Deliverance from evil

I wrote in a previous post about mental midgets and about leaving ugliness behind and often without a second glance. This post is elaborating upon that in some measure. Life is not always beautiful or like a sweet dream. Some parts are nothing short of nightmares – no matter where one is born – and it’s necessary indeed to take a good look at what make up one’s nightmares and leave the ugliness behind and not let the bad breath, talons and claws get a grip on one’s insides.

I got to know about mental midgets, about ugliness in its various hues, shapes and sizes and about the ‘what-not-to-be’ vis-à-vis my blood family. I was born in the mental gutters. I cut off relations with my blood family and my relatives when I was 33. I regret only the fact that I didn’t do it years sooner – as soon as I was completely financially free and had paid back (in money and kind) that which I was sure I had owed them.

I had sensed for years and years that there was something wrong about the family into which I was born. Yet I know now that I was rather reticent about speaking about this or even about voicing out my own thoughts too much. I know now that I have for as long as I have had thought in me been a person who has sorted and sifted through various impressions and experiences and memories and filed an almost instantaneous intuitive response which says ‘to be avoided’, ‘neutral’, ‘interesting’ and so on regarding people and it’s been the same in regard to other responses regarding various other intense thoughts, feelings, ideas. I can say at 40 that I have been right more often than wrong about (what and) who matters and doesn't. Once I discarded what I did – I used to think that the same didn’t need more elaboration because ugliness is not something pleasant. It’s easier to dismiss it than to write about it. But I know that it’s necessary for me to write about ugliness. 

I was born in a family which was mentally vacant, and vapid and vulgar otherwise. 

It was about the age when I was 8 or 9 that I remember my parents and brother sitting around and my mother saying with restrained pride that yes, our family was important in the neighbourhood. As my brother had pointed out: we were the only family which had a T.V, a fridge and a car. She added for good measure that of course that wasn’t ‘important’ in itself but still it was true indeed that it was something to consider – there was ‘status’ that we had. I cannot remember the rest of the conversation. I only remember the sick feeling of terrible shame, humiliation and dejection. Back then, I didn’t even know why I felt thus. I had merely felt that living did not mean just having a T.V, fridge and car surely. I had not opened my mouth but had slithered out of that dining room space.

I was a terrible student in Class III. I was scolded, humiliated or received a few whacks on the palm by the class teacher for being thus. I didn’t think any of it was unjustified. One day I was sharing the bench with a girl whom I actually liked back then and whom I considered a friend. For some reason (I don’t know why) she suddenly screamed out  saying that I was cheating. Now it is important to mention that the assignment was a handwriting assignment. The teacher hauled me up. I think that she too had some unstated anger against me. She humiliated me in front of the class and added quite out-of-context and sarcastically about my being ‘from England’. I argued. That one day, I argued. I said I couldn’t cheat on a handwriting assignment, could I? I certainly had not cheated. It was a day of all days that my mother had come over to the school and to the classroom to check on me. I had joined the school in Class II and had not received any rave reviews and my parents had the habit of checking on what I did and would talk with the teachers about my failures. I remember that while I’d been punished by being told to sit on the podium I had wretchedly thought that at least it was a good thing that none of my parents had traipsed over to the school that day. There was a knock on the door. And I remember just having the feeling that it was my mother’s knock. Someone opened the door. I remember the teacher letting out one long tirade of what a disgusting child I was and how I’d been cheating. I had argued again. It was a handwriting assignment. Why would I cheat? HOW would I cheat? I don’t remember anything else. Back in the house there was a long lecture and a terrible scolding about what a wretched creature I was. I said again and again that I hadn’t cheated. The point made from the other side was that I was despicable for having argued with the teacher. For having yelled. She was a teacher after all. I should learn, should I not – when to keep quiet and accept what is said. I argued still but I had been shaking with anger and a sense of injustice inside. Over a tiff with another girl over a pencil however, when the teacher wrote to my parents reporting the incident my parents had written a long and detailed note to the teacher and had pointed out that the pencil was mine even though another girl had claimed the pencil as hers. The other girl’s parents had stated that they didn’t really care whose pencil it was; it was only a pencil – the other girl, whoever it was, was welcome to it. The same teacher had said with righteousness that I could take the pencil.

I’d been some 8 years old when I heard my parents giggling with great mirth and saying that I was stupid. They repeated that over and over and in various ways. I know and still remember what I heard and had thought at that point about what made me stupid/boka. This was at an age when I could read poems a few times and rattle them off. This was at an age when I’d read about the grand encounter between Alexander and Porus and been utterly enchanted by it although I’d read different kinds of books by then. This was at an age when I’d read about Kabir but had been not that fascinated and couldn’t understand what ‘God’ he’d been singing about although the fact that he had been an orphan made me wonder. I think though that most children do have an imagination, a sense of wonder and glee, a curiosity and a manner of seeing reality and through the façades of reality.

During Parents'-Teachers' meetings – my mother would go and sometimes my parents would go and talk with the teachers. They believed that it was necessary to talk with teachers to find out how their children were doing in school. Every time my mother would tell the teacher that I was stupid and slow in different and very colourful ways. It was a litany I would endure. On two occasions however, two teachers rather firmly told my mother that she was mistaken. One teacher told her sharply that I was not stupid and that I was quite above-average intelligence and that I wrote well but was very careless. Another teacher told my mother that the only reason I made mistakes was because my mind traveled faster than I could write. I don’t know why these two teachers defended me in school but they did. Both used to teach English in middle-school and one of them had a very clipped and very good accent and one of them had given me a (completely justified) 4/25 in Economics once. My mother was not pleased when these two teachers did not fall into line with her complaints about me. A woman tutor of Maths when she heard my mother’s tales about me said that she was most ashamed and disgusted about having me as a pupil for she had earlier thought I was different. And the woman private tutor, I know, never quite liked me even remotely after that. Not much of any loss. I was much to my relief able to attend private tuition in Maths conducted by a very good and stern Maths tutor for a year, at least.

My relations with my brother – the only sibling I had was not something to write home about. He bullied me and tried to butter me up sometimes but truth be told I did not like him. It was more like not knowing who this person was and not even wanting to know the person at all. I felt the same way with my parents but at a different level. I think they treated me – all of them – much like a puppy or dog which is simultaneously coochie-cooed and then bullied. I think many siblings fight and argue and then band up against the parents on common grounds – and that happened too. That is not what bothered me. When I’d written a poem about a playground at about 9/10 and I was pleased with the poem for it had a story to it and also a feeling of loneliness and even rhymed – I showed it to my brother. He asked me whether I could recite it. I actually did recite it although I was very worried about whether I could. He then told me off saying I could not have written the poem. With great intelligence the matter was discussed later with all the people of the family: nobody who wrote a poem could actually recite it from memory. My parents dismissed me. I stood on the sides like a dumb child. Needless to say I didn’t show anything I wrote to any of my family after that. Whatever physical fights that I had with my brother- I bore and fended off the punches and slaps and all until I was 12 or so. After that I gave as good as I got. I would hit hard – and that message was sent out clearly. After I was 13 my brother did not lay a finger on me because he knew I would spill blood. My parents only slapped me around and yanked my hair and pinched me hard a few times during my young years and adolescent years – especially my mother. Apart from that it was a good thing that there was no touching in the family. I was known as ‘gaaye pora’ for trying to hug people from the family and relatives and sniggering comments were made regarding the same but I didn’t know what these meant until I was decades older. When I was molested a few times by different men (the same male did not try to molest me a second time; I knew how to physically take care of myself as best as I could) and my mother got to know from a neighbourhood friend – I was sternly told that that is what came of being ‘gaaye pora’. My father knew too. Yet the people who had molested me were never disallowed from coming to the house nor were told off. I had been about 9/10 back then. For years I had actually believed that I had been cuddled and petted when I was a baby and yet given my memory about certain aspects of life – I could never really remember any affectionate hugs. The memories come from old photographs. In photographs, especially when I was less than 3 and a ½. As a child whenever I had in a moment of weakness told anything to anybody in confidence – about a terrible fear or an unaccountable dream or a thought – it would be shared with everybody at the dinner table and I would be laughed at.

