The warrior one of his battles done
Exhausted sits on a rivulet of words
(They were arrows he shot
And with these he made his kill
Or perhaps did not)
Watches the unimpeded flow
But still does not know
What is it that he has won

the night blinks, my lonely lovely
speaks of other tomorrows
so what if day is in disdain
nothing is forever, not even pain

Forgettings

Time sleeps
Later malingers
And then seeps
Like water
Through open fingers

Time shifts
Time creaks
Time strays
Then betrays
Like touch and farewell
Of wind
On downturned cheeks

Here where the ghosts of love wail
Before their scars take root
And become magnificent sad trees

Here I do what I must do
I bury me and I bury you
I let other melodies through

Here unburdened, I float over the new earth
I walk tiptoe on waters which rage no more
And as the sky itself flies with me
It hums a sad but happy song too

yummmmmmmm yummmmmmmmm

Rejoice, ye who read this, for the hour has cometh when Madhavankutty Pillai puts pen to paper or qwerty/asdf to keyboard and reveals once again a recipe of outstanding proportions. Recollect that I have before spelt out the secrets of the best chicken curry in the whole whole world and the sweetest sweet dish to ever caress your lip and tongue. My modest ears hear your eulogies and accept your ear deafening cries of gratitude.
Rejoice then, take heart, take cheer, sing the good song and let glee overflow for today is another such day, when there is no promise of rain and the sun unbidden is gloriously shooting off its rays to whoever wishes to collect it and that is when I, who revel in this propitious hour which is propitious for no reason, shall tell you another tastytastiertastiest dish, which reeks of calories but then that is a price we pay for succulence. To business forthwith. It's simple as hell.

You need potates, four five six whatever.

You need onions, three or four

Peel, dice potatoes, onions

Take a frying pan, let groundnut oil flow into it in large quantities, a cup maybe.

Let oil become hot.

Put in the potates, onions.

Let onions become translucent

Put salt, chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder and any other masala you have in your kitchen.

Use your judgment. If I were you, I wouldnt put in more than two teaspoons of chilli powder, I wouldn't worry about the coriander powder and the turmeric powder would be about a teaspoon. If you have some kind of meat masala, I would put lots of it in and dispense with coriander powder

Mix mix mix.

You need tomatoes, two or three; green chillies two or three

Put in tomatoes, green chillies.

Put flame on simmer

Let potates become tender

Let tomatoes become tender, become paste

Mix mix mix

It must now look like some oily sinful mass of brown

Take two eggs, break eggs, pour it onto sinful mass of brown.

Mix mix mix

Till eggs are fried-like.

Bus, ho gaya.

Eat with curd rice, bread or just like that

Bus, ho gaya

The joyous mind

The joyous mind is the mind without turbulence. It is the mind which is clear, the mind which wakes up in the morning and looking out of the window through the interstices of the green mango tree's umbrella, takes in the squirrel darting to no end with incredible dexterity on the tips of air, and then carries past the dancing leaves, the swaying branches and the still and stately trunk into the blue sky which has been whitewashed because it has rained overnight as if the gods themselves wept with joy. The joyous mind sees in the sky the reflection of itself and it understands, no it comprehends the enormity of it all, the supermagnificent enormity of it all. The joyous mind is happy because it is joyous. The joyous mind is the mind at peace with itself, it is the serene mind. The joyous mind is joyous for a moment or two but it is enough.

the evening shrugs, fades into the quiet
night waits recumbent, she has half a smile
the sky blushes crimson, the earth lowers her eye
something is silent,
something is still

The heart breaks silences
And histories are retold
They speak of other romances
And destinies unfold



...................or



The heart breaks silences
And words get strung
They explode into nuances
And poems get sung

The earth speaks many stories, recites them in tones which waver, points out to the skies on fire and then in an arc sweeps its giant arms which are nothing but trunks of giant trees, brown and gnarled, resting its index finger, which is but the wind, in the direction of the man who walks alone on the edge of the delta of the black waters where the mangroves invite him into its lush but thorny folds and the waters, the black delta waters, lap on to the land's edge and seek to pull him in. Says the earth, speaking now of the man:


He walks...there...he walks under shadows so dark and wide that it stretches over and beyond even me. He walks lugging himself, his footsteps tottering, body dragging body, his face so gaunt that the scars of his bones speak; his eyes so dead like the eyes of fish who die without water, the sorrow of which only the fish can know; his eyes so dead that they see nothing, not even the soft soil on which he walks; his tongue parched but not darting because he does not want water; his...his...and so on and so on. He walks, this man, who has ruins where a heart must be and these ruins have walls which are halved by time and chipped at their edges and algae, moss, and ferns have run over these walls and within, there is nothing but the flutter of ghost rats and the sad remembrance of vultures who have left for these ruins have been exhausted of everything, including history.


But don't pity him. Don't pity him for he has invited his fate. This was not what his destiny was but man that he was, he overrode the gods and where the heart, like a royal steed should have galloped in stately grace, he let love take over and when he did that, it is well known among the scribes of heaven, his fate would be no match to the course that love would set for him and in his case, it was towards ruination.

shall this be the hour then

Shall this be the hour then
The moment of all moments
The time when time gets ready
When
Fingers which tremble halt: go steady
Muscles which twitch halt: go steady
Hearts which race stop: go steady
And
I, forever paralysed by your being, now shiver: get ready
For the briefest moment of all
When it is possible no more: to stall

The sweetestest sweet

Avid readers of my writings, who total the grand number two including me and professional blog reader Chinirvilasa Sinnaserthambi (Chinirvilasa Sinnaserthambi in short, who is paid for his efforts by who else, me), will recollect that a few months ago, in a moment of extreme generosity following a divine meal of curd rice and chicken curry, I Madhavankutty Pillai, aka Madhavankutty Pillai, had divulged the secret of the best chicken curry in the whole world, so far held within the confines of my lonely scarred heart and which was only to be revealed when the seven fingered sailor with a rhombus of lapis lazuli in his left hand would accost me on the steps of the Seafarers Union headquarters and say, " Chai Mein Adhrak Dalo. "

Dear Chinirvilasa Sinnaserthambi, since you are my only reader (besides me, of course) you will remember that I, who was so overcome with the taste of that chicken curry (which I made and ate all by myself as my taste buds and gastric juices leapt out and started kissing me in ecstasy) threw caution to the south-west monsoon wind then and spelt out the recipe and it remains there hidden in the archives of this blog, like gold is hidden at the end of seven coloured rainbows near the magenta band if I remember correctly but it could be near the yellow too.

Why do I recollect all this? Because time has not made me any the wiser and the seven fingered sailor is going to be disappointed again because today, I Madhavankutty Pillai, aka Madhavankutty Pillai, is going to reveal another recipe. May I preface it by stating that I am a chocolate fundamentalist who believes that anything that is sweet and worth consuming is related to chocolate and that too by no further than the third degree of consanguinity. However, this Saturday my long cherished ideal and idea took a beating because I, with my own very hands, ably helped by an LG microwave oven, made the sweetestest sweet dish in the whole world and before I change my mind, let me tell you Chinirvilasa Sinnaserthambi, how it is made.

You need Nendrapazham, also called Malabar bananas, which are, you guessed right, bananas usually found off the coast of Kerala and also in shops run by Malayalees and sometimes Tamilians. It's slightly, sorry much much, longer than your normal banana and an essential ingredient if you want to make and, more importantly, eat the sweetestest sweet dish in the whole world. If you don’t get this banana, then tough luck, eat custard you bas****.

Now slice the bananas into two and then steam it, in the microwave or pressure cooker or stove or, if you like to do it the traditional way, by beating two stones together until there's a spark and etc.

Having steamed it cut it into small thick slices and then deep fry them in lots of coconut oil. Fry them enough so that there is a hint of brown. Do not overdo it and make it crisp.

