If you had to teach one thing you learnt this year (that would improve one’s quality of life) what would that be?
The art of planning and management. Around the beginning of this year, on a really excited note, I made a few educational videos for YouTube. The first one was explaining what political science was, the second about “functions” as in Math, one on a “Sandwich Theorem” and another that I couldn’t complete, about the proof of this beautiful identity, lim┬(x→0)⁡〖sinx/x〗=1. One thing I realized after I had made these videos was that every time, I had worked without a good full-fledged script, with just some hazy idea as if I would make a trending sensation with one spontaneous shot. Fast forward six months, and I had to make a 77-second video for a competition, talking about my passion. This time, I started with a script and it was many times better (and I also won a prize for that!).

During the lockdown, I participated in one educational daily Zoom classes, and occasionally I got some topic to talk on. Initially my preparation was thin and research meagre. But with time, this same idea got resounded.

How did you have fun differently in 2020?
Binge watching YouTube. I loved exploring new content and watching many great videos, sometimes many at a time.

What things did you stop caring about in 2020?
Playing (like a child). This and the last can be marked as the years when I stopped playing with the feeling that I was still a child. I became more inclined towards work and more conscious than ever of my goals. And as I also turned 18 this year, coming of age, I officially shed “childhood”.

The bare-minimum questions:

When have you felt proud of yourself in 2020? What were you doing?
At my result of class XI. There was a brief function organized in one of school auditoriums, and although I had secured the fourth place in my class, I was called with honor on stage, and our coordinator mentioned me in special words. That was something that made me feel proud.

What new habits did you create in 2020? Which ones would you want to keep?
- The habit of learning and taking notes from new stuff. Like I did with notes from books, my Gyan Golak and the notebook I call L&F (Learnings & Findings)
- Blogging
- Video journaling
- Leaving good footprints time to time (like Hava diyan baatan)
- Collecting stories (this blog)
- Learning new skills (like video-editing)
- Watching YouTube for recreation

I’d like to carry forward all of them.

What new thing did you spend a lot of time on in 2020?
Learning things. But also on the anime, Death Note (and it was really, really great).

What did you rediscover pleasure in 2020?
Studying, as of late. And writing.

          The Punjab Agricultural University “Kisaan Mela” – or a Farmer Fair – is organized twice in every year, and the mela is as interesting and fun for a curious visitant as it is for a kisaan. Hopping around the big festival – really one of its kind – you are expected to catch sights of tractors, combines, some other exciting farm machinery, in addition to food- and books-stalls.

          In 2019’s second of such melas, I was there at a books-stall for some volunteer work, and it was my second time there. Before I came back home, I was sure to catch a curious experience, giving a first-hand go-through of some lesson I had gathered years ago from a book.

          I got posted at a small stall in an otherwise busy way. In front of us was a tent pitched by some sort of veterinary doctors, beside some fertilizer- and manure-experts. At our place, customers were sporadic, but a much as usual.

          While gazing around the surroundings and remarking farmer stuff I was completely unfamiliar with, I noticed a man pacing towards our stall in some hurry. I sat up, alert, and when he stopped on the other side of the table that featured books, I stood up out of politeness. The man had in his hands some stuff he had bought – packets, cans and little plastic bottles. I took note of the fact that he had either failed or forgotten to get a carry bag from anywhere.

          I found it awkward, momentarily, when he looked me in the face instead of at the books unlike a general customer. And in hurried words, he asked if he could get a carry bag. That was the only thing he ever spoke.

          I blinked, and then quickly pulled a bag out and gave it to him. Damn, I thought as he was putting his things into that bag, missed a customer. For once, I felt the pain in the fact that I was giving him a bag for free and he hadn’t even given a look the books.

          ‘Uncle ji, kitaaban vi dekh lo…’ I asked almost reflexly. Please also see these books. Just asked.

          He tented his eyebrows and stared at me for a second. And then all of a sudden, I heard a ‘Hmm,’ and he was picking book after book and inspecting. He seemed to have liked a book with a light brown cover, and he handed it to me. I realized with a shudder what he was asking for, and pulled out another bag and pushed the book into its mouth. He stared at another book, as if with suspicion, and handed it to me. Book after book after book – and he had given me books worth several hundred rupees (even when they were at discounted prices), and he was a man who had come to just ask for a carry bag!

          He didn’t utter a word, and gestured when he thought he had bought enough. I spoke to him the amount, he handed me the money and in the very same hurry with which he had come, went away and vanished somewhere into the crowd.

          And I was left marveling. Yes, sure, I remembered the line from Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture: “Sometimes, all you have to do is ask.”

           The past Saturday, I made out my eighteen revolutions around the sun. That is, I just turned into an adult. Being an adolescent before that, I had always looked forward to this moment – a day that would gift me all the privileges of someone who has come of age.

           However, the most remarkable thing about that day was something else: another gift I got on this occasion.

           When I was in seventh grade, I had got a copy of The Alchemist, by the renowned spiritual author, Paulo Coelho. Just like all those who read this masterpiece of literature and storytelling, I was left mesmerized by the story of the shepherd boy who dreams of finding a treasure in the pyramids of Egypt and just with this dream in mind, and with the counsels of an “alchemist”, reaches the terminus, only to find that his treasure lies at the place where he had dreamed about it! The book and its beautiful story carries this cherished message that one can find his treasure at his doorstep.

           So, by the bye, I basked in the story, and in the years to come, delighted in reading the unparalleled book multiple times.

           Before long, I also read off many other books by the same spectacular author, Manual of the Warrior of Light and Winner Stands Alone among others. Every idea of these books resonated with me, and as years passed by, I loved the author more and more.

           Returning to the present, I recollect the day it was my birthday. Akin to every morning, I picked up the newspaper, leaved through the sheets, skimming through headlines and pictures, and around the middle of it, I recalled it was a Saturday and there would be a page devoted to books and reviews.