At round about 13, I used to write letters to quite a few friends during the holidays and to a distant mama. He used to write as well and I got along with him quite well. He wasn’t the dodgy sort but used go for walks on summer breaks and converse with me but did not talk down to me. In that rather rotten and awkward life among family and relatives that mama and another mama were people who seemed to treat me more or less like a human being. Those relations wouldn't have survived for long anyway but back then I enjoyed their company and a few of the conversations. Talking about surveillance – one of the inland letters that I wrote to one mama was discovered in a book or a notepad when I was in Class VII and then taken out, opened and read and then I was humiliated for ending off the letter with ‘love, hugs and kisses’. My father berated me and my mother told me that such things were vulgar and improper with a mama. Was I vulgar? I didn’t think I was vulgar at all but in private I remember all the feelings I had had, and feeling very disoriented had merely fulminated. In college, my diaries would sometimes be read without permission and I would be hauled up. I didn’t care by then. I merely told everybody concerned that they wouldn’t know what I was talking about or writing about. I had my thoughts and if they thought that there was something wrong with me because of that – that was their problem, not mine.

Relations are not born out of thin and ephemeral air or any meaningless attachments. I know people might indeed argue with me and say: how can you deny blood relations and relatives and family. Well, I do and have. 

I did get gifts now and then through my childhood years and adolescent years and a few clothes every year and I certainly was not abused physically and my birthdays were celebrated with great pomp and when I was a baby and child I certainly was given medicines when I used to fall frequently ill and they would sometimes talk with me as though I were at least halfway human but the truth is from the time I was a little past 3 years of age (I remember this because there was a geographical shift) – they liked me less and less as a person. I do not think however that they were ever obliged to like me. I was a contrary and increasingly more and more of an awkward, ungainly character with a peculiar gruffness about me and grew up to be more and more ugly in just simple physical terms too (which also drew taunts). And I disturbed them as a person with my likes and dislikes and even conversations which they sometimes overheard. Why couldn’t I be more like my charming and lovely cousins who were so ‘mature’ (and those cousins I must say were charming and lovely). Couldn’t I see how intelligent and brainy and clever and loving most of my friends were? I was seen as being stubborn and also as being submissive. My mother once told a roomful of people while giggling and laughing that I was so boka that if I were told to stand on one foot – I would simply do that. My father once told me that I was stupid for while my friend had very intelligent things to say I only had one word to say, ‘Ya, ya. Ya, ya.’ Even through my school years they would keep telling me that of course they did love me. I was sometimes indulged and sometimes simply verbally abused. And there was no other motivation other than to humiliate me as a person because I was unlike them.

The best thing however was that I was ignored as a simpleton and never mollycoddled. This gave me a certain kind of mental space or maybe I was simply born with this peculiar trait from birth. This mental space, among other things, allowed me to choose and almost without thought what and who were worth fighting over and where it was best to try to keep one’s mouth shut. I had more physical freedom than most of my friends did. This is a fact. And I could go out on my cycle or foot or by bus here and there. I used to go swimming in summer and I used to go out in the late afternoons or during holidays. Sometimes my parents also let me visit other friends who lived quite far away and dropped me off too. There would have been hell to pay if I had ever had a boyfriend during that time – either I would have been humiliated beyond reckoning or worse, the boy would have been but this was not a problem for me. Boys were not interested in me and I didn’t have any usual teenage affair. I used to participate in school skits and plays and whatever extra-curricular program I could from class VII onward. I enjoyed and even loved acting on stage for the little skits a group of us would put up through the school year and we often did not even have a script – which was good because the actors could make up the lines as they went along. Even this was looked down upon generally speaking by my parents and I was scolded but they didn’t know every time that I was participating. Our class used to win prizes too every now and then and there was a nice moment for me when our class won the prize for presenting a one-act play on The Gift of the Magi and I had been Jim. There were other times too. Nothing that interested my family and I didn’t even want to share any of this. The only times they seemed to be really interested was if there was some certificate that I won and that happened only once in a blue moon. Then it was proudly displayed for some godforsaken reason.

In terms of knowledge and ideas – there was nothing to be discussed in the family circles. They all read books though – my parents had read Bengali books and even my brother used to read and they listened to music and songs too. But there was no talk of anything. Nor were any ideas discussed seriously. So I grew up knowing that people who read some or had a smattering of ideas of what Tagore had written or Sarat Chandra or Bankim – didn’t become ‘better’ people. The only thing I was scolded for not reading was the newspaper. I didn’t actually read it. Not during my school-years unless there was something particular that caught my interest. But I was allowed to read books. Of all sorts. My brother had once tried to complain to my parents that I was reading ‘trash’ – that was the occasion that my parents had said that I could read what I wanted to. So my brother’s plan to expose me didn’t work. I don’t know what I would have done if I had not been allowed to read or write or have some degree of the physical space and freedom that I did…maybe I’d have become mad a lot sooner. Much later when I was in college and after a lot of water had flowed under the bridge – my parents kept elevating me to great standards. Such-and-such person had said I was ‘brilliant and that I was a ‘genius’ even. So-and-so had said that I was ‘lonely’. They even tried to tell me that they hadn’t really understood me. I had had to shut them up and very quietly then. It wasn’t about what they were saying anymore. I sensed why they were saying what they were although it would take me years to understand and more years to actually articulate the thoughts. It was out of some instinctive and perverse biological reaction. I was their ‘blood’. They were not about to let go of whatever hold they had over me. And their views changed rapidly. Anytime I objected to what they were saying after 22 - I could be dismissed as being 'clinically mad' or as being 'unreasonably angry'. They swung from saying that it was 'all their fault' to saying that I was sick and insane. My father once told me that if anybody had the right to kill me it was they the parents because they had given birth to me. My mother if and when I liked anybody deeply would either try to tell him/her what a disgusting person I was or try to humiliate me about the person whom I liked deeply. I certainly didn’t keep quiet at all times. I told them what I thought of them for saying what they did and was told that I was oshobhyo (coarse/vulgar/uncivilized) and worse. 

I did all sorts of household chores from a very early age. They themselves had had hard childhoods – I knew this and I felt a huge guilt all along and so I did whatever I could. And by the time I was 18 since the maid came half of the month – my general chores included getting the milk early in the morning, doing groceries, sweeping, mopping the house, cleaning the bathroom, doing laundry, making basic lunch, going to the bank, taking relatives/friends to the whatever clinic or doctor, making and cancelling train reservations and so on. I didn’t think twice about these chores. I used to think back then that most of the people in college did the same. Even if others didn't or some did even more - I didn't think that doing chores were a bad thing at all. Somehow when I did fairly well in my high-school exams. and got into a reputed college – after my parents were done with feeling very proud in terms of their status, my ‘achievement’ was flung back on my face: bhalo result korechhish, Presidency-te admission peyechish boley mone korechhish onek kichu korey felechhish?!’ (you seem to think that just because you've done well in your exams and gotten through Presidency that you've achieved something?!) I didn’t think that I had ‘achieved’ anything anyway. I had simply felt relieved and happy back then when I’d been able to get through a college I had wanted to in Calcutta. My mother after some months had moved to Calcutta with a job in a hospital and my father stayed in Durgapur and visited during the weekends. I was made to feel as though my mother had come over ‘just for me’, that she had made some great 'sacrifice' by coming over to Calcutta and that I didn’t do enough to show my gratitude. I quite honestly didn’t know what else I could do but still just kept to doing what I could for a couple of years at least. Even before I applied to the US much later for higher studies I had been working for over a year and putting all the money into a joint account. I hadn’t really used much of that money and yet when the question for money for the application fees to the universities came about they said they would pay. I got a fellowship to Purdue, which came with a stipend. Some years later I got to know that they were going around telling people that they had spent 'a lot of money' on me but they never told people what I had paid back to them within even the first year and then two of being a graduate student. I didn't either to correct their tales because I'd forgotten till a couple of years ago.

Homilies they had aplenty. That fortune favours the brave. That it was very important to be honest, courageous and always sincere. That it was very important to do one’s work well and that it was bad to be selfish. That one had to be ‘mature’ and ‘believe in God’, and about ‘suffering’ they had many more things that they said. But the thing is I could see them for what they really were - sickos. People can pretend to be wise and kind and generous and charming and more. I’m sure they fooled a lot of people. But by the time I was in college I was sure that I didn’t like them. I had felt the shame while younger and had sometimes guiltily felt that it was my own shortcoming but by college I knew. They had no concerns outside the gaari-baari-biletey thaka (a house, a car, staying in England/staying in the west), a false sense of status, duty, security, being ‘settled in life’. They might have pretended otherwise but they were trivial, common and cheap people. People I would not have hobnobbed with nor would have wanted to know. People who disgusted me and repulsed me. I do not dismiss and have never dismissed the importance of money in life but I am sure now that the fact that I saw my parents arguing and quarreling most violently about money and over money and when they weren’t exactly poor (both were doctors with secure government jobs) and having a violent physical fight over 1 rupee when I was 13 or 14 made me see that it wasn’t the presence of some bits of money and secure jobs that made for people being decent – just decent – in a meaningful way. I can provide other examples of the kind of 'people' they were but this will do.

