Places

Ecological concern

ecological concern is not just an environmental concern; it also is not our concern for other species. at the end of the day, it is the search for our own lost soul. we are the only species capable of making a difference and saving species. nature has given us that power. it is about how we embrace our responsibility.

Kali’s Magic

I could not resist the temptation to climb up the little mound right next to the town. After the sunset, mountains wake up with their own music of silence and the blanket of darkness only makes them luminous nothing. It was just a hike of ten minutes and I wanted to capture this moment while my brother was still a company.

Twice those ten minutes passed by the time we reached what we thought was the summit only to realize that it was a path to Kali’s temple. All we could see was the stairs, may be some twenty steps ahead. And we climbed. It led to another stairs and the next, and they kept coming. May be one thousand of them. In the dark, the sense of distance collapses. Either things appear very remote or intimate. For me, darkness makes things appear very close. And bonding.

Finally when we reached the summit, I was surprised to see a big temple under construction. It was at least a huge pile of concrete domesticating the nature. A couple were guarding the new construction and I was confused if they were the divine couple preparing their shrine. I asked the old man stupidly, “where is god?” and he retorted, they were kept in the station and will be installed upon completion of the shrine. I love it when gods are under a makeover. This is the only time gods are gods. As they are under the mercy of the working class, the god-makers, and the priests who will have to install life by breathing some mantras. This is the only moment that spirituality comes to life. And gets instantaneously taken over by commerce.(5)

While climbing down the hill, I pondered the magic of darkness. The sky was lit with the moon, although it must have been the fourth or the fifth day of the bright half. Now the darkness had overpowered the surrounding and it was not easy to distinguish a man with a stump. By the time we reached the settlement, I was feeling exhausted. It is not that the climb was long. May be just half an hour. But the darkness and our unpreparedness made it seem eternally long.

All of a sudden, I realized my feet were stuck on something soft. And someone from the side screamed, watch! They had poured concrete over the street and it was wet. It was not deep; just my shoes were stuck. And I heard some giggles. There were a bunch of ladies looking at our misery from their front-yard. I jokingly complained, what if I get stuck in the cement forever. One voice responded, then they would consider me a statue of Shiva and worship there forever. And all the ladies giggled. I could not see any faces as it was too dark. For the rest of the journey, I could just fantasize the faces to match the giggles.

Brahmdev and his wife were waiting for us, sitting on two sides of the door. By measuring their anxiety, it seemed they had given up on our safe return. The happiness in the faces of the old couple reminded me the mythical return of Krishna and the thrill of Yashoda.

Here we did it again. I mean getting lost. The same place, different time with different people.

Kali’s Magic II

Maula Kali is right across Devghat. People visit there from the other side, from the town. When you look up to the western hills from Devghat, you can see the shrine of Kali. It is right there to miss.

Three decades ago, I went there with friends. It was when the air still breathed the sacred and the place was holy. Covered with deep blanket of tropical green, hardly anybody visited to this shrine. There was no regular priest and the major shrine was a mast, an erected wooden poll, ergo Maula Kali. Colobine monkeys were impressed of my chants, and so were the forest birds. We could clearly see the Ashrams in Devghat from the top, and I said, friends, let us climb down through the forest. Let me tell you about myself. If I have friends, it means they follow the whim. I refrain myself from the company of thorough thinkers.

It did not take us even twenty minutes to get completely lost. I thought we could see the settlement as we climb down but the hills have their own ways. And we were lost there for five hours, in a hike that we could have finished in one. When things happen as planned, it becomes an event. But when things unfold as if alive and unpredictable, it turns into an adventure. Events have an end, are circumscribed, and are directional. Adventures, on the other hand, are rhizomatic. Every part is the beginning and an end to itself. I therefore like those who just go for a hike and not those who go for a hike somewhere. And every time I have gotten lost, I have found myself immensely close to myself.(5)

This time, I went to the shrine with my siblings. My sister works in her farm and makes a living so that her husband can be a great communist leader. My brother is enslaved by the Indologists who research on slavery.(5) Again, we decided to climb down through the forest, and yet again, we got lost.

