Why so cynical?

The urge to make cynical analysis of situations is far more tempting than reading abusive comments below Youtube links or watching TVF videos (vernacular) during prime work hours. Even as I took this rare opportunity to sip a cup of filter coffee in a Bangalore mall, my mind raced. Entrepreneurship in the past one year had added fizz to the functioning of the mind, while meditation played a balancing act annihilating it, bit by bit. Today, the mind raced still. 

“What’s happening to this generation”, I heard myself speak this cliché. Turning 30 is about a year away, which still qualifies me in “this generation” – I consoled myself. Young working men and women resting their physical mass on escalators; humming three-words-run-in-a-loop-several-times-turned-into-chartbuster-hindi-rap-song; hopping from one store to the other. Then to the food court, confused between unhealthy choices. “We are turning into a socially isolated, well profiled, routinely scrutinized pieces of data”. The thought suddenly made my coffee taste bitter. We have every reason to be worried. 

Step 1: Eradicate their brains - Large KPOs luring young talented minds into factory-work of coding, desk search, dashboards. Giant products and services firms outsourcing routine, mind numbing, low-value “tasks” to the east.  Odd night shifts. Templatized, hackneyed marketing and communication materials. Life coming to a halt only during traffic jams at crossroads where superiorly morphed astral projections of 3BHK flats, just about 1.5 Kms from somewhere, with all amenities; stand unchallenged in hoardings. All creating a fictitious projection of something one must attain tomorrow at the cost of today. Illusion within an illusion. 

Step 2: Slow’em down – From just about 30 ODIs per year back in the 2000s to gallons of T20s and domestic premier leagues each month. And then the corporate-enterprise-celebrity-backed football and hockey leagues. And the 4^th season of how-I-met-your-two-and-a-half-thrones. The large LED TVs available at EMIs – all ensuring you stay back at home throughout the weekdays and the weekends gazing at the glitter of semi-scripted theatrical work.

Step 3: Own their lives – Your favourite mobile chat app just sold your itinerary to the e-ticketing company as you pinged your friend about your plans to Ladakh. The online shopping portal auctioned your contact details to the scores of real estate developers who profiled you as a 2BHK-seeker vs. a vilament-aspirer. Your chamber of secrets, just paraded in the open.

What flashed in front of my eyes was apocalyptic. A cocktail of scenes from one of those Hunger Games genre of movies (read Maze Runner, Divergent, The Giver ..) where the big bosses watch while the average human leads an isolated yet scripted jungle life, following the herd and the commands. The coffee had turned into a saccharin potion. With routine clinical precision, I took the last sip, crushed the paper cup and threw it into the black garbage bin. Then to the escalator, the basement, the parking lot, the traffic…

Utopia in Exile

Rubbing my palms, I found myself regretting the decision to leave behind warm outfits. Travel light-is a thought that gelled well with my minimalistic approach to life. It was a misty February morning and I was eagerly looking eastwards for a ray of warmth. With the sun still shy, I had braved one full peripheral circle of the gigantic Namdroling monastery, gently (and sometimes forcefully) turning the silver colored prayer wheels while in my shorts and tee. Just about 20 hours back, I was this lone foreigner in a tiny 12-seater bus carrying Tibetan monks and natives to Bylakuppe. 20 hours later, the “foreigner” had become a thing of past, with every cell in my body resonating with the untainted surroundings.

Śunyata is a word originating from the word Śunya which refers to empty. Quintessentially, it talks about reaching a point where one is devoid of “I-consciousness”. The point where one is bereft of any “self” existing essence. The thought had been sown deep in my head by a book I had picked up the previous day, and accentuated by the talk I had with two monks while en-route to one of the largest settlement of a wonderful people in exile. Even as I was engulfed in the profundity of the word, I could not stop noticing the elderly Tibetans, undeterred by the steady wind, taking purposeful steps around the temple. Each time one of them passed by; the air resonated with heavy-bass chants (a practice known as overtone chanting or throat singing) that resembled the gong in the monastery. The wrinkled faces, the multi-colored Paang-dens (aprons) and the steady rolling of the prayer beads amidst thick fog created an unsullied imagery in my mind.

With the sky gradually emanating an orange tinge, human activity had started picking up. The young monks perhaps in their late 20s were the first to be seen. Offering a cup of tea made warmer with their act of compassion to the elderly, the monks readied themselves for another day of existential chores. The clean shaven heads and intriguing maroon robes painted a very homogenous visual, rendering them non-differentiable. This was perhaps the first step towards renunciation of the “self”.  However like all the prayer wheels that were identical, yet some had to be pushed harder than the others to turn them around, no two monks in their existential lives could be painted in the same exact colors. While some returned my attempts to start a conversation with a holy-indifference, certain monks were glad to spend several minutes explaining the root cause of pain, and the need to be self-aware, and the challenges with meditation and so on. I sensed conflicting thoughts there – aim at abandoning every act of self-actuality while retaining your existential individualities and innate idiosyncrasies!

