An Autumn Tale

 Drenched in the sudden onrush of light, I became aware that the strange, mellowed keenness of the turning earth was upon me.  Something had changed: the blue of the sky was a shade darker, and the air tad bit more moist and fragrant with the sap of the maturing pines. While a dreamy languor set the pace for the new season, it didn't last long. For the cold north wind descended one night, with the fury of a hungry child, gnawing  at the gnarled branches of the old maple tree, which supported me, and a thousand others of my frightened kith and kin...we rustled and murmured protesting in our meek way, afraid of the fall that awaited us. The wind, a clear signal of the oncoming winter, alerted  the old maple tree, who in turn reacted with the wont clockwork precision, setting the alarm bells ringing across its width and breadth. And the next thing we knew every little artery system responsible towards carting  victuals to us from the main pantry was rendered inaccessible. Cut off brutally from the central food supply, we realised we were left to fend for ourselves, even as the little food we always kept stored away for a rainy day was swiped off by the head office just before the sudden lockdown, for its own preservation through the harsh winter months. By and by, the chlorophyll started breaking down, draining off the green pigment which had once streamed through our veins and kept us healthy and shimmering...the sunlight happily licked away the remaining sugar trapped inside us... leaving us, you may think, destitute and impoverished...Nye! Once the welfare system was lifted off our shoulders,  our hidden selves took over: flamboyant and gorgeous, studded with gold, burgundy, yellow and flaming orange...and a thousand shades in between. We danced joyously with the cold, inhospitable, insane north winds, oblivious of being hungry, thirsty, deprived...

What a wake up all it turned out to be, for me and for my entire clan: Never be afraid of change. A wake up call just before the deep slumber rising from the Styx gathered us in its folds.

 

The Japanese Student

 He named their first daughter 'Aryana' after a cheerleader he used to date in highschool. "Oh, she was gorgeous", he told her, his face ecstatic as the memory of those days effortlessly etched themselves on his youthful limbs . Hayami looked at him, confused, "What is gorgeous?" She asked in her hesitant English. "Oh," he laughed almost cruelly, "I forgot you speak very rudimentary English. Oops, I mean basic...simple. Yes, you hardly know any English". He paused. "Gorgeous means very very pretty". He elongated the verys deliberately, savoring each one. Then, looking at her hurt face, he hurried to add, "You shouldn't feel bad. After all, I married you, brought you here to America, availed you of a Green Card...Now, you too can live the American dream".

Now, it was the right moment to fling a sarcastic 'thanks'  at Brian's austerely handsome marine face. But no, that was not part of Hayami's culture. Quietly she took his hand and let it rest against her cheek.

In brief, this used to be the story of my Japanese student Hayami when I first met her. I used to teach her English as a second language. At 26, mothering little Aryana, she was a stay-at-home mom in a strange land, whose language and people she still needed to understand. She and Brian had met in Okinawa, while he was stationed there at the U.S. base. She was the chief attendant at the McDonald's counter in the food court of the local mall, the place he frequented the most...(surprise, surprise!) 

Hayami wore beautiful dresses, delicate and elegant both in fabric and design, which complemented her petite frame. I once commented on how lovely her wardrobe was and on how near impossible it was to find something like it in the malls in America. She flushed and said, "Brian hates them...they are too un-American".

It was from her I learnt about the festival of Ohagani, simply translated into English, it means, 'viewing'. Observed during the spring, when cherry blossoms are in bloom, it revolves around families with their picnic baskets, venturing out to spend time under the flowering trees and breathing in the eternal beauty of those few transient moments. 

Hayami possessed a soft purring corner for cats. Unfortunately, the apartment building she lived in did not allow pets. But, this of course did not deter her from getting a built-to-scale resin cat whom she fondly called Mitsy after her own feline friend back in Okinawa. Mitsy looked so lifelike that every time I came, I felt tempted to bend down and pet it as she lay lazily by the front door next to the potted bamboo plant. My Japanese student also flaunted a healthy collection of Maneki Neko's statues, the luck-inviting figurine of a red and white cat with its right paw raised. "Whenever I visit Tokyo", she once confided, "I  make it a point to pay homage to Maneki Neko at Gotokuji Cat temple".  A cat temple? Really? But then, if India can have a  rat temple,  why can't the land of the rising sun flaunt a cat temple? Thankfully,  the twain shall never meet. However, if they did, imagine the massacre!

