341 Monday musings: As the butterfly mourns

341 Monday musings: As the butterfly mourns

The butterfly was forlorn as she looked around. She was to go her usual garden visits tomorrow again, the last few times she would go there this season, for spring was coming to an end - and she was dreading the prospect of it. She has been visiting gardens all her life. She had come to know every tree, every shrub and every flower in the gardens she had been visiting. The trees, shrubs and the flowers knew her back. Knowing takes effort, she realised. Knowing deeply takes deeper efforts. It is easy to be carried away by the pretence of knowing. You could just scratch the surface and delude yourself that you know the other. The butterfly had come to know of such charades in her short life. As she flew past all the known flowers once again she could breathe the familiarity in the air – that familiarity which makes the onus of such flights easy. Today was different. There was more dread than joy in her wings. She knew all this familiarity was coming to an end – for the next spring will bring new blooms, new fragrance, may be better, but still not the old. The prospect of better is not half as good as the familiar.

The butterfly would hop from one flower to the next going through romanticism of her companionship and the exhilaration of creating the nectar of love between the two. What could be more sweet in the world than this routine. She thought of herself as the luckiest. It was years the butterfly going through these motions whose end result was always sweet. She wondered if the process itself was becoming jaded even though the nectar at the result of it still remained sweet. She thought to herself how things changed. It was not long ago when the outcome was more important to her – she would fret and fume if the nectar at the end of the day did not measure up to her expectations. The new gardens and new flowers and new flights almost paled into insignificance in comparison to the promise of the nectar. Here she was after all those years wondering if the nectar was indeed as important as she had always thought or were the gardens and the flowers and her flights even more important. The burden of her ambivalence on this remained heavy on her soul.

The flowers still bloomed and the nectar still happened and the garden still swayed in the morning breeze. The seasons changed and every time new flowers bloomed as they were destined to and old ones withered away when their time was up. She was used to this or least she thought so. Earlier she would not even notice it. She took it in her stride because she thought that was how it has always been and that is how it will always be. There is great comfort in our ability to explain things saying that ‘it has always been like that’ - as if the pain and anguish will go away just because we can give the pain a name, a description. This morning she knew she was beginning to recognise that the withering of the flowers and the changing of the season was not something she was able to ignore anymore without a tiny voice mourning for it. Mourning was new to her. No one had taught her to mourn.

Today when she had left home she knew she had to sit on many flowers to make the day worth the flight. Nothing was new - flowers were not new, neither was the garden, nor was the flight, neither the fact that this spring was coming to an end -but the feeling was. She could not place her finger on what that feeling was but she knew it for the way she felt it. The feeling rose through her heart, choked her and dragged the strength from her wings. She was dreading her flight because yet again she would go through the muddle of her feelings without recognising them and she had not yet developed the large heartedness to deal with a feeling she could not name. She knew from experience that naming the pain is the first step to dealing with it. It was always those feelings which cannot be ascertained and named properly which traumatises the most and longest. It did not matter if the name was wrong or the identification of that strand of feeling accurate – it just had to have a name. She had to name it even if she got the name wrong.

The butterfly flew past the gardens, sat on the flowers and went about doing what she was doing. The spring had one day less to its life. The butterfly knew it. The spring knew it. The flower knew it. They all pretended that spring will never end. No one had
told them that pretences that are shouldered to keep the painful hidden and away often pains the most.

340 Monday Musings: 'Love in the time of Cholera' - A balm for the matters of heart

340 Monday Musings: 'Love in the time of Cholera' - A balm for the matters of heart

One reads a book only when one becomes deserving of it. One has to become deserving to absorb its infinite meanings, layers and implications; to have the privilege of shouldering the burden of understanding the soul of a book. I had picked up a copy of ‘Love at the time of cholera’ by the venerable Gabriel Garcia Marquez (GGM) many years ago and could not read it – now in hindsight knowing perhaps that i did not deserve to read it then. Someone gifted the book to me recently and this time i had the pleasure of finishing it – hopefully having deserved to read it.

I cannot thank my benefactor enough for the beautiful gift. This has been a balm for the bruises of the soul – some of which i was aware of and many more i never knew were not yet healed.

Here are the ones which touched me the most – hopefully you will find them meaningful to you too. This appears to be a treatise on the matters of the heart and love.