           The surprise lay right at this very page.

           When I reached the middle, the right-hand-side page, like any other Saturday, featured many books … with one book occupying most of the middle. I read the title, “The way of the bow”, which was followed by an excerpt from the respective book. In the middle of the bottom stood a little picture of a book with a pleasant green cover. It read: The Archer, Paulo Coelho.

           Joy knowing no bounds, I jumped from my seat and clapped hands to my mouth.

           Excerpt from a new book by the author who was one of my favorites, and that too on my birthday! This surely was like a piece from heaven.

           I fondly read the excerpt, really loved it, and saved a clipping of it in a folder of things that gave me happiness – for certainly it was something that had made my birthday memorable.

           Whether this was a coincidence or part of a bigger plan, who knows. What I know, for sure, is that this memory is going to go far with me as one of my most memorable days in life, and whenever I am going to have a backlash of this day, I am going to giggle and beam with my best smile.

          This anecdote is from 2019, around this time of October-November. On Second October last year, I had got the first phone of my life, a second-hand Galaxy A6, combined with a new SIM card. There was that air of novelty about my own mobile number, my own WhatsApp, et cetera.

          And so there was also this little fascination about setting up a profile picture that was charming, reflective of my personality, and also professional at the same time. My choice had already been made.

          Around the beginning of winters last year, I had got an opportunity to present a small speech on a local television channel. When it was premiered in the respective program, I fondly took screenshots of my performance. One of those included a photo in which I was smiling, with my blue-turbaned head held slightly high, something I had wanted.

          Now, around this same time, there had been a Model UN at my school, in which I had got a job in the “International Press” as a journalist. Donned in a black turban, a black hoodie, when I was about to leave for school for Day one of MUN, my father had got a picture of mine clicked (it was a new dress).

          Anyhow, when it came to set my profile picture, I took the first picture and posted it. Papa wasn’t too pleased with it, least with that photo. Instead, he said, he would have liked if my choice had been the second photo. Ironically, that second photo was something I was not very impressed with. My face looked in that photo something else, and the overall personality, for me, wasn’t too attractive. Therefore, a stubborn me kept holding my stand and didn’t change that picture.

          That evening, mother called me to kitchen, saying she wanted to talk about something. When I reached, I found her baking rotis. She was smiling wisely. No preambles, no lectures, she quietly called me nearer and said, with that smile intact:

          ‘When a small act of yours that doesn’t cause much difference to you, gives happiness to others in some way, you should have no reason not to do it.’

          It was a big blow, that one sentence, and it kept me thinking for a long time. Yes, surely, what profile photo I set would never make much difference; but if my act of changing the photo with blue turban to the photo with black turban gave happiness to someone, I should do it immediately.

          I came back from the kitchen, picked up the phone, changed the picture and showed it to papa, beaming. He smiled back too.

          I won a smile that day.

          The Creator goes on creating new creation every day. We humans, miniature creators, as a whole, do the same at our own miniature level. Other species do not possess this ability, at least presently, and hence are deemed less developed than us.

          But when we count the amount of breakthroughs and findings of human species in comparison to the so-many human beings that have ever been and are alive, this number seems quite meagre.

          A woman or man with a wealth of words describes some enlightening experience, and when he shares it with his comrades, they relish from that too – their cravings for that experience perhaps grow, or perhaps they take new ideas from it.

          One basic answer to why humans record high intelligence is that they have the ability to learn from their experiences, record them and then pass them on to the posterity, which then builds on them and make new findings ahead.

          Not that only a select proportion of people from a population experience, find and learn new things: we all do. But we often do not go a step ahead to share them with our neighbors. If we do, our voice does find ears that need it and do find takeaways.

           There is no end to lessons and novel things in this world despite the fact Kelvin in his time had stated that only two physics problems in the world remained unsolved (both of which were solved by Einstein later). Newfangled reflections keeping striking us. At other times, creativity comes for a bit of help. And to be absolutely sure, creativity knows no bounds.

           I should always keep stepping in new waters to find new experiences. Because without wonder, it is impossible to realize the Creator.

          A great number of people living on earth have come across that quote which says readers live more than one lives during lifetime, in contrast to those who don’t read living only one. We can, in fact, expand the meanings of this quote beyond the domains of the literal “reading” – to the “words” of music, the “strokes” of a painting, and the “digits” of a science. So wherever I say read, I mean much more than just reading from paper or screen.

          When you have read the biographies of a dozen great lives, and have “lived” with the characters of a great novel, and have “watched” an influential role in a great movie, your mind starts performing an imperceptible magic: it starts impregnating a new ideology of life: of how life should be lived and what should be done and what should not. Picking all the morals and values and ideas from those infinite sources, it gives birth to a new character, and really growing into that character becomes your calling, your purpose in life.

          I remember watching a movie character who had a thick attachment with his land, which by the bye was disputed, and that character’s whole life revolved just around that piece of land which, seen from a larger perspective, happened to be very small. He had fights with his cousins, there were murders, deceptions, revenges, and at the end that character was killed by his own son for that same piece of property.

          In short, that man wasted his so precious life for a commonplace piece of land.

          Having watched that movie, my mind made a stiff belief that attachments when go beyond a frontier, turn toxic and start consuming life out of us. And it became a value of my life, a part of the character of my brain: not getting too attached to something, especially a piece of land.

          So a small watch taught me what my aimed character should not have.

          Talking of another example, when I read about Dumbledore from Harry Potter, his calm nature, his wisdom, modesty, devotion and truth, were received by my mind on chariots, as values that my final character should have for sure.

          Many religious leaders and prophets have travelled a lot – a lot; spreading their message and simultaneously knowing the beliefs of others. Guru Nanak Dev ji travelled thousands of kilometers on foot, for knowing the values of others and spreading his own en route. This teaches us a lesson: the sources of our knowledge and experience should be more than one. True readers know they have many.