During the course of two years that I tutored her in English, I saw Hayami metamorphose before my very eyes, as she got hooked to pro wrestling, baseball and black coffee. From jet-black haired woman who wore elegant dresses, she was to become a jeans and T-shirt gal with purple and green highlights in her hair and dark lipstick, cuddling up to her marine husband and asking, "Am I gorgeous or what?" 

Cling not, and it shalt be...

...bestowed unto thee

A flash of brilliance strikes the brain cells and lo, an idea manifests out of nowhere, lighting up that otherwise dull space. Somewhere in a moment of elation my being wows. And the hippocampus goes on a wild spree finding ways to label and store it in the right compartment in order to revoke it later.  And just when the task has been carried out satisfactorily, poof! the idea vanishes. Like a candle flame extinguishing without even the slightest brush of the passing zephyr. Returning to the obscure dungeon of my diurnal thoughts, fruitlessly I scramble for the least spark of that genius which was mine for one triumphant moment. What happened to it, which cerebral or psychogenic blackhole sucked it in, leaving no trace behind of its existence? Into which realm of non-being did it evanesce? Was it the overwhelming stimulus generated by the ingenuity of the thought and the subsequent effort of the mind to label and organize it within the shallow racks of the brain that impelled it to escape? Eschew mortality? 

Even though it wasn't the first time this unusual phenomenon had taken place, it was the first time I felt intrigued by this illusionist-like disappearing act. It felt akin to some dreams that I had fiercely wanted to remember for their ethereal and illusive  quality, and kept playing, replaying them in my semi-conscious mind. And yet, on waking up, they simply slipped as through a wormhole, into a totally another dimension, leaving me feeling unsettled and incomplete. However, it did make me wonder- into whose memory pad did they land on?- or, better still, did they land at all?

Somehow my mind wants to connect these two oft-experienced occurrences of one's daily life to the obstacle most novice meditators face. As one by one, judiciously they try to strike out the thoughts, their mind latches on to one minuscule vanquishing statement: "I am thought-free now". And it is precisely in this self-absorbed acknowledgement that all the effort and energy channelized towards emptying one's mind is annulled...

In all these three incidents it is in  the overt cognizance of their existence, either of ideas, dreams or emptiness, that our failure lies. If only we could let them be instead of clinging on to them, allowing them to linger within the panoramic scapes of our inner being... Waiting in blissful concentration of no-thought for the right precise moment to apprehend (though never conquer) It. 

Vexed?

 A friend from Norway writes:

"The chasm between the vaxxed and non-vaxxed populace of the country is increasing at an alarming rate. The very concept of carrying a vaccination passport in order to enter certain places is cataclysmically divisive and hostile".

Yes, she is one of those who are   becoming skeptical of the entire pandemic scenario, and daring to question. Yet her and the few like her are not only being marginalized and excommunicated by family and friends, but also being termed as conspiracy theorists, thus making it almost impossible to have a reasonable and respectful dialogue. "Maybe the cradle of material comfort in the west has been sleep-inducing. People are more eager to return to a veiled notion of normalcy than to understand the bigger picture", she concludes.

Another friend from one of the southern states of America confides, "Many people are pushing their opinions vis-a-vis to vax or not to, but I feel it is a personal decision and one cannot simply adopt a 'my way or the high way' kind of attitude."

Agrees  Jacques Vincent from France, a business consultant,  "they cannot force it on people. Everyone should be permitted to call the shots (no pun intended) on whether they want the jab or not". 

But, Ruth Marcus, senior editor, Washington Post is furious over the way the country is coddling the non-vaxxed populace, "How galling is it that some labor unions are resisting the vaccine mandate? The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the American Postal Workers Union and the American Federation of Teachers are insisting that any mandate be the subject of bargaining. No. Show some leadership. Just tell your members to get the damned shot — for the sake of their colleagues if not themselves."

