxury few can afford. In Kolkata the same is the daily cup of tea. Mandatory, routine and unimpeachable. Sip a cup of infusion at the College street Coffee house and soak in the ambience that is made up of students discussing Rabindra poetry, theatre artists passionately debating their next ventures and writers working on their next books. There is so much culture in the very air that a Mumbaikar might just hyperventilate.


But this particular Mumbaikar-Marwari hybrid it seems was always a Kolkatan at heart. Haunting the school libraries to pour over the musings of poets in horn rimmed glasses and earning the usual monikers that are bestowed on the unfortunate breed of dorkus nerdus. Always mesmerised by the mercurially spiritual prose of Tagore. His riveting insights into relationships and society are, unfortunately not explored outside West Bengal. Powerfully overflowing with the preciousness of this maverick visionary, his literature and poetry both equally facilitate a sojourn into his unnatural contemplation of the mundane. His deep, unimaginable insights are etched and inter weaved in the tapestry of my mind. Which is why, I was surprised to see the same in the unlikeliest of places. A coffee table edition of world's prolific poets displayed a poem by an unheard of Latin poet. Yet his words were like a familiar voice whispering the old song of colloquial naturalism. A certain Pablo Neruda.


I set out to explore the connection and it was no surprise that Tagore indeed was a major personal influence, an entire globe away, on the mind of this Chilean maverick who it seemed had fashioned his entire life on Tagore. One of his books does directly acknowledge Tagore as the spirit behind his prose. Tagore's mammoth influence on Spanish and Latin American poets can be read here.To think his own countrymen know so little of the genius that these strangers across the globe idolised! To think he was probably translated in Spanish before all our regional languages !!! 


And then, earlier today a revelation that filled me with a sly smile at the naughty fancies of our maker. While his entire college education was limited to a single day at Presidency college, the young Tagore had a Spanish master, one who touched his inner being so powerfully it exploded through words. A Jesuit Professor of theology, he unknowingly sowed the seeds of deep, spiritual contemplation in a rebel who disdained classical structures. Their interaction can be read here .It was an influence that perhaps gave us our first universalist - humanist who triggered a Renaissance in his cultural milieu, albeit one that was rooted in the spirit. And Pablo Neruda,under the spell of our cultural behemoth created himself in his image.


From Spain to India to Spain.

Calling Aamir Khan II

This is a story that has probably made it's way into your gossip pages. If it hasn't, be assured that it is true and happened to someone who knows someone I know..... that sort of thing but 100 % true nonetheless.
This gentlemen retired and shifted to his dream home on the outskirts of Jodhpur, my darling home-town. His swanky farm-house cum home was on the highway and that route has a lot of villagers and gypsies from remote areas tramping about. In our culture we usually share our baby cradles with extended family and friends when they need one for their children. It is considered lucky to have your baby sleep in an heirloom cradle that has had healthy children grow out of it. Now this particular gentlemen's heirloom family cradle had become mildly infested with termites. There is a reason why Jodhpur is called Sun-City,  need anything dried and deadened keep it out in the sun. Because he didn't want his cradle soaking with chemicals he left it in his front-yard hoping the sun would drive the termites away.


Well, the next morning he went out to bring the cradle back in if the termites were gone. Imagine his surprise when he found a barely swaddled new born baby girl in his cradle !!! Abandoned just like that . In his fence-less front yard, in an easily accessible and convenient cradle. The gentleman was obviously  flummoxed, what was he supposed to do with this baby who didn't look more than a few days old. His mother refused to  dispatch the child to the orphanage because she had ended up in the cradle in which all the children of their family had slept in. She was not a stranger anymore. The family decided to first try to find the parents through the police and eventually find her a new home and family if that didn't work out. Meanwhile the cradle was standing forgotten in their backyard.


Now imagine their shock and confusion when the next morning saw another little girl squealing in that cradle. The two girls were now being taken care of by the women in the family while this gentleman decided to let the cradle stay outside just of sheer,morbid curiosity. How many girls would end up with him ????


By the end of that week -   4  female infants
By the end of that year -    1   5  0    female infants.


