I am Free

When I was young, I had romantic notions of freedom. I aspired for personal freedom - to be me - whatever that be - a current fad or a specific choice. I did not realize then that this was a very privileged kind of aspiration for one who already enjoyed many freedoms and was guilty of many others.

Today I realize that I am already free in a variety of ways. Let me list these:
I am free from hunger, free to have a shelter, free from ill health. I am free to travel, free (more or less) to protest, free also to know my rights. I am free from self doubt, and free to a large extent from individual fear. I am free to be greedy (in so many many ways), and free enough for intense self criticism. I have an independent conscience and am free to express, especially moral outrage at all wrongs and perceived wrongs - within or without.

I wrote all this as I traveled on a bus to the site of Ejipura demolitions and realised that no society was truly free where basic rights of all were still not secure. Today, I realise that I no longer aspire for freedom - but I strive intensely instead for justice - for All.

The Other

Ever since the recent heinous gang rape in Delhi and its aftermath, I have been thinking.

I have been thinking of what causes such senseless violence, what causes people to fill streets, only sometimes, and what causes their blood thirsty screams for vengence, castration, and killing. And in each of these cases, I come upon an 'othering' - her and them, her and us, us and them and so on. In fact, now when I stare at the world, I realise that all social behavior relies on this fracturing duality of identifying and separation.

Kabir confronts this separation and rejects it when he sings:

"Ham sab maahin, sab ham maahin
Ham hain bahuri akelaa"

I am in all, all are in me
I am alone and together

or,

"Chalati Chakki dekhkar, diya kabira roye
do paten ke beech me,sabat bacha na koye"

Watching the two grindstones, Kabir cries,
between the to stones, no one survives (from here)

referring once again to the harsh dualities of this world and their grief.

In a similar vein, Advaita Vedanta is based on the realisation of unity of all - self with the universe and the concept of "you are that"; while Lao Tsu in his famous Tao Te Ching talks about a life of harmony when the dualities get unified following the Path. In fact, his successor "Chuang Tzu felt it was imperative that we transcend all the dualities of existence. Seeing nature at work and the way in which it reconciled these polar opposites pointed the way to the Tao where all dualities are resolved into unity" (from here).

I suspect, more and more, that it is this separation between the internal and the external, the within and without, good and bad, man and woman, natural and manufactured, separations of class, caste, language, region, food, culture and every possible fragmentation that we create, which also creates the violence filled society that we see today.

So in the dawn of this yet young year I resolve:

I am both a man and a woman.
I am a harijan, banya, kshatriya, and a brahmin,
I am a hindu, muslim, sikh, christian, jew, jain; I am a believer and also a seeker
I am the rich and the direst poor
I am oppressed and oppressor; victim and the violator, sovereign and the subject;
I am both profound and the profane,
Infact, I am all the other while I am also Me.

Let me live in awareness of this.

Some Hampi Photos

...and I will let them do my talking.

Walking In Zanskar

This time I
left no footprint
nor scattered any
song to the wind.

I walked in silence
with a quiet mind,
in watchful attendance-
my breath aligned.

My steps tread
in soundless pace
aware of my place
in this time and space.

Walk to Zangla from Pishu

I walk bent over like a mule. I am weighed down by stones collected since Karsha; stones of many colors, shapes, sizes - irresistibly attractive and impossible not to pick. There are zen stones of quiet and sombre gravity in deep browns, ochres, olive, black and ivory. And then there are those that dance in jewel shades, reminiscent of Persian miniatures in gold, orange, red, maroon, turquoise, jade and emeralds. Loaded, I still bend over to pick up one more gem from this endless quarry, marveling at my good fortune, joyous in my finds.

And so it has been all my life. I have been collecting and gathering gems - of experiences, relationships, possessions - joyous and grateful for my blessedness. I have been collecting and gathering a treasure trove of my many carings and attachments. Each of them speak to me in their own unique way - each with a precious beauty and joy.My life brims with gems of parents, sisters, husband, children and many friends. I love my home, my music, my books and the many artifacts gathered from decades of wanderings - buckets of stones, shells tucked in corners, under my bed, a glass full of feathers and quills, a box of precious bugs and butterflies on the shelf. These gatherings in my life usually keep me so rapt and engrossed, that I am usually unmindful of my weariness and my bent back.

