Sita – A Revival

‚The body has its own desires which is independent of any external object“- quote unquote.

There are two births a woman takes – one out of the womb of her mother; the other out of her own womb. It is in the second birth that a wo

man makes a statement about herself. This birth is preceded by pangs of wanting to come unto ones own, breaking out of the shackles of social norms, family expectations and the demands of her role in either. This birth is self willed, independent of all circumstances around her, absolutely a force within her that pushes her out of her own comfort zone, her womb of security to venture out into the world of newness, explorations and interests that define who she really is. There is a hunger and an anger, a desperation and a deprivation that all combine together to give her the final push out of the womb……and into the world of her own. It is what she wanted. She was born for and she longs to realize this.

In poet Manjul Bajaj’s poem, Sita the poet thanks the epic character for setting an example of the same.

Sita
This is a thank you note
from me to you:
Thanks so much for stepping over
. that lakshman rekha
I know it took you further than you expected
and there was hell to pay-
a ravenous Ravana, a fretting Ram,
monkey business, burning and pillage
and that whole darned deal
of walking through fire and having to ask
the earth to split and take you in.
But thank you, nevertheless,
for over-stepping the boundaries
of home and hearth
and letting the drama unfold.
Else there would be no grand epic,
no Ramayana to feed our souls
but the same sad story
of a wife in a hut, waiting dutifully,
for her husband
to come home.

One might argue that the poem only thanks Sita for her proverbal crossing the lakshman rekha for only being able to leave her home and hearth to explore what lies beyond. But really can anything be so simple? Can a woman resting quietly in the priviledged role of being protected from the big bad wolves, being the custodian of the family’s health and the being on the receiving end of husband’s erotic advances, ever want to leave the premises for the unknown?

Why should she?

But tarry! Sitas around the world are not born of lesser material than her hunting counterpart. There is a drive within her that propels her to move beyond these forced cages. Therefore, whether there is an external object, in any form, man, woman, images in the mind, or even objects that are inanimate, lying around her, her body and her mind will have its own desire to explore what lies outside the haveli. Hence, it is not necessary that she must have a lover or any other object of social construct to feel the desire to move out of her confines. Indeed, she is merely a tool in her own hands which initiate and propel her to break out.

Ditto about her body. Irrispective of what lies before her, the feeling around sex arise within her, without any stimulus from outside. Just like a breath that just is there, so are these desires, longings and needs of the body just there.

And of course there will be consequences. There is hue and cry; blame and shame games; war and bloodshed. But, once the swan has flown out of the nest, its wings spread to catch the power of the wind as it glides along to the destiny of its own making, hell and heaven may break; waters of the earth may rise in angry waves causing a social tsunami, lets face it, the bird has flown out, as it was meant to do.

In poet Manjul Bajaj’s voice, the lines are hard hitting.

Else there would be no grand epic,
no Ramayana to feed our souls
but the same sad story
of a wife in a hut, waiting dutifully,
for her husband
to come home.

The point I am trying to make here, is captured in the last four lines – but the same sad story, of a wife in a hut, waiting dutifully for her husband to come home.

Precisely, what Sita did not want to do, wait there dutifully for anyone to come. She had an agenda of her own. And that is why, for whatever be the excuse, she ventured out of the boundary line – the proverbial lakshman rekha, the line of control. Yes, and like the first time, breaking rules leads to many unforeseen ends, so did Sita’s.

Finally, then, what is the poet trying to say? Or is it that even she finds it hard to say, despite making this journey to voice lines that clearly state in no uncertain terms these facts: Was it not the desire in Sita which drove her finally to break the rules? Deep inside her, was it not the dictates of her subconscious mind that she had listened to – Go! Go out and explore; break the chains around you; Go! Explore what is beyond the boundaries.

Sita, represents every woman. She is that devoted daughter, that dutiful wife, or for that matter that caring mother, yet, deep within her she nurtures her own desire for freedom for herself.

The epics are wrong. They hide any portion that would make Sita a self-willed woman wanting to express her own needs. In the hands of Valmiki, she adorns the image of the perpetual victim, forever obedient and dutiful. In the hands of poet, Manjul Bajaj, however, Sita, a symbol of all women at large, has finally been set free -

Sita, This is a thank you note from me to you:Thanks so much for stepping over that lakshman rekha.

And again – But thank you, nevertheless,for over-stepping the boundaries of home and hearth and letting the drama unfold.

