It is the first rain in Delhi this summer.
The rain drops seems a fresh breath on the warm night earth.
Air-conditioners shut.
Windows open.
And I let the breeze play with my hair and eyes.
I stand safely away from the edge of the balcony to keep the rain off myself.
But now and then it comes and flirts with my feet.
I take a step back. It still reaches me.
Touch and go. Wink and miss.
Irritating.
I take a step front to have a more intimate conversation.
It doesn’t touch me then.
Now it’s annoying.
I understand the clouds are grey.
But my mind works black and white.
Binary.
So I take three steps front till I reach the edge of the balcony and firmly place my hand on the balustrade.
I want to speak straight and clear.
I lean out arrogantly pointing my chin at the rain.
It smacks right onto my face and body.
I feel the rain-water take long circuitous routes from my hair, onto my neck and then to my back.
Multiple veins of rain starts running on my forearms.
Desperate and directionless till they find the fingertips from where they make the suicidal drop.
The wind plants a leaf on my leg and I don’t bother shaking it off.
I let it rest and cling onto my skin.
It must have endured the rain for quite a while.
I stretch out my hands to receive some more of the drench in my palms.
It fills it with abundance.
I close my eyes.
I get completely wet in no time.
It was that simple.
Few steps.
Binary.

Do you want to fall in love? Great! What about falling in love with a ‘cause’. It is  much more fulfilling than falling in love with a person. Why? Here are my five cents.

1. It cannot be unrequited. Rather it may be exponentially requited. You give in some time and effort to the relationship, and what you receive is way much higher. Your love will just increase over time and your cause will be loving you hundred times over.

2. No loyalty issues. Your ‘cause’ will not feel bad if you take up another cause and work on it. Rather your ‘cause’ may feel that you are able to see the bigger picture and are able to connect multiple things. ‘Cause’ is happy. You are happy.

3. No jealousy. Imagine seeing hundreds of men falling in love with your girlfriend and trying to woo her all the time. That’s a restless feeling, right? Not when you are in love with a ’cause’. You may see thousands of men falling in love with her and just feel better with every man trying to woo her. Cause’s love is infinite and so is its need. And your jealousy is zero. Rather you would advocate for more men and women to fall in love with your ‘cause’ and impress her every single day.

4. No guilt feeling on breaking up. Imagine a girl who you know and have loved you for years and you suddenly realize it does not feel ‘right anymore’. Imagine the pain of raising the point to your girlfriend. Tears, fights and an endless chain of emotional bickering will ensue. Not with ‘Cause’. She understands and she can let go easily. What’s more important is (as said in the previous point) you know that there are thousands taking care of her already. So your absence is of no celestial consequence.

5. Meet more people through your cause. Can you ever imagine your girlfriend introducing you to more girls whom you can look at as a future proposition? Never! But ‘Cause’ will inevitably bring people closer together. Passion for a cause usually results in passionate people falling passionately in love with each other. You know what I mean. Nothing connects people more than a ‘cause’- it has been the age old wisdom. That’s why politicians sow dreams and organizations manufacture vision statements. And you, my dear, is already having a win-win situation with this love. 

So ditch the trouble of finding the right girl. Find a ‘cause’. Fall in love with it. You will never have a frown-day in your life.

Alone-I

She fears living alone
Timmy is asleep
She types for endless hours seeking pink hearts
And she gets it too like dew-drops on a sun-kissed morning
She looks for love everywhere, outside and inside
But there remains a dried up ‘lonely well’ which is as it is once you see it
as it is
The grey scars brush its grey paint all over
Smothering all inch
She fights to remain unpainted, untainted
But she sees
a crow sits by the loneliness. It caws its way to her heart
She takes a mirror and looks
Crystal clear. Pristine.
But those grey smothering paint strokes that she felt being painted!
Timmy comes running
She strokes his head
And takes him out to play

Alone-II

The grey is real, she thinks
It is clawing out her red, day by day
She lights a candle and keeps it next to the paper-weight on her desk
She picks up the phone and dials all the people she loves. Likes.
Hello.
She asks for more red. She gets it.
At the end of the hour long call, she is more red than ever
She sits back watching the stars and the moon dance in harmony
The clouds float gently
She takes the newspaper and reads the headline
When she feels a yearn
She knows that ‘it’ is coming back
She tries to fight it out
but she finally gives in
She lets herself be painted with broad brush strokes
She goes inside. Blows off the candle
And clutching her bedsheet. She lies.
She counts back
10, 9, 8, 7, ……