1. I will have plenty of time to rest when I die, but this eventuality is not yet part of my plans
2. There is bound to be someone driven mad by love who will give you the chance of these days (to see the effects of cyanide led suicide as a doctor)...and when you find one, observe with care – they always have crystals in their heart
3. It is always easier to bear other peoples pain than your own
4. Each man is master of his own death, and all that we can do when the time comes is to help him die without the fear of pain
5. It is easier to avoid great matrimonial catastrophes than trivial every day miseries.
6. If they had learned anything together, it was that wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.
7. The people one loves should take all their things with them when they die.
8. But his examination revealed that he had no fever, no pain anywhere and that his only concrete feeling was an urgent desire to die. All that was needed was shrewd questioning to conclude once again, that the symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera.
9. Take advantage of it now (the sufferings of love), while you are young and suffer all you can – because these things don’t last your whole life.
10. Curiosity (about every small detail about a person) is one of the many masks of love.
11. HE was still too young to know that the hearts memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past.
12. Then his journey seemed yet another proof of his mother’s wisdom and he felt that he had the fortitude to endure forgetting.
13. Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves
14. No, I am not rich. I am just a poor man with lots of money. They are not the same thing.
15. There was no one with more common sense, no stonecutter more obstinate, and no manager with more lucid or dangerous than a poet.
16. ..And only then did he understand that a man realises that he is growing old, when he starts to look like his father.
17. And then he wiped him from his memory, because among other things his profession had accustomed him to the ethical management of forgetfulness.
18. That may be the reason why he does so many things, so that he will not have to think.
19. At the age of forty, all in life we need is someone who understands us.
20. Death has no sense of the ridiculous
21. Someone should invent something to do with the things you cannot use anymore but that you still cannot throw out. She was dismayed by the voracity with which objects kept invading livings spaces displacing the humans, forcing them back into the corners and then out of sight.
22. I do not believe in God but in am afraid of him.
23. After all letters belong to the person who writes them (and not the person who receives them). That is why they are the first things returned when an affair is ended.
24. It was as if they had leapt over the arduous Calvary of conjugal life and gone straight to the heart of love.

25. The only regret I will have in dying is not dying for love.

Guru

339 Monday Musings: The Mountain, Rockslides and the Climb

339 Monday Musings: The Mountain, Rockslides and the Climb

He stared at the mountains partly in awe and partly in fear. They stood there imposing their presence to everyone who dared to look at them, not caring for the emperor or the pauper – for they were drunk with arrogance of their steep slopes. The mountains knew that being the emperor or the pauper made no difference to its climb – both would have to make the arduous journey. The difference amongst the status of the climbers was pertinent only to the world out there. He chuckled as he realized this for he had given so much credence to his ambition of being an emperor one day – but that was before he stared at this mountain.

As he grew up he had looked at all the kings and queens of kingdoms small and large and experienced a tinge of envy at some time or the other, wanting to wear their robes, their crowns, and their regalia and be treated with similar sense of veneration by all and one. As he stared at the mountains he was amused at this naivety all those years – for it dawned upon him that in front of these mountains the difference between the courtier and the emperor was meaningless, almost laughable. He shrugged the philosophy and smiled at this own stupidity – right now he did not need philosophy; he needed the strength in his limbs, air in his lungs and courage in his heart. The mountain was imposing.

As he started to walk the partially visible trail up, left behind by the climbers before him he realized he could not rely on the trail alone. Grass had grown around the trail and rocks had fallen over time, making the old trail partially invisible and unreliable. He realized he had to create his own trail up. Mountain slopes can be very treacherous. The slopes change. They change their contours and curves. Old footholds become slippery and new footholds emerge, if only one has the keen eye to find them and the courage to test them for firmness and grip. He had to remind himself constantly that this climb was his climb and not someone else’s. The trails would also have to be his. The thought scared him.

As he kept moving, the sun kept playing hide and seeks with the clouds. In the mountains the sun appeared more flirtatious than it used to appear on the plains. The sun could also be hard on the skin even as the air would be chilly. One could use the momentary shade to comfort the skin. One could also not depend on the sun at all times for its benevolent presence. He would have to climb even when it was dark, pushed by the comfort that it is just a matter of time before the sun would be back. In those moments of darkness the best thing would have been to stay put, rest a while and not try too hard. Waiting patiently is an important part of the climbing. He wondered if he was thinking too much instead of just putting one step forward.

When seen from a distance the peaks were visible constantly to him; he could set his eyes on them and move in that direction. However he realized as he moved up, the peak, the destination would often move out of his sight. It would peep out only once in a while as a reminder as to why was he here. Mostly it was only the next curve, the next ledge, the next boulder that had to be crossed. In a lot of ways the top was irrelevant. The next boulder was. He focused on that as he caught his breath.

He was not unaccustomed to climbing mountains. He had done it before. He could feel his excitement returning from the previous climb but he could also feel his fears returning. He remembered his conversation with the villager in the last habitat before the climb. This mountain was notorious for rockslides. Every mountain has its own tantrums. Some known for steepness, some for slipperiness, and some for no trails - this one was known for rockslides. The villager had told him to be cautious. Look for tell tale signs of an impending rockslide. He had asked him to keep looking for loose rocks, too many small pieces ahead, look for falling pieces of stones, however small. If the small ones are there, the big ones would come soon – that according to the villager was the nature of the rockslides.

