The April Witch ...

like the girl who twists and twists the swing ropes ...
to let go ...
and swirl and scream ...

The Totem ...

Suppose you are fighting.

At many a point in the fight, one party might feel: "Oh, God, this is all wrong! this is unnecessary, I want to stop this fighting!"

And he blurts out a common place: "I'm sorry, lets talk this through?"

But does it get through? No, it goes like: "What do you mean you are sorry?! you were supposed to ... "

What is happening? The common place message does not have anything on it to differentiate it from the countless rigmarole that is being exchanged back and forth in the fight. The mundane sound packet carrying the message takes a direct hit on the now charged up firewalls of the Ego that is fighting and is destroyed to pieces before making an inch of progress into the Self hiding behind it.

How to deal with this?

Enter the 'code word of truce'. Which should be a minimal, quirky, absurd sounding word, that has nothing to do with being sorry, or fighting, or listening to each other. But it should be unique, to you, something you can feel, but others can't, something to help you get back to reality, which is the real you hiding, behind the fighting Ego.

Like a Totem.

'Open Sesame'.

Now you know that when that word is uttered, all the charged up personal firewalls of the fighting Ego are supposed to let that sound packet through, unaltered, directly to the Self. The message means,

"I'm dropping my fighting Ego. I'm ready to listen to you, the real you. Let's cancel the fight."

And you are supposed to tell me what exactly you really felt or are feeling.

And I'm supposed to listen to that, with 'brutal honesty'.

It takes a certain level of conquest over the Ego to make this work :-)

Importance of Reproducing ...

... :-D

Dancing with the ...

A soulmate is someone who
has locks to fit our keys,
and keys to fit our locks.
When we feel safe enough to
open the locks, our truest
selves step out and we can
be completely and honestly
who we are; we can be loved
for who we are and not for who
we are pretending to be.
Each unveils the best part
of the other. No matter what
else goes wrong around us,
with that one person we're
safe in our own paradise.
When we are two balloons, and
together our direction is up,
chances are we've found
the right person.
Our soulmate is the one
who makes life come to life.

-- Richard Bach

Gender Bias ...

... :-)

Black and White ...

are they? ... :-/

The Biscuit Thief

Coming back from office on a rather long day, I was opening the door to my apartment that was sleeping in darkness. As I stepped inside, to my shock, something crackled under my shoes. It almost made me jump. I quickly reached for the lights, flipped it on, and looked for the mysterious thing that crackled.

Well, it was a half eaten piece of a Good Day biscuit.

In many a bachelor pad this may not qualify as something strange, but I, do, keep my apartment clean. Also, till date, I have not seen or detected the presence otherwise of any rat in this second floor apartment where I dwell. So this was, well, strange indeed. But I dropped it at that. I definitely was not feeling Holmes enough to investigate the matter at the moment after having played cat and mouse with hairy software bugs all day.

Next morning when I went into the kitchen, I saw one of the Good Day packs I had on the rack was torn open and the biscuits strewn aside, couple of them missing too. Ah, bad indeed, seems like a rat has really made it to this second floor. I stood for a minute musing upon Mousehunt. I dropped the leftover biscuits into the trash can, pushed the matter into a recess of my mind and went about my routine.

Couple of days later, another morning, as I was entering the kitchen, something made me jump again. A violent flurry of wings and feathers. I was completely taken aback. What in the world is a dove doing inside my kitchen?!! She was struggling to escape through the window sills through which she apparently came in and falling all over the place and trying again, causing all the ruckus and frenzy. She managed to get out finally. I was left wondering; A dove sneaking into a kitchen and stealing biscuits?!! That is far stranger than what I expected. All the same, I considered the case closed and freed the memory that was allocated in the aforementioned recess.

No more biscuit incidents happened for next couple of days.

During the weekend, after having had lunch, I was lying on the couch practicing the skill of doing nothing for which there was not much opportunity during the week. Suddenly a queer face appeared on the ventilator grill above the front door.

A squirrel.

Cute thing, I thought. What does he want? Will he come in? Squirrels usually I have seen keep as far away from humans as possible. I lay absolutely still so as not to scare him.

But he did not seem to be in any kind of confusion. He slipped inside through the grills, tiptoed through the curtain hanger, skillfully glided through the hanging curtain, jumped to the floor and scuttled straight to the kitchen!!

At this moment it dawned on me that the closing of the case of 'The curious incident with the Biscuit' was horribly wrong.

I did not move from the couch. He seemed to be ruffling some plastic wrapping in the kitchen. Probably it was the one more packet of Good Day that was left. I waited to see how long he spends in the kitchen. The ruffling went on for some time. I waited. No sign of him coming out. After around thirty odd minutes all went silent, there was no more ruffling. Probably he went out from the kitchen? I got up gingerly from the couch and tiptoed silently towards the kitchen.

Oops, he was still sitting on the rack! I stopped dead on my toes. I think he saw me. He snuggled into a corner of the rack and stood motionless. I tiptoed back to the couch as silently as possible.

