Death in the Times of Corona

April 9, 2020, India : COVID cases 5734, deaths 166 - so far - but surely rising. 
The best  to worst case scenarios predict covid fatalities in India anywhere between 300 (ha!ha!) - 5 million (staggering!!)

But is there really a reason to panic? Total number of deaths in India is estimated at around 10 million - half of these due to chronic diseases - probably preventable? So we lose 5 million people per year to diseases - that are likely treatable - if there's a same will behind it. Remember the mortality age of an Indian male is about 68 years - only!  We let go of our citizens at this nominally early age - compared to the developed world - that we like to pretend we are.

What are other types of (preventable) deaths in India?

"The infant mortality rate for India in 2019 was 30.924 deaths per 1000 live births" So for 1.38 billion that are alive today, we have lost about 41 million infants!

"In 2017, about 1.2 million people died in India due to air pollution" much more than due to tobacco usage. Folks, can we write these off against those prevented due to reducing pollution level during lockdown? Shall we?

How about TB? 440,000 is our annual average.
Homicide? About 62,000 is our average...the list can go on. Google yourself!

The point is all of us know most of this - even though we may not feel up to confronting this. By we, I mean the comfortable class like me, chewing on an apple, blogging, and relaxing during this lockdown.

So why the sudden panic?? BECAUSE IT HAS COME TO OUR DOORSTEP! Because - bank balance is not verified before you become a Corona host. Age determines if you die - and there are many many more wealthy seniors - compared to poor ancients. Remember our average mortality age of about 68??

So people who can shout the loudest and be heard the most - they are now feeling threatened and panicking. They don't want to fall sick, they don't want to die. As a maid nearby said, she has to queue up for drinking water everyday - where's the social distancing. Our young, strong, working, contributing labor class , are trying to reach home - on foot - along with wives, children, elderly - out of shameless and unnecessary and avoidable starvation.

Yes, there are also good samaritans - risking the virus, beatings etc - just to deliver food. But how many?? or how few??

Don't avert your gaze...listen and think - you have all the time in the world - atleast over the next week or so.

Hunger - Up Close

I returned from Kolkata a week back. I am still haunted by the man sitting across from me, in the second class non-AC sleeper, on Yeshwantpur-Howrah Express. The train left Howrah around 8:30 pm, and I lay down on the lower berth with my newly acquired old Tanpura - in its brand new black case. I lay side by side with my instrument,  legs curled around its Lau base, comfortable and aware - to not damage this precious instrument. Three seats/berths were still empty.

When I awoke next morning, a new set of passengers had arrived to fill up all berths, and all passages and spaces between the berths; two people were sleeping in the two feet width separating berths, on the floor, sideways, comfortably and intimately, as the poor still know how. Later, I learnt that they were strangers to each other - squeezed together in their desperate need for sleep.

The man across me, at the opposite window seat must be forty - at most. He was dark, gaunt, with tight skeleton hands - all veins protruding. He wore his thin dark, well oiled hair in an unusually long fashion, curling at his ears and back. His clothes were worn thin - but neat. His eyes were hollow, slanty with pronounced lids. Lips were tiny, nose small, cheekbones wide and pronounced, emphasised by hollow cheeks. He was small - and light - and yet there was physical strength of a manual laborer or even a skilled crafts person.

What shook me, internally, as the day progressed, was that the man did not eat - at all. Nor did his companion - a skinny youth 18-20 years old. The man in the top berth seemed to be their boss, younger, well fed and sleeping - he seemed to be taking them to some job near Bangalore. When the young man ordered lunch for the two of them, the man in the top berth shouted that there was no way he was spending this amount of money feeding them; he cancelled their orders and kept a single order of lunch. Breakfast happened, and then snacks, and then lunch - people had either ordered railway food or had some food packed with them. The compartment of eight typically had five additional people - all ate, chatted, dozed, slept. I enjoyed the window seat with a stiff breeze and rolling countryside, hills, trees, water bodies, birds of wide variety - lots of cranes, herons, snake birds - black, still and wings wide spread. I was also constantly bothered by my two hungry companions. The young guy had wolfed down a small bag of puffed rice that he had with him - but the older guy ate nothing. While we ate, they obstinately stared out of the windows - often times their gullets moving as they swallowed at particular enticing smells of samosas, coffee, masala moori, biryani. The guy on the top berth ate his full lunch and again slept.

I had never witnessed hunger - or this kind of starvation - in anyone, before. It shook me that this was what it looked like - tear less, anger less, hopelessly bleak and gnawing. This hunger was proud, withering and stoic. I ate with shame the theplas my mom had made for me - with love, corrainder, hing and other masalas - light, fragrant, and delicate.