Take it out, sprinkle lots of sugar and then add a little water and toss the bananas up and down, left and right till the sugar and water melt into the hot hot fried banana slices.

All this is more or less known to every good thinking and law abiding Indian and if you didn’t know it Sinnaserthambi, you dog, it is because you are neither good thinking nor law abiding.

Now for the Madhavankutty touch. Pour some honey over it. Not too much, maybe three or four tablespoon and then toss it up and down and left and right.

That's it. Eat.

I read you

I read you

right? no. wrong? no.

About two years ago, after I woke up in the morning with a deadline holding a sword over my neck, and then hurried off to office in extreme haste, extreme stress boxing me on my ears repeatedly repeatedly, I got into an autorickshaw which midway went bust and then I angry and furious started walking away when the rickshaw driver angry and furious called me back and demanded his fare up to the point that the rickshaw went bust but I naturally refused to pay but he persisted and then I told him no and then he said let's go to the police station and then we both walked to the police station and in between we met two constables and put forth our points of view, mine being that since I took the rickshaw to a particular point, going halfway does not help me because I would have to take another rickshaw and thus pay more and his, the rickshaw driver's, point being that his rickshaw has used fuel up to that point and he has also given his time and labour up to that point and so he is entitled to the fare up to that point and this is how we put forth our arguments to the two constables who agreed with me and told the rickshaw driver to pay but he did not and insisted that we go to the police station and so we walked on to the police station where surrounding a table sat four constables and we put forth our arguments again and this time they sided with the rickshaw driver and asked me to pay up the fare but I refused and said that I would not pay him and then they told me to pay him at least something so that this situation is resolved and so I paid him half the fare up to the point where his rickshaw went bust and they told the rickshaw driver to accept that money and so we both, equally happy and equally unhappy, returned, he to his bust up rickshaw and me towards the deadline whose sword just got bigger thanks to the time wasted in this silliness but I am still not sure who was the right in it and therefore this is what I call a moral dilemma and I don’t think there is an answer to it and I dont think there are answers to most things in life but there are solutions

listen, for i speak

My agonies are exhausted and so I have a brief moment of respite before they rear their hydra heads. I use this, this becalming moment, to speak what I otherwise cannot, will not.

Since we will never meet, since you will never be near, I shall say what I could not once and then did, yes I did, but in a language which perhaps had no existence, no future. I understand that now. I understand much now but this wisdom has not come easy. I have had to journey much, not in furlongs and miles, or moments. My travels took me through different states of misery and miseries are not understood within time and space. Every sorrow is eternal when it is happening. I have waded through much and understood this: if words will make words glitter, then words also abrade meanings but then, words, which I write to expiate another silence, other abrasions, will also echo because if there is destruction in words, then there is also redemption in it.

It is important that you hear, that you understand, that you listen. And you will listen to my words which I throw in empty space knowing well that this is empty space. I know that they shall reach you because words travel faster than me and you, and they travel farther than you will ever go from me, because they travel with the wings of thought and heart, and these wings go far.

Other thoughts, other hearts will listen to me and through them you will listen. Yes, you will listen. You will perhaps not know that these words come from me, that in my silence there was much that was said and when I spoke, there were many things silent. I so wish for that silence to return but it will not. And so I create words now and I create words for you. I craft them, I design them, slowly sculpt them, give them feature, let them flow back and forth, let them ebb and bounce and sometimes let them free to do as they will. I do this with great care so that they, these words, shall travel, not in a raging mass submerging all that they meet, rather, I wish them to go one by one, letter by letter. Perhaps then, these stray sounds will be heard by someone, who will understand and from him it will take another form, a different feature and then another will hold on to it. From another to another and thus they will travel in single files until they reach your ears and you who must have forgotten me will stop and remember hard, you will think that these words are familiar and they speak in tongues you understand, and you will know then, you will know then that you know these words and what you hear has come from you.

