Intruder in Wonderland

I do not know where it was. I cannot recollect when it happened.

Oddly enough, a part of me is happy that I do not remember the details. Another part of me is trying hard to guess them.

I was trotting up the mountain path. The mist was gliding along, hugging the luxuriant slopes in its heavenward gait. I found myself fluxed by the mist: 'practically inside a cloud', i fancied... In a matter of seconds, the whole valley disappeared from view...

Looking around in the mist, I couldn't discern much from the faint silhouettes shimmering a few yards away. They appeared to be signalling something. Directions, perhaps. I took them to be either shrubs or rocks, and kept walking. It felt insanely satisfying. Tiny droplets of water be-dewed me as i ambled along.

Mists are true travelers. They do not plan ahead. Nor do they know of their destination. They listen to the Wind when it grows powerful. They hover around mountains, at times making them look beautiful. This mist, in particular, was in no obvious hurry. Not wanting to miss out on any more views of the valley, I decided to halt and reclined upon a smooth rock. I closed my eyes and felt myself dissolving into the mist.

Percussion.. Rhythmic strokes.. Somewhere in the distance. I stirred slowly from sleep. The rhythmic strokes started again: the sound that a sharp beak makes when it caves in into a hardwood tree. Ah! I'd woken up to the melody of a woodpecker at its day's work. I opened my eyes and scanned the place. The mist had sailed on.

There was not even a suggestion of the mountain path anywhere in the vicinity. I must've strayed off a long way. I discovered that I was near the edge of a mountain. Obviously intrigued, i walked towards the edge and peered down.

If i describe what met my eyes as merely hair-raising, heart-stopping or spine-tingling, I should be punished. It was nothing less than spiritually uplifting!

Flowers: Hundreds and Thousands of them!

Theme: Fragrance and Colour!

Artist: He who created the World.. who left this part of it unknown to Man.. and who momentarily lost vigil: when a man wandered into His finest piece of art, hiding under a cloak in the shape of a mist.

The mist had left pearls on their merry petals. These flowers had seen nothing of the world.. and the world had seen nothing of them.. If ignorance was bliss, it was only theirs.. The ponderer somewhere in me felt troubled.. For whom do these flowers blossom everyday? Apart from the mist, wind and rain, who appreciates their beauty? Why did God even create them, only to keep them a secret unknown to the world? For years and years, the flowers must've bloomed everyday, not knowing how wonderfully charming they are, not knowing that a world of men exists, that a few of these men would admire them endlessly. Why did God have to rob us both of what we deserve?

Thomas Gray's legendary lines came to my mind:

'Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.'

Perhaps He did it for a reason. Midas, as we know, turned everything he touched into gold. Maybe Midas is none other than Man himself.. and just like Midas' own daughter who turned to gold upon his touch.. he ends up losing even those things he holds close to his heart, for Gold.. for materialistic gain and a queer pleasure only Man can identify with..

Perhaps many more such valleys exist, unknown to us.. The more unknown they are, the better..

The crows-connection

Windows and balconies were invented just so that Man could gaze at the world outside and ponder.

Electrical lines and cables were invented just so that birds could perch on them and ponder.

If either of the aforementioned species has the company of another member of the same species, the pondering turns into conversation.

I gazed out of the window. A crow was perched on an electrical line. She was obviously pondering. Another crow came flying by and took perch on the adjacent electrical line.

