An evening of Soul music

It was 'the tree' that held centrestage that evening. Everything else dipped away into the horizon along with  the setting sun. Want me to describe 'the tree'? I have a better idea. Close your eyes for a minute.  Now go back many centuries - infact to the time of the Buddha. Remember, he is the one who attained enlightenment while meditating under a tree. Build a picture of Buddha's tree. Yes, it must have been huge, with a  gnarled  trunk and branches sprawling lazily in all directions ; It must  also have had  magical powers to hypnotize Buddha into choosing it over the other trees. Carrying on, picture lanterns hanging from the low branches  of the tree and marigold flowers linked to one another to form many  chains .All around is darkness. The only light is from the lanterns and from a crescent moon. And then one hears the chant : Buddham saraṇaṃ gacchāmi, Dhammaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi.Saṅghaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi.(To the Buddha for refuge I go ,To the Dharma for refuge I go, To the Sangha for refuge I go) . The chant is repeated but now it is louder and more insistent . Many other voices join in - 'Buddham sharnam gacchami, sangham sharnam....' .Is that my mouth moving ? my lips forming the words ? Startled I open my eyes . The first thing they fall on is 'the tree' - as beautiful and magical now as it must have been centuries back. But it is not the Buddha sitting under it but a young group of musicians belting out buddhist chants. My eyes wander - open wider. In the stillness of the night, with only the lit lamps and the moon, are sitting hundreds of men and women, listening in rapt attention to the chant, their heads moving in tune with the throbbing drums . There is no other sound . More than five hundred people silently listening to Buddha's words....

And then comes a man in a white kurta pyjama. He is carrying a 'jhola' - just what Kabir may have woven on his loom. Hark!  is that Kabir's  poem he is singing ? 'Nirbhay Nirgun  Re Gaunga...'

(Fearlessly I Will Sing the Attributes of the One without Attributes

Using the Base Lotus as the Steady Seat
I Will Make the Wind Rise in Reverse
Steadying the Mind's Attachments
I Will Unify the Five Elements
Ingila, Pingala and Sukhman are the Channels
I Will Bathe at the Confluence of the Three Rivers
The Five and Twenty Five I Will Master by my Wish
And String them Together by One Common Thread
At the Summit of Aloneness the Un-struck Anahad Sound Reverberates
I Will Play the Thirty-Six Different Symphonies
Says Kabir Listen Oh Practicing Aspirant
I Will Wave the Flag of Victory) 

And 'the tree' ? the tree had changed from being Buddha's source of enlightenment  to  being Kabir's expression of angst and cynicism  at the duplicity and guile of the keepers of the world. Had I ever really heard Kabir so raptfully as on that evening of the crescent moon and the lanterns and the light coming from the orange of the marigolds? No . Had I ever understood how Buddha must have felt when he saw the' light' ? No.

But that evening with the sun dipping into the horizon and hundreds of people sitting silently , listening to music for the soul, I sort of began to also feel ...and see....and hear.

It all began with the tree...

Tea party in the park

The sandwiches were nice -  sinfully well buttered , with a hint of mint . I had just taken my first bite when aunty B sidled up and whispered in my left ear if  one had heard of the robbery at number 148. One had but in the process of nodding yes ( remember the buttery bite in the mouth !)  landed up shaking a no . The next ten minutes were devoted to listening to the 'inside' story of the big heist.  It took so much time because the Chopras from # 24 and the Aggarwals from # 40 and the... had also joined in and there seemed to be no dearth of 'inside' information. The story had reached a very interesting juncture - was it an 'inside ' ( not to be confused with the earlier 'inside') job or was it an 'outside' job. Just to keep the facts straight,  Mrs. C felt  it  was-  " it always is"  as opposed to Mrs A who gave mysterious looks and kept muttering something about " one of these days"-  when  the potato fingers were  served ( with green chutney and ketchup). All the inside and outside talk had left everyone hungry and the fries were consumed with great gusto. The colony park had nicely filled up and a lot of time was spent in throwing a 'hello' here and a 'namastey' there. The group in front was discussing whether Sehwag was an 'is' or a 'has been' and the group at the back ( mostly made up of first time voters) was making a programme for the coming sunday. The group I was now sitting with was exchanging notes on tutors and maids and the absolute dearth of good and dependable tailors.

By now tea and coffee had been  served and  bursts of laughter mingled with the clink of cutlery and the well bred voices of the bridge players. S ( from 123)  was regaling us with some juicy 'khabar' when  the harsh  notes of a loudspeaker intruded the party in the park. Everyone stopped talking and eating and laughing. The loudspeaker seemed to be coming nearer and nearer. Puzzled glances were exchanged - a loudspeaker inside the colony'?  A white car , fitted with the loudspeaker, screeched to a halt. This was followed by many more white cars which all screeched to a halt.  Doors burst open and  disgorged a sea of white kurta pyjamas .