Seek you much, oh so much, to shield yourself from chances and dangers
Even so, how will you, migrant, ward off the kindness of strangers
Which come unattended , unwanted even, reminding of other ways of being
Making you, blind so far, discover new ways of seeing, questioning:
For life could be so, then why is it not, why is it not so
I looked for it, in corners, expanses, sideroads and plateaus
While there it was all along, from the beginning, abreast
Why then did I, who sought it with so much fervour, always say no

                        THE ANNOUNCEMENT


Every man is allowed to die once. We have been dying since eternity: one death for every day as one and apart.


Today is the announcement. Our ambulant dreams shall now stall. Having all assembled, we wait for the Vazir in anticipation to what he has to say and also to finally see him. Will everything change? So far we have only seen his hands on the silver screens lined on the streets from which we have always known him talking to his subjects. Those hands would gesticulate as he spoke. But when he proclaimed the announcement the hands were still as death. We could see the veins then, taut like vines in abeyance. We imagined the blue blood flow through them. A little shudder passed through us.
Later, he said that he would personally address the gathering. There was one massive shudder then followed by clamorous after-silence. Apprehension flowed through the barren streets isled by people standing in front of giant television screens watching a hand speak.
I alone was relieved.
I am not here for the announcement.
I have come to find her and having found her to look her in the eye.

                    I

Once we were always together never looking each other by eye. Afraid of truths which only the glance departs, timid at the affinity of the union which only the eye can bring (the desire so extreme to remove the final barrier but protective of the comfort that anonymity brings, alas alas). Alas alas.
These are times of unreason. People change in metaphors. We started shedding off the body. Flakes littered the path we trod (I conjecture the disorder’s infestation to be the force anti-force resulting from the conflict of our desires fears).
How is it that which we fear and do our best to avert finally end up consuming us because we tried to do so? What is this parody? Why are there only evenings in this age?
Today is like the day before she left. I remember us walking beneath the open sky with twilight eating us in its early gloom and me holding her hand tight and she letting me do it. Thus we walked till the end where we sat down and watched the palm trees sway to the molten breeze. The world was a shade of fire-brown then. Today is somewhat like that. When my palms were wet with sweat as I held her hands tight. It must have hurt her a little but she let me do it then.

                    II

I stood at the portal watching her go and she turned. At that moment of time, had I returned the look, folly would have been averted.
From folly has sprung repentance, remorse, regret -- the disorder has struck me again. That it was she who took the chance; that it was I who refused the dice. But the change is different, in that whereas previously I changed form and face to become plain (or faceless), the present transmogrification is making me grotesque. Exacerbating the pain is the realisation that she, because of her willingness to look me in the eye, must have metamorphosed to something more beautiful, like a whitewashed second sky. I want to therefore look her in the eye and return to my original form, face and feature.

                    III

I promise myself that my story shall be of hope and end in fruition. I keep promising myself that.
I was the first to come here in this large slab of land carved from the tundra to stand the living world. I wanted to stand near the gate and watch each one come in. Then I will spot her and having spotted her look her in the eye. There is a problem though.
Having never looked at her, I do not know her appearance. How do you find someone whom you never saw and who has since changed form twice? The only way is to look her in the eye because having never done so, once I do it, I will instantly recognize her. Logics must swirl or they lead you to a judgment.

                    IV

I was therefore the first to be here -- even before the shanty dwellers who were evicted to make way for the maidan. Giant siphons spouting mineral water (no less) washed the bare earth clean of the excrement which these shanty dwellers for want of space had spread. These evicted ones are also here. They are curious to their fate. They do not know whether, once the announcement done, the Vazir has decreed them to return. They miss their homes. They cannot sleep without the stench of shit.

