The Veritable Companions

It was a fine Saturday evening.

I walked into the park and made myself comfortable on the bench. The Gurgaon winters ensured that there was darkness before its time, in the evening. Since I was one for the weather others may call gloomy and depressing, I certainly did not mind.A week in Gurgaon can be sometimes too much for the senses. And the organs. And the mind. And the... I digress.For one, take the traffic. The Traffic. An all pervasive constraint, controlling the time and space of your existence, and eventually limiting what you achieve, in your short despicable life.

“Oh, is it now, Human? Short and despicable?”

When I look back now, I am not sure what surprised me the most. Was it the fact that the retort was addressing a random thought in my head? Or was it the fact that the owner of the voice jumped across me, in to my field of vision, with his black fur bristling and tail twitching?

He stared into my eyes with his shocking green pupils.

I do know that in the spectrum of mental health and alertness, I may not be a perfect 10, but I knew I was sane, at least till yesterday at work. Come to think of it, I used to think work drove me insane, but never considered the possibility that in fact it may prove to be one day a barometer of my sanity.

“You are sane alright, human. At least as sane as humans can be. “Said the Cat.

At this point I must make it clear that I’m not a religious zealot, nor am I a jingoistic patriot. A little bit of a football fanatic, but not the kind that skips sleep to watch a late night game. My point is, I’ve never been a vocal advocate for the human race. Yet, I felt offended that this feline dared to question the abject sanity of our entire race.I replied, indignantly, “Oh why, thank you kind sir. You seem to be an exception for your kind, with your nuanced taste in sarcasm. Shouldn’t you be out hunting rats or sparrows or whatever it is that your kind hunts?”

Can a cat smile? Yes, of course, if it’s in the company of witty people.

“Sorry, if you took offence, human. I was just musing on the contradictions of your kind. You complain about the traffic, and the other hallmarks of your civilization, yet your life comes to a crumbling halt without any of those.”

He had a point there. How would I get to work without a car? And traffic was essentially all the cars taking people to and from work.

He continued, “I’m not blaming you, friend. My worldview is of a different nature. Tell me human, why do you go to work? “

I responded, “To make money. You see, in our world, the quality of our life depends on the amount of money you have. “

He narrowed his pupils at me. “So, you work your miserable life away for this so called quality of life. The primal paradox, I like to call it. Why don’t you take a step back and think if it’s all worth it?”

I looked at the cat and blinked. But, but…! I enjoy the apartment I’m staying in! I like the fact that I can go to any bar of my choosing! And yet… The price I pay is with my time, essentially my life.

As I lay back on the park bench pondering these existential questions, the next character of this strange play entered.

“Wow. Wow.”

On another day, I might have heard it as “Woof woof”. But my perception of reality had been significantly altered enough that I recognized the words from the bark. He was a street mongrel, but somewhere in his parentage there had been some respectable aristocratic canine, a fact betrayed by his size and sheer presence. This new entrant strolled next to the cat, and stretched as any normal dog would, and shot off a discourse as no normal dog would.

“Oh Azrael, you have been spreading your miserable philosophies again? That too on a human? Why can’t you simply confine your negativities within that cat brain of yours?”

At the mentioning of his name, Azrael bristled again.

“Sure, why wouldn’t I listen to you, my unreasonably excitable friend? Except for the fact that you don’t really have much of thoughts or world views and you live life choosing between either chasing cars or begging for morsels from his kind. “Azrael spoke in his icy cat voice, shooting a glance towards me.

The dog wasn’t to be silenced that easily. “You think deeply about the meaning of life, or the lack of it. I live in the moment, breathe in every gasp of air with pleasure, not knowing which may be my last. And yet who is the content one, Azrael? Your miserable brooding face always brings my grandfather’s words to mind- ‘For us dogs my boy, ignorance is bliss. Remember curiosity killed the cat and not the dog, because we didn’t want any of that nonsense!’ Ha ha ha!!”

Azrael spoke coldly and without emotion. “Your happiness is an illusion, dog. You have chosen to take the blue pill of hedonism and revel in your ignorance. I simply don’t have the freedom. Because I know that there is no meaning to this life or universe, existence is a suffering. Life itself is a futile exercise in finding the meaning of existence. The real question is, to give up everything and die, or to continue the suffering?”

Since I was the sole representative of the human kind in this discussion, I felt I had to make my voice heard for the sake of our race.

“Of this I’ve always wondered, and often in the recent times. Our reality, or rather my reality is my perception. What if I’m not really hearing you two, a cat and a dog debating on existence and life, and instead I’m actually lying in a hospital bed being administered a powerful sedative right now? How could we know anything for certain? “

Azrael licked his paws, while the dog wagged his tail in agreement, while the dog wagged his tail in agreement. As we were pondering each other’s thoughts, in came running the next philosopher.

For some strange reason, Gurgaon has an abundant population of pigs, which are in a perennial state of motion. Sometimes, they are running for their next meal, while other times they are running away from being a canine’s next meal. Sometimes they run to begin their next passionate romp, while other times they run from being forced into someone else’s romp. Yet for a species that runs more than Haile Selassie on a daily basis, they stay in remarkable shape. A remarkable circular shape that is.

