Death

One day you will die and will be hurriedly carried away straight to be burnt. Hours before that, you will fast degenerate from loving 'pappa' or 'mamma' into 'this' or 'that' and finally into 'it'.

Relatives and friends would have gathered at your place; some emotional ones will cry for you last time and forget you. Some will silently relish the space that you just freed up in their psyche.

At the funeral pire, it is your eldest son, who would do it. Gently but certainly giving you up  to fire. Your ghee-lotioned skin will start burning first. Just few hours before you used it and were so proud of it. Now, it is burning! It will start turning red and then to some dark color. First, all the water and moisture under your skin will start evaporating and then will be the turn of fat. Burning fat will make your skin expand with formed bubbles underneath that will ultimately burst and keep burning.

Your lips, your eyes and your nose that received so much affection and love will be up next. One giant flame will catch up with your face and start burning them together. In five minutes, it would have disfigured it so much that it will be hard to identify you. That may come as a relief to your son who can now get down to the business of finishing the whole thing, unabashedly. He will make sure you are being burnt properly.

'Burnt properly', until you are reduced to bones. Yes, just bones. Bones -- each separate from each other, broken, spread in rough shape of your body in the pile of ash. This is the destination of your body and everything associated with it. Then, what were you that lived on for 40-50-60-70-80 years? What was the meaning of your life?

Unreal world

Everyday I wake up in this unreal world carrying on with the unfinished dream called life, carrying on with unfinished tasks that are becoming as impersonal as my story to myself.

When silence starts communicating within, each word outside seems like a hyperbole, an exaggeration. Each spoken, written, thought-about word is a mistake that could be avoided.

Thread of peace is such a fine and delicate one, I struggle sometimes to find it. But I always finds it near me, protected by my faith. May I never lose that faith, may I never lose that peace.

Valley Dreams

Last night I had four dreams one after another (out of blue totally - I rarely have dreams and even then I don't remember the most). 

In the first dream, I am seated on leather couch in reception room of a silicon valley company M filled with sparkling golden lights. I along with some other people are discussing something technical about what a library function does. I ask the receptionist guy and he says it is not in his work area but says what he thinks of that function nevertheless. I am thinking his knowledge is quite impressive being just a receptionist and not an engineer.

In second dream I happen to chance upon A in some corridor somewhere. He was a VP at X. I introduce and remind him of myself and astonishingly he doesn't recognize me. I am baffled as we have met/talked many times before while I was working with him.

In third dream, I am driving my two wheeler to Bangalore airport to catch a very important flight and I am hard pressed for time. I am part of small traffic at a T junction and I want to take right but the signal is red. I along with others wait and wait. But to my frustration, the signal is not turning green. Crucial minutes are being wasted. I think there is some problem with the signal as there is no traffic on the road in front and still signal is not turning green. I am getting visibly agitated and impatient. To my amazement my fellow motorists are calmly waiting for signal to turn green. I think of breaking the signal but there is a policeman loitering farther down on that road. I take the chance and violate the signal and get going, but the policeman intercepts me and takes me to the left. I try to explain my situation and plead to let me go. He says I broke the signal and also the "Lockdown" and the punishment is flogging by stick. He asks me to remove my shirt and points me to go to a concrete electric pole and be ready. While I am removing the shirt and getting ready, he is practicing flogging with stick in air in midst of the road. The people are watching the scene. I am almost ready and go near the electric pole. I am worried how I will be able to explain the beating on my back to airport authorities or when I land in the US? I am just approaching the pole and getting ready and the dream breaks..

In the fourth and final dream it is a sunny day and I am driving a small-red-open convertible in Mountain View on Rengstorff Avenue somewhere between the Costco and Middlefield road. I just saw my ex-colleague C pass by waving her hand from her car from opposite direction, talking to somebody. 'Hey! I think I just saw Mrugesh there!' I hear her stretched voice fade past amidst the speed and noise. I am driving but something is wrong. My car has a U shaped driver protection bar that should come from above on me (as in roller coaster) but I see I have forced myself between the U to reach the breaks and accelerator and managing to drive the car. I take a right turn quickly into a small street to fix this. The street is blocked with a huge truck and there is only a narrow gap between that and the curb. I squeeze-in and trample on to the curb anyway and stop ultimately on a front lawn of a home. I smile and say sorry to the family for treading on their lawn a little bit; they are already standing talking among themselves on their ramp. They take it in good spirit and I jump out and back in the car after fixing the thing, seating properly. All is good and perfect now and I am back on Rengstorff waiting to take the left onto Middlefield.

Idli-sambar

When I think about Tiruvannamalai, the ashram and the mountain while sitting here at home it all looks so perfect, so divine. But when I am there, it feels slightly different. I think when I am there, the mind is expecting a miracle or a mystery any moment and in the procees does not recognize what it is going through fully. But once out of those surroundings it recognizes at once what it has missed. I feel I have never been able to fully immerse in that atmosphere the way I like. And yet there have been many significant experiences of my recent life in that area.

I feel an urge to write lot of things about my impressions there but it is a question of where to start and what to write. And it is also a question of doubt. I doubt that I will be unable to capture the full feelings of the atmosphere in words. Even if I attempt, I fear what I am going to describe might be discounted as merely my idealism for the place and my inclination for glorifying frivalous experiences. It will not carry the palpability of the situations the way I felt them and continuing to feel again and again.

For example, the tastes and sights of those idlis, sambar and chutneys on wet green banana leaf after walking 14km around the hill. Having entered the hustle-bustle of the town, tired and exhausted, I settle into one of those high-traffic mid-range south indian restaurants near the bus stand. The restaurant is full of people's chatter, full of air, flooded with white tubelights and fans running overhead. Once I sit down on one of those simple chairs fabricated from steel pipes and granite topped table, and loosen up extending my arm on next empty chair, I start to feel my breathing and exertion more clearly. Behind me there is continuous noise of vehicles on the road and in front of me, the scene of people eating which I admire so much. I silently observe their ways, their chatter and their food with my tired but calm gaze. At this point I am hungry and feel anything served quickly will taste like heaven, but when the idlis/plain dosa and sambar along with two chutneys arrive and I see them placed, poured and splashed on my green leaf one after another by one of many annas or ammas doing the rounds, I feel that, it is just a start of the gustational bliss that is going to last for next 15 minutes and then linger on my mind forever.