Writer Marissa Lati toes the line, summing up her opinion with, 

"Why are so many people acting like this is some kind of affront to our liberties? It’s routine to get vaccines for all sorts of things... We have a silver bullet that can end this crisis. Why are we afraid to pull the trigger?"

Just throwing a cursory glance at 7,000 some responses as a reaction to Marcus's article is enough to get the feel of the pulse of the nation. Severin Schruger however dares to differ:

"In Massachusetts, 75% of the people being treated for the Delta variant had been vaccinated, what kind of protection is that?  I go to great lengths to maintain a healthy immune system, that's my protection.  For me, I feel that the vaccine would lower my immune system rather than improve it.  And the vaccine was never fully tested, the FDA approved it hurriedly as an emergency act.  What are the long term effects of the vaccine?  An unknown.  I don't object to people getting the vaccine, if you want it, go for it.  But I shouldn't be forced to have an injection that I don't want, and don't feel I need."

Even though Schruger puts forth his point in a rational straightforward manner, the amount of hate mails he is pounded with is astronomical. Right from being called a 'bio terrorist' to a 'walking bomb', someone under the pseudonym  Chumbo sums up the dominant mood of the nation:

"Gawd are you stupid or what? It is unvaccinated people like you that are spreading the delta variant which is infecting even vaccinated people. Get vaccinated, or stay home. You are a superspreader."

Another one is even more vociferous: 

It should be morally mandatory to banish people like Schruger from normal society until they show they are worthy of participation by getting vaccinated".

 

And yet another respondent takes it to a new intolerant high, writing, "The willfully unvaccinated are slow-motion, four-dimensional suicide bombers". 

An L.A. restauranteur however took it upon himself to counter the growing momentum of the 'get vaxxed' movement. The sign taped to the window at his Basilico’s Pasta e Vino reads, “PROOF OF BEING UNVACCINATED REQUIRED.”

While owner Tony Roman's stand might sound like an extreme, it does illustrate the extent of the backlash against the vaccine in parts of America. But, to Roman, it's merely a way to pledge his restaurant as a Constitutional battleground, "I feel blessed to be on the front lines of this battle in defense of Liberty and Freedom". 

Coming back to Schruger, his rationale is based on the global statistics according to which America leads the world in the number of Covid cases and deaths in terms of the percentage of its population. "Maybe", he opines, "exercise programs should be made mandatory for Federal employees and presented as a model".  

All said and done, there's no gainsaying the fact that the global vaccination drive is set to split people further in more than one way. I remember concluding one of my posts titled 'Poised for Change' written in March 2020, at the wee beginnings of the pandemic, with: We have no criterion whereby to assess the challenges of such a pandemic, but we do know that our best response would depend on global empathy, cooperation, and community building.

Hopes and aspirations were rife that we would emerge from the pandemic, a better people, kinder and more tolerant, more understanding of the challenges that lie ahead in terms of our very survival intricately linked with that of the planet Earth. Naively I had anticipated a new direction for our world, not just in terms of working online from home, but compelling changes in the the very fabric of the human consciousness:

We can no longer sustain a lifestyle which cruises on a conveyor belt regularity, and a  system which doesn’t give time to pause, to question, to re-orient, re-think, re-direct...for, it wants coerced stability, not revolutions. Its goal is economic prosperity, not the freedom of the human spirit.

Unfortunately, a year and a half later, we seem to be back to square one, determined to get right back on the same track on which we were. The only difference being now we are masked, sanitized, huffing and puffing to return to the rat-race. And we stand more asunder than ever, between being vaxxed and not vaxxed. A vexing situation indeed! 

The Afghanistan Diary

 We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or what will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Iraq, or possibly all three at once. Who knows? 

                          Hunter. S Thompson

                         (The day after 9/11)

Despite the fact that since the seventh century, the sultanate of Afghanistan kept invading and mindlessly plundering India, an unfortunate pattern which continued well into the nineteenth century, the post-independence India has been able to disregard the past and forge ahead in a cultural and trade relationship with Afghanistan, and one that goes beyond the ostensible. So much so that even the new Parliament House in Kabul is India's contribution toward the country's reconstruction efforts, along with crucial road building projects and clean water initiatives. By being an active participant in Afghanistan's foray into modernity, India has proven itself to be its true friend and ally.

