An Escape from Politics

On the  political front, India has been busy making waves the world over, with its array of controversial decisions, which are dropped on the civilians like bombshells. Before one can recover from the aftermath of the explosion, another  gets dropped...and then, yet another... dividing the country at an alarming rate, while seeming to unite. For, there is one huge  chunk of the population, which revels in this tremorous atmosphere. To them, every move as connived by the centre, is bold and  a sheer stroke of genius, impelling the country forward to a new stratum of global recognition. To them, it is as though India has found its present-day Chandragupta-Chanakya duo, in the inimitable Modi-Shah team.

Then, there is the other side: the dwindling socialists, who have resigned themselves to the situation, calling it 'the inevitable downside of the spiral'. Their voices are too faint against the sloganeering roar of nationalism, rising from every nook and cranny of the country, beleaguered by crony capitalism. For them, it is an exercise in futility to try to mull over a thousand issues, heaped upon one another. 

Since I tend to lean towards the latter, I too have, at least temporarily, decided to go on sabbatical vis-à-vis talking/ writing/discussing politics, in order to restore my senses and above all, peace of mind. Moreover, the genre of politics, as practised today, lies beyond my cerebral grasp, and, as age advances, I find it harder and harder to wrap my brains around it. 

Anyway, it is after all mid-October, and having called myself an upstate New Yorker for several years, I naturally think of fall,  the cool change,  long solitary walks... 'the daily shrinkage in the stream of comradeship' as the cackling geese head south. I remember myself bending down, overwhelmed by the pageantry of scattered leaves, wanting to pick each one of them...Those were innocent days, when I was happy to be part of this extraordinary vicissitude of Nature... when the silouhette of a red-winged blackbird swinging on  cattails  could give rise to a haiku, and the sight of a hawk perched high on the steeple of a faraway church, could bespeak 'redemption'...