This is the drama, the drama of wanting to express her own inherent desire, which finally propel her to give herself the second birth : „the body has its own desires which is independent of any external object.“

Who is Sita: In the epic Ramayana, rishi Valmiki created the character Sita, who is the wife of dethroned King of Ayodhya, Rama. In the author’s interpretation, she is Every woman, on this side or that side of the land that gave birth to this Epic – India.

Please note: The thoughts expressed here are the writer’s own. They may not be the poet’s as well.

Ref:

Picture credit: http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/collections/freeman/thai_ramayana/1024/thai_rama_189.jpg

To listen to Sita on Youtube:

Don’t Blame Me

I don’t seek.
They seek me these images that bring back to my mind
Lust.
Lust, for love and for life.

I don’t seek them.
They seek me, these images painted, structured in rock and in earth
That bring back to my mind
Lust.
Lust for love and life.

I don’t seek them
These memories I stored in the back-burner
They seek me
With their clearly defined bodies
They thrust before me, images I longed to see
Lust.
Lust for love and for life.

Don’t blame me. It is not I who seek
My deepest passions
In fact, I am weary of them
They have burnt me and turned me to ashes

This lust has found no shore
to anchor itself upon
No hands to sculpture its highs and lows
No lips to kiss
No tongue to speak its gushing thoughts
No mouth to hold it’s outpour
It has lain there unattended
Unacknowledged even
For years.

Yet, it has held on to dear life
Like two fangs deeply entrenched in a lifeless rock
Sucking its juices
and thriving on it.

Sucking its juices
from deep within its source
Primodial waters
of lust, of hunger, of anger
turned inwards

What you don’t get
You never forget.

Yet, I don’t seek.
They seek me these images that bring back to my mind
Lust.
Lust, for love and for life.

Attachment

It is said that a king once came across a sage and was so deeply affected by him, that he gave up his huge kingdom, his wealth and his women to follow the sage in the search of The Truth.

This sage was not any ordinary man. For years he had been practicing a silent meditation. Thus, when the king, often questioned him and pleaded for spiritual guidance and direction, the sage answered nothing. However, when the queries got deeper and more persistent, the sage snapped – Be Silent!

That was it. For years the king sat at the feet of his Master, in total silence, from sunrise to sunset, day in, day out. Until one day, a little dog found his home and came to live with him.The king tried to shoo him away, but it would not go. Hence, despite his efforts, the king was forced to look after the dog – feed him and watch on him.

It so happened that a few months from then, a man wandered along and seeing the sage went up to him and fell at his feet.

“ Guru”, he pleaded, “give me something to eat. I am so hungry…”

The sage looked at him and said –

“ There is no food here, as you can see. But you can go to that sansari who live below and he will give you the food you want.”

Hearing this, the king felt a terrible sense of disdain. He loathed to be addressed as a sansari. Was it not he, who many years ago left everything to follow this sage? His kingdom, wealth and women, all renounces for a search? So why was he being called a sansari? However, his thoughts took him to his habits in the recent years and he knew why the sage had called him a sansari.

It was the dog and his attachment to the dog that made him a sansari. Having left everything in his world as a king, he still had not left his attachment to things, be it a dog even. Suddenly, it hit him like a bolt from the blue – it is not what you leave behind materially outside, what you need to leave behind is attachment itself. If one is not free of the bandhans inside, no matter what one leaves outside, new things will only replace it again. So if one has to be really free, then, one has to cut off the very threads that bind us to the things outside.

A great realization struck him and in that moment, he left, now even knowing where he was going to. He left the dog, the house and the sage, all in one stroke.

When the moment is ripe, all things fall into place themselves. The rest of the time is spent, only preparing for that moment.

Who Am I?

 

 

 

 

 

 

If your thought are deeply entrenched in the contemplation of someone you love, you become the person you love.

 

Therefore I will only speak of myself, for in me now you have merged. Not of your volition but of mine. Not of your need but of mine.

 

And you think I have forgotten you.

Yes and no!

How can I remember you, when all that I am is you in me? How can I see myself as separate from you, when you and I have merged like two different coloured inks on one blotting paper?

 

We were different. Separated by time and space, over lifetimes. Two bodies. Two minds, searching one another over lifetimes. Now the search is complete. Not because I have found you, but because my love has acted as the blotting paper into which our two separate lives have merged into one.

 

It was the best thing that happened to us. Now there will be no hide and seek. No need to go anywhere to look for the other. Not even to avoid the other, if we wish to.

