Wanderer and the dream of perfect happiness!

Sleep well. That’s what the Wanderer told me. “Tomorrow we start our little search. We head out for searching Radha. Sleep well tonight.”

I must confess I didn’t want to sleep last night. Not a minute that night. I wanted to feel every moment that was passing by. Not lose it to sleep. I believed it to be simple. I hadn’t slept much in the last four-odd months. All these months sleep had eluded me, even when I begged it to come. I assumed last night to be no different. Ironically, I couldn’t keep my eyelids from drooping the moment I hit the bed. I tried real hard and I mean really-really hard to be awake. But sleep came like the sandman had sprinkled gold dust over my forehead. Moments before I lost to sleep, I felt as if I was being pulled into some sort of a silvery whirlpool.

I recall looking at the clock in the hotel room; it was 9:00 pm by the non-studio clock before I lost my battle to sleep. Unusually early for me be at the bed. But I must now confess how slept like a log. Like I haven’t slept for months... I was held prisoner in the ambit of sleep and strangely I recall how lovely it was when I was sleeping. A lucid and deep sleep.

I recall that there was a dream… a long and enigmatic dream that I dreamt last night. Full eight and a half hour of sleep. Like a full work day. In that dream I seeped to the bottom of the sea. Into that silvery whirlpool, like Alice tripping down the rabbit hole. All around me was liquid… shiny slivery and bluish liquid. Much different than the water we know of. It seemed more like a sea of pure energy rather than sea water. Like active nucleons of positive and negative charge were making love to each other. I was surrounded by pure energy in motion or what is abbreviated as emotion…. Energy in motion, Emotion!

During that reverie, I remember that I had read about Atlantis – the lost civilization. Instantly my sub conscious mind started to relate the dream with that of the fabled Atlantis itself. I saw magnificent underwater-like life, corals, multi-colored corals, more corals, coral drawn, fishes with wings, birds with fins, beautiful butterflies, butterscotch mountains, black currant ravines, penguins and mermaids in a trance, Robin Hood and Queen of New Orleans in a dance, I realized that I love her and have taken the chance. Further down the fathoms, I saw all the people who are dear to me. My family and friends, my loved ones, my teachers, my students, my dogs, my writings, my poetry, my actions, my reactions, my quests, my achievements, my triumphs, my highs, my books, my dancing gods, my loving nods, my childhood dream, my awesome teens, my sweet tooth, my wisdom tooth, my hilarious guitar, my this life, my that life, my love life, I was running through butter like a hot knife.

It was beautiful, to see all that you love in one place and time. I realize it is very rare to witness this. To be in the august company of all your happiness put together without pilferage.

I floated around for a while, looking at the sheer beauty and perfectness of creation, mesmerized by the flawless orchestration of life by the invisible hand. Theories aside, God or no God, I feel the compounding effect of love accumulated here in this moment, accumulated bank balance of love of all those who are numbered in the file of existence. This is what can be termed as “awesomeness” – what if the English language does not currently recognize this word. The more I look inward and sustain the moment, the more futile the entire cacophony of life appears, yet at the same time it sounds like an enchanting symphony. I realize that the enchantment is not because of what it is but what it is meant to be.

There is unquestionable beauty within each one of us and it is absolute. If I were to describe my idea of God, then this would be it. Humanity is a great example, a great term that we seldom realize.
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The feelings flowed inwards, and I at once realized how harsh I have been in my life. To my loved ones, to people who matter, to people who don’t, to random people around, to things that agitated me, to my own self, to little miracles that happened in my life, to things that I didn’t believe in.

My harshness hurts me now. It hurts the inner walls of my soul, and my soul cries for all that harshness. The scream of all the hurt that I would have caused in the universe, knowingly and unknowingly, was sounding as a sharp relentless screech in my ear and I could feel my senses bleeding. I was connected with all that exists in the universe and all the hurt that has been floating around from the past, present and future. It broke me down to the basic constituent of life. To the level of thought.

In that thought I understood all the Xs of life and all the Ys, understood my excesses, my ex, and the reasons why. I felt weightless. I was trembling and unable to be coherent. The nadir and zenith of the soul were made visible to me. I saw in God’s vision.

I feel refurbished beyond comprehension and imagination. Slowly the scenic beauty around me started to disappear. The attributes got dissolved into pale light, the shapes were no more, only love. I dreamt of myself sleeping and dreaming all this in that dream.

Then the voice prodded me, “Wake up, Bala. Time to start our journey, time to wake up, rise and shine. Shine like the true Sun. From heart to head, shine.” It was the Wanderer. Speaking from within that dreamscape.

I woke up at once without a trace of sleep in my eyes. As if I hadn’t slept at all.

The clock on the wall indicated that it was half past five in the morning. Full eight and a half hours of sleep and dream. Wow. A miracle of sorts. Such beautiful sleep and a wondrous dream. I was overflowing with happiness, beaming with joy, radiating life, broadcasting the universal signal of love. Like a cosmic broadcasting station, I was broadcasting the splendor of the vision I saw to the world outside.

