Endometrial Celebrations...

Sometimes, fruits have minds.   They value the environment where they are growing up.  Like Jamuns.  In Delhi .

Natural green cover, organically enriched soil,  and a childhood in balance with the creatures of nature.   Nurtured and brought up in Sangeeta Khanna's garden in Delhi, amidst amazing Green Plus Security , they slip into various stages of life seamlessly, without announcements or discussions, and the only activity of Twitter is by the birds in the trees.

The incessant rains are a sign . Like Sangeeta says, " Jamun fruits are known to become plump, juicy and sweet as soon as the rains arrive. Saw them splitting open in situ for the first time as if indicating enough of the rain...."

Perhaps there is a message in this ....

In lands
untouched by
selfish greed
and chemical money,
the anatomy understands.

A full term jamun
rich and thickly lined
infused with
the fluid of life,
prodded by the seed
growing inside,
breaks the Jamuniotic sack.

In a Jamun world,
the seed must now
move on,
and
live its own life
away from its Mater,
immersed in a monsoon soil
somewhere else.

It is tough,
but most seeds
end up
following
what their Mother Tree
taught them....

Zen and the Art of Optimism....

Sometimes,  A photograph is clicked with a certain thinking, that stirs the mind of the photographer. 

My friend Bhavana Nissima posted this photo , with a query , "Where does love exist? Intense and heavy in the moment’s water in a cascading waterfall or in a river alone? In the tree that shapes into a banyan or also in the creeper that bloomed a morning flower?"......


And then age , experience, and attitude, acclimatizes you to finding solutions, answers, and suggestions,  and a poem happens. 

The fun part is when the photographer  seizes the exact meaning you wanted to convey :  
 
"You have teased and opened up the thought, . And repowered a soon-to-wilt flower. There is beauty and grace in all forms...."






Optimism on a Monday morning....

It is
the slow
creeping of the roots
along the soil,
cocking a snook
at its
upwardly mobile brethren
infatuated with
stems and trunks.

A quiet nudging
of buds
along the path,
egged on by
the ever wandering greens,
sometimes bending to whisper
along the ground.

And it is
about the blooming blue,
shrugging off
the monsoon pearl drops,
to concoct
a petrichor fragrance;
its gift
to the budding wandering pink.

But mostly
it's about
an indulgent Earth
looking up at the morning Sun,
and saying,
"Aren't you just
really proud of these two ?"

Beaks, Waters and other stories.

My friend who goes by the name of Slogan Murugan, recently posted a photograph of a pigeon , making the most of an infinite expanse (to its own thinking) of drinking water, dipping in to the maximum depth it can, without getting water in its eyes, so to speak. 

I thought of some other beaks, powerful and posh, and other efforts at drinking water, and wrote some verse, referring to drinking water problems faced by so many today. 

Turns out , that just before he clicked the pigeon,  Slogan Murugan also clicked the photo below on the right, of the daily hoi polloi efforts at collecting water to drink.

I would love to make a well known comment about (great) minds thinking alike,  but  can see the pigeon taking a gulp, watching out with that eye, and while glugging down as much water as it can, asking a question saying  "yeh log mere peeche kyon pade hai ?" 

The answer. 

Some tall types,
with expressive beaks,
long necks
and quick "power" movement
pierce them deep
into the sand
hoping to find political waters.

Some page 3 types
only frequent
bird baths and feeders
in gardens attached
to public bungalows
studded with power windows.

But the proletarian
pigeon types,
that share residences
and population
with us,
to be constantly shooed away
and cursed,
light up at
the sight of this,
and dip in.

Unfortunately,
some who cannot fly
must trudge miles today,
in 2015,
to get
drinking water of their own.

Cry, the beloved cables ! केबल जगाव, पीएमसी पढाव !

If Municipalities were people (actually, come to think of it, they are), one would seriously need to question the development of their cerebral cortexes.