Lots of times by my parents, brother, relatives and erstwhile friends I was rebuked, ‘do you think you are perfect? People have shortcomings; families have shortcomings. Nobody is all good. Nobody is all bad. Why do you have to make such a big deal? Nobody has a perfect family, childhood or youth. You got your freedom. What about when you were ill? They/we took care of you. You were allowed to roam around and do lots of things that other people were not able to.’ There are plenty of other things that I had been told. Plenty of other experiences I have not broached upon here. Plenty of stuff that I engaged with, that I pursued, that I experimented with and that which happened especially after I was 21 and after I’d done well in examinations and external stuff. But when I, with all the depth of my being started asking questions within – it broke the delusion. That broke the genuine delusion of whatever normalcy I had tried to cling to while developing my mind and being. After that whatever happened and didn’t happen, whatever I did and wasn’t able to do, whatever I broke and lost, whatever transpired in sudden dreams meeting reality, whatever loneliness I barely stumbled through on grey unbroken landscapes, whatever glorious bits of reality that I experienced, whatever I failed at miserably and whatever I flew through miraculously, and whatever uncertainty I have gone through, whatever and whoever I cherish – those are other matters. What I did see and what I knew is that I did not have a meaningful family. I could see too that not many people had meaningful or loving families. The only difference is that I got to see, know and full well realize what and who matter and what and who don’t in very real and also concrete terms. Then my choice was crystal clear. Yes, I was born in the mental gutters. The thing is I didn’t like it or the people nor wanted to be liked by the people who liked the same and were very comfortable about the same. It was like being enveloped in a sick ugliness where I tried to gush sentimentally about my family's ‘goodness’ but it didn’t last. I saw what the family was and very clearly and over and over again. I knew I was right even when others said I was wrong, back in my early youth. Later, I had the language with which to articulate the reasons too. My family disgusted me not only for whatever it wanted to extract from me whether that was just in the form of mean and callous laughs and tittering at my expense but also for the kind of common, cheap, dirty and repulsive people they were. The rest of the blood relatives were no better or worse. And I had had enough. Yes, I knew when I was in my twenties that people with my kinds of 'sickness' that I had at 21 are often simply kept like locked vegetables inside the house or reduced to the same. I can thank my guardian angel/Holy Spirit for not letting that happen back then.

I was taken out of the gutters which pollute the mind, heart...and the inner realms. I know this. I was 23 then. And I know just what a blessing it was and is. I can even list reasons and I actually have sometimes. Maybe in the end the poet was right and ‘sagacity’ will have to go. There is certainly something ineffable too that defies intellectual and rational explanations and goes 'beyond reason'. That is fine. I shall not dispute that. But I also know exactly why there was only one thing that Willie Garvin was scared of and why he feared only one thing. Only a person who has been taken out of the gutters – and not always the physical gutters – by another can ever truly sense or know, leave alone realize, what he felt and why. I do.

My identity has never come from being a biological daughter and a sister or from any biological relations anyway. This I knew and had felt viscerally within when I was 5 or thereabouts and played the ‘who I am’ game in a sleepy town thousands of miles west. It took me decades to understand, in part at least, that fundamental realization. The Shiva stotra states what God is while saying all He is not and for me, much of life has been seeing what is not ‘neti, neti…’ (not this-not this) and what I will not engage in or dabble in even if it means I go through the fundamentally surreal and the uncanny sometimes or walk alone for stretches without knowing what is to be or whether I'll truly make good. I do not know what the future will bring but I know what the past has brought and I know exactly the points which light up the path of the journey and give it meaning...

A bit of Neverland maybe

I had written the following in longhand a decade ago, at 29, one sudden evening. I could never quite find the right ending for the story though. I've been typing the below in tiny bits for almost two years now. I thought I'd write something different today. But this came out of the file and started hounding me. So I finished typing it. I'm putting it up. At least then maybe it'll stop chasing me around. I don't know whether anyone will like it but I do hope nobody who reads it dislikes it...Here goes -

বারো বছর বয়েসে আমি সেই ডাকাতকে দেখেছিলাম।

আমি  তখন আমাদের সেই ছোট সহরে ঘুরে বেড়াতাম। মাঝে মধ্যে হারিয়ে  যেতাম। সেই ভাবেই অনেক নতুন রাস্তা খুঁজেও পেয়েছিলাম। মনের মতন সমবয়েসী সঙ্গী সাথী ছিল না আমার।  মা বাবা ছিল না। দাদা, দিদি, ভাই, বোন ছিল না। দাদু দিদা ছিলেন তবে। 

ইস্কুলে যেতাম আর বাড়িতে দাদু দিদার কাছে থাকতাম। তাঁরা আমায় বন্ধিহীন গরুর মতন ছেড়ে দিতেন।  যেখানে মন যেতে চাইত  - সেখানে  যেতাম। ওন্য  মেয়েদের মা বাবার মতন আমাকে ঘরে বন্ধ করে রাখতেন না।   তাই আমিও লাগাম  ছাড়া গরুর মতন ছুটির দিনে সারাদিন চরে বেড়াতাম। আর নইলে ইস্কুল থেকে ফিরেই, ব্যাগ রেখে, কোনমতে খেয়ে বেরিয়ে পরতাম। আমার দিকে আঙ্গুল দেখিয়ে পাড়া-প্রতিবেশীরা আমার দাদু দিদাকে নানা রকমের কথা শোনাতো, "কি বেয়াদব মেয়ে তৈরী করেছেন আপনারা! একটু তো দেখবেন! একটু তো খেয়াল রাখবেন। কি সব  করে বেড়ায় ছাগল মেয়েটা। ঝোপে জঙ্গলে পুকুরের  মধ্যে পর্যন্ত - যেখানে খুশি চলে যায় ! কুকুর ছানা, ছাগল ছানা, বাছুরের সঙ্গে ঘুরে বেড়ায়। গতকাল  দেখলাম দুটো মোষের সঙ্গে কথা বলছে! ছি-ছি।...বাপ মা নেই। তাই এই অবস্থা।" আমার খুব  রাগ হত। তবে দাদু দিদা তাদের কথায় কান দিতেন না। আমার শুধু নিয়ম ছিল সন্ধ্যের আগে ঘরে ফিরে আসা। দাদু হেসে আমার মাথায় হাত বুলিয়ে দিয়ে বলতেন, "রাগ করছিস কেন, মা? যে যা বলছে বলতে দে । তাতে তোর কি? তোর যা করার তুই কর না। লোকে তোকে ছাগল বললেই তো তুই ছাগল হয়ে যাস নি এখনো। পরের টা পরে দেখা  যাবে।" দাদু একটু সময় নিয়ে গভীর যেন কিছু চিন্তা করে বলতেন, "আর ছাগল হলেও তো তোর  দিদা  আর আমি তোকে ঘরে বন্ধ করে রাখব না।" আমি সেই কথায় প্রায় হেসে ফেলতাম কিন্তু বলে উঠতাম "আমায় ছাগল বলেছে বলে রাগ হয়নি দাদু। অমন কথা বলল তবে!" "তাতে দাদু বলতেন, "জানি জানি। সে বলুক গে।  আমিও ওই বিরাট-পেট মহারানী -কে বলে দিয়েছি যা বলার।" তাতে আমি  হেসেই ফেলতাম।  