Took a bath and got ready by 6:15 a.m. to take a walk by the sea side. Just then, the Wanderer interrupted the day’s proceeding, by booming his voice in my head. “Bala, pack up your bag. We are checking out of this hotel. I mean, right now. We are going to stay somewhere in the jungle. That’s our best bet to find the Radha flower. Time is running out, so hurry up.”

I was aghast at the comfort with which the Wanderer was breaching my privacy. However, I felt I had to listen. So it was. I checked out.

No sooner than I had mounted my scooter with my backpack, he said, “Towards Auroville, let’s ride”.

I drove towards Auroville, the morning breeze from sea jostling past my face. We both got talking, the Wanderer and me, like two friends, like two found souls; we talked random stuff, little things, singing songs along the way, like merry men. Although he didn’t find the concept of Radha Juice to be weird and funny like I did, he did join me in the song or rather the bhajan that my mom plays every morning, a bhajan that invariable wakes me up from sleep, a bhajan that is the first dhwani I hear every day, and I mean every darn day. It used to rupture whatever little sleep I was managing to have all these months.

This is how it went, “Krishna, Radha, Radhika, Krishnaaaaaaaaaaaa, Radhaaaaaaaaa, Radhikaaaaaaaaa...”

Slowly we started to bend the meter of the song, making it sound more a rock ballad than a tranquil bhajan.

We let out a huge laugh, almost together. It was fun. Superb!

Taking the left turn from the highway, we get through into the winding road that leads through the jungle to Auroville. A kilometer into the jungle, I spot a three storied house with a board “Homestays Available”. I park the scooter and ring the door bell. An aged lady walks out to the door. I ask her about availability of accommodation at her place. She plainly refuses. She tells me that it is an old board and they don’t let out anymore. I am about to walk off, but then the Wanderer booms in my head, “Persist, and win her over. We are staying here.”

I knew what I had to do. I looked into the old lady’s eyes, brought on my lunatic childish smile and pleaded and pestered her. I can turn into a little harmless kid any moment, it’s a god gift. The child is always ebbing to appear. Brought my full-on sentimental spiel, I am like your son and will not cause any trouble. Please, please … and I continued until she agreed to take me in and show me a room on the first floor.

She opened the door; I liked the minimalistic décor in the room. It was perfect for me. A medium-sized room, with peach colored walls, and a small wooden desk. I asked her how much will she charge for it, she said Five Hundred a night. I smiled back and said, I need it for four nights. I paid her the advance, and settled into the room.

The Wanderer said, “Perfect, I like it now that you are listening to me without your worldly garb. It is so much easier now to accomplish what we collectively need to accomplish. I will help you find the Radha flower, help you unravel this mystery, decode the code, lead you on further in your journey, give you the missing links, take you to where you yearn to be. In return, you write my story as and when I share it with you. You write it as I tell you, without pretence, without fear, without shame, without game, you write it as within. You don’t question me when I ask you to do something.”

Hearing the last sentence, I was infuriated. “Who the hell do you think you are to tell me not to question you when I feel like? I am not your slave, not your bonded labor, you crazy Wanderer. Hell, first of all tell me clearly who the hell you are. Come out with it. Let us do everything else later. First I need to know and understand this crazy thing that is happening with me. Ever since you showed up, my life has been in a topsy-turvy, although I acknowledge that it has been fantastic but I am not too sure. How much to trust you? I don’t even know who you are.”

The Wanderer said, “Fine, if you so insist. We do this over breakfast.” We headed out into the jungle on my scooter to fetch breakfast.

Wanderer and the Dhwani!

It is around noon. Day two in Pondicherry. My body still cranky from the night spent at the beach. A few abrasions on my back, my neck extremely itchy, head a bit heavy. I head out of my hotel, with my usual gear, by small back bag with my writing pad, the book I was reading ‘Illusions’, my diary, a few pens, mint, and my camera.

Extremely hungry, I walk into the same café by the beach. Without thinking much, I order a glass of Radha and a fruit salad.

The journey starts.

Plug in, plug out. No you cannot plug out. You pull the damn plug, but the music won’t stop. You realize it’s not a fucking joke, it is not fantasy, it is not a scenic dream, and it is not a trick your mind is playing on you. You have little control. I had little control, which is to say I had no control whatsoever.

While waiting for the order to arrive, I walked up towards the rocks along the beach. Instantly, I wanted to fall off into the sea. Just head first into the unknown waters, plunge into the shapeless fathoms of the churning ocean. Ever since I was a child, I had this thing of standing on a cliff and falling off. Lunging forward into the chasm. I always had this magnetic pull towards the endless free fall. It is not suicidal. Hell no. I am not the suicidal kinds. Neither am I regressive and self defacing as otherwise perceived by a fall. There has always been an unexplained fascination of falling into the infinite. Dissolution by absolution!

The waiter called me, “Sir, your order is here”.

