I don’t know who lived there but the door of the hut was always open. It was thick and strong. It was made of wood that was old and smooth; in fact you could see the grains on it, over which you felt like running your hand. Sometimes a ladybird would settle on the door and spread its wings in a blur, or often one could see a woodpecker testing her skills on it. When the wind blew, the door flapped loosely and creaked.

The wind came from every direction. Every now and then it would sing through the trees and occasionally it would whistle through the cornfields. At intervals, it came in a rush and then the thatch in the hut would rustle as it filtered the wind. From whichever direction it came, it always seemed to carry the smell of roses from the garden.

I don’t know who looked after the rose garden; but there were roses of every shade and colour. There were pink roses and white roses, and even a yellow one. And there were many more between these shades. The flowers stood out bright in the early afternoon sunshine, opening their petals to the sky. Bees would buzz past them, sucking the honey, now from one and now from another.

The roses were laid out in a neat rectangular patch. The earth in the rose patch was rich, the colour of chocolate. It was always wet with the water that was drawn from the well.

Next to the rose patch were trees of every kind. There were mango trees, Jamun trees, Seesham, and Neem trees, and trees one couldn’t name. Some had large green leaves, and some had leaves that were yellow and small. Some trees were short and some reached for the sky. Some just spread outwards, like the mango tree.

I don’t know who looked after it but the mango tree was always waxy and green. Its great big branches spread out across the back of the hut, and there was shade enough for a dozen men to sit under it. In summer the branches were heavy with mangoes. There were no naughty schoolboys here to pluck them, or knock them off with carefully aimed stones from catapults. Occasionally, a squirrel would shin up the tree and eat a ripe mango, and the seed would then drop with a soft thud onto the ground. Or a bird would tuck into the juicy sides of a mango and leave the rest of the fruit hanging. The birds always knew the best fruits.

I don’t know why but the owner of the hut never plucked the mangoes. Perhaps he had left them for the birds. There were many birds. They lived in the nests on the trees in front of the house. There were large nests, small nests and really tiny nests. These nests were at every level on the tree. There was one on the upper level that was home to a pair of cattle egrets. You saw them only as they left the nests and glided ethereally into the fields below, their heads tucked into their chests and their legs held together neatly, like chopsticks. Below the egrets, lived a pair of parakeets. They had rich plum coloured heads and bluish collars, and bills as orange as a papaya. At the lowest level was a pair of spotted owlets. They would doze all day in the leafy branches but kept a sharp eye on the proceedings below. If you looked up you could see them with their large circular golden eyes looking at you. They could see the entrance and the courtyard of the hut, and if you attempted to approach it, they would hoot you away.

I don’t know who lived there but the courtyard was always spotlessly clean. It was swept with cow dung and because of this the mud had caked into a hard mould. You could see the sweep of the broom on the floor as it ran evenly one way. Ants would often march across the courtyard in long disciplined lines. There were black ants that scurried along quickly and there were red ants that relayed information as they passed each other. I guess they told each other about the location of that last piece of grain at the edge of the courtyard, the one the birds had left behind.

I don’t know who scattered the grains, but there was always some lying on the courtyard for the birds. The birds would fly down from their nests, feed, sing at the entrance to the hut and fly back to their nests. At times you could see their ghostly silhouettes in the moonlight.

The moon would appear directly above the hut and flood it, and the courtyard with her light, turning the mud floor into a bright gold. Some of this light would also get into the hut through the chinks in the thatch. It tempted you to look inside. Inside there was a glow, perhaps the glow of the moonlight, or perhaps…

I know HE lived there but I never saw HIM.

This was first published in the November 2013 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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A great family of Etukaals lives in the corner of the bathroom of Rajah’s house. There’s grandfather Etukaal, with his thin long hairy legs, and Zazen Etukaal, the eldest son and now the head of the family. Next to him on the great wide web, which is their home, are Zazen’s two children, Roshi Etukaal and Dogen Etukaal.

The home of the Etukaal’s is a network of webs that stretches all the way from the top of the ceiling to a point just above the hole where the bath water drains out of the bathroom. It’s built layer upon layer, being widest at the bottom. Each layer is as fine as gossamer, if not finer and almost invisible. You knew it exists only because of the dust that collects on its edges and makes it look dirty brown.
The web had been built originally by Grandpa Etukaal, the family patriarch.

He lives at its centre, at the point where the mellow pool of light falls, and where most of the insects hang, trapped and dead. His son Zazen Etukaal hangs from an intersection of the wall and the asbestos partition, while the two grandsons sit at the edges where it’s most filthy.