দাদু আমায় মাঝে মাঝে বলতেন, "ওন্য লোকেদের কথায় কোনদিন কিছুতে মা ভয় পাবি না।" দাদুকে জড়িয়ে ধরে আমি একবার বলেছিলাম, "বাঘ দেখলেও ভয় পাব না, দাদু?" দাদু  তাতে হেসে বললেন, "বাঘ দেখলেও নয়।  বাঘ তখন তোর্ সামনে। তখন ভয় পেয়ে হাতি ঘোরা কি করবি ?" দাদুর কথা বুঝি নি তখন । তবে বেশি কথা বলা আমার বদ অভ্যেস ছিল।  তাই চুপ করে না থেকে বলে উঠেছিলাম,"না দাদু, বাঘ দেখেও ভয় পাব না। শুধু দিদার ভান্ডারে ঢুকে আচার  চুরি করতে ভয় হয়।" দিদা সেটা শুনে হেসে আমার কপালে একটা হামি দিয়ে বলেছিলেন, "যে যাই বলুক, এই ছাগল মেয়েটি আমাদের মন্দ নয়।"

পড়াশোনা করতাম মোটামোটি। আর যখন তখন মনের জানালা খুলে সুন্দর সুন্দর নিত্য নতুন জায়াগায় ঘুরে বেড়াতাম। আঁকতুম  খানিকটা। গল্প বই পড়তাম। দাদু আমায় কত গল্প বলতেন।  সেগুলো শুনতাম। ঘুমানোর  সময় জেগে জেগে সেই গল্প থেকে রঙ্গীন স্বপ্নের জ্বাল বুনতাম । কখন ঘুমিয়ে পরতাম তাও জানতাম না। আমাদের সেই শহরের পাশেই এক জঙ্গল ছিল।  সেই জঙ্গল নিয়েও কত স্বপ্ন দেখতাম।  সেই স্বপ্নর গল্প বলতে গেলে আর এই গল্প শেষ হবে না।  

বারো বছরের জন্মদিনে, আমাকে দাদু দিদা একটা রুপো রঙের সাইকেল কিনে দিলেন। তারপর আর কে দেখে আমায়। সেই সাইকেল করে কাছে দূরে কোথায় না যায়নি।  বেরনোর আগে দাদু শুধু বলতেন, "সাবধানে ফিরিস, মা।" আর দিদা বলতেন, "দূর্গা, দূর্গা। " 

সেইরকম একটি দিনে, সেই জঙ্গলে, সেই ডাকাতের সঙ্গে আমার দেখা হলো। বসে ছিল সে।  একা।  তারও কেউ ছিল না সঙ্গে। সঙ্গী সাথী বিহীন সে বসে ছিল একা ।  কি করে চিনলাম তাকে জানি না। গাছের পেছন থেকে দেখলাম তাকে প্রথমে। সে তাকিয়ে ছিল, জঙ্গলের শেষ সীমানা ছাড়িয়ে অনেক দুরে গোধূলি রাঙ্গা আকাশের দিকে। সন্ধ্যে তখন নামে নি ।  কিন্তূ  যেন  সে কোথায় তার সন্ধ্যা তারা দেকছিলো এক মনে, বা খুঁজছিল তাকেই । কে জানে।  ঠোঁটে একটা বাঁকা হাসি নিয়ে। আর আমি  দেখছিলাম তাকেই এক মনে। কি করে বলি - যেন সেই দাকাত্কেই খুঁজছিলাম কত জন্ম জন্মান্তর ধরে। সেই যেন আমার কতো কালের প্রাণের বন্ধু।  কতক্ষণ দাড়িয়ে ছিলাম আমি জানি না।  সে দেখে নি  আমায়। দেখতে পায় নি সে। দেখবেই বা কি  করে। আমি তো একটা বট গাছের ফাঁক থেকে ঘার বেঁকিয়ে তার দিকে তাকিয়ে ছিলাম এক দৃষ্টিতে। সে তো তাকিয়ে ছিল আকাশ কোলে, তার সন্ধ্যা  তারার খোঁজে। সেই মুহুর্তে যেন হারিয়ে গেলাম - সত্যি কিছু না বুঝে হারিয়ে গেলাম। তারপর ধীরে ধীরে মনে হলো আমার সেই ছাগলের মতন কানগুলো কেউ যেন আগুনের জলে ডুবিয়ে দিয়েছে। একটা শব্দ না করে চুপিচুপি বেরিয়ে পরলাম সেই জঙ্গল থেকে। এতো বোকা হয়ে গেলাম যে জঙ্গল থেকে বেরিয়েও সাইকেলটাকে টানতে টানতে ঠেলতে ঠেলতে  নিয়ে চললাম রাস্তাতে।  কখন যেন  আকাশ কালো করে মেঘ ছুটে এলো সারিসারি।  কি যে ঝড় নামল ঠিক দোরগোড়ায় পৌঁছতেই, কি বলি।  আমি হাঁ করে আকাশের তরে তাকিয়ে খানিকটা ভিজলাম। দিদা দেখেই বললেন, "এই যে ফিরেছিস ঠিক ঝড়ের সাথে!" দাদু বললেন, "আমি তো আজ ব্যস্ত হয়ে তোকে খুঁজতে বেরিয়ে পরছিলাম। ভাগ্যিস হারিয়ে যাস নি ঝড়ের মধ্যে।" আমি  বলে উঠলাম, "হারিয়ে গেছি দাদু! সত্যি হারিয়ে গেছি! আর ফিরি কি করে?" দিদা আমার দিকে তাকিয়ে বললেন, "সে কি কথা রে? হারিয়ে গেছিস কোথায় আবার? এই তো আমরা। এই তো তুই..." ফিরে এলাম তখন।  পুরোপুরি না হলেও -  ফিরে এলাম বটে।  এক গাল হেসে  বললাম, "না না দিদা। কি সব .বলে ফেললাম।  হারিয়ে আবার যাব কোথায়..?" দিদা বললেন, "তাই বল।  আমি আবার ভাবলাম...যাক গে সে কথা।  যা তুই গিয়ে হাত  মুখ ধুয়ে, জামা কাপড় পাল্টিয়ে, একটু পড়তে.বস দেখি।  আর জল খাবার কি খাবি - নিয়ে নে নিজে।"

আমি চলে গেলাম নিজের ঘরে।  কিন্তু পড়াশোনা আর হলো না সেদিন। আঁকার খাতাটা বের করে একটা ছবি আঁকলাম ।  সেই আমার ডাকাতের ছবি। 

কত  বছর কেটে গেছে। দাদু দিদা আর এই পৃথিবীতে নেই। কিন্তু আমার মনে রয়েছেন এখনো। কত  ঘুরেছি। কত দেশ বিদেশ দেখেছি, কত পড়েছি, নতুন জিনিস শিখেছি, কত এঁকেছি, কত আঁকা বিক্রিও করেছি, কত বাচ্চাদের আঁকা শিখিয়েছি । তবে সেই ডাকাতের ছবি কাউকে দেখায় নি। আমার কাছে এখনো রয়েছে সে ছবি। কত গল্প করেছি সেই ডাকাতের সঙ্গে...। আপনি হয়ত ভাববেন "সে আবার কি? এ তো পাগলের মতন কথা।" তা হবে হয়ত। আমি অত সব জানি না। হয়ত বা সেই ডাকাত তার সন্ধ্যা তারা খুঁজে পেয়েছে। সেও হতে পারে। সেই ডাকাতের সঙ্গে কোথাও না কোথাও হয়ত বা আবার দেখা হবে। সেও হতে পারে। আর দেখা হলে তো সেও হয়ত বা মাঝে মধ্যে জড়িয়ে ধরে তার মনের কথা বলতে পারে, কিছু গল্প বলতে পারে, ঝগড়াও করতে পারে...সঠিক জানি না অবশ্য। হতেও তো পারে। 

Writing about Writing, Part I

For the last few weeks, every evening, I had been forcing myself after getting back into the house to write an essay – any short and succinct essay. Last year, barring a day in December which brought a surge of light for me, was so dark on the whole that I didn’t write in case I tempted fate further. I scribbled and made copious work-related notes elsewhere. And for some weeks I had had the gall to assume that I could just sit and whip out any piece dealing with matters about life which matter (part of my current work and workshops relate to the same after all). And then I don’t know when but I felt that I’d be wasting time if I wrote an essay. I wanted to write and felt guilty at the same time and my snapping-self said sharply, ‘And what possible good will your writing do?! Just work on your work and keep knocking on doors.’ In the evening there were no doors to knock on. I can’t play any musical instrument and while I do listen to music and read, even after doing some of the latter and walking and thinking and reflecting rather deeply in bouts and being unable to solve more than a few puzzles, I’d feel restless. I’ll stay quiet about my few visits to one local pool. Some very late eves I worked or gathered or hunted down material for work, otherwise I’d sit and scribble in my diary and talk quietly with Fimh – away from snapping-self’s words, which I couldn’t completely dismiss.