But there was a difference. The blows of time were visible everywhere. The first were the shops for religious objects so the pilgrims could offer something. When the sacred was still alive, people just climbed the mountain and encountered time in the body. And when it died at the hands of the merchants, people discovered faith, and they erected concrete pillars and cement buildings.

The first scene to encounter was the new shrines of some deities right at the foothill. As my sister went inside to make her offerings, I felt vertigo; It was nauseating, and I had to throw up. I thought it was the scene, as the shrines there were depressing. These may be some of the most disgusting temples I have seen in my life.(5) My brother thought it must be something I ate. I wish I could be like my sister. Her sense of the sacred is not interspersed by the aesthetic. If you put a rock in a pile of trash, she would worship it just the same.(5)

They had stairs to climb up all the way. In Nepal, when they mean development, what they actually mean is concrete.(5) These concrete stairs made it possible for the devotees to climb up, spend some money and feel redeemed. It also made it possible for the roadside shops to entice the pilgrims. Half the birds had abandoned the forest and the monkeys preferred human food.(5)

If you slice the body of god, the bottom half becomes faith and the top half becomes the business class.(5) Ever since god asked Abraham to offer his only child, humans have wanted to offer the god to their child instead. Three decades ago, the mast was the shrine, with status making minimal entrance. They had dumped the wooden pole now and made a new symbolic cement mast. And they had a bunch of priests. The new temple with tons of cement stood in between the sacred and the profane. Money has a spiritual origins. It was made for the humankind to purchase god.(5)

Like the last time, we decided to avoid the road and climb directly down the hills. My sister was confident as she saw the newly made stairs, going directly to our destination.

As we rolled down, the stairs ended nowhere and the small trail forked in multiple places. Yet again, we were in the dense forest, clueless of our direction. I can fathom getting lost the last time but this time, it must be the power of Kali. As the forest is half shrunk, and there are cement stairs everywhere. Humans have expanded their footprints everywhere. And gods have pulled themselves out of the human ways.(5)

Now I was thirsty and hungry. The last I ate was a day ago and I forgot to carry water. I could have followed the stream but I was not actually dying of thirst to take the risk of dysentery. My sister managed to collect some parasitic plants, growing on top of bigger trees. They were actually good. And she also located a kavro tree with new buds. I climbed the tree and we had enough of lunch.

Last time it was my teacher but this time my father to scold me for being reckless. This is also another essential element. There has to be someone to reprimand you to make your acts adventurous. And when there is nobody left for that, you have to make other’s actions adventurous.

Although the event was the same, there were different results. Last time I had thrill alive within, and this time, I only had the shadow from the past. I was only seeking the past to connect myself, as it is in these acts of walking down the memory lane that we rediscover ourselves, and sometime get a glimpse of self-recognition, binding past memories with new experiences. The highest form of self-realization is to encounter one’s own stupidity.(5) As our ignorance is something we adore more than anything else, keeping it preserved in the innermost compartment of the Russian doll. After all, Kali resides in the midst of darkness.

West Nepal

Nostalgia.

It was around 1998 that I made my first trip to the western region of Nepal. Acham is a lovely place. Kalikot, of course. I was with brother Shanti Krishna for the trip to Dailekh. Long bus ride to Surkhet was nothing compared to the rest of the way. They had just started cutting the edge of the tall mountains to make a gravel road. The road was not finished but still then they were running bus service. When we were on top, the valley of Surkhet paralleled Amaravati. But the fun was marred by a quick jolt and by the time we were aware of the situation, the front right wheel of our bus was out of the road and the bus was tilting towards the slope. In seconds our next destination was going to be three thousand feet below.

Fortunately we managed to walk out of the bus. The driver stubbornly stayed in his seat, maneuvering the wheels. Two of his associates had some strong ropes and in no time, we all were pulling our bus. The workers heard the noise and a dozen helping hands appeared. In an hour or so, they fixed the slope, and the bus was eventually pulled out. I asked one worker, how good is the road ahead, and he said, it gets worse and worse.

We chose to walk. The locals were used to this and so they stayed in the bus. For, they had already paid for it, so why not to take a chance. This was also my first chance to see the origins of Timalsinas in the far west of Nepal.