Although Grandfather Etukaal isn’t actually the biggest in size in the family, the way his head, body and legs are positioned makes him appear larger than he is. His body and his head are buried deep inside his legs in the manner of a stamen hidden inside its petals. He sits for most of the day in this position. Just thrice during the day he moves, once early in the morning and again late in the afternoon; on both occasions for a walk. And once when he has his lunch. At this time he stretches a thin long leg out and pulls a dead fly that lies trapped in the web in front of him. He contracts and expands several times, all the while eating the fly ever so slowly. When he is done he goes back to his relaxed seating position, the one he has been in all day.

Grandfather Etukaals’ posture and manner is in direct contrast to those of his grandchildren who live at the corners of the web. The heads of both Roshi and Dogen stand high above the layers of the web. Their eyes are always peering over the edge in anticipation of some new ant or fly that sits or walks briefly on the wall or the asbestos partition. When this happens [or even if there is a hint of any movement], the two Etukaals fly across the web and onto the wall, only to discover that it is very often a false alarm. Then they get back to base, but only for a short while, for soon the next coming and going excites them and they are dashing out again.

Noticing their restlessness, Grandpa Etukaal called his grandchildren to him one day.

“Roshi and Dogen” he said, “come here, I have something to give you.”

The two grandchildren flew across the web as soon as they heard their grandpas voice.

“What is it Grandpa?” asked little Roshi who got there first.

“Look what I have got for you,” he said, holding a dead fly for Roshi in one thin long leg.

“And what about me?” asked Dogen.

“Why, here is a piece for you too” said Grandpa to Dogen, holding another dead fly out, “but before I give both of you these delicacies, I would like you to listen to a story. Will you?”

“Why not Grandpa,” they said, “What’s it about?”

“About the art and importance of sitting, looking and waiting.”

“Sitting, looking and waiting Grandpa?”

“Yes.”

“What’s so important about them?”

“Aah! For that you will have to listen to the story first. And sit still for a while,” said Grandpa.

Did Roshi and Dogen have an option? Especially when they knew a choice bit of fly awaited them if they obeyed?

They snuggled up close to Grandpa and waited for him to start.

“Sit still my dear Roshi and Dogen and look carefully” said Grandpa.

“Look at what Grandpa?” chorused the two little ones.

“Look,” said Grandfather Etukaal, “just open your eyes fully and look. Look at every strand of silken web closely and look at the way the sunlight falls upon them.”

The two grandchildren were puzzled by what Grandpa said, especially as they had not done something like this before; yet they obeyed him.

They looked up and saw a ray of sunlight appear through a hole in the asbestos roof. From where they were, the ray appeared like a bright star. It shot through the ceiling and fell on one edge of the web turning it into beautiful strands of silver. Dogen and Roshi watched and even as they did so, the ray swept across the web, inch by inch, turning every part of it silver, in a slow ripple.

“It’s like watching a slow Mexican wave,” shouted Dogen excitedly.

“Yes it is,” echoed Roshi… but what else now Grandpa?” he asked sounding a little bored.

“What else,” said his grandfather, mocking the tone of his grandson. “Look longer, sit here for the next half an hour and look longer and deeper at the strands of web.”

“And?”

“Well just sit still, look and don’t do anything else.”

The two grandsons looked puzzled on hearing granddad Etukaals reply. They had never sat at a place for more than five minutes at a stretch and their legs and minds were itching to move. They couldn’t understand for the life of them what could be got by just sitting still so long and looking.

“It could be very boring just to sit Grandpa,” said Roshi.

“Well has it been boring so long?” asked Grandpa

“Not exactly, but… for longer?” asked Roshi

“Don’t worry, it won’t be boring. In a short while everything will change” said Grandpa, “but remember to look and sit absolutely still.”

The two grandchildren didn’t want to sit a minute longer, but since they had promised Grandpa, they decided to endure this for some more time. They just sat for the next two hours and looked as Grandpa had instructed them to. They saw that the sunlight, which had been silver in the morning, slowly became golden and then mellowed to a soft yellow. Then little patches began to appear on the web; alternating patches of darkness and sunshine. These patches moved in waves across the web like it does when clouds race across a field of rice on a sunny day.

“I told you things would change, soon it’s going to be windy and you won’t be so bored,” said Grandpa Etukaal, sitting motionless at the center of the web.

“How did you know Grandpa?” asked the little Etukaals.

“The web and my body tell me everything.”

“The web and your body? What do you mean?” asked Dogen, puzzled.

“Look at me,” said Grandpa, and Dogen and Roshi looked. Grandpa sat motionless, as he always did. His eyes were wide open, his head and body were still; the body lying buried deep inside in constant contact with the web. The legs protruded upwards and outwards each touching a different part of the web; not a hair on them moved.