So, had it not been for his publicly placed piece of furniture these girls would have reincarnated within a week of their undesirable lives !  Why not place such cradles, through a government initiative in every village and town that has disparate sex ratios and  where sex-selective abortion and female infanticide are known to be rampant ?


Who wants to bet that if Aamir Khan made a public appeal endorsing these cradles our annual statistics for could-have- been daughters will decline by 50 %.This is what I believe without a trace of any practical pessimism .I mean look at the man in the story above. A little baby ended up in his cot almost every alternate day !!!


What happened to him ?


Of course it is stupid to believe he has that many girls running around in his retirement pad. He ended up raising funds and started a shelter home for these girls which I fail to visit every time I am down there for some reason. He runs that shelter and is making sure girls get their basic education and vocational training. That's the least he thinks he can do. After all, they became the daughters of his family thanks to a horde of termites.


Satyamev Jayate indeed ......

Calling Aamir Khan

All the government initiatives can make way.  All the feminist campaigns and screeching propoganda fell to deaf ears. Yet Aamir's low pitch prime time drama resounded like thunder in the remotest recesses of our country.The King of  our Social Conscience has arrived.


Aaah my Aamir. Unasuming, impeccable actor, flawless producer and promoter - a Star of the Masses and Classes combined. We all waited for his tele debut, a trifle puzzled, not knowing what to expect. Of course, we al knew Aamir being Aamir wouldn't let us down. And then we got hit by Aamirgate. The darkest, most uncomfortable truths of our marginally civilized nation were laid bare for our viewing. And for the first time we resisted our well practised defenses and did NOT look away


That's the power Aamir has. He manipulated our respect and faith in him as an entertainer and counted on our inability to ignore him when performing on the screen. And put in motion a tidal wave that will rise in crescendo. Madhya pradesh has banned more than 50 medical clinics that were providing Preventive Abortions. In Rajasthan the ruling heads have ordered that all foeticide cases be trabsferrred to the fast track court to bring culprits to their commeupence. And a sarpanch who saw the episode from his black and white T.V. set in a Rajasthani village has taken the initiative to eradicate this social evil from his constituency declaring war on families and women who kill their unborn daughters.


We are looking at a new chapter in our collective consciousness. One where a star has the power to instigate long overdue social changes that we have shamelessly ignored and avoided. When was the last time we discussed the heinousness of the crimes against girls and women that drew tears from Aamir's eyes and ours on a talk show ???


I am making a laundry list of all my pet peeve social evils, from red tape to the public spitting menace. Enough material for my favourite actor to retire with. Let him take the collective initiative that was our social responsibility - one that we avoided like the uncomfortable sight of child beggars by rolling up the windows of our soul.


Disappointed?


You bet.

My next batch of Sweeties

It was one of those internet sponsored synchronicities. A lovely American couple, touchingly took in 20 girls who had left a defunct shelter home and would have ended up on the streets of Kolkata. They  found them  new  homes. Their education and vocational training is being taken care of by this pair with the sentimentality of parents, friends and siblings to these girls. And long story short, after I connected with this wonderful lady and the usual round of pleasantries were exchanged I found myself conducting a workshop for her cherished bunch.


The three hours I spent with them will be cherished as the most rewarding ones by far, a connection of souls with these young women who come from such humble circumstances we can't even begin to imagine. Full of hopeful longings yet a tad unsure, they seemed to need a mirror wherein to beckon their selves. Having spent a portion of their life in shelter homes they seemingly wore it as a badge, their self-definitions were shaky.At the commencement of the workshop I asked them to shares their names and then describe themselves, their inner selves through a word, more if necessary.One squeaky little voice volunteered and bravely announced her name in so unsure a tone I didn't get it. I told her and the group that your names are your identities, wear them with pride, utter them with dignity and confidence and the world will do the same. It was evident that it was the first time, in their underprivileged lives, that anyone had ever suggested their names to be deserving of  respect as any of us.


