I walked a mile with Pleasure;
She chatted all the way;
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.
...

I walked a mile with Sorrow;
And ne’er a word said she;
But, oh! The things I learned from her,
When Sorrow walked with me.
~ Robert Browning (1812-1889)

We all need to be aware of our personal calling. What is a personal calling? It is God’s blessing, it is the path that God chose for you here on Earth. Whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our legend. However, we don’t all have the courage to confront our own dream.

Why?
There are four obstacles. First: we are told from childhood onwards that everything we want to do is impossible. We grow up with this idea, and as the years accumulate, so too do the layers of prejudice, fear and guilt. There comes a time when our personal calling is so deeply buried in our soul as to be invisible. But it’s still there.
If we have the courage to disinter dream, we are then faced by the second obstacle: love. We know what we want to do, but are afraid of hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue their dream. We do not realize that love is just a further impetus, not something that will prevent them going forwards. We do not realize that those who genuinely wish us well want us to be happy and are prepared to accompany us on that journey.

Once we have accepted that love is a stimulus, we come up against the third obstacle: fear of the defeats we will meet on the path. We who fight for our dream, suffer far more when it doesn’t work out, because we cannot fall back on the old excuse: “Oh, well, I didn’t really want it anyway.” We do want it and know that we have staked everything on it and that the path of the personal calling is no easier than any other path, except that our whole heart is in this journey. Then, we warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how.


- Paulo Coelho

We must love.
I am not speaking here only of love for another person. Loving means being open to miracles, to victories and defeats, to everything that happens each day that was given us to walk upon the face of the Earth.

When Death comes for us
may our lives be already safely stored away
in the minds and hearts and memories of those we have loved,
and in the happiness and well-being of all we have helped,
and may death find no life to take from us...
but shuffle off defeated,
having relieved us only of our dying.
~ Robert Brault

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
...

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
~ Maya Angelou

Two voices spoke to me this morning. One spoke of Kaash flowers about to sprout by the polluted Mandakini sometime soon, and how they would still be beautiful. The other spoke of how a little blue streaked Kali by a lake near had opened her hair after her bath and shut the doors on those who wanted a glimpse of her.

The mind is a strange beggar, you hear things and they take you to places where all conversation is redundant and silence is primal. On a still afternoon I had followed the dirty waters of the nalla into a small clearing where the waters mingle with the forest. Two peacocks stood still, head slightly raised, while invisible animals made love in some secret foyer.

I grew up in a small town, surrounded by natural reserve forests..when you grow up in such an atmosphere, you begin to imbibe the language and colours of the foliage around you somehow, and every once in a while you end up being what others call the tree whisperer.

The cityscape teaches us to colour everything in a particular sameness. We're all dolls of similar shapes, lives, and death-often speaking the same thoughts in different languages. My entire summ...er vacations were spent walking through forests, identifying leaves and roots. The forest teaches you to respect the presence of the unknown, of magic- like a little foolish unnecessary dream in a world full of complications.

Much later in life a friend materialized. Over sporadic conversations, he had said he was writing a novel on pre Biblical era trees that talk to each other in a secret language. It was wonderful to even think about it and believe in it. My friend vanished, but my faith did not diminish. And at times, with little incidents of life here and there,  I'm reminded of the belief in that little bit of unknown yet again.

The last of the flowers have died
the universe of smells too-
Somewhere in the long lost green fields,
Yellow houses with Blue smells -
are the shade of fear recollected.

One of the loneliest battles I have fought on a day to day basis in any locality/neighbourhood is that of saving plants/trees. And since one must be grateful to religion for saving some of the Banyan trees that remain in public domain and the Tulsi plant in households, maybe there should be an urban holy myth attached to every plant instead of botanical names so that they can survive the apathy and cruelty of the general masses.

Sitting grandly, this tree is more than 20 years old and has produced an estimated 2 crores worth Oxygen for free. Calculate the cost it would take to produce it synthetically. The shade under the tree when the foliage is thick( the pic was clicked during fall) is at least 3 degrees lesser than outside its periphery.
The truth is 800 trees versus a set of buildings/road/ human made some other structure is basically a matter of how much money can be made for our politicians from it. As for the sentiments of the people who care for trees, when did that ever make any sense to anyone.

तुम्हारा आगमन

तुम्हारा आगमन है
जब नांदी पाठ करते
दक्षिणावर्ती शंख से तुम्हारे नयन
प्राणों को बना जाते हैं स्वस्त्ययन...
तब उत्सव वस्त्र धारण करता हुआ काल
सप्त द्वीपों को पूरने लगता है दैविक मन्त्रों से

जब कोमल दूर्वा-सा तुम्हारा नारायणीय स्पर्श
उकेर जाता है आप्त श्रुति
तब ग्रह पथ गूँज उठते हैं
औपनिषदिक अभिवन्दना से
हाँ प्रिय
तुम्हारा आगमन
एक अनवरत घटित होता अनुष्ठान है
तुम्हारा स्वर उद्गीथ होकर
उपदिष्ट करता है
और
दिशा दिशा किरणमय हो उठती है
पुण्यशकुन महामंत्रो से