“When you make your body still and in contact with the web like me, you can tune into the pulse of nature. Then you begin to sense things around you, which were always there but which you may not have noticed till now. Tell me, did you not notice the sunlight and the way it danced on your web just a few minutes ago?”

The two grandchildren nodded.

“And wasn’t it beautiful?”

Again the grandchildren nodded; they couldn’t disagree as there was truth in it.

“It’s a beauty we never see in all the rush of our daily living, yet it’s there in the simple things around us if only we sit and look long enough. When the sunlight danced across the web a few minutes ago, I knew it was because of the clouds racing overhead; and when there are clouds like that, it means only one thing—strong winds will always follow.”

Even as he spoke the web trembled. The wind began to blow and it lifted the web and dropped it… and lifted it and dropped it again.

“What is going to happen Grandpa?” said the two little Etukaals, with a frightened look on their face.

“Nothing—and trust me you will enjoy it. Come sit next to me” said Grandpa. The two grandchildren snuggled closer to their grandfather. At first the wind blew lightly and the cobweb rippled. Then it blew over the backs of the little Etukaals and moved on. The sun came out for a while and shone brightly on the web. But just when it was beginning to get warm, the little Etukaals felt the wind on their backs again. It was delightful to feel the alternating warmth and the cool of the wind. Nice and warm one moment and cool the next! It played about the Grandchildren’s’ faces and tickled their furry bodies. The little Etukaals enjoyed it.

“What is going to happen next Grandpa?” they asked.

“Just sit, watch and feel everything,” said Grandpa in his sage manner.

The wind blew down, this time in strong gusts. It lifted the web and dropped it. Up and up the two little Etukaals went one moment, and down the next. The little Etukaals had never experienced something like this before; it was like being on a trampoline or a roller coaster. The wind became stronger with every passing minute, and soon the little Etukaals had their hearts in their mouths, while grandpa sat cool as ever. The little Etukaals were so scared that they set their heads against the wind and made a dash to their corner of the web.

“What are you doing and where are you going,” asked Grandpa Etukaal.

“To fight the wind.”

“Fight the wind?”

“Yes grandpa, otherwise we will get thrown off and smashed to bits.”

“Don’t even try. And you won’t get smashed or anything of that sort.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t, but the wind does. It knows exactly how much you can withstand. For 20 years it has blown though this web and not once has it thrown me.”

As grandpa finished, the wind dropped again.

“Did you enjoy it?” asked Grandpa Etukaal.

The little Etukaals looked at each other for a moment. They had been scared and shaken up by the wind, but come to think of it they had never had such fun in their lives. And as grandpa had said, the wind hadn’t smashed them to bits.

“Yes we enjoyed it, although we were quite scared Grandpa,” said the little Etukaals.

“And did you have to do anything to enjoy it?”

“Not really.”

“Yes, you did—you had to sit still,” reminded Grandpa

“But Grandpa if we just sit still all day,” interrupted Dogen, “how can we take care of our day to day living… our food?”

“Just sit still a little longer and you will see,” said Grandpa

Even as Grandpa was completing the sentence, the wind blew one last time against the asbestos. It sent little insects, which had been racing
along the roof flying down through a hole in the asbestos onto the web. First a fly fell, then a small bug with its wings still open and then an ant. They dropped onto the web exactly where it was the stickiest. Grandpa watched as they
struggled and fought to get out—and failed in their attempts. Then there was a last blur of wings and all was over—they were dead.

“That’s the answer to your question,” said Grandpa, “when you sit still, many things happen by themselves.”

“But don’t you have to make an effort?” asked little Roshi

“Yes you do. For example, I do my part—I keep the web clean and add a little sticky substance from my spinneret onto the strands of the web. And then I sit still and wait and watch. Then nature does the rest. Nature seems to know what exactly I need and every time the wind blows, a few insects always get trapped. And now tell me little ones, did I have to run anywhere to get them?”

“No Grandpa, you only sat and waited.”

“That’s it my little ones, that’s all you have to do. But alas…”

The little ones nodded; they had understood.

And so Grandpa Etukaal reached out with a thin hairy long leg and picked up two flies that had just fallen on to the web and gave one each—just as he had promised—to Roshi and Dogen.

This article was first published in June 2013 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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Divine love affair

Published by: Knopf

ISBN: 978-0385349949

Pages: 166

Price: INR 800

“The Poets have scattered you.

A storm ripped through their stammering

I want to gather you up again

In a vessel that makes you glad

…

The Blind man needed you as a cup

The servant concealed you

The homeless one held you out as I passed

You see, I like to look for these things.”

What do you do when a man writes poetry like this? Well, you read it until the tears course down your cheeks and wet the pages. Such is the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, the Mystic German poet, who lived and worked in the early part of the 20th century.