I walked back to my table. I wolfed through the freshly cut fruits with gulps of the radha. I recalled all of yesterday and the mesmerizing things that were happening to me. The music of the flute and the swirling images of Radha were still rushing in front of my eyes. Just that it seems to have embedded alongside the roar of the sea.

I decided in my head… I will not sleep on the beach. No way.

I call up my best friend and tell him about Radha juice and the night spent at the beach. We laugh our lungs out. We make all kind of jokes about Radha juice and wreck our minds around possibility of Krishna juice, Kansa juice, Balram juice, and every other fucking juice in the cosmic blender. In that moment, on call with him, I felt like I was eighteen again. Like when I first met him… carefree and extremely disoriented from this world.

This moment, the mist and young child-like sunlight
Is what I got, and I love it so
No aching memories, no troubled spot,
This moment is all I got
I bring this world alive, spin it by the tide
I can smile now, a resting, unhindered smile
I really don’t have to lie, for this moment is all I got
The wind blows and greets my eager cheeks
I say ‘hello’ and let it be
For this moment is all I got
I strum and it sounds out of tune,
I smile, for this what I got… this moment and my hilarious guitar
I write and enjoy the moments I have got.

I feel extremely happy on writing the above piece of poetry. Something simple and bouncing with carefree joy. Like good old days. Like my childhood. Like the conceded youth. Like me. I feel.

I take in the moment. Feel great. Over to life!

I hail in the waiter again for a repeat of the Radha juice and while ordering ask him how is the juice prepared. The waiter tells me that it is prepared by mixing the pulp of a flower named Radha with lemon juice. He does not disclose the concoction ratio. I probe but he doesn’t budge.

However, I was more interested in knowing about the Radha flower. All about it. How does it look like? What color is it? How big is it? How beautiful is it? Where can I find it? All about the flower; about the glorious flower. My interest in flowers until this moment has been restricted to hibiscus, rose and parijatak and that too purely because of the mythical stories I have heard about these flowers as a child. I haven’t researched flowers beyond these three… let alone actively pursue.

To my utter, and I must admit almost childlike frustration, the waiter had no great detail to share except that he told me that the Radha flower is blue in color and grows on trees or shrubs. Yes my genius. Flowers and I mean all flowers, except water flowers, grow on trees or shrubs. They don’t grow on our heads or on space shuttles. Mr Einestine. Damnnnnnnnnnnnn!

I enquire where I can find someone who knows about Radha flower. The waiter was absolutely clueless. Nonetheless, I order one more glass of Radha and decide to chase this absurdly named flower later and indulge in some more sea gazing.

But I couldn’t gaze for much long. The flower was making me extremely restless or to say the quest was making me restless. I am a guy for quests. Pursuit!

I am at my fucking best when I am chasing windmills, chasing truth, chasing the elusive self, chasing what has been perennially hidden, chasing troubles, chasing disappointments, chasing happiness, chasing mirages, chasing realities, chasing cockroaches, chasing butterflies, chasing thrills, chasing things that kill, chasing the oldest ailment and savoring the pill, chasing the entertaining thought, chasing her about whom we all forgot, chasing the rainbow, chasing wounds that do not show, chasing love and everything else.

The wave chaser! Yes that’s me.

I ask around for directions to Auroville. The township conceptualized in the middle of a forest, on the outskirts of Pondicherry. The abode of the “Matrimandir” the sanctum sanctorum of Shri Aurobindo and the revered Mother—built on the central thought of humanity and peace.

I realize I need to get mobile. I cannot hope to travel around without transportation. I search for the nearest two-wheeler rental shop and hire a worn-down Kinetic Honda for five days and fuel it up to the brim.

Yes, baby… now we are talking. Motorized nirvana.

I take the two wheeled pixie for a ride around town and when I am comfortable with the reliability of break’s response time, I switch on the afterburners and hit the highway.

The weather was pleasant and I asked directions to reach Auroville. A left turn from the highway led straight into the lanes that eventually blended into forest and a few bends and eight kilometer further I was parked my scooter in the Auroville parking lot.

I get inside the gate only to learn that the entry to the visiting point of Matrimandir was closed for the day and I need to come the next day. Nevertheless, I entered inside the forest area where there is the Auroville canteen and a few of the Ashram’s shops selling all kinds of organic wares including incense sticks, spiritual books, house decoration items, organic tea, ayurvedic herbs, etc. I get straight to the canteen and order a vegan salad along with lemonade.

Here I should take a moment to share with the larger world my utmost devotion and fascination with food. Yes! You heard me right, Food! Food in fact has been the biggest driver of my life. In fact I am at my best when I am chasing food. Not for thought, but purely for my stomach. No bigger Nirvana than food :)

After tanking up on some energy, I wander into the shops that are selling the organic-spiritual ware and at once love what I am surrounded with. These are the stuff a writer’s dreams are made of. Bright colors all around in the shop, the air filled with almost overpowering natural incense, beautiful wooden decorative items. One couldn’t ask for more. Can one?