There is something called "eminent domain"  that defines the ability or right of public entities  to kind of suddenly take over places to conduct works for he public good.

A quick look at this happening in Sadashiv Peth Pune,  posted by my friend Prasad Paranjape,  will boggle the mind.

Someone called this a municipal art installation.    It isn't.

Reds and Greens, once the monopoly of traffic signals , leaves and  flowers,  now appear on closed doorways, pipes and sarees (not to mention singlets),  as a helpless roll of dull grey cables, is half sunk permanently into cement /concrete, under a traffic sign.

(The two fellows at work replied that a third fellow entrusted with planting something before filling a hole with mud was on leave. They were in charge of cementing. They didnt want to compromis their friend's job by doing his work, so they simply filled it with cement.

:-)

Cry, the beloved cables ......

कुणा एके काळी
रस्त्यावर
लाल दिसले कि थांबायचे ,
हिरवे दिसले कि पुढे जायचे
आणि अधे मधे पाण्ढ्रट पिवळे दिसले
कि ब्रेक च्या आसपास
आपले चरणस्पर्श व्हायचे .

इस्वी सन २०१५,
आपण इतके पुढे गेलो
(हिरव्या दिव्या शिवाय)
कि सर्व रंग आता
जमिनीवर आणि भिंतीवर दिसतात ,
पांढरे सर्व खुर्चीच्या मागे लागतात
आणि
आ करून बसलेल्या केबला
अचानक अबला बनून
डोक्यावरचा ट्राफिक साईन पाळतात
आणि अडकून बसतात

मग एके दिवशी
कोणीतरी येतं , भाषण देतं ,
आणि म्हणतं ,
केबला जगाव ,
पीएमसी पढाव ,
आणि
हे सगळ पुन्हा एकदा सुरु होतं …।

Greece, Reloaded.....

Two events having nothing to do with each other.  And perhaps, much to do with each other.  

Just mentioned on FB  by my friend , Sushma Varma, the youngest among all, at 84.

In a most informal,  non theoretical, non analytical, non-expert ,unstudied but  a gut psychological reaction to the Greek crisis,  one feels a bond of support with the citizens of Greece, who have voted NO in their referendum, and have decided to keep the Dada nations and international financial conglomerates from deciding their future. It is going to be hard, but they will be motivated  by their own will and not by cowtowing to Big Brother Dictats.

Simultaneously, two fellows with a solar powered designed aeroplane, decided to fly around the world.  Their plane, the Solar Impulse 2, just successfully did its longest and most dangerous leg of 4000 miles to Hawaii, over the ocean  (with no landing place in between) No fossil fuels, just solar power,  in a plane that weighs as much as a car, and has a wingspan of a boeing.  

It really is about finding a fit entity to look up to in one 's life.  That will allow you to get on with life, without itself acting superior about it.   Today, money colonizes countries, and the fight for independence must happen again.....

******Danke schön!,
Si vous s'il vous plaît,
Rogamos su atención,
jouw Eer,
Piaccia Vostra Signoria.....

This isn't what they
decided to say.
to Merkel and Co.

**όχι, χωρίς αμφιβολία,
Nein, Non, NO!
 
They said it,
but to the Sun.
To ήλιος,**
and Solar Impulse 2,
in Hawaii
who gave confidence
back
to those
supposed to be
on the brink
of economic extinction
and monetary colonization .....


****** German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian 
** Greek

Optic Apologies......

A  friend,  (a woman),  went to see the King Kothi Women's College in Hyderabad. As she wandered around stunned by the history, architecture and the environs,  and took some keepsake photographs, she was accosted, accused of "loitering" without permission,  told that the college was no a "sight seeing"  exhibition place, but was a place of study.   And asked to leave.

In her own words, she was "thrown out".

While one could envision an alternative scenario, where a conversation with a higher degree of decency would have led to  some enlightening meetings and discussions between two academics,  it was not to be.