In the Book of Hours, Rilke brings the God of heaven down to earth and makes him share a ‘new kind of intimacy’ with people: God needs us as much as we need him. Written with an emotional urgency and a psalm-like directness, Rilke wrote the poems that made up this book of three parts in three intense periods of inspiration between 1899 and 1903.

In the first part called The Book of Monastic Life, Rilke has intensely inward conversations with God; he yearns for him with passion—such passion that he saw HIM in things no ordinary mortal would.

Having once seen him, he saw him again and again and again—in the acorns that fell from trees, in the leaping squirrels, in the rushing streams and the whispering winds; as his neighbour who thirsted for water and as the depth of his own being. Now, neither he nor God could let go of each other; and through the rest of this part they are both trembling with love at each other’s thresholds.

You must remember that all these lines were written in German [and that this is a translation], but even with that can’t you feel the two lovers whispering their hearts out to each other? It’s because Rilke let the love consume him and speak in nakedly simple language.

Right through the end, Rilke doesn’t lose his conviction in the human capacity to redeem an insane world through love, and this book is not just an affirmation of that but a pilgrimage to God.

The post Book of hours Love poems to God By Rainer Maria Rilke appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Published by: Krishnamurti Foundation India

Distributed by The Word Bookshop

ISBN: 81-87326-24-7

Pages: 107

Price: INR 65

He was a Buddha but only he knew what that meant. The others – his followers–wanted to know, so they asked him questions and J Krishnamurti obliged; he answered questions on thought, on insight, on corruption , on sex … and it became a slim book called ‘Questions and Answers’.

Here, the parallel to the Buddha ends; for the answers that Krishnamurti gave were his own. He didn’t give his audiences readymade solutions, but urged them to think and look for themselves. Right from the start of the book he says, One suffers, goes through great explanations and one seeks comfort…, There is God, there is reincarnation, there is this, there is that, there is something else… the explanations by philosophers, by psychologists, by priests, by gurus and teachers—it is on these that one lives, which means one lives second hand… One has never asked “Can I be a light to myself, not the light of someone else, the light of Jesus or the Buddha? Which means there is no shadow, for to be a light to oneself means it is never put out by any artificial means, by circumstances, by sorrow, by accident.”

His audience didn’t understand so they asked him more questions—and he answered them with his questions!

Is that which is happening in the world outside different from that which is happening inside?’ asks Krishnamurthi in response to a question about violence. The answer is obvious – it isn’t. It isn’t because we are also violent, it isn’t because the individual is the world; and change, if it is to truly happen should start with the former. This is something Krishnamurti would harp on all his life – and in this book, it’s not different.

What is new appears in the 14th chapter called creativity. ‘What is generally called creativity is man-made – painting, music, literature… but most man-made creativity as we call it takes place from the known, the great musicians Beethoven, Bach and others acted from the known, but is that really creative? Is creativity something totally different? …something which we can all have, not only the specialist, the professional, the talented the gifted. If the mind is extraordinarily clear without a shadow of conflict, then it is really in a state of creation.’ It’s the first time – in the book that Krishnamurti sounds earthy. You wish he would continue being so, but he slips back into the stratosphere, especially when talking about enlightenment, thought and consciousness and it needs a question on sex—towards the latter half of the book—to pull him back to earth and keep him tethered.

‘Why does sex play such an important part in each one’s life in the world?’ asks the questioner. ‘Perhaps sex is felt to be creative and has become important because everything around us is circumscribed’ says Krishnamurti… ‘the job, the office, going to church, following some guru… all that has deprived us of freedom… so where there is no freedom, either outwardly or inwardly, specially inwardly we have only one thing and that is called sex. Why do we give it importance? Do you give equal importance to being free from fear? No. Do you give equal energy, vitality and thought to end sorrow? No. Why? Why only to sex?’

Those last questions and answers are provoking; the questions more so because that was Krishnamurti’s way of guiding you to enlightenment.

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You might have travelled far, and you might have gained bountiful success, but it’s the simple things that you will long for always. Think about it!

The little things, like looking at the sunlight as it filters through the trees in the morning; the heavenly feel of winter sunlight on your skin; the sweet smells of moist earth after the first monsoon drizzle; the flavours and aromas of home-made dal, rice and subzi; the comfort of lounging around in well worn clothes…

Tell me dear reader, aren’t those the things we really long for? If yes, then let me elaborate with something familiar… like eating out in fancy restaurants, for instance. At swanky eateries, a meal for two costs you an arm and a leg—not to mention dishes on the menu with names like, ‘Angel hair pasta with porcini essence or Tartiex-le- xrita con funghi!’