The next task, of picking their word was by far the toughest and revealed how fragile and muddled their self-image was, or perhaps this is what they share with many of us. A word or more that encapsulates our soul's essence. But to know that we must know us, the real us, free from outer influences, in it's state of being. Unsurprisingly, a series of unconvincing attempts followed. Having seen such dire circumstances and hardships many of them said they felt sad for the poor, needy and destitute. Well, right there I revealed that this is an error - thinking of themselves vis-a-vis others. Moreover someone who needs pity and compassion - in other words themselves.  And one of them even introduced herself as the product of a poor background.


We are not where we come from. it is not what defines us or imprisons us by any means. I shared with the girls this truth, one that we all need to know because we knowingly or unknowingly flow through life defining ourselves as what has been or what is. We are in fact all the potential within us, the Self that whether or not expressed will always be one of light and power. It may be hidden by circumstances, by our own weaknesses and helplessness. But it lives.


Waiting for us to give it a name, a word that will set it free.

The real Kiran Bedi

Growing up, our generation saw Kiran Bedi as a willful,formidable public figure - India's first lady police officer who towed Indira Gandhi's car from a no-parking zone !!! The media never tried to balance this lop-sided perception nor did the great lady herself. But then, concern for public perceptions was never a priority, she had mountains to scale and lives to change. So our generation grew up never realising the full scope of her wisdom and sagacity as is evident from her transformation of the Tihar Jail during her term.


A rivetting account of Tihar's reality pre-Bedi can be read  here


It takes a rare spirit to even perceive, let alone implement the steps Kiranji took at Tihar. Turning around hardened criminals, drug addicts and the like who were infact running gangster operations in collusion with the staff ... Her approach is a far cry from the tough woman, daredevil rebel image that she was annointed with by the press . By tackling the rampant drug abuse within Tihar she went for the jugular. Few realise how big a part drugs play in churning criminals from the poorest sections of our society. She enlisted help from reputed NGO's and left no stone upturned in the detoxification of her wards. But her love offensive is what struck the final nail in the coffins of the prison demons.


She made hardened murderers, gangsters and rapists celebrate Rakhi in addition to every single religious festival. A smart move that bolstered their self-esteem and put them in touch with their humanity and divinity, reminding them that are citizens like the rest of us.  She turned revengeful, blood-thirsty criminals into Zen afficianados by introducing them to Vipassana. She was recently quoted as admitting that it was Meditation that turned such endemically negative humans around.  How many of us can even imagine a murderer cross-legged on a mat in silence ?


If there is a more holistic way to turn around the darkest rung of society this was it. This offers us a glimpse into Kiran Bedi, a nurturing woman and mother. No man would have accomplished with the toughest control at Tihar that Kiranji's feminine approach did. And yet so important a study in reform and social bettterment is hardly ever remembered by us when we react with judgemental disdian at the crimes and criminals around us. If there is anything that can destroy negativity conclusively at it's roots and arrest it's spread it's not punishment or control but genuine, sincere healing. 


And Light bursts forth from the darkest hearts.

Songs in Stone - Part Two

If there is a Yin for every Yang, then for every Leonardo Da Vinci there is a Bernini. He was a man who could not only make stones sing, he made them scream, weep and rage. The story and moment he captured in marble would scorch the psyche of the observer with it's intact emotional range. Here is where mere paintings bite the dust. No kind of technique, no brush stroke, no genius can ever beat the genius of Bernini's story telling in stone. A Raja Ravi Verma fanatic, I humbly bow to Bernini and his old fashioned classical style.


 Far from being a social deviant, he was an artist who was a deeply religious Catholic. That he was grounded so deeply in the light of his faith screams out more than anything when you behold the darkness he communicated through " The Rape of Proserpina ". The old familiar tale of a fair maiden being snatched by a brute echoes through the annals of  history. Be it Sita, Helen of Troy, Draupadi or Proserpina. The theme, so powerfully loaded with base emotions has never exploded through art except with Ravi Verma's " Jatayu Vadham " and and Bernini's " Rape of Proserpina."

With his usual use of colours and bold approach Varma does poignantly display the raw power and lust through his painting. The look of animal-ism on Ravana's  face as he kills the noble bird trying to save  Sita who cowers in the shock, terror and despair of her violating abduction ... No doubt one can feel pity and disgust. But they are also rooted in the discomfort of being faced by so taboo a theme.


