Suddenly

He was walking alright. Slow. Fast. Medium-paced. Walking through life and away from life. He fell. Suddenly. Unaware. Did he not see it coming? Or did he? And still allowed it thinking if it brings back that old touch, that smell, that sweat, those tears on his shoulders as he offered his handkerchief to him. Baby don't walk away. Hands touched. Held for a while and slipped away. Into the coldness. Into the aloneness. Into the void. Time passed. Times past. He forgets to forget when all he wants is to forget and get going. And yet and yet he falls again on his missing rib. And getting up and patting away the dusts of time is difficult. Very. And the heart, oh the heart, it cramps. Suddenly.

When

When

When your pheromones have left my blanket, but somehow the whiff of your sweat lingers on,

When all that remains is a distant memory and I don’t miss you anymore so much,

When a faint constant pain wells up in my being and says, “I miss, oh I miss that warmth and that which we called love”

My heart tugs me and gives me a hug and says, “I still love you, and always will.”

Contemplating, Loving and Living...

When we contemplate on the obedience we obey Christ with it has to be out of sheer Love. We abstain from something or we partake of it --it all has to be acts of love: that what seems right for us to do or right to us to do or not do. 

We mustn't lump it onto others, though, saying, "You must all also do thus and thus..."

This presupposes that we need to be in God's presence. We need to be  with God at all times --all the time: rain & sunshine, light & darkness, day & night, the highs & the lows --through it all. 

How do we practise the presence of God? Do we work up an emotion? Conjure up God!? Yes and No.

Yes --because, yes, in all our relationships relating to everyone we do work up some emotions when we let our minds turn to them. This is not because they are not there, as if they are not real people, but all the more because they are real people and we have spent time with them. And same it is when we think of God. 

No -- because, no, we do not need to work up our emotions or work ourselves up to feel God's presence as if he is not a real person. God is very real and very much a person and very much present even when we do not feel anything or even think of him. All we need, like with any person in any of our relationships, think of God --we feel the highs or lows of emotions towards him does not matter. Let's remember who he is to us and how he has been all that to us, and how we have been with him. Let's remember the walks we have been having with him till now. He is with us.

Two Pens

Two Pens

Bubai loves fountain pens. He has a Parker and a Wing Sung. One day Parker and Wing Sung dipped themselves in the ink-pot and drank deep. They both wanted to see for themselves and show the world how well they wrote. Here is what happened. 

"I'm thrilled to see both of you writing rather well after so long," told Bubai, the boy. Wing Sung and Parker wrote on, smoothly gliding over the paper of the notebook that promises to last a 100 years! Wing Sung asked, "But I wonder why Parker and I are writing in two different shades of the same colour when its the same ink that is flowing out of us onto the same paper? This needs to be further investigated into.'

"Hell, yeah, replied Parker, "We definitely gotta do that and like ASAP." 

"Yes, without the shadow of a dragon, I mean, doubt", agreed Wing Sung calmly. 

Thus began a long association and hearty (sometimes not-so-hearty) co-operation between the two pens from two far-flung (or perhaps flung far) countries and cultures: Parker, the American and Wing Sung, the Chinese. "God save America; damn it, God save us all from China," remarked Parker under his breath. 

"But where the hell will we start? I have no idea, " thought aloud Parker. Parker often thinks aloud, rather too much aloud, one would suppose: be it from the church pulpit or the presidential podium or while walking the streets or whenever: "Well, I dunno...whatever; I say whatever I wanna say whenever I gotta say it," he would say. "Well, it gotta be the quality of the paper or the ink or both but..."

"But they are one and the same," finished Wing Sung. "It is the same paper we write on with the same ink and yet we make different impressions. It may be not too much yet it goes a long way and stands out so much," continued Wing Sung. 