An elaborate buffet at a five star hotel with a lavish Indian spread has you with hundreds of dishes to choose from—Shahjehan, and his Mughal ancestors feature regularly in most of them. There is a Shahjehani pulao, chicken Shahjehani, paneer Shahjehani , Shahjehani biryani, Akbari kebab; and just so that Jahangir doesn’t feel left out—the Jahangiri korma. For a day or two you may get excited, wanting to try everything. But the Tartiex-le-xrita con funghi and large slices of the Mughal history on your plate soon begin to pall and you crave for simple, home-made food—ghar ka khana, just the way your mom cooked it.

There is something wholesome and comforting about home-cooked food, the kind that you can eat daily and that, even if you overeat, doesn’t play catalyst in making embarrassing noises. This is the food that you are close to; there is a pleasure in it that’s coded into your DNA. It’s so soothing that you feel compelled to call hours in advance of reaching home, to have it ready. You can slap it about into any combination you like, and even raid the fridge at midnight for second helpings. It’s that simple!

These choices made from the heart are pure and simple but we complicate them. Part of this complexity arises from the bewildering range of options that modernity throws at us. Like in the new era coffee shops or malls springing up almost every day in Indian cities. You go into one of these places wanting just a plain sandwich and a cup of coffee/tea. For a start, the waiters in these places are highly trained—American style!—to confuse you. I can recall [and I am sure you will too] countless conversations I have had like this one:

Me: Can I have a vegetable sandwich please?

Waiter: Would you like honey oat bread, whole wheat or multi grain?

Me: Don’t you have plain white bread?

Waiter: No sir, we have honey oat, whole wheat, garlic, sesame and multi-grain

Me: Okay, whatever!

Waiter: And what would you like in your sandwich? We have jalapenos, bell peppers, tuna, American coleslaw, iceberg lettuce…

Me: Just a plain sandwich, you know with tomatoes…

Waiter: What dressing would you prefer? We have vinaigrette, thousand islands, and Italian, mayonnaise, mustard and sour cream

Me: Just with butter

Waiter: Okay, and your coffee? Do you want a cappuccino, latte, or espresso?

This is when you begin to think of the pleasures of the regular hot filter coffee or masala chai, the kind you get at the corner of the road. There is nothing, believe me, that can compare to the feeling of sipping hot chai on a cold winter morning and feeling it slowly warming your gullet as it goes down. And who can tell enough the pleasure of dipping a biscuit in it, softening it just enough, so that it becomes nice and pulpy in your mouth? It’s that simple—but isn’t it paradoxical that we don’t realise this at first?

Clothes that feel comfy

Just as with food, we subconsciously feel superior about the clothes we own. You want to try the latest fashions: Indian terrain khakis look nice; and isn’t that Armani suit just the thing you need for the annual meeting? Plus, you don’t have a lime green shirt among all your linen shirts, do you? And now that you have got one, what you really need is a pair of trousers to match! Hence, you want to indulge in every new trend; for every season, occasion and the day of the week.

Consecutively, spend hours trawling malls and making sure your clothes match each other, and also your accessories. And just when you seem to have got it right, you see a trouser on the rack across, which looks even better.

Now all this new stuff, like the food, feels nice for a few brief moments, especially when your friend compliments you or when you admire yourself in the mirror. But I am sure you will agree that nothing can beat the comfort of an old, stained khadi kurta or the well-worn pyjama and tee that you wear at home. That’s the apparel which is comfortable and cosy. That’s the ensemble you want to get into almost immediately when you return from work. It’s not trendy, on the contrary, it perhaps has even a few tiny holes, but you don’t care. Given a chance, this is the outfit you would want to wear to work too!

The reason for this comfort and fondness is simple: there is a sense of acquaintance about well-worn clothes, which feels like home or a good relationship. It’s made its adjustments to your body, it seems to know and fit every curve, its soft interiors tickle your skin like no designer suit ever can.

There is another thing too about it. You don’t have to keep up with appearances and you don’t have to pretend. You don’t have to worry whether it’s right for the occasion, or whether it matches the accessories, or think about all those stressful things that go with your public face. These are the clothes that allow you to be you, just yourself the way you are. So you may own an Armani or a Versace, but what you really wish to be in is that five year old T-shirt. It’s that simple!

Since when did money need ‘managing’?

If it’s that simple; how do we end up complicating things? Take the case of our money.

We open bank accounts willy-nilly, and soon discover we have so many that we are confused which bank account has what. Does that sound familiar? As does the fact that we love stashing away small amounts of money here and there and big lumps of money everywhere. The relationship managers at banks are only too good at scenting these bits and soon—this might sound very familiar—there will be further bits in mutual funds, a small lump as gold, a big brown cover with bonds, another brown envelope filled with fixed deposits, recurring deposit receipts and so on.