Were the story to play itself in front of   us what would we really feel ?

Here is where stones beat canvases and Vatican's puritanical, golden boy slaps you in the face with his exploding  realism. To know how you would really feel stare at his sculpture from all angles. Feel the violation of the girl's delicate, virginal skin with  Pluto's fingers digging deep into them where he is holding her. See her mouth open in a silent scream, eyes dilated in terror and despair and tears, yes tears running down her cheeks in marble, even as Pluto's own face is suffused with the delight of victory. Bernini's chisel turns marble into a fluid,mellifluous garment wherein he weaves,unashamedly, the raven darkness that exists in our human world.

When stones sing.

Who ordered these Munchkins ?

" Please make sure the kids are 14 and above,S."  I was planning with great enthusiasm my first batch of children at the project that conducts activity workshops with underprivileged children. Everything that I had to teach, share and impart needed an adolescent mind. That my one, clear belief. " Well, we do have children in that age group but can the younger ones come too ? ", the programme director thought we could unleash the kraken and stay alive .... duh ... How would I ever get a bunch of pre -teens or worse to be interested in such ....... elevated ideas as breath control, focus, mental visualisations and meditation. And meditation BTW.


Our first workshop planned with great gusto as first things always are. I was breathlessly marching into the room when S told me that our target group .. well .. hadn't turned up in as great a number as planned. " it's the heat wave " .. Damn Kolkata summers. Quick to read my disappointment S added that the younger batch was here in full strength, why not start with them. I gulped down my disappointment and entered the room. Only to have to mild cardiac emergency. 


It was not a group of pre-teens. It was a group of teeny-really teeny-weenies. Who looked at best between 5 to 10. And  4 girls above 10. Quick to assuage my horror, S added that they aren't that young, it's the undernourishment. No, knowing that still didn't help. Visualising them in their underpants didn't help. Imagining they were older and bulkier didn't help. Their own unconditional acceptance of me and what I had to teach transformed me in a jiffy. That I was able to get such little children do pranayama with the joy of Sachin playing the field was a shock. They breezed through the class leading me to believe that the worse was yet to come. How on earth would I get them to sit through a guided meditation without cracking up ?? 


 I realised children are much more tuned into their spirit with far lesser blocks in their psyche than us adults. I couldn't believe the absolute,unconditional sincerity with which they followed my instructions. Of course almost all of them opened one eye from time to time to peep around at which I promptly flicked my fingers in a shutter down motion. However two of the boys who seemed like they had mild ADHD needed a firmer hand. After the third time they peeped an eye open and glanced at me I made the motion of sticking my talons in my eyes. Worked like a charm  XD.


And so it was that  a group of  pre-teens humbled and freed me from my  preconceptions and misgivings that age is more than a number.


"A Little Child Shall Lead Them". Isaiah 11:1-10. 

Songs in Stone - Part One

A stone.  Dead, inert and irrelevant.  We never give much thought to them. Why should we? But when these same dead and irrelevant stones are lent the touch of an artist who molds them in the vision of his heart we are left searching for words.  This series will delve into the stories that come alive through the unlikeliest of mediums … mere stones. My inspiration for this series was the magnificent sculpture of Queen Victoria at Kolkata’s Victoria Memorial.

If there was any way to drive home the majesty and finality of Her Royal Highness’s Raj over India it was this. The Memorial itself is bold statement of the Raj’s power and influence, so blatantly communicated through the museum and the innumerable statues and busts of key Raj figures of the Age. And all this so very,very  cleverly covered up in the Indo – Saracenic style with Mughal elements.

Quite frankly I find it hard to believe that the Taj Mahal itself was not the invisible itch behind this statement of British assertion, that monument of love which became the emblem of the Mughal rule. Indeed the infamous Lord Curzon who commissioned the memorial on the occasion, or as I think the pretext of Victoria’s death was never known for his magnanimity.  But the beauty of the marble façade not only takes your breath away, it also erases from your memory the vicious,raven nature of Curzonshahi. One of the cruelest reigns by any Lord in our colonial past.