          And when those true readers have lived so many lives virtually, they have derived a character they want to bake into. If the sources they have consulted have been more positive, they die good humans, and if more negative, they pass away what we call the bad ones.

          Therefore, even if it is one source, one book, one movie, one song: remember it is going to have an impact on your existence, however fractional. As the wiser ones will say, it’s a game of not chances but choices.

           I had this insight a few years ago while ruminating for some piece of writing. There’s a difference between the two: knowing someone or something, or knowing about someone or something, and knowing that someone or something.

           When I first had this thought, I immediately began looking for some example to understand this more fully. And that example rolled in immediately.

           I was thinking about the prime minister then, and I asked myself. Do I know the prime minister? Well, first I thought certainly, I do know who he is, how does he look, and what his voice sounds like. But then I was struck by the idea that I do not know him – I just know about him. His biographic details, his sound, his looks – these are only his “abouts”. But do I know him? Well, not really.

           Today many religious leaders and keystones claim knowing God and His universe, while what they actually know is something about Him. Similarly, if some scientist makes a claim that he has known the universe or some force in it, he might not be fully correct – he might be just knowing about it. I liked this insight and this idea of “knowing” and “knowing about” and made a note of it right away. I daresay, those days, I was having showering a good many “shower” thoughts.

           Anyhow, despite having grown in age by some years, I have not begged to differ on this idea and still go by it. This idea has helped me analyze many situations and sometimes even my own actions and thoughts. And I believe if we all understand this difference, it could work as a great check for ourselves more than once.

          It was the height of the building we live in – three floors high. As father and I, and our neighbor, gazed at the long creeper which slithered along the rainwater-drainage pipe running from the rooftop to the ground, I heard a crack sound. It must be from my neck – so high ran the green “useless” plant, now having started to grow thick sort of branches, clutching the wall and destroying paint.

          ‘It will be a lot of labor chiseling that all down,’ observed father, as I started due to an ant bite between my toe and the finger beside it. The plant had been a partying place for all the ants, which, very normally these days, thanks to the plant, entered our rooms, and our bathrooms.

          ‘We must cut it from down there, and the upward part will dry away itself,’ continued father, once looking above and once down.

          ‘Sir,’ reported the neighborhood uncle, ‘Before you came here, I have given that a try multiple times. For some time, it seems to be working – you separate the plant from the roots by cutting, and over the next few days, the stem and leaves hanging along the wall die. But before soon, the undead roots give rise to a new episode of it.’

          Father nodded, as a gullible me wondered if we could just put the whole thing to fire.

          We looked at the ground, guessing where its roots would be. The ground was solid and plastered, and if we wanted to kill the roots, we would need to first compromise with it. Which was impossible. No way could any of us do something to the ground just to get rid of a plant … and some bathroom ants.

          When the neighborhood uncle had gone, father brought his tools – a thin household saw, a long stick, among others – and I brought a screwdriver. He said he would give it a try. First he would, just like that uncle, cut the whole creeper from down and then see if he could do something about the roots. That day, we didn’t have much of other works.

          It took around an hour for the performance, but finally succeeded. The so thick and so entwined stems at the base had been sawed and almost half of the plant above that had been pulled down. Now that some of the wall was visible, we could actually see the amount of damage that had been caused.

          Nevertheless, the roots were inaccessible. Owing to that disability to uproot the floor, and the setting sun, we called it a day and went to wash our hands.

          During the next few days, I noticed the effect. The remaining plant suspended from the rooftop by its own connections, had started paling down and drying. Its leaves fell, ants dwindled and the brown stem assumed the look of the parched skin of the old. The tall plant that had stood here like a ruler’s palace from so many days, from its waist to its head, was dying, with its legs already separated and done away with.

          Hence it seemed we had succeeded, for once.

          For once.

          Because yesterday when I parked my bicycle near the neighbor uncle’s bike, and was about to climb the stairs to our floor, my gaze met with the grass-like something that had started growing from the place where we had cut the plant. At that time, father came, held my shoulder, and whispered, ‘No ruin without the ruin of the roots.’

          Having just got free from school’s online classes, I sat down on my desk for the next things on my to-do-list. As I chewed on an apple and scanned the bullet points I had made after my morning rituals, I nodded at the length of them. Self-study, online searches, a couple of write-ups, a tuition … and while I was thinking, my mind also wandered to the workshop I was going to attend soon. I had got a call for the workshop yesterday regarding my confirmation, and I remembered I would also need to check on the dates of this two-day workshop.

          For a break, I clicked on the game icon on my phone’s screen, and sat back in a relaxed disposition for ten-minutes’ fun. As it started, the first thing I saw was the daily reward the game gave me. My gaze lingered two blocks ahead to the bonus reward I would get, but I would have to wait for that for two days.

          I was suddenly reminded of a trick suggested by a school friend once. I went to phone settings and set the date to the next day’s. It did not work. I did not get tomorrow’s daily reward today. I tried once more but it was useless. It strengthened the cliché lesson I had been getting since childhood: you cannot get what you will whatsoever before its destined time.

          Anyway, having played to satisfaction, I began with the works more important than mobile games, and when I next picked my head up, the sun had already gone behind the buildings visible from the window of my room.

          I gave a glimpse to my to-do list and found that my productivity had not been laudable during my day, remaining distracted from time to time. I tried reasoning out the areas I was weak in and took notes of them, and then let out a cold sigh, of gratitude, of satisfaction.

          Night fell and stars came out. I retired to the living room, typing an email I had to send by all means by tonight. As I finished it, I found some emails waiting to be checked in the inbox – it had been some time before I had visited my inbox. And there was surely an email about the workshop, with my very special ticket as an attachment. I looked at the dates and time, incidentally – September 19 and 20, 5 pm to 7 pm – and then swiped down to see today's date of which I was oblivious. September 20 flashed before my eyes.