This is the point when it gets insane. You wake up one day and start getting reminders for premiums from your banks. Then you start getting reminders for your reminders. You can’t figure out which bit is where and you spend the next few nights trying to track all this online. You log on and discover that you have forgotten the password to your account. [Only because you have got so many and can’t figure one out from another]. Now you begin recalling fondly about those days when you kept all your money in one treasure chest [or bank] and dished it out to yourself when needed. Your head didn’t spin trying to keep tracks of all those passwords and account numbers. You didn’t have to spend sleepless nights online figuring out your investments. You knew exactly how much you had. How I wish those days were back—with simple, uncomplicated ways of operating a bank? Don’t you?

Someone to come home to So, why do we still keep going back to complex ways when at heart we always long for the simple? Is it our minds or have our expectations increased? For we carry these complications over to everything, be it smaller things like clothes, food and money or larger things like our life and our relationships.

We marry with the hope to flicker romance initially. The woman has stars in her eyes and the man has a rose in his hand, and they both desire candlelit dinners. There is a rush of adrenaline, and the urge to spend as much time with each other, shopping and partying. You want to travel the whole world—the Bahamas, Rio, Istanbul, Paris, the Himalayas are all on your to-do list and you start packing. And when you are there, you just don’t want to look around, you want to bungee jump, paraglide, trek and shop till you drop.

Slowly, the years roll by and this begins to fade. You begin to realise that this isn’t really what you wanted and this isn’t really what you are. It’s simpler. Stepping into the doorway is like breasting an Olympic tape. You enter and almost immediately feel a sigh of relief, and a sense of peace. Ah! Home sweet home. The romance and passion fade too; for even that is in your head and is not your everyday self. At the end of the day, all you look forward to is a knowing that somebody is there in the house for you; somebody to sit and chat with, to laugh with, to watch TV with, and to discuss everyday things like the price of vegetables or the big feud you overheard in your neighbour’s house. Gone too is your urge for action-packed days [and holidays]. The bench on the lawn behind your house is more easing. And you can spend hours watching a long line of ants marching in a disciplined manner across the lawn. For those of you who have felt this joy, it’s a serious occupation. Watch the ants a little longer and you will always notice there are two and both travelling in opposite directions, along the same highway. They meet as they cross and you wonder: Are they just wishing each other good morning? Or perhaps they are kissing each other or telling each other a secret about where the next store of food is? Or are they talking about their holidays in the Bahamas?

I wonder to myself: What a pleasure it is to just sit for hours, admiring them and watching the world go by! Yet why do we associate our self-worth with the stuff we own? When what we really need is less of things and more of life!

A world with trees, filled with the smell of moist earth. And, of good home-made dal, rice and subzi.

And the contentment of lounging around in well worn clothes. And watching sunlight filter through the trees in the morning and throw warm golden pools on the ground.

Truly, is it that simple?

This was first published in the February 2013 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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Kanvashram

1 of 4

It was 5.30am; daybreak in the Kalaghat Tiger reserve and the Jungle outside the GMVN tourist rest house in Kanvashram, in Pauri Garhwal. Although the sun was not fully up, its light was visible behind the valley on the far side. I sat up in my bed and watched it creep slowly over the forest behind my room, changing colour as it did so. It was a blazing silver as it crested the hills; but the long shafts reached out like a cinema projector’s beam as it grazed the tops of the tall Shagun trees turning them bright green, and then dappled the
barks with spots of amber, before finally hitting the ground as golden pools between the dancing shadows of the leaves.

I had learnt my first lesson even before I was fully up; watching the sunlight can be a full time activity in the Jungle.

As I continued to watch, the wind started blowing downhill, bringing with it the scent of mango blossoms, and berries. But I was not the first one to notice the scent; a pair of hornbills had already arrived to snack on the berries and are calling shrilly to let the others know of this new find. Meanwhile, a langur watched me from the roof top of a nearby room to see if I would leave. He loved eating the shoots and leaves of the jacaranda tree, as soon as they sprout, and what better time than early in the morning when the shoots are still young and fresh.

On another tree not far from the roof top a woodpecker was punching holes in the bark, and pulling out juicy grubs. He didn’t care that I was standing right next to him. Tok, tok, tok… he continued pulling out more fat grubs!

Already I had learnt my second lesson from the Jungle for the day—early morning is feeding time for the smaller animals and birds and they have to fill their bellies before the heat of the advancing day robs the leaves of their moisture.