My first introduction to Afghanistan came in the form of a short story called Kabuliwala. It was part of my third grade Hindi text book. A translation from the original Bengali, penned by Rabindranath Tagore, the tale of Kabuliwala revolves around the touching relationship between five-year-old  Mini and a dry fruit vendor from  Kabul, Afghanistan.  

Through Kabuliwala, the kids of our generation imbibed their first few facts about Afghanistan and its people. First and foremost, Afghanistan is a country rich in dry fruits, and its people are family-loving, honest, hard-working, true to their word, but somewhat hot-blooded. The pathan suit, reminiscent of the people of that region became all a rage with the adolescent boys in North India, and continue to remain so to this day. 

One proverb in Hindi goes as follows: जो सुख चुबारे, न बल्ख न बुखारे।, 

meaning the comfort found in the simple surroundings of one's home cannot be equalled even by the extravagant magnificence of  Balkh or Bukhara. Once upon a time, not so long ago, Balkh, an ancient city in northern Afghanistan, (and Bukhara in Uzbekistan) was not only a thriving trade centre but also reputed for its brilliant architecture. Even Marco Polo described it as a "noble and great city". So iconic was its fame, that it effortlessly slipped into the local jargon of the people of North India, thus becoming a part of their subconscious memory. 

Interestingly, the legendary character of Gandhari from the epic  poem Mahabharata, hailed from Gandhar, which is apparently the same as the present day Kandahar, the second largest city in Afghanistan. A few millennia later, this very place would see the fusion of two great civilizations, Indian and Greek, manifesting in the form of Greco-Buddhist art, also known as the Gandhara school. The exquisite paintings of Ajanta and Ellora caves, dating back to 2nd century B.C. bear testimony to this ethereal synthesis of the ancient world's two highly evolved cultures.

In the eighties, Dharmatma, a Bollywood blockbuster, more or less based on the movie Godfather, brought home to the Indian public the hauntingly rugged natural beauty of Afghanistan...just a young girl then, I fell in love with the enchanting starkness of the landscape and felt an immediate connection to it, as though I had meandered amongst its hills in one of my many lives.

In America, I sought out the luxuriousness of Afghan throws: their simple elegance added a touch of informality and sophistication, both at once. I also discovered the subtle flavours of the Afghani cuisine in our neighborhood restaurant called, Afghan Kabab Express on Central Av., which soon became our family's favourite hangout. Its friendly crew and the tantalizing aroma of gourmet dishes, such as borani banjan, baked nans, kofta and aushak lured us into its homely atmosphere time and again.

It is no wonder that the recent developments in Afghanistan, mainly the foreseeable debacle of its puppet government followed by the shameful desertion of its president, and the successive surrender of its well-trained military equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry to the crudely-armed Taliban, has not only taken the global community by surprise, but also affected me at a personal level. I feel disappointed with the west, and with the coalition of 36 NATO nations, overstaying its visit even after the successful completion of the designated mission, under the pretext of nation-building.  As Craig Whitlock in his book The Afghanistan Papers points out:

"Soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives".

So, is it  surprising that despite having poured in close to a trillion dollars,  Afghanistan continues to remain crippled, morally, economically, and otherwise?

‘Yankee, go home!’ The slogan has resurfaced. The phantom  of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Iraq has resurrected itself to haunt the Americans once again. Today, US foreign policy and defence strategists must be wracking their brains wondering what to do with themselves for the next 20 years. Where to pitch the tent, which people to free from the shackles of terrible tyrants, and how to make a quick buck in the process? As a couple, living in our neighborhood, and both working for the U.S. military once confided in me, "Just one more stint in Afghanistan or Iraq, and we are all set for life". Really? At the end of the day, is that what it amounts to?

I can only hope and pray that Afghanistan doesn't lose this opportunity towards self-determination. Nobody wants to see the country revert to middle ages or descend into protracted conflict. The incumbent government  would need to  rise to the occasion and help fulfil the aspirations of the Afghani people, and put a halt to another 'stint', garbed in the noble livery of democracy...once and for all.

