The Highlanders

Mamma bear and baby bears of Aesop's fabled tales

 Lived in the forest of their own 

 Till one day, they got lost and strayed into civilizations unknown 

Petrified of scrawny, puny faces, dangling sticks and rages

 Huddled into corners forlorn, counting life’s stages

 But here no one attacks them no more 

 Mamma bear straightens and looks agog! 

No more violence, no more hate A gentle voice, a caress… love and not hate.”

Ani-mail

Channel surfing can be a sport for some, but for insomnia-ridden mortals like me it just something to keep busy with. In my case, late night TV watching is a novelty; I much prefer to burrow myself in the warmth of my bed, with my favorite book.

But Thursday was a different day; the morning was unusually damp and cold (the usually incorrect met department blamed the- western disturbances) and by evening there was a slight nip in the air. And so I as tucked myself in the comfort of my bed, religiously masticating on my midnight snack and watching the “ The Haunting of Seacliff House”, frightened, yet occasionally comforted by the loud snoring of my now old dog, I flipped the channel.

What happened next?
Animal Planet – There are something’s that never change!! And thank God for that!!!

The programme on TV- Cell Dogs

Four unmanageable dogs, which we to be put down only a couple of months ago at the local shelter, were brought in at the Toledo Correctional Center. After intensive training and monitoring four convict volunteers at the center were selected to become their handler and trainers. The four convict handlers were given the responsibility for taking care of the dogs- bathing, cleaning, walks and exercise. The dogs even slept in the same room. Each of the handlers spoke about their relationship with the dogs, each one expressed their gratitude to their canine friends for teaching them virtues of patience and love and companionships. The dogs on their part all got adopted and now have new homes.

Need another reason to know that animals and men are dependent. Another reason not to hurt an animal on the street or in the wild….


Moral of the story: Flick channels till you learn what is best for you!!

Baran

I write this article with two things in mind, first that it will be not be treated as a sensational news item and discussed and forgotten over the dinner table, no I want more than that,
Second I write this article with the hope that it strikes a chord with at least a few of us, that some of you understand and feel what I felt.

I went to a village mamoni, which is 60 km away from baran that is the district headquarter, state in rajas than.We were on an exposure trip through a Delhi based ngo pravah, in collaboration with sank alp another ngo based in mamoni, working with the sehariyas, adivasis.The word sehariya was introduced to me in a food for work camp in a seminar held in Delhi .I learned about these people who had nothing to eat and were dying because they were starving. Newspaper reports told me half tales of a man whose entire family perished after consuming sama (grass seeds made into chapattis).

As the media brought in more and more gory stories, my curiosity rose needless to say I grew more restless, however to my dismay there seemed to be less of a follow up of events, for many days I looked and searched even over the net but found nothing.I was oblivious for what we were to see and experience - how these people were to change my life.

With a lot of cash in our hand, help for the starved and very little on our minds we started on our journey, Delhi to kota, and then the bus to shahabad, it was all very exciting and new, beautiful countryside, men, women children wearing the most amazing bright colours, I have ever seen, how colourful must their lives be??

Sitting under the mahua tree, we heard the story of a civilization, rather the breakdown of it,I sit to pen what I had heard and then add to it what I have seen.The sehariyas are adivasis literally meaning natives. They were forest-dwellers, the forest supplied them with mahua, jaggery etc which they sold in the market or exchanged for other essential commodities. It was a fairy tale existence, segregated and aloof from the world the lived in their den of simplicity. They had a culture, a community existence; unmindful of the rest of the populace they lived.

Post –independence the equation changed, act one was over, act two was to begin.Centralization and reforms, a policy of 5-years plans and the idea that welfare will trickle down from the decision makers to the decision takers also arranged in a hierarchy.Land was now marked as forest –land and revenue land. The forestland recognized as the property of the govt. and the rest of the people. The sehariyas were pushed out of their homes, their forests taken away from; independence certainly meant different things for different people.

Act three, sehariyas out in the open, and the worm rudely woken up and dragged out of its shell. Pushed into the fringes of the caste system that believes in the ranking of all people- Brahmins, Kshatriya, banias………. Chamars and the sehariyas.