Now we are – me.

 

In fact, it was all an illusion – two separate beings, traveling over lifetimes to find each other.There was no time and space in which our souls traveled in search of each other. It was only how we thought we did. But, now even that is over.

I have thought of you so much and imitated your ways so often, in wakefulness and in sleep, I have devotedly contemplated upon you, like Radha upon Krishna and now I find the difference between us has disappeared.

I can say we are one, if there still were two of us. But, when that is naught, there is only a lack of words to describe what Is.

If your thought are deeply entrenched in the contemplation of someone you love, you become the person you love.

 

 

 

Art by Smriti Vohra

Draupadi, tell the truth

                                                              

Draupadi, stop those lies!

For five thousand years you have allowed humanity to believe in the notion that you were victimized by Yudhisthir and the Kauravas; your shame around your body exposed in broad daylight before an audience of men, you called your step brothers and your husbands. And that your loyalty to the Pandava brothers, was sacrosanct. That when Yudhisthir, in a fit of passion, staked himself, his brothers, his kingdom and finally you as well, you made it out to seem like you were the harmed one, driven to the other camp where the Kauravas stood waiting to devour you.

But, he, Yudhisthir, was the wronged one too. Wronged by you! For, you had cast a spell on him, so deep, he was obsessed with you. Alas, his infatuation found no respite, for as long as you were with Arjuna, he could never have you. His gripping desire for you boiled in his belly, waiting to spill out.

Yet…..

Draupadi, tell the world, that much before this day had dawned you enjoyed this play happening around you, when both Yudhisthir, the eldest of the Pandavas and his cousins, the Kauravas, were cast into the dungeon of smoldering heat obsessing with you.

I ask you, were you not responsible for this? This bath that the world knows you had come out from at the moment when you were dragged by your hair and placed on the dais, was it not what you had been bathing in, so many years in your mind? This longing, this wetness of a perennial flow of yearning, this burning flesh, this quiet and secret craving for other men – was it not what you had been pining for, that resulted in Yudhisthir being besotted with you? That you had played with his infatuation to the hilt, by placing your impression on his mind in such a way that he became powerless over his passion for you? And behind all this melodrama that took place that day, you hid the truth about your multi-fanged tongue with which you licked the carnal desire in many men, even the Kauravas?

You hid the fact that while you remained committed to one you would always dance to the tune of your desire for the other. The real drama goes on in your mind, flirting with the subconscious and the conscious mind. What they dare to reveal to the world and what they conceal within, unknown to everyone. Even to you sometimes.

In the contorted expression on your face that day, or the way your fingers and toes clenched inward, as you expressed pain, being dragged by your hair; in the manner you thrust your breast, now hiding, now exposing it before the Kauravas, the arch of your swollen hips, twisting this way and that, as if to resist, to hold back, yet, not quite, I have seen the hungry tide of longing mixed with passion, seething forth, like a woman about to meet the mounting pulsating throb inside her body and her mind.

Therefore, Draupadi, tell the world, that for you the distinction between pain and pleasure are blurred. Indeed, the two are too close and when one gives rise to the other, it is out of your control.

Nay, not true! It is indeed all within your control to determine how you want to participate in this wild dance, your wet with passion hair waving like tongues of fire, lashing out in the air. And if I have deciphered correctly, I can tell you Draupadi, I have heard the guttural laughter emanating from your throat, of satisfaction, so deep, you could only wait for just a few more moments before you lost yourself in the experience once again! And again…..and again!

Men are fools, you say. Look at Krishna! Trying to hide your shame externally, when in your mind you are drinking from the well of eternal ecstasy!

Draupadi, tell the world, that like a moth burns itself in the fire, you too must do it again and again, burning yourself out in the fire of your own feelings and therefore, you will always flirt with the forbidden. Tell the world that while you lived with Arjuna, you toyed with the desire for the other brothers as well. Tell the world that this is what you had all along fantasized, being forcefully thrown into the inferno of carnal desires; that the fight to possess you was what you yourself wanted most. And in the minds of the Kauravas, you had already been stripped off, of all your resistance, you lay in their hands to do what they so wished to do with you. Tell the world, this is what you wanted – to be possessed so completely by the other.

The boredom of complacency is not for you; the ‘given’ too unexciting. Hence, you will always play with danger, that which is taboo. For the taste of forbidden fruit is just too sweet to forego.

