Hero

"...why should we stand reverent before waterfalls and mountaintops, or a summer moon on a quiet sea, and not before the highest miracle of all: a man who is both great and good?"
-- Will Durant

"Our age has produced nothing great. I want to set an example"
-- Napoleon

Most of our mythologies are chronicles of Heros' exploits. From Gilgamesh to Achilles to Arjuna, men of action fill our stories of the past. There was a time when action was the primary thing to be aspired. It may be because of our evolutionary path, our struggle for existence in a world filled with dangers in every corner. It was the time when we were still fighting for supremacy on this planet.

We now reached a stage where our heros, our men of action, no longer have that primacy in our minds. In our quest for accommodating diversity, we have reduced ourselves to worshipping mediocrity. There is no special place in our minds to people who conquered themselves and the minds of people around them. Mobs run amok trampling everything that comes in its way. There are no more heros to give us a sense of purpose and take our species to its destiny. We are now masters of this planet, but there are no longer leaders among us, to lead us further.

In the midst of this caustic existence I miss the presence of heros around us. Even our movies no longer have heros.

Nostalgia

Fluttering thoughts collide against the inertia of the sea wall

Eons of time passing through my mind
I cannot close my eyes, lest I may sleep over the impasse in time
Where shall I stop to discover the thought of your presence

A spirit getting up, moving away, from all that ever have been and will be
What would have happened without you?
What would I think about lying down here, without you?
Will the time slow down like this, without you?
Would I hear the sound of nocturnals and the tiny mosquitoes, without you?
Would I feel this nostalgia, without you?

I cannot ponder over the drifting away
We met long ago, we shall meet again after a long time
Wherever you are, the speck of a thought of you comes
Every once in a while
And reminds me that life remains

Pages of the book turned over
A new chapter opens up every once in a while
When can I forget the boggling past

I will befriend your spirit in your absence
I will engulf myself with your words without you speaking
I will tease you, smile at you, laugh at you without you moving
You are present in my mind, as an unwavering thought
There is no where else I can find you, but in my mind
For the time doesn't stop neither for you nor for me

Prisoner

Endless steel surround me

When I wake up I see no sun
The walls are so thick
Even death cannot penetrate it

There are no stars in the sky
I hear no bird chirps
The air is so still I can hear the sound of silence
No sight of a living soul
Not even tiny mosquitoes come to this deserted place

All my dreams are inside a prison
I am a prisoner in all my dreams
And in dreams inside dreams
I dream about a world inside a prison
There is no one else in my dreams

My legs are tied, I cannot walk
My hands are cuffed, I cannot hold
My eyes are blinded, I cannot see
My mind is constricted. I cannot think
I am not allowed to walk, hold, see
I am not allowed to think

The world doesn't move around me
I stay idle for an endless time
Eternal seasons march without a change around me
Alive or dead, there is no difference

My mind can never ask questions
It can never doubt anything
It can never explain anything
The mind is stilled and frozen
The mind is in a prison.

Grandma

Grandma died today. She died in her sleep. Or that's how others found it. She lived alone in her own room, has been living like that for 24 years since her husband died. She was normal yesterday evening. She went around living her life, bought some apples from a street vendor. She didn't open her door late into the morning, people were suspicious, broke the door and found her gone.
Grand ma is the last one left of her generation. She is also the sister of father of my maternal grandfather. She belonged to the 1950s/60s generation. She was probably 75-80 years old. Her parents and all her siblings died long ago in the 1980s and 90s. She was the youngest of her siblings. I used to ask her about her siblings, and she would always say they all loved her and are gone.

Born in an agricultural family, she got married when she was 7 years old. She got a cow as part of dowry whose descendents continued into my childhood. She and her husband inherited around 3 acres of land from my grand father's father. They worked hard and bought another 7 acres in their lifetime. My grandfather died in 1996 due to complications from old age. After that grandma decided not to stay with any of the sons and the three sons agreed to give her 5 bags of rice each every year.

She is a strong and controversial figure in the family. She ruled the roost in her time. I remember my mother and she having regular fights for a few years.

When I walked to her lifeless body, I saw a few people crying. Her eyes were partly open and it seemed like she is still looking at me. She was laid infront of our newly built house.

The funera rituals are elaborate. They lifted her lifeless body and bathed it with shampoo and soap. I had to put my own mug of water on her. It was a surrealistic to see all those people bathing her after she died, the same people who never cared much when she was alive. Life came a full circle for grandma, the last time someone bathed her was probably her own mother when she was a child. Then she was adorned with a new saree. I was part of the entourage carrying her to the pyre. We roamed around the pyre 3 times and she was laid face down on the pyre. Then we went to take bath, while coming back I was asked not to look at be pyre, but I did take a peak and found her almost starting to burn with the clothes coiling in heat. She is gone forever.

She probably did not know yesterday that she is not going to see tomorrow. She probably thought she will eat the apples tomorrow morning. Death in sleep may be the most peaceful death, but it's also the most cruel one where you get no time to prepare for it.

