Waking up at a godforsaken hour of 3am after another restless night the next best thing to do is to put my incoherent thoughts into coherent text. There have been so many thoughts and ideas racing through the mind for so many months, thoughts which could be written down or ideas brought to fruition.... none of which saw the light of day.. which incidentally shows up outside my balcony, the light, not any idea... AH ! Wouldn't it be lovely to see an idea float in through the balcony door and perhaps catch it or then leave it free to go and find another open door? Or  many ideas swirling around , knocking on ones dull head waiting for the brain to open the doors to their freshness but return disappointed after circling because the thick cranium did not give them any notice?

The mind is so full of so many thoughts, a reflection of its restlessness and once again what comes forth is the picture on the Bhagwad Geeta of Krishna on the chariot reining in the horses, representing as we have been often told that the mind is like the wayward steeds which has to be reigned in with immense control. I don't really wish to ponder on the Geeta right now nor on the texts which I have read ... perhaps I want to let the mind fly free without the bondage of control. There is so much to ponder on .. so much already thought about so much left to say so much left unsaid. Sitting in the midst of fun and revelry a quiet thought crosses the cranium and gets crossed out. I see I watch and observe, socially active but inherently quiet. How far have reached or perhaps how far we have not. Some things remain unchanged and some change with a rapidity which is unnerving. The stages we go through in the walk of life and what we are today, what one has been through to be at the place they are now, how circumstances hone your thought and how you hone yours to face circumstances. That nothing is permanent or none invincible but life and living is all around which perhaps shows some permanence in the impermanent, or that even in the most terrible times the strength that one gets from within oneself to never give up is representative of a shadow of the invincibility of what one calls the Supreme.

The mind is a maze of complexity with innumerable thoughts , it can be simple and clear like still waters of a lake or as fervent as the rushing stream both in themselves picture perfect. It is with our own eyes that see the world with a complex or a non complicated view. Perhaps we need to keep clearing the caches and the cookies or then tug with a little more force at the reins.... or then perhaps we should just continue the act of living to the best of our ability... throw away the reins and gobble the cookies?

Our hands reach out to temporary vanity
Basking in joys of unbounded opportunity
We strive we run achieve and gain
Through pleasure and with equal pain

Dawns a day when in crowds we stand
The teeming throng , the noisy band
In the silence of evening shadows
Loss gain or virtue - passing breeze
We come with none
We go with naught
And still we strive
And still we play
For nothing less than empty hands
We reach to strive we reach to aim
Towards the final path we tread
With empty hands....
What then have we achieved, what gained.

NK

Feline frolic and myriad mews.

Long years ago ( with apologies to our erstwhile prime minister) I had a tryst with cats or was it the other way round? Cats have a way of making their trysts and thereby their dominance over the one who keeps them. They can never be owned for they are the owners of free spirits who look on amused at the way, I as an instance, jump to their every meow.