                    V

What is better: a staff or a block of stone on the weary back?
Who is better off: a soldier in the army of notaries or a poet-who-does-not-war?
The poets-who-do-not-war carried this huge block of stone together in regiment. This is the Vazir’s stage from where he will speak. The Vazir decreed them to the bottom when he reviewed the order. They were relegated because possessing all the mannerisms, eccentricities and temperament of poets, they refused to poetise because they did not want to. They did not even serve the necessity of unfructuous dissent. So one day from the screens, the hand pointed its shaking index finger and it spoke ‘Down’. The notaries immediately rounded them up. The poets-who-do-not-war were easy to recognise – sophisticated, clean but short and three front teeth missing.

(Here, I shall interject to mention my personal poet-who-did-not-war. He had sheaves of paper on which he constantly wrote. But whenever we tried to sneak a glance, the papers were always the blank side up rustling on his lap. One day, and this was long ago, much older than this age, together we forced the papers off him, looked behind the mystery and saw
The whole U in your eyes
The whole U in your eyes
The whole U in your eyes
The whole U in your eyes
The whole U in your eyes
U for Universe. He was also rounded up. I tell you this to make you understand why it was so perilous to look her in the eye. I refused to be a poet-who-does-not war. I did not want to be rounded up)

The notaries were also short but had all their teeth intact. They carried the staff with pride. They were given it when the Vazir decided that policing is best when it rests with those who channel the protest. On the other hand, the notaries were genetically incapable of aspersions to power having for centuries only attested petitions. Up.

                    V

Once when we were always together never looking each other in the eye, we were individuals on longer. We were, I can safely say, one. Thus having given ourselves up to the togetherness, we escaped the Vazir’s plan to create a uniscient society of no self.
After she has left, I have felt my self dissolving in waves with the Vazir’s. It is a luxury that scares me. I want me to be me and for that I must find her and having found her look her in the eye.

                    VI

I was the first to be here. I wanted to stand near the gate and watch each one come in. The maidan however had no gate. It just stood there open, far and beyond. It will be difficult now. I will just have to move and keep moving, look and keep looking, for an eye that I will recognise because I have avoided it always.

                    VII

There the gypsies shorn of sleep, there the clerk with eyes always in shade, there the women of paint, there they who live with the ghosts of the dead (whom they refuse to leave and who therefore do not leave them), there the swamis of power, the seducers, the survivors, there the poets-who-do-not war, the heroes who do not dare, there the judges who pass the limited judgments, there the eunuchs of fractured dreams, there the shaking bottlemen, there beauty hidden behind seven veils, spotless white and fresh as cold water, there the women, the lamenters, the managers…so many, so many people.
There a murmur, murmurs, murmursssss. The announcement?
There the Vazir. No, not the Vazir.

                    VIII

No, not the Vazir. I should not look at the Vazir. Or should I? (What is after all the value of an eye?) No one knows what will be said. Oblivion heralded; castes reworked; return to the penury principle; termination by random numbers: what is definite is that there will be change. Does his very arrival in person not signal that. Change will follow no curve. Change has already swept me in its wake; I chose it when I decided to find her and having found her to look her in the eye. I must choose again. Shall I abandon my search and look at the Vazir and hear what he has to say? Or shall I continue it knowing well that I shall fail? It is getting late. The night is getting darker still.

Similar sounds

Similar sounds erupt these days. They come through window sills, vents, ventilators, the closed door and in agitated tones seek respites. I have none to offer. To understand is not to assuage. Other sounds make their difficult way through morning mists which overlap with smog until the clear and the unclear, the pure and impure, the clean and the sullied, is all one. These sounds seek love. I dont have that too and he who has nothing can give nothing and eventually forgets to take. To understand is not to requite. I have nothing to give but they keep coming, these sounds and their soundbearers, like mendicants who know all the secrets of worlds and worlds, but yet beg for little alms and yesterday's rice.

shadows

When day disgusted quit, man and woman recognised the other through shadows. Shadows with no features, only form – tall, short, wide, narrow and their many mixes. He saw her through the veil of black and she saw him through night’s grief. Their eyes sought each other but in the land of shadows only shadows met.