Damauli

The banks of Sveta and Madi once gave fertile land. Now covered with concrete, the small valley near Pokhara also endured the myths from the Mahabharata, particularly keeping Vyasa and Parasara alive. My hosts, a couple in their late seventies, seem to have survived for the last two millennia without any change. And change was dumped onto them, unwanted and unprepared.(5) Brahmdev, I thought, will be swallowed up by time without waking up to the harshness in the underbelly of time.

Brahmdev was forced to move from his village; purchase small piece of land, and build a small house. I begged him to go with him to see his family house, few hours up in the mountains. He gave a helpless look.(5) After the Maoist insurgency, some villages are practically captured by the so-called “lower castes.” While the land is legally owned by the “oppressive” brahmins, the new forces inflicted pain in numerous ways, making their life miserable.(5) Brahmdev does not know his fault of being born in a particular family. As all he did in his life was to teach the same villagers as a school teacher. His children either migrated abroad or settled in Kathmandu.

Trying to fathom the life of Brahmdev is like trying to understand the aftermath of the revolution. The same revolution that buried thousands in the dust, displaced millions, and of course, gave a couple thousand new millionaires.

My brother and I get restless. I ask Brahmdev for an easy way to climb the mountain to the east, and then to the west, and eventually anywhere. Brahmdev believes that nowhere is safe. “It is too risky,” “it is not safe,” he keeps completing each of my queries in negation. Of course I know things have been settled and there is not a real threat in those mountains. I am only fathoming the fear that this retired village teacher feels. The same villages that he gave education for the last forty years.(5)

We sneak out in the early morning, me and my brother. Find our own way and cross the Madi bridge. Ended up to a Shiva temple by the banks of Sveta. A caretaker responds, a bit embarrassed that their priest was ill and there was nobody to open the temple that day. I tell her, but I am a priest for today. A bit confused, she opens the gates. By the time I finished my meditation, my brother had almost finished taking selfies.(5)

While crossing the Sveta bridge, tears started rolling for no reason. I feel so nostalgic that I avoid going to Nepal at all costs. I was speechless seeing Dhayero and Dhursul blossom. When I was young, they bloomed everywhere.(5) And some thirty years have passed since I last saw them bloom. I had never been to Nepal when they blossom. As a kid, I used to compete with bees to suckle from dhayero blooms and collect dhursul for the home shrine.

I am one among five million. The same five million that lives abroad, works hard and sends some money back home so that the politicians that have displaced people like Brahmdev can live a luxury life.(5) There is meaning to my life, to make the life of the leaders in Nepal easy. I wonder what is the meaning of life for people like Brahmdev who did not hurt even one ant in their life and are waiting for the great time, Mahakala, surrounded by fear.

Bhimbetka

In a corner of Bhopal not too far from Bhojpur lies Bhimbetka: A marvel that goes back to paleolithic and mesolithic times and the cave arts that date back to some 30,000 years. The art there is a fusion work of the neanderthals and the homo sapiens, literally a masterpiece of the marriage between some strange tribes. You can see the layers of early and later paintings; the folks kept using the same wall in different times. A closer analysis reveals what inspired the most the people of this changing era.

It is in these arts that we can see the humans first encountering itself. Not just “who am I?” but also “why me”? And this is where we see the humans discovering itself among other animals, surrounded by the animals, mostly the buffalo and deer, and of course, the elephants and tigers, and more.

The humans have discovered themselves in the battlefield. Just like Arjuna discovers his subjectivity in the midst of Kuruksetra, these early humans found their humanity in the midst of animals, devouring or being devoured. And above all, the most fearsome among the animals that the humans encountered were themselves.(5) Making spears, learning to ride on animals particularly for the purpose of killing another human being, and waging wars seems the first symptomatic of the human, if Bhimbetka has something to tell us.

The early humans heard the echo from afar and carved their lives on the walls. These humans understood what they were and lived accordingly: both a subject and agent of death. They may have discovered God in the spilled blood of their brothers.(5) The Neanderthal wife must have been overpowering, forcing the man to discover his masculinity by spilling blood of fellow humans. And animals. They must have made a marginal distinction between the humans and the other beasts. And thy must have recognized that some among the animals are not to be consumed. The Neanderthals did not build a wall; they instead lived together; and of course ate each other. And they left behind the legacy through the wall carvings that are for us to fathom. The man that the primitives discovered is as if hidden today but it is always there, wanting to come out of the caves, craving to be seen and be acknowledged.