Note: Today, Aug 20, 2021 marks the 23rd anniversary of the surprise U.S. missile attack on terrorist-related targets in Afghanistan, ordered by the then President Bill Clinton. Pundits, politicians and media couldn't but be mistrustful of its impeccable timing which coincided with the President's embroilment in the notorious Monica Lewinsky affair. Speculation was rife that the strikes on a faraway foreign land was an easy way to deflect  attention of the media from his own travails. 

Springboarding into the Realm of Poetry

(Variations in Faulkner)

Because of the explicit pathos borne by the title, it took me a while to pick up  'As I lay dying', authored by William Faulkner. Termed as a 'dark comedy' in the literary circles, Faulkner claimed to have completed the novel within  a week,  invoking the Muse only during the nocturnal hours.  

Personally, the book spoke to me at various levels...its simple lyricism, wound gently around the tragic theme, imparted unto me the kind of satisfaction derived primarily from visual arts. Interacting with its characters as individuals with their own unique voice helped me better identify with the austere loneliness they found themselves besieged by, and come to terms with my own as an implicit part of life.

The constant sense of collision between natural elements and the characters in the book, juxtaposed with brilliant flashes of fusion between the two worlds, is what gives the story its movement, and that's what impelled me to write the following poems.  Sentences like, "It is dark. I can hear wood, silence. I know them" spoke to me more intimately than any other from a thousand others I must have read in various other books. Phrases like, 'for a smouldering while' ignited in me the desire to be part of that 'smouldering while'...part of that one burning instant, demanding a pause from the compulsive  pace of life.

1.

For a smouldering while

I need a fragment of

unscarred space to 

unload myself: empty 

myself as in the last bit

of the deep interior

of a burrowing

mollusk shell...empty 

like my grandma's eyes

when she breathed her 

last: leaving nothing

behind, taking nothing

with her; empty like the

full-moon night

without its army of

stars, and beheaded

of its twirling 

darkness; empty like the 

narrow silent road that

wheels on across

blistered

summer plains...

For a smouldering while

allow me to unload myself

and lie down

2.

Come and deliver me

from the carcasses

of yesteryears

full of sand and

echoes of shells

'cross rub-al-khalis;

empty me out

like the wave

that comes rushing

hurling itself

against the rock:

sinking its burden

of infinite distances

into the calcite pores.

3.

what is this life

charred by inexplicable

hunger and yearnings 

marred by the whirring

of rusting years piled

one upon another...?

with the albatross hung 

around the neck, it labours 

on to find redemption

in a signboard announcing

'Hope: 3 miles', and in the 

blabber of a child who

believes his mother

is a fish, in the old

man who sets out on a

quest to find himself

a fresh set of dentures;

and in the youth who 

blurring the line

between life and

death, rides away 

to follow the ruins

of the setting sun

4. (Addie and Cash: Mother & son)

In silence he works,

his adze agleam

with afternoon sweat

of the hitting sun

as he hews a coffin

for his sick mother.

she watches him

from the bed: intent

putting the finishing touches

on the box which would

carry her cadaver;

her own son.

the day shuts down

watching the summer

quiet, fettered to

the sound of an adze

going, "chuck 

chuck, chuck..."

5. (Dewey Dell and Lafe: lovers)

their eyes

briefly meeting

drowning

the need for words,

hand touching hand,

trembling with

the thought 

of promises made, 

cotton fluffs 

filling up their

sacks,  the gold  

of the tumbling sun

rolling across

the fields, stoking

desires

6. (Darl: the second son)

He is the 

knower

He doesn't

need nothing to

say. He stands 

there

and looks.

the emptiness

of his eyes

is filled with

knowing

when he speaks,

it is with a look

hazy and intense

floating and sunk,

like a bird

wading

across the skies

7.

Quick and fast 

sky, creaking under 

the weight

of cotton clouds

finally cracked open.

Oppressed wind

escaped, hissing and

wooshing, freeing

itself from the 

preying fingers of 

elms and oaks,

pursued by

slashing rains it

hid in the

warm darkness

between the gorging 

udders of the

lowing cow

and soft earth.

      

8.

The hill goes off

into the sky,

the sun comes up

from behind.