Alone-III

The beach is huge
Endless stretches of sand bordered by tall palms
The water is blue
You could even see the fishes in this water
Baby crabs flirting with small shells
Swarms of fish moving in erratic direction
And Sreeja, with her hair left open, walking by alone
The sun is gentle in its embrace
Droves of sea-gulls fly by
The painter could have been ready with her canvas
Sreeja finds a shack on the beach
She wants to have her mojito in this shack
Her walk has been tiring and the beauty overwhelming
She checks her watch and walks in
“One mojito please”, Sreeja asks
“Only alcohol available here, ma’am” says the bartender
She comes out
Fists clenched and brows squeezed
She calms down in a moment
A tear escapes her eye
She heaves a smile
And walks toward the ocean
Up above, the sea-gulls continue to fly by in droves
and the fishes go on with their seemingly random movements

It’s 8AM in Behala Chowrasta- a busy four-way intersection that can seem like a mesh of intermingled traffic amidst a net of meandering people. Very recently ‘Didi’ had announced that intersections such as these had to have ‘Rabindra sangeet’ oozing out from the trumpet-shaped microphones so that it can calm peoples’ nerves. But little did she realize it did more dishonour to her favourite poet; as the words of Tagore clamoured for space with the din and bustle of the streets.

Piu, a twenty something ‘work-hater-life-lover’ walked briskly to catch her office cab. She was running few minutes late and was praying that the cab would be late too. The cab ferrying business had a strict ‘Stop-Glance-Whooosh’ policy. They would not wait for a minute if the employee is not there on time.

Piu’s thought was on the day of the week- it was just Monday! 5 days to go till she can soak herself in her Smirnoff. With lime. She did mental cartwheels knowing that her best friend Aditi would be coming from Mumbai for the weekend. And the fact that they will inevitably go to their favourite shady shade- Oly Pub, and have the juiciest red meat ever made, ever. “Ahhh!”, Piu snapped out of her ‘Walter Mitty’ mode as her shoulders collided with that of another stranger.

Usually given her fiery tempestuous nature, she would start Feminism 101 classes as she will inevitably presume that her good looks attract people to brush against her. However, she was running late and the bespectacled pot-bellied and ‘looking lost’ young gentleman was shocked out of his wits. He profusely apologised by folding his hands and watching out for ‘knights in shining armour’ to join in in the prospective verbal duel. The pedestrian ‘knights’, the auto-rickshaw ‘knights’ and the ‘aunty’ knights skipped a step, pressed the brakes and wrinkled their foreheads respectively. Piu stopped short of rage and surprising herself, leaked a smile. The ‘knights’ carried on. He smiled back, and extended his hands to shake Piu’s. Piu’s soft hands felt like cotton in his. And his palm-embrace seemed comforting to her; strangely. “What swag”, Piu thought.

The ‘would-be bhadrolok’ gently enquired about the whereabouts of the famous ‘Rabindra sweetshop’ to her. She pointed across the road where it was located and waltzed past him. She had an air of nervous excitement around her. A fleeting emotion she could not understand, nor did she try to. She felt a strange sense of affinity for this ‘lost-in-time-for-ever’ guy. How unconventionally pot-bellied. Must be one of those intellectual poet-types.

Piu finally made it to the end of the taxi-stand where her cab picks her up. To her relief, her cab-driver was in the ‘glance’ stage when she jerked open the handle of the cab. Whoooosh.

The loud speakers at the junction started playing the next song of Tagore. Something about life. And its’ myriad hues.

Let go of the love that is never to come
Let go of the hate that you have become
Let go of the elixir you seek
Let go of the poison that make you weak

Let go of the memories that keep you low
Let go of the thoughts that drive you slow
Let go of the words that stab and kill
Let go of the voices that steal

Let go of the war you always wage
Let go of the peace that gets you caged
Let go of the buzz that hovers around
Let go of the silence that confounds

Let go of the feeling of letting it go
Let it go, let it go, let it go

What does it mean to be a Hindu?

This was one of the questions lingering in my mind as I set off for a 15-day Interfaith yatra organized by FURHHDL (For the Universal Responsibility of His Holiness Dalai Lama). This organization works to promote interfaith harmony and exchanges. This yatra was one such initiative for the cause.

On the very first day, we met Mehmood, a corporate professional who also doubles up as a teacher of Islamic concepts and teachings. He stressed how it was very important for the Muslims to come for namaaz. Nothwithstanding what you are doing and where you are, once the azaan is called, Muslims rush to the mosque for namaaz. What struck me in this particular religious exercise was that how it was afterall more social than religious. Such religious gathering not only promoted a bit of spirituality in every attendant of the mosque, but also promoted brotherhood and familiarity among the fellow Muslims. The same can be told for the Christians visiting the Friday mass or the Sikhs visiting the Gurudwaras. What about the Hindus!? Well, we visit it mostly for a puja, and social interactions are not always common in the temples.

When at Krishnamurthy foundation, one of the teachers asked a Buddhist monk to start a session with a prayer, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the prayer he chose quite randomly was well known not only to his fellow monks and nuns, but also to the other Tibetian college-students who were part of the group. And how reverently they sang it! Slowly it became a kind of ritual in our trip. We often used to sing the prayers before the meals.