Sunrise

Udayagiri or the Sunrise Mountain is right next to Sanchi, boasting the lasting competition for two millennia between the Hindus and Buddhists. Some say we are always right and they are wrong. I would say our neighbors are always right and we are wrong. Voluptuous dancers exposing their swollen breasts welcome at the gates of the Buddhist mendicants who once abandoned all the worldly pleasure. Determined to teach a lesson, Bhagavan made the monks to witness the horror of the falling limbs of Amrapalli upon her death; the same Amrapalli who was an embodiment of lust, carnal presence of eros, materialization of desire. As if epitomizing the revolt of the young monks, Sanchi Stupas bring back the forbidden, give desire its place, and make the meditation of the young monks worthwhile.

On the contrary, Udayagiri subdues the eros, as if stealing all the dispassion the Buddhist monks had, and gives some of the earliest depictions of the phallus of Shiva with a face on top, Durga with multiple arms slaying a buffalo, and the mighty boar. I was just about to mourn the death of desire and I saw on the opposite hilltop a dozen beehives, some bigger than five feet. Those who ruled the area used some strange characters, Shamkha script that can be compared to coiling snakes or to the flow of Narmadā.

An elderly gentleman showed us some cut off statues and fallen heads. India sometimes appears as a sore wound that only has to share the history of horrors that she endured. Once you are used to it, you do not even notice such things like the carbon monoxide in the streets of Delhi. The red sun was half out, as if tearing the womb of the sky, when I reached the top of Udayagiri. And from there, I could gaze in the distant horizon the forlorn forest in the direction of Satadhara that once hosted hundreds of Buddhist stupas. I thought, this Sunrise mountain has not just witnessed new suns coming to dominate the land, blazing during the summer heats and warming up the winter days, it has also witnessed the kings come and go. Above all, it has turned into a living archive for the civilization that once was, the Hindus that first saw the face in the abstract signs and the monks who daydreamed women.

Rhododendron

I woke up with chill in my feet of the morning dew that sparkles in the dawn as I walk down the hills chasing some dragonflies. The radiance of Annapurna gives aurora color turning into red, shining like a rainbow before turning white. The single mountain range that mediates me and the Himalayas glows with rhododendrons. They are all pink and red and white. I hear some songs far away, fading and reverberating. I guess my feet are itching to go back to Nepal.

Books in Nepal

Appeal to Friends from Nepal

Since last year, Nepal has imposed 10% customs duty on import of books. This not only affects the bookstores that rely on international publications, this also affects the readers. Needless to say, Nepal is far behind other countries as it comes to education and innovation. By suffocating the bookstores and penalizing the readers, we are pushing the society further away from the light of knowledge. Even though it may not personally affect us, this is affecting many. I know that if you want you can make a difference. It is up to you now.

San Jacinto

They say you embark in a journey in your near-death experience. When I was at the peak of Jacinto, I wanted to capture one of the scenes that might play in my last moments. This place has been home away home for me, as the vistas I see from the top fill my heart with the feel that I am still in Nepal.

When I started climbing to the top, the sun had just touched the peaks with some aurora and when I descended down to Idyllwild, I could see the colors changing from bright to red, eventually everything being enveloped in the dark. The Rishi in me chants, tama evedam agra asit, tamasaivedam avrtam asit, that in the beginning, all that was there was darkness, that all was circumscribed by the dark. When I reach the far shores of my knowledge, every time I am confronted by the thicket of darkness. My being myself, my being in the world, is preconditioned in this magical power of Kali that wraps around my gaze, that permits the flow of my vāha-shaktis, the forces that carry around and engage consciousness in active and creative participation.

They say life is a journey. I think this might be a loop that we traverse through a repeated regurgitating of memories. Rishis mapped the speech with cow, and I think speech has allowed us to keep chewing the cud and the speech, matrikas, have thus confirmed our pashuta, being tied with fetters. But I seek my liberation in the speech not from the speech. Only sages recognized the difference between pashus and mrga, the latter being wild.