"Wtf!" hyperventilated Parker. How come we make different impressions using the same ink writing on the same page?" asked Parker, decidedly angry and excited. "Hey, I got an idea. May be, well just may be, well I mean don't get me wrong there buddy. Its the tech, you know. Nothing to do with you really. Its like, see... I'm 'Made in the USA' and well, to be frank, you are just a 'Made in China' stuff. Jeez, that's gotta do with it. The brand matters: to us, to the world. A Parker's a Parker and so is my cousin Sheaffer's a Sheaffer or that dude from New York, Waterman, well, he is something too. And, well, no hard feelings pal, a Wing Sung's a fuckin' Wing Sung!! (whoever's heard of the damn name?)."

To this Wing Sung rolled up his small, sharp eyes that are like two sharp Sai daggers that can slice an opponents face or take down a sword. Usually these eyes gave very little away but this time they did. There was a real laughter and a sense of truly being amused and entertained in them. Parker did not like it one damn bit. Neither did he like his frenemy's not giving away almost anything almost always and  his giving away what he did this time! 

"I don't like this one damn bit," he protested. "What?" he barked, "What's so funny?"

"Nothing," said Wing Sung and put on that deadpan face once again. 

"Say it, buster," demanded Parker. 

"Nothing," said Wing Sung in his calm, steely tone. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Some time passed and they both decided to call a truce. "Let's go grab some coffee, I'm buying," declared Parker with a grin. 

"Jasmine tea for me, please," said Wing Sung, "and I am buying my own tea, thank you. I happen to know the perfect little place in the heart of China Town." 

"Ah come on, man, gimme a break will'ya?" Just have the damned coffee and get on with it will ya?," barked Parker. "I too know a perfect little coffee shop just around the corner."

"I only drink jasmine tea, organic and grown in China and prepared in the traditional Chinese way by a Chinese. I shall not touch your coffee. Jasmine tea keeps me calm, focused."

"Damn you and damn your jasmine tea and your Chinese teas and whatever. I am an American. I love coffee, I thrive on coffee. Coffee is what makes me get up and get movin' --strong and bold. I ain't touching no jasmine tea, and I ain't goin' to no China Town," roared Parker, clearly exasperated, more at the fact that Wing Sung didn't want him to buy him coffee than at the fact that he would prefer tea. 

"Well that settles it then," said Wing Sung. "You do not and will not have a dialogue. You stay with your 'strong and bold' all-American coffee in your 'perfect' coffee shop in your corner of the world while I'll head over to my China Town and enjoy my jasmine tea. But mark my words, we shall have no resolution to the issue at hand: Why do we end up doing the same things so differently, the writing to be exact, in this case, our writing on the paper of Life with the ink of Being humans and yet make so different impressions on the very page of Life we both must share. Don't you think that is a very 'bold' thing to discover if we put our two heads together, Mr. American?," ended Wing Sung. 

"Well, yeah... whatever...  like I said Mr. Chinese, lets go grab some coffee and we'll talk it over but no jasmine tea for me. You gotta talk to me? You gotta talk to me my way?" said Parker. 

"I cannot do that. I have my ancient Chinese way of doing things. Jasmine tea calms the nerves. Talks must be done over jasmine tea," said Wing Sung in his calm, flat, determined tone. 

"Damn the tea, damn the ink and the paper of Life and damn the impression and damned be the talks. I'm calling it off. No more talks." Parker was furious. Wing Sung grimaced and slightly a fist was forming.

At this time Flair, the Indian pen, was just passing by. He heard the two argue. Flair suggested, "What about chai, dudes -- Masala chai, Chai latte, or the traditional 'Gud ki Chai' from Punjab?" Chai is calming, yet strong and bold in taste, full of the traditional goodness of the Indian spices. And sweet if you want it to be with the goodness of 'gud'." Chai in any of its avatars will give you good of both the worlds."

Tired and overwrought as both of them were, chai sounded an acceptable option to both Parker and Wing Sung. So Parker, Wing Sung and Flair walked to an Indian chai stall and sipped chai in peace. We don't know what came of the discussion but the last they were seen it seemed like all three were happy and amicable. 