 I looked with approval at the man in front. He  was just so humble. He had folded his hands even before entering the park. Most of the kurta pyjamas also had folded hands. Just then  a man with a very hoarse voice shouted ( hoarsely) " Jeete ka bhai jeete ga; raju bhai jeete ga'. 

We all agreed later on that it was very unfortunate for Raju bhai that the park emptied within five minutes of his arrival. After all it wasn't his fault that he was two hours late ;  or that he did not apologize for keeping everyone waiting- after all  the junta should learn to be patient  ; or that he
had no answer to old Mr K's question about where he had been these last five years  !

I dunno if Raju bhai got the feel and hang of things the same way that those present did - that the party was well and truly over-   both inside and outside the park.

Hare Kebabs

 Whenever there is a lunch/dinner at home the most difficult part is deciding on the appetizer/s.  I agonize over the fact that my repertoire of 'starters' is so limited and that everything has been done to death ! And so it was with the dinner I had recently. When it came to deciding on what to make I was left mulling again on dip with crackers and my patent mini cutlets.That is untill I had this brainwave of making Hare kebabs. My neighbour had told me her recipe of kebabs but when she was doing so I had been listening with only half a ear and so remembered only half the recipe. However small things like knowing only half a recipe have never really fazed me and since  I felt that I absolutely had to make kebabs and that nothing else would do so I went ahead and made them. And I must admit they came out looking and tasting good. 

Here is the recipe ( full and not half! )


Will make about 15-20 mini kebabs


Ingredients


1 cup chana dal
1/2 kg spinach
1 tsp garlic paste ( I had omitted it)
1tsp ginger paste
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 tsp black pepper powder
2 tablespoon corn flour
1 bread slice
1 green chilli- very finely chopped
salt to taste
oil for deep/shallow frying


Method


1.Wash and soak the chana dal for 3-4 hours. Drain the water and grind in mixer to make a paste.
2. Was the spinach well. Chop coarsely. Steam for 2-3 minutes. Grind in mixer.
3. Take a non stick pan. Put about 1 tablespoon oil in it .Add the dal and roast till all the water evaporates. Remove and keep aside.
4.In the pan put the spinach and without covering cook so that all the water evaporates and it becomes dry. Close the burner.
5.To the spinach add the dal , cornflour, bread, salt, garlic and ginger paste, pepper powder, green chilli, lemon juice. Mix well.
6. Lightly grease palms and shape into small kebabs.
7. Shallow fry or deep fry.
Serve hot  with green chutney

The palace of illusions

I had heard a lot about the 2008 book by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, 'The Palace of Illusions' , and kept agreeing that it seemed like a 'must buy' and that I must pick it up and read it but somehow the act of buying and reading seemed to be eluding me and I never seemed to get round to doing it. Till one day I reached home and saw the book lying, ever so casually, on the bedside table. It transpired that the daughter had , through one of the new age sites, ordered some books and 'The Palace ...' was one of them. The only thing required was now to sit down and read it, but I still never seemed to get the time to do it. I got the time to read Amitava Ghosh -Sea of Poppies; to read Mitch  Albom 'Tuesdays with Morrie'; Katherine Frank's 'Indira' but not Divakaruni. And then I realized that the inertia regarding 'The Palace..' actually went back to another book by the same author ,'The Conch Bearers'. The son had been gifted a signed  copy  by the author in a book reading session  organized by his school and had come home and flourished it  triumphantly. His sister and I had felt duty bound to point out to him that since he had , even as a 13 year old,not progressed beyond Raold Dahl and Enid Blyton the book was of no use to him. The boy, ofcourse to prove us wrong,  immediately sat down to read it. We laughed and went about our ways, sure that he would put it down soon. Not only did he not do so, but also read it with a look of increasing absorption and sadness.When I went to his room at night to say goodnight he just held me tight. Instead of the act reassuring me it troubled me enough to make me start reading 'The Conch Bearers' the very next day. The book is essentially aimed at the young reader and is the story of a boy ,Anand. The ending is , however ,so poignant that it haunted me for days and days on end.  Anand has to decide between staying on in the Order or returning to his family. He makes his decision and leaves the reader yearning for a different one. I felt shattered- for Anand, for his mother, for myself- a mother.