He froze for a minute, eyeing Azrael the cat, the nameless dog and me alternately. The dog being the most congenial of the bunch put him at ease immediately.

The dog yapped happily, “Relax, sir. Shall I call you Hamlet? I’ve always wanted to meet a pig called Hamlet, if you catch my drift. Anyway, you are amongst friends, so you may cease your timeless canter for some moments.”

The freshly christened Hamlet dropped himself down into the grass, partly from relief and partly from exhaustion. Azrael invited him into our discourse, summarizing succinctly our somewhat conflicting and divergent views succinctly, and probing the pig for his own opinion.

He continued, “So you see Hamlet, the dog feels that life is to be enjoyed in a hedonistic way every moment, while I’m in a state of indecision in regards to die or not to die owing to the lack of meaning in life. Our human friend does not have any real intelligent opinion, which is not very surprising. So, what do you think?”

Hamlet took in a deep breath and mused, “ I’m inclined to partially agree with your view, Azrael the cat. While most of my kind are hedonistic pigs (!), I’m burdened with the thoughts about the meaning of existence, and in my short life I haven’t found any. Yet, I’m convinced that to die is not the right choice. In this is infinite void of meaninglessness, I create my own meaning around myself. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, I don’t really matter. But who cares about the grand scheme of things? My life is around a single individualistic focus, which is my own existence. So I strive to achieve a meaning for my own existence by existing and surviving.”

A truly remarkable and nuanced view, I thought. My own thoughts about this topic was quite unformed and uninformed compared to that of my companions. I looked up at the skies to see a few stars glittering, with the light from a million years ago. For a moment, I felt tiny and insignificant, and I let it sunk in.

I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder, to see the guard. “ Sir, I must close the park, it is late.” I looked around, and saw no trace of Hamlet, Azrael or the congenial dog. Again, the guard tapped on me, and spoke in an irritated tone, “ Sir, I need to go home to my wife and children. “ I smiled at him and thought, yes, the meaning around our own little lives. I took a deep breath and walked out of the park, into the night. I could hear a cat gently purring in the distance.

The Chair At Nescafe

On many a wintry sunday morning, I found myself in the chair by the “nescafe”.
From the chair, I saw the morning, and through the morning the world.
The wide open field lay before me, bound by a canopy of woods.
A lone old tree in the heart of the field, reaching to the sky with its leafless branches.
The field was life, the realm of possibilities.
Our lives are bound by the woods of certainty, yet some have crossed to see
the exciting world beyond.
And the lone tree is the spirit you need, to rage against the dying of the light
even when the leaves of youth drift away from your body,
Strive to touch the sky, let nothing hold you back and live a life less ordinary..!

The Persistence Of Life

The Green Desert

I wake up with a throbbing head, looking up where stars would have been on a normal night. Except this was not a normal night. Except this is no night, nor is it normal. I knew he would be up there, like every day of my past in this place. This place...

I know you are burning with questions. Who am I? Where is this mysterious place? And who is it that I look up to, literally and metaphorically every day? I wish I could answer all these questions. You see, I seek the answers to precisely the same questions. I do not know who I am. I do not know how I came to be in this desert land of green grass. Everywhere I look, I see nothing but blades of grass growing with perfect harmony. Once in a while, a breeze graces this land of nothingness, and the blades wave in maddening unison.

Oh yes, I said I can’t answer them all. Here’s one I can.

He watches over me every day, as fiercely as an archer guarding his castle. His blood red body gives way to orange wings that move effervescently in the sky, keeping him afloat with a strange ease. He looks at me with those deep, sad eyes and some unknown force beckons me to follow him, as he starts forward every day. As day turns to dusk, and dusk to night, he perches himself on small rock and closes his eyes. I follow his lead, and catch some sleep.
So that is my routine, and that would be my routine for the foreseeable future. A man stuck in a grassy savannah, following an orange bird to nothingness.

Except, today is different.

As I walk, and as he flies, I notice that the landscape is changing. It was just a single blade of grass at first. A blade of grass, longer than the others. With a drop of blood on it. Soon there are more blades of these abhorrent grass, covered in blood, some with shattered glass. My eyes swim, my head throbs again. I sink to my knees and stare at the orange bird. The bird is less of a bird, and more of a boy. A boy with an orange shirt. The boy with the orange shirt. He no longer flies, but gingerly walks to the horizon. And in the distance, I see a clock. The boy is almost below it now, and I look at the clock. It is ticking, but the hands are gaining pace. Soon, they are furiously rotating away, and I sense my time come to a dwindling end.


The Ending of the Clock

The on-duty nurse was cleaning the room for intensive care when she noticed his vital signs. For a few moments, everything shot to normal to give her a pinprick of hope, only to have it erased in the next moment. Soon every reading, every machine in the room said he was lost to this world, beyond this life.

Orange Bird

The mother cried herself to sleep for one more night. Like every day, her dream was of her little boy. His orange shirt and his effervescent smile, as he left the door of their home to bring her groceries. His orange shirt, daubed in crimson and carmine, when they brought her his body. It came as little comfort to her today to know the man who drove the car that took his life was rid of his misery today after a month in coma, shifting from his life in the limbo to his afterlife.