I feel like San Jacinto lets me be me, even if for brief. When the humans will have wiped the wild animals, wilderness will penetrate their heart and they will be the wild bores (sic). Retaining mantras is a heavy-duty work, as the fire inside burns much powerful than the fire outside. When all the altars fall to the ground, the heart stays awake, singing the eternal songs that we offer ourselves to this fire that guides our being.

And I wake up from my samadhi. The peaks are there not to be trodden. They are there so that you can humble down and return a bit smaller.

Chandas

(Rishis mapped the speech with cow.)

there are either cows or deer, paśu or mṛga. cows have discovered their meter, chandas, and deer roam free of the ropes. they have yet to discover their natal freedom of not being ensnared with chandas.

memory-aches

I just recalled the trail above my village house that led to a hand-pressed oil-mill. Around this time of the year, they used to make one merry-go-round, a four-seater charkhe ping, as we used to call it. And a giant banyan tree with a rope swing! Some shadows cropped up from the depth of oblivion but no clear face emerged. I remember running around the oil-presser with my grandmother; I must have been around seven then. They used to install charkhe ping for about a month every year. The rope swings were to celebrate dashain.

Almost all the native villagers have since left Sankhu. The trail and the banyan tree do not exist any more. I cannot go anywhere to the existing planes to satisfy the hunger of reliving, to quell the itch, to balm the ache, to stop the urge, and to run alongside the same people to see again so many faces known and unknown and to relive the memory once again. I am eternally hooked in this non-Euclidean terrain of memory with the space that once was tangible, and the people that once cheered and laughed.

Milk village

Humanity is a strange concept.

I have just returned from village where sharing is a norm. They are not rich people. They are simply humans who have not forgotten their humanity. Someone heard my kids wanted a ripe jack fruit, and in less then one hour, there were four jack fruits in the porch. My daughter whispered, there are fresh corns on the cub, and a girl delivered a dozen. They have a small stall to sell essential items. I asked the shopkeeper, if they sell fresh bamboo shoots, and Janardan appeared with half a dozen bamboos. I do not know how the message circulates. If someone wishes something, the entire village resonates with the will in less than the time it takes for a facebook message to circulate.

When the humans encounter modernity, humanity becomes a strange concept. The mantra today is, “How can you expect to share something for free if I can sell it and make some money.” There is one village in Madhya Pradesh, India, where the villagers do not sell milk but share among the villagers in stead. If you watch this report, you would know what I mean. The reporter appears abhorred of the idea of sharing; blames the villagers for being superstitious, and finds it funny and strange that the villagers share.

As a teacher, it is time for me to reflect back, where I have failed the humanity. It is time for all of us to reflect back, if the concept of sharing is worth saving.

Borobudur

In Borobudur, the Buddha lives again, not just as the Buddha of emptiness or of dependent origination but the Siddhartha of Gaya before it becomes “bodha”, and the many lives of Siddhartha, some five hundred and fifty-five of them, epitomized in the Jataka narratives.

As the Buddha of Nagarjuna, the Buddha relives in Borobudur as empty person. He exists in absence. He dwells as the empty seats for his statue. And sometimes, he lives the body, the torso to be precise, without head. Head is a metaphor for thought and Buddha is a metaphor for transcending thoughts. The torso of the Buddha is a perfect metaphor of the bodily being that has gone beyond (pāragate) names and forms. He lives there as nobody, not god and not teacher, just nobody. The irony in his life was that when he realized that he is nobody, they worshiped him. It is in Borobudur that he finds his nothingness once again.