          My heart skipped a beat. And then another beat.

          Along with those rapid beats which follow a severe mistake, dawned the realization. A regret. Of how much of a great opportunity I had missed. How much doors would the workshop have have opened up for me and my passion. How had I not realized that the day I had received the call – yesterday – had in fact been the first of the two days, and today the second!

          I knew, alas, that my wish of the clock going two days back was futile in an era of no time travel, no time machine.

          I composed myself and pacified my mind. And also made a tiny but true prayer of thanks and of strength and memory for future.

          Just when my younger sister came with father’s phone, asking me something. Taking hold of the phone from her, I inadvertently looked at the date. September 18flashed before my eyes.

          “I know something abut you, brother,” she whispered quietly in her childishly cunning way, “I know you had been playing games after your classes for more than half an hour. But I'm not sure if papa does too.”

Source: https://www.moshimoshi-nippon.jp/

          Certain roads in certain markets are bound to be full of rush throughout the day and more so after the sunset. In unplanned cities, such roads tend to grow narrower with time.

          Talking about the road concerned, not the whole of it is lighted by streetlights and out of the few which perform this task, nearly half blink non-stop like the eyes of a little child subjected unknowingly to spicy hands.

          But there is general indifference about this since people are busy in more important things; sellers in their sales and buyers in their purchases. In the narrow road, when two people on scooters come from the opposite sides, one has to stop at a nook for some moments until there is room enough for the other to pass, and in the meantime, footers have to wait. Cars do not come here; this bazaar is already quite infamous for its narrowness, which, nevertheless, has not eclipsed its utility in considerable economic activities.

          Many wholesalers order supplies at this time, since the the retailers tend to come in the morning and afternoons. But still there are sporadic visits at this time, when hardly an hour is left before the lockdown is imposed.

          The motorcycle man who all of a sudden enters out of nowhere is one such man. Upon looking at his vehicle, you can easily guesstimate he is a retail shopkeeper, come for some purchase. Tied to a support behind the rough but shiny black seat is a rope, supposedly to fasten the cartons the man is going to buy. He also carries a big cloth bag, presently hung on the left handle.

          The man stops the vehicle in front of a wholesale cosmetics store and quickly disembarks, and in no time, with the keyring in his index finger, and the cloth bag in underarm, he is inside the store.

          We see him return ten minutes later, with one of the store’s boys lugging with him a big, heavy, loaded carton. The man and the boy tie it to the seat as tightly as possible, and surprisingly, both go inside the store again.

          The man appears two minutes later with his cloth bag filled now. He lifts the stand, grips the right handle, and following a swing of leg, perches on the seat of his motorcycle. Also, he hangs the bag on the left handle. This makes the handle a bit difficult to handle but the man manages to balance it.

          As if this is not enough, the boy from the store pops out with another carton and asks the man. The man points with his eyes in front and the boy places the carton on the fuel tank, half of it resting automatically on the handle.

          The man pushes the key into the hole, rotates it and kick-starts the vehicle. He accelerates a bit and retards when he is in the middle of the road. You can guess he is unable now to rotate the handle. There is the sound of a horn from behind, and the man takes no time to realise that eventually he is in a funny situation.

          That when there is load on the handle and it is out of your handle, you will not be in a position to take your own direction.

          The tears of the sky are one of the most beautiful gifts to us by the systems and forces of nature. Well, technically, rain is just one among the countless natural phenomena, but it finds glorification due to the poemworthy and soothing effects it leaves us with. This generalisation, I believe, must be very relative, for in places like Mawsynram (place with the highest rainfall in the world) people must have grown very accustomed to them.

          Nevertheless, the upshots of almost any rain in the world are phenomenal. The smell of earth is inebriating, the colour of air, of sky, is quite changed – turned shades cooler – and both men and trees seem to have grown taller. Every noise sounds rhythmical, every light shines appealingly, every smell is tinged with a special effect pleasing to the nose. When you open your mouth and breathe, the air tastes delicious. You get shivers all over the limbs, and they feel great.

          In the only seemingly unpleasant results of rain – poodles, especially the ones mismatched with the environment – children find special pleasure. Children, after all, somehow can find pleasure in everything, with only numbered exceptions.

          Therefore rain – particularly the rain at hotter regions – is one of those which can give overflowing emotions to even the grown men. Such is the elegance of mountains, of rivers, of lakes, of a starry sky. Seems as though God made these things with this idea in mind that man would get fatigued occassionally, and would need some rest in the lap of nature. A slightly wet park with a grey sky, the banks of a river or stream, the real sight of rolling hills or snowcapped mountains … all seem to be the laps of nature.

          No artificial pleasure, in a long run, with great intensity, can equal the natural ones.

          When humans start conquering other planets, and life will start flourishing on them, one of the things we are going to miss for some time initially will be the earthly atmosphere, those waterfalls, those valleys, those rains. Maybe we create similar atmospheres there, or find planets that have one already … or maybe, the pleasures there will be greater than those of earth – who knows! Yet at the end of the day, the bestest of the best gifts are going to be the gifts by nature.

          And one of the best phenomena the upshots of a pleasant rain.

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          A group of youngsters are working on a project. The organisation they are associated with has launched some new mission the pilot of which has been successful, and these youngsters have been told to script and shoot a few videos advertising the mission. The videos are going to be shared over social media.

          Script is written on time – two of them – and the camera-person gets the set prepared. The scene is of a young girl sitting on a desk, against the backdrop of a books almirah on the right and a the right half of a white board on the left. The video is going to be made in shots. Some shots get taken successfully. At this point, one of us is checking the previous shots and some person from the organisation enters the room. He sees the shots and notices the empty white board in the background.