For a few minutes nothing happened. Then his face slowly edged out of the kitchen door near the floor. He looked all around for a full minute weighing the situation. Then it was a dash. Burr! through the floor, Swoosh! up the curtain, Tap Tap! across the hanger and Slipp! through the grill. I could not help laughing! :-)

I went into the kitchen to take stock of matters. Eh?! the Good Day packet is intact. What did he eat then? Then I saw. He has torn open a packet of wheat and eaten a handful from it. Hmm ...

Squirrelhunt? Uh oh ...

PS: I give thanks, that all the construction, pollution and greed has not yet managed to eradicate the doves and squirrels around me.

Snakes and Ladders ...

Everyday morning I play this game; game of snakes and ladders.

In mornings, I zig-zag through a chaotic maze of traffic laden roads to reach my office. For a sky dwelling God who does play dice, the tiny red dot of my car moving through this plane far below could very much appear like a coin moved through a snake and ladder board. There are five traffic signals on my way to office from home. As I shift through this game board, the sky dwelling God rolls his dice. I speedily approach a traffic signal from afar; the dice stops; the traffic signal suddenly transforms into a snake; or a ladder; dictated by the dice.

Its a snake; its green now; am rushing towards it, the last car in front of me is passing under the green light, and it turns red; it unleashes a barrage of vehicles from the other side. I am swallowed by the snake, set back, bogged down, for minutes before it lets me go.

Sometimes its a ladder; its green now; am rushing towards it, the last car in front me is passing under the green light, and it stays green; I glide past unhindered. I have climbed up the ladder, shaving off minutes from my lap time.

God rolls his dice again. I am nearing the next snake; or ladder.

Free radicals ...

I was generally practicing Brownian motion on the nostalgic Calicut beach.

I ended up there on that fine evening after a hectic day filled with lots of traveling. Before the sun began to paint the skies crimson, I settled down somewhere on the beach with my bare feet dug deeply into the sand and was looking around in general.

There was some kind of religious convention going on at the far end of the beach. Somebody was talking about how God had intended women to be modest and servile to their husbands and why it is so violating the God's decree for women to disregard these social shackles. Two days before I had attended a wedding, where while pronouncing the couple man and wife, the priest read out words from the holy book which went like, "like how your grandmothers served their husbands obediently, you should serve your husband, and God will bless you". I remembered another book I read, which was explaining the cultural system one should follow for better allegiance to a faith, which went like women should treat their husbands as Gods and their leftover food as divine.

I could not help but appreciate the cunning and orchestration. How generations of male manipulators have used the religion as a tool, in the pretext of ensuring a stable social structure, to bind the other sex to a subservient role, and how they have pretty much succeeded in it. The surprising thing is that it is universal! It transcends the boundaries of most religions and rears its face in various forms targeting the same goal.

I accepted this little bit of 'zen' with a rather disappointed heart and generally extended my gaze to the setting sun.

There was a family sitting some distance away from me. A father, a very normal looking man, mother, looking probably very religious, and two teenage girls, their children. Both the girls looked like of college going age, one probably one or maybe two years younger than the other. The girls did not look particularly bound by religion, the elder girl maybe a little.

The elder girl looked more mature, the younger one more peppy and energetic. They were sitting way up on the beach from the sea and the surf. The younger girl obviously wanted to run into the sea, get wet, and laugh out loud when the waves hit her. She was prodding the elder one, egging her to come with her, she did not want to go alone. But the elder one kept refusing, acting like its not appropriate. She tried her mother next. But mother was a definite no no. Fed up, she started pestering her father, he seemed unmoved. During one of these moments her eyes collided with mine staring at her ingloriously; amused by this unfolding drama. One second I got scared, fearing I might be mistaken for a shameless loathsome vulture. But instead I saw a faintly timid smile creeping across her lips and she instantly dropped her eyes. I kept my smile in check with some willfully exerted control.

The father was unmoved. He just kept staring into the setting sun. The elder girl and the mother kept their stature, what the younger one wants is highly inappropriate. At one stage, the younger one went by herself to some distance near the surf, she stood there, looking back hoping her father would follow. But he did not. She came back sadly, and started pulling her father's arms. To my surprise he got up now, he hooked up his white mundu and went with her to the sea holding her hand. She was wild with joy, she was running, dragging him. She jumped on to the waves, she got completely wet, she screamed like hell. Her father stood by her, holding her hand, he was also getting wet, and he was smiling. Her mother looked on rather disapprovingly.

During one of these moments, her eyes collided with mine staring at her ingloriously. This time she smiled, she did not drop her eyes.

I did not check my smile; and in the background I silently erased the patch of disappointment the earlier bit of 'zen' had caused.

There are always free radicals, unforeseen autonomous forces, operating out there, working and spreading on their own, countering the atrocities created by organized propaganda, pulling the human race to an orange color day.

That time of the year again ...

Its that time of the year again, when schools re-open ...

Freshness of new clothes, books, a new haircut?, well, mixed with the disappointment of going back to enclosures;

But children of this era, do they really know free dom, even when the schools are closed? ...