Buddha is not a temporal being. There is no temporal progression towards Buddhahood. I like it the way the Westerners say, “buḍā”, which in my native language means “old man.” And yes, there is a linear progression towards old age but not towards wisdom. It is in Borobudur that we see Siddhartha of Gaya living alongside the Buddha of Jetavana. The Siddhartha of Gaya is a metaphor for ardor. His emaciated body is reanimated by the slimmed torsos with some sharp tools. But most importantly, what we learn from the Jataka tales, the altruistic nature of the Buddha to sacrifice his own bodily being to accommodate the needs of the others, is relived in Borobudur by the hundreds of Buddhas by offering their heads for the collectors. The Siddhartha in a linear progression had to end for the Buddha to emerge. But when everything gets to live simultaneously, Siddhartha can now offer his body for those who need again and again. Not just the heat of the summer or the monsoon rain, also the sharp sword of Allah has tasted the bodily Buddha nature. Historical Buddha had to struggle to empty his mind, but the Buddha in Borobudur is somatically emptying itself; it is the flesh of the Buddha that is being carved with sword and sold in the market.

Names and forms, Buddha said, are mere empty. I sat next to the Buddha without head and then realized that we complete each other. When I am self-conscious, it is my ego, it is my head, that comes to the fore. Buddha literally abnegated his subjectivity. He did not, however, negate his bodily being, as he was physically present for his students. Like Yajnavalkya threatening Gargi, Buddha threatens me with his silence and demands my head. I slip off and slip away, weary of conserving my being no matter how flimsy it is.

Aryaghat

Aryaghat, the confluence of the nobles. I did not stay there; I had nobody to wait for. In passing, I noticed some events, some persons, and some in-betweens. There was a bull, a real bull with his masculinity and all. And some tourists. There was a Chod master in one side of the cremation ground and two bodies being cremated on the other. I tried but could not see myself. I have always remained invisible. First they stopped noticing me and then I stopped seeing. Divided by the river, Chod master and the dead bodies were in between persons and events. There were bodies without bodies, bodies that had recently lost designations. Chod is a process, an event that subsumes bodily being, that swallows the visible and the invisible, the rhythm that reverberates along the cracking sound of the cremation ground fire.

I was struggling to locate the tourists. They were not invisible, they were not the events. They were, may be the death incarnate, the messengers of Yama, cherishing to capture the moments of dying, rushing in different directions with their camera. You have to expunge your humanity to become a tourist. Humans are too sensitive. Humans fail to capture the moment of death but the tourists can. Only when you have lofty ideas such as nationalism you can defeat the tourists in their game and go beyond. They sell the tourists the tickets and make some money so that the tourists can enjoy the show of death. You cannot see nationalism in all its opacity elsewhere than the Aryaghat. It has the power to make fratricide an act of glory.

The bull stands there with its neutral gaze. When you discover your masculinity, there really is nothing further to be found. Buddha failed to discover masculinity and became the Buddha. The discovery of the masculinity is such that the very presence of the testicles gives one the sense of completeness. It is the sense of lack that makes us struggle. A bull has nothing to struggle for, no sense of lack. A tourist is still not to the same height, as he has the desire to capture death, the death that has been objectified. A tourist and the Chod master achieve the same thing, transcendence of death. While the master encounters his own death, undergoes the same process of burning, and dissolves his bodily being the same way the cremation happens, a tourist entraps death in its visible objectified form. I looked around for the last moment, but I was completely invisible.

Pashupati

Kali this time around is mild. I spent about an hour in her shrine, mostly hanging out with the priest. In the walls of her shrine, the face of Prem Chetan kept coming again and again, the person who adopted me and made me who I am, the yogin who merged with Kali almost two decades ago. Climbing up the stairs with dogs has its own beauty, if not interspersed with the piercing memory of the loss of Kshipra Nath and Narahari. Those days I would feel empty if I could not say hello to Kshipranath. Some namesake yogins were keeping the dhuni alive, as if fire has its own simulacra. And the next step, I could vividly hear the voice of Prapannacharya, the person who has fed me more sweets than anybody else, if memory serves. It was almost dark to climb down, and the turmoil in my heart of the sense of solitude kept crawling back and forth. How can something be so full and so empty at the same time? In the midst of the crowd, I am only seeking the faces that have departed, left me to walk in the dark alone.

I cross Bagmati and cut through the Shamkara Mutt to enter Pashupati. There was one old monk who one could be confused with Ramananda. He was chanting bhaja govindam, and I believe he was not chanting for me but for himself: I was simply trying to find the reference for the mūḍha-mati. What a shame that wisdom and knowledge cannot be genetially encoded. I looked up the next building. A lot has changed. Many years ago, I was puzzled not knowing my destiny. I had screamed, Shiva, share some ashes and walk on your journey. And had gazed up, and to my bewilderment saw one lady looking down at that moment. Yes, that is when I met Gayatri and I eventually got married.