          ‘No offense meant, but don’t you guys think this white board looks a bit empty? You could’ve taken a better setting...’

          Instantly the video editor, who sat close buy, spoke up: ‘This empty board is deliberate! You see, it’ll be used to display clips and pictures related to the mission. Otherwise, we would have to do with small, pocket-sized corners. That would be cumbersome. This white board is the best thing!’

          Two eyes may see one thing at the same time, from the same angle, very differently, sometimes contrary to each other. What one sees as disorder or complaint in something, the other may find in it a big, big opportunity. For an inexperienced, for a pessimistic, a white board will be spoiling the elegance of the video, and for the opportunist and optimist, the white empty space will look like room for adding extra content.

          Opportunities have a massive wardrobe. You can never appropriately guess the garb in which an opportunity is going to ring the bell at the door. A seasoned wise man, an opportunist, knows that the best way to recognise an opportunity rightly is to start finding opportunity in everything. For an ordinary man, not being able to fly is a limitation, a problem; for Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright, it is an opportunity to make an invention. For one man, a long journey is a trouble, because he is afraid he will get tired, and for the other, it might be an opportunity to read or listen to a book, attend a long call, do some research or learn something new.

          Nevertheless, one special thing about this hide-and-seek game with opportunities is that they can also choose for hiding an empty canvas, a still scene, and a blank page.

          I’m sure it must be the size of my hand: from the tip of my middle finger to the onset of my wrist. The colour of wet soil, this lizard was in my room last two nights, barring me from doing much work there. My table is next to a wall, the wall which features the tube-light. I sometimes forget to close the window to the room in the evening, and seeking light, clouds of mosquitoes invade in. And so they allure lizards. Where there is a mosquito, there is a lizard.

          Therefore it sat from me at a distance less that minimum for social distancing. It zoomed from here to there undauntedly with enormous velocity, making prey the blood-sucking flying insects. I knew I wouldn’t last longer in this situation.

          I remember once there was a stubborn lizard in our bathroom, and I didn’t bathe that day until the lizard was scared away with water spray, peacock feather and other whatnots.

          So the first night, I shifted to the other room and completed my work there, hoping above hope that next day, the room would be mine.

          Next day the count of lizards had gone up to three. Two on that wall and one stealing in through a small slit in a window. I slapped my forehead, picked up my books and shifted to the other room. I had nearly given up – my home and my room. I wouldn’t ever get the room back from these invaders. Soon they would develop a colony here, and we would have to donate the room to them.

          The third morning, that is today, now, I have woken up full of zeal, determined to do something to these colonialists. No, I’m not going to give away my room so easily. And to lizards? No, not by any means.

          After having tended to my chores, I stepped into the room, sought the nearest, longest thing I could (an umbrella) and like a lion reclaiming lost territory, tried to shoo the lizard away from the wall. I saw only one at the moment. Don’t know if there was left only one, or the other two were still in the room, hidden. I constantly check near my feet, because I can sense mosquitoes.

          Hence I have been successful in getting back my room, my table, my princedom, my empire. No lizard is going to impede my work now, I have the umbrella geared up with me.

          But as I reflect on this whole story as I type it, I wonder if what I have done is right. We humans have no claim over any part of the earth. Today if there were a jungle around here, a plethora of creatures would find survival in it besides humans. But thinking that since we have made the buildings, houses and roads, we have got the ownership of this part of earth, trying to get rid of stray dogs, cows, cats, cockroaches, flies and birds.

          No, I tell myself, the earth is a part of the commonwealth of all the creatures. Every tiniest of the tiny creatures has the right to live, right to ensure survival, right to go near a tube-light and collect dinner. I feel guilty, slightly regretful of my action, but more than that of my thinking. How cruel!

          I gulp and look at the opposite wall where perches that palm-sized lizard, looking at the glowing light, with sporadic glances at me too. Were it not for the creeps it gives me, I would have carried this lizard on my hand and transported it to the tube-light wall. Were it not for the creeps…

      The sun is reminding me of the villain of the latest movie I have seen, who in comparison to the standard of oppression of the sun, now looks very innocent and in the clear. All the wind from the atmosphere, looks like, has been ripped away from the earth by some astronomical enemy. Yesterday I read in a geography book that fall of water at enormous speed vertically is known as a waterfall; I wonder, as I wipe the moisture down my brow, what name should I give when sweat possesses similar properties. Maybe salty-waterfall!

      In a state of motion beneath me is my green Hero Sprint Duke, an old bicycle I bought a year ago; on my back is clung a neon blue bag; on my mouth a nonporous mask; and around me blankets of heat – as if all the heat on earth has been forged into a capsule and plastered around me.

      Presently I am heading for home from a bookshop from where I have purchased for myself some stationary and some textbooks which fill the bag on my back. The incongruous bookshop timings are responsible, I chew in my covered mouth and shake my head in disappointment. The road is bumpy, which furthers my irritation. At this moment, a fat white car passes by me, the heat wave from its air conditioner soaking me in more temperature than before. I wonder what other scorching thing can await me now: a volcano? A forest fire?

      Some minutes travel by. My body starts feeling laxer. Negative thinking is spent, but still consumes enough room, barring the positive thoughts. For a flick of second, I have the notion that in no time, people will find me passed out in the middle of a road. I can’t help thinking strange things. People coming out of cars, picking me up, sprinkling water on my face. Then offering me something to drink (like a foreigner in a desert, the water in my water bottle has been consumed). But then it seems this thinking is too far-fetched and unlikely. People are not going to come out of car ACs; they will only show sympathy through the glasses!

      I shake my head vigorously, and the biker overtaking me gives me a look of distrust. It dawns upon me that that heat has started working my brain. I am just exaggerating things excellently.