They remain now socially ostracized, culturally hegemonised at the lowest rung of the Hindu system.The chapter on fundamental rights in the Indian constitution proclaims that all people citizens of India can follow their own culture and faith. The chapter on scheduled castes and tribes recognizes that the fact that they have been socially and culturally ostracized and humiliated. They have been denied education and therefore remained backward. The protection of civil rights act 1976 along with a number of other articles such as 15(4), 225,275,164(1) also talks about the welfare and upkeep of the sc and the st’s.

At this juncture I need to come back to my original narration, for a writer usually gets frivolous while writing on a issue and tends to go on different tangents, I shall restrain myself here..The sehariyas were given land but they did not know how to cultivate it consequently they became casual laborers working on others land. The Sikh farmers from Punjab capitalized, several of them away their land on the pretext of marrying their women keeping them either as concubines or as bonded labourers.

Our guides show us vast tracts of green cultivated land, presumably belonging to the affluent sikh families.They were provided subsidies by the govt (and they are still) but the banias and the patwaris still operate as middlemen, goons who rob the poor and the weak.They are regarded as jungli, in their hearts the forest is their home, alas not much of it is left, the severe drought covering the last five years and marwari businessmen have left few trees standing. Cornered, marginalized, pessimist to the core they remain as stoic memories of the past.

No more act now only glimpses of reality. The knowledge that these people are dying, that more than 70(officially- they have been termed as food poisoning and not starvation deaths) of them are already dead and that some 100 more on the verge of death, yet this remains a third page news in leading newsdailies of this country.

Politicians squabbling, playing blame games, whose responsibility are these deaths? The conclusion derived “that these people” eat grass and that it is a part of their staple diet.I have a question to ask all my readers, why would a person, say you or me, eat grass when we have two square meals a days, consequently what would a person do (again say you or me) if he hasn’t eaten anything for days at end?

I am angry very angry, not because of the govt failure to feed its own people, not because sacks of grains are rotting in ours country’s godowns, not because a few people make a mockery of journalism, but because I am helpless, I made a promise that I would help them, I gave them hope, yet now I see its beyond me.

I have to just stand on one side eat popcorn, pretend to be normal and happy, relate my escapade to people and feel good and worthwhile.I am also disappointed with the media, the voice of the people, of the masses. I am afraid the have all been sold out. They remain now only as propaganda machinery, sensationalizing news and making a mockery of people and their emotions.They sit discussing modi’s laurels and the possible war with Pakistan. News of urban affluent young women committing suicide is news but desperate starving; dying civilizations are not talked about.

This is the story of one society; I am sure that many such people exist in many such fringes of our country. As moti said in a seharana gathering (yehe log dilli se aaiye hain humare saath kaam karne jab yeh dilli jayenge to kachu kachu hogo),these people have come from Delhi to work with us, when they go back surely something will happen.They live with that hope and so do I

THE DILEMMA OF THE DISRUPTED MIND

This piece that I write is not a commentary on how I view or rather analyze the working of the disrupted mind but more a work which actually looks in to the process of degeneration and vileness of the mind, presumably the human mind.

It is perhaps imperative to mention the thought behind writing this article, in order to impress upon my readers the working or rather dysfunctioning of the human mind.The human mind is undoubtly ingenious, we have mastered all art, or almost so?So let us address the issue that is of immediate concerns to us; that is the want to live and lead a good life (however the barometer for judging goodness largely varies).

Is India really going to war with Pakistan?? Is there truly going to be a nuclear war? What will happen to us?? Probing questions and queries, sizzling discussions over tea and evening munchies coupled with Star news’s bit-by-bit coverage of events of escalating tension and mounting deaths and debates over possible repercussions and ramifications in case of a real war, seems to be the order of the day, a justification for people to maybe spend a little time together, an excusable break in the monotony of leading a regular life..In the US the aftermath of the world trade tower bombing saw a lot of couples getting into the act of marriage and parenthood, fear psychosis’s or plain insecurities were said to be the cause of such an action. No matter how one justifies human psychological behaviour, the fact is all people everywhere around the world are afraid of dying and it is here that the ingenuity of the mind comes to be questioned for is it not us who process and regulate our own destruction??