But Fimh would remind me that since I had to keep walking on with what I carried in between my two ears essentially and in me – it was useful to actually keep typing out an essay every now and then. It would keep my mind sharp, alert and watchful, for one thing. It would help to organize my mind and order my boxes of thoughts. I grumpfhed with what fimh pointed out and felt he was trying to make me feel better and said, ‘I’ll write later. I know what I need to know, don’t I? And others have written about these matters very clearly, haven’t they? I remember what I need to. I just need to put it into a different format. That’s my job…well, a good part of it. It’s about the mind, isn’t it? Mind and…behaviour.’ Fimh innocently nudged me to think about the mind since it fascinated me so much – something like ‘the mind matters and why’. I had ideas then and all the bits and pieces read and remembered and experienced fell rapidly into place and I started typing with gusto. But then the thoughts got jumbled and questions of old arose. Suddenly. For there were two thoughts I’d started out with – and suddenly the soul and the spirit had clambered into the picture. Fimh patiently said, ‘well, write about the soul and spirit then…they’re not disconnected.’ And as I started upon that and typed a few pages, I flung my hands up in the air, ‘how is this going to help any? I keep digressing. And quite frankly, the part about the Spirit and Soul sounds barmy...it comes across as fiction! And I haven’t even talked about why the mind matters. This isn’t working.’

My pesky-self however was malicious and had started telling me that I didn’t write because I had no thoughts anymore. That I had become stu-pid. My pesky-self chortled, ‘you’re becoming a walking-talking-doing vegetable!’ To which I retorted with, ‘I am NOT a vegetable!’ and upon pesky-self’s widening grin which threatened to split pesky-self’s face, I said, ‘Vegetable – gah-bah.’ And my pesky-self told me through a song that I was a sour beet and something about how I was a grum, irritating and utterly humourless bore. Sadly enough I couldn’t really argue with that for some very sharp and sad images of my being an irritating, very solemn, grum beet and a humourless bore who neither laughed upon an amusing line in the middle of a solemn conversation nor could get another to laugh with a repartee…rose to my mind. Fimh stepped in then. I won’t go through the whole exchange between Fimh and me however. But there are some realizations that emerged from the pot and so I’ll put a few on record.

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Writing – the ability to write – is something that I’ve never quite valued in myself. I’ve enjoyed writing – here and there and sometimes in my diary. But to enjoy something and to value something are not exactly the same, I think. Valuing implies and involves a more conscious process of thought. It’s only when across these last few weeks that I could not write anything that I started getting alarmed. I won’t go into the mixed reasons for my rising alarm. I have loved reading some of what I do and I’ve loved thinking and going ‘aha’ with bizarre connections and upon being able to see effortless connections made by others. I have felt the deep and evocative feelings (which sometimes go beyond language) which are conjured up by human beings in grand or great or insightful or interesting or stirring or vivid writing. I don’t mean these words in any casual sense. I know the kind of writing I am talking about. I have liked scribbling while on my own – of course. But I’ve never persisted in writing about matters unless it came to me very easily and without any hitches or when I’ve simply rambled along (and there is nothing endearing about rambling when it’s like an uncontrollable tic). But one of the things I realized upon long bits of reflection without losing my temper is that writing is an art. Of course I’ve known that. Yes. After all I can rattle off from memory substantial parts from a piece on ‘why we read and write poetry’ and I carry the rest in my head for one clear reason, at least, that before I read that piece I had never really known why I read (and even felt guilty sometimes for reading and re-reading some stuff while neglecting other stuff and for also not reading enough!).

I can say at this point in my life that I most likely had an affinity and even an aptitude for writing and language (I have never had an aptitude for Maths). I have had a strong relationship with writing but I never quite saw it as some sort of an ‘ability’ that I possess. I wrote because I could. I’ve noted in my mind and diary some of the things I cannot do and that is a mighty long list indeed. Yet I never quite comprehended that writing is a skill that I do have – to an extent – which I also love. I loved extended academic writing only during one phase of my life (and the topic had all to do with it) and enjoyed writing a few term papers when I got immersed in them for brief bits and I’ve not written more than a handful of stories. But I have loved writing about or writing in response to ideas and about parts of life which matter (and do not matter), events and incidents and ways and manners of humans (not excluding myself) other beings, great and small, and so on – for I have loved reading about the same. Such ideas and parts (which matter) resonate within me and get me thinking and reflecting and banish the dark and dreary mushrooms and sometimes give me room to smile and sometimes laugh and connect the variety of various experiences (with what I read) and to ‘hold on’ while walking along. In a few of the most important junctures of my life, writings by others which I have read and re-read has kept my head above water and has even got me to shift my course of flight, among other things. It isn’t reading alone that has done this for me – but it is certainly one central part. Reading and writing have more often than I can count kept my mental motors whirring.

In spite of the above, for all this time I never really equated my own ability to write as some sort of a creative activity as I would have say if I could paint or sing or sculpt or play the piano with a similar level of skill. On some very late evenings I had felt ridiculous because I could do none of those things and felt I could have come across as a being a better and more developed human being if I could have. Thinking, I have valued and enjoyed, loved, even felt guilty and angry and sad and confused about and even banished it sometimes. Writing as an activity that I can do – did not make me feel the same way unless it involved writing letters during a couple of light-and-shade filled periods of my life. And it’s considerably bizarre to have felt this way when among all the creative activities I’ve valued – magnificent, superlative and very high quality writing by others, to me, expresses an ultimate level and form of creativity. There are reasons for this which I know of and some of them I sense but I shall not get into them here. Not for once am I saying that I do not value the other creative activities; I value them extremely highly as well.

The whole bit of the sudden and somewhat slowly emerging realization made me wonder why I had such a mindless non-valuing of any writing skill that I possess. I knew one reason or a couple immediately but they do not need to be discussed here, personal as they are and most likely unique to me because I’m abnormal. But a few of the other general ones that came to my mind can be put down here.

Writing about Writing, Part II appears here.

Writing about Writing, Part II

Writing about Writing, Part I appears here

As I thought about the matter I realized that I had absorbed, somewhat unconsciously, the strange place that writing seems to occupy in the world. All literate people feel that they can write. All literate people at some point or the other have had to write a fair bit – if nowhere else at least in school and in college. Writing even formal or informal letters is something many literate people do (or think they can do) and there are others with a bit of education who write here and there (how well is a completely different matter and the same goes for hundreds of blogs and websites of folks who successfully conduct ‘personality development’ workshops or are ‘certified life-coaches’). Writing does have a utilitarian purpose in the regular world. No other creative activity occupies such a strange place, I think. All people do not have to sing and can get away without ever singing a note in public (if not in private). Nobody has to paint on a form or formally in the regular world. One can note that about most other creative activities. So writing and the use of language occupy an odd position. Almost any person who is not an absolute dullard can imagine that s/he can write while people are less likely to say that they can paint or sing or play a musical instrument (one can extend the list) unless they attain a particular level of competence or finesse. The few people of reason in this world who stand against these absurd and stupid ideas comprises most likely, the minority. In this demented age of ‘instant gratification’, writing is probably looked down upon by most or seen as being useless or having a purely utilitarian function and even people who claim to like it cannot endure it for sustained periods (among the general population) unless it’s floozy or casual or la-la writing like on facebook and God only knows of all the other instances which exist out there. Indeed regarding some of the things I’ve read: it revolts me to call that ‘writing’ – in terms of either content, ideas or style. And among people in universities and colleges I had noticed for years while being a member of academia and continue noticing as an outsider (working with clients from academia) an overwhelming reluctance to write their thoughts or about their experiences or feelings or of any connected ideas. Indeed many people assume/d it’s a waste of time to write unless there is some particular material utility to it – either one is getting paid for it or is engaging in academic writing for publishing more and more papers or it is directly related to the ‘job’ one does. And so if writing brings no material utility – it is seen as being ‘useless’. Some people honestly admit they cannot write and yet others do not see any purpose to it. I knew of more than a couple of erstwhile friends who had written very good essays once upon a time and yet graduate school had rendered them utterly unable or unwilling to write essays unrelated to their little fields of specialization. I’m not above reproach for I would have ended up the same way in graduate school and I know I had for not a few years in the middle but I know exactly why I didn’t end up the same way.