You are not the victim. You have perfected the art over generations of being with one, but spreading yourself widely across to many. At least in your mind, your need for many has sustained over generation, playing hide and seek between the layers of consciousness, between the hidden and the exposed, the acceptable and the forbidden, the blatantly obvious and the masked…..

While the whole world stops to cry…poor Draupadi! You are having the last laugh!

Draupadi, tell the truth!

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Who is Draupadi?

Every woman!

In the epic Mahabharata, however, she is the learned daughter of King Drupada of Panchala, and wife of Arjuna, one of the Pandava brothers. But because Kunti, mother of the Pandava brothers wished it, she became the wife of all the Pandavas brothers as well. Yudhisthir, who is besotted with her, is the eldest of the Pandava brothers.

The social practice, polyandry, still prevalent in parts of India, permits one women to marry many men, especially if they are brothers in the same family.

The desire monologue, in the above writing is the author’s own depiction. So is her claim that the potential to desire more than one lover is every woman’s Draupadic inheritance.

Picture credit: Rupa Ganguli as Draupadi: http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q114/deep86/rupa_padma03.jpg

The Free Soul

“There is but one Infinite Being in the universe, and that Being appears as you and as I; but this appearance of divisions is after all a delusion. He has not been divided, but only appears to be divided. This apparent division is caused by looking at Him through the network of time, space and causation.” .”- Sw Vivekananda in The Complete Works Of Vivekananda, Volume 3, chapter 6, page 9-10

 

A lifetime spent in contemplation of the non-existent, the false and delusions. Like a sage sitting and cogitating on the beginning and the end and the in-between, not knowing that the clay from which he is made is the same clay that holds the secret of Existence -Shunya. Not zero but Whole.

Everything, that ever was, ever will be. The complete reality. Not a black hole but Shunya, the heart and Being of the Universe.

Yet, I have sat through the dark night to see the light of day. I have suffered great pains and struggles just to arrive at the Truth, not knowing that the object I seek is of what I am made. I have sat outside the clay pitcher, day in day out contemplating Who Am I, not once looking inside to see the blazing Light, nor the complete Stillness, of which I am. Looking outward, only one after another delusions eluded me.

I am the Shunya, never born, never to die, I am. I know but then again I forget, the same Truth, for I have got used to believing in a mirage in the desert of my life. I spend the whole life looking for that which cannot be found, because, there is nothing to find except only delusions, mirages in the canvas of my life.

“I was once traveling in the dessert in India. I traveled for over a month and always found the most beautiful landscapes before me, beautiful lakes and all that. One day I was very thirsty and I wanted to have a drink at one of the lakes; but when I approached that lake, it vanished. Immediately with a blow came into my brain, the idea that this was a mirage about which I had read all my life and then I remembered and smiled at my folly…..the next morning I again began my march and there was the lake and landscape, but with it immediately came the idea, this is a mirage.”- Sw Vivekananda in The Complete Works Of Vivekananda, Volume 3, chapter 6

I am in the habit of forgetting I am The Free Soul, The Absolute. Like the Shunya that exists inside the pitcher, outside the pither and in all parts of the pitcher, I am that Whole, The Absolute.

 

Still, a lifetime spent in idle thinking to arrive at the Silence of the Lamps.

 

 

 

 

NB: Art By Smriti Vohra

The Eternal Giver, The Eternal Receiver

Kolkata is fiery red all over. Conches are sounding all over. Hindi filmy music mixes with Bengali new Poojo sangeet Radio Mirchi is buzzing with new excitement. There is jubilation in the air. – She is coming. Only for four days. She is coming home. The rains continue to lash the streets. The little ponds laugh. The greens cannot be hidden by the growing grey of the city. The idols of Durga are in their finishing touches period. From where I am, I am floating on the Ganga….

