Let’s Talk:

I want to talk. I want to talk till the moon slips into the sea and the world falls silent except for our murmurs.

I want you to tell me about your imaginative childhood games and I will tell you about the orchard with a tiled hut and the ghost in the neighbourhood pond.

I want you to tell me about your best memories and I will tell you about the boy with sad eyes and a small pup.

I want to know about the times when you almost gave up and I will tell you about a time when I did not exist.

I want to know what you think of when you see the full moon casts its magic on the high mountains and I will tell you why I wanted to run away from the world.

I want you to tell me your daily routine and what you do in the last hours of each day and I will tell you about the birds that flitter around in the mango tree everyday.

I want to know why you like the books that you like and I will tell you the stories swirling in my head.

I want you to tell me about your philosophy of love and life and I will tell you what I read in your eyes.

Lost in Oneness:

“For the first time in my life, I was able to think. I do not mean to think objectively or analytically, but rather to surrender thoughts to my surroundings……It is then that the Eternal speaks, that the mutations of the universe are apparent; the very atmosphere is filled with life and songs; the hills are resolved from mere masses of snow, ice and rocks into something living…..”

Frank Smythe and five other mountaineers coming down from the ascent of Kamet, had stumbled upon Nandan Kanan or Valley of Flowers in 1931. Later Frank Symthe had returned alone to stay in the valley for six to seven months and document the flowering species, a long enough time for him to be completely overwhelmed by nature and its beauty.

I envy the likes of him, of explorers, of yogis, of travelers of yore, who have seen and experienced nature like none of us will ever know now.  For now we can catch just mere glimpses of a deep sacredness or snatch moments of being completely alone – with yourself, with nature, with the divinity. That deep sacredness in marred and in a few decades will be forever gone. You may say that my soul has perhaps known this very sacredness through the millennia that I have lived, so why the envy.  

Yes, perhaps it was me, a warrior, standing on top of a craggy cliff with the angry waves dashing below, looking longingly at the horizon wondering where the horizon will lead him.

Perhaps it was me, a young prince with a restless soul riding hard on his favourite horse, eastwards to the mountains, to quench an unknown thirst.

Perhaps it was me, a yogi, walking alone in a field of grass feeling the warmth of a golden sun; a feeling of happiness he had never known before.

So perhaps it is this sacredness, this connect with the eternal that has been the thread connecting all my lives, what my soul seeks, and what makes it worthwhile to even come back to again and again.

And that’s why it hurts the most when I see the elements desecrated.  I will perhaps come back, more out of necessity than desire.  But by then, the eternal will stop speaking; life will be filled with the here and now stretching on meaninglessly.  And in those every moments, there will always be that search for eternity.  The sacredness of life will be forgotten and the Soul will ultimately die.

Oneness – or Nirvana – either ways it will be.

Horizon:

I love flying in the evenings.

You are higher up than the horizon down below. The sun that drops down this horizon throws up colours that can only originate and multiply in the unknown space.  Un-earthly.  Colours, that no human or their brilliant machines can ever be successful in replicating.

I love flying in the evenings.

There is a serenity in the darkening horizon that is like meditation; and thoughts of the desperate chaos on Earth can make you want to stay there forever.     

I love flying at nights.

The twinkling of the city lights down below can reveal their own quirky characters. Bangalore – binary, Kolkata – old fashioned, Delhi – distant, Bangkok – a pendant. The best however is Mumbai – scattered sparkling jewels for people to pick up and keep.

I love flying at nights.

It takes you a little closer to the Moon and the stars. In the dark emptiness around you, it takes you a little closer to the significance of who you are. 

An apology to my Earth:

“Nothing lives long

Only the Earth and the Mountains”

So goes the death song sung by White Antelope, the war chief of the Cheyennes tribe when he was killed by the white people.

Though I still cry at the fate of the Native Indian tribes, I am beginning to believe that it’s good that they are not here to see what has happened to their beloved earth and the mountains. To my beloved earth, forests and the mountains. Everywhere I go, I see signs of destruction, of greed, of a need that can never be fulfilled, of a dream that is only a mirage. But how do I tell people that? How do I tell people that all that they are seeking is right there, within the very earth, the forests and the mountains they are looting?

I dread to think what I will see in the next ten years; perhaps the Native Indians were wrong. Perhaps nothing will live long, not even the earth and the mountains. And when that happens, where will I be? Where will I live and where will I die?

“The old men say, the Earth only endures. You spoke truly, you are right.”

And along with the Earth, I also endure.