Pensive

Loudness is gaudy…overwhelming at times when overdone but if you drown yourself in silence…even the silence can crush you…

Silence can be as illusive as loudness. Too much of silence is a violence in itself….it kills by lack of sound, lack of life.

Silence is a response….a violent response to unanswerable loudness.
Loudness cannot be fought by more loudness…it becomes chaos. If you really want peace…use the violence of silence…it is a lethal tool….too vague to fight against.

I have never seen loudness win over silence. Every act of loudness consumes great lot of energy. As the energy exhausts, loudness wanes off. And what is left to the eternity? Silence.

When I found this…it was frightening…but more you start ruling the silence it starts obeying you. It is a tool...keep it a tool.

The evening suddenly turned dark, and the wind behaved supercilious. It seemed he would rip away the life….But he brought life with him. He brought the rain.
The clouds careened in the sky, pushing into each other, to take their place on the grand stage.
I was looking up to the drama… waiting for the master to come on the stage…with his lightening leash, slashing across horizons…. Seems he did come..But…remained behind the veil of clouds…not ready to reveal his glowing face. He is refusing to see me….
It rained lightly throughout that evening. And then the night slept cool, tired breeze flowing into it, taking the exhaustion away…. Till the day brought scorching heat and dry, hot blows of wind. Back into the summer mood it plunged. Busy day started…no time to think about the rain, about the moisture…..Waiting for the evening once again I gazed into the glaring sky.

Some days back I had been to "Maharshi Smarak". It is just around the corner of my college, a small but very proud building in stone. Old pitched roof on steel trusses and stone piers holding it up. The surrounding garden wipes all other bustle of life away… It is a place to remember him, the man who walked on this land with a vision of thousand years.
He believed and lived by principles way ahead of his time. And by his grace today I exist here. It is monument to Maharshi Karve the founder of an institution that has spread to educate thousands of girl students into brighter lives.
That day I just walked out of my schedule and decided to go there. Not many people visit the place usually. It is always secluded and silent. Cool stone texture touched my feet and I was home…for blessed once with this century’s old man I was home.
There is a small figurine of his. And next to him is the memorial of his wife, Baya Karve. She had insisted to have a tulsee (sacred Hindu plant) planted over her memorial. And there it stands reminding us the story of humble soul mates that changed the world.
They brought light to ignored corners of the world. They gave the best to the world that denounced and outcast them.
The Karve institute started with a small hostel school for girls. My grandma is student of Balikashram, the ancient hostel school of the Karve’s.
I feel a double stranded bond with this institute, as today I stand in front of the same man, part of his family widening everyday.
I am part of the generations that will always be thankful to him.
We thank him for the courage and honesty he lived by. We thank him for the compassion and strength of heart he possessed. We thank him for inspiring us and giving us the right nourishment and safety in our blooming years…. I love this old man who lives in us.
I left a pair of roses out of my bunch at the memorial...hope he knew what i wanted to say to him..... Give us your light so we can light up the dark.

It is so windy today. It must be raining somewhere. Cool showers splashing the all-day heated earth. It smells toxic! And the wind carries moisture of rains from distance. From the fragrant air anyone can feel the rain even on dry evening!
I love to watch the wind play with my planters. He brings so much joy and fun in their stationary life. He brings them news from the other corner of the world. He brings them the romance of the entire universe. They look happy when the wind blows through their willowy green spread arms. They dance and laugh with their leaves. The branches rise with the wind, tension in their thin green xylems. And as the wind goes away for second approach, they fall down, low and light. Then again the wind runs in making them dance with his rhythm.
You must watch their slow lazy fall after the breeze. It speaks of pleasure and pain, motion and stillness at once. There is lack of voluntary motion and there is request to the wind, to pour the motion in. The leaves talk to him, tell him to reveal his violence, to move the soft greenness, to dance with me.

The winters bring lot of dry crisp air. When the monsoon winds have gone back to their other home across the Indian Ocean, The Indian subcontinent is dry and sunny. Clear sky exudes soft heat to the cold shivering deciduous forests, as the sprawling, lazy mornings get up late everyday…!
The mountain slopes are turning sunny gold, as the grassy covers turn dry in crusty wintry air. The deciduous forests are kind though. All of the trees shed their leaves at different time in winter, to keep the forest cover intact through out the rough time. And they result into giving a multicolored cloak to the mountain monks!
Silent and sun bright afternoons mark ovals of shade under most of the trees in middle of shining golden meadows. A solitary cow grazes her afternoon away under there, crunching a rare green leaf slowly… Cold winter winds carry the heat far off, soothing her hot dry cow skin…
As few hours of noon pass by, chill starts crawling into the evening. Villagers return back to homes as the cold sharp winds shove every one into huddled up villages. Clear sky then gets streaked with occasional smoky line twining from a bonfire. People gather there to pass on gossips as crisp as the winter! And the village dogs decide to rest by the warmth, instead of running mad barking at night.
Far away you can locate bright golden fire in forest over the mountain. Dryness of winter sinks into old ancient tree barks and frictions them into a forest fire. Even from far you can feel the unease of wild animals around the fire….
There is chilled silence in the starry nights as it grows late and dark…. The rustle of dry wind and occasional wood log crashing into ashes of long died bonfire are the only breaks in continued flow of silent night.
The forest, the meadows and the sleeping village is inwardly waiting for the morning, for the sun to rise and warm their chilled insides…
A solitary tree standing in a meadow drops its crusty yellow leaf soft and silent like a tear drop in waiting of the warmth…
Let there be morning….
And let there be light….