Around 5pm, the young man softly asked the older guy "maybe he will atleast give us Tea?" and the man replied " but there is too much shame in asking..". They both remained engrossed in their hunger - silent and  blank.

I overcame my personal embarrassment and bought them food - for the rest of the journey. The young guy, objected, only mildly. Neither met my eyes - but took the food - turned away and ate. Next morning, I was woken up with a light pat on my arm, and a face lit by a gentle smile " don't miss your stop - we are leaving"

I am still haunted by that face - chiseled by years of hunger - of a proud and working man, with nothing to eat. That too in this - India Shining.

Explanation...

Those of you who who have read the previous post on 'Seeking the Beloved' and are not networked into the Kabir-Songs, Bangalore group, might be a bit mystified by it. That poem-post was a response to a Sufi Fest that happened last Sunday in Bangalore also by the same name 'Seeking the Beloved'. This program of Sufi music from the Sind region of the country was organised by the 'Kabir Project' that has also been responsible for bringing other incredible musical gifts to this city, thereby enriching all our lives.

The first bit of my poem is a response to the joyous uplifting when Moora Lala sang in his inimitable style, his songs from Kutch. Moora Lala with his swirling mustache, 100Watt smile and
happy presence moved us all - literally! We swayed, clapped, beat to his songs and Parbat Jogi's rhythm on Dholak.

The second part of the program was by the Waee singers, Mitha Khan and Sumar Khan - this was my first introduction to Waee music and I confess it haunted my spirit, wrenched my soul,
and left a deep inexpressible, melancholy stain of not-finding the sought, one's ultimate true beloved, on my person...so the second part of what I wrote derives from that.

Lastly, I just express a hunch that surely seeking one's ultimate beloved, in the most spiritual sense would lie in being able to delve deep inside one's own self...

Irrelevance of History

I was a poor student of history, and a good student of science and maths. This might have some bearing on what I now want to say.

It started over a dinner discussion on ethics, morality, parenting, education. Then he said something like..." Learning history is of foremost and necessary value for true education" . Considering that I grew up with very little and distorted historical perspective, and still have vociferous 'reasonable' opinions on everything from society, environment, politics, ethics, and history, that I value, I had to immediately oppose his stance...

What I write now originated over that dinner, together with google searches and wikipedia browsings, pickled in my head over last several days.

The basic argument is rooted in properties of stationary, ergodic processes for stochastic systems...I know, I know, it sounds complex, pretentious(blame the stats guys), but I can explain it on the basis of how and where I encountered it. In astrophysics, if we assume (reasonably) that star ensembles are stochastic( random), and stationary (average ensemble properties do not change with time or location), then observing star ensembles, of different ages (ie snapshot properties) allows you to decipher mean evolutionary properties of stars (time history) - and this is termed ergodicity. Our understanding of stellar evolution is based on such a statistical assumption, which was later verified in studies of star clusters (coeval systems - ie born at the same time). That is, it is unnecessary to watch stars live over their several billion year histories to figure out how they must have, and will continue to live - studying a sample reveals it, well enough.

I now propose that one can use a similar statistical hypothesis for human ensembles. We humans might be characterised as random (stochastic)processes, whose gross behaviors have not been changed or effected with either time or location (stationary). Such an assumption contends that innate human tendencies (such as survival, greed..) which guide how we evolve as a human race, have neither learnt from history nor changed with geographic location i.e. culturally - assuming averages over large enough time or space. Thus, the historical information of societies is embedded in a snapshot look at a cross section of current societies, making 'learning history(LH)' irrelevant.

I would like to argue further that LH has done more harm than good, since history is not just recorded by 'conquerors' but has inspired countless 'future conquerors' with their 'Veni, Vidi, Vici' - justifying, and glorifying distorted ambitions with mindless accumulation of territories, wealth, power. Recording history over millennia has neither taught us to build better societies, nor live more compassionately, equitably. History has been a way of propogating hate, differences, divides and using it to justify repressive behaviours. Citing historical events by Aurangazeb as been a standard excuse for justifying Babri Masjid or post Godhra genocide.

History serves the class whose histories get recorded, and historians who are employed to record it. It also serves dinner discussions of an intellectual class far removed from the struggles of the working class - the latter have neither leisure nor interest in a history irrelevant to their lives.

What we require, is to have a set of moral principles , guided by philosophical discussions to set down a set of ethical codes of conduct. This would then frame the 'learning' within which we operate as conscious, critical, open, rational, societies that 'live in the moment' based on their democratic and evolving beliefs. The only small way that history should participate is via the influence of culture. Cultures are histories imbibed, digested and expressed as organic, transformative effects in living societies.

Food for further thought on ergodicity and human ensemble can be found here.

