Call of the Wild

In an endless panorama of blinding clarity, it moved leisurely as though in the amplitude of forgotten time, drawing wider and wider circles...just the way its ancestors must have done some thousands of years ago when legends were being laboriously scripted on palmyra leaves. With the same intentional intensity it  gyrated the heights, sowing seeds of freedom. Aerial crop circles. And with the same envious intimacy whereby a million others before me must have watched this flaming  monarch of reign and territory, so was I doing today, and had done so for almost a week. 

Yes, besides having to use the restroom, the nasal tremerous call  of the brahminy kite was the only reason to drag myself out of bed, and stay perched by the window to  acknowledge its presence, and express my heartfelt gratitude  for having come to lift my spirits when I lay swathed in misery, pain and isolation.

Its call always succeeded in momentarily drawing me out from the febrile abstraction I was prone to sink into, back not into the drab reality of the shadowy room, but into the promise of a new day brimming with unreceived love and light, and eager to offer itself. I would catch a glimpse of the mighty bird, swerving and twisting away from the lower air. Then spiralling towards the spring warmth of the sun until it was just a notion of its real self, it seemed to waver between motion and stillness, silent  in the blue depths of the sky. And sometimes, shredding the space, faint yet audible, its message of ultimate camaraderie, would  pierce my heart and set it quivering with joyous reciprocity.

In my battle with the virus, it was my daily rendez-vous with this wild spirit, which proffered something to look forward to. By and by, as I began to recuperate and emerged  from isolation, I would still hear its call, and if I were fortunate enough I would catch sight of it scanning the long white spine of a stray cirrus, or teasingly visible within the fluffy brilliance of a cumulus. But, as days piled onto one another and I recalibrated myself with the mundane rhythm of clocks, its call receded within the darkling hue of the coconut grove. And as the sky emptied out of its luminescent enchantment, I was once again left alone to grapple with the solitary vistas of my being, and its hushed susurrus of expectancy.

Lion and the Lamb

Gaffar market in Delhi presents itself not only as a pageantry of imitation brands for all kinds of electronic goods, such as mobile phones, laptops and sound systems, but also for Chinese clothings and trendy footwear. Squeezed in the narrow bylanes of Qarol Bagh, it's a less affluent  counterpart of upwardly mobile Khan market, in South Delhi, which, dotted with gourmet eateries, bookshops, cafes and even a couple of art galleries, caters to a yuppy crowd. Yet there exists between these two places a forgotten yet strong filial bond. They are named after two brothers Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan and Khan Jabbar Khan, both of whom went on to become staunch stalwarts of the Indian freedom struggle. However, it was Abdul Gaffar Khan who, with his pacifist ways and his resolve to uplift the downtrodden of the country, became a lifelong ally and close friend of Mahatma Gandhi. Apparantly, seeing Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Mahatma Gandhi next to each other was a rather comical sight. Khan, who was well over six feet tall and weighed more than 100 kilos, overshadowed the small, thin Gandhi. Moreover, Khan could be very vocal while making a point whereas  the latter was shy and soft-spoken.  Because of his non-violent principles and his close association with the movement for Indian independence under Gandhi, Khan was repeatedly imprisoned. It was during one of the many prison terms that he got the opportunity to read the Bible, the Geeta, and the Guru Granth Sahib, paving the way for his lifelong commitment to inter-faith harmony. Interestingly, in 1937, Khan accompanied Gandhiji to Varanasi to inaugurate the shrine of ‘Mother India’, a huge relief map of India engraved in marble. He made it a point to join the recitation of Vedic incantations, and while doing so he expressed his sincere hope that the new shrine would become a common place of worship for all. 

Son of a tribal chief, this great nationalist leader chose to live with the ordinary and the poor. Certain that education was the key not only towards freeing the country from the oppressors, but also towards rooting out the evil from the society, he set out to establish a network of schools, encouraging  both boys and girls to enroll and espouse reforms. At the age of 20,  he founded his first school and travelled throughout British-India to spread his ideas. Khan condemned nepotism and believed that people should earn respect based on their deeds, and not on their class background. 

