Rambling about Choices

Over the last several days, I have been greatly preoccupied with choices one makes,and the basis for these...which pair of antonyms correctly describes one's relationship with oneself or the world around us? Good versus bad, right versus wrong, correct versus false. It appears that the choice of pair determines largely who we are and how we dictate the terms of our future. How do we judge? Can certain events, expressions, thoughts, be judged as correct, therefore right, and therefore good (and its related opposing sequence) or is it good versus right versus true? Where we step into the pairing directly measures our acknowledgment of our honesty. Needless to say, there is a vast variation due to one's history, social conditioning, and practice or interest in rational thought.

Lets take for example, the communal issue. Can we start with a premise that our humanity defines all of us, irrespective of race, religion, caste, creed, in a fraternity, a kinship of right to equal wants, right to equally desire, right to equally dream? If we accept this capacity, equally imbued within all of us, as true, then issues that separate or fracture us because of religion, color of our skin, accident of our birth, regional, communal and caste based become secondary or even wrong...these are just adjectives that seek to identify us, clothe us in distinct colors, give us our poetry, our song. Our adjectives are just our expressions of our freedom, our limited right to individuality within the confines of this fraternity, the song we were born to sing...or chose to learn later. It is the particular beauty that moves us, its how we express the same starry sky, dance to the universal rhythm that flows within all of us as without us. Can our color, words, song, dance be issues that divide us? That would be wrong according to the truth of our fraternity. And so finally, one arrives at therefore bad. In fact, one's judgment of good and bad follows from one's identification of right and wrong which in turn is governed by our premise of what is true or false.

On the other hand, let us step into the same issue from the other end- with a BJP version. Violence against minority communities is good-- violence against muslims, violence against Christians, violence against members of other caste, against tribals, against naxals, violence against women...if the propaganda for all these various violences is accepted then, there is no need to justify them, no need rationalise, to uncover truth. If however, one desires to appear rational, then one can attempt to justify each set, on a case-by-case basis, of why these instances of fracturing are good or justified.

Muslims are targeted because some of the hindu forefathers were persecuted by some of the muslim forefathers (cannot identify which ones though), and the hindu religion, or its interpretation justifies this kind of violence as 'true' and therefore 'righteous' and therefore 'good'..

Women are targeted for their choice of clothes, or the public spaces they occupy..since hindu religion demands that they wear sarees and stay at home - it also stipulates that men wear 'angrezi' clothes and leer at women, beat them, harass and harm them.

Christians are targeted because they proselytize- and hindu religion clearly states that no other religion, except itself, is allowed to take itself ultra seriously and preach to increase its tribe.

Tribals should be violated because they occupy valuable territory, and the sacred texts of course
state that the wealth, power and holdings be strictly safeguarded with the hindu members of the upper strata.

Lower castes - they seek a voice - and their numbers are large - their combined roar can drown out the upper caste, priestly and princely squeaking - so they tongues should be cut off!

Human rights activists fight for human rights, but the scriptures are clear that human rights are an exclusive domain of those that get to define our Gods and what They said and this cannot be questioned.

Now that the good violence is justified as right and righteous, an immediate corollary clearly defines truth as what Gods said was right - and each God, demi-God, semi-God has his and her own version of this - the muslim, tribal, christian version and all the other versions.

So you see, one has come up with an 'equally' viable sequencing of fractured truths, rights, and goods - even choosing backwards.

Similar arguments, choices, can be made using any trivial to most urgently necessary instance of human relationship or expression we encounter in real life...it appears vital to me that I study where I step in on every instance on unfolding life, and what is personally, really real.

A Return to Bhoomi

Over the last few weeks, Bangalore has been blistering, burning, roasty hot! Dry searing heat pours down, charring, crumbling, disintegrating one's sense of self, surroundings. Leaves wither on stems, budding flowers curl up and brown, grasses have transformed from tall, flowing green to a raspy, silky brown. Unforgiving skies blind in brilliant, unbroken, royal blue - no wisp of cloud, no flight of a brazen bird, or a playful butterfly.

Papers carry news about a heat wave - Bangalore is to see a hottest summer in its history. The temperatures are expected to hit 40C.

I take a car to visit my farm. Its been a long six weeks since I was last there and I have been waiting for this return - just how much, even I had not imagined.

The urban scape has disappeared by Tippugundanahalli reservoir, lying wide, calm, intense dark blue. Mammoth trees dot dry, bouldered landscapes - small patches of farm lie fallow, brown. Even as the land changes, so too the skies - monotonous, monochromatic, blue washes give way to tumbling blues, grays - dove to charcoal. Rolling, layered cloudscapes set off the reds of the earth, the greens of the trees. Spring is on a wane, but an occasional tree is still decked in all flowers - red, orange, yellow, blue - a startling bit of intense color. As the car speeds in an ever increasing silence, knots untie, tensions ease, shoulders relax. I have my face to the breeze by the open window to ever changing landscapes. Soon, Savanadurga looms, larger than life, miniaturing everything under it...its strange, this business of visual perspective. What was large and looming is immediately dwarfed. I feel small, insignificant, and therefore carefree.