to whom every shade is darkness inviting

to whom every shade is darkness inviting
who sees not the solace that comes with it
whose every utterance is a cry
but who denies this
and silently prays for reprieve, any reprieve
but is too proud to speak, to voice it
and too much in pain to listen
how can anyone not see her blinding ache
how can anyone not hear her silent clamour
and yet no one does
except me

who takes all to be affront
and on chariots of hurt
spurns every hand that reaches out
imagines slights where smiles are
and strikes at the arrogance of compassion
who persists in this drama of doom
this drama self-willed, abhorred but played
how does anyone get through this wall
even the happy gods, those tireless ones, give up here
not me, i do not

Madness, meditation: an essay

My father's younger brother, M P Parameswaran Nair died recently, having lived as a schizophrenic for at least the last 25 years of his life. For the most part of that period he smoked beedis in a room in the house at Pulluvazhi, near Perumbavoor in Kerala. Before, he had studied engineering at Benaras Hindu University and later at Patrick Lumumba University in Moscow. He was also for a short while in the army, recruited out of turn for his knowledge of Russian. In short, he was well traveled, intelligent and productive till he gradually lost control over the mind. I remember the fragment of a conversation I once had with him which went something like this:

He: "I am going to Delhi"
I: "Why?"
He: "To meet the director of the CIA"
I: "Who is the director of the CIA?"
He: "Me"

Unlike my uncle who died of a heart attack, Chandramohan died after being run over by a truck in a suburb called Dahisar which is very near Borivali, , a northern suburb of Mumbai. Before Chandramohan died, his body was literally going into pieces. We used to see him sitting in the parapet of a bus depot hours on end staring at particularly nothing. He was usually very clean, always coming early in the morning his hair slicked back, which meant that he had had a bath or at least washed his hair. He also wore a denim jacket over his shirt and jeans. He claimed to be a poet and constantly kept writing on some pieces of paper. I looked at it once or twice and there is only one line which struck me and it went something like this: The whole U in your eyes. There was a circle on the U, which signified, if I remember correctly, Universe. I do not remember any of the other lines, which means either it was meaningless or I have a poor memory.

The first sign of Chandramohan's disintegration came when he lost three of his front teeth, I forget how. He used to sit as before in the depot but somehow, with three teeth missing, that dignity or elegance of the artist was missing. Also his denim jacket went missing and his hearing slowly faded. When we said anything to him, he would bend his ears towards us and we would shout. He refused the idea of ear plugs using a twisted logic which said that with ear plugs you have to concentrate on the particular direction from which the sounds came. I have no idea what he meant by that. One day, when we were sitting as usual at the depot, a friend came and said that Chandrmohan has died. He had not heard the truck coming behind him, was how his death was explained. Anyhow, I don't think anybody cried.

I will also tell you about another person, a gold medallist in, I think, engineering from Benaras Hindu University, who lives in the same colony as me. This man wants to make movies. Before I quit smoking, I used to run into him at the paanwallah and he would tell me about scripts he is writing for movies, of wanting to write articles about what was wrong with our society and how it could be changed. I do not know whether he ever wrote them, certainly none got printed. I don’t think he ever completed any script. Consequently he is yet to make a movie. He had been brilliant once and he could do nothing now, it was as simple as that. But at least he was coherent in speech and decent in attire unlike the man in a place called Saibaba Nagar, which is in Borivali. This man, usually nude, often gets on to the divider and thinking himself to be a traffic constable, directs the traffic. Very few take notice of him and understandably so. That is the character of insanity; this turning of the mind within itself, a turning away from the world. Consequently the world turns away from the insane, both have nothing to give to each other. There are therefore no CIA directors, no scripts, no poems, no traffic to stop, there is nothing in those minds which must have once thought like you and I do.