In all these cases, the burden is in making it mine - in the ownership - in the Me. Stones of Zanskar will continue their jewel dance or instill a zen quiet - as is their nature. It is in their possession that I start loading my back. And so also in my life - the burden comes only from the ego of my possessing - bringing expectations and pain. Love continues even without burden of ownership.

It is to seek this lightness and grace that I came to Zanskar.

(from my notes while trekking, in solitude, through Zanskar - one month back)

Till Zanskar Became Blue

Journeys begin in quests. As a city dweller my quests usually take me to wild still spaces, star-drenched skies, sounds of uninterrupted winds and songs of rivers. I seek out those rare haunts where man becomes firmly aware of his insignificance in the vastness of natural world.

The vast and wild areas of Ladakh that beckoned me, are now discovered. Leh, with a population of about twenty thousand, saw ten times more visitors during this season. The quiet and narrow lanes of my memories now teem with hotels, restaurants, bars, shops, and endless line of vendors selling cheap souvenirs along the sidewalks - even at the fag end of the tourist season - when I arrived. The profane overwhelmed the profound. In seeking a stillness and a connection with my insignificance, I hurried towards the vast and open heart of Ladakh - to Zanskar.

Here, the mountains echo waves, tossed by an young and tumultuous earth, mighty glaciers remain unebbed by the August heat, brooks and streams crisscross many grassy valleys, and an occasional herder in his wine colored goncho ambles after his goats and sheep. In this quiet and stillness, gongs sound from a distant gompa and fluttering prayer flags remind "Om Mani Padme Hum" [Oh the Jewel in the Lotus, resides Within].

I arrived to Zanskar with a muddy heart and a soiled spirit only to find the unbearably blue Zanskar river of my memories and dreams - also a muddy brown. I asked a Lama about it and he said that this was all the water of the rains; only when the river flows with water of the purest ice from the highest mountains would the river become blue. I realised then that a similar river, fed by many streams, and from many pounding rains coursed within me; I would have to wait in patience, stillness, and solitude to have my river be fed by crystals of purest ice from the highest reaches within me. I would have to wait out in Zanskar till the I that Am - became the I that Am Not - for it is only in this disappearance of I, that I could become one with the Universe - a clear, transparent, Zanskari turquoise Blue.

Small Wonders

Against a backdrop of many and shameful tragedies like the senseless violence in Assam, the impending, and totally unnecessary, loading of the nuclear fuel  at the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant, the violent moral policing by the Hindutva forces in Karnataka, all of which darken my days, there are small moments of startled glowing wonders that remind me to smile.

1.At the maddening and mad Mekhri circle which is a traffic nightmare at the best of times, the Rajasthani banjaras have started weaving between the clogged vehicles - blowing soap bubbles! Women with light skin, light eyes, dry, matted brown hair wearing men shirts, extravagantly billowing skirts and floral long head scarves smile peering into autos, gazing through rolled up air conditioned car windows, seeking upwards towards bus passengers, selling little plastic jumbos in pinks and oranges and reds that blow endless streams of perfect, rainbow soap bubbles that float way into skies. Their kids twist, jump, cart-wheel in a continuous movement of acrobatic wonders; while the men, with sleek hair, polished twirled mustache and gold studs sell everything from eyeglasses, to tinted shades for car windscreens. I stare mesmerised. Now on all my ways home, I tend to pass Mekhri circle, and hope for long traffic halts.

2. Last few evenings its been raining in Bangalore. Atul and I still go for our walks; we set off as soon as the rain eases. The other day, we were walking fairly late into the evening, on IISc campus, with a mildest, slivery, silver drizzle that goose-bumped us and made us smile. Suddenly all street lights went off. Pitch dark.
A little startled, we stopped on our tracks, peering into darkness...and slowly we saw that we were walking through a zillion fireflies; seemed like all the stars had descended right around us. Lights came on in a few moments; fireflies faded, and we continued our walk, magic wrapping our hearts.