I hated tea and tea drinkers when I was young. But I made the best tea in the house! I was not even in love with milk. Coffee did not suit my health at all. So I never had addiction to any drink. One day I tasted a flavored tea at the Dorabjee’s outlet. I liked it but it went forgotten. Later my friend made me taste many flavors of tea when I was on college study trip. I fell in love with all kinds of tea very soon.
I saw a Chinese movie recently, in which the tea was used as metaphor to the events in the story. And then I realized the tea as not a drink but as one fine thread of our lives. And was exploring the tea to its dark brown depths.
It is a very delicate art, making a tea and then slowly savoring it to the last drop! You can make combinations as per your choice of taste and flavor. Even a little thin slice of lime can twist the entire tea experience differently. Local spices, fruit peels, flowers have been traditional ingredients of tea making.
Originally a Chinese art, tea making and drinking actually spread wide with the British Empire. Now the British are back to their own pavilion but the milk added tea is rooted deep into us. Many cannot start their day without a hot boiling cup of tea early in the morning. In my house tea is made like performing a morning ritual.
In any normal Indian family morning tea is time for many interaction activities, like reading out news from newspaper to every one in the house. Though the news are usually stale, being viewed on TV earlier night! Tea is the time when the entire day is planned out and discussed with the family. Tea is the time to do many things that need to be done quickly before going to work. Like getting mark sheets signed, asking for money for the evening outing planned with friends, long back! This is time when parents are little cheerful, thanks to the drink! And they don’t have time to waste on unnecessary enquiries.
Tea is also an essential welcome drink. Any guest here is offered tea at mostly any time of the day!
In offices business issues are fought over hot cups of tea, which from scalding hot turn to pale cold, as the heat rises in the discussions instead!
Housemaid usually gets the evening cup of tea from her lady’s hands. And sometimes over the tea, the maid shares her life with the mistress. So easily the two are brought to the same level by the little smoking cup in their hands. Sometimes the mistress ends up gifting her “not so old” set of cloths to the maid as the tea gets over. That is rare bonus over the monthly wages.
Tea is sold in roadside stalls from very early in the morning. That tea, boiled several times in the same pot has its own class of fans. And it is available very cheap and fast. It is cultural spot of any Indian city. On rickety benches outside these tea stalls college lectures are shared, new gossips are spread. Discussions from philosophy to latest movies can be arranged at very low cost, right here outside the stall in soft early morning sunlight!
The tea is common every where but it comes in variety of flavors and various shades of brown from murky to pale. Every tea maker has his or her own style of tea making. Many brands, mixtures, powdered, grains, leaves tea is available in many avatars. Sugared or unsweetened, milky or watery, tea is essential for an Indian!
I can as well say that our lives are wound around the teatimes!
How is it in your place?

The summers are still not left the Indian continent. We have monsoon rains in summer. Now the monsoon winds have retreated back to the Indian Ocean. Air is hot and dry, very uncomfortably dry on this Deccan plateau. The moist air has given it up to crisp sunny atmosphere.
But the mornings and evenings are cool and take away the tiring heat of the day. And the winter is just around the corner. It knocks our doors at night, bringing in chilled night winds.
This is known bad weather of the year as long as the city life is concerned. But there out on hills is all season of farewell party. The annual visitors of monsoon are taking leave with last of their bright and colorful flowers. Now they will see each other in next monsoon. Till then have colorful dreams in your hibernation palace under the soft earth cover!
The winters would turn the green velvets of hillsides into rich golden blonds. Here on the Deccan plateau we do not have one season of fall for the trees to shed their leaves. Every kind of tree undergoes a makeover on its own preset time. So the forests are never un’green! If one species is shedding, the other is in full lush green attire.
And yes each one has a different green of its own, a different orange and a different yellow…..
It’s beautiful to roam out on hills on crisp sunny winter afternoons. They are silent except for the soft breath of wind through the silk of golden cladding on the hills.
As you gaze down to a village on the hillside, all that you notice is that the hill slope has changed its robes. Now it wears a funny outfit of checkers and patches of fields with neat rows of rice plantation. It is a pleasant site.
The crop is about to reaped. And then would be the time for celebration in the old farmer’s house by the rice field. It would be by the time of Diwali that he would have reaped money and food for the rest of the year.
Right now he must be looking out to the fields with his head level and proud. This is his creation, his effort that has brought this golden treasure to his doorstep.
If the market gives him a hand, this golden treasure can really mean worth gold to him. But the men at the market have never been out on the fields to see this precious site. They would give him few hundreds of rupees in return of the gold he would sell them…. And the men at the market would go back to their cities and throw a lecture on poverty in India…. Unaware of the gold the poor India has spilled over their worthless heads. God bless us… the city men….