When I crossed the river back, it was pitch dark. There were two pyres burning in two sides of the river and there was one ascetic practicing Chod. My final solace was to get lost in the flames of the pyre with the cracking sound of fire mixed with the Chod drum. I had nothing left. I had no desire left when I saw myself as a song, the song that has struggled so hard to find its own melody.

The dream

I just woke up with a very strange dream. Well, dreams are meant to be strange, but what I mean is a very unique dream. Well, every single dream is absolutely unique. Let me tell you anyway.

I was teaching at a university administered by two of my school friends who were living in Kathmandu and our own village at the same time. The university had just one room or at least so it appeared from outside as all the rooms were stacked together inside one room, although they all were of the same size. The university was between America and Nepal: I could simply walk through a door and travel from one country to the other. And all the countries that I have traveled so far and some strange countries with strange people. They all were stacked with one another and were inside the university but at the same time outside the classroom.

I was the master bubble-maker. Seriously, this is why I felt like sharing with you. The university was dedicated to teaching the art of bubble=making. Students did not age there. In my childhood, I remember making bubbles from the jatropha milk and my skills of making bubbles were highly recognized. I was attending a conference of bubble-making in Nepal at the moment.

The only teaching there was of bubble-making. And students had developed the skills to jump inside the bubbles that they make. The real competition was to sit inside the bubble for a sustained period of time. We called this prāṇāyāma. They said the art of bubble-making was the key to conquering time. While the bubbles came in different sizes, the competition was not to make giant bubbles but to make many and be inside multiple bubbles at the same time.

The final scene was a bit confusing. We were inside the bubbles making bubbles and jumping inside the bubbles to make bubbles. I woke up hearing my own voice, when am I going to wake up?

New Year Project

Dear Friends,
If you are studying cultures, wouldn’t it be wonderful to open calendar and find every day as a new year day relating to this or that culture? Just imagine assembling the “New Year” days from every single culture. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to wake up and write on “Wall,” “Happy New Year” every single day? And if you are a pluralist, you would cherish with me every single day and if you are a singularist, I would make you miserable an entire year except for one day. Either way, it would be worth an achievement.

From one death to the other

Arvind says the next stop after visiting Mahakala is Kala Bhairava. I am not even kidding. This is like after visiting the great death I have to encounter the terrible death. I nod with devotion and the taxi rolls through the narrow street and gets eventually blocked by a procession of the funeral-goers. I am sitting at the bank of Kshipra listening to the mutterings of the pundit which is being increasingly difficult for me to follow due to his bad reading. He is assisting me to perform the rites in honor of my pitrs, ancestors. Between the Great Time and the Terrible time comes death and death is history.

Jetlag induced insomnia is like any other insomnia that has the virility of germinating pseudo-philosophy, like most of the philosophies. I am trying to find the significance of the day-trip, figuring out the steps, planning, giving time coherence. And fell sleep. Not a real slumber but one of those intermittantly interfering the solitude impregnated by insomnia. I see a black dog by the doorway. Very dark in color. I am not a dog person. Not that I do not like them, I do not rush to lick them like the civilized ones do. I can safely say that I am dog-neutral. But in my dream I rush to take him in my lap. The dark medium-sized dog s shiny eyes. I tell him I know who you are, you are my god, the death, come death, be on my lap. And the dog, totally shocked seeing me knknowing his game, vanishes with my dissolving ego as if my ego is about to enter the darkness of coma. And I wake up just to find myself soaked in the non-stop chat of Bhopal dogs.

My American friends feel sad seeing the state of dogs in India. As for myself I am abhorred seeing the situation of dogs in America. American dogs have luxury. These dogs have their own human servants that they use to warm up their bodies during the winter nights. But they are trapped within the corridores of the apartments. They do not have the concept of freedom. Indian dogs, on the other hand, have freedom but no life. These dogs are born and eventually die in the street. They grow along others born and living in the street, the increasing number of homeless people. The same street corner that defines the humans their bondage also evokes the sense of freedom among the dogs.