 

It has begun with a hair message. Warm hair oil is poured over my head and I feel the circular movement of gentle hands as they rub the oil into my scalp…slowly…round and round…turning my head this way and that…. a soft Rabindra sangeet playing in the background…..I breathe deeply…..and let go…floating inward….still conscious of the hands working around my head…behind my ears…and at the nape of my neck. Slowly I am fading out…..my breathing has become heavy …and slow…….soundless…..with gaps in between…..and moments I am not breathing at all…….yet I am alive……I know it despite my deeply relaxed state of being. Fresh mud from the banks of the Ganga river flowing through Hoogly, touching Kolkata, has been brought, to be laid on a new terrain, my body. I have asked for a mud bath..the grey-brown, ever so soft silt from Ganga’s river bed. Handfuls of it are being laid out on my ………face to be follow by my body. It is cool..smoothe..creamy. I guess my face, leaving my eyes, and lip are laden with soil. To enhance the breezy coolness, I can feel two slices of cucumber being laid out over my eyes. Now I cannot open them …my ears have become sharper. I can hear the sizzling sound from the kitchen as seasoning is being done to daal. The haunting aroma of paanch phoran fills the air and my olfactory glands take a deep doze of the fragrance of Bengal’s unique but simple five-spice seasoning. I can also hear the poojo songs on radio…the hands that are today’s guide to the celestrial are on my neck and my shoulders are now being turned to the banks of the river Ganga……slowly the silt spreads through my torso..the overwhelming feeling is that of a cold paste. How easy it is to feel cool in the middle of summer! My intestines are freezing as the mud spreads over my stomach.

 

My legs and thighs are in a let go….perhaps I will never walk again as they cannot be willed to move any more…I will only float like a plank of wood, without direction, on the body of Ganga……just float aimlessly…. The hands are rolling over my thighs and legs. Together with the coolness, I can simultaneously feel Ganga slowly but surely taking a firm grip of me, first my face and then the rest of the body as the mud dries over my body, slowly embracing my skin in its pores. No! It is not pissible to be away from Her too long….She has caught me today and will not let me go…..These hands are driving me closer to Her bosom…I don’t have to make any effort to come close to Her – She grips me to her bosom. I am in a let go…I cannot resist. My feet and toes are now covered by  Her soil. There is a hand that is transporting me, transforming me……..the hands that now message my arms in a downward motion… …and before my fingers move into the soil, spreading themselves in the cool water of the earth of Bengal, I feel her lips touching the tips of my fingers….I feel the kiss of death….the kiss which will make me die to myself. In my head I hear my English School Headmistress, Miss Thomson read in her clear and British accent, “ The Touch Of The Masters’ Hand” The story of the man who driven by poverty puts his guitar out to auction. But nobody buys it till he comes and tunes it. At the touch of the Master’s hand, the guitar fills the room with such melodious music that it is auctioned at a very high price.

 

The music in the room has changed and I can hear Beethovan as I am dying to myself….the Lady takes over what belongs to Her………I am powerless. I am Hers. She has gripped me now firmly. My fingers are firm and even the web between them are now cast in her soil. Gently, the cucumber slices are lifted and I open my eyes…….my vision is filled with Kolkata. My jaws have fallen slightly and the song on her lips is the song we sang together at midnight, that night of poems and song lyrics –

 

Mamma, when I look at the clear waters of my soul

I see your face

Mamma, when I hear the voices in my head

A thousand voices speak like you

Tell me mamma,

Is loving another woman, like loving myself

 

When Kolkata plays on her guitar, your ears can feel like they have got so finely tuned, like as if you’d smoked some pot……gently strumming on her guitar, the strong embrace of the earth over me and around me….I drift off into a deep slumber……..Daughters of the soil, I see my mother merging into the beautiful idol of Durga, floating over the large breast of the Ganga.

 

I am Her.

 

 

 

 

The Closure

Dear Stephie,

 

We have not been in touch for years. Neither you wished to reach out to me nor did I want to bridge the gap of silence between us. However, the reasons were different for both of us.

 

We carried the burden of loving the same man. 

 

I had lost him to you and you lost him to eternity. What a cruel joke! Pity, neither you nor me could keep him forever. Yet, we do live on with guilt – I, for hating you for your act of theft and you for having stolen my love treasure.

 

Ours is not a triangle. Ours is a direct fight between two women, over the rights of one body. And both of us have played out our game of violence over his body.

 

But if either of us were to be confronted with the fact, we would both deny it.

Was it our love or our egos? Was it our hatred or our gaming minds? Was it our super-ego or our extreme desire to fool ourselves to believe that one of us is greater than the other? Or, was it our fatal desire to prove that one was better than the other? What was it we were trying to establish by playing this game with each other over him?

 But what the hell! The right to be ourselves is ours – vile, wicked, malicious, and angry that we are. Yet, we must deceive each other and our own selves and hide our real selves – we are bitches, both of us.