The journey of life started from individual existence to the cult.
In later period of history, it started running back to the individuality, to cross the limit of individual identity and to identify ourselves as not humans but as forces, the chunks of energy condensed into complex systems of materials.
The systems or bodies, with mind and heart as we know them are mere tools to solve the complexity and reach the truth. Hence we must protect, nourish and enhance the tool into a sharper device of sensing the paths that would lead us to the truth, for the device cannot sense the crude, formless and shapelessness of naked truth.
This is the stage most of us are in. The age of physical and biological evolutions, though not over, is no more the center of growing future. The physical system of human body is advanced enough to start a newer adventure.
So has the era of cults and herds gone. The groups of individuals are required when the basic needs are to be fought for, like the freedom, safety and survival.
The groups still exist when men are learning the world of facts, numbers. When that stage is gone, comes the stage of thinking. Here the groups are loosely bound, and only interact while sharing the new findings of the individuals.
It is sheer joy of sharing and no more dependency. In this stage men find the basic principles that govern the ways of world. They learn the universal laws that have created the innumerable oceans of facts and numbers they have learnt in previous stage.
The journey beyond this point cannot be shared with the cult. Every visionary walked on it alone, whether he liked it or not. This was the part of journey which brought them closer to the ultimate truth. There is no verbal communication possible in this last journey. That is why we have no record of it, no set steps to walk on, and no guide lines to follow.
But yes, all these stages do not have sharp boundaries of start and end. This is the general direction in which all of us are moving. Every one is in different stage of the journey. So there will be no common code of conduct for every one.
Some need to survive in the cults and groups and some need their solitude. Some would just need sharing individuals and some might have reached beyond any interaction with the world.
Nothing is perfect for everything is perfect in different perspectives. The work done by an individual is not comparable to the work done by other individual, nor is it comparable to the work done by a group of individuals. Because each one of them has a different need. So "the perfect" for everyone differs in their respective space time frames.
Aha! And it took me such a long time to understand! I will work with others when I will face the need to do so. Or I won't if I don't have to.

We all are born with a purpose. Some of us know it, others do not. But we do the things that we have to do, whether we know them or not. Without that we are not supposed to return back.
Back to what? I know not.
The journey of evolution starts from a protein strand, the basic unit of life and ends at the level, even more fundamental than that.
The protein strand developed into a vegetative plankton cell. Then came the marine plants and other organisms, dependent on the breath of oxygen. They evolved into more complex systems of life, harnessing the crude natural materials into food for their basic needs, invertebrates, vertebrates, monkeys and humans.
The more the complex the system, more did it process the nature to make its life comfortable. Humans topped the effort by achieving the most comfortable life on earth. If we look up at the history of human settlements, we feel proud and deserving of all this comfort. But breaking the boundaries of comfort everyday, the humans raced into the unending hunger for comfort.
What was the purpose of that entire journey? To be comfortable or something better than that?
If we look back once again, it was a journey from individual existence to cult and back to individual again. But it is not to stop at the individuality but progress even further.
That is why men always wanted to find the crux of their existence, the force behind all this world of unfathomable complexities. They were never happy being the most comfortable creatures on the earth.
Why is it so that more we dig into solving the complexities, they get even more complex? One answer leads to ten more questions? What lies at the end of this journey of questions? Generations of men have died solving this puzzle.
Everyone tried to find answer through their own methods.
Physicists tried to physically reach the core of the existence. They broke the atom and reached the assumptions and hypothetical theories of quantum physics.
Genetic science tried to make some sense out of the great pool of knowledge written in code in each cell of life.
The historians are fighting over the pages and pages full of history of universe and earth and humans, to see the truth under the missing links of facts.
Some thought that all this effort is mundane and they walked on the path of spirituality. They say that this is the fastest way to seek the truth if you dare to believe and walk on it.
Whatever be the path, every one of the pioneer visionaries who trod those unknown paths did find the same truth. One and wholesome and integrated as nothing possible to be "created", but it exists as the timeless, space less, perfection in itself.

Sea looks like molten silver spilt over the glitter of wet sand. The reverberating sound of tide rushing to the shore so deep, like a dictum, and yet full of passion. The molten silver attracted by some unknown charmer, rising, approaching, hitting the dark silhouette of rocks and spreading with each blow of sound, helpless....
The charmer of the seas, the moon...glows bright against the deep blue plane of sky... The moonshine...falls over the scene like thick icy drape, so solid that you can actually feel its silky texture against the skin in the soft night wind.
The glitter of sand, of the water and of the air rises inside you. If you look down at your own body, you can see nothing but the same glow radiating inside.
I wish not to return home. I wish not to think of the city and its lights and its crowds... wish not to think of the moment of return to all that....on that small beach on the west coast I stand alone in the rising tide of the Arabic ocean at my feet.