Notes on a Train

Fields of waving silver grass
Heron on a shiny black boulder
A feeding buffalo.
---
A man pulled out a hindi Femina and Griha Shobha
---
A first sunflower bloomed in a field of swollen green buds.
----
A hungry man doubled over planting with care tender green saplings in perfect rows - rice for nation's supermarkets.
---
An old woman binged on cokes and ice cream diving into her wasted chest for cash.
---
Two peahens joined the crows to feed off garbage dumps outside Agra.
----
A herd of skinny cattle wait patiently at a railway crossing.
----
He shat in their marigold fields to offend his master's Gods.
----
A man's torso stood over its own inverted self - still, over still waters - to catch lunch.
----
Boulders striped red and white
established the might
of Gods,
of majority's right.
-----
Coolies in red, recline under shades, watching in disappointment and relief, our train speeding by.
---
Indigo stained buildings against blinding white fence blurring past.
----
Wrinkled skin and wasted self
wrists tinkle with glass and gold
memories of youth and beauty.
----
A peacock saunters through scrub forests of Andhra.
----
At Choka, brazen display of gold on fire - trees aflame amongst wavey gold grasses; smokey blue mountains and orange sky, ravines plunging to black.

A Bonus Blessing

Their arrival was heralded by sounds of rhythmic claps - their walk and presence distinct. Every train journey in India is colored by encounters with their mocking laughter, their devious ways of extracting money, especially from bashful young men.

She was beautiful, with full wine lips, eyes painted as raven jets, ringlets frolicking on either side framing her face - perfectly. She smiled at me as she entered the railway compartment - I smiled back. She was stunning as she teased, sparkled, flirted, cajoled, and coerced cash from the youths besides me. Work done, she turned to me-
She: "Do you work?" I: "No, I am a housewife"
She:" Then why is your hair cut?" I:" Because it is no longer beautiful"
She:"Women cut their hair if they go for job" I: Silent
She:" Are you ill?" I: " I am a little unwell"
At which, this young gorgeous woman shook her head in sympathy, laid her hand over my gray head - and blessed me.

Impartial Immorality

An absurd conversation with my fourteen year old took a turn when she declared, “ I want to be Immortal” –

I said “that’s not possible”

She said “then I rather be reborn again and again and again – I hate the thought of my body rotting with the soil”

I said “that it will anyway”

She said “then I prefer my brain not to rot”

I said “that too will”

She said with an irritated look “ you know what I mean – I don’t want my mind to disappear!”

I said “Since I do not believe in any particular religious model, it is probably true that we all just disappear into nothing – this could serve a purpose; if people were conscious of their mortality then they would lead better lives”

And then she said “ If there is no afterlife, or promise of a better after life, why should people prefer to be good. There needs to be a reward – that is why religion is good. People are bad for the expected reward like wealth, power – whereas there is no reward to being good except the satisfaction of being good – the only thing is if they are not caught then they can enjoy being bad!”

That stumped me!

I asked “ Do you think if a person is dying they would not want to be good”

A cheeky smile and “why should they??”

Michami Dukhadam - I Seek Forgiveness

Today is a day I value most - amongst all days - as a day when we, as Jains, seek forgiveness, of all. It is a day of Savantsari Pratikaman with which our Pajosan - the yearly days of Jain festival end.

I seek forgiveness of all - man, bird, beast, insect, life forms seen, or unseen, whom I harmed, by my actions, while sitting, standing,in speech or in thought, knowing, or unknowingly, in any way at all - I seek heart felt forgiveness.

May I be forgiven.

Just Another Day

It is exactly half hour to my 50th birthday - and I wait with bated breath - will I become different? transform? suddenly old? Family listens with concern, that I do not want anything special - really, I don't. Want just a regular, relaxed, pottering-around day to wander, pause, stare, to take the beginning of this next decade, bit by bit, to slowly chew, savor the flavor of the moment - the right now. I hope I feel mellow, well fed, well slept, at peace with myself, within this external world.

Dont want to be compensated for what I have lost, and, what have I lost? youth? beauty? Maybe, maybe...I like the new me that I am becoming, as much as the old-young me that has slipped by. I like my unruly grey hair, the laughter lines, the new bold tenor to my voice, the stark strokes that my hands make on empty canvas, the body that still glides through water(oh, what pleasure!), a mind that still engages keenly, but more discerning, about what engages it - and my heart- I love my heart that is learning still to be more compassionate, have more grace, with age. I am happy that I now look strangers in their eye and smile - greetings you fellow human and may all good be with you!!I am more open now to the world, and to myself, and hope this will continue to be so.