My father, M P Narayana Pillai, a writer, would pace up and down talking to himself. He did this so often that we thought nothing strange about it. In fact, we joked that the only difference between him and his brother was that he was socially productive – as in, he could earn money by bartering a set of skills. He would agree and was almost proud of it. However, I have come to believe that it was a bad joke. Not because it was insulting to my father (he, as I said, took pride in the sobriquet). I think it was a complete travesty of madness, a romanticisation, much like the assumption that the mad man is happy within a particular universe of his own or that courting madness is in some ways necessary for the pursuit of creativity. I came to this view after going to a meditation course for the second time in my life.

The first time I went for the ten-day course was in July 2002 at a place called Igatpuri which is on the Mumbai-Nashik route. It was a Buddhist meditation technique called Vipassana. For ten days, all you do there is meditate. You cannot speak, read newspapers or novels, write anything, watch TV, communicate using signs or anything. You can only meditate at Dhamma Giri, the name of the place where this course was conducted. The first time I had no extraordinary experiences, but at the conclusion of the course felt a serenity which was obviously due to the complete insulation of the senses.

To describe the technique -- for the first three-and-a-half days, from morning 4 am to night 9 pm, you observe the breath, without in any manner trying to control it. Then on, till the end of the tenth day, you observe sensations in the body. The sensation is defined as anything that is present at a particular spot of the body. It could be heat, cold, heaviness, dryness, etc, whatever you feel is sensation. By the end of the tenth day, your mind becomes so sharp that you feel subtle vibrations all over the body. But the rule is to just observe it without becoming happy at a pleasurable sensation or sad at a painful sensation. This, in brief, is Vipassana meditation. As you advance, it is claimed that all the mind-matter phenomena reveal themselves as vibrations. Beyond this is the stage of Nirvana or Nibbana as they call it, which cannot be described precisely because it is beyond the field of mind and matter.

The next August, I therefore went expecting a much better experience. By the end of the fifth day, I was terrified at what my mind was churning out. It came to a stage that it was not the thought or thoughts that terrified me but the fear that those thought or thoughts will arise. Which then is a surefire formula for the mind to get directed to those thought/thoughts. The trick is to focus completely on the sensations in your body. Every aversion (and fear is of course one) you harbour will then make itself apparent as an unpleasant sensation or sensations. I developed a toothache on the sixth day. You are warned that the most important thing in meditation is not to experience the sensations but to remain equanimous no matter how pleasant or painful the sensation. In my case, the hint of a toothache was enough to bury my equanimity. I say it with no especial feeling of shame – I completely lost it. In retrospect the toothache appeared very trifle and it is a very trifle thing but remember, in that silence, that there is nobody there except you and the tooth ache. It is the only thing that exists and there is no ailment in the world that you will not associate with that ache, from tongue cancer to psychosis. After I returned home…aching, I went to a dentist who apart from relieving me of 300 rupees, helped in no way whatsoever. As time passed and the mind returned to its ordinary pattern with the usual contents that fill it, the toothache gradually passed away.

I was hardly the first to go through this experience. In fact, I first heard about this reaction to meditation when I must have been 13 or 14 and went for a Chinmaya Mission retreat in Lonavala. I remember the Sanyasi who was conducting the retreat remarking that students often come to him and tell him that during meditation terrifying thoughts arise. This particular question is inevitably one which is asked to almost every person whose teaching involves meditation, from Chinmayananda to Ramana Maharshi. The answer is always the same -- unless the filth of the mind comes out, how will it become pure. But only when you experience it, does the import of the question strike.

Therefore, and this is the point I am making, your mind is hardly a friend. It hits back as soon as you explore your way through it. The minute you try to tame it, it will lead you through a fiery path. And it has enough ammunition because nothing you have done, thought, seen, heard, desired, abhorred, craved, etc, from your mother’s womb to the present minute and second, is hidden from it. This terrifying character of the mind has to be experienced to be believed. And it will not take much effort. Just lock yourself up for two days in a room and try to concentrate on your breath or try to just observe your thoughts. You will understand what I am talking about. Which is why, when I think of a Chandramohan or my father’s brother, who has witnessed the gradual erosion of control, the loss of equanimity, reason, logic and continuity of thought, I think of my toothache and multiply it by infinity. That must be the situation of a person who has lost his value as a human being, a value built over millions of years of evolution from the first single celled amoeba to mankind.