 A political and spiritual leader, along with social reforms, Khan also spoke up against British imperialism and its ceaseless pilfering of India.  He was amongst the four members of Congress Working Committee, along with Mahatma Gandhi, Jayprakash Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia,  who vehemently opposed the idea of a divided India. In fact, he came under harsh criticism from many of his followers who favoured partition of the country into an independent Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. It was at this time that he was given a second nickname: "Frontier Gandhi," meaning the Gandhi from the Northwest border, the region adjacent to Afghanistan where he was born. Gandhiji is said to have declared the following attribute on Gaffar Khan, "I have a number of Muslim friends who would sacrifice everything for Hindu-Muslim unity, but none greater  than or equal to Ghaffar Khan'. In 1987, at the age of 97, the highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna Award was conferred on Gaffar by the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Abdul Gaffar Khan, also known as Fakhr-e Afghan, Bacha Khan, Pacha Khan and

Badshah Khan lived to the ripe old age of ninety-eight, passing away on 20th January, 1988. He lead an exemplary life, becoming an epitome of honesty, selflessness, and non-violence. Unfortunately, for many Indians and Pakistanis today, Gaffar and his teachings seem to have  slipped into complete oblivion. So much so that in February of last year, a few days before his 131st birthday, the Government of Haryana decided to change the name of Badshah Khan Hospital, built in Gaffar's honor by his close associates and followers, to Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hospital, as a tribute to an ex-prime minister who was a member of the present government. Even though changing names of cities and institutions is an ongoing ideological trend intended to further the agenda of the ruling party, but substituting the name of a hospital built in the memory of one of our most dynamic freedom fighters goes on to symbolize a dangerous surge of sectarianism in the country. Thankfully, successful lobbying by several prominent citizens who felt emotional over the issue helped retain the hospital's original name.

Today*, on the occasion of his 132nd birth anniversary, at a point in history, when once again the forces of religious fundamentalism are raising their ugly heads, devouring politics, culture, and day-to-day life, it pays to remember Abdul Gaffar Khan, his humility, and his grand vision.

*6th February, 2022 was Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan's 132nd birth anniversary.

My Tryst with the Beast

They say that because I didn't take the jab, the virus has chosen to take a jab at me...

Head exploding with blinding bits of jarring light, body pumping out heat, bones broken into a million pieces...young leaves on the cashew tree form hearts and blow kisses. Birds are vocal. They come visit, blabber a lot. There might come a point when I would be delusional enough to understand the language of the avian world, and all my knowledge of the human tongues might simply slip away from me...imagine all the great secrets i might be privy to! Who knows I might even be able to spread my wings and take off. The idea excites me and is saddening at the same time. Yet, would I be a lesser being if Rimbaud's audacious flights into visionary realms did not encompass my consciousness or Dostoevsky's nosedives into the subliminal eschewed my pinioned comprehension? Or...there are illimitable ors which could be illustrated here and honed to brilliancy but I think the point is made.

A few moments from my feverish reverie:

1.

The sun stretched
lazily on the balcony
beckons me;
i haul my feverish
body and lie atop;
together we pump
out heat merging
into one another.
the volcano
erupts and lava flows
out; a file of black
ants marching past
urges me back in

2.

the night a huge
organic beast
with uneven folds
where i lie tossing
and turning, craving to
fall through some deep
crack and disappear
into an infinitesimal
moment of not being...
a heart beating:
not mine.
a body breathing:
not mine.
dreams roll in like
a blanket of early
morning fog, smothering
the consciousness, yet 

here 'i' am, awake and
groaning with pain

3.

Beyond the mortal cells
dying and renewing
I resurrect myself:
an entity, an energy
a force of
a sprawled shadow
with an arrow of sunshine
darting through it

Spinning Webs, not Dreams...

The sky split open and a voice boomed from above: 'Thou shalt contest the elections from Mathura'...And there He stood, the cerulean blue vision of beauty and delight, holding the unmistakable golden flute, smiling mischievously. It was Lord Krishna himself urging Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath Nath to go forth and conquer his beloved city Mathura. How could the CM refuse Him?  Humbly he accepted.

The dream made headlines in the media across the country. People offered their oblations to the CM, the Chosen One. Who would have thought that such an epiphanous directive from the Lord himself could be overruled by the party high command? Yet, it was. And being an obedient cog of the party, he did not dispute the decision.  And disregarding the divine implications of his dream, he resigned himself to his assigned constituency. 

The Chief Minister's sputtering fire in the belly to reclaim Mathura from the Musulman would have to find its deliverance somewhere else. And his insatiable craving to pitch seething speeches to raze the Shahi Idgah Mosque adjacent to the historical Sri Krishna Temple, to a hungry and frenzied mob would have to wait for another time. For now, he will have to let his dream sleep. 

Interestingly enough, America's dear old ex-president (now an avid painter) George W Bush, in his waking dream, claimed that he was on a mission from God when he sanctioned the invasion on Afghanistan and Iraq: "I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did." He did indeed... It would seem that directives from On High are infallible.

