Adorable Anomalies (of Nature)

 

There is an amazing charm in even the anomalies of Nature, just as there is a cuteness in even the mischiefs of little children. Here, the hibiscus plant which bears only flowers of orange hue has brought forth a red flower today. This was the same plant that gave us a dual-toned flower of red and orange hues! 💗

Just A Speck of Stardust

Lying in the warm red tiles of the terrace, watching all that glittering grandeur in front of my eyes, up above in the sky, I am feeling a strange, humbling sensation in my mind now.

Limited by the human form, I am peering at just a segment of the wide vast Universe. Within this small fragment of the boundless sky, countless stars, unseen cosmic objects and familiar planets are all swirling around at unimaginable speeds and farthest distances. Before all this vastness, I am feeling like a puny mite, not even as big as a speck of dust.

These cosmic objects have been coexisting with this planet of ours for billions of years. My ancestors from millennia ago have all come and gone, leading their lives under the watchful eyes of these celestial observers. In the years ahead, the generations after me will also come into existence to live under this same grand firmament, but not forever.

Within this tiny blip of our lives in the great stretch of Time, how many funny games do we play, how transient are our dreamy pursuits! Even the oldest of humans does not get to live for more than a 100+ years and even that is enough to cause neither a trough nor a peak in the Timeline of this Universe. Within the fleeting tales of our lives, the active, sentient and sensible portions form may be forty years or so at best, if you leave out all those years of childhood and senility.

Within so tiny a period, we cram all our desires. Money, possessions, properties, gadgets, drugs, addictions, sex, relationships, you name the silliest of games and we humans always find ourselves running behind one or the other of those 'goals', while all that is really needed for a peaceful life is nothing much of any of these.

All that we hold dear today will not come with us forever. And, all those that hold us dear today, will not have us forever either. All that we have is the Here and the Now.

I could do nothing more than feel my eyes well up with tears of gratitude. Not for any fictional god that 'created' this Universe, but just to the whole of Existence, simply for my being alive in the Here and the Now. I feel my ego trampled and myself humbled, but at the same time there is something within me that feels a strange Oneness with all that starry splendor in front of me. I feel more grateful than ever before. I feel more alive than I have ever felt before! 💗

Book Review - The Clothing of Books, Jhumpa Lahiri

A few years ago, I was at an art gallery on a late summer afternoon. Most of the paintings there were on sale and one of them really caught my eye. It was a charcoal caricature of a bearded man, standing naked. At first sight I thought, 'Well, here's something that I can reproduce very easily'. But what got my attention was the price tag. That simple drawing was priced at a hefty rupees fourteen lakhs. Yes! That simple charcoal scribble on cold-pressed cartridge paper was adorned by a tag of Rs.14 lakhs! Curious, I looked for the artist's name. It was none other than M.F.Hussain, a man who won more notoriety than fame with his 'nudes'.

Coming back to the painting, I am sure all of us would agree that the price was more for the name of the artist than for any aesthetic value of that drawing. While MFH would have produced truly worthy works of art, oftentimes, even a simple doodle scribbled by such eminent artists on a piece of paper napkin tends to fetch lavish accolades.

This book, er... booklet by Jhumpa Lahiri is a classic example of publishers cashing in on the prevailing popularity of the creators. Bluntly put, it is called as 'making hay while the Sun shines' in lay terms. 

This booklet is nothing but the print version of a keynote lecture delivered by Ms.Lahiri for a literary foundation. At 72 pages, this feels more like a few blog posts cobbled together, inside a decent looking hardcover package to give it a semblance of a book. For, if this were to be published as paperback, it would resemble a product brochure or at best a political pamphlet. It’s truly disappointing to see such crass commercialization on the part of the publishers, and of course, the author too.

Having said that, I need to admit that the contents of the book don't disappoint completely though. It is the second non-fiction work by Jhumpa Lahiri and just like the first one, this is a different kind of attempt, a niche book as the author herself calls it.

The author talks about the role and relationship of a cover to the book, and does so in her usual eloquent style. From discussing about how a cover could lure a prospective reader to fetch a book, to the aesthetic and commercial value addition of a cover to the book, to her indulgences with regard to the covers of her own books, Jhumpa deals with all that one could think about book covers. Also, it seems that she has continued with her experiment of writing in Italian and translating it into English. A commendable effort I would say. 

A little redundant but of usual eloquence, this book will make for a light read, and a very light read at that. Hardly 72 pages of spacious text, this can be finished in one sitting. As for me, I found this to be a delectable dessert, having just suffered the intellectual indigestion caused by reading Søren Kierkegaard's 'Fear and Trembling'.