I have chosen to write this letter to you in order to  tell you once and for all I despised you for your courage to steal him away from right under my nose. I tried to break you up but was convinced that he wanted to be with you, only when you were around. But, when you were away, out of town, it is me he returned to. Our passion for each other doubled during those times….

 

 

Then how can you say, he was yours? And even if he was, you have lost him just as I have, to eternity.

 

What is over is over. What remains is here and now…. A moment pregnant with the curse of closure.

 

I want to tell you I have purposely kept away from you, from sending a condolence letter as well when I came to know of his passing away. Who ever condones the death of a whore’s  husband?

 

But, today I need to close the chapter with you too….I need to end this story of hate, not for your sake but for mine. It is purely a selfish reason.

 

I am pretty certain that if ever you receive this letter, you will in turn say, “Who is Usha?” It will be the same for you as well – selfish, you before me. And that is why I call both of us, bitches. Our egos are bigger than our selves. It has always been so.

 

I am not sorry for the past, nor for the feelings I havefor you. But I do need to ask permission to close this chapter with you, these pageswe have both written with tears, jealousy, anger and venom for each other. And I hope with that, we will have both, finally moved on, knowing there is nothing more to share between us….

 

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Memsaab, Usha heard a voice behind her. It was her driver. She turned to look at him.

 

“The gates will close Madam. You have been sitting here for last two hours”.

 

Usha gathered herself, bringing herself to the present moment. She stared at the stone walls of the Monkey Point, trying to fix her mind on the face of one stone that resembled a monkey. Yes, she had come here to look for the monkey among the stones, but what she got engaged in was the monkey in her mind. At last she had written the long awaited letter to her ex-husband’s  wife.

 

A deep sigh escaped her mouth as she lifted herself to walk in slow steps towards her car.

 

“Let’s go”, she said simply, “the gates have closed.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

NB Art By Smriti Vohra 

 

 

 

 

When The Fruit Is Ripe, It Drops By Itself

                                           

               

When a fruit is ripe, it drops by itself. So does our attachment to things, persons and ideas.

 

Theory after theory, talk after talk, book after book has been written on this subject – how to overcome attachment, for attachment brings pain, self-inflicted pain. But the mind of man is hungry. It thrives on desire. And it is the desire for things, persons, ideas, that finally brings pain. The same thing, that causes, pleasure in the beginning, is responsible for bringing pain afterwards.

 

Saints and holy men, thinkers and philosophers have given their own theories on how to overcome desire. J Krishnamurthy says – look at desire like wind passing through the leaves and branches of trees. However, for a spiritual person, on the path, it is an increasingly disturbing realization that no matter what s/he tries, desire does not leave his mind. These forms of desire keep surfacing in one form or the other.

I have heard a story of a man, who, having taken the permission of his whole family, left home of his last journey – vanaprashtha ashrama. He stayed away for many years in the forest, trying in the process to forget the world he had been in and all that came with it, to find God. Naturally, he wrote no letters, made no phone calls, nor sent any telegrams to his family. Slowly, the memory of his family left him and so did the attachment he had to the images and feelings he had in his mind, for them.

 

Then one day, a young boy arrived. Distressed from a broken love, he wanted peace of mind.

” Show me the way by which I can find peace of mind ”, he pleaded.

 

Suddenly a great flush of feelings rushed out of some corner of the man’s mind. His whole face lit up. Someone had heard of him. Someone had recognized that he had overcome desire. He was at peace. Someone had approached him, for their peace of mind!

 

And the man’s head swelled up.

 

Realizing the bloated attitude of the man, the young boy left. There was nothing to learn from him, he thought. He could see the disturbing characteristics of a man full of vanity and pride over his achievements.

 

The devices of the mind are cunning and numerous. It is therefore called bhavasagar -  the sea of thoughts which one must cross to realize the Eternal. It’s ways are myriad and it is a many headed serpent. Which one will raise it’s when, is difficult to know. Indeed, impossible too.

 

Even if apparently the man had forgotten his family and the attachment he had to the images and memory of them, actually, the attachment had only taken a round about turn. He had become the whole family himself. His attachment to them had become attachment to himself and his achievements, instead. And it only required the young boy to come, to show it up.

 

Indeed, nothing had been gained.

                       

When the fruit is ripe, it drops by itself. There is nothing to do but watch.