Also I somehow think that writing is a little different from painting, singing, playing a musical instrument, sculpting and dancing. Unless one ‘sees’ the whole picture in one’s mind and simply writes in a sudden trance, it is a process which intimately involves the mind, involves thinking, the process of ordering and arranging and selecting one’s thoughts and feelings and expressing the same through language suitable for human life-form. By the very nature of the activity it cannot involve the suspension of thought and it cannot simply involve only a rush of ideas and feelings or remain as intuitive insights and flashes of realization (which aren’t always experienced through words or normal human language). And there isn’t much bodily engagement in the activity….in fact it’s more of a disembodied experience. Folks who sing and dance and engage in playing a musical instrument experience something similar. But my point is that writing about ideas and about life requires the very active and very involved process of thinking clearly before the task of writing and sometimes while writing. It requires a certain predisposition towards wanting to unravel or being interested and in an enduring way about certain universal questions and issues. Even the writing done in a trance is sometimes so because of all the stuff that has happened and been processed and felt deeply by the mind and insides for a long while before that. Inchoate thoughts, all the co-existing ideas, the disjointed or strongly contrary and contradictory and even paradoxical boxes of thoughts and emotions might well all be in the head somewhere – from one’s readings, reflections, ruminations, experiences, memories and so on, and all of it might well flood through the mind at different points of the day or night and one might even know that all of it is there but that knowing is not the same as writing or even ‘being able to write’ about it or even speaking about it clearly. I’d felt this to be true some years ago. This is why even I have said upon reading a piece or even parts from pieces, ‘oh, that’s how I feel!’ I have had to say to myself later: but that is not how you think; the thoughts have been clarified, the doubts or the misgivings or the confusions have been cleared or the nebulous clouds of feeling have been dispersed to have illumination shine through them by the piece that you read while also raising other questions and because some exceptional writer with an exceptional mind has expressed in language and words to make the thoughts and the feelings real. This is why writing as compared to thinking and even focused thinking or idle thinking is so much more difficult. One has to decide on what to include and leave out and to voluntarily circumscribe oneself. And there are contrary ideas and feelings which are carried by the mind too – so which one holds good or do both or maybe three or more? Depending on what? And why? I am reminded of what my old friend told me and not once, ‘Thinking and writing are not the same, Shilpi!’ Writing demands a certain clarity of the mind. To write what one wishes to write. To engage in a process of selection and presentation. It is also a matter of patience, I think. Even writing about whimsical or amusing matters is not a joke and writing about matters related to emotion is not a matter of sentimental warbling. It is an art which like other creative art forms requires nurturing and it is different from the other forms because it is almost exclusively but probably not only a mind related activity. There’s something of the soul and spirit which enters – but let me not digress.

To actually write is to prepare and express the inner workings of an ordered mind. I’m not saying that thinking is unimportant. Not at all. But the act and art of writing and the acts and the arts of speaking and communicating (about which some other day maybe) require an ordered mind. They contribute towards creating an ordered mind and writing across years and taken together become manifest expressions of an ordered mind and more. Writing, I have noticed in myself time and again even though I forget or banish the thought cannot be substituted for this or that. If one has an ability to write – one should and must write otherwise one starts feeling stupid and vacuous and even becomes that way unless one is terribly careful and terribly blessed. And there is no excuse for stupidity or for being stupid. I frankly loath the idea of becoming stupid. And if I had one prayer last year apart from the handful of deepest prayers even when I couldn’t understand much – it was that I not become stupid and for countless reasons.

It is only people who think and have serious and myriad minds who are the ones who can write well and communicate well and depending upon the variations of quality – exceptionally well. Those who think intensely are also the ones to feel deeply both the shards and shots of brushing bliss and the terrible pits of pain, much of the in between and even some of the beyond. More than this I am sure now that people who think deeply are the ones who can feel deeply about another/others. I think that there are certain ways of going further along the path of being ‘truly human’ – a matter that has always been there tick-tocking away somewhere at the back of my mind through some years in a more and more conscious way than before because of one blog-post I’d read. Thinking, doing what one can and is able to, reflecting, feeling, introspecting and acting upon the various stages of the world constitute a few of these parts. And writing involves a particular form of doing. The reasons that people shy away from the same can be many but one reason is that people become stupid in the mind (or simply are stupid and never want to even try very hard not to be stupid). I have felt it and seen it in me – it’s not just a mental laziness or tiredness but a mental stupidity – and it has alarmed me. I don’t mean ‘mind’ and ‘mental’ in terms of ‘intellect’, as it is commonly understood. But then this essay is not directly about ‘the mind matters…and why’.

But to mention a bit: it is not for nothing that individuals who have fine minds and engage in life (work, relations, some inner/private world, hobbies) with a directed intensity and passion and involvement and are at high levels of self-realization have also felt the necessity to write down some/a lot of their thoughts and understandings and feelings and ideas and what-have-you. Not a few of such outstanding individuals have continued the same through their very long or short or medium life-spans. Even folks who have distinguished themselves in different fields of life have also sometimes felt it worth their while to write about their experiences and their insights.

I used to deeply think in a conscious way in college that the individuals who stand out from the crowd are the only ones worth admiring while I could with every neuron in me (for starters) attempt to reach better heights as a human being. And quite honestly, even as a mid-school girl, I couldn’t see anything good or noble about comparing myself to dullards and mental midgets and saying or even feeling that I was better than they were or that we were the same sort so I didn’t need to better myself as I saw important. And it is pertinent to note that across these 40 years, there is only one human being who has urged me to write. Yet I had never before even articulated the traces of guilt that used to hover when I used to write here or even elsewhere because there was the holier-than-thou-self (or would that be the materialist self?) saying, ‘is this really useful to anyone?’

I have many flaws and defects and carry even abnormalities. But I don’t and have never seen anything remotely nice about being mentally vacuous and stupid or common. It disgusts me. I strongly object to the line of ‘ignorance is bliss’. No, it is not. Even though the Old Greek teacher’s words of ‘the only thing I know is that I know nothing’ has not merely perplexed me but I know I have felt rather content in a doddering, senile grandma like way at certain phases of my life (imagining I knew all of what I needed to know and had nothing new to learn). I have also felt something similar to the Old Greek during periods of my life and I have also had to ruminate over the priceless distinction that my old friend made between knowledge (external to the self) and realization (happens within). And it is important to watch oneself and others and discriminate between the bad and disgusting and the truly beautiful and worthwhile and see why they are different and why the bad or disgusting repulses. It becomes vital to leave what is ugly behind and often without a second glance so that one does not fall into the gooey mind-numbing trap oneself by becoming dim or careless or because it takes too much of effort, persistence, unsentimental honesty of feelings (no matter how contradictory that sounds), ‘razor sharp perceptions that sometimes cut a little too deep’ (that’s from The Counting Crows), a refusal to become common in the mind or in behaviour while not losing one’s wit(s) or one’s lighter side and while walking on one's path. It is not an easy thing….

I’ll conclude this with a couple of thoughts about writing. Writing, as a personal activity – quite apart from the strange pleasure it brings – is one of the means towards self-development and is an expression of the same. If life has meaning and I still cannot and will not believe it doesn’t, I cannot see it as being divorced from genuine and continuous self-development and from genuine love, which to (paraphrase?) the Old Bard's line, unlike youth – endures.

Written between 15th May - 9th June, 2015

Thoughts that walk and sometimes talk

There are some statements and thoughts that walk with one as one walks Life’s paths. The following are but a few of them. I haven’t resolved all the oddities which linger within the statements/thoughts for even the following ones and so this post keeps getting close to becoming a never-ending one. I started writing the following almost exactly a year ago and I've added/edited and refined bits and pieces while reading and re-reading what I do and ruminating sometimes. And I've been fussing over this every evening for more than a week after returning to my temporary stables. I’m not entirely satisfied with the following but I’m putting this up even though I can’t tie it up all neatly with a beautiful bow.

There are facts and one cannot – unless one is being an ostrich – ignore them in one’s journey of life. Yet the fox tells the Little Prince that the most important and the most valuable things in life are invisible to the eye yet felt deep within.  Through unusual experiences, one shifts gears from being a ‘reason and fact worshipper’ and starts holding onto this inner belief when seemingly contrary facts smack one in the face. Then it’s back to dealing with just the facts like a good soldier until one’s deep-within-being simply cannot be ignored unless one is tone deaf within and on-the-out. It seems a very muddled up affair: this tussle between measurable facts and what is sometimes ‘as invisible as music but as positive as sound…’.