Read it if you must. Else you can skip it with the satisfaction of not having fallen into the commercialization traps of the wily publishers.

Benign Ghosts, Vengeful Humans

We grown-ups have all left behind so many things from our childhood days as we grew up - long summer holidays, friends and cousins, games, toys, joyful banters, endless chitchat, birthday presents, festivities, new dresses, friendships, cute crushes, little fights and so on. Given a chance, none of us would hesitate to pluck them from the memories and feel them again for real. I would like to bring something into the present from those bygone halcyon days too.

How nice it would be to feel the fear of ghosts and demons again! Hiding behind closed doors, locked inside closets, waiting inside the bathrooms during late nights, ready to attack us as we enter those dark gardens and deserted yards, the demons and ghosts were the real frighteners.

We would have all had our own ways to fight those demons. Some of us would have loudly chanted some god's name; some others would have mumbled some 'slohams' beneath the breath; some of us would have clutched a piece of iron or a nail to ward off all that evil; and, some others would have wielded the broomstick or sandals as mighty weapons. If none of them gave us strength, we could always resort to the protection of our mothers that were courageous enough to help us visit the loo during late nights and wait till we finished our 'business', braving all the cold and attack of the demons in the meantime.

These days though, the dead don't scare me much anymore. For a change, it is those human beings alive that give me the jitters. Having donned the garb of flesh, so many evil ghosts walk among us. Beneath all those fleshy exteriors, these ghosts hide all their stupidity, ego, dishonesty, deceit, hypocrisy, moral corruptions, mental decay, morbid mindsets and much more.

Unlike those old ghosts, the living dead cannot be warded off by any mantras or 'slohams'. Nails don't scare them and sandals definitely don't pass muster. Even the protection of our mothers seem to be of little use in fighting these evil 'devils' that walk as men and women in our middle.

The old ghosts from our childhood seem far more benign and guileless when compared with the ghosts that haunt us adults. Is it a wonder then that I wish to be remain afraid of those childhood demons of the darkness and closed doors, instead of putting up a brave face in front of these far more vengeful devils in human forms?!

Garden & the Cosmos 💗

After waking up this morning, I cleaned the front yard as usual and went on to check my garden for the effects of the pre-dawn rains. The drenched earth felt soft and cool beneath the feet. The tender, small plants were all looking like freshly bathed little kids - clean and happy. The bigger plants and trees were all exuding a glimmer, their limbs soaked in the rain and droopy, as if they were standing in obeisance to that great nourisher of life called Rain.

The millipedes were out for the hunt. In a corner, I saw a couple of them going through the process of bringing their progeny into the world. In another area, a butterfly had laid its eggs neatly beneath the leaves of a flowering plant. Flies were mating. Some buds had started showing up. A few tender blossoms had lost their battle with the rain and had been ignominiously thrown on the ground. Lot of teeny-weeny green spouts raised their heads from inside the wet earth - some of them seeds, most of them weeds.

Amidst all this creation and chaos, something stood up. The rain lilies had bloomed, those white little bulbous ones. And, there was a crowd of tiny-winged suitors all around them. Curious, I went up close and the sight I saw was indeed one of bliss. It was yet another act of creation.

I am sure all of us would have studied about pollination in our childhood. But today, almost three decades after I first got introduced to the concept, I witnessed it in practice. The little suitors had all chosen the brightest and prettiest bulb and were busy seeking her 'favours'. What caught my eyes was how it became a mutually beneficial act of creation and life. The little bugs had received whatever little honey, or other nourishment, she could offer. And she was exploiting their infatuation by sending her 'missives' to her prospective suitors, by sticking her own pollen to the bugs' bodies and legs. It was an act of creation and an example for symbiosis in Nature.

My first reaction, on being witness to this small example of that grand process of Creation that keeps happening all around us, all the time, was one of overwhelming gratitude and piety. I fell on my knees with immense happiness and bliss, and kept watching it for a while. If a small drizzle overnight could spark creation of such wide variety in the small patch of my garden, just imagine the case of this vast wide Universe! The mighty Sun that shines by the process of minuscule atoms, all those stars that are similar to the Sun, the wombs giving birth, eggs and sperm, seeds holding mighty trees, tiny gently shoots, little blossoms that seem to carry the whole tricky blueprint of their species' evolution, isn't that all quite overwhelming to even think about?!