“What should I do if I am caught in a rockslide?’ he had asked the villager who looked as someone who had survived many rockslides. The response still rang in his ears. “Once a few rocks start to fall, they have made a way. Once a few have made their way, others will follow. That is the nature of rocks. So if you are caught in a rockslide, there is a rule in the mountains. MOVE. Either retrace your steps or move forward. Never stand still.”

Guru

338 Monday Musings: The Bird and the Good Bye

Monday Musings: The Bird and the Good Bye

The heart broke to a million pieces as it bade the Good Bye.

The little bird sat on the perch of the nest high up on the tree and looked down with trepidation. The abyss down below looked menacing. It was that moment when she had to flap her wings and fly away. Her companions in the nest looked at her in the eyes, partly with pride and partly with longingness as she prepared for her swoop down. This was the point where she would leave the warmth of the nest, what was home all this while. Flying away to a new destination what she was supposed to do; it was the way nature had ordered things to be. It was inevitable. Everyone knew it. They wanted to be happy for her and she in turn wanted to be happy, for this is what she always wanted – to fly.

In that moment however, a million explosions inside her blew in unision. It was not the fear of the skies, it was not the fear of falling, it was not the fear of not being able to flap the wings when it would be needed. It was the fear of leaving. It was not that she had never left a nest before, but this time it was different. She was daunted with a thousand thoughts. Will she be able to build another nest, will she be able to build another flock, will she be able to deal with all this and still be able to flap the wings strongly enough and continue with the business of flying with a heart heavy with the mourning of separation? This business of building a nest and leaving never occurred to her as right even though she knew it was the way things were and things will be. Why should it be like this – she questioned but got no answers. Actually she knew the answer she refused to believe in at that moment – ‘’it is the price of flying, the price of living’’

A part of her cursed herself for forging the warmth that she had created. She wondered if this separation would have been easier if only she would have been alone, aloof and unattached. Damn, I wont do it ever again, she swore to herself – if flying off is how it is supposed to be, let me keep flying and never bother with having a nest of companions ever again. Her mind was playing games with her at her biggest moment. Have I taken the right decision? Could I not have stayed in this nest longer at least if not forever? Could my companions in the nest not have me, and me them a little longer if not forever? What is the point in flying if the flying comes at a cost of flying away?

Looking into the eyes of everyone in the nest at that moment was becoming a torment. They wanted to be happy for her but something in their eyes betrayed the weight they were carrying. She was heavy with the burden of portraying happiness and confidence. She could not betray the wailing of her heart though. It was not expected of her. She knew if she went weak today, many more would hesitate when their time comes. She bore the cross of leading, of having to be an example. She hated it all the more.

As she stood on the perch on the cusp of a new journey she realised that each in the nest had made her life complete in a very different way. Her completeness was a result of all the colours that each one of the companions in the nest had added. She could talk to a few endlessly and mostly without a reason, others she talked with without the need for talking. A few of them were were nourishers and few of them sought nourishment from her and even in that act of receiving, they made HER complete. ‘Will anyone after this ever receive from her the way these received – with all their heart’ – she cried in anguish. A few on the nest were just companions with whom she did things, confident that they were there and if a fig here and a fig there was out of place, they would pitch in. She wondered if she would be this complete ever. She mourned at the thought.

So here she was, with all this rumbling in her heart as she stood on the edge of the nest and fly. Her heart broke to a million pieces as she bade the Good Bye.

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337 Monday Musings: Between the Stoic and The Sponge

Monday Musings: Between the Stoic and The Sponge

He was not too unaccustomed to separation or the small lump in the throat that emerges out of it. Those who have lived sufficiently long enough and seen reasonable life, find many ways to deal with this pain. He knew two types. The first were the Stoics – those who could deal with such pain or at least put a brave face to it; second were the Sponges – those who absorbed the enormity of the emotion deeply and completely. All his life he wondered which of the two was he.

Some mysteries remained so. Lives oscillate between what is and what could be and between what we are and what we want to be.

Stoics are better he thought – at least there appears a calm around them. They seem to be able to be above human agony. Moving away from people in whom you have invested your most vital part – your time can be a huge sense of let-down. An investor who has lost money on an asset becomes a recluse on all investing. It’s not that only that particular investment has gone wrong; in a way it’s the act of investing itself which has gone wrong. The investors disillusionment is understandable.

He wondered how the stoics could overcome this. He had ended up becoming part cynic and part admirer about the stoics – cynic because he was growing to believe they were fakes and admirer because he knew in his heart, he wanted to be like them. As a child he was in awe of the strength of parents, intelligence of teachers and the aura of importance most elders carried with themselves – he grew up to know that all were facades in most cases and fakes in some. There was a part of him that believed that stoics were like that – it was just a matter of time when he would discover their façade or fakeness.