So, what could I possibly desire from a day, that I don't already have? My children have made their gifts of love for me, a little turtle pendant, and green bead bracelet that I will wear with joy. Their love I'll wear with joy. I will, accept that I have reached this far, and the journey has been revealing and mine. I will accept this day, as my gift, with grace, as all the days still ahead of me. And that day is now - today!
Amen!

Diminishing Death

“ I have to be aware of my own irrelevance and fight it” – Satyadev Dubey.

I stared at this quote on the pages of a Prithvi Theatre Calendar 2009 ‘Mad Mad World of Satyadev Dubey’ with a strange discomfort, a stirring of a hidden resonant chord, an uncanny feeling of an unacknowledged self stepping out to confront me. The calendar pages carried stark B&W images of a man, beautiful, virile, arrogant – the mad SD. I sat mesmerized in the darkened office, flipping and staring at the images and quotes of a man who is considered by many as father of modern Indian theatre.

A year back, maybe a couple years back, I was at Rangashankara for a performance of a Greek tragedy. Besides me sat a well dressed man, old, silver hair, frail. A friend whispered to me “ That’s Dubey – the director”. I shrugged – uncaring. I am not a theatre buff – give me music anytime, especially long solos in vocal Hindustani and I cannot imagine a better treat. So, I was fairly unimpressed with a famous director sitting next to me. I remember exchanging a few pleasantries – nothing memorable. Now the same face was staring at me from a desktop calendar, decades younger, stronger bearing, glint in eyes, full of energy, power, fire, proclaiming arrogantly “ I am the best, its not an act, it’s a fact.” I am hypnotized, captured – by these images, this man that was, as also the echoes within. What happens to that fire, that blazing energy that vanquishes impossibility? Where is that person, once captured and immortalized by a lens, and the spirit that proclaimed these words? How did that person become this person that sat next to me?

It occurs to me that death comes to us in tiniest, immeasurably small measures, in every moment lived, with every inhaled breath. Death is not a curtain call to a grand production called ‘Life’ which is lived out to a grand climax – it is imprinting, tagging us as we journey along, either plod or dance, in diminishing moments towards a certain finality, a death. The curtain begins to fall even as the play begins. Now death is not a finale to living, but an end to a cumulative process of ending – more approachable, acceptable, familiar, and even comfortable. No need to fear swimming dark currents of an unknown, we are already swimming, unaware, in an unknown towards an unknown - and it is easy. In living, we are dying and it is as it should be.

What would be frightful, unbearable, would be a curse of being eternal – to have infinite leisure to do whatever one wants, without a certainty of an end – of an undefined culmination that hides, plays, diminishes slowly but can finish in a fierce crescendo or a gentle, hauntingly prolonged note. To have the possibility of an unexpected thrown in to every moment makes the journey worthwhile, the impossible worth conquering, a moment rapturously lived.

So in this play the life proceeds – in an ever engrossing time-pass, irrelevant and therefore amusing, a play between rights and wrongs, just and unjust, black and white. I stand in front of a mirror and stare me down – I try to seek death hiding and diminishing me in diminutive measures - the disappearing light from my eyes, the grey in my hair - and I laugh! Death is revealed in hundred lines that my face breaks into, webs about my mirth. I have tagged death!

Sacred Secular

I am a self proclaimed agnostic...maybe there is a God, or many Gods, a spirit that guides us, or a greater truth that beckons us. I have decided that if this whole damn life business is just a Maya, an illusion, then let me be illuded, deluded, play the part - as if its real - participate in earnestness in this great time-pass. I seek no liberation, no salvation, no enlightenment, no heaven beyond now, no hell to guide my moral force. And yet, can I really discount the religion and culture that fashioned me - that unerringly still guides my path, untangles my rights from wrongs? I dance to a background orchestra, chorus of all my ancestors that I call my conscience. My conscience is my only true mentor, a guide to what I will and I will not do, boundaries that I can never cross, at least in my imagination. My imagination itself the sheet on which I lay down my paints, my lines and its vastness is bequeathed to me by my past. This past that put me in direct play with the entire vast universe, animate, vibrant, where all roles between all its substances, are continually interchanging, a rock could one day be me, and I - a scuttering cockroach - all apparently in a blink of an eye, in seamless movement of time, backwards, forwards, across dimensions and multi-dimensional.

Yet, I get ahead of myself. The background first, since all of this has a purpose - an agenda, as do many of my blogs. A dialogue in quietness with myself to resolve inner questions, or at least phrase the questions better.