By noon, I had made my way on foot to several other unobtrusive monasteries in little Tibet. It’s strange how we constantly combat the feeling of void or emptiness and question its origin and relevance. But isn’t it the very same component that the world we supposedly live in is composed of? If the world that we see is empty and an illusion, and that this emptiness is not relative but the absolute truth, then there certainly is a method in this madness. Emptiness isn’t then just a strange feeling we wake up with on certain mornings, but an intermittent manifestation and reminder of what we truly are. Our daily battles for existence would have perhaps rendered this very core part of ours into a vestigial phenomenon. I was jolted back to where I was by the fluttering of the prayer flags in the strong winds. In ages did I experience silence such pristine that I could hear, feel, breathe and almost touch it. Meanwhile, a steady breeze had carried the voices of several monks who had assembled in what sounded like a lunch gathering. It was strange to observe “discipline in chatter” for the voices were neither shrill nor shambolic, but picked up and plummeted together like classical music.

Curiosity had dragged my foot towards the hostel area where the monks studying Buddhism among various other disciplines resided. Cramped double occupancy rooms disseminating popular Bollywood music from the 90s caught my attention. I had still not been able to get over the childhood fixation of imagining lives of others. Would a prolonged hostel life make you more communal and hence dependent as opposed to being a recluse? Wouldn’t a monk’s mind wander out of the confines of the monastery walls into the city and the amusements it offers? A group of tiny 7-10 year old monks suddenly hurried past me. One of them while on a roll, sang Isska time to disco, not bothering what it meant. I had to control my urge to pick him up in a tight cuddle, for one is supposed to look up to them in reverence.

A whole day had passed floating between thoughts and aberration, hypotheses and interpretations. The visuals around me had changed now; leaving me constant in a moving frame. The bus would carry me back to a city of deception and deduced reality. My mind absconded out of the window wondering as usual. What if every entity we conveniently and “scientifically” termed as non-living had been able to renounce this false notion of self-entity way back in time and achieved Śunyata in absolute real terms? A group of Tibetan school kids returning from their vacations had been observing me off and on. Coincidentally when the stereo in the bus played this Tibetan pop song, all of them sang at the top of their voices with a shy smile on their faces. Only 2 English lines from the interlude I could catch hold of… “Thank you India, Love you India…”

Rebel Symphony No. 26 in E Major

“Born in Argentina, fought in Cuba, became a revolutionary in Guatemala, died fighting for the oppressed in Bolivia…” The very thought paints a picture of perfect liberation and emancipation of the conscious mind, intoxicated by a quixotic notion like that of a free-fall from a cliff while still being attached to a cause deep-rooted in your heart. The whole idea of gathering dry foliage; starting a fire with the deepest and most selfless of intents; nurturing it till it engulfs the whole forest; and eventually marching on to new grounds while passing the torch to the worthy fascinates and drives me each day.

Ernesto Guevara and the likes are metaphors for a deeper concept that continues to sweep away young, rebellious, non-conformist minds across the globe. Call it the lack of an established nomenclature for this phenomenon, or my ignorance of it; I am forced to coin a terminology for this. I would call it- being a Contract Revolutionary. I am discounting the likes of other great revolutionaries such as Simon Bolivar, or even Nelson Mandela who fought for a wide variety of causes and a wider class of people and nations, but stayed back in power for a long term development and unification of people. Here I only refer to the ones whose origins are very apolitical and more to do with matters close to their hearts. They are all around us, within us, amongst us, challenging the conventional, picking their heart over head, and moving on.

A compassionate mind is promptly drawn to any act that irradiates injustice, loss of human dignity or attempts of dehumanizing fellow souls in its very essence. Be it the oppressive regime of a dictatorship, the plight of farmers and the landless, denial of basic health and hygiene for the dignified living of a commoner, or even prejudices at work environment –all of these act as tiny pollens that germinate into rebels who choose either to strategically solve the issue and plan long term or into the ones who play the spontaneous, impulsive contractors. While the former may eventually turn into a conservative or a revisionary or even a reactionary; the latter remains an uncompromising revolutionary till the very end.

The likes of contract revolutionaries are driven by the very cause and the stir it causes in their souls. Never is power sought after or pursued, since it never was about attaining power or supremacy or proving a point. It always is a purely emotional decision taken by an unshackled heart that envisions the world to be a place of unchained existence, liberated thoughts and basic human rights. There’s a cause that hits your conscience and makes your heart bleed (the origin of which might be several thousand miles away). You put all your conviction and your very existence on the line, face your deepest fears head on, overcome the issue, move on and find the next cause. You don’t wait to rest under the shadow of the tree you would have planted. You walk on.  