I pick up some incense stick packs for my home and dear ones. Memorabilia of sorts. You bring back a certain something of a place with you. You steal some magic from a place you are visiting when you get something home from there. I can feel how Neil Armstrong must have felt when he brought back tiny pieces of the moon. You recreate that place at home.

Well after loitering around for an hour in Auroville, in the middle of the jungle. I felt hungry, as usual, my hunger strikes, like the cymbal stroke of a speed metal song, and incessantly I hunger. I get on my scooter and ride around the jungle lane to find some nice place to eat. I spot an Italian bakery to my left. I park the scooter at its gate and walk in.

On entering I sense that perhaps I am the only Indian in that place. The joint was buzzing with foreign nationals. Various European dialects being spoken. I could her a few Germans germinating, a few French franchising, a few Italians italicizing, a few Polish polishing, a few Czechs, a few Slovaks. I was the only brownie among the apple pie. I walked up to the counter and order a slice of the mushroom pizza and a hot jar of honey hibiscus tea.

I am handed over my order in about five minutes and asked to seat myself on the benches in the garden outside the counter area. I merrily devour the pizza and pour in the tea into my endless pit of a stomach.

When with food I feel safe. Like I am in the arms of God. I feel as if beautiful angels are dancing around and rose petals are being showered over me by the demi-gods including the usual list of Indra, Varuna, Agni, and the mythical white elephant Airavata. I decide I will soak myself in food. In good food. In good organic food. This place is a heaven for someone like me. Replete with bakeries, coffee shops, tea joints, vegan food joints. Heaven!

Who said gluttony is a sin? Bring him on. Dare I make the statement? Food often is better than sex and good food is often better than good sex. The underscore being on the word often.

I take a few snaps of the beautiful garden and then take a few more. All around I am surrounded by colors. With my favorite color, Green, being the larger backdrop. Reds, violets, gold and more. The flowers filled the air with beautiful aroma and life for once seemed slow and simple. The eagerness of the foreign travelers is amazing. They look at your country in new light. They appreciate it. Seldom do we appreciate our own land, appreciate what we got.

With that thought in my head, I head for the Auroville beach.

The Auro beach is a sand beach. I sit by the beach and there is hardly anyone around. A few street urchins playing around and a dog loitering by the shore. Not much by way of company. I feel easy. There is quite. There is the sea and her roar. There is unison with my own thoughts. There is abundance of love within and without.

I look towards the sky and smile like a village idiot… hoping that someone or something up there would smile back. But there was only the breeze brushing against my face. It felt right. I felt right. Right as ray.
The memory of the hurt was on its final way out… taking its last few footsteps out of my door. I was feeling purged by life’s miracle.

The phoenix-like reality of consciousness.

There is not much of us left at the end and whatever is left is this magic. When our dust and bones wait for the solitary rain, they too long like us. Our dust and bones long for the horizon to come forth and embrace them in everlasting cessation and shapelessness. After we recede into the ocean of non-time and non-space, sound of our now beating heart remains forever and forever in this world. Perhaps the only part of us that never shifts shape, our sound, our dhwani, the dhwani of our beating hearts, like the dhwani of the flute is still heard in our dreams like a harbinger of victory, like the dhwani of a new born, like the dhwani of Vedas recited by ancient gurus, like the dhwani of the sea. The composite dhwani of all that ever was, is and will be.

I looked outwards into the future, looked at the next few days and nights in Pondicherry and the adventurous journey that lay ahead. Searching for the Radha flower, searching for my true identity, searching … and then suddenly I heard a sound… Booooooooooom!

It was thunder and lightning in the middle of ocean. I knew it was time for me to get going. For my days ahead in Pondicherry are going to boom in my head for ever and ever.

Before I left, I heard a voice, it was the Wanderer—“Bala, you managed well on your own today. I intent not to disturb your day. Tomorrow we ride together. Tomorrow we start our little search. We head out for searching Radha. Sleep well tonight.”

I looked into the sky and it started to drizzle. I quietly walked away to the parking and rode my scooter back to my hotel in Pondicherry. I loved this day.

Wanderer and the essence of the universe

Someone patted me on my shoulder… “Sir, we have landed in Chennai.”

I woke up feeling a little weird. The airhostess was smiling at me. I unbuckled the seat best and picked up my hand baggage. The wanderer was not around, hew was gone as expected. I was not doubting what had transpired. The rhythm was still lingering in my head…

Sonic Boom! Boom Sonic!

I get down the airplane, slightly spaced out. Pick up my luggage and head out of the airport… I ask around for the nearest train station and I am told it is just across the road. Me, my backpack, my camera… all three of us reach the train station and board the electric train to Tambaram, a suburb of Chennai, from where I am likely to get a bus to Pondicherry.

I get a comfortable seat in the train; the short change over journey is likely to take twenty-odd minutes.