Almost six decades ago Rev. Martin Luther King, in one of his concluding paras of 'I have a dream' speech, said: "I have a dream...With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood."

One wishes that today's world leaders would change their sleeping positions; turn to living dreams like the one Rev. King so eloquently expressed, and help transform old hatreds into new empathies. All emancipated nations take their first step by learning to  create an organic  internal harmony within the existing demographics of the land, instead of divisions the way our colonizers did.

A Funeral by the Sea

 It's wonderful to see the world lopsided. There's a certain weightlessness to it...a momentary defiance of gravity. How liberating it is to think that not everything follows the same trajectory, not everything that goes up must necessarily come down! Things can remain midway undefined in their coordinates. 

He was glad he was a bit tipsy. They were still collecting firewood for the pyre. The old woman who had lived on the footpath for as long as he could remember was found dead in the morning. A cluster of bones, lying open-mouthed, an early morning blue trapped in her cold steadfast eyes. No one knew her name. No one came to claim her body. The dog sat whimpering, unwilling to leave her side. So, they decided to bring it along to the funeral. It sat there, hungry, yet undefeated in its sorrow. Two orphaned puppies encircled it with their furry warmth. A nice family, somebody said. The wind was getting stronger, and so was the sound of the ocean. The pyre needed to be lit lest they called it quits. The monsoon clouds lurked threateningly in the west. 

A child ran laughing towards the rushing waves...a man quickly caught him by the arm and picked him up.

It was getting cold, and he hadn't brought a jacket along. Patiently, he waited for them to set the corpse on fire, so he could huddle by the leaping flames and steal some warmth.

the stillness and the word...

 As yet another year wound its way in and out of the shadows of the pandemic as an inevitable continuum to 2020, one hoped and prayed that it would spell the end of global consternation and economic anxiety. But, Ananke and Providence had other plans for humanity, and a lot of us tumbled into new year with weekend curfews beginning to ebb our social life.

We would remember 2021 as the year when humanity seamlessly divided itself between the vaxxed and non-vaxxed, the 'responsible' and the 'rebellious'. And between those who distrusted the governments and took to streets to protest and those who mistrusted each other and shut themselves in their homes and took to the trenches of social media.  It was also a year when many of us unquestioningly resigned ourselves to a masked version of reality. We moved within the confines of our designated area, trying to reinvent ourselves vis-a-vis the limitations imposed upon us.

Personally, I saw reality  as I once knew it, slipping from my grasp, its regimented predictability becoming amorphous and elusive. I lived from moment to moment, from day to day, in an infinite stretch, looking for myself. As an immense amalgam of time, I could very well sum up  the year 2021 as a huge wasteful expanse, but no. It turned out to be a voyage of self-discovery, giving me courage to face myself in my raw solitude, and find myself in random moments of sudden revelation. I struck a natural companionship with the wilderness surrounding me as it spontaneously embraced the wilderness within me. The two became one...

1.

a gutted evening 

spilled across the

sky: ribbed clouds

in gray and pink

being dragged 

like dead weight

of a rotting day;

the poet could 

seize the peace 

even in this decay,

a pale moon's

crescent smile compelling

the eyes to reciprocate

darkness turning to light

with  sightings of 

the first stars

2.

The ocean and sky were one

the thunder and the sound

of crashing waves edged 

into each other; the far away 

cry of the peacock slipping into 

the neem grove rose in delight 

above the slashing rains,

the stinging of the fast drops 

and the memory of our hesitant 

first kisses fused seamlessly. your

touch on my dress was washed 

away by this sudden downpour, and i 

smelled of wet earth

3.

a moon quiet

and fragile like 

the sky timid behind

the golden evening

veil; a fiery drongo 

perches on the clothesline 

whistling flirtatiously

4.

short filaments

of gold looping

across the purple

night, weaving magic

and love: peacocks

waking up to the

stirrings of 

spring desires

5.

the brahminy kite cruising into

my view from across the

window slits the afternoon

with its silent flight,

the kingfisher swings on

a low branch, whistling, the frail

moth i saw last night

lies lifeless on the porch;

my heart cries and sings,

flies and sinks, sways and 

slips, like dappled pearls of

light through quicksand

Daily Meanderings and Meditations

 After almost three decades of wanting a copy of my own,  my son finally found it online and ordered me one. So yes, i am now the proud proprietor of a little book called Zen Art for Meditation.  It is a beautiful collection of some rare B&W paintings and haiku put together with a non-intrusive commentary to help the reader move through the union of the three and arrive at the still point within oneself.  I first read it as a student in high school; the way a painting flowed onto the text, the text to a pattern of thoughts, and thoughts to emotions, turned out to be an introspectively creative experience and has stayed lodged inside me for all these years.