I am reading 'The Palace of Illusions' these days. The story is familiar to all of us - it is the epic tale of Mahabharat' told through the eyes of Draupadi.  The narrative is like re visiting a traumatic experience - it is as tragic as any poem by Homer.The recurring leit motif is of destruction .Draupadi's birth from a fire; her love for her brother; her marriage to five men with their own foibles;  a cold mother in law; her own home- Palace of Illusions- at last, and then the unbelievable traumas that follow -her home, freedom and honour gambled away; almost stripped in public; her life of hiding and servitude  and finally, the grim justice of war - Mahabharat.

A permanent stone seems to have settled at the bottom of my stomach. The only word reverberating in my mind is,'why'? Why did Panchali have to ask Karna the question she asked- even though she had been warned by Vyas? why did she not stop her maids from laughing at Duryodhan  in her palace? why did Yudhister love gambling ?why did he have to gamble his wife?

Why does there have to be war before peace?

Is peace , without the baggage of war,  unachievable?

  

the secret diary of nitin gadkari

There are very few times that I wish I was Rajnath Singh , though I know he all the time wishes he was me, but these past few days, o.k make it months, have been so tiresomely trying that I wish I was him  i.e a nonentity and that he was me- handling all my 'weighty 'problems . There I was ,sitting in my pawan hans helicopter ,cracking jokes with my team and with  the T.V reporter filming  '24 hours with Nitin Gadkari ' when the pilot announced that we were flying over the Saryu river. I looked down casually and then looked up again to carry on telling the joke ( about the  shenanigans of the son-in-law of the first lady of Indian politics) when I realized that all eyes were down and the reporter was excitedly telling her camera person to train the camera carefully at the scene below. Petulantly I looked down for the cause of the excitement and then almost fell off the chopper .Uma ji was being brought in a procession to the banks of the river. She seemed to be protesting and waving her hands through her saffron robes in a very agitated manner. Snatches of words , carried up to us by the easterly winds, conveyed that she seemed to be saying 'Nitin ji , Gadkariji..' I scanned the crowd for some familiar faces but the faces all looked unfamiliar, though in a very familiar way. I mean they looked familiarly unfamiliar. And then the penny dropped. Ofcourse, they were the congress karyakartas of U.P. I sat up in indignation and turned to the reporter to point out this latest congress scam when before my eyes she whipped out her mike and telling the pilot to bring the chopper as low as he could , jumped out , followed by her camera person. Unfortunately for me the chopper had come to within eye contact distance of the people on ground zero and Uma Bharti ji easily spotted me. All hell broke loose. Much to my chagrin Umaji started a one sided conversation with me. The long and short of which was that she literally ordered me to save her from the swirling waters of the Saryu river and at the same time reminded me that it was at my prodding that she had jumped in- not  the river- but into the politics of elections in UP's Bundelkhand and also made the grandoise statement of jumping into the river. Truth to tell , when I had asked Umaji to rejoin the party with a difference it was all because of Jaya Pradaji. Being a true blue Maharashtrian I was brought up on the staple diet of Srikhand, Vada pav and 'Sharabi '. Who can forget Jaya ji dancing to Amitabh's 'De De pyaar de...' in the movie ?  and also how  comely  she managed to look , sitting on a bullock cart, with flood waters swirling around her? Since then I had been searching for someone  within the BJP who could do  Jaya's  'Ram teri Ganga Maili' act. Many a times I thought of Sushmaji (  especially after her song and dance number at Rajghat   ) but the thought of Arun Jaitlyji's reaction kept me quiet. And then one day, while  presiding over a party meeting and munching on samosas and laddoos, I remembered Umaji and her 'sexy sanyasin'  sobriquet .Swallowing my third samosa hastily I dialled her number and...                 .

A sudden jerk of the chopper ,and a scream,  brought me back to the present. I realised that Umaji had catapulted up , leaving the karyakartas shouting'  Ooh ma   Ooh ma...', and latched on like a limpet to the chopper. The scream was of the pilot.The chopper was not built to carry two such heavyweights. It swung wildly from left to right for a good distance and then tangled into a flowing white tent of some inconsiderate idiot's election rally.


I believe the laddoos at today's BJP press briefing were on Rajnath Singh.

In Plato’s  ‘Republic’  Adeimantus points out that very often a good reputation is acquired by a ruler who merely appears to act in a just manner, regardless of whether he/she actually does so .By doing this the ruler  achieves the greatest possible advantage : act unjustly while preserving the outward appearance of being just. This as opposed to the option of acting justly while risking the outward appearance of injustice.  Dr Manmohan Singh has perfected the craft of appearing to be just and honest while returning debts owed ,and helping friends-all the  while hiding behind the skirts of ‘ the compulsions of a coalition government’.  A Prime Minister who makes the mistake of ruling in a manner that lessens the well-being of the ruled , is  not  a good prime minister , for a true ruler would never make such an error.