Sitting down, I look at my co-passengers. Daily commuters, going to office, to colleges, they give me strange looks. I am wearing my black UCB sweatshirt (it was cold in Delhi when I boarded the flight) in Chennai. I am sweating profusely. My handkerchief is on overdrive. Then one of the passengers sitting opposite me takes out a magazine from his bag… and on the back cover in red block print runs an advertisement…

It reads “Boom Time”

…and I couldn’t help but notice the in my face mockery. I do not believe in coincidences… let who believe in coincidences be damned… for they deny the flawless orchestration of the universe. Nothing ever happens without a reason. Things are how they are meant to be.

‘Boom Time’. The advertisement places the ‘Boom’ in my head and I realize that something is churning. Such signs and symbols have happened with me before, on numerous occasions over the years and I have learned not to ignore them and have trained myself to follow their clues.

‘Boom’!!!

I get down at Tamabaram station and walk out of to the mail road. I was told I would get a bus to Pondicherry from here.

I ask people around in Tamil and get vague directions to the bus stop. But the funny part is that I can only speak and understand Tamil… cannot read or write. People ask me to board the bus that reads “Puddycherry”… that’s the only help they offer. And I make no sense of the boards on the bus. They are in Tamil.

I struggle for fifteen minutes then a bust stops nearby. I ask the conductor if the bus goes to Pondicherry. He tells me that he can drop me at a place called Thindukal, which is about an hour away from Pondicherry. And from there I need to board another bus. I think in my head, “What the heck Bala? Just board the fucking bus at least you will be nearer to Pondi by the minute.”

The only seat available is the first seat to the left of the aisle, by the conductor. I place my backpack on the aisle and make myself comfortable. Then suddenly the TV blares into action, announcing loudly that it is a video coach. Some random Tamil song plays out loud. Damn!

The speakers are screeching and the song is really not a song. I put on my earphones and try listening to Mr Bryan Adams but the sound gets drowned in the cacophony of the video coach.

I give up and try and look outside the window. The bus picks up speed and a thrust of wind hits my face and I start to enjoy the way the near-barbaric driver is driving the bus.

Then suddenly the song ends and is replaced by an old Tamil movie, one staring M.G.R. – the old-world legend. I realize that the next hour or so are going to be hell and suddenly my eyes spot the name of the channel playing the movie.

It says, “Boom TV”

Damn!

I take out my Sony H20 and take a few shots of the channel name, just for evidence. Just to check later that it was not my mind playing tricks on me. For the remaining part of the journey I kept thinking where all this would lead.

“Boom” is the word I need to look out for. Find meaning and follow the rabbit to the wonderland.

Boom Sonic! Boom Town! Boom TV!

I get down at the “Thindukal” and take another bus and reach Pondicherry at about 12:30 in the afternoon. I scout for a hotel and find one at Rue Buss Street. French Town. French street names. Hotel Ruthira.

I quickly take a bath and head out on foot to the famed rocky beach of Pondi. Fortunately, it is only about a kilometer, a walk that is beautifully lined by French Villas and post card perfect cafés and houses.

By 2:00 p.m. I have reached the beach. When you are nearing the sea side, you start hearing the enchanting murmur… long before you can see the sea. The murmur is followed by a cool breeze hitting you on your face. I was so thrilled that any minute I will be able to see her, the “Babe of Bengal”. A few steps, a few meters and there is she… huge, vast, monstrous sea. The vastness, the horizon covering sea, the watery mother, the wet lover, the raging beast, the quivering girl, the shapeless whole. The Sea!

My dear Sea! There she is! There Sea is! She the Sea!

“There is something utterly romantic about the sea... it can make you insanely happy and hopelessly sad at the same time.”

For a minute I am motionless, awestruck at what I was seeing, feeling and hearing. Then my camera came out and I went berserk… clicking at will, full on burst mode.

After I was confident that I would have got at least one good shot of the sea, I parked myself on the black rocks. This beach is a rocky beach. You cannot get down and swim… only watch by the rocks, as the sea dashes herself against the rocks. Time and again. Like a perennial loop.

I settled down on the rocks and started gazing the monster that was grunting in front of me, and every once in while the waves would dash and spray water over my face, My spectacles were dotted with misty water droplets.

Soon hours started lapsing and I kept looking at the sea. Trying to understand what lay ahead of me, trying to reason out with myself the events that have shaped my life off late. The marquee events of the year gone by. Love, this, that and everything else.

As time flew, the answers came, and brought with them more questions. The sea answered and questioned at the same time, like the angel of contradictions, and once in a while I could hear two voices in my head. One probing, the other answering, then the second voice saying absurd things to which my voices giving simple explanations. It happened for a while, then a while longer, and for far too long. Hours passed by or so it seemed. And I kept looking at the sea. I was stone faced. But my mind and heart were going through a gamut of emotions. I was laughing out loud one moment, then suddenly bursting into howling cries, then the other moments I will be lost somewhere in the far spreads of the sea. I pretty much went through every emotion that a human can experience. Yes, in that one long gaze into the sea. I sensed how the entire human race felt about everything. I was for once connected to every human, every life form, every tree, every insect, every stone, every sand grain, every mood, every day in every way. For those moments I was all and all were me. The sense of individuality blurred until it completely disappeared. It felt very different. Felt the way… I really don’t know how to word it. It was tasteless… without flavor. The closest I could term that feeling was… I felt “neutral”.