 Different eyes, different sights.  Some eyes see, but cannot see.  And the optic nerve apologizes. 

"How dare you climb and litter and poke and click us at the University of Heights?" said the mountain, but no one stopped or even asked permission. "How dare you step in without permission, wave your hands about, strew trash, spout diesel, deposit bodies, dam me, and click, at the University of Flow?" said the river, but no one heard or even asked permission. "How dare you trespass into my jungle from behind glass windows and jeep railings, spying with binoculars assortedly shooting, sometimes with weapons, interfere in my social set up and family time and click at the University of Wildlife?" said the Tiger, but they RF-id-ed him and no one listened or even asked permission.

"How dare you interfere with my privacy, spy on me, deface me, defile me, hurt me molest me, even kill me, and shamelesly click me at the University of Life?" said the Woman so they mourned her birth, ignored her death, passed a law and still no one read it. And so she, a mature woman went to a college, respectful and quiet admiring the Structures of Knowledge, History on every wall, Geography in the gardens and the lands, Architecture celebrating its parents, and clicked, The Kothi Women's College. They rushed, they ruled, and said she loitered, and asked her to go away. Having sight was not a sufficient reason to see. Different rules for man made edifices, clearly.....

Life and Times of a Lotus

My friend Bhavana Nissima writes and photographs with rare sensitivity, and her posts and photos always make you think for a long time.

This photograph of the lotuses growing in what can only be described as a swampy area or a pond loaded down with silt, mud and what-have-you,  made me think about why lotuses grow there, and say, not in your building compound next to the methi patch.

The lotus , called "Pank-aj"  in Sanskrit, is described as Pank (mud)-Aj(born).  An amazing creation of nature where the seeds get embedded  in the mud bed at the bottom of the water body, and stems and leaves happen , the latter floating on the water surface, mobilizing for the blossoming of a lotus. 

And when it does, the water stands in so much awe of it, that it never wets the petals, ever.

Like the coconut , this plant also has almost all its parts dedicated to solving human health problems.  From the seeds, the stem, the root, the leaves, and the flowers, every thing is used by us bipeds. 

And as is expected, we, the ones with a developed cortex, refuse to look beyond the petals in pink, when we think of  it......

Seeds sunk to the bottom
amidst a water bed
threatened by slush and mud,
they learn
to take what helps,
and absorb
and put in practice
the knowledge of growth.

Stems with a single mind
straight up,
and leafing widely across,
spreading support
on the surface,
as if to provide a cradle
for the flower
the "Pankh (mud)" to be born("aj" ).

Cheerful but independent
in the Sun,
respectful
yet untouched
by circumstances of birth,
offering every part
of its anatomical being,
for the benefit
of the health
of undeserving bipeds,
who see more
of the mud and the slush
in blind reaction.

The Goddess
of learning & knowledge
who seeks to
acquire the flower
as her seat,
hopes
that someday,
the bipeds
will see things with
minds open
even though
their eyes might be closed.

Akhiyon ke Jharoke se .....

An amazing composition of a full blazing moon visible through the coconut palm leaves. By  Sandeep Unnimadhavan of Sandeep's World.

Do check out his wonderful photography  , at the links above.

Dark nights, winds rusting through the coconut plantations, heralding the monsoon  rains, showers, and sliding raindrops on the coconut palm leaves.

A quiet look up at the sky through somnolent eyelashes....

Tall, Statuesque, and green,
undulating in
a monsoon wind,
she stands,
holding the little green fruits
close to her,
tired, yet aware,
that they will
not remain with her
for long.

She prepares
to turn in
for the night,
but
monsoon tears
roll down her eyelashes,
as they battle
breezes .

She looks up
momentarily
through
the half closed lashes,
to hear the Full Moon say,
"The Breeze
is a lullaby
for the young green ones,
swing with it,
don't battle it;
I must go my way,
and tomorrow will be another wonderful day !"