As the day progressed, my guide and me took a walk along the forest trail which ran high above the river Malan, close to the rest house. Suddenly my guide pointed to a large splotch in the sand. “Elephant foot prints,” he said, “about a week old.” The trail was so thin and the sides of the valley so steep, I wondered how any animal, least of all an elephant could have walked through this path. I asked my guide and he pointed to a bamboo clump flanking the path. It was broken on top, by the feeding elephants. What I learnt from this is that in the Jungle the signs are all there, but one has to know where to look and how to read them. [sure enough a hundred yards further ahead we came upon elephant dung]

As we moved further, I noticed the forest had suddenly fallen silent. Gone were the peacock mews and the murderous calls of the Jungle fowls. Gone too were the songs of the magpies and twitters of the bulbuls and the calls of the monkeys. This silence marked an interim in the Jungle. Many of the smaller animals had finished their feeding and the big boys of the Jungle were yet to wake up for their day, so we returned to the resort awaiting the evening.

The evening encounters at Kanvashram

When I woke up after the nap and looked out, the sunlight was slanting as warm golden patches on the Shagun leaves; I knew soon it would be dark.

A langur then called from somewhere far off and stopped. He was followed by a chital who called for a minute and fell silent.

Let me digress a bit here from the events of the evening, to describe the effect the calls had, both on me and the Jungle.

Immediately after the alarm call sounded, I sensed a change in the mood of the Jungle, for they weren’t just the usual calls; they were the calls that signified urgency and threat.

There was stillness in the Jungle that seemed pregnant, as though all the Jungle was waiting breathlessly for the next call of the langur. All the Jungle folk recognised that the langur’s keen eyes had detected a leopard or tiger in the undergrowth and that he was now warning them: Beware! Danger is afoot!  From that moment on every faint scratch, every ripple of muscle would be noticed, and signalled like lightning across the Jungle. Failure to do so meant death.

As for me, the combination of the langur’s alarm call and the surrounding darkness and fear it brought, produced an awareness and intensity, I had never
felt before.

My eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness, and my ears, which had completely misjudged animal calls [and distances] when I arrived a few days ago, were now able to make out that the chital was calling on my side of the river close to where it flows away from the hamlet. From the way the calls have progressed— from the langur to the chital, I sensed that the leopard or tiger was moving and moving quickly. My intuition, [I will call it just that] signalled me to avoid the winding road through which I came, and instead walk through the hamlet and from thereon the shortcut to the rest house. This, as I was to realise later was fortuitous for the animal had also crossed the river at a point further up at about the same time I had, and had walked along the winding road I had avoided.  I hurried my steps and stumbled into the compound of the rest house just as another langur started calling behind my room. Almost simultaneously I heard a series of deep grunt-saws that resounded through the Jungle. It was a leopard, letting everyone know he was there. He was, trying to scare the langur’s off the trees, a favourite tactic of his, I was told, in order to get a meal. For those of you who haven’t heard a leopard in the Indian Jungle, it is at once perhaps the most terrifying and exciting sound you can hear. The blood races in your veins and your heart is in your mouth. One part of you desperately wants to see him, but at the same time you are scared to bits. Along with Babulal, my caretaker, I raced to the perimeter of the forest and as we did so the leopard grunt sawed once more and stopped.

And this was when it got terrifying—as long as he was grunt-sawing at least we knew where he was, but now we were clueless. He could have been 10 feet away or a 100 feet away—we wouldn’t have known. We switched on our pocket sized torches and shone them into the forest in front of us. The beam cut through the inky night like a knife through butter but we saw nothing. Then my beam fell between the trunks of two Shagun trees, and there, looking straight in our direction, at a distance of 20 yards, was the leopard. His metallic blue-green eyes, which were all we could see of him, gleamed in the darkness. I uttered a few words to Babulal to let him to know I had spotted it and this was enough to shoo the leopard away. When we spotted him a moment later, he had moved about 50 yards uphill. Again we saw his blue-green eyes, but a moment later he disappeared and we hear his grunt-saw at the edge of the forest.

I stood for a moment amazed at how he had moved more than half a kilometer, through a leaf littered forest, at the speed of lightning without making as much as the sound of a breath. I now understood the meaning of the word stealth.

I returned to my room and sat in bed looking back on the day. At every moment the Jungle had taught me something; through its silence, through its animals and birds, through its trees, through the sun, the sky and the wind. It taught me what it means to live fully with our senses, what we—as urban dwellers have lost touch with and, what it means to be alive. Truly it had been an intense [and humbling] experience, so intense that I slipped into sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. When I woke up the next morning the langur’s were busy playing in the mango trees and a pair of hornbills were calling to each other, they were letting me know that another day in the Indian Jungle has just begun.

This was first published in January 2013 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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Published by: Jaico Books

ISBN: 81-7992-678-8

Pages: 350

Price: INR 250

He was one of the flower children: shoulder length hair, lost in blues, flirting with marijuana and always wandering. Then began the “Journey home” for Radhanath Swami—and here is a gist of that story.