Then slowly I let myself slip out of the phase, out of the inertness, out of the wormhole into the present. Facing the sea… hearing voices of people around, seeing young couple hold hands by the sea, peanut vendors selling warm roasted peanuts in conical paper packs. Coming back to life around was like waking up from some deep sleep. I was both refreshed and clumsy. I realized I was thirsty. I looked around the beach and spotted a café on the beach “Le Café”… just ten meters from where I was sitting.

I moved to the café and parked myself on the sea facing table, well all tables in the café face the sea. I start to write.

A waitress, a young lady, possibly 30-odd years old, brings me the menu card.

I run through the menu card’s drinks section and I am almost about to order Ginger Tea. But what do I know; I see an item on the menu that makes me jump out of my seat, out my place, out of this world. I put on my spectacles to double check if I read it right. Yest it is what I first read.

Lo’ behold, Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls, Crows and Crabs, Gods and Mortals!

The item’s name is “Radha Juice”. Yes Boss! It is on the menu. That’s what it reads. You can go check it out and drink your heart’s fill.

Radha Juice!


My mind swivels and I get the inner pulse of what all this is turning out to be. The solid ground under my feet starts to melt, like a liquid, like the sea has invaded into the Terra Firma of my life and existence.

Yu hoooo! Radha Juice it is for me.

With a strong circular wave of the hand, I hail in the waitress. Almost embarrassed I tell her to get me a glass of Radha Juice. And off she goes. I couldn’t believe it… they are selling the essence of Radha… whatever they meant it to be. I know what it is. I wait eagerly for the drink to arrive. My camera ready to capture how she looks like in glass. Supernal Radha poured into a glass.

And there she comes. What a beauty!

Radhey! Radhey!

Purple, mauve, eccentric, electric, like black currant. I take one sip and I could feel a familiar flavor. It was half way between black currant god knows what. I instantly fell in love with the flavor. The more I drank, the more my head swirled. It had a taste of eternal longing blended with the taste of eternal union. Polarity went for a toss. Two extreme realities collided and turned Radha Juice into elixir of knowledge and fulfillment.

After one, came the second glass, and I kept ordering until the count went up to six in a matter of an hour.

I had fallen deep into nothingness, if at all there is such a state.

Slowly in my mind, I felt a vague and distant music playing… lingering on somewhere. Slowly the music came nearer; it was the sound of a flute. The magic slowly unfolded in my ears… I could now hear the birds chirp and leafs rustle… slowly as I was eating the chocolate brownie… I heard footsteps of someone walking with payal reverberating at the ankles. With the passing moments, I could hear more footsteps with payals making an orchestrated advance towards the jungle where I was sitting.

No it is the sea shore. No it is the jungle. Oh no, it is both. The two realities overlap.

The footsteps come closer and closer, as if in a circular dance… they are closing in. I can now see faint images of women, dancing to the tune of the flute. The flute ranges up and down and then deep into the souls that lay mesmerized by its atonement.

The bodies have been given up to music, as the music lifts them up and now the women are too many… dancing in spherical formation over and around me. The flute sound grows deeper and louder… throwing the women into a trance… thousand women and their payals keep tempo with the flute. But the flute is still searching… its call loud and long into the abyss of life. And then slowly emerges the Woman Ornate.

The call of the flute! Lady of the thousand moons! The eternal lover! The gracious herself! The pole star of all immaculate quests!

There she comes draped in turquoise, oh no it is red, or is it blue, no it is green. She wears the colors, all these and more. The thousand women circle the lady of the longing… and she forms the centre of the ever growing sphere of dance.

The flute calls and she answers.

Radha!

She sways to the soul aching layers of the music and the music surrounds her like the sea breeze surrounds the nightingale. Moment by moment the picture becomes clear. Now the dharak of the flute comes slowly through Radha’s ecstatic dance. He comes clothed in the shades of light and fills my vision with splendor.

Radha the glorious,
Radha the effercent,
Radha the enchanting,
Radha the divine,
Radha the lover,
Radha the loved,
Radha the music,
Radha the muse,
Radha the magic,
Radha the real,
Radha the ageless,
Radha the French,
Radha the German,
Radha the Indian, the Italian, the Brit, the Greek, the outlandish,
Radha the love!

She danced and danced and the flute master played the eternal music of Immaculate Conception. They communed in language yet now known to man in entirety.

The universe started to take shape in that rhythm. The flute obscured all thoughts and Radha was celebrated. And Radha with her divine dance made the truth evident.

Radha! Oh my Radha!

The gopis all merged into one, into Radha. And then Radha slowly meshed into the music of the flute and the flute master was spreading his music to create all universes and this verse.

The flute master! The omnipresent!

I feel the joy and entirety of the experience.

Radha the music! Radhey!