Illusions

“Magic is an illusion,” He said,” Full of tricks and unreal things.”

“So is Life, “She thought, “It’s the same. “

“We try to be with people to be under the illusion that we are not alone.

We fall in love to believe the illusion that we are now complete.

Most of us believe in the collective illusion that there is a big man in the sky who can set things right.

The illusion of owning things, when you know you came here alone, and that you are not going to hold on to anything when you leave.”

She smiled.

Daddy looked at his little girl smile and thought, “She’s too young to understand.”

The Carnivorous Island

As a young child in search of wondrous books, I had stumbled on Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. The book promised to restore your faith, and I was at a crossroad those days- a crossroad where I would stay for a considerable amount of time. Little did I know that I was holding a life changer in my hands. It was the book that questioned the faith, ideas of believability and the nature of human-ness. It was a book that asked you to ponder about your beliefs, and how you arrived at those beliefs. But for now, let’s just look at a little (though definitely not insignificant) chapter in the book.

For the uninitiated, Life of Pi is the story of a boy Pi who escapes a ship-wreck in a boat stuck with a tiger, a zebra and an orang-utan. Drifting in the high seas and nearly dying of hunger and thirst, Pi and the tiger stumble on a wondrous island of tropical greenery. Delighted at their fortune, the two take their time in making themselves at home, enjoying the riches that the Island provides them. It is inhabited only by Meerkats, which are extremely social creatures who are notable for their erect stance, acting as sentry for the tribe watching for imminent dangers. Pi notices that despite the beauty of the island in the day, something is amiss at the night. The Meerkats rush to the trees and leave the ground, causing a perplexed Pi to follow suit. Over the course of the story, he understands that the Island is a carnivorous one, drugging the inhabitants who are unable to escape to trees in the night and digesting them. Terrorized, Pi realise that his own life is in danger. He wonders why the Meerkats are still living in the island despite knowing the terrible secret that the island houses. He realizes that the Meerkats are too complacent with their lives and probably have not theorised about a life away from the Island. In his moment of realization, Pi leaves the island and the tiger follows him to the boat.

Quite an implausible story, many might add. Given the whole nature of the story is mystical and the chief narrator Pi is unreliable in his recollections, it is quite difficult for most to understand the significance of this particular chapter. So was the case with me, until a sleepless night caused me to open this book and read those lines again.

Religion- what a relief it must have been for the ancients. At an age when people could not decipher what the globe of fire that rose in the east and gave light and heat to the world, when people could not understand who it is that showers rains upon the parched lands, religion offered an explanation, a refuge. At a time when moral debates and philosophies had not yet emerged, religion was their sole beacon of light. Promise of an all-powerful being at the helm must surely have brought some comfort to the men of old. The fear of retribution of a vengeful god prevented men from pillaging their neighbour’s wealth. For the common man, it was an oasis, an island. After years of drifting in the high seas of fear of the unknown, subject to the capriciousness of ignorance, the fruits of religion and god must have seemed sweet to the common man.

Slowly, we all turned to Meerkats, comfortable in the sunlight of faith. Some of us may have noticed those who were consumed by the carnivorous island. Religious riots, the crusades, the executions by the Church, the purges. Yet, we chose to stay, too complacent to consider an alternative. Like Meerkats, we stood and watched at the distance for a predator, unaware of the dangers lurking right beneath our feat. We bequeathed our power to reason, our power to theorize to this island. Yet, some of us Meerkats have escaped. And in these modern times, whence Science has developed to such an extent that it answers most questions logically, we should realize there is a raft for us to escape. Of course, it is a choice that only the brave can make. The meek may inherit the earth, but the sole legacy that the Meerkats may inherit is one of lack of will and complacence.

The Beginning, and The End

So much to speak, yet so little time.

“In the midst of winter, I found within me, an incredible summer.”

                                                                                                                    -Albert Camus

It doesn't matter what you want to write. For the moment you hold the pen, the moment the pen touches paper, your heart will break the barriers that the mind has imposed upon it. The heart shall flow, and let it flow. Let the words flow from your heart, as blessed water from a forest stream. Let the words glide, as effortless as the wind that graces the skies. Let your heart and soul reach that place deep within yourself, that temple of incredible calm and peace.

I've always liked temples. And churches. Temples at dusk and early hours of dawn. Churches in the day.

There are few sights in the world more beautiful than a quiet temple, lit in the darkness, surrounded by a hundred mud lamps. Chuttuvilakku, it’s called. The light of the hundred mud lamps flicker and waiver, yet they hold steady, in unison. Like the heartbeat of a hundred children. Like the marching beat of a hundred soldiers, who march in the knowledge that they will not return. The silence and the calm within the walls offer solace from the noises of the urban world. Even the occasional cry of the “ Chemboth” does not break the silence. Temples are beautiful.

In the distance, the mullah calls for the evening prayer. It is a melancholic semi song, and I realize I do not know what it means. I remember something from childhood- that I used to try and learn what the mullah sings. I also realize, I've never been inside a mosque.