Communism and socialism were mere tools that certain revolutionaries (only the apolitical, non-power hungry ones here) would have used at different points of history to fight for a cause. Countless stories of revolutionaries joining popular uprisings in a foreign country to bring down an unjust system, or start relief work for a country hit by a natural disaster, or set up health posts in poverty and epidemic stricken nations, leaving the comforts of a stable life behind is commonplace. In a more routine context, I see the likes of contract revolutionaries using tools such as music, social media, poetry, or even their freedom of speech in a closed meeting room to express the voice of liberated minds.

The phrase “move on” gives a rather escapist, adventurous and impractical tone to this whole notion. But when your entire belief system cries out loud, you would rather act and move on, than act deaf…

The Quilt Story

I had almost forgotten the soft, creaking noise of a bamboo hand fan. Back in the north-east characterized by frequent power cuts, it used to be the only source of liberation and respite in the pitiless summer several years ago. This afternoon, the hand-fan turns out to be the only entity breaking an eerie silence. It’s ironical that I find something as modest as my childhood in the most cosmopolitan cities ever!

Singapore it is and I am in a claustrophobic, 8-bed, windowless, back-packers lodge. Suffocation is imminent, even as my scruffily dressed roommates are barred from smoking inside the room. Every few minutes someone returns from the shower with a gush of cologne and soap that adds to the asphyxia in the dark room. For company, I have mosquito nets, matchbox-size lockers, John Grisham, soon-to-explode godzilla sized backpacks and 6 foreigners mostly from central Europe. Discussions are intermittent, most starting with a spark and fading off with cultural or perhaps circadian disconnects. The feeling is of effortless ease seeing species of my own kind disconnected in many ways, yet linked through the several lonely miles traversed by each. From the congested Favelas in Brazil to the dusty roads in Indonesia, I see these species at every corner of human inhabitation. You are not alone – is a comforting feeling.

“Fold the bed-sheet and keep at reception…” –the owner of the lodge barges into the room. A Chinese by birth, he was plump with his large belly bulging out of his vest drenched in sweat. To me, he resembled the Laughing Buddha (sans the “laughing” part of course). It was well past noon as the alarm clock indicated the guests, their time to vacate. There was an empty yet calm look in the eyes of the one moving out of the dorm. He perhaps envisioned the route to the next destination, the several sleepy villages on the way, the hardships of nature, the countless smiling faces, the sign-language discussions with natives substituting GPRS, or perhaps the lonely stretch ahead.

All good-byes with strangers are flamboyant to the eyes and are ritually finished off real quick. Backpacker Rob waves at all his companions of the dorm and is now on his way out with the only belongings he needs to give back to the world – a white bed-sheet and a quarter of an inch thick, striped quilt. One night back at the 11^th floor, as I lazed on my thick foam mattress, with the large French window opening into the city’s magnificent skyline, the luxuries of an urban life were just a phone call away. From the business hotel to a backpacker’s lodge – the transition was overnight. The exercise was to see the mirage of life up close. Wake up one morning to find you have lost it all. The code of life seems to be binary – either hold on to the amusements it has to offer or tread the green mile as a habitual nomad.

The humid afternoon was taking its toll. I walked out of the room for some fresh air crossing the reception. The quilt and the bed-sheet lying right next to the owner’s throne. As I stepped out of the lodge into the street full of Chinese food stalls, I looked back through the corner of my eyes. Buddha had laughed…

When it rained...

How blissful is solitude depends on the circadian rhythm of the universe. Whether it rained today, whether the dark night was star-studded, if there was mist in the air when you walked out this morning – all of it matters. The black coffee as usual lived up to its Coffee Day norms. I was a seasoned customer now (literally) – been used to the curious stares of young couples wondering why I sat all alone flipping the pages of a book in a prime dating location. And the subtle cold stares of the staff pondering when I’d clear the table.

“Everyone has a Tibet of the mind, a notion of a pure, distant land, a place of personal escape, the heart of lightness. For some, it may be glimpsed through music, or fasting, or drugs, or prayer, or excessive exercise, or perfect love….” read the book. The timing of the book in my life was perfect. I had just embraced Buddhism – a late manifestation of my true self. My unremitting practice of detachment for several years now was well documented in bits and pieces. A great many mortals would have been on the receiving end of this drill.

Your choices in life make what you are. Whether you while away your time staring deep into someone’s eyes while it rains…or you keep to yourself reading non-fiction; contriving an imaginary world around you is your choice. Either of the choices are strictly a work of fiction mind you. My fiction was jolted by the coffee bill suddenly placed on my table - a polite way of the staff asking me to fish off.