As you beseech Curzon’s awe inspiring form in stone and the dreaminess of the Memorial surrounded by the gardens and the lake , you will be fooled into thinking and feeling the beauty and grace of the British Raj as set in mere stones. And you will be deafened to the echoes and cries of the countless countrymen who were driven to hunger and death by the very man and regime who so very shrewdly camouflaged their reality in a song of stone.   

When stones sing ….

Confessions of a Single,Female, Backpacker - Part Two

Change is the only constant

" You want to see the Noorrthhh !!! ", my roommate Rim's extended vocal treatment of the word north was a surprise. Because the north I was talking about was ... well ... just the northern part of the city. Apparently, I was given to realize that like Mumbai where the South - Mumbai and suburbs divide is well in place, so is the case here. Northern Kolkata was the original periphery of the  early settlers, both the Bengalis and British alike. I am told, that unlike South Kolkata which was a planned, phased settlement  -  the North was was like a magnet that attracted iron fillings. It is characterized by the Baris, the uber cutured populace and the old world charm that as a matter of fact ... is my major pull !When my landlady heard  I was headed to the Burra Bazar area she insisted I rethink it. It's nothing but a bunch of filthy lanes with wholesale shops selling nothing I would buy. But one of my roommates who happens to be a photographer jumped at the prospect and we were both on my way to a massive photo - op.


If beauty is in the eyes of the beholder then a camera perhaps sometimes is that eye. A feast was laid in front of us. Beautiful colonial homes that were now abandoned and in shambles. Some weren't abandoned but the home - owners didn't look like they were sure they belonged here. A lane of fruit suppliers provided a much needed comic relief in the May sun. Confronted by the oddity of two girls clicking away in a  lane full of burly men hauling away cartons of fruit, the men reacted in a manner neither of us predicted. They demanded we click them going about their work ... only they would pose for us ! One thing led to another and were like two photographers at a pool party hounded by chicks who want a click. So off we went to the stone cutters lane. And a lane where old shops still sell the things hindu families need in their temples.

And then it hit us, while the intimidating homes in the neighborhood had gone from glamour  to decay, these unassuming, ordinary businesses had survived. Or had they adapted and bent to the flow of the winds like the reeds ?  And the homes had disintegrated like that banyan in the story we all heard growing up. I never thought that of all the places in the world a lane full of seemingly powerless, street businesses would drive home yet again the harsh truth.


Change is the only Constant, the only law, the only plan. And the only way to eternal life.


Everything else crumbles around change. And the phoenix rises on.

Confessions of a Single, Female Backpacker – Part One

My destination is not a place. My destination is to arrive at a new way to look at life. 

The essence of travel, really, is to impart a new perspective that changes the prism through which one beholds life.  In absence of such transformations, travel is about as meaningful as a brainless Bollywood flick.It has only been days into my first journey as a lone traveler in a strange city, devoid of any friends,family or itinerary. But the richness of even these couple of days has added years worth of perspectives. More on them later. This post however is recount of the hilariousness of being a lone wanderer – explorer and more so a girl at that.

 You are soaking in the novel and unique smells, sights and sounds - when you realise that you yourself are one of these.Camera hanging by your neck, guide book and maps in hand and those eyes wide open are a dead give away. Jaws drop a couple of inches, realisation dawns and a hundred buzzing questions in someone else’s brain are transmitted at crystal clarity to your own cognizant bemusement. Our country still has miles to go when it comes to women travelling and sight seeing alone. No, they don’t think you belong at home in the kitchen and bare foot.

They just think a girl sightseeing alone is a wondrous creation of God … much like a hybrid cow that’s lactating lassi instead of milk. In the past two days I have gathered enough material on the potential hilarity of the above, very real reaction to me sightseeing in Kolkata. On the plus side, men and women both are generous with their directions when I ask for them. Why, they even give me a few bonus, solicitous tips that make me feel like a cuddly bunny on the loose. More than willing to walk through the city, I am told to catch a cab or a bus to cover every single kilometre. 

Hire a guide, hire a car, wear a hat in this awful May sun so I don't go from gori to kaali.