From simple stone weaponry (turn a few pages of history and it bears testimony to the sporadic changes in the human kind not only physical but also psychic) to atom bombs to thermodynamic bombs and then if that would be the end, but like all happy Hindi movie endings, a grand climax.. The Nuclear bomb

Item code: ********Cost: 10 billion (figures may not be accurate)
Functions: mass annihilation of life, property and environment.
For those who are not dead, radiation effects ensure cancer and other diseases.
Does it sound implausible??

Fear not it might become veracity too soon, at least sooner than one would expect, but here I got again on a prediction spree…. does it really bother me so much?? I mean it is funny I only muse about these issues when I have nothing better to do, when I need something to talk about (excuse to start a conversation maybe) in all other times I am busy in myself.

What would you call me an opportunist or a self-centric individual? But its seems futile to react on what you think about me because I still think (my mind does) and muse and no matter what happens I will still pen my thoughts.Its something a friend of mine said, (discussions with him are certainly no joking matter, nor are they an excuse to start a conversation): people are like sheep, and they have to be led, (correction) are led! And it is here that our politicians and beaureaucrats are impotent (important indeed!) in educating people, showing them the way: representatives of the people who conveniently forget their duties or rather forge their existence for better deals, perhaps Darwin and his theory of survival was indeed underrated or perhaps every man in his primeval self carries with himself the instinct to prosper by destroying others and why not isn’t it a way of the world, it certainly works in the animal kingdom.

What is it that makes us different from them…? (dwelling). I presume the answer to that will be our capacity to think and to act on what we think: Russell however was not as disillusioned as we are or as we choose to be (crazy u would think), he wrote in Free Man’s Worship “man was a child brought forth by nature, subject to her power gifted with sight with knowledge and a mind to judge good and evil and in spite of death being the ultimate mark, seal of parental control, he is free to think, act and criticize himself and his acts during his brief years..”Indeed if man is free why then does he have to live with the feeling of guilt and trepidation, why does he have to measure every step he takes, be cautious of every individual he encounters in the process of carrying out his functions, be on the prowl, hunting killing devouring others like an blood thirsty beast, only in a more civilized line of attack! Why does he always device new scheme to perpetuate his prosperity and security? Why does he seek assurance by destroying others, men and women like him: who like him also think of a safe and secure subsistence?

Why do we bury phantasms of our past so easily or is it just plain indifference? Is one Hiroshima not adequate; is what we have witnessed not gory enough?? Do we need to kill more and satiate ourselves? If indeed man is free why is he bound by his social stature and his position in society? Why are all men not equal if they are made of the same substance and they die and go to the soil?

Persistent questions with no answers, or maybe I am putting it too simply, maybe men because they are complex in structure are also multifaceted in action, their dealings being guided by their mind, disrupted mind huh? Yes that might be a logical conclusion for after all, all of us look for a happy and acceptable (comforting) ending and so I am as a social animal compelled to accept the logical derivation (courtesy my disrupted mind) and end my voyage and my exploration of my mind, at least in paper.

walls

walls,
splattered with blood, puke and remains of the night
walls,
that protect my haven of delight
walls,
within which my secret lies
wall,
that rule my head, heart and life
walls,
that surround me and force me to submit
walls,
that make a coward of my spirit
walls
that imprison me to rot
walls
that stop me to fight my own wars

"hide by the night, next to the wall
run, crouch, roll yourself into a ball
the wall will break your fall
will yield you strength to stand next mornin at the kitchen stall"

wall,
four walls created my destiny
from the moment i was born, i was never to be free
walls,
four walls that charted my life
the surface changed, the colours changed, the outline never died.

nameless

Hello, do i know you? I believe i do
Do you see me, cant you see me
I am not what you think i am
I am what i am supposed to me,a complex being- a mortal

Born from the embers of the now doused fire
liberated from the schakles of relationship,
I exist and therefore I am
I shall remain

Who are you?
Ever questioned yourself,
Ever looked at yourself in the mirror
Ever asked yourself, about your true identity.

Besides the matter that "you" call yourself
Who really are u?
Trapped in the prison of illusioned dreams,
You hallucinate about life

Your life, others-people whom you love,
some who love you- in the matter that is you...