I grew up in a conservative Jain joint family. We belonged to a sect that called itself sthanakvasi and swetambar - which means that the family did not participate in idol worship and our monks wore clothes. All our living, actions, inter relationships within the family, with the outside, to the animate and the inanimate world and to the world of Gods, demi-Gods, devils and demons was played out within this backdrop, this stage of being a conservative Jain. It was a colorful world of effortlessly intermingled real and imaginary, present and mythical, spiritual and magical. It effected the way we thought, spoke and acted. There was a singy song for many things we did, like,

One sin to spill water
five to spill milk
countless sins to waste food
if intentionally willed!

and this would have its opposing counter of

One punya for gifting water
five to gift milk
countless punya for gifting food
if intentionally willed!
---
punya = a good deed credit that counts towards one's postion in next birth.

When we spilt milk, we bowed and smeared some of it on our foreheads - that we place you with respect on the top of our being, and intended no offense by our carelessness.

As Jains, we were very strictly vegetarian and staunch followers of non violence. Thus grandmother would rinse her plate after every meal and drink this water; allow ants, mosqitoes to bite her without waving them away ( because they needed to live); the louse we got in our hair as kids was gently wrapped in strips of soft cotton and taken far away to let free; no pesticides were ever used inside our home; we did not eat many vegetables during most year, and for the four monsoon months, we ate no vegetables at all. This was the time when jains of all sects performed great number of fasts, with and without water; it was a time for prayer and purification; time to work off some of the accumulated karma by self denial, and disciplined non-action, because all action involved violence,visible or otherwise.

Through out the year, grand father filled dairies with religious mantra, and these pages were torn, mixed with flour, and fed to the giant red carps in the pools - we stared at the greedy carps in wonder while grandma told us that they were greedy to improve their next rebirth by eating all the powerful mantra stuff. So the fish would become humans, and humans could become fish, ant, bird, or God (enlightened souls). We were told that we were in this endless game of enjoying rewards, or living out punishments for our actions in previous births - only when this accounting was zero (not just equating one's sins and punya) , could we become truly enlightened.

And then there were stories, stories for every evening of my childhood, sitting with a brood of another ten, twelve cousins at grandfather's feet to listen to stories of princes, monks, magic, and the glory of the highest enlightenment - liberation from the cyclical birth and deaths. I only remember asking one question often " If there is no birth after enlightenment, where do you live?" The answer was always " there is no you - so you do not need a place to live" and this completely boggled my young imagination. Could not imagine a no-me! Now I can imagine a no-me even without dying - is this a realisation or a delusion?

This background that fashioned me, I completely rejected, as an adult, in my evolution to be a superior rational being. My living world is guided by mostly rational actions, or at least logically justifiable. In fact, I place a greatest value on both rational thought and consequential actions - in that order. However, I have been denying this sneaky suspicion that often times, my actions are already identified, and then I use reason and rationale to justify them - that is, I am living my life backwards. I remember, this was often a way I approached science. I often instinctively knew the answer - that only left a minor problem of working out the math. Now, it appears that despite my great show as a modern, urban, educated, westernised woman, I am mostly faking this layer over my true self that I had little to do with crafting. My truths, boundaries, texture of my compassion, the depth of my non-violence did not come from the lengthy hours with physics texts. And by rejecting this core, I have somehow broken that thread of continuity that would have served my children well. This is after all the crux of my problem. In rejecting religion, I have somehow failed to rig signposts, shine beacons, illuminate a way with an inclusive awareness of all nature, respect for all props in their maya dance. The importance of self that imbues a modern western model does not acknowledge our minor role in the universal web, or the greater consequences of collective individual drive. It fails to speak to children in a tongue of wise ancestors, separate sacred from the profane, of magical possibility of irrationality, of compassionate responsibility that is larger than a person's singular drive to success. At their tender age, between youth and adult, world beckons them to high exam scores, shiny career options, point them towards job options that will buy them real estate, car, wine - but will they, like me, even know that they are nursing an emptiness of these accumulations, will they have a vocabulary to reach deep and listen - to a voice beyond rationale, reason, to quest for themselves when they have acquired everything and it means nothing? Is this how we have all failed? we, the next generation of parents that have substituted glitzy TV for stories, presents for personal time, logic for conscience?? Have we failed, so terribly?? How do we atone? What should I do?

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.

Another Self, Another Voice

When the Voice first spoke to me, clamoring for birth, freedom, Parallel Journeys was born. It gave expression to the inner me that I hear, consult, indulge and value - utmost. She spoke of her wanderings, ramblings, desires, hopes; also her anger, angst, anguish, frustrations; she spoke mostly of herself in wide, large, most often silent empty spaces, and the inner journeys that arose from these travels to distant lands. And even as she speaks in her solitary solitude....