In her last years she ran out of money and used to ask me for it. I used to give her some secretly. She used to be gossiping, fiery and strong woman. But, last few years, I have seen her becoming weaker and weaker. I also saw her becoming like a child recently. Earlier she used to try to use some smart tricks to get me to give her money. Recently, she started begging for it and I knew she felt a bit ashamed to ask me money. After she died, they searched her house in the evening and found 5000 rupees wrapped secretely inside multiple layers of plastic, the same notes, part of what I gave her a few weeks ago.

My grandparents were the earliest people who told me stories in the childhood while making me sleep with them under the moonlight. Now they are both gone.

By evening, everyone were laughing and jovial. No one probably cried for her. She probably deserved it with all her fights with others. But it's doesn't matter anymore. She lived her life the way she wants, on her own terms. She probably never regretted living alone despite all the problems associated with it. She was mostly healthy till the last day. I don't think she ever went to bed with a major worry in her mind. She belonged to a generation of simple souls who would toil and fight all the day, but would forget all that and go to sleep at peace. She left when her time is over, a day here or there. We all will leave some day.

Defining Moment

Dr. Mann while making a point that he is doing the right thing, says '...This is not about my life, or Cooper's life, it's about all mankind. There is a moment...' and then gets blown away by the explosion.

All of us atleast a few times must have felt we are facing a defining moment. A moment that will choose a specific path for us. We feel like we would look back at this moment with a historical importance not attached to regular times. We feel this is the moment we have to push harder and rise above the constraints of human possibilities.

For some, there is a desparate search for these moments to define ourselves.

The reason to search for defining moments is based on our common reading of history. We define history in terms of a sequence of defining moments. Battle of Stalingrad defined the course of world war 2. French revolution defined the course of modern human organisation. Newton's theory of gravity defined the course of scientific revolution.

While it's true that we cannot ignore the importance of specific events in history, we should see them as a the culmination of processes and ideas long before them. Battle of Stalingrad is the culmination of Hitler's decade old fight to alter status quo and the world's resistance to it. Newton said he is standing on the shoulders of giants while proposing his theory of gravity. French revolution is the culmination of the inherent conflict of the old ideas of political organisation with the spread of literature and freedom of expression to the masses.

With our own life too, it is the daily routine over a long time that defines the path ahead. There are no defining moments. Every moment defines us. We are what we think and do all the time. We are not how we act in some moments. That way, waiting for defining moments is an exercise of futility expressing our own inability to correct our daily routine.

Train

"The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw."

Train is strolling across this single track amid absolute silence outside and murmurs of snores inside. The speed is neither too slow not too fast, may be a kilometre in a minute, the "economy" speed even for this snake across the plains.

The tracks are elevated may be 5m above the ground. Hence they cut the world into two. One has to cross the metal to move from one to the other world. Plants build their colonies on both sides in a remarkable similarity give their sad separation. The tracks are essentially a long check dam, a long barrier for water, stopping it from washing the sins of earth in these dry lands.

There are lights now along the tracks. Some lower class houses probably. They made their choice, to live with the buzzing noise of the train for a roof to live under.

There is a road too now, along the tracks. The two travellers met for a short time before they diverge again to chart their own paths in blissfully ignorance.

There are more villages, some far some closer. May the children saw the train early in their life. What did they think about the train when they saw. Were they amazed? Were they scared? Were they find it natural? Only the children of the villages know.

There is a station which this holy train does not care to acknowledge. It passes at the same speed as if it cannot see the lowly station.

Now all the lights have gone by. I don't see a single light as far as I can see. What a wonderful sight in this overcrowded land.

The tracks are still electrified. I am shocked. The guard room at the crossing is more colourful than the surrounding land.

There is a small hill close by. Maybe a heap of soil. Maybe withered remains of a once formidable hill. Or may be mountains.

This land has seen billions of years. While I come and go in less than a century.

Who am I?

I am a minuscule change.

Summer

Summer day is the most distinct thing I can remember from my childhood. I grew up in a village with lot of trees and some wilderness. In summer, only a few trees like neem or tamarind would be alive enough to give enough shade under them. Rest shed all their leaves to survive the summer. It's a bright day with white painted on all sides. I always had a pair of chappals that I rarely lost, unlike my other friends who would loose their chappals once every few months. Without the chappals the earth burns like firepit. Yet I could find the enthusiasm to run on burning earth to nearby houses. One of the things I never did in those summer afternoons was sleeping. Everyone would sleep under some tree's shade. Except me. I always had something to do. Something more interesting than sleeping. It could be making toys from branches or digging earth for water or making compose pits for my urine. Occassionally there would be an aeroplane overhead and I would run behind it with no thoughts on who uses it or why it exists. Aeroplane flying into the sun may have inspired many souls, but not me. For me it was of no consequence. It may be because my mind was always onto something else. Something else more interesting.

I miss the summer noon's heat. I miss the hot winds. I miss the burning feet. They unfreeze the body and activates senses with energy.

I know time is a one way path and I can never go back to my childhood. But I hope one day I roam under the summer heat without sparing any thoughts on the aeroplane overhead.