There’s Sherlock who says that if the facts don’t fit the theory – throw out the theory. Strangely enough, Sherlock talks too about ‘intuition’ which he matter-of-factly claims trumps reason. And who can tell another about when to trust one’s intuition beyond reason and facts?

I have often in ‘times of trouble’ remembered (been reminded of?) the Lord’s Prayer of ‘Thy will be done’. In other times I’m reminded of the zen tale where the master tells his disciple about the invisible power that lies beyond reason. The disciple is taken aback with the other-worldly discourse. But they have a long journey through the sands of space and time and the disciple listens. Finally it is time to rest and the master tells his disciple to take care of the horses before retiring for the night. The disciple is about to tie up the horses but then reasons that his master is testing his learning and faith. Maybe he is supposed to trust the divine power? With this thought he lets the horses be and retires. The following morning the master is aghast for the horses are nowhere to be seen. ‘I told you to tie them up. What on earth did you do?’ ‘But master I thought you were testing my faith in the Higher Power. You said the Higher Power takes care of us!’ The Master interjects, ‘Yes, which is why the Higher Power has given you hands!’ And then he yells, “But He’s not likely to take care of a fool with hands who doesn’t tie up the horses at night!’

There are ideas/images which arise in the mind but they turn out to be crackpot ideas/images (God knows where they come from!). Yet doesn’t a good idea come from the same place? And if there is a congruence between a cherished goal and the blazing idea – then mustn’t the idea be tested? For otherwise one will never know whether the idea has any truth to it. Maybe it is only by testing out ideas, out of the ten thousand and one crackpot ideas one has – seven might work wonders? One can but keep at it. I haven’t learnt any surefire way of intuiting what will work. I sometimes wish I had infallible soothsaying skills (among other skills).

One’s inner- and outer-worlds sometimes tantalizingly and mysteriously not to say mystically glide into one another, breaking up the mundane and normal act of existence, and Life winks mischievously as if to say, ‘all is not what you think it is…’. They also, often times, nonchalantly glide off into their own directions as though they have no connection whatsoever.

In order to do/create something new – one must walk or make a new path. But one must not tread the path that angels would fear to tread or tread the path that is well-trodden by too many humans.

Life apparently is not about winning. It’s about playing well, hard and true. Yet if one doesn’t win at some point – why would another human being care or feel anything but ‘tch-tch’? This has not stopped bothering me although I know it doesn’t help being bothered.

Would anyone remember Edison if he hadn’t actually succeeded in making the light bulb? Would one have remembered Meera if she couldn’t compose poetry and sing? If s/he hadn’t 'accomplished' what s/he set out to do? Would we have been impressed about his/her being and about his/her failings? Failures seem to make sense only when at some point one can stand tall and say “Look?! I did it!”

We talk about ‘human beings’ – not about ‘human doings’. Yet if one doesn’t ‘do’ anything with all that ‘being’ – there is no external expression of the ‘being’. Yet what does a person like about another? The ‘being-ness’ or the ‘doing’? Maybe others will argue with me on this but I keep going back to the part of ‘doing’ somehow although the 'being' matters too in unique instances…but I can’t always give 20-point reasons for the same.

One is supposed to learn ‘to let go’ but not ‘to give up’. I pray that God doesn’t put me to the test on these grounds again.

Great things in life neither come cheap and easy nor do they come without ‘slow and hard and patient labour’. And while there are no guarantees regarding when one’s labour will bear fruit, if one doesn’t labour – there are absolutely no possibilities that one will achieve the sterling fruits of one’s loving labour. Yes, some/many people might roll their eyes and say, “that’s so-ooo obvious”.

One is not supposed to expect any fruits while pursuing a task…My fimh shows me the same but this has not made me immune to and dispassionate about expecting some rare and unique fruits.

Rome was not built in a day. True. And it’s always ‘better late than never’. Also true. But there’s also something to be said about making good in a few rare ways within the earthly span of life and before one becomes senile.

About missing the bus: I’m sure now, at my age and with my experiences – great and small – that there are some things that need to be done at a particular time. If one lets the bus go by – one has missed a chance. ‘Yet and yet and yet’ – for some things it seems that fate has a way of bringing one back through often impossible-to-fathom circuitous routes so that one can catch the bus even if one is running a decade behind schedule. I don't know when fate (and God?) doth decide 'for this - you shall get another chance; for that - nope.'

Obsessions are generally deemed as bad, sick and unhealthy – and they are. I’ve had enough of obsessive bouts to know this much. Yet isn’t the creation of anything good or great and beautiful fueled by steadfast, single-minded and mulish dedication and love? (I’m not talking of the Heathcliff and Snape sort of cruel and disgusting obsessions here) The young priest Emilio Sandoz when he says “let me hold fast onto one noble thing” is being obsessive, Arjun had his eye fixed on what and who matters, Vivekananda encourages single mindedness, The Buddha was single-minded about certain aspects while elucidating upon the middle-path, Tagore had his whimsical and not-at-all whimsical ‘obsessions’, Maharaj Kumar while engaging in much and thinking intensely had his deep and enduring obsession and I know of one exceptional teacher who has written that he has had a life-long ‘obsession’ with reading, thinking, arguing, knowing...Great and/or famous entrepreneurs and businessmen say similar things about being ‘single-minded’ (if not ‘obsessive’) as do scientists, sportsmen, artists, saints, politicians, prophets, musicians, writers, poets and teachers about ‘single-mindedness’ of purpose. But I haven’t really gotten any wiser about this. I’ve only grown sadder about it. If something works or clicks or connects then being obsessive is a creative and beautiful energy and if it doesn’t then the obsession is destructive, useless and ugly. But who can tell from the outset or during the middle stages whether something shall work?

I don’t know for a fact whether faith can literally move mountains. Sometimes it really feels that faith works miracles although this might not always be clear at first or second glance. Sometimes one even has evidence that faith works its inimitable charms. And then when one is oh-so-sure that one is finally close… – one runs into a sheer wall. A rope dangles down the sheer face of the wall when one is close to becoming a vegetable. Faith is mighty unpredictably unpredictable in how it works with one.

I have read that a man of God can be recognized at once. I have God-knows-how-many-miles to go before I get there.

Positive thinking actually makes one feel more positive sometimes. Yet being delusional is a ‘no-no’. Beliefs about what goes on in one’s bizarre mind (or within somewhere) or  the ‘meaning of life’ or about one’s mission in life or about communion that one so surely senses may be nothing but delusions. But if one is ‘delusional’, is it perhaps best to be delusional all the way when one is convinced that one is on one’s path? (I don’t know for sure but) I don’t know what else one is supposed to do but keep walking along while holding on…

The longer one walks along the journey of life, while one completely misses the boat at times, every now and then one gets tantalizingly close to the ‘arch’ which keeps moving a little further off and yet keeps beckoning to the traveler to walk on.

Sometimes...

Sometimes, not always, there’s a clear dancing shaft of light that pervades one and makes one feel hopeful and cheery. Maybe I’m delusional but one does actually walk with a lighter step and almost hums a tune as one goes about doing minor and major tasks, takes joy in the mindful tasks, reminds oneself, for better or worse, of ‘ma phaleshu kadachana’ and yells out to one's trusty fimh just to make sure. Maybe it’s because the very short winter has departed and the Spring breeze is what has lifted one’s spirit? But that’s not the reason. One can almost risk laughing without worrying frightfully over whether one will have to sob or be stoic even in private until one can’t help it. One has gotten to be more circumspect and cautious with age and experience. One has gained a piece of wisdom. If the sudden laughs do arrive utterly unexpectedly like the first sudden Spring showers or as words from a tale or a voice known – then take joy in that. Close your eyes and soak in the bit of bliss and say ‘this and the cause of this, which I know of and realize, I will not forsake’.