 

A sea of thoughts occupies our minds at all times. All these thoughts have an electric charge. Some are strong and dominant, some aren’t. All thoughts give rise to action. Dominant thoughts arise again and again and force us to act upon them. But, just in case, we break the pattern and stop to act on them, then, they will keep arising again and again, getting stronger and stronger every time till finally, they lose their charge on us, because only when we act on these thoughts, we recharge them so to say. If we don’t they will ultimately, drop.

 

Not easy to do however. A persistent thought comes to my mind about my ex-boy friend. The thought compels me to act. Make contact. Check out if I am still on his mind; has he really forgotten me; and even if he has, my reappearance will bring back in his mind, thoughts about me. He will begin to think of me; he will act; he will return to me…..etc, etc.

 

All games of the mind. The more we are attached to our thoughts, the more games the mind will play. The more will be our misery.

 

But, if we stop to “give energy” to these rising thoughts, one day they will die out and fall into the vast sea of thoughts that have no electric charge at all. In fact, they will cease.

 

Both thoughts of good, bad, anger, jealousy, thoughts of rejection, bitterness, happiness, indeed all thoughts keep us attached to the objects of our desire. But, one day, when the time is ripe, the object of our thought drops and with it our desire for it.

 

The tree is never in a hurry to see its fruits ripen. It knows that the flower has come and will be followed by the fruit. And just as the petals of the flower fell when the fruit came, so will the fruit, grow and ripen with age and time. And when it is fully ripe, its own weight will pull it down by the force of gravity. It will fall effortlessly, leaving the branch on which it grew.

 

The tree is not in a hurry. It is intrinsically stable and grounded. It has been a spectator of events when the flower came. It remains a spectator when the fruit falls. It is neither attached to the flower nor the fruit. Neither to the flowers that will come again, nor to the fruits which will follow. And never to the fruits that will finally fall, for it knows that – when a fruit is ripe, it drops by itself.

 

So does our attachment to things, persons and ideas.

 

 

 

 

Art By Smriti Vohra 

The Hungry Tide

The present writing is my understanding and interpretation of one of the central relationship between two characters in Amitav Ghosh’s book The Hungry Tide published by HarperCollins Publishers India in joint venture with The India Today Group. Location: Lusibari a ficticous island, near Canning, the final railhead for the Sundarbans.

 

An evil tide, a cyclone swept across the island and killed Fokir, laying to rest forever the possibility of a love blossoming in full between him and Piya. A cruel tree trunk uprooted by the strong gust of rain, fell on his back delivering the final blow that took his life. In fact moments before this happened he had gathered Piya in his arms, pressing her against him in order to protect her from the wave that lashed like the water from a dam broken on the island….

 

  ” She tried to break free from his grasp, tried to pull him around so that for once, she could be the one who was sheltering him. But his body was unyielding and she could not break free from it, especially now that it had the wind’s weight behind it. Their bodies were so close, so finely merged that she could feel the impact of everything hitting him, she could feel the impact of everything hitting his back. She could feel the bones of his cheeks as if they had been superimposed upon her own; it was as if the storm had given them what life could not; it had fused them together and made them one.” (Pg. 390)

 

No, this was not a love between two humans from the same social status or the same educational background. It was not a love that was socially possible. Yet, in the hearts of both, the reader sensed a connection, so subtle, that it challenged the very essence of love itself. Fokir and Piya. One a boatman, the other a cetologist, in India to draw the path of the Irrawaddy dolphins in the land of The Hungry Tide, a stretch of land, about three hundred kilometres, from the Hoogly River in West Bengal to the shores of Meghana in Bangladesh, forming an archipelago.

 

 

Piyali Roy, Piya, as she is better known, is born to parents of transcontinental origin, Bengal, India and America. She grew up in Seattle and although half Bengali, she could not speak the language. Fokir, born to parents who could best be described as people who came into the Indian territory as refugees, made his living by fishing, thus requiring him to go deep into the waters, the sea. A perfect fellow companion for a cetologist, Fokir knew the waters, their colours and the places where to find the dolphins. Fokir and Piya were juxtaposed next to one another by destiny to spend many hours, even days in the water, away from all human habitation. Even Moyna, Fokir’s wife. For the money he made by helping Piya, Moyna was unable to control the movements of the two together and in her heart she always knew that Piya, had a soft corner for Fokir. She doubted that there was more to it. Although, the reader knows that whatever be the circumstances, neither Piya nor Fokir have ever admitted, even to themselves of any relationship other than a so called ” professional” one. Though many times very physically close, nothing conspired between the two, which can be called erotic in nature. Yet, there is that something that keeps the suspense going, unbearably sometimes. Are they finally going to make love? Is it after all going to happen? And this goes on until he dies in the storm, laying to rest, once and for all the surreal reality of a relationship that calls for an imaginative analysis.