And where are my parents /brother/husband ???

Take for example these two adorable little boys I met at the sublimely beautiful Victoriaa Memorial.

They asked me for directions to a place in Bengali. I asked them if they were lost  out of well meaning concern. They raised their noses high and said they were sightseeing – alone. Without parental supervision. 

And had come all the way from Bangalore.

The latter was said with an attitude implying that I marvel at this boyish, dare-devilry of two pre-pubescent men. I told them I was sightseeing alone too and had come from Mumbai. Their facial expressions quickly rearranged themselves with confusion, disbelief and then amazement.

Did Didi ( elder sister) come in a train ?

 Where are uncle and aunty ? Why is Didi wandering alone ?

And this one took the cake.

Had I run from home to escape marriage to a bore ?

Apparently one of their cousins did  just that – the ONLY girl they knew who had taken off travelling alone.

 Ever.

Airport Lounge musings

I am sipping a steaming cup of pre-dawn coffee in a sleepy waiting lounge. The usual hustle bustle of harried parents with toddlers, old couples, lone businessmen and singletons surround me. They are all in transit already, right here in the lounge. They are either thinking about their coming or going. They are not here, savouring this moment. Maybe, because unlike me they are not leaving a chunk of themselves behind.

Mumbai is  not a city but a spirit that becomes a part of you. Right from the horror of our roads to the in your face celebrations of life that are a 24/7 phenomenon. From the instant pick me up  of our impulsive  roadside Pani puri moments with our friends to the hanging for dear life out of a crowded train. Mumbai is a spirit where you are commanded to live loudly, brashly and unashamedly from dawn to dusk. Because Kal kisne dekha ? If there is a city that believes in second chances it is this.  Mumbai is not the city I grew up in. It’s my spirit.

My second chance is taking me far from this gyrating, pulsating cradle of human drama to the far opposite end of the nation. And the familiar tale of an aspiring entrant into a new city begins all over again.

Wesak

Growing up on a diet of Jataka tales and Doordarshan animated stories about the life and way of the Buddha, one never quite knew the significance of Wesak. Not only is it the birthday of the Master, it is one of the 3 full moons of the year that see an over pouring of the celestial energies of knowledge and love.  As Indians with a chock block public holiday calender featuring the heroes, heroines and villians of the Hindu pantheon we never quite come to terms with the very real evolutionary energies of some such days. We are more exposed to non-stop Punditising by self-proclaimed God men in drag on every news channel desperate to fill slots. 


Thanks to these suave self promoters, what was our way of conscious living with the energies of the cosmos has turned into a three ring circus. It's time to take back the knowledge and heritage that is ours. Be aware of the messages and energies of such days that shower us with the opportunity to soak as much positivity and learning as we will.


Yes, as our will so is our bounty on such days.It's a great day to meditate, contemplate or even do that solitary kind act you may have been putting off. Take a moment out of your busy schedule to slow down and contemplate the simplicity of the Buddha's message.


Kindness, Awareness and Love.


Simplicity itself.

New Beginnings

Beginning.



What a fine, sweet word. So cleverly dodging the inevitable nastiness of the end it follows.


Remember your first day in Kindergarten. The tears, the piteously tight grip we had on our mother's clothing and the fear. Ooh the fear. This was a  big step when our life finally started. Er.... whatever we thought life was at that age. The same spectrum of feelings and awe fill us whenever we leave the familiar,the established and the known and move in the direction of the unknown.


           Some of us even cling to the dead fossils of our past until our fingers bleed rather than contemplate another reality that involves starting with a clean slate. Most of us revel in the comfort of repetition and routine so much that we loose the power of transformation that is in our every breath. But Nature is never benevolent to the barely living and hardly functioning. She loathes them as much as she loathed the dinosaurs and we know how that ended !


           Love it or hate it, the only way out of a predicament that seems like it has come from hell is a fresh beginning that uproots your being. And plants you into the fertile yet unfamiliar soils of the PRESENT. Here no weeds from your past no matter how beautiful are allowed.


           And the game of Time, that one unchangeable, immortal fact of the Universe goes on.