It was nineteen years since Billo Rani came into our lives. She was a dainty tortoiseshell who we (Mom Dad and  moi) alternately fed with great respect and a good deal of pleasure ... the last emotion was hers more often than not... and sometimes when there was chicken... the stealth routine to feed her downstairs was another story. She remained downstairs and Papa used to meet her on his morning walks in the compound. Slowly but surely she made her way up to our little abode. Well, to be very frank that is what we told Mom but she knew us well and our protestations that she had followed us upstairs of her own accord cut no ice with her. Billo Rani was still inhabiting the spaces below when she had her first litter and she was no more than a kitten herself. Happy with her productivity she pranced around our legs at mealtimes promising to show Mom her kittens when she thought it was the proper time. Alas! One day she sat in front of the elevator most dejected and forlorn. Mom asked her what had happened and she just looked at her with mournful eyes. The guard later told us that her kittens had been trapped in an empty flat in the building behind , she could not reach them and they had died. Mom Dad and I consoled her and after quite a while she started eating again. This was the first time I had actually seen an expression of emotion in an animal and although it was a sad sight it was remarkable. She entered her home (which used to be ours) to stay soon after. Her delight at seeing the maroon carpet laid down as if specially for her and her curiosity about the other rooms which she knew were hers was a delightful wonder to us. We had had cats earlier when I was a child but this intelligent torty was something else. She became pregnant soon after and the day the labor pains started ... OMG.. only Pops and I were home and she was yelling loudly in pain.I called the vet and was told to give her milk with glucose which she proceeded to lap up hungrily. Her contractions must have been more rapid for there was a lot of yowlin and meowling . Poor Papa put old newspapers on the sofa so and told her to be comfortable there, we of course knew not a thing about how to carry out midwife duty for cats. She was having none of his sympathetic arrangements and continued yelling. Mom came in around 8.30 pm from the temple and saw the commotion. She went to her and said. and I kid you not, " Billo , where do you want to have your babies. Don't worry everything will be fine." Billo Rani received a few gentle strokes on her head and stomach and THEN jumped behind the tv cabinet and went on to produce the three cutest little kittens... while Dad complained that after all he was doing for BR all SHE wanted was Mom's permission !And then the change from room to room.. rather funny really.... she took them one by one in her mouth and then came back to loudly meow again  to see if she had left any behind. Dad of course commented that she should have learned to count. I did not remind him that she was as bad as his daughter in the mathematics.

This very intelligent cat who understood word for word what Mom had to say, was the grandmother of my darling Patch(u) who I laid to rest yesterday afternoon. He was the last link I had to them in terms of the love we shared for all the felines who made their home with us. Coincidentally and very strangely he passed away on the eve of their anniversary which is today , perhaps their souls are united now and the three generations of kitties are all frolicking together with Mom and Dad.The circle of life and death is complete again and while I am heartbroken that Patch has gone I know he is relieved of his suffering and at peace.

To get back to the very intelligent Billo Rani and her even more intelligent progeny .. they were all smart , not street smart but human smart. It was amazing how they understood what was said to them. Kali of course was a wonder cat, I have written about her in another post, she decided to leave the homestead for greener pastures when her nieces and nephews entered the world, but she was knew which side the bread was buttered and she came two or three times a day for her meals. When the kitchen was being refurbished she would walk in every night and inspect the work done that day by the masons and later the carpenters, give her approval and then settle down to eat. It was a standing joke at home .. we would let her in every night to do her catscan. Her sister Bhuri who was Patchu's mother gave surrogacy rights to Mom for feeding her four kittens .. and what a sight it was ... with Bhuri outside and the bedroom door closed Mom sitting cross-legged on the carpet , with Patchu in her lap, Tidda on her shoulder and Tiddi and Spottu ( later renamed Bhure Lal by Dad) in front of her. The boiled fish was fed to each one by turn accompanied by a host of gratified num num numnumnums.Patchu was my mother's favorite .. there seemed to be an instant connect between them. Tidda , poor chap had a bit of an identity crisis when he was very tiny, we thought he was a girl cat and called him Chammak chhallo and believe you me he did walk and run like one. His name was changed the day we discovered who he was. Tidda's love for me was monumental .. his eyes poured with love and while Patchu was Mom's cat Tidda was my love. As a consequence of Mom's love for Patch, Tidda detested Mom for a while and being jealous Patchu and Tidds would get into fierce fights ... with fur flying everywhere. I took matters in hand one say and sat with them and explained to them how both were so dear to us. This coaching class lasted for about a week and voila they were inseparable after that , slept with their arms around each other ! Bhure Lal made Papa his favorite and as he was the youngest of the litter was much smaller than the muscular Patch and the rotund Tidda. He was also a bit of a coward, attacking them from behind and scampering to Dad for cover.

There are so many sweet memories of the three generations which made their home with us. Each time one has died I have cried buckets, they were like my children, with all their expressions and emotions their fun and frolic and the laughter and love they brought into our lives. I have had a questioning mew or two thrown at me at times, and Patchu, my darling who loved Amma so much actually mewed her name.. something like annnnwaaa. Amazing. He did the same a few times in the beginning of December last,when he fell ill. I knew then that the end was nearing ...