Yet in other moments he liked the sponges more than the stoics. He marvelled at the magnanimity with which sponges absorbed everything that came their way – sometimes to the extent that the sponges acquired the nature of what it was absorbing. Those who absorbed longing and ache of the heart started to look like that anguish; ‘’But at least they are authentic’’ he counter argued. He knew that the sponges live all emotions naturally.

He was in awe of the sponges too. He knew that sponges allow experiences to enter every pore, every sinew every part of their being. He was envious of the sponges because he felt that they know the unbridled joy of being in love, the sharp hurt in the middle of the chest when heart breaks, the dark abyss of hopelessness that stares you when a separation in impending, the sleeplessness that comes calling, the absolute loss of zing from the act of living even when practically everything is intact. The sponges knew all of it because they do not run away from feeling anything. They are allowing life to happen to them as purely in agony as much in happiness.
He was arguing on both sides. He did not know if he was a stoic or a sponge. He oscillated like the pendulum.

The pendulum however is its own prisoner. It is important for the pendulum to realise that, while it is its ambition to stretch from one extreme to other, while it must stretch its hands farthest to grab something that lies just a shade beyond where its reach ends – it is its destiny to be pulled back to the opposite end just as strongly; it must now try to stretch as frantically in the opposite end.

The pendulum must realise that its destiny is swinging from one extreme to another – not in trying to touch the extremes. His question though remained unanswered: when the pendulum will realise this and its heartbreak, will it deal with it like a stoic or like a sponge??

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336 Monday Musings: Hunger was their crime!

Monday Musings: Hunger was their crime!

They knew the hungers that afflicted them just too intimately. After all they carried it with them as they walked towards their end.
The hungry of food suffer many times over. The beginning is always that croak in the stomach. One after the other. With time the croak become feeble because now the hunger has reached the mind. The stomach tired and exhausted, knowing fully too well that its plea have not been heeded to, gives up and call...s upon the mind. Hunger rises up in the mind like a snake uncoils itself. The fangs are bared menacingly. All other thoughts recede. All those who claim the power of the mind and sermonise on human capacity to control thoughts must try to be hungry. They will realise the hollowness of those claims. The mind cannot think of anything else but a few morsels. More than the body, the mind needs the comfort of food. Finally and in some sense the worst part of hunger is that it does not even allow you the comfort of sleep. Food becomes the theatre of the nightmares.

He who was hungry of the stomach walked into that hotel to purge himself of that hunger. He was looking for solace.
The second hunger is the hunger of the soul. Wish he could describe what a soul was as he walked up those stairs. He did not knew his soul – neither did he knew anyone else who knew of it. All he knew was that his life, like everyone else around him, was all about making the ends meet -all kind of ends which resolutely refused to meet. He was no longer sure if the ends were ever supposed to meet. Sometimes he thought to himself if things one day becoming better was yet another story that has been invented so that we do not become crazy. It was morphine that they gave to numb the pain. His hunger was that of hope. Walking up the stairs to this place gave him hope – to carry one. It was a morsel for his soul.
He who was hungry of the soul walked into that church to purge himself of that hunger. He was also looking for solace.
The bombs took them both – and their hunger too. I am not sure if they got time to wonder if it was such a crime to be hungry!
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335 Monday Musings: The father’s Son

Monday Musings: The father’s Son

He was glued to the screen as the ECG monitor showed a straight line. It did not pass his attention that this is the irony of life. All our lives we seek the comfort of straight lines – of continuities and predictabilities, without realising that the straight line is actually the end. His father, lying there had lived a full life.
Nothing prepares us for any kind of mortality, particularly of our parents. We don’t want to think about it – a...nd by avoiding thinking about it we delude ourselves into believing that the scare has gone away. It’s the last test of growing up in a sense which none of us want to appear for.

A week in the hospital is a long time. It is a crash course in the lessons of life. Things start to make more sense; the jigsaw falls into its place. Our egos become more visible. Our concerns reveal themselves to be too petty. As he sat there, he realised, perhaps in more ways than ever, what permanent absence means. Separation was not new to him – this however was a permanent separation.
Loss is a strange companion. It gnaws at your soul constantly even when the task of living must go on. He wondered if he could shoulder this burden.
As he sat alone in his grief and dealt with the question of his own capacity to deal with this burden, he remembered the last lines of his father only a week back when they were moving him to the hospital. ‘’In case something happens to me ensure the grandson gets married next month on schedule as if I am there’’. He realised that the father had dealt with his burden of imminent end with fortitude, grace and wisdom. If nothing, he was his father’s son.
It was difficult to smile for him given the situation. He was sure, however, that the father was smiling.
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