A couple of eves ago, my old friend reminded me that there are 3 stages of ‘doing’ something – like a piece of work (a project or a mission or a vision that one is giving tangible form and shape or some mix of work where one is introducing pre-existing material but presenting in a different box). There’s the ‘yeah, I’m going to do it’, there’s the actual ‘I’m doing it’ and then there is the loud ‘see, I’ve done it?!’ feeling which beats almost every other feeling. It’s not very often that that feeling comes about (and even if it does, it might not always last a very long time) for me. But when it does, by God, it justifies every bit of agony that one might have gone through or even imagined (there was a great and famous scientist who said and without apology that ‘imagination is more important than knowledge’ – so I shed my feeling of shame, in this instance, at least). My friend didn’t put it in quite like that – but that was the gist. I was grinning suddenly and almost interjected but held my troublesome tongue and foghorn of a frog-voice in check. But his brief exposition reminded me of more than a few funny pix I’d collected off the net almost a year and a half ago.

The first pic reminds me of my school-days. The others have memories and more. The pix made their way into some powerpoint slides. It feels, by God, like an age ago and also, like a great part of last year didn’t quite happen or was a journey through limbo although I travelled more (to physically real places) and met and talked with more human beings than I had in a decade.

And four years have zipped by since I made my last New Year resolution upon being suddenly inspired by my then-young friend. When the last year melted into this one, there was a gong and repeated gongs in my head – no matter how hard I pretended to ignore them – for it meant that I’d officially spent four years since that year. And that year was significant (if in a somewhat bizarre way, to put it in mildly). Even my fimh reminds me sometimes of the same. That carefully put-together earnest New Year list got completely topsy-turvy and that made me merrily shift tracks in work and life. It was an experience which I somehow suspect is not granted to too many people, no matter how many people, on the surface, have engaged or are engaged in a similar-looking task. That’s just a superficial similarity. I failed, at least, at a hundred of other things and some make me feel like an absolute wretch – but there’s one thing I did indeed experience through more than many months – and not just in my head either. I’d meant to emit a visible and audible ‘yay’. I felt I deserved to emit a ‘yay’ but I actually forgot to emit the ‘yay’ once I was done because my trusty fimh (friend in my head) probably told me my time to emit my ‘yay’ had not yet arrived. The ‘yay’ should be used judiciously – not in a casual manner. I had argued, most likely, saying, ‘if not now, then when shall I emit my yay?’ But as luck had it – I forgot. After it was done, I had walked the walk and heard music in my mind and looked around a full and yet empty auditorium and had a real but virtual conversation. It seems now that it happened to someone else. The humdrum of regular life, an inexplicable and sometimes faintly familiar hollow, the terrible and incessant worries returned like hobgoblins broken by the then-regular sparks of life – and that whole experience, which lasted about a year and a half from the middle of a snow-sleet and black ice winter became something of the stuff that dreams are made of. The ecstasy, the slow delight, the agony, angst, the doubt, the serious wonderings of whether one or perhaps another was an absolute loon, the incredible and deep delight, the surprises beyond comparison became a part of one’s memory capsule but not merely one's imagination capsule. Sometimes I wonder, and now, while walking back and forth and in between meeting and talking with general human beings, what the real difference is. Early-ish last year too was memorable for me, if in a different way. This is because a book, which I happen to carry around, like my personal King James Bible or my very own The Little Prince (even when I’ve felt grumpy, dejected and disbelieving of almost everything) was published. Once I can tick off three to-do things from my to-do list of life – I sometimes wonder with audible chuckles whether ‘my pilot’ and ‘maker’ might even dub me a saint. Ha! Of course it doesn’t matter whether I tick off things from the list and Somebody disagrees. That’s another piece of learning I’ve gotten knocked into me and that is purposeless cheating anyway. And in any case what will beat being dubbed a ‘saint’ is to see my old friend clapping (and not just in my head)…

Last year, at some point, while making notes and putting things in powerpoint slides in a military fashion, I was browsing through a translated version of Ramkrishna’s teachings and in an entirely, ‘now, what can you tell me that’s useful to my predicament?’ frame of mind, I opened a page. The page and subsequent pages went on and on about how work was merely one way of getting close to God. No really sensible person, according to Ramkrishna, could see ‘work’ as being anything else. As it often happens – the pages which I needed to read did hit me – only I neither knew nor realized that. I merely ‘grumffh-d’ and said ‘this isn’t helpful at all. I don’t know what he means. How is that of any help to me and my situation?’  The ‘…get back to doing what you need to do now’ sort of made sense. I simply went back to plodding on what I was doing. And so it goes on…

There was a line from a Baul folk song that had been playing in my head for more than a week some weeks ago, ‘tomay hrid majhare rakhibo – chherey debo na…’. The song lyrics brought to mind a quote that has been jumping around gently in my head every now and then. It was a quote from Hari Vansh Rai Bachchan, ‘mann ka ho, to achcha hai, man jaise na ho toh zyada achcha hai.’ The first part isn’t confusing but the second part was bringing the deep furrows to my forehead when the meaning was clarified by Amitabh on the documentary I had been watching sometime last year. Apparently it had confused him too until his father had explained it thus: if things aren’t working the way one’s own mind wishes or desires – things are working according to God.

From experience I know that it’s alarmingly easy to believe that things are going according to God’s plan when things seem to be going according to some broad plan of my own understanding if not active machinations. I remember particularly sudden and unexpected experiences especially from my early twenties and even rather late twenties and well, even early and mid-thirties...There were/are certain surface differences in the experiences while the kernel started glowing more deeply over time. But at the very extreme end of such a scale everything comes across as a gleeful adventure or is laden with great meaning. Even the unpleasant stuff seems to be mere fluff in a tale. Ghastly fear grips the soul but is plummeted away. Even pain is seen as leading to greater awareness. Peak experiences become a part of everyday living. What cannot be understood or comprehended is seen as being a part of the ultimate puzzle that will be clear by and by. One’s mind makes millions of lightning fast connections out of which some actually make sense when recollected later or when one reads something later that reminds one of one’s own experiences. Some parts of the self undergo distinct transformations. One feels both young and ancient. One experiences a profound love.

But by God - when one is shrouded in an incomprehensible, meaningless, soul-wrenching greyness – it’s impossible to believe that there is any plan in place. I feel abandoned. I fail to keep doing everything with unflinching and cheerful stoicism. I fail to keep moving along holding onto the laughing belief that after all is said and done there is the ultimate truth, love conquers all, that the whole game unfurling on the worldly stage is lila…unless there’s a clear light for me that pierces that evil murkiness.

I was reminded of a poem, which I was compelled to look up for I do not have an eidetic memory about too many things. The poem is by John Gillespie Magee Jr. (1922-1941) and one can find more about the poem and the poet on the Wikipedia link. It is called ‘High-flight’ or ‘The Airman’s Ecstasy’. The poem appears in a film The Man without a face that I watched for the first time when I was in school and then in high-school. I rented the video cassette more than a few times because the film had made a mark on me, for reasons that I won’t go into here. The film, back then, had made me think intensely, escape the manifest ‘bonds of earth’, swirl the ‘skies on laughter-silvered wings’, and had led me into the realm of high imagination and romance. It was all great fun in the mind until one very late eve’ I had the sudden and sharp thought: what would I give in return to ‘the man without a face’ (or to the man with one…) or to my imaginary friend who loved me? I didn’t have a thing about me that the other would consider valuable. I wasn’t even like the little drummer boy who could sing a song. And that was that. I was determined that I wouldn’t dream silly dreams. But I couldn’t really help but dream some even if I felt rather silly for a long time…

If anybody told that 17 or 18 year old me about where I would be now, I would have told the person to buzz off. Yes, it's true that not all dreams come true but it's true too that strange things happen in life, a few dreams if dreamt hard and long enough do come true even if they don't quite click in the exact way that one had envisioned, a few rare ones come about in very odd ways (and who can speak of what shall be in the future) and there are within the earthly space even, lo and behold - miracles! The years have come rushing through while in the midst of ‘doing something’ because of my clear note of light and I put up this post because I know that ‘once I was lost…and then I was found…’. In fact, I've gotten lost and then been found quite some times. The ‘how’ is a different matter. 

I’ll sign off for this post with 'The Airman’s Ecstasy' by John G. Magee. I wouldn’t tell every person that I have ‘done a hundred things You have not dreamed of…’ and no, I never did get around to learning how to fly a bi-plane even but as for the rest….

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth 

   And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; 

    Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth 

    Of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things 

    You have not dreamed of; wheeled and soared and swung 

    High in the sun-lit silence. Hovering there 

    I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung 

    My eager craft through footless halls of air; 

    Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue 

    I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, 

    Where never lark nor even eagle flew; 

    
And while, with silent lifting mind I've trod 

    The high untrespassed sanctity of space, 

    Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.