A voice prodded me. It called my name. Bala! I was aware. In multiple worlds at the same time. In the grandeur of Radha and the flute ! In the expansive roar of the sea! The gentle company of the Wanderer in me! The cerebral voice of my conscious self! In the world of mortals, in the world of demi-gods, in the world of all else. Aware!

It was the Wanderer trying to tell me something. He called my name, Bala!

And I knew now what the Wanderer feels above love. About his true identity, about himself, about me, about Radha, about the night scorpion. I had seen her face through the aircraft window, a face full of sun and moon, like splendor of truth filling in on a ruined church.

At this time I felt both as the “nightcrawler” and “wolverine”, as myself and the wanderer. The duality that vanquished all dualities.

The scorpion of the night sky superimposed over the lady glorious “Radha” and I carry their imprints in my heart. The true essence of love.

The word R A D H A … falls like rain in front of my eyes and reassemble themselves in various forms to deliver meaning to me.

Radha is the very basis (ADHAR) for the ever flowing stream (DHARA) of divine worship (ARADH).

Radha, the incarnate universe… the medium to unravel the immanent divinity of the absolute!

I quietly pay the bill and walk back towards the rocky beach. It is dark now. Around seven… I seat myself and gaze at the monster goddess in front of me. The goddess of unending shape and distance. The maker of life. The watery respite. The stable of the unstable. I am back staring at her. My face we with the watery slaps. She teases me like a lover, then assures me like a mother, she then rages like an angry land lady, then dances like Radha herself.

I keep a quite gaze. I subject myself to her.


Given to thee oh magnanimous! I am but a seed, take me away to the garden of the Parijat, And sow me there, For the blue one is aboard the Garuda and searching for me!


The night slowly drives the hoards of tourists away. And it is me and the sea and few strangers lingering on. It is getting late and I look at my watch but can’t see what time it is. It is very dark, a moonless night at that. I take out my mobile… it is 11’o clock. I stay put.


A solitary policeman comes and shudders his stick near me. Drawing my attention. Asking me to leave. I tell him I won’t cause any trouble, but he is not amused. So I amuse him. Hand him a hundred rupee note and off he goes. I hear the wanderer murmuring something. He is second guessing my questions. I ask him if there is merit in existence, in this entire struggle to cope up to life, in this everyday nonsense, in the infirm construct of a reality, in this maya?


He asks me to look at the sea and learn. I look at the sea, I can only hear her now, all is black like death. All is consumed except the white foam boarder of the invisible sea when it hits the rocks. Like death and cessation when Shiva had danced his “Tandav”, only white ashes in the darkest tomb of Shiva’s annihilating reality.


The destroyer!


Like Shiva’s tumult, the invisible black sea roars and rages, like rogue kids fighting under a blanket in a dark room. The black waters dash against the black rocks and are turned white, and hence visible.


I start to believe in futility of action and reaction. Of any action or reaction. The giant and unending sea surges towards the land and yet every time her will broken down by the cold black rocks. This eternal game, this waste tells me to not believe in action or home. For none exists in the dark womb of the true universe.

I keep the thought in my mind.


Time passes.

I am feeling extremely cold and uncomfortable. I try to move but my body is stiff. I look around and for a few minute thrown out of my wits. I woke up at the beach and it was before sunrise. I had slept on the rocky beach. I forgot to go back to the hotel. It was 5:30 a.m.

I looked at the sea and she was still dashing against the rocks, with joy of a child and therein I learned my true lesson and went back to my hotel.

Wanderer and the saucerful of magical absurdities

With the boarding pass in my hand, I alight the shuttle bus to the aircraft… edgy, eager and looking forward to my trip to Pondicherry. Since yesterday evening I have been feeling a pounding void inside of me. A deep longing… something gnawing at my core.

The news channels were abuzz with Pondicherry bring in the watery embrace of a cyclone. But I was not moved… the cyclone within was perhaps calling out to the two cyclone without.

I boarded the aircraft and was ecstatic to get the seat I yearned for. Window seat at the wing. I could see the clouds and also see the propellers and the entire right wing. I kept staring out. People filled in. It was time for takeoff. I was too lost… too fascinated looking out of the window of our stationary metal bird.

Outside were many more of these metal bird monsters. To me they appear like Garuda, the vehicle and emissary of lord Vishnu… only that these were metalized.

And then my favorite part of the flight the sudden thrust and off we are on the tarmac… surging towards the sky and in a jiffy lift off.

The entire episode happens to be the only interesting part of a flight journey, except may be the mid-air turbulence. Otherwise flights are boring. I am train journey chap. That too second class. You have not traveled to or through a place unless you have breathed its air, heard its voices, felt the verve.

Anyways the metal beast thunders and shudders and we are air borne. The ear starts to hurt as the bird soars higher.

For the first time I look to my left… at the passenger sitting next to me… and I am shocked beyond my wits.

Its him, the Wanderer! Boom!!!

“Goodness gracious! What the hell are you doing here”, I scream. But my scream is drowned in the jet propulsion.

And he is grinning at me. Wow!