Crow 1: Hey! What's up??
Crow 2: Ah! There you are! Heard u finally got a placement on top of Burj Dubai...Congratulations! (offers handshake/wingshake)
Crow 1: Wha...backoff! Wingshake? You out of your senses? We're sitting on electrical lines of different phase voltages; if u touched me, we'd form a circuit with a voltage difference that would kill bo.....
Crow 2: Okay, okay..gotcha! Damn those humans! Knives and fire everywhere!
Crow 1: Hehe...T hanks, by the way.. yeah, the Burj is indeed spectacular. But i wonder what humans are really after...
Crow 2: Er...what do u mean?
Crow 1: Look at us ; we're such a peaceful lot. And look at them...they're so restless...
Crow 2: Hmm... Evolution has been cruel to them, you say?
Crow 1: Well, you could put it that way. They've evolved too much for their own good. Now every man wants to be better than the next.
Crow 2: Hmm... Maybe you're right. Chronic restlessness...the insurmountable itch to 'progress'...
Crow 1: Yeah, and I'm not really comfortable with their definition of 'progress' either...it's got a lot to do with brute force and brute reason!!
Crow 2: It's like, where one man gains, another has to lose. It's like an endless, perpetual see-saw.
Crow 1: Believe me, this see-saw is incidentally what keeps the world going.
Crow 2: Eh? What do u mean? That inequality and imperfection are the hands that run the world?
Crow 1: Not really. Let's presume that man is ultimately selfish. Their world, unlike ours, will never become perfect. There will always exist differences that'll bother man to insanity; and these differences keep the see-saw in motion...and Evolution in action.
Crow 2: Hmm..alright...and what abt us?
Crow 1: Well, we are different..and way better off.. our happiness is absolute. If I get my supper and you get yours, we're both happy. As for man, it's a very complicated relative matrix of needs, passions and emotions that are forever trying to balance each other.
Crow 2: ...and the fact that 'it's all relative' makes things as they are?
Crow 1: Exactly! Their world needs as fuel - jealousy, anger, lethargy, fear, folly, hatred and imperfection; otherwise it would crumble down and mankind would fall...
Crow 2: Er...didn't get you there..
Crow 1: If every man were happy, then civilization would fall. If every man were contended, his life wouldn't be different from ours - all he would have to do is, what, eat and sleep?
Crow 2: Eat and sleep and ponder*
Crow 1: Hehe... So in such a world, there would be no disease, no crime, no hunger.. Necessity would be a non-existent concept.. Man wouldn't evolve.. he would stay put.. he wouldn't budge.. no art, no culture, no sophistication.. the world would be a very predictable, boring place..
Crow 2: So true.. and it all wonderfully connects! 'All the world's a stage, all the men and women merely players, and all of us crows merely spectators!'
Crow 1: Ha! Shakespeare, in all his hurry, left out the last bit.. poor bloke probably thought we crows wouldn't know of it!
Crow 2: Yeah! So much for all the entertainment! Man ought to live! Manwatching is a glorious pastime..
Crow 1: Hehe. Anyway, I'm gonna take off now. It's been great talking to u. Caw-caw!
Crow 2: Caw-caw!

Pic: The Global Ponderers' Summit

(P.S: Unless you feel guilty abt Not Blogging for 2 months at a stretch, never ever listen to a conversation between crows! Caw-caw!)

Nostalgia that flooded in through the curtains...

It must have been nearly seven years ago.
That was the last time I heard that delightful sound...the last time I enjoyed watching the lantern swaying gently... faint, flickering...

Today, an hour before sunrise, as I opened my window facing the street, the world greeted me with a curiously familiar swish of morning breeze.

The streetlights were out. In the darkness, I could barely make out where the front gate stood. It had been raining all night. The scent of paala flowers still lingered on in the frigid morning air. Then, it happened again...

The breeze, gathering the scent and sweet chillness into a bouquet, rollicked in through the window, brushing the curtains away...and teased me as if to make me remember, as it caressed my face and broke away, withering the bouquet along, shredding the scent and chillness upon me...and then, flooding along with it - a memory..
it was déjà vu all over again!

It was on a day exactly like this that I had seen it and heard it for the last time.
Yes, I remembered now - Every morning, an hour before sunrise, a bullock-cart would trudge along the street.

The clitter-clatter of footsteps, the melodious percussion of the cartwheels going around, and the tinkering of the bells that adorned the beasts' neck.
Suspended below the cart near the front, there would be a lantern burning out its wick, showing the way, dancing to the rhythm of the cart shuffling along...

A moving portrayal of the gentle pace of life, drifting past my window nonchalantly, in no hurry to fade away into the imminent past...

I suddenly realised I may never get to savour such an experience again, for it had retired into the bygone once and for all ...


As I wallowed into nostalgia, several such recollections from the past fleeted by...
The squirrels that came running for the promised handful of groundnuts every morning...the mynas that chirped and tweeted about the day's agenda...and the debonair spinach vendor ringing his bicycle bell, gliding by... Occasionally, one could hear a cuckoo perform from a tree branch, and sight eagles sitting atop the Arts College building, scanning the skies...

They're all fading away...melting into oblivion...

I fear that our next generation would, perhaps, never get to enjoy such experiences at all!

I picked up the day's newspaper. On the supplement, the headline appeared to scoff at my thoughts.
"Mobile, TV are Life Enhancers" - Ajay Puri, Director, CEO - DTH, Bharti Airtel

No wonder! Sigh!