For an assiduous and humble gardener, the little patch of garden may be his whole world. But for a spiritual seeker, that little garden can become the whole Universe. A microcosmic sample of the mighty big powers around us! 💓

Sunrise

When I asked for the usual room in the farthest corner of the top floor, the receptionist at the hotel gave me a strange look. Would he have understood if I had told him about how much I love that room for lending me an enchanting view of the sky?!

From the magical dawns to the melancholic dusks, from having the sunlight flood the room in abundance to falling asleep watching the stars wake up in the skies, would he have understood all those blissful passions of mine?! 💓😊

Book Review – Baat Niklegi Toh Phir, Sathya Saran

The year was 1999. It was a rainy day and a teenager in his final year of college - and also in teens - was watching M-TV. The song being played was ‘Hosh walon ko kabar kya’ from the movie ‘Sarfarosh’. There was some deep magic in the voice of that singer. Mesmerized by it, and driven by the trademark impulsiveness of youth, the teenager headed out in the pouring rain to buy the audio cassette of that movie. Impatient to wait till returning home, he stopped at the auto stand on the way and asked a friend of his there to help him listen to that song once. Little would have that teenager imagined then that the same voice would heal his heart, soothe his soul, protect him from the real world around after half-a-decade, when unfulfilled Love - that inevitable bane of youth – would rip his heart into shreds. The teenager was, of course, me and the owner of that magical voice was none other than the great Jagjit Singh!

Jagjit Singh – show me a man who loves ghazals but hasn’t heard of this name and I would show you the eighth wonder of the world. A name that has become synonymous with ghazals in India, Jagjit sahib rules the hearts of millions of his fans, even many years after his sudden demise.

In life, I have quite a lot of regrets, but there are very few that I would carry to the pyre. Not having listened to this great exponent of the ghazal genre performing ‘live’ is definitely on top of that little list. The only time when we were both in the same city, I was too lazy to cross the vast expanse in that intense Sunday evening traffic. I convinced myself saying that I would listen to him during his next visit here. Little did I know then that it was never to happen. A few months later, he passed away, suddenly and as a shocker to millions of his fans. Today his voice is a permanent thing in my music player, protecting me still from the realities of this human life, soothing my wounds and helping me put to rest some old demons that come haunting often.

About the book, have you seen how fans of movie stars and celebrities make all the efforts to get in proximity with their favorite stars - to see them from close quarters, to touch them and check whether they are real or made of shiny stardust? This book gives you one such experience taking you up close to the gentle giant called Jagjit Singh. This biography is so far the biggest tribute to this great singer. Smooth, flowing and gentle like the man himself, the book maps the journey of his life from his humble beginning to the calm end that took him away from us all in 2011. Reading about the amount of struggle that Jagjit sahib went through makes me wonder as to why should this book not be added to the self-improvement genre too! Running from pillar to post seeking a chance to sing in the movies, traveling without ticket in the trains, depending on the generosity of others for even food and shelter – this great man had gone through it all before attaining a stardom that he very much deserved.

The book also traces his married life with Chitra Singh, another star in the Indian ghazal scene, their companionship both in front of the mike and away from it, the unfortunate loss of their son Vivek to a fatal accident and their different ways of coping with that loss. One unfortunate thing is that after reading through some statements of Chitra Singh, I felt my respect for her fall a couple of notches. She may have been a great singer, but some of her behaviors and statements make her appear a very ordinary woman with jealousy, nagging and mundane ideas. Jagjit sahib, on the contrary though, has gained an even higher place in my heart. Not just because he was a great singer, but he was also a generous philanthropist, never denying assistance to those that came to him in need.
 

There is one amusing quality attributed to da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’. It is said that she reflects the mood of the viewer – if you are sad, she will seem sad, and if you are happy, she will appear happy too. I haven’t tested that theory seriously yet, but I have felt that strange quality in the voice of Jagjit sahib. If you listen to him with pain in your heart, the heavy bass voice will not only accentuate that pain but end up wringing tears out of you. Be happy and that gifted voice can raise you even further. The man was sheer magic.

In his magnum opus ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’, Viktor Frankl mentions art as one of the ways in which a man can create meaning for his life. Jagjit sahib has created profound meaning for his life by single-handedly reviving the dying art of ghazal, making it accessible and understandable to the public, without reducing its qualities in any way whatsoever for the sake of commercialization and popularization. If many uninformed music lovers like me developed a liking for the elevated genre like ghazal, it was definitely due to this one man and the history will stand testimony to that.

Feeling bad that I could give only five stars to this book. A classic that any Jagjit fan worth his salt should read and own! ❤️