You dream of a future,
a beautiful life with your beloved
fantasies that you create...
and yet you go clamped up in your own thoughts,
intoxicated in yourself,
u remain,
around you is this envelope of peace and serenity

You- ever questioned yourself about who you really are?
Perplexing riddles that fall into pieces when you least expect them to...
You look forward, always, never look back, never repent
You are an optimist, you shall remain.

you- walking there amongst those people
a face amidst others- walkin a million walk
beware,measure your steps, thread carefully
the path is dificult,
you got hurdles to cross, promises to keep.

night befalls

a curtain pulled somewhere,
of eager faces looking up for a morsel
greedy eyes, begging for a fix or a joint
me walkin in the hallowed vision of the unknown
a companion, a shoulder i sought

but alas, that was not to be...

memories

The moments spent introspecting
about life and the course taken
of friends and foes

Memories of joys and woes
of pain and fears
of laughs and tears
of resilience and courage

of breaking down and acknowledging
all those who made life
worth all that it is and more...
of lessons learned, forgotten and relearned
of patience and perseverance
and the will to go on...
of self-belief and elements of doubt
and all the people one sought out...

ravings of a quiet child

I shall write because i am compelled to write
An urge has erupted in me,
I shall write because i choose to gamble
I throw the dice- my fate, caution is a word i cannot fathom

For I must know who I am.
I think,
I think I can write,
but,what is it that i want to write?
what can i write?

Sordid tales of my trivial life
Of silences, blank spaces
the dark of the night.. the gentle swish swishing of the eucalyptus
as i sit in my balcony one cold winter night.

Paradoxically, I think i am capable of writing something
But this is not what i intended to write,
I wanted to write about me...
I and me, that is all i know
that is all i can think of..

I choose not to think beyond perimeters ,
fences that i have created,
boundaries that i want to preserve.
I have drawn these infallable lines,
and yet i want to break them, erase them, banish them
Guilt is thus my child.

I believe... I think
I dwell in my own desires,
raped by my own thoughts,
I exist.

The struggle to be sane, in this insane world
the bonds that hold us together
and yet sometimes one wants to break free of them

Run wild
Run fa
Run fast
Run .......
Run to live another life, run to die another death!!

I write,
But in reality it is not me who writes,
I want to write about this young girl i once knew
She was quiet, an ideal child,
desperate for attention and love

Of closets of lies, deciept and deception,
Coercion in love or love in coercion
Spaces and moments captured in frames
That is all that remains of her life!!

She was liked by everyone-she believed that everyone liked her
the frilly frock and the cute hair braiding hid it all,
to a world which was much to glad to turn the other way
It was important that everyone liked her.
Daddy pride and mom's darling- princess she was popularly called!!!

But i dont want to think of her...
I want to control my thoughts, my mind

I want to think about me...
Yet my thoughts betray me,
a small betrayal considering the numerous times i have betrayed myself

Love, an abstraction, have i ever known love,
I dont know, i dont understand me...
I change, as if i am another being
The "i"'s in me...

My mind is a chessboard of moments,
Of honour, and love
And silence and peace
I am a product of guilt,
Stories untold,
Numbness, blankness, hurt, pity and anger

I am
Who i am .. a child, a girl, a woman!!!

I still think
I am supposed to

I function
I sleep
I study
I cry
I laugh

on a futile attempt to chase a dream...

On a futile attempt to chase a dream

I walked on and on and on...

Till there was no more ground under my feet

and i had no more path to walk on

I chased it like a ship being

chased by a storm,

knowing it was beyond my capabilities

to hold on to it all along

And i reached it with all my might

and it reached beyond my reach

and away..so far away from me...

exploring an "i"

Silence is my blanket of protection 

Numbness- my overcoat of resilience 

Anger that resides within my vein 

Envelopes my pain and leaves a stain! 

Questions that stay muted on my lips

Reasons that failingly persist

Knowledge that gnaws at my senses 

The self... At every touch tenses!!! 

The screams of the child that shatter the silence of the night 

The resigned sigh of the little girl, overcome by the might!

The swinging hips of the woman, at the street corner 

The battered wife fulfilling her honour

Slamming doors and window jams,

Keys in locks and metal bands

Of curtains that mask tongues and faces

Sore bodies and blank spaces 

Thought and memories of life's stages 

Dropping shoulders and spectacles put back in cases 

Heavy eyelid and slurry speeches 

Pain that finds its shelter in sleepy breeches.