      So I decide to make the reform. No, this heat is not that much oppressive! I tell myself with conviction. I can’t allow you to welcome negative thoughts anymore. Tightening my grip on the frictional handles, I rev up the peddles and imagine the amount of satisfaction I am going to have back at home, however short-lived. I remind myself of all the things I have learnt at camps and workshops about optimism. This half-cures me immediately.

      In a split second, I see the difference.

      This little reform has worked like a charm. I am beginning to find good things in heat, in the sweat on my forehead, and in the bumpy roads. I no more envy those who are inside the cars.

      But as quickly as I transitioned from negative to positive, I start returning to the starting point, making full circle.

      I get tired, returning to that state of unparalleled complaints.

      But the soul of the world knows better. If I have recognized that negative thinking has to be shunned, and take a small, fugacious initiative to conquer it, nature steps in to give me reward for my step, to help me further.

      At a small distance is a square, marked by a set of traffic lights. In my state of fading positivity when I pull the brakes, stopping at the sight of red signal, I am surprised to see a sudden shade covering me. It is cool, it is therapeutic, it is spectacular. My first thought is that clouds have closed the sky, but when I look up, I find that I have incidentally stopped at the shadiest place beneath the canopy of a tree planted two feet away from where I stand.

      The journey back home is quite a silent, clean and pure one.

          People are a great deal like words, words great deal like people.

          Words take birth, live diverse, unexampled lives, and die. Words also sometimes reawaken from their own ashes, like a phoenix. And so do people. Words and people both are fond of weaving new sagas. Both want to be rich, be popular, and be therefore successful. Similar words and similar people flock together to form language and civilizations, respectively. Words and people - there are too many of both of them.

          Words, like people, have a status, a reputation, a level of respect. Some words, otherwise illogical, find themselves being mentioned under the list of the most used, and some beautiful words, from time to time, are content in remaining latent.

          Words string with each other, like the beads of a rosary, and form a story. People collegiate with each other, like characters in a plot, and form a story. Stories made by people and stories made by words, both show resounding similarities. Some stories grow up to be famous, become fairy, folk or classic tales, and some stories get dead and buried.

          Words and stories have their creator. People also do. The author always knows what lies on the last chapter, but the words on the pages of the first chapter do not. The maker, in people’s case, knows the end, while the people are unaware of it.

          A writer knows, and so does a musician, a singer, a painter, that although words and strokes are necessary, and gorgeous, yet silence, wordlessness, tranquility, have a charm of their own. An excellent prose may be able to describe a butterfly landing on a soft dewy flower under the slanting light of the sun, kissing it and shooting away, yet at one level, every word will fail. And silence will fill itself into the void perfectly.

          Perhaps that is the reason why the publisher leaves some pages blank before the beginning and after the end of the book, and so the thoughtful creator.

 

          As I sit and wonder how to explain to someone the importance of ‘now’, I find myself recalling a hilarious experience from the time when I was about fifteen years old.

          It was a sunny Saturday. The previous night, that was Friday, we had been talking of the three places we were visiting on Saturday. The first among these was a religious function at some acquaintance’s place. It was in early morning – around 5 or 6 – and we knew it would be nice being there. The second was the parent-teacher meeting at my sister and my school, which would be till sometime before the noon. Thirdly, we four were planning to visit a relative we had not seen from long.

          Next day – that is, on the sunny Saturday – we woke up soon enough, in time to be able to easily reach the religious function. But … at the end point, plans changed. God knows from where the impression came to our minds that if we went to attend this function, we might get late for the meeting at school. So we cancelled the plan.

          Some hours passed. Having tended to some chores, we were about to get ready for the school. Seconds before pulling out our dresses from the wardrobe, someone of us said, ‘It will take a lot of time at school. If we get late returning home, we’ll not be able to pay a visit to that uncle.’ ‘Yes,’ agreed some other of us. ‘Anyway, we have not missed any meeting at school so far. If we miss this one, there’ll be no harm.’

          With popular consent, we called off this second plan too. And started making preparations to go to that long-ago-seen uncle’s house. Around the noon, we phoned him, telling him that we were paying a surprise visit to him, and asking if he was at home. You must have guessed what he answered.

          He said that day, he was out with his family on a trip, and so going to their home would be just to see a locked door.

          And this way, the third plan ended up being cancelled too.

          A smile still conquers my face as I recall this experience vividly.

          We often keep cancelling one thing for the other, other for another and at the end, are able to do either little or nothing. We cancel going to some place because we have an assignment to do, and postpone doing the assignment because we think we are hungry and need lunch early, and in no time, everything is messed up. We spend a lot of time delaying what is to be done now, and waiting for what is to be done after some time. In short, we look forward to the future at the expense of the present.

          The only thing that is needed to avoid falling into this trap is initiative. Tell yourself to just sit down and begin that work you are required to do and do it for only some time. Once a gullible you gets into the flow, the work will itself find a way of getting completed. There is never going to be a moment which will be the like of now.

          The locality in which we live is profuse with trees but the tree living nearest to us happens to be an adult mango tree. Had I been shown only its trunk, hiding the remaining parts, I would never have believed that this trunk proportionate to a healthy man’s chest could sprout such a big canopy with such harvest of mangoes.

          This one legged living being stands quite straight, donned in a green turban made of thousands of leaves. The spread of roots over the earth is enough to show how wide they must be running under it. When two days ago it rained for several hours, it soaked up immense amounts of water and changed its color from wood to chocolate.

          The mango tree and I do not know much about each other. My family shifted here barely a year ago, and though the two of us grew close, we have never talked to each other about our pasts. Hence I can’t say when this giant on earth was planted, who planted it, and what other memories it hides in its bark. Nor have I ever told it when, where and how I was born and what a fantastic childhood I was fortunate to have.