Our taxi comes very close to a dog. The dog does not run but instead stops and looks back, while lingering in the middle of the road, with eyes filled with scorn. He is daring the driver to go and hit him. These dogs cross the street like the humans, understanding the human psychology of care while taking chance to be crushed,again like the humans whose ambition in life is defined by the desire to move to the lucrative corner of the street where they could collect more coins. This, I believe, is what it is like to see death manifest as time and the time regulated as death

Limbo

The best place to get insights for life and the oblivion is transit station. This is where you stay with no anticipation than time. This is not waiting for someone. This is just getting old a minute at a time. Tired and hungry faces, dull and sleepless faces, simply waiting for the announcement. But actually the directionless minds and burdensome bodies are in themselves at the moment. And like the spiritual masters duty free stalls are waiting to con the customers anticipating salvation at the transit. People are simply living at the transit as nobody makes a trip to be there trapped in between. And there are some who make transit their home. They dream and make love at the transit. The modern day Kapalikas.

The Pot-Makers

They were at the gate of the hall. The hall was for a display. Art, architecture, skills, oratory, and above all, cooking. And at the gate were the pot-makers.

She was stunningly beautiful and she kept natural smile on her face. He was focused. She put a lump of clay at the navel of the wheel. And he picked his stick and started spinning the wheel. A vase came in no time. The small corner that he occupied was filled with pitchers, every single shape of it. I asked gently, show me the best of yours. He looked back honestly and retorted, that is yet to be made.

Many come to Kumbh-Mela to find a drop of what once was inside the pot (following the myth). Some others come to find the pot-maker. And here they were, sitting gently, abandoned in a corner.

Opposite to the potter’s corner was that of netters’. She was making a mat. Red, white, and dark, all the patterns were a mere fabrication of three colors. The white was not a color: it was just the wool in its natural form. Why red and dark? I asked. I think she did not understand me, as she said ‘just red.’ Or may be she was giving me the basics of philosophy.

Manoj was pulling me out, a bit annoyed that I was focused on pottery and netting and not paying attention to food. Every single food was uniquely made. The food-artists. Even in this heavenly delight of relishing the food, my mind was stuck to the fresh smile of the potter’s wife. I wonder why nobody talks about the potters that make kumbh and make the display of kumbh possible.

Home

Floodgate of reminiscence opens with a simple assertion, ‘oh, you’ve reached home!’
What a marvelous statement, sweet and innocent.
But how difficult it is to answer.
The closer I get home, the further away I feel I am.
Home, sweet home.
How the idea of home escapes all but the walls and rooms
and leaves behind memories imprinted on the walls,
the musky dust with a few seasonal dews.

All the stuff that I can associate with home are simple.
The cacophony of cicada and crickets, basking in the sun going downhill,
the paper planes and paper wheels, the wild berries.
But these all are meaningful in association with other subjects,
the brothers that I played with, the friends that I laughed with.(4)
Either I grew old or time grew old on me,
all these luxuries are reserves only to savor from the past. And the idea of home comes with sweetness that parents gave, that siblings shared,
that personal stories were made of.
We were not produced in some factory.
But it is our home that became the placeholder for the memories that we savored.

But more than that, home was a safety place.
We all felt safe not being judged and being loved unconditionally.
Even then, it feels like I am walking away from home.

They say we work for being happy. No.
We work because we have to.
Not that are are forced into working but that our nature is working.(5)
And every time, I moved to a new place, I have offered myself to work.

There is some emptiness, a sense of the melancholy,
some urge to rediscover myself that comes alongside the concept home.
Every time I had to walk away from home to discover myself.
Home is so safe. There are mangos and dragonfruits.
There are laughters and torments. And this comfort becomes discomforting.
Discomforting because I am never used to it.

Then we invent some wild. And step away from the collective.
Every time, individuality gets regained, reintroduced.
So many bruises left behind, and so many prints, to last forever.

I believe the very notion of home has been a placeholder for me
to start the journey from and not to conclude it.
But now, I am done with rediscovering myself. I want to come home.