The remedy :

 He/She  must always be someone who knows how to rule, someone who understands ruling as a craft and  like  a good parent,  tries to do what is best for those who have been entrusted to him/her, rather than seeking his own ,and others, welfare. Furthermore , there should be  severe restrictions placed on the   guardians of the constitution , and of the country : they should have no need for wealth or other external rewards   and should earn no salary greater than necessary to supply their  basic needs. This will ensure that  no one will have any wrong motive for seeking a position of leadership, and those who are chosen to govern will govern solely from a concern to seek the welfare of the country and  what is best for all  its citizens.

 Any country is only as good as its people. A country becomes a mess  because its junta lets it become one . It is time for introspection for all of us who vote  the corrupt, the criminals, the ineffective , the  coquettish to power. We vote people to power who do not know the importance of the phrase ‘The buck stops here’.  Like the rats of the town of Hamelin we fall into the trap of the caste card played out by the Pied Pipers, sorry –politicos . It is also introspection time for those who do not go out to vote. The right to live in a country has to be earned –by ensuring that each vote is cast to bring  the right individuals to power –individuals who combine high competence with the highest ethical standards. 

No country is perfect. We  need to make it perfect. The answer,  as Plato believed, is to rely upon the value of a good education . We have today an educated ,young generation of  engineers , IT professionals ,managers  ,college students etc who can spearhead the crusade for probity in public life.. These young men and women  should come forward to fight corruption.They have a powerful tool ,the social networking sites ,to spread their message  and to galvanize opinion .
And when  this happens , just as the first showers bring in their rain drenched  mornings the smell of wet earth –the message  of the young will bring a purpose in the steps of the people .This is because I know the message will be the same as the one used by Jai Prakash Narain on that eventful day in Ramlila Maidan in the  draconian seventies of the original  Mrs G…
              “ Singhasan khali karo ki junta aati hai ……

the high and the low

Standing there, in the middle of a dull January afternoon, facing a window which had been shut to keep out the rain, cynosure of thirty odd pairs of eyes-the only words going through my mind were Charles Dickens lines from A tale of two cities: ' It was the best of times It was the worst of times'. I looked abstractedly at the class .My head felt as if it was full of nothingness- all woolly headed. I knew there were a barrage of questions to be answered -the expectancy on those faces showed that they were waiting for me to say something. The patter of the rain seemed to mix with the rhythm of the lines ,'...the worst of times, the worst of times,the..' A  voice from somewhere  inside the nothingness of my head mockingly whispered-"serves you right for being so chuffed up about yesterday's session. Pride always comes before a fall, dear anju". Yesterday ! it seemed to belong to another age , to another person .

Yesterday was an early morning session. I just about made it in time and rushed inside the classroom , convinced that there would be only a handful of students braving the chilly westerly winds to attend an introductory session for their newly launched  batch. I scampered to the front of the classroom and turned to face the class. Surprise, surprise!the room was packed. And then the door opened and some more came in.They kept coming and suddenly it dawned that this was going to be the largest group I had ever taught-about sixty bright eyed, confident youngsters. I said something and it drew appreciative laughter. Encouraged, I carried on , ad libbing, involving them - telling them what needed to be told  and, miraculously ,making sense to all of them .After sometime it sank in that they were eagerly hanging on to my words, hugely enjoying the process of induction. And I ? -I was shamelessly playing to the gallery,  speech full of witticisms, fielding queries effortlessly. Did I notice a touch of hero worship on a few faces? Maybe .Anything seemed possible that morning. My face flushed with the exaltation that comes with  success, I ended the session and left.

A titter from  the group sitting at the back brought me back to the rain drenched noon. I opened my mouth and said something. It seemed to open a floodgate of more questions-" how ? why not option a?  and why not option c?" And with the questions came the realization that somewhere, like Anna Hazare, I was losing the plot .That I was , again like Anna, allowing myself to drift. Was I going to let it happen? Nah, certainly not. Not I.
I looked at the tittering group at the back and asked them to repeat their question. One of them did so .Making the question a take off point I launched into a lengthy ,elaborate and technical explanation of the concept behind it. Twenty minutes later I stopped and said ,' ask me".Most of them by now had a glazed and glassy look in their eyes.The group at the back was quiet. A couple of queries were raised and  duly answered.
And then I announced- o.k,since all the concepts have been revised and queries answered let us get into test mould. There were no titters to be heard after that.
I had managed to salvage the situation. Will Anna be able to do so?