Ghosts on a Tamarind Tree

Ghosts love tamarind. That is why they live on tamarind trees. This is the first thing to know about ghosts. People have known this all along. That is why tamarind trees are found outside villages - and no one leaves their village after dark.

I have a home outside a village and there is a huge tamarind tree in my garden. So, I know of this - first hand. One hot and late afternoon, I was sitting under this tamarind tree - just time passing. Occasionally I would pick up a fallen tamarind pod and suck on its intense, dark flesh, face scrunching up at its tartness. Suddenly I heard and saw tamarind seeds raining down - not pods, only just seeds. I looked up, only to get pock marked by these shiny black seeds, showering from above - and nothing else - I swear! No monkeys, no rascal village kids. Only seeds dropping from above. Had never been a great believer in ghosts, but what to do? This was real proof. I figure seeing me suck on those tamarind pods had made the ghosts hungry.

And so we lived, the ghosts and I, as neighbors. They did not bother me and I let them alone - while continuing to visit the tamarind tree. I often heard the tamarind tree rustle in no-breeze, heard the long howls of a family quarrel. Mostly they were quiet and I was comfortable.

Problems started when some visitor from the city discovered my tamarind tree and said I was sitting on a pot of gold. Apparently, the price of tamarind had sky rocketed to more than Rs100/kg. This was real news. My big tamarind tree would fetch me a solid five to ten thousand rupees - for sure. Wonder what Rani would say? Did I not mention that Rani- the young and luscious - would often come to share the shade of my tamarind tree? I was considered a lazy bone (not that Rani ever complained) and Rani a good match. What would her parents say if I wore my white veshti and visited them with a box of sweets, and a saree for Rani?  So, without a second thought, I let my slick city friend find me a tamarind contractor and counted my money. After much haggling we settled for rupees six thousand three hundred, although he walked off with more than a hundred kilos of tamarind. Not once did I think of my ghost neighbors, how they would feel, what they would eat - not until much later.

My money and generosity worked its charm on Rani's amma and appa. Rani and I wed, and she accompanied me back home. That night, Rani shed her wedding clothes and joined me under the cover. She was beautiful and I was young. I turned and took her in my arms and kissed her lips deeply - an intense sour taste of tamarind filled my mouth. I pulled back, looked at her in horror and with a scream jumped out of the  bed and ran out in darkness - till I reached the tamarind tree. There I collapsed.

Guilt, Freedom, Resolutions

Lets Itemize:

To shed four Degrees of Guilt:
1. Children
2.Parents
3.Lesser privileged
4.Disappearing nature

To attain Three Degrees of Freedom from:
1.Attachment
2.Greed
3.Fear

To live in Five Resolution of
1. Attention
2. Righteous Action
3. Ahimsa
4. Compassion
5. Grace

More - Me

Sharing With a Friend for her 50th Birthday:


Each decade causes me to reflect and realise that I am a better me than before. 


I know more, understand more, realise more, have more sympathy, more compassion, more shared laughter with people and with a I, that only I know of, inside. 

I am stronger inside, have more clarity and am more inclusive. Sometimes I worry that I do not love my family sufficiently, only to realise that others are becoming my own - so I love more and many more. 

I love being where I am in life, doing what I have chosen to - for now. I have less anger, but more pain. I have shed most fears - or so I think, because, what are fears but imaginations set to restrict you to a comfortable path?

 Till about a year, I also felt better physically, stronger and more flexible - could do more swimming, more yoga, walk more, talk more, drink more. Since I was sick last summer, my body has had a hard time recovering its strength and resilience. I accept this, even while I fight this.

My face is more wrinkled and more drawn, my hair is very grey - yet with long stares at my mirror I see that I have lived so far - not just preserved, and each moment of this life has been precious. I have chosen to laugh and weep rather than choose a comfortable path - my face shows my half a century of this laughter  and crying. I have thought my thoughts and decided to become what is deliberately - me.

I know that I am nothing, and there is no grand purpose to life - and I accept this; and yet in this nothingness - I am also everything. I am a piece that makes the whole, Whole. 

Arati @ 52

Kashmir Dreams

Memories and nightmares my days sustain
Kashmir re-surges in my blood, thick with pain

Torture cells around the crystal lake abound,
while dead disappear below without a sound.

Snow capped hills bear a silent testimony
to firings, rapes, and repressive hegemony

rolls of barbed wires cut every street in two
dicing minds, people, cultures and memories too

Young hands pick up stones and throw
at soldiers, police, and every Indian foe

Mothers beat their chest and wail
at dead sons, bruised, bloodied, cold and pale

Lands shrouded in deep, merciless snow
silent, as the dead pile un-named below

no spring will melt heart's winter ice
where Azadi is claiming a lover's price

Oppressors, that is the name for you and I
a sentence, I will shamefully bear, till I die.

I Became a Tree

" The Living live by living off the Dead - all, except the trees"

I confess I had never thought of it like that before. But it sounded right; it sounded true. And so, I decided to become a tree.

I went out into the garden and dug a hole - a circle two feet wide and two feet deep.Then I mixed the soil with enough sand and compost - sieved it and prepared a pile. I was now ready. I stepped into the hole and packed  in the rich soil all around till I was firmly planted - knee deep. With great excitement, I settled down to wait, and watch.

The gardner watered me - not noticing any difference. I woke with the sun and slept soon after dark - like the rest of plants and trees in my garden. In a few days, the birds started landing on me and the squirrel running around. I shook with mirth and happiness.

It took about a week; I started feeling a tickling in my soles, feet and legs. I could feel my roots sprouting and tunneling into the earth - holding it tight and sucking from it. Green leaves and tiny branches emerged - reaching out for the skies. The Sun shone on me, and stars sang when I slept. Rains rained me clean and the winds played around with me. Without drinking, I was drunk with life - energised, refreshed, and fully  awake. I was warm with the fires burning in my hearth and dizzy with my dance around the sun; and together, we danced our dance in the heavens.

I am happy I became a Tree.

Balding Ego

The other day I got fed up of hair...actually I got fed up of life for some reason and the only think I could think of shedding was hair. So I went to the campus barber. I sat comfortable in a chair, blind as a bat, enjoying the sensation of a machine mowing my mop...that is till he announced "DONE". I put on my glasses and let out a horrified scream. In a matter of ten minutes, I had transformed from a middle aged homo sapien of the female sex, to a gender less ET in human clothes. With a glazed look and a pasted strained smile I stumbled out into the world.

Its been a week since the episode. I have somewhat recovered my equanimity but the world has yet to pretend poise. The kinder religious ones usually ask " Coming from Where??" They usually suspect that I went to gift a mop of grey hair to Gods, in exchange for some favor. I could say easily say " Tirupati" but don't..I just mumble  "Barbers" with a weak smile. I suspect I have lost many potential friends in the last week...but what can I do. .The kinder ones usually sympathise " It will grow back".

I have, since last week, taken to staring at the mirror and saying calmly " Its not so bad ...that's what you really look like" And really its not so..bad. I have also learnt with astonishment that despite not being particularly vain, how much I set in store by how-I-look, particularly the froth that framed me - just so. The exercise in balding has confronted me with my ego; I am right now happier with a balder alter-ego.

Suma's Garden