Having my own copy inspired me, surprisingly not to re-read it at once, but to capture the essence of what the book represented for me when I was a mere teenager: a deep lyrical connection with myself sought in a few moments of solitude. What follows is a short week-long exercise, in which the part of 'Zen Art' was played by the scene outside the wire-meshed door in our living room, which lead to the porch and beyond...It was always the same setting, yet capable of taking me places, both within and without, if only I allowed myself to be lead. 

The good thing is that once I am up in the morning, I am up. There is no sleep still clinging onto me, no dreams trailing behind. I am ready to catch the early morning light, to see how the sameness of the day unfolds unto me, what form it takes, which chord it stirs, which language it speaks...which words it adopts and which it drops...So, I feel quite prepared to take on this journey.

Day 1

the quiet music

of a new day slowly

wraps itself

around the mellotronic

beat of the diurnal weave

making everything dance:

The table, chairs,

even her exercise mat

sprawled across the 

gray floor; the gentle

swing of passing

time. Outside the window

the sun peeps from

behind the cashew tree 

lazy breeze sets astir

the crouching shadows

Day 2

How freeing it is to be empty: nothing to stir the hidden depths, and nothing by which the invisible heights quiver in the golden sun. Everything just is. Time sits idle like a street dog on the footpath. Eyes travel, and filled with their own light, take in the emptiness. Perception of the Self reclines from the shriveled up cashew leaves hanging supinely from the dark branches. 

2.

empty I sit

filling up the page

with scribbles,

the crow caws

3.

lo, a little patch of

grass discovered briefly

by sunlight, withdrawing

again to its fallow self:

a passing cloud

Day 3

1.

the rains typing

away furiously,

thoughts scurrying

ferrying themselves

beyond the clutches of

cyclonic winds and 

thunderous deluge, to 

an island of peace 

and rest

2.

the surge of rain

filling up my being

the sight of rain

drowning my thoughts

the sound of rain

reiterating the deafening

silence of these walls

3. 

the porch leads 

to the curving path,

the path to the mud trail,

the trail to the tarmac road

the road to the ocean,

thunderous and 

heaving

the tarmac road leads 

to a mud trail

the trail to a curving path,

the path to the porch

the porch to the woman

inside her an ocean

heaving

 

Day 4

1.

sliding off the leaves

the sound of gentle rain

muffling the drumbeats

from the temple yonder

2.

Drip...drip...drip...a sense of impatience rubs off into the air. And the crow pheasants' slow rhythmic harmonies strive in vain to restore a shard of spindling light to this gray rainy day. I, on the other hand can only think of wrapping my hands around a steaming cup of tea.

Day 5

1.

with every breath

columns of light

infiltrate my being

with every breath

creeps in miasma

of mortality

2.

silence entwined

around the gray

sunshine of our

days slowly unravels:

a chirp, a rustle, a 

murmur, a breath of 

wind, a lingering 

note of vagrant life

Day 5

1.

the gray light

filled with 

thoughts of you

makes my heart

ache as electric

pulses course

through my body

wrapped indolently

around the

shadow of 

an early dawn

2.

i am who i am

a being on

the path

gleaning

bits of life

and bits of 

death, but

which is which?

who knows

3.

where is the fountain? he asked. she pointed to her heart. he laid his head there. he felt soothed by the rhythmic sound of rain. now, do you love me? she asked. he lay with his eyes closed, listening.

4.

at the fountain

they met and

in silence

watched the

ripples; the tips

of their fingers

touched, a 

shaft of lightening

split the skies.

Day 6

1.

weaving its way

across a thousand

sounds: the unseizable

silence

2.

Let the mysteries of love and life remain unseizable, keeping us wanting, moving, chasing something beyond our grasp..let them keep us hungry for the unknown...

3.

the same tree

outside the window

greeting the day

with its usual bow

and quiet rustle

of dappled gold

Day 7

1.

It is always the crow pheasants nowadays with their hollow drum like beats, reminding me of the soothing beauty of repeating moments. And yet it is their persistent knocking against the morning which unlocks the day to infinite  possibilities. Where would I be without them? 

2.

On this hot and humid day, through a tiny gap in the foliage of the cashew tree, do I gather in my arms a shard of sky, and a breath of air astir by the flapping wings of a passing  crow.

3.

the chameleon

sits still in the

flower patch

praying the Rosary.