Another distinct, different Voice has been making her presence felt - within. This child is different - already attached, grounded, firmly anchored into the world she is impatient to be born into. This world is the world of humans, their social theatre with continuously unfolding layers of different Acts, simultaneously being played out on the large stage. She is mostly a witness in this theatre of absurd, but often, as can happen in theatre, acts take a life of their own , the actors and the audience become one, and which side the curtain falls - depends on which side one is on. This theatre of absurd is mostly a theatre of perspectives. She, this Voice, is a strange one - she finds her gaze often rivetted by the macabre of slit throats and strangling holds by unseen hands -cold blooded murders and eerie mysteries- played out on a social stage - trying to gaze beyond the curtain to identify the director who created this episode.

Her presence cannot be denied - inside - she has already spoken through her older sister Parallel at times. So - time for another birth! She resides here.

And The World Grows Younger.....

As life has accumulated history of merged years, decades and now straddles a brink almost half a century old, a wonderful development unfolds before me...even as I watch, the world grows younger, in days, weeks, months and years. As I watch, I am surrounded by a growing populace of the immortally young, effervescent, energetic, of booming laughter, bouncy step, a glow that belongs to gods...young men and women surround me everywhere and fill me with hope that this shall always remain, or hope - as long as they remain, or at least a germ of hope that this renewal carries a hope of future redemption, salvation from ills that we have bequeathed them...for they care not for blames, complex analysis, imposition of past, but will carry life forward on the buoyancy of their laughter, the surge of their chorused songs, the sparkle of their many billion eyes.

And what am I? as this world grows younger? I am as an ancient tree, in an ancient forest, watchful, indulgent to the seasonal surges of renewal bursting around me in young neons and luminescent greens, to the splendour of new and the pull of the young - attracting the bees, butterflies, birds into a wild chorus of overspilling life... I am that which watches through silent spaces- neither young or old - just eternal.

A New Year's Resolution--Kept!

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I know we aren't much into New 2009 at all - and yet, I have very successfully and resolutely kept this year's resolution- in fact, I have a guaranteed winner this time - I am fully certain. If the world, family, near-and-dear ones don't cross my path, impose outdated values, provoke guilt; if the venomous sting of jealousy does not impinge....etc. etc. then I do believe I have discovered a winner amongst resolutions! In fact, this year's resolution is blissfully and wonderfully easy to keep, good for my body, my mind, my spirit, my soul-it is a perfect recipe for improved motherhood, sisterhood, wifehood, neighbourly-hood, worldhood...in fact, I can bet with great certainty that the world, as well as me, will benefit greatly by my NYR! I can further add that this could easily become the most popular and beneficial R for the world to keep... no, no...I really don't mind, at all! No copyright laws, no patenting, no such bullshitting from me... let the whole world enjoy the benefit of my accidental discovery, and thus discover bliss!

It happened like this...I was being a really grumpy person, for many a good reasons ( and probably some bad) ..but lets not get into that now, that can be another story..so, as I was saying, bad humour had become my constant companion- my husband was harrassed , kids unhappy, workers sullen, neighbours distant, friends disappeared- who could blame them - I was not a happy person to be around...I myself felt crappy - often. Please be patient, this is my story, ya? Then let me tell it my own way... ya, ya I was coming to what I decided, but after that will you want to listen anymore to me? So let me tell you before hand, why it is that you should listen to me, and why this is the best way to help the world..

Ok, no lecture baazi, what occur-ed to me is this... if people need enough food to carry on with their lives, then they surely need enough sleep too. So my NYR is to sleep as much as I feel like on a daily basis - and THAT REALLY HELPS. No more improve myself type of Rs... what I have is feel better kind of R. How about responsibilities, duties and such likes? you say - well it helps to have accommodating husband, responsible children, otherwise, get back to bed after they leave home, or sleep on bus, in classes, while at work, sleep with your eyes open (I have heard it can be done!), or whatever it is that you do... one thing I can guarantee, it will add a glow to your skin, a spark to your eyes, a laughter in your voice, as no love has ever done before @!

Scenes Outside a Train Window

Buffaloes and children sit submerged in chocolate ponds;
under searing sun, half bent women over neon paddy fields;
tiny lime butterfly fluttering to the rhythm of our chugging train;
walls of water bursting from an overflowing dam - into arid, rocky land;
lillies in chinese white over smudges of jade and emerald leaves;
distant smoky mountains merge into moist clouds -seeking relief from the heat;
tall copper grasses with feathery silver fluffs bending in the breeze;
tracts of charred waste land around smoky factories;
small white temple of perfect symmetry mirrored in a village lake;
a jumble of mangy brown huts-thatched roofs and skeleton cows in the yard;
a line of waving children as they squat for toilet along the tracks;
single tall palms, erect, proud, crowned;
turbaned man in bright kurta and his veiled bride, sailing away on a bicycle;
two dogs running in opposite directions on a lonely, dry track of red mud;
white egrets in flight in a sunset over green chequered fields;
arid sandbars of scruff within slate, sluggish rivers;
groves of bamboo, banana, papayas, emerald vines with gold yellow blossoms;
fluttering clotheslines in rainbow - tibetan flags of the poor;
a flock of swallows sailing in choreographed harmony;
lush tribal women of earthy grace striding with loads of kindle on their heads;
villages festooned in orange flags - warnings for the times ahead;
large tracts of sweet sugarcane;
cool evening air, gold sunset rushing past in torn puddles;
a game of soccer by the village young;
catching fish from small overrun streams in square nets on bamboo cross;
ink-blue night and stars reigning bright.

