All posts tagged: A way into India

Amarnath in the times of article 370

Even after thinking about doing something daily, one ends up doing it, achieving it, finishing it only in the head. In the head is good, as it creates enough compound interest in head but it is not good enough. I have had ups and downs, and have been away from home for some time. I was in Kashmir when article 370 was taken off. I was one of the last person to have trekked the majestic Amarnath ji this year. Without any plan or any inclination to have wanted to do it but surrendering to flow of life is such it takes you along on the paths, and you would enjoy. I fell in love with the harmony of the few people who walked along, some saints barefoot, and two without a leg who finished approximately sixty kilometres in as many days as I did. Food, sweets, tea, love and the name of shiva. But the feeling was erratic even then. Tents, people were leaving a month before. And many had already left. The way …

Swaha / to the sun

Slowly I have started smelling like fire. There is nothing more to feel one with the divine than this. Ash is all over my head, my clothes, my legs are bereft of a sole. Pouring Ice water every morning on head now seems a ritual. And the heat from the fire has become a family. Is it because of these squirrels that i have started listening to? Or that bird in the morning quietness who comes sits by my bed in the darkness of the dawn? Something will change. It seems to be initiating something and directing somewhere i cannot know just now. Hear hear they say. Hear till your eyes see the light.

Arrival of Maharaj

Threads of cotton. Some new event had to happen. A long day in motion. Paris. Not patparganj but Indirapuram came. Maharaj wore mehroon clothes and did not open his eyes till the time food arrived. He said nothing. He asked nothing. He saw nothing. He just sat with his eyes closed. But the moment food arrived he started singing the songs of Krishna. It was an auspicious day. Mother was waiting. For moon. She will eat but then she will be looking at the stars first. Instead Rain came. And I left home for many days to come.

The dip

Sometimes one dip changes your smile and temperature. It takes you then to places that can only be created in dreams through memories ofcourse. You walk long looking at forms, colours, patterns, walls, speculating age, sounds of children and cows, of burning dead trees and water ripples, hearing bodies visually and later language. Sometimes a small reaction changes the whole tail of events. Sometimes the start was the only end. But the dip is important. Because that is a window to nature. And nature is inside.

First Flight to Bangkok

We are a few minutes away from entering into December. Most things if asked from the deepest alleys of transparent, unadulterated desires have a thing of becoming real. There is nothing more truer that that truth. You wouldn’t know it might be sneaking up on you. For me it took a few years, an slow ascending process that by the end bore memories for lifetime. I am sitting in the big plane tonight. I am flying out of my country for the first time. Previously i only crossed them over by land. It should be special. Should it be special? Well, the process seems similar, of flying, of seeing people. Even though it took some time also because it couldn’t have been any other way. Currency’s exchanged. Dark chocolate bought. Immigration guy made a krow(krowdinya) out of my surname that which I could only smirk at. I don’t know why he was after surname. His only questions to me on the immigration desk was about the origin and history of my surname. I do not know if …

The Wedding Song

In her wedding dress that one day she stopped counting years   I met J uncle on a very cold january morning this year. It was raining and we stood outside an empty swimming pool. His room – 705, is just beneath my room – 805, where i am writing this. J uncle had his own quiet world till he met my sister. My sister, Ruspsi is a kathak dancer(banaras gharana). J uncle would not know about it for a month till one day they meet in the elevator, she moved and her ghungroo rolled from her bag. J uncle and his lovely wife had come from Banaras. In a quest to live with their son, they sold their house. They used to sing all morning there, he told me. He disliked it here. Everything. But he never spoke about it. He was just visibly sad. In his walk, thats how mostly i saw of him. A singer coming from a gharana who doesn’t sing anymore. In the meantime J uncle grew fond of my …