The new generation with me are a boisterous lot except for Dhanno who was rescued from the airport..she moves around with the import of a dowager duchess but when she becomes kittenish in her play it is delightful to watch, quite a mommy too, preening the little ones and scolding them for being naughty. Then there is BuffyToo (named after another Buffy in the isles) who is an intelligent AND street smart tortoiseshell and would not be wrong in thinking that she is a distant grrandcat or perhaps a great grandcat of Billo Rani, the harbinger of feline joyousness into my life.

All my darlings each and every one of them with their distinct personalities and incessant demands for attention. The diabolical dozens !! Meeewaaaah !!

NK

11/3/2014

Ode to Patchu (my darling cat)

Between two beams of sunlight,
He sits... a teardrop of tomorrow
As he waits patiently for his end
I can only look on in sorrow
Of days gone by in play
Of his soulful love
and kittenish ploys

How well he understood we said
his love for Mom
And when she passed on
His dread
His expressive comments
with myriad meows
My love my pet my little Patch cat

Sits quiet now
Breaking bonds
Between sunlit beams of sorrow

Next year by this time there will probably be debris where I am sitting now, well not exactly because at this place there will only be space, but you get the drift. The debris will be of stone and mortar and from that will rise another structure. It is so easy to rebuild something inanimate, how does one resurrect the debris which lies around one's heart, how does one rebuild when one sees ones own life crashing down. And yet there are some who have risen from the depths of despair to fly higher. For me the circle is complete again. The happy times are over once more and the cycle completes itself. Now I dread the thought of even being happy, of dreaming , time and time again fate has dealt a blow,and time after time I have tried to rise up to it, fallen beaten but never defeated. Fallen beaten trod on but have shaken the gathered dust of fate and stood up again with trepidation. I have looked around and found that it was not so bad and have carried on .Perhaps my fault was that I trusted and had an abiding faith in goodness, was I wrong?  In my perspective I was not, but perhaps others thought me to be wrong. I cannot help but trust the people around me for that is how I am , foolish and gullible enough to think that all people are good, because I KNOW they are,they are only the victims of their past and behave in a manner for which at most times they have no reasonable answer for. I myself have been the victim of my own thought processes many times, but I have learned to catch myself in time. It takes learning to not react instinctively but with thought. The other day when my cat bit me, somebody asked me if I gave him a yelling and a whack, how could I? He was an animal reacting with his instinct and I was a human being who had a thought process which could understand why he did what he did and if then I did as he had done what would be the difference between him and me? So I learn to live with a semi damaged nerve, the same way as I have learned to live with a darned life, but for how long will the fabric sustain itself? The debris lies around me and somewhere in the distance I hear the strains of the  modern version of an old lyric " Har kisi ko nahin milta yahan pyaar zindagi mein" . My trust will abide, and the hollow where my heart was once will soon fill up . The cycle completes itself yet again.

The blank page forces me to write my thoughts, thoughts which have been churning in my mind for a while now, at other times I could have penned, no, typed them down, easily said and the excuses to not write them even more easily made. This time I MUST for time between posts has been too long.

Just a few days back, I was telling Nivedita about the experience I had during the serial bomb blasts way back in the '90s and about the police riots in the '80s which was the first time I actually came almost face to face with violence when it erupted on the streets. She told me to write about both the incidents, that they would make for good reading, but this is not what I really intended to write about.

Of late we have been reading of all sorts of crimes against women, just recently I signed a petition to be given to the chief minister to make the city safer for women. I have signed it , but I do not really think that by such an act any kind of change can come about either soon or over a period of time.