Economics of Education

It is a prevalent belief in certain circles, that education is a panacea for all social evils...I belonged to that club. The belief is founded on a myth, that education gives you a choice, a determination of livelihood, if not of life itself. Granted, if education gives you awareness, ability to think, assess, critically analyse, have an opinion...then those are all steps in the right direction. But, one usually takes a more particular stance of education removing global hunger, poverty, environmental crises, class disparities. Somehow, even within the educated class, providing education to the poor, is seen as a solution, that by providing economic security, resolves all other individual and social manifestation of poverty.

I have recently been thinking...questioning the premise...if all 6 billion of us were educated, capable of making a choice, would there still be choice?Would the world turn into a Lenon-ish Imagine-able utopia? or would the 'choice' still remain select, finite, now drawing from a much larger pool of wannabe capables? would not the global, market driven systems, then quickly short change the now redundant educated masses, for a rarer species of say, garbage collectors?

Probing, further, into shakier economic grounds, it appears that education cannot create wealth. Education leads (most frequently) to white collar jobs and allows flourishing of service sectors that help redistribute wealth. But can the entire global population become service providers-to the top percent of the truly wealthy, individuals, corporations, governments -the ones with wealth and capacity/power to generate wealth? What creates wealth? or more pertinently, who creates wealth? And can this wealth be created without the support (willing or abused) of global people, global resources. Is wealth, not just commodity - necessary or desirable?monetary currency just a facilitator of the earliest barter system for exchanges of goods? Then, how can education, generate wealth, prosperity, and ultimately peace? Are we chasing a pipe dream - or deliberately keeping our eyes closed, that we can dream a dream, not fully black?

Or...I am thinking completely wrong about this, and someone will tell me how- to let me dream a dream.

Grass Roots Impotence

Yesterday, CONCERN- a student organisation of IISc. campus, screened two highly disturbing documentaries related to globalisation, and development focusing on the "other side" of the great progress in free India - the victims who pay the cost.

"Development Flows from the Barrel of a Gun" documented the demonic, vengeful operations by our police force to suppress any local resistance to large development projects ranging from big dams and mining, to world bank supported forestry projects in the tribal areas within the country. With organised and ruthless use of state sanctioned power, the police in each instance resorted to the use of force and firearms to silence protesters, imprisoning many and causing several fatalities.

On a more optimistic note "The Bitter Drink" documented the people's protest in Plachimada against the Coca Cola plant that caused drastic scarcity of potable water in the area, and the subsequent closing down of the unit.

In the active discussion that followed the screening, the foremost concern that stood out was, " I care, but what can I do....???" There was amongst the younger generation, empathy for the plight of the victims in these struggles, but also a great feeling of helplessness, impotence about an individual's role in our so called democracy where the political will, social drive, corruption, ineffective judicial system all conspired to silence the voices of those most adversely affected by India's rush towards development.

So what can one do? What can I do? Can a country really be called free, democratic, when its progress is geared towards blind consumerism, for the already consuming- more malls, more cars, more roads, more airports, more , more, more....when the elitist institutes like IISc. parrot the popular middle class mantra of 'more'- more fundings, more buildings, and aspire only for higher international standards, better international facilities, agressive international competitiveness...when we fail to include , locally, socially, ethically, individual, personal, environmental, and national needs-and are proud at our own 'exclusiveness' what message are we sending out to the younger generation? Is it a message of any value, to all of us? of equity and equality? when did we stop pondering about all of this? who else will think about this, can think about this? except the well fed , free thinkers of our sabotaged society? You!

Biased Towards a Conscience

About a year back, I was telling my kids a story about 'living by one's conscience', and realised that neither had come across the word 'conscience'. They were twelve and fourteen at that time. I was surprised and more than a bit upset that as a mother I had failed to introduce this important concept to them. It also occured to me, then, that this word was neither introduced, nor nurtured in education systems designed to produce future generations of upwardly mobile, western imitating Indian middle class consumers - 'conscience' was probably outdated, and mostly non-relevant in the present age.