Radhanath Swami, born as Richard, is the son of Jewish parents from Chicago. He leaves home when he is 19 and hitchhikes across Europe and Asia. It’s the classic hippie journey: Little or no money, free rides across borders, living in the same set of clothes for days and always travelling without purpose. That’s, of course, only one side of it, because the lowlife has its dangers and danger makes very good reading. He writes about his experience at the Greek Turkish border, where wolves are howling intermittently and when he creeps ahead he discovers that the land was full of unexploded mines. Some days later he finds himself in Afghanistan, where a mongoose makes a nest in his hair and he just about manages to escape from a gang of hashish addicts in Kandahar.

Finally, it’s India. What follows is excitement and typically western naiveté.

He knew this part of the world was home to many great sages, who he longs to meet and learn from. He wanders though the Himalayas trying out one Baba after another: Tat Walla Baba, Kailash Baba, and Anadamayi Ma. None of them suit him. He lives in caves and meditates on rocks in the Ganges and tries to go on his own but that’s not convincing either because Richard is still the hippie journeyman seeking the branch line to Nirvana.

So more wandering follows, this time among the Buddhists and in Mother Teresa’s home in Kolkata. Richard doesn’t really tell us what he learns spiritually from these experiences; it’s too fleeting for one and he just seems to want to pack in as much as he can rather than settle down and explore something to its depths.

It’s about now that he meets Srila Prabhupada of the Hare Krishna Movement. For a moment, it looks like Richard has found his Guru. “I heard a voice within my heart proclaim, this is your guru,” he says, but wanderlust gnaws at his soul again so off he goes—to Goa, Mumbai, to the Himalayas and to Vrindavan.

It’s in Vrindavan that Richard finally settles and in a chapter filled with emotion and ‘Krishna love’, he accepts his guru in Srila Prabhupada. Richard is now Radhanath Das but it takes the next four decades for him to realise that home was where he always was. “Over the years,” he writes in the afterword, “I have realised that whether living in a holy place in India or in a congested city in America, if we harmonise our lives in a spirit of devotion to the Lord, we can realise our eternal home.”

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Three moving parables

Title: Spirits Rebellious
Published by: UBSPD [UBS publisher’s distributers Pvt. Ltd]
ISBN: 9780818594465
Pages: 91
Price: INR 85

It’s not often that an author can write passionate prose and sublime poetry at once; when he does, he must be Kahlil Gibran.

In Spirits Rebellious Gibran shakes you out of the slumber of the societal norms and earthly laws that have held mankind in shackles and ignites your soul with his fire and his rebellion.

When Rose Hanie marries the rich Rashid Bey Namaan; a man old enough to be her father, she becomes a “bird in a gilded cage”. For a while the gilding is nice, but who can ignore the longings of the heart for a love that “unites both hearts and affection”? Marie can’t wait to fly; and she does—to another man whose love makes them “one member of life’s body and one word upon the lips of God”. The price of her freedom is the sacrifice of her body.

Of course, society is uncomfortable! In its eyes Rose Hanie is a prostitute who destroyed her sacred marriage and deserves to be exiled. But is that the way God sees it? Remember, Gibran is a prophet and he can see it through God’s eyes. Hear him in the voice of Rose when she says, “They neither understand the law of God nor comprehend the true intent of veritable religion nor distinguish between a sinner and an innocent. They look only at the surface of objects without knowing their secrets… In God’s eyes I was unfaithful and an adulteress only while at the home of Rashid Bey Namaan because he made me his wife according to the customs and traditions by the force of haste before heaven had made him mine in conformity with the spiritual law of love and affection… but today I am pure and noble in spirit… they have exiled me now from their society and I am pleased, because humanity does not exile except the one whose noble spirit rebels against despotism and oppression. He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom, truth and duty.”

This is the first of three stories in Spirits Rebellious and if you haven’t wept yet, get ready to do so in the second. It’s called The Cry of the Graves. When the Emir punishes three people by death—one man for killing another because he was about to rape, a married woman for spending an hour with her childhood love and a poor man for robbing a monastery to feed his starving children—Gibran questions what the people call justice. “When a man kills another man the people say he is a murderer, but when the Emir kills him, the Emir is just… Shedding of blood is forbidden but who made it lawful for the Emir? Shall we meet evil with evil and say this is the law?”, asks Gibran.

His questions are like those of Khalil, the heretic monk [in the third story] who is expelled for questioning, and rebelling against, the corruption of his convent. In his fight—and victory—is the story of one man against the old order, and a call to fight the enslavement of men by men. It’s Gibran’s cry to return to the “eternal law that made life beautiful and to the truth that shines upon all peoples of the earth”. And it’s written in language that’ll make your soul stir, your heart cry, and your hands rise to your face to wipe the tears.

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