“I can’t believe this. I knew this trip will be flushed with strange things. I knew it.” – I tell him. My voice hardly audible. He continues to grin, the Wanderer!

Slowly by the minute the metal bird, the spice Garuda grains altitude and the engine goes over to cruise mode , the cabin crew’s voices are now audible, the turbo blast is calmed.

The Wanderer speaks – “Let me start with quoting the American poet, ee cummings,
“here is the deepest secret nobody knows
here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud,
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;
which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart… i carry it in my heart.”

These lines dear Balaji, ought to establish why our lives are crisscrossing. Need I say more? I know not. Well. How have you been? You look sleepy. Sleep then. Don’t worry I will be around with you, through your trip. Intruding once in a while."

Although I was indeed sleepy, I was too astonished to sleep. I had to speak with him, query him, understand and probe…

I said, “well, tell me. What is this entire deal? You speak about love, about wandering, about seeking, about pursuits. And your friend on the other hand comes down hard and tells me to think about bigger things. About the cosmos, about the universe, about finding the true purpose of our existence. Both of you are supremely compelling in your own ways and I am at tenterhooks. To believe or let go, to plunge or withdraw. You both speak of opposite things. What do I do?”

To which the wanderer said – “dream boy… dream. For dreams are our only saviors. It is through our dreams and your writing that we will be able to make sense of this. Worry not about my friend. He has the purest of emotions and sacred is his concern about me, about you, about both of us, about this story. In all my wandering ages, I have found him to be my safest escort. Take my word, it is all for the good, as you people say.

I know what makes you take this trip and I am here to help you on this journey. The way you are helping me with my story and with my journey. Quid pro quo!"

I interrupt him, “But I want to know your story. Closely like I know myself. Tell me. I am all ears. I am so awed by the way you take love to be. Tell me about this night scorpion, this moon-faced fairy up the faraway tree, this sharp eyed lemur, who is she? Well is she even real? Do you love her? How does it feel to love her? Does she know, if she is real that is? But are not too old… you look a few centuries old easily. What’s she like?”

The wanderer puts his hand over mine in a reassuring gesture.

He says – “Relax Bala. You will know. There is nothing I will hide from you. But right now I want you to feel, Bala. Feel the way you want to feel about yourself. Tell me. How does it feel to be you? What is going on in your head? In your heart? Within you?”

I look at him and start talking, “I feel often lost, rudderless, free flowing without a tangible direction, I feel like a kite whose string has been snapped and the passing wind is taking it along to wherever it is going. I offer no resistance. I flow, madly without reason or purpose. I feel an urge… an urge to explode , to create a huge thump, dish-dash, cling-clang, slam-baam, like the propeller of this jet, like an exploding supernova, to burn like fuel, to consumer all and be consumed, like a burning comet, like Dhumketu, like a cosmic storm of fire raging in the dark universe, like a Tsunami, like a blind hurricane, like a drunk tornado, like an all shattering earthquake, like a raging forest fire, like a cyclone, like a ….”

The wanderer interjects and completes the thought – “… like a supersonic jet tearing through the skies and bursting the heavens at the seam. Boy you feel like a Sonic Boom! Don’t you? Boom! Boom! Sonic Boom!”

I smile back at him and say, “Yup, like a Sonic Boom!

Boom, Sonic Boom, Boom Sonic,
I am on my own, not on gin n’ tonic,
I blaze the sky, with the look in my eye,
I got no wings, and that’s why I fly,
Boom, Sonic Boom, Boom Sonic,
I tell the velvet eye, to wander the sky,
To the French town, to eat all the French fries,
Boom, Sonic Boom, Boom Sonic!”

The wanderer is humming a tune and he takes my words… “Boom, Sonic Boom, Boom Sonic,” and asks me to look outside the window.

I look out and I see the absurd vision. It is me outside, on the wings, not one but four MEs.

Spaced out over the right wing in a rhombus formation. Four freaking ‘MEs’ The one at the front, near the edge of the wing, was me with an ESP Explorer guitar with an ebony inlay fret board and with a steel mesh mike in front; the one to the left besides the window was me the bassist, to the back was me on 14x6.5" Bell Brass Snare Drum with All Zildjian Cymbals and the heavy duty works… the Cymbals were flying through the air as if in a fit of air trapeze feeling my hand only once in a while; the one to the far right was me, the lead guitarist with Gibson Firebird, bending and manipulating the air around the aircraft with my soul aching liquid leads. Those were all ‘MEs’, singing to the tune the wanderer was humming, singing to my lyrics, I could hear “‘em”… could hear me.

The one at the lead guitar had already started to peddle up, complex flow of fingers almost gliding through the fret board, so fast that only a haze of the hand is visible, only an approximate hand; the one on the bass was shaking his head like a monster and banging the living day lights out of the strings; the one at the drums was pounding so hard that the with every cymbal stroke the aircraft twisted toward the right and lost its balance momentarily, the one at the front , the front man, manning the vocals and rhythm guitar was screaming the all too familiar song, the one that was just conceptualized…

“Sonic Boom”, he stretched the