A few days later while having lunch in a Jain ashram, our group leader Thupten asked if I could start off one of the meal with a short prayer. I was taken aback and promptly expressed ignorance of any such prayer! Did I even know a prayer completely? Or even if I knew, will any of my fellow Hindus know the same prayer to join in? Probably not. What about the prayers I learnt in school? Well, forgotten for the most part and anyways it only stroked school memories and not any iota of spirituality as I never explored their meanings. I wondered for a billion Hindus residing in our planet, what connects us all?

We saw Sikh children as young as four year olds attending summer camp to learn about their religion and Guru Granth Sahib. The Muslim children have summer camps as well as after-school centers where they are given the wisdom of Koran. My Christian friends can sing tons of hymns and prayers celebrating Christ and they have been doing so since childhood. But what about me? Or the countless fellow Hindus whom I have grown up with. We may not be able to quote a line from Gita, let alone singing hyms in praise of God!

Hindus have probably had one of the richest spiritual heritage; hidden in the Vedas, Upanishads and the multitude of other sacred books and epics. To be fair and honest, many diverse faiths, religion and culture have gestated in these wisdoms. And how proud we are in our culture, mytholgy and sacred texts!  But we need to slowly move beyond such cursory tributes to our ancient wisdom and start bringing those ‘hidden’ wisdom to the main fold. And this does not mean running to the next ‘baba’ or ‘guru’ for a day of being preached at, but to take the ownership of finding the ancient knowledge on our own volition. As the famous philosopher J.Krishnamurty said ‘Truth is a pathless land’ and given the infinite scale of wisdom we inherit, we must tread it on our own.

‘Mani‘, a  Bengali common noun which is generally referred to the maternal aunt. For me it is more than just a noun identifying my eldest maternal aunt, it meant a world beyond that.

It was a humid day in the summer of 1995. A phone-call 15 minutes back had just announced  the arrival of ‘Mani‘ at our house. Ecstatic and overjoyed, a smile remained etched on my face in anticipation. My mother shouted from the kitchen for me to go and have my bath. Usually such shouts required regular follow-ups at five minute intervals so that I do go for my bath on time. But today was a different day. In no time, I was in and out of the bathroom all ready for her arrival. The smile still etched on my face.

It was exciting time for my mother too as I could see her making the choicest of delicacies with all the love and care. Even she gave pace to her daily chores in anticipation on such days.

And then just around afternoon, the door-bell rang. My father had a penchant for the harshest sounding door-bell justifying the need to be alert and responsive when someone’s at the door. But today, it sounded like ‘nolen-gurer rosogulla’ (a typical jaggery flavoured rasgulla found in Bengal) being squeezed hard to let all its syrup flow down my ear. I knew it was the arrival of the phenomena- ‘Mani’. I flung from my bed and with a sprint that will make Olympic athletes ashamed, I caught the door-handle. And then after a momentary pause allowing all the excitement to sink in and prolonging the climax willingly, I finally opened the door. Mani, with a bag full of goodies in one hand and office-purse in the other, was standing with the most charming smile. Ecstasy.

I find that much of my childhood memory is dominated by ‘Mani‘ and ‘Manir bari’ (Mani’s house). She represented an abundance of love and joy. Similar excitement (maybe a bit more) was shared when our families met at Manir bari on various occasions. For me, her house was the temple of joy and happiness. A place where everyone was welcomed with a smile and was offered the best of hospitality. Obviously she wasn’t alone there; she had three charming daughters and a husband with the temperament of a dove- peaceful, calm and reassuring. Not to forget, the couple’s exquisite culinary skills were like a frosting in the cake.

Sometimes I wonder how much of my adulthood is going to be shaped by such pillars of love in my childhood. M.Scott Peck in his much acclaimed book ‘The Road Less Travelled’ indicates how important the love of parents and family is, for the psychological growth of a child. I probably belonged to the generation of children when the families started transitioning from living together to their nuclear existence. So it still gave a chance to be connected to our myriad aunts, uncles and cousins. Most importantly, the feeling of familial bond and love did not cease altogether. But I am afraid with the next generation of children, the signs are already grim. With fast-paced lives of the parents, children have only the company of technology and a few scant friends. Such ‘Manis‘ remain only in stories and once-in-a-lifetime visits. Either the connection is never formed, or is snapped owing to distance and lack of time.

I wonder how incomplete the life of my children will be if they do not get someone like ‘Mani‘. Each one of us must be having one such ‘Mani‘ in our life. The onus is on us to be one such ‘Mani‘ in the life of others. A Mani who can generate joy and happiness within the deepest recess of a child’s heart. A Mani whose love and care  touches the human soul. A Mani with whom one can feel a divine connect. As they say, love alone can change the world. And children are nothing but wet clay who should only be shaped by the hands of love.