Hushed sound of

slow footsteps

smudge the shining 

patches smeared 

onto the rain-soaked 

road. 

The mourners

trudge on in

silence; the wagon 

hauling the 

coffin groans.

Above the

buzzards circle: 

expectant, intent and

hungry. 

9.

They have returned me

to myself now,

those impossible yearnings

inexplicable and uncontrolled

strangling my being into

obscure wakefulness:

lo, how hurriedly they depart

these enchantresses,

Sirens from Anthemusa

hurling me back to  

my own desolate shores

ringed by fiery nights

and ashen days

Finding Balance in Imbalance

 "Wabi Sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional.”

                                   Leonard Koren

A Japanese statement on aesthetics,  dating back to the 16th century, Wabi Sabi is symbolic of the rebellion against the expectation of being perfect. It is an outright  celebration of the mundane, the humble, and the flawed. Etymologically and conceptually speaking, the term can be broken down as follows:

Wabi is about the humility that emerges from a state of solitude, which in turn gives the ability to see through the superficial and connect with the truth. Free from embellishments, it seizes life in its rich  raw details and is contemplative of things that are simple, and incorporate rustic beauty.

Sabi, on the other hand expresses quaintness and loneliness which accompanies aging. In the post-medieval Japanese vision of art, such old, disfigured and discarded items donned on a new symbolism,  representing things  touched by the auric grace of time.

Wabi Sabi, therefore, far from being slick and modern, is a quirky flea market piece, a hand-me-down heirloom, or an aged wooden floor, epitomizing simplicity, natural beauty, and a perfectly imperfect feel.

The story of Wabi Sabi finds its humble origin in the tale of Sen no Rikyu and his tea master Takeena Joo. Upon his master’s request,  Rikyu cleans and rakes the garden to perfection, and as a final touch, shakes the cherry tree, allowing the flower petals to fall nonchalantly around the yard! This legend, in its quintessential simplicity, exemplifies the inherent poetry of Wabi Sabi, seeking to find a balance with a carefully designed insouciance. Both ikebana, the art of flower arrangement, and the 17-syllabled haiku are rooted in this tradition.

Now, imagine a cup or a teapot that slipped off your hand and broke. What would you do? You’d most probably pick up the pieces and throw them in the bin. But were you a  Wabi Sabi practitioner, you would carefully glue the pieces of broken pottery back together and return the item  to its usual place. Yet, inadvertently, the zigzagging line of the cracks would  set it apart from the rest, reminding you of the told and untold stories hiding within its scars, and of the temporal beauty, made eternal by its resilience.

Since Wabi Sabi revolves around the belief that objects with  former lives have  greater depth and a wider spectrum of experience, it tends to honor the old and wrought, bent and crooked, over the new and shiny. Wabi Sabi also seeks to break the barrier between the outer and the interior space by placing emphasis on the natural. Bits of driftwood, pebbles, shells, frosted glass, bark strips are used not only to add a touch of earthiness to one's surrounding, but also to fuse the man-made objects with those from Nature, thus creating an intrinsic harmony between the two worlds.

The principle of Wabi Sabi when extended to our personal life could very well be interpreted as an acceptance of ourselves: with our strengths and our flaws, our failures and successes. In fact, it is this amazing conglomerate of opposites, which exist only to complement each other, that gives us our vibrant, creative wholeness. 

What follows is a simple poem to encapsulate my own understanding of Wabi Sabi: 

Broken shadows of tall elms
zigzagging down the footpath
and spilling onto the
narrow asphalt road...
Broken views from
cracked glass window,
ready to crawl in;
Broken remnants of
ancient monuments
filtering the evening sun,
summoning the banshees;
Broken frame, glued together,
holding a b-w photograph
of our parents on their wedding day.
Broken pieces of blue sky,
shimmering in a puddle
after the monsoon shower;
Broken floor uncovering
a steady file of Brahmin ants:
exposing the underworld;
Broken reflections of
snow-peaked mountains
rolling  in the waves.

Broken, unfettered, and erratic,
ready to be something new,
something different and
explosively poetic...
ah! I  yearn to be
a shard of that brokenness
to feel whole again.