The rattling noise of the second-hand car engine was customary. As I took a U-turn through the fresh puddles of rain-water, I could see little kids with those intoxicated smile on their bright faces. My car with an Andhra registration wasn’t supposed to be driven in Bangalore without paying a hefty road tax. Returning home was a sane “choice”. The kids waved at me with exuberant expressions. Divided by borders, united by Hope…aren’t we.

Its a Tuesday Night....

Drenched in the luminous golden downpour with the slowly blurring vision like that of the window pane on a monsoon morning, I see things slow down. There’s more silk in the voice I hear, more poignancy in the 22 strings. The bamboo emanating mournful melodies had brought tears before, but never made me weep. Even as my reactions slow down further, the fingers that pluck those strings in an effortless manner drag my soul out infusing it with a pain like never before. The blender deserves to be full of pride; he just brought me closer to god in a long time.

Blessed are the ones with music in their souls and melody in their voice. The melody that defies all logic building a road straight from the abode of mortals to the doors of the mightiest. The artists, who had begun with an urge to have a glimpse of him, now start conversing with god. I see their eye-balls pop out in astonishment and close yet again as the exchange gets more animated. I yell and shriek… “My voice never resonated to scale the heights where you reside, perhaps my screams will”.

The vision gets hazy still as Sufi trance is replaced by an outlandish fusion of Jazz and Carnatic. Unfair are your ways. Why give me the desire and take away the talent? Like a lust in my body and then make me mute. Why give me the will to fly and then leave me with a half-wing that I flutter with all my effort to fall flat on the ground. Antonio Salieri’s ghost speaking aloud in my voice!!

The voice that cannot hold on to a note for long, as the chain of breath breaks, killing the beautiful possibilities of connection with the One. The hands that were once training meticulously to create melody are now vehemently held by unseen yet powerful arms…rendering them motionless. My thirst only intensifies as I swill onto the last drop of golden amber. Why isn’t genius attainable without the help of the divine? Why at all did you create genius? The impulsive side of mine now grows out of the one sided conversation, only to focus on the music.

P.S. Never buy cheap whiskey.

My umpTEENth Blog

Taking my socks off in the balcony of the fifth floor, I was taken aback by the sudden noise of a loud slap. It was the third floor of the opposite apartment and what I saw transported me close to a decade-and-a-half back. A time warp had abruptly opened its doors as I saw this boy in his early teens (I assumed thirteen) being thrashed and given an earful by a lady who certainly looked like his mother. The boy who was visibly startled by the sudden public humiliation at the hands of his own folks would have no respite though. His father joined in and the poor fellow now resembled a thief caught amidst an unforgiving mob. Little sister had foreseen the storm coming and disappeared in a flash. A dull summer evening meant show-time for the housewives and kids residing in the adjacent buildings. The boy desperately tried putting his case forward in Telugu which I interpreted as “Me and my wife will avenge this insult one day”

I too had spent close to seven years in the Alcatraz prison. No matter what your crime is, the sentence is fixed at seven years of rigorous imprisonment. All these years, no matter what time of the day it is, you’d always be hungry. Hair growing on your face and stranger places still would make you look uglier. Not only would you stop looking into the mirror, you’d know that it’s your face that is to be blamed for the lack of mercy from the warden. No matter how hard you’d try, your voice wouldn’t be pleasant or soothing. A strange baritone emanating from a petite thirteen year old body would raise suspicions and result in more thrashing. You’d look at the taller inmates and envy them. “I am sure they are spared of all the beatings. They’re tall. They look like men” – you’d wonder. Jars of Horlicks and Complan would do no magic trick as you’d spend all of it in carrying the bags full of bricks and stones to and fro each day.

Like in any jail, being a prisoner means you’d have no identity of your own. Hair would be cut short and neatly combed with a clear LOC (read partition) in between having no disputes. Being an ugly duckling, you’d be ashamed in front of the opposite sex of the same age. Strangely though, they’d look gorgeous and blossoming out showing no signs of prison-sickness. However your lack of confidence would mean you’d be reading the floor mostly, and hence missing out on the beauty that should have been so desperately appreciated. Each day the wardens would parade you in front of their friends who’d invariably ask you the same question each time. “What do you intend to do once free?” “The day I am free, you better watch out!!” you’d think, but you wouldn’t have an answer. Because each morning you’d wake up with a different dream – a cricketer one day, a software engineer the second, a musician some day and an adventurer again. But more practically, each morning you’d also wake up with the prayers “god no pimples today.”

The crowd meanwhile had dispersed at the culmination of the climax scene. Poor dark boy with a thin layer of moustache had wiped his tears. Perhaps a man had just been born out of the ashes. Perhaps he had made a note of every single onlooker who had laughed at his misfortune today. Too late for my explanations…