          Despite this, it seems, the tree and I understand each other totally well. When I am a bit off, the tree shows something miraculous, creates some rare scene, and it gives me inspiration for a poem. A successful writeup is usually enough to lift your spirits, isn't it? What do I do in return? I mention the mango in the poem, not because otherwise it would be copyright infringement, but because the writeup seems rather empty without it. The mango has not so far protested, and I have faith it won’t ever in the future.

          Sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the evening I am on the rooftop where its branches reach, and I can see armies of ants patrolling its leaves and branches. Upon a careful gaze, I find that all of its leaves are not healthy. Nearly every leaf in my eyeshot is scarred by ants and other leaf-eaters. There are openings in these leaves which are not stomata. But the Mango doesn’t gripe. It has serenely welcomed and accepted all the creatures that approach it for livelihood. Which is why today it supports thousands of ants, innumerable rainy-season insects, pandemoniums of parrots, and a plethora of crows and sparrows and pigeons.

          It seems to me that despite not having gone to school, the mango tree is a lot wiser than us. It has such a kind and benevolent nature, never brags about it, and what is more, always tries to enjoy life. Seems it knows the meaning of life more than our preachers do. It is not afraid of getting wet in rain as we humans are, and not any bit frightened of storm. It takes delight in everything, and this physics its pain.

          Merely looking at the tree is enough to get you serious about the understanding of life and meaning. One look at it can give you an unparalleled spiritual experience. Being a creation of Creator, the mango tree behaves to some extent like the Creator Himself.

          And, at any rate, I can’t wonder more on the fact that this three-floor high mango tree started growing someday from a seed hardly the size of my palm!

* reference to William Shakespeare's quote from The Tragedy of Macbeth, "The labour we delight in physics pain." continue reading

          Rain after a scorching summer season is a shared fantasy of the earthlings.

          As a child, I remember standing on our rooftop among my siblings, looking at the shiny rim of a patch of dark clouds. We saw not one spell of rain, but a whole lot of a rainy season, packed in that thunderhead. For a young'un, a set of approaching nimbus clouds means much more than just a series of showers. He bathes in it, makes paper-boats and shoots them off and he can also take that incomparable joy of getting wet deliberately by jumping, rotating and dancing.

          Being the eldest, I had some command over my fellow siblings. In the perkiness of childhood, we together danced in a ring and sang, ‘Rabba rabba meeh barsa! Saade kothe daane paa!’

          Well, as I sit to recall that experience, I do not, despite efforts, recollect the successive events. To my memory, and to that ten-year old me, whether it rained really or not was not of much consequence. The process was a pure, complete joy in its own.

          Today when monsoon approaches my city and my rooftop, I do not find myself singing that song. Nor do I dance with someone, requesting those clouds to come faster. I simply stand with my weight against the parapet, my elbow on its surface, my palm supporting my chin, in retrospect and thinking of that time, thinking what is amiss.

          This teaches me a deep lesson in philosophy. The same thing can mean ten thousand things to one thousand persons. A farmer awaits rain for the benefit of his crop. A man of street awaits it for it will bring some respite from the whiles of loo. Some other man may be looking for clouds for they will bring water to his taps. The poet and the painter may look for inspiration, and the storyteller may look for a story. Well, a child … there the clouds are awaited just because they are another thing to love about the world. Maybe there is something about the shape of a particular cloud … maybe it looks like the most prized teddy bear…

          I often find myself complaining about everyday things. The weather, the news and the like… When I was younger, I used to care, but not so much that it started vexing me. This makes me wonder: the pair of glasses on the bridge of my nose makes me see clearly but not necessarily rightly. Hence I also wonder: do I need to do some refinement with my vantage point? Do I need to redefine my priorities? Isn’t there some demerit in approaching things in a single-minded fashion?

          And this is what I conclude: I need to look at the clouds as the nature made them. If I were the rightest, most just God, I must have made the earth as it is now, because when I think in a silent solitude, I start finding a mystifying perfection in everything.

          It showered here today, immediately after which there was clear sunshine. This resulted in that semicircle of the seven-colored spectrum – a rainbow.

          I watched it from my rooftop. Well, I had gone to see if I could get drenched in some rainy wind, but the shower was a little too short for that. However, I was fortunate enough to catch this phenomena which appears when the sunlight gets dispersed by the water droplets still present in the sky.

          It gave me a train of thoughts, which leads me to write this piece at this time.

           When you are in an unhindered relation with nature, it always, always does one of the two things: either it bestows you with new memories, or resurrects the old ones. With me today, it was the latter.

          This directed me to make a comparison. What I am trying to achieve in life looks like a rainbow. What are the similarities? First of all, both the rainbow of the sky and the rainbow of a perfect life, look colorful. Secondly, both of them are not very straight. Thirdly, and perhaps to an extent, they are the end results of some defined process.

          The rainbow in the sky requires necessary conditions. For the first thing, there has to be rain.

          In my case, the rain is my hard work. My inputs – knowledge, learning, experience – work like the water vapor collected through evaporation. My daily work forges them into thick, dark clouds – which is, say, the weapon set I have ere the battle begins. Then how I rain – how and how much I use these weapons – is my application of my collection, my exhibition. Oftentimes, dark clouds cannot manage to rain, or sometimes do not find the right spot to rain. However, rain is important.

          But rainbows are not seen on daily-basis in the rainy season. Which introduces us to the necessity of the second very important condition: sunshine.

          In my view, the sunshine is the divine order. Is my vision the same as a perfect vision of the Creator? Does the Soul of the Universe want me to do or get this? Is the Supreme Energy on my side? Does the sun agree to shine?

          Both the factors weigh the same. You may work hard and may not receive it, and some other person may not work for it at all and it might come to him effortlessly.

          Well, you can take this train to yet more stations. A rainbow might appear, but a person standing at the wrong place might not be able to see it. It might be that something blocks the view from someone’s line of sight, and he may be deprived of its sight. Which means that not everyone may be able to value your success exactly the same. Some will relish it, delighted by it, some will click pictures, some will stare with goggle-eyes, whereas some might try to turn their backs on it.