The village road of Vardhenahalli is being reworked - a usual ploy before any election. I await the bend in the small road. I see the white house with a red tiled roof - home at last, my nest, my haven, the only piece of earth where I truly belong. I know this farm, as much as I know myself, the pile of boulders here, a ditch slicing through, the large tamarind tree, the pit that was to be a walk-in well. And yet, each visit reveals a difference, even like every standing in front of a mirror. Today, the fragrance hits me even before I am half the way to the house. Deep, floral, intoxicating, intensely sensual. I see the coffee bushes are in blossom - branches fully covered with small curly white flowers - no stem visible. The jasmines of three different varieties are in full bloom, open, inviting a closer sniff. Inhaling deeply I still walk - the rose bower in front of the home is bent down in bunches of large blossoms, old panni-roses, each layered in a million fragrant layer. Rangoon creeper bows down in bunches of baby pinks to red-mauves adding spicy, oily notes to this fragrance punch. I smile and twirl. The air is buzzing with the hums of bees, insects; butterflies flit uncertain where to sip; small sun birds swing on swaying branches and chirp. These are sounds that fill my world. Occasionally a loud shout from a friendly farmer passing by- "Akka (older sister), is that you? where have you been all these days?"

The orchard too has grown. The two mango saplings about a year old and hip-high, wear crowns of pink flowers - some are already fruits - tiny mm long emerald greens. The banana is showing off its long bunch - with a marron flower at its end. The chikku and gauva are laden with more fruits than the family can eat. And the papayas, the small two feet to tall 10 feet are outdoing one another to gifting us fruit. I gently caress these trees - whisper " Please dont be in a hurry to grow up...I am not impatient for your fruits". I caress them, as I caress my children, protective, nurturing, not ready for their swift move towards adulthood.

Lines and Circles

Yesterday, after a very long time, I got my paints out. Scraps of paper, Chinese ink and brushes. My mind needed a break from myself. More than meditating on a swara with my tanpura, more than sitting under a tree practicing no mind, more than the rigour of hatha yoga, a session with Chinese ink and brush immediately reveals a churning mind, stressed hasty breaths, turbulent turmoil raging inside in wavery lines, imperfect strokes, incomplete circles - circles of life gone haywire, broken, out of shape.

So I sit with my array of charcoal ink, some bamboo brushes, and a thick sheaf of papers. I know I must remember to slow down my breath, untie knots in my head, clear away thoughts - troubling monkeys jumping around. I focus within, center myself and prepare to let go. I wait for the right moment, like a diver poised high above water's surface. Eyes closed, mind blank, I know I am ready to make take up a most difficult challenge - no scope for errors here - I am ready to paint a circle - a Zen circle. With a single flourish, a twirl of a wrist, and a perfect circle, large, bold, clear, ends joining seamlessly. Hurrah! I achieved, in that instant, a short space of no mind, No Mind, NO MIND! I am joyous. I pick up the brush - another empty paper, another flourish -
no circle, no no-mind. I get irritated, I have done this before - again, with the imagined flourish of a Zen master - again no circle, wavery, weird oblong shapes. Two more attempts -disastrous!
I have become conscious of my self again, the hugely dominating me....I give up! I practice, doodle, play, enjoy shapes, lines, bamboos, orchids, grass, and when I have played enough, I return to the circle. In my absorbed playfulness, in my no-me state, I again attempt the circle -perfect. Yet again - perfect again. By now, the mind is calm, the heart happy - all the playtime has been good for me. I get up to make lunch.
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My daughter arrives from school. She is a happy child these days. After lunch, she finds my papers, paints spread about on the floor. She asks if she could also do some painting, could she also do circles. I smile, and agree, and watch, mildly indulgent, mildly superior.

She picks up the brush, with a flourish, a circle -Perfect! Another, and another, gorgeous, perfect beauties of calm head and attentive mind, one after another, churning out perfections of her mind - or no mind. She is a child, she is playing, she is perfect. I watch, thunderstruck, stunned, amazed. Is my child a genius? Are all children genius? For that is what I am witnessing - uncluttered mind, unburdened heart, just manifestation of innocence, of attentive play. So what is difficult for an adult, is precisely because they have lost touch with their childhood, the innocence of one mindedness. All children are Zen - no reading books, manuals, no search for a guru, teacher, just to be, is easy - as a child.

I have learnt a lot today. Will knowing help? Maybe! I just have to remember to be at ease and to play.

Scattered Through Time: Poems

On Leh-Delhi Flight

Choppy waves of brilliant light
Crested with virgin frothy white
Swell and fall under me
In an infinite azure flight....

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I see not the movement
but find forms fixed-
etched in eternity.

I am but a speck of dust,
seek to hold this moment-
this is my Insanity....

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Earth reaches towards the heavens
Space swoops and envelops Earth
each reaching and retreating
in a cosmic dance of Eternity.

A Gift

It is a matter of continued surprise, even disbelief, how so often events in my life conspire, stars align, Gods smile and universe presents me an unexpected gift, a manna from heavens, that changes the course of my life - instantaneously, irrevocably, completely.

I have been living through just such an internal revolution, rearrangement, refocus, over this last week. Shabnam Virmani is the angel, the messenger, the universal sign, who landed at my doorstep on the wings of poetry, riding winds of music, songs, priceless gems accumulated, tasted, sifted, sorted over large spaces, and over long years - distilled into a perfect gift, a nectar, available for all who care, dare to sip, transform. She gave us 'Kabir' - the saint poet of fifteenth century, through voices across gender, caste, religion, crossing boundaries, individual, social, national, following his voice, his words, his music into the internal realms of spirit, solitary and also universal.

I have been riding this wave, in wonder and awe, revelling in its joy, forgetful of myself and my place, my sorrows and my angst, my daily connections, bounded sense of chores, duties, responsibilities. I have been riding this wave with scattered snatches of poetry in my head, following an escaping lyric, reaching for a haunting song slipping from my lip. I ride this wave, on a free ride, leading god knows where, and to what purpose...do I seek? what do I seek? why do I ride? to where? Right now, it is just for the pure joy of it - a tasting of vintage freedom, a peek into infinity of self. The only thing to wonder, will I ever get off this ride? I don't know, I don't care to know - for now, I just sit back, relax, enjoy.