bleak

bleak is the will
bleak the black sky
bleak the brown earth
bleak the night
bleak the day
and its daily rebirth
bleak is the silence
bleak the silent wind
which carries this silence
bleak the dead
bleak the living
bleak is this running sorrow
bleak is today
bleak is tomorrow
bleak is you
bleak is me
bleak are the colours
bleak the seasons
bleak is the yellow evening
bleak the red morning
bleak is the brown earth
and the dark matter of the black sky

Did you know, this junction sees it all

Did you know, this junction sees it all
Every sufferance, each train of joy
This junction knows, it sees it all
It sees stray encounters sweetunsweet
Of those who meet in roads
Which do not meet
But draw close and diverge
Till the waving of the hands
Is a figure, a line, a dot and sky
This junction sees such passings
Passings tantalisingly close
Heartbreakingly so
But they pass, and this is seen
This junction sees the imprints etched
And sure enough, it sees it erased
It sees stories in the erasing
Stories which leave leftovers
Like remainders in divisions
It collects these leftovers and packs it all
Looks longingly now and then swipes it away
Everything becomes memory now
Everything is retrospect now
In retrospect so much could happen
But nothing could, nothing did
How sad

adhvaitham

shantham               shantham               shantham

     adhvaitham

n'aham               n'naham               n'tvam

     adhvaitham

n'manushyam               n'maanushyam               n'dhaivam

     adhvaitham

n'jananam               n'maranam               n'punarjanmam

     adhvaitham

n'thrupthy               n'athrupthy               n'ashantham

n'shantham               n'ashantham

     adhvaitham               adhvaitham               adhvaitham

when the clock strikes ten ten

when the clock strikes ten ten and i fall
into the marble of the gilded banquet hall
that is when i hear the ceiling call
through a hole in the magician's shawl
some of whose rabbits now jump at me
as i try to wrench myself free
from the floor's all embracing glee
i try hard to stand but i crawl
there is now whisky burning on the stove
fat men in white wings are flying above
one of whom has arrows and a bow
he shoots one and it becomes a shove
which takes me down by the chest
i descend thinking this is no time to rest
soon there is going to be another ball
the clock strikes ten ten then and i fall

see, night, despite us, is happening

see, night, despite us, is happening
and we stand on the edge of edges
our reluctant and eager toes inch
towards the brink of another brink

look, for certain this is night happening
look, we are beginning separations
our directions ever so surely turning
and our roads are parallel, they lead away, look

watch, we walk alone this night
our fingers find no fingers, they twitch
watch, we will shed memories in our stride
i will forget you, you will forget me
and soon there will be another by our side

somedays the day is like that

somedays the day flits like butterflies on aimless flight fluttering without direction moving this way that way up down flitting shooting becalming pulsating throbbing flying perspiring, if butterflies can perspire, if days can perspire
somedays the day is like that
somedays the day moves with enormous purpose like spiders on the kill moving around in intent circles moving in moving away even knowing knowing all the while that the distance is closing and the webbed fly is on the weave of death and the spider moves in moves in like the day of enormous intent
somedays the day is like that
somedays the day is like nothing and all that you do is nothing even when you do something and someone says you you have done something and you you know it is nothing because you you know everything is nothing and so the day even if it is rich rich and noble noble is nothing and you know it
somedays the day is like that

she that is lonely and who breaks the minute

she that is lonely and who breaks the minute
which crumbles on her like old bread
and then rises like a wave to engulf her
she has nothing to fear
her loneliness will take her through
and someday she will sleep content
like how children sleep after long days

she who worries for her different loves
who is wife, daughter, lover, mother
her enormous heart will suffice
through repeated betrayals of her love
she has nothing to worry
for she has it in her to take it all in
and from the suffering extend pleasure