Bubai smiled a knowing smile being a Bengali boy. Tea or cha is the panacea to all ails. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mum’s the word

11.7.19.

Mum’s the word

Shaun and I had become the best of friends on our frequent travels up the mountain roads of Uttarakhand. We both loved the mountains, the sheer thrill of death that curdled our blood in our hearts and yet the sheer joy of conquering those fears. Shaun was from the US (Love that country.) This time Simon, the quiet Kiwi, accompanied us. And so did the 2 German girls. Well –Germans are, ahem Germans: Quite serious about everything and contemplative. Gosh, girls you reminded me of Kant: Seriously.

We went driving high up into the mountains. We whizzed past Tingling Point, and looked down at the blue waters of the Tehri Lake. We stopped at this wonderful place that I had christened the Whispering Pines and had chai and omelettes and my mandatory ‘Gold Flake’ there. Then we climbed all around the hill. From the top we could see clouds around endless horizon and the pines, they sang a song of their own. At Whispering Pines a happy bunch of local senior citizens sitting at the foot of the ancient pines invited us to be happily drunk with them. ‘Royal Stag’ was the poison of choice for them that day. But being good boys and girls as we were, we politely refused until the next time. We had miles to drive and places to see before we slept.

The road got awfully scary as we drove higher and higher up. It started to drizzle; we drove faster to go higher up and leave the rain below. The drizzle became snow very soon and caught up with us. When we reached above Harshil at Sukhi Point the snow caught up with us full blast. This place, in the middle of a deserted highway was better than the Mini Switzerland of Uttarakhand, below. Predictably, Shaun the American, was as happy as an 18-year old boy after his first sex! Anastasia and Andrea, the German girls, were quiet all along, but unpredictably they became sombre still. They shivered in the cold (Strange and Ominous as this was) they locked themselves in the warmth of the Bolero and predicted even more ominous things ahead of us as they seriously surveyed the roads and the weather at hand. Simon, the quiet Kiwi, was studiously and quietly clicking whatever caught his quizzical eyes. And this Bong-Boy was in his heaven. When our fingers and toes were about to die of frost bite and we saw our pee streams barely melting the snow at our feet and the breeze froze our balls, we boys decided to run to the warm shelter of the Germans and our Bolero.

Oh the hospitality of frozen Germans! God bless Germany. They were ready with the hot packs full of Parathas and pickles that we had packed from below. “Here, take ze plates and here take ze parathaz,” said Andrea. “We shall zerve. We love to zerve,” were the robotic words full of love. Oh momma, how it moistened my Bong eyes and soul!

The food having done its work and the heater of the Bolero faithfully heating our fingers and feet, we started to drive down and reached ‘Gangnani’: the sulphur hot spring. Here the German girls wanted to take a skinny dip in the hot spring because, “We do not carry eggstra zet of bikinizz. So we skinny dip the ze hot pool.” Well, the Germans were thoroughly made aware of the social tremors of seismic proportions that their skinny dipping would have caused and they desisted from the dip. They put on quickly bought Bermuda -shorts and vests and had their dip in a sanctimoniously sanctified separate ‘For ladies’ only area, while we boys were left languishing in the company of some filthy looking locals and tramps from the surrounding mountains; otherwise the splash in the hot spring and pool was other-worldly.