          Such metaphors of nature come with tons of meanings. Maybe it is in us humans’ genes to try and find connotations and denotations in all what we see, that we try to take inspiration from everything: rivers, trees, jungles, waterfalls and rainbows.

          Well, when I was satisfied watching this spectacle, and just when I was about to get back to my room, another fact about a rainbow struck my mind, leaving me staggered: Every rainbow, however spectacular, is short-lived and ephemeral; no rainbow can last forever!

          The little deer is out on an adventure today. He did not mention to anyone that he was going to take a detour to reach the part of grassland where those of his species are afraid to go. He doesn’t exactly know the reason of their fear; all the idea he has of this dreary, solitary place, is sourced from what his mother tells him (which he thinks he doesn't believe), and a set of rumors his ears have caught from his friends and siblings.

          The rumors, and his mother, say that on this side of the grassland live big tawny striped beasts with jaws sharper than anything and claws that can rip through any matter. To him, this is nothing more than fiction. In his herd, sometimes it has happened that some adult deer have gone missing, and at other times, he has found himself running deliriously with the fortification of elders for no reason, as if some monster has been behind them.

          However, in the grassland he stands, he sees no such thing. There is a clear sky with some feathery clouds, and the wind is caressing the tall blades of dull grass that unrolls all the way up to infinity. There are some boulders, some short, thin trees … but definitely no beast.

          Out of nowhere appears someone – and the little deer’s heart skips a beat. He falls on the ground, and then rolls under the weight of the creature that has darted at him. Regaining consciousness, he finds it is an uncle deer from his herd.

          He is chastised back in his home for his mischief. The little deer is brought to tears. Before it is the time to sleep, his mother takes him aside, and repeats the tale. The place where you went is patrolled by big beasts. Don’t you see every other day someone out of us goes missing? We are food to those monsters. We run upon seeing those beasts because we know they are threat to our lives. And where you went is but their home! Thank your luck that they didn’t spot you. For us, an ideal day is when such beasts disappear and the grassland is all ours, in which we can roam and eat freely.

          This is the first time the little deer has heard about tigers.

*   *   *   *   *

          For our little cub, his father is his role model. His father is the one who arranges food daily which is mostly deer and zebras. He has seen his father prey sometimes – he is a virtuoso! He adroitly crawls in the cover of grass and when near enough, leaps onto a deer and clutches it by its neck. The deer fidgets for some time but then gives in to the hunter. His father then roards in triumph and they have food for another day.

          His parents have never allowed him to accompany his father in this game and he is allowed to see it only from a set distance, sitting concealed behind the boulders. His mother says he still has to go through training. He has often heard some youngsters bragging to have passed this abrasive training. But listening about it lifts the little cub’s excitement even more. He can’t wait to grow up.

          By the light of the moon, his mother tells him stories of their ancestors. She speaks of times when there used to be  thousands of deer and zebras roaming the grassland, and even a little cub could easily go among them, bite on some little deer’s leg and drag him to the den.

          But they are days bygone, she says. Over time, the animals we could make our prey dwindled and now there are bunches that can be counted on the fingers of our paws.

          This always, always fascinates the young cub. When he cuddles with his mother and closes his eyes to sleep, he records dreams of grounds full of deer and zebras, where he can go hunting without any training, without permission.

          Alas, for the little tiger cub, an ideal day is just a fancy dream.

          You picture the sun rising from the back of a garnet railway bridge, people starting to wake up, stretching their bodies, dogs not barking at all, not frightening the cats, and people leaving for temples or kneeling in their homes. All the children of the house waking up on time, a soft music dancing mirthfully on the air. A cool and fresh stream of wind gives goosebumps to the earthlings with a pleasant smell against a backdrop of twittering sparrows rising in their nests. Everything happy-happy.

          In this imaginary ideal day, as the sun’s angle takes height, people start leaving for work, exultant as anything. As they spread newspapers in front of them, they see nothing except happiness … happy policies, happy budgets, all happy tidings, not stained with reporting of thefts and murders and deceits…

          People work with full productivity till the noon, and as the soft bells for lunch time ring, men and women stretch their arms. Lunchboxes are unlidded, small, soft morsels are taken and people eat mindfully with light conversation. Asking each other about their children’s school performances, satisfactory replies are received.

          In some other corner, teens in a pleasant and pollution-free weather are enjoying whatever they want. Someone who wants to be a photographer is clicking the photos of sparrow and pigeons; someone who wants to be a writer is busy scribbling on a notebook. The artist-aspirant is painting and the to-be-athlete is practicing on balmy blades of grass.

          In orphanages, a good amount of orphans has been adopted by childless parents, and in old-age homes, there have been no new admissions; instead, sorry sons have come to take their parents back. Bureaucrats and politicians work without bribe, and the ministers design policies with common welfare in mind, veil of ignorance on eyes.

          No one misses his flight. No proposal is rejected. No lecturer fumbles. No student fails. Scientists are content at their discoveries and inventions, and so are the philosophers.

          Flowers have never looked as beautiful in the gardens ever before and no animal has ever had such easy and hearty food. And never on the earth has dawned such impeccable sundown.

          The sun begins to set as birds and humans are steering for their homes. The creatures of God recite their evening prayers and over the dinner tables, families indulge in pleasant, blithe chats. As youth and age sit on their desks to write their diaries, the pens draw nothing other than pleasant words of gratitude. Placing their heads on the pillows, people are smiling at the perfection of the story of the Author of the Universe. No questions goad the man, and no temptations of the future vex him.

          The sun goes to sleep giving the charge of the sky to the moon and the stars, who like the most dutiful guards posted on their respective places, peeking at the earth with satisfied smiles.

          Eyes are closed for the little sister of death with gratitude for this one and hope for another ideal day.