I was reminded of this incidence recently when I came across a vehemently pro-environmental argument by a youngster who worked as a financial advisor to a MNC of questionable integrity; he also stated one of his favourite hobby as playing at the stock market. It was laudable that the person spoke up for saving the natural spaces, forests, rivers, but, did he realise that his environmental interests were probably in conflict with his professional life and hobbies that were so closely tied to developing global markets, finances. It then occured to me that professional choices are seldom governed by enquiry or thoughts of right versus wrong, consistency with personal values, whether this choice impinges on other freedoms- for species to exist, equitable rights to resources, common natural heritage, questions of better livelihood, and further development? The question to ask, "If I gain, who loses?" is rarely pondered. Final choices are made based primarily on financial considerations, and future prospects by the fastest accrument of wealth.

So, have we as parents, and a society failed in someway-not provided a map, a compass, to judge ourselves and our lives by? Are the glittering towers of USA, fancy possessions, heavy real estate become our sole aspirations, a scale on which we measure our self worth? our worth within a peer group? To answer these questions-one needs to step back and ask "what is conscience?", "is conscience necessary?" and only then "why have we failed?"

Conscience, I was taught at an early age, is that little voice, your friend, who tells you right from wrong, good from bad. As a young child, this mysterious, unseen friend, was real-as real as parents' love, home security. When in doubt, I tried to listen to my friend-did not always succeed, since worldly temptations were on the rise even then-but this friend prevented several wrong doings, that would necessarily have changed the course of my life. Now I realise that 'conscience' is a social construct, a conditioning, a facilitator of decision making keeping a social perspective invisibly present. This voice was no doubt introduced and nourished both at home and school, and also the environment I grew up in.

When I was in school, we had a class every week called "moral science"-it consisted of short stories of real people-and via this clearly separated righteousness, from wrong, true from false, conflicts of personal freedom, versus social responsibility-it moralised by real examples, by separating true heroes, acts of courage. I remember both the scoff of the more worldly in the class, but also the deep impression these stories made on me. The present younger generation would no doubt call such classes or stories "lame" but how else does one teach the young to both be socially participative, responsible? Isn't that a necessary condition for the existence of a peaceful, prosperous society-to realise that one is also a strand in a social web? Even if 'conscience' is just a social construct, laying down rules for operation and growth of both individual and group, can purely individual gains suffice in an atmosphere of social strife and conflict? Isn't the larger common good, also good at a personal level-a freedom from fears, insecurities that the 'haves' suffer in societies with severe disparities of wealth and opportunities. While our individual citizens compete to hold global titles of the wealthiest, our society boasts of largest debt-deaths by farmers, shameful infant-mortality, rampant dowry-deaths; lack of drinking water is our bane, sanitation not even a priority, education a means to export children out for dollars-the choice of our enlightened.

We do not have a pause to consider, make a conscious choice-when choosing a bride, a car, a school-market chooses our career, advertisements our lifestyles. Instead of looking outward, all the time, for happiness - imitating fake pictures advertising happiness as wealth, accumulation, power, isn't it time to look closer home, at the world we have made, are a part of, all the way inwards to our heart, to our little voice, our friend?

Tao of Fine Balance

Is there a less abstract, more grounded significance to Taoism which expresses all life, world, as manifestations of opposites, Yin and Yang, male and female, passive and dynamic, existence via opposition, and opposing co-existing within an individual-person, quality, thing??

Such thoughts have recently been occupying my mind-abstract thoughts anchored by requiring theories be consistent with personal experience, understanding and knowledge of self. My life is led trying to find a balance between the various opposites that pull me, unable to choose and therefore indulging in both. For every interest that I have had, I have been equally enthused by its exact opposite-for example, attempting to be a " travelling farmer" is self contradictory, and has built into it occupational hazard to both the farmer and the traveller. Is the need to put down roots and to be foot loose, just Tao expressing itself within-the energy for each fed by the existence of the other? Similarly my intense need for solitude works off my great enjoyment in society, friends that are webbed into my life; my desire for silence opposes my great delight in the word; ecstasy of passion in search of a divine love makes me pirouette to sufi chants with as much need as the ease with which I sit in padmasana under giant trees, eyes closed, practicing no mind, no me. Need for simplicity drives me to extreme moves to give up possessions, ownership, while the next instance a complete incomprehensible lust for possession
makes me acquire the unnecessary; my trust in pacifism is in direct opposition to the violence and aggression that I am capable of-that I quell with arguments. Logic dominates my life's meandering course only as much as whim, intuition-my heart guides me as much as my head-often in conflict with it. Being in natural spaces most comforts me-while I thrive in heady excitement of man made clutter, jumble, chaos-music of ocean, river, brook soothes me while a raga or a violin concerto can move me to tears. Is there a choice to be made here? or accept the teeter-tottering of my unbalanced state? is this all Tao manifestation within or the rantings of a confused female?