                                               ______________________

But what goes up must come down. We all came down to Bhatwari village to have a fellowship meal. “What the fuck is that, man?!,” quizzically asked Shaun. I raised my Bong eyebrow with a quiet reprimand and told him in effect to shut the fuck up and eat. The Germans seemed to mechanically comply and the Kiwi was quiet. We all sat around the dinner table to ‘partake of the food and be blessed by the fellowship’, as it was announced. Oh, I lost myself in the mountain goat that was slow-cooked with organic spices over wood-fires. Between the food and happy talks of the drive we noticed there was this venerable-looking gentleman amongst us from the Indian state of Kerala. Our host introduced him as a man with a vision to save Uttarakhand. “Oh well, God save Uttarakhand”, I mumbled to myself in between my morsels of mountain goat and chapattis. “Are there no men left in the UK of India to save themselves or have they all become mountain goats that they need to be saved, or devoured?” But that was just me, who cares; I even didn’t care what I thought. The food was too important. I can’t and won’t multi-task while eating. Now this Saviour from the South often travels to the US, Sweden and Germany, we were told. Someone asked him how did he like life in the West? He dropped his fork and spoon on the china with a clang! He closed his eyes as if his soul was being wrenched out of his chest. He wrinkled his nose as if to avoid some stench. “Lascivious, lascivious, wery wery lascivious living, these people hau. I could not enjoy a moment there in any of these countries. I did not stay a day more than I needed to.” Words fell from his lips with sheer force of unwarranted hatred.

I lifted my Bong eye brow for a second and then concentrated on the goat, the one on my plate, that is, and not the one at the table. Shaun coughed, “Oh…!” Anastasia asked, “Why then do you visit us and our country when you hate us so much and our way of life that iz very dear to us?” I grimaced. Simon looked at everyone, quietly. Shuan put down his morsel of well-loved and well-cooked mountain goat and demanded in a very American way, “Yes I wanna know why. Like right now.” His tone was either you say it or I’ll beat it out of you. Heaviness hung in the air over the sumptuous dinner. Moments lingered too long. Finally, the German Andrea cut through the awkward silence, “Oh maybe professor you like the Euros and the American Dollars and the Swedish Kronor more than ze people in thezee countriz, iz it not? And yet you have not any love and respect for ze people in these countriz, who pay you money, there very hard earned money, so that children in your country can study and fill your begging-bowl? Now that izz a shame, izzz it not? The anger was obvious.

I said to myself what Tintin, the Belgian detective, had taught us Bong boys back in school, "Mum’s the word."

Firefly

9.7.’19

Firefly

“It may have been just a spark –like a darting firefly tearing through the night. It may have been more for a while. But you are gone, like a few others before and after you,” he thought quietly as he sat on his commode. He kept realising or rather verbalising his realisation, “None of you whom I loved are ever gone or are in the past tense. I still love you all. Are you not a part of me? Have you not left your mark on me? Like the fragrance of a flower whose sweetness comes like a whiff in the summer air in the Doon valley?” Yes it is true and a smile spread across his otherwise long-drawn face. None of his loves are ever away from him; None. They are a part of him. He is more like them in many ways now than he was ever before. They have become a part of his persona in more ways than one. He now feels like them and talks like them in many ways. What or who he was not now he is. And that makes them stay with him. He kept thinking, “Is this not really a marriage that can never be broken for it never was solemnised in any court of law or religion: A marriage that never was can never be dissolved and yet it had been more than solemnised in their minds and bodies and they did become one. And this Oneness can never be set asunder by anyone, not even by him or his loves.”

The 3 Ms

7.7.'19
The 3 Ms

I see it daily. And I remember the words of Philip Yancey. A religious organisation uses 3 Ms to control and manipulate people: Miracles, Magic and Mystic. And dumb-ass zealots will come running. They will fill the ranks of the extremists of one religion or the other. On the alter of their chosen religion at the beck and call of the leader all will sacrifice their individualities. Of course most of these moron don't even have any mind of their own much to begin with or else they wouldn't have landed themselves at such a predicament. And then out of the portals of some Bible College or Gurukul or Madrasa will march out moral policemen and women to judge and condemn everything that has breath.

Many will be massacred either by the weapons they carry but mostly by their condemnation and judging attitudes. Words that pass through their mouths and glances that passes from their eyes.

Where does it all end? It ends when they fall a prey to their own judging and condemning attitude when they realise how fallen they themselves are and they have trampled underfoot the source of all saving. They have never had tasted Grace.