The new "in thing " is women's empowerment. Get associated with such a cause and feel you have done something to bring about some change. How does change really come about? When I witnessed aftermath of the police riots in the '80s  a day later in the early morning when returning home from the then South Bombay where we had to wait overnight, I was stunned by the scene that I saw. Smouldering buses, some still in flames, and platoons of armed forces with their guns pointed towards the roads. One had read of riots in newspapers and heard about in on the TV news but to be facing it was another matter.  The character of the riots that day had changed from some issue into something else completely. Looting and rioting had taken over a busy commercial area. There were miscreants who then wanted only to loot and destroy. There may have been some political angle involved , but lets not get into that for I do not know about it. What struck me at that time was the swiftness with which it all happened. Where did these people come from? From my lofty middle class mind I viewed it as the anger of the masses who had no jobs, who in Mumbai terms are called 'vela' and who given even the least bit of an opportunity could come out on the streets and create mayhem. I have since seen many small incidents happening where a huge crowd collects, it can be a fight on a street, a motor accident, an argument between a shopkeeper and a client. Each time I wondered where the crowd erupted from.

We are well on the way to almost completing twenty five years of the 21st century. What has changed? We talk about holistic change, about changing ourselves, about bringing about change so that the those who govern us can facilitate in making our lives better. We have talked for years about the growing population, about the unemployment, about our education system, our poverty. We have archaic laws, some of which are changing now very slowly, we follow the policy of our earlier rulers of dividing and ruling the country, vote banks are very necessary to the people who want to be in power to "rule" the country. All political parties have their hit men who do jobs and are protected by their masters. The police has its hands tied , khaki is ruled by khadi .... a police officer told me about 25 years back. So what really had changed? The way I see it, nothing really, except now in cities more women are joining the workforce and becoming financially independent and perhaps this has led to crimes against them. This may be wrong too, because crimes were and will always be a part of any given social system. This time around the awareness is more and where even ten years back it may have been kept under covers for fear of social stigma, today it is out in the open.

I question the rights of the people we chose to govern us. If we as citizens have the right to vote for good governance, as citizens we have the right to expect good governance. If this had happened from the very beginning the picture could have been different. If each and every village and district had some self governance which allowed for progress of that area under the vigilant eye of the administration and the elected representative, could things not be different? What we have is local panchayats elected and then ruled by corrupt individuals so that what has not changed in years will continue to remain the same. We see leaders being garlanded with money, we hear and read of  people who actually work diligently and honestly being transferred, is this how a country is governed? Honesty is of no value, what is important is the running of big businesses by whatever dishonest means under the aegis of even more dishonest political bosses.

I ask again, what has changed? NOTHING REALLY.........and I know that like me there will be thousands who will sign petitions but change will happen ONLY when there will be the political WILL to make it happen. When those in power can willfully give up the power to be in power, when that power which they have been entrusted with can make each and every individual of this country walk with their head held high, when those that sit in high seats can be just other individuals doing a job which they are paid for and not think of the common people as those they have to dole out their largesse on, maybe just maybe some change may come about. Until then food grains will rot while people starve, there will be child trafficking, the police will turn a blind eye to legitimate complaints, and the our political masters will continue to slurp the cream.

I have not even started about the parallel economy. Bless their black souls.

Mitti ko chunkar jeevan paya hai
Khak ko bun kar man paya hai
Khushi paayi hai paththaron mein
utsah mila hai muskurahaton mein
phir bhi apne aap ko akela hi paya hai.

dhoopon ki garmiyan ho
ho sheet ki thandi kirne
barishon ki lehre
badlon ki aankhon ki nami

dekh kar mann harshaya hai

phir bhi apne aap ko akela hi paya hai.

Anek mele har dil ke dekhe
anek khele is jag ke dekhe
zindagi ke rele samne se guzarte dekhe
apne aap ko phir bhi alela paya hai

Komal muscano mein sukh paya hai
dukh kisi ka apna banaya hai
kisi ki jeet mein apne mann ne bhi geet gaya hai
apne aap ko kyun phir akela hi paaya hai?

Sandhya jeevan ki aan padi
ujjwal savera dekha
dopahar ki garam hawa
ab andhere ke intezar mein
phir usi khak me kho jane ko
akelapan bulata hai.