The psychology of non-happening.

The complex mixture of desire and angst arising out of it, the longing, and yet the continuous inability of the mind to find its resting place, the journey that is fated not to end in a predictable conclusion, the pressing need to find a way to cope with the gigantic and hungry tide arising within oneself, to find a shore, a place to rest its overwhelming power, leads the person to finally find a shore in the psychology of “the other“. Call it God, states beyond the psychology of the mind and body, or even something to live for, quite often a Cause.

 

Rocked by the death of Fokir, Piya is quick to send her findings across the world and find the funding to stay in Lusibari, where the entire episodes of their lives happen. This then includes her being able to find additional work for Moyna with her and make up for the loss in income by the death of Fokir.

 Is it guilt that makes Piya do this? Guilt of sharing at least in her mind, no matter how subconscious it may be, a passing thought for a closer encounter between her and Fokir? Afterall, when on one of such an expedition, Fokir had given her, his wife’s sari, to use as a pillow. Piya, got the smell of the Moyna’s body woven into the threads of the sari. In the morning when she returns the sari to Fokir, she had even silently told the woman in her mind, that all was well and nothing had happened that would have jeopardized the Moyna’s relation with Fokir. So at a subconscious level, even at times at a conscious level, she is aware of a certain closeness she felt towards Fokir that transgressed the limits of erotic human relationship, those defining limits that was barred by society to happen. Yet, the body understands its own language and the mind must find a way to cope that which is deemed not happen. She remains close to Moyna, especially now in the absence of Fokir. The zone of doubt and mistrust has died with Fokir. They can now be close to each other, Piya and Moyna. And this is what happens, first to give Moyna moral support and then perhaps at the back of her mind, being close to Moyna, she remains close to Fokir’s presence in her.

Fokir never exposed his feelings openly to his wife Moyna. In fact, he is distant, non communicative and lost in himself. Yet he is devoted to her. He carries her sari whenever he is at sea for days either fishing or on the expedition with Piya. It serves as his pillow, his blanket, even a curtain to keep his body from being visible to an onlooker. Just like a man/woman, in the absence of their lover, spouse or partner, may sleep on that side of the bed, where the partner usually sleeps or a child might hold on to the edge of the mothers’ sari as a security blanket, similarly, Moyna’s sari, carried the “smell” of the beloved when Fokir was away from her. Her name and his son’s name were the last words, breathed into Piya’s ears, as he died in her arms on that island lashed by cyclone and struck by the tree trunk. Yet, in that dying moment, he recognizes the silent words spoken through Piya’s eyes of how richly he is loved by her. It is said, without words. Fokir accepts it, without resistance. They have both known, though none has put it in words, ever.

There are no questions asked. No feelings over expressed. Life and death exist facing each other at every moment on these islands. For Piya, it becomes a quick way to find a solution, a balm, may we think, to her heart, and a Cause to live for. In the larger sense, it gives her a reason to continue her relationship with Fokir, while at the same time, she makes up for the loss of income due to Fokir’s death. Very carefully and intelligently packaged, in a brown paper packet, left for the reader to see the transformation of a love that was doomed not to happen, taking shape in another, larger and lasting manner – Conservation of the dolphins by Enviromental Groups sponsored under the Badabon Trust in Lusibari. Moyna, Fokir’s widow, is pitched to find additional employment here while Piya continues to live and work from Lusibari.

 

What however, is more interesting to me is what happens to a powerful emotion, when love is unrequited, or it cannot happen, due to reasons that are existential. Are we then to die in dejection of what could not happen? Or are we to find another home quickly in another human? Can love be so powerful that it can transform to become a Cause? And if it is love unrequited, rejected, failed, cut short by the evil hand of time, can we find recourse in God? What then is the answer to love that cannot find the desired shore, that must transcend the psychology of the non-happening?

 

“A love gone is in itself death, breathing death every moment, it seems it is better to die than live a breath that has died….yet life beckons him, who prides himself with patience, knowing time heals everything and what we leave behind is again at our doors, that which was a river, is now a flood. Is it not therefore better to give ourselves to time and wait patiently for the hands of the clock to change our destiny? To resign to the Heart of Him who gives us pain?”

 

 

 

 

 

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