The day I stopped running

Every time they tried to reveal themselves to me, I shut myself off.
I suppose I was too scared - not of them, but of my becoming like them - Powerful.
I was scared of not being able to control my powers and that I would end up becoming a malevolent power.
Am I scared now? Yes. The fear continues to exist. But I know.. the power comes from the center that is good and when the power comes, with it comes its awareness and the appreciation of the responsibility that comes with it.
I still am wary and watchful. But the fears - I have given them off to those who have walked in these paths before me and reached those realms which I now am dreaming of. I ask them to stay with me and guide me. With them around, I have stopped running scared.

The king I met

They say, “We only have what we give away”. If they are right, then I met a king last evening. Only, at the time of our rendezvous, he was in the garb of an attendant at a parking lot where my driver had parked the car, when I went to shop

My driver normally avoids parking lots; I normally try to coax him into using them, insisting that the ten rupees that he saves are not worth the inconvenience he endures and the fuel he wastes moving the car back and forth. Yesterday to my surprise, he readily agreed when I advised him to use the parking space; I attributed his assent to the fact that he was too distracted by the display of twinkling Diwali lights around us to argue with me.

I finished my shopping and was just about to get into my car, but was stopped short by what seemed to be a heated argument between the shopping space attendant and a person who obviously looked like a hawker. With intent to assuage matters, I went over and asked them what the issue was. The parking attendant’s response amazed me.

He said – “The entire pavement has been occupied by hawkers. This man came in just now. The only space left is in the parking area. My fellow attendants are not allowing him to display his wares as they are bothered about the income they would miss out on by letting him block a slot which they could have used for cars. I told them to take money from my share if need be and let this man earn his living. The earth belongs to all and all of us have a right to earn and eat. Who am I to deprive this man of the right?”

When I was a kid, I used to read about great kings and emperors like Harsha and Ashoka who shared, thus becoming immortal, and wondered if such kings still existed. Last night I got the answer.

I am glad I live in an Earth enriched by such great kings as the above three....

Who sculpted the perfectly symmetric and gorgeous monolithic figurines

The stone sculptures still amaze me, as they did, the day I saw them.

I grew up near the hills, in a valley surrounded on the three sides by hills to be more precise.

The hills, if not lofty certainly were mysterious, their mystery enhanced by the story about how gods descended from heavens to earth a couple of thousand years ago, and decided to make the hills their earthly abode.

The day was a fairly good one. We had gone on a class-picnic to one of the many ‘hill resorts’ that abounded the hills. My classmates, my teachers and I had just consumed our lunch. The teachers decided to take a siesta and did so, after ordering us kids to do the same. We students however were too young to be forced by a heavy lunch into a state of sleepiness. The boys got up to play a game of cricket. The girls huddled together, and started playing Chinese whisper. I tried playing with the girls for sometime before getting bored, moving over to the area where the boys were playing and begging them to allow me to play with them. The boys seemed too glad to include me; the only catch was that I had to do the job of a ‘ball fetcher’ for two ‘overs’ before I was allowed to bowl or bat. I hesitated for a couple of seconds as fetching a ball in such hilly terrain as the one I was treading on, would certainly involve some dangerous rock climbing and jumping. The urge to play, however got better of me, and made me agree to the condition

The first over passed off more or less without me having to fetch the ball, as the fielders performed their jobs adeptly, restricting the scoring rate to less than two runs a ball. The batsman managed to get better of the fielders in the penultimate ball of the second over. The ball penetrated the circle of fielders and started running off towards the nearby precipice. I ran after the ball, slipped and almost fell into the precipice myself before stopping the ball’s and my descent in time. The boys who saw me slip came running towards the spot, saw to their relief that I thankfully was unhurt and miraculously had the ball in my hand and shouted out to me to throw the ball, so that the game could resume. Grimacing at their selfishness, I threw the ball back with such a force that I staggered, slipped and went tumbling another ten feet down before regaining my balance and getting back on my two feet.

Feeling disgusted with myself for having tumbled down the way I had, I brushed the dust off my clothes and started climbing up the steep incline. Half-way up, I spotted something that made me stop in my tracks. It was an opening in the nearly sheer wall of the cliff that opened into a cave, which to my amazement was strewn with massive stone sculptures. I abandoned my climb, crawled towards the cave and entered it to have a closer look. The sculptures were those of Hindu gods; they were sculpted to perfection, giving those sculptures a life-life appearance. It was magical; If someone told me that those were gods who had taken stone forms and would get up any time and walk out, I would have believed them. I walked to the mouth of the cave and shouted out to the boys to come and join me in my discovery. A couple courageous ones did and experienced similar wonder as I did, if not more, at those beautiful figures lying there, untouched by human hand. Closer inspection of the cave revealed more wonders; for example, there was a natural fountain that spouted off the head of one of the gods and pooled around the feet of the other.

We stood there marveling for a few minutes till one of the boys started getting jittery about the possible punishment we might have to face if the teachers came to know of our little adventure. Agreeing with the boy, we all climbed back to the level ground where the others were huddled together, casting furtive glances in the direction of the still sleeping teachers.

I walked over to the girls, narrated the findings to them and was all set to take some of the more adventurous of them with me to the cave, when one of the teachers woke up and starting shouting at us for all the noise that disturbed her beauty sleep. Her yelling woke the other teachers, who quickly instructed us to huddle together for a roll-call, which was followed by a snack session after which it was time for us to head back home.

Looking back, I still marvel as to how those statues withstood erosion for centuries under the continuous flow of water. I also wonder who sculpted those figurines and how they managed to carry or move those massive nearly twenty feet long monoliths into that cave. I once mustered up enough courage to ask my mother about those. When I wondered about the sculptor, she replied that he or they most probably were divine and godly beings, who could do anything. My heart says she is right, for it cannot think of any other answer till date.

Past and present

I took a walk at yester dawn

into the world of warriors bygone

The world where might was right

Differences settled in a battle or fight

The world of lovers asunder torn

A death at battle, honor to adorn

Tales of valor from the sad lovelorn

Sung aloud to children unborn

Walked back thoughtfully to present life

Calm and seemingly devoid of strife

Anger calmed and faces serene

Fights too rare, battles unseen

               

                Noticed the bubbling unrest within

                Hearts screaming, patience growing thin

                Coil strung, volcano waiting to erupt

                Against the unjust and the world corrupt

I am not sure how long the truce can hold

When the dams shall break and the coils unfold

I agonize about the impending flare

Inferno of ire, the moment of despair

Magic that we miss

A magician thinks all his magic is just tricks, similar to a trapeze artist who thinks that it is sheer practice and nothing else.

We also have fallen into the habit of dismissing such things through our bounded rationality

There is a small anecdote to elucidate my point.

I had gone on a trip to Shivpuri and was trekking out there with a few friends. I saw a pretty local woman walking around brandishing her stick menacingly. I told her that we were simple trekkers who were not out to harm her. She blushed and said that she was looking for her daughter who ran away after breaking the put and that she did not realize that we were walking around. “Many trekkers come here. For them we are just part of the landscape. They really do not take any notice of us, nor we of them”, she added. Lost in thoughts about how it is normal for us to not take cognizance of things that we are not familiar with, I wished her a good day and walked on.

A few paces ahead, I saw three young girls hiding themselves in a tiny crevice in the wall of the cliff. The crevice was so small that even a small child of four from the plains would be too big for it; but the girls had twisted and compressed their bodies so much that the three of them remained well hidden from normal passersby. I would probably have been oblivious of their presence, had I not heard their whispers and giggles and put two and two together.

I went and asked the girls what they were doing. The eldest of the three tried telling me not to tell their mother that they were there. “We were dancing and did not realize that the pot was kept there”, they added innocently. I smiled and continued my trek.

A few paces down, we came across the river, which we had to cross using the stones that were strewn across its shallow breadth. “Try not stepping into the water, said our guide, “the current is too strong and the mud below too soft. You might get stuck, might fall and break something”.  Aided by our guide, we all started crossing the shallow river, when I saw someone come running from behind. It was one of the girls. She was followed closely by her mother, who seemed to be laughing as she chased the girl down the stones.

I watched them spell bound as they seemed to be flying over the stones. Their feet hardly touched the ground as they jumped over the ledges and stones, reached the river and within moments, crossed it. Their crossing also seemed magical; their feet seemed to bounce off the water, even if they used the stones, they did it so naturally and subtly that It was nearly unperceivable.

I asked my fellow trekkers if they saw what I did and described the whole thing to them. They responded that they were not fools like me to go meddling with local folk where ever I went, they were tired and sore and wanted to go back to the camp for their drink as quickly as they could and were in no mood to watch people running.

This made me wonder – How many times in a day do we in our force of habit miss all the magical events that come across our way? Are we really alive?

Escaping the limits of space and time

Like many who sought immortality and an escape from the bindings of space and time, I also began a quest. As a reasonably rational and scientifically minded person, I decided to do it the methodical way.

Thanks to my decision, I set about trying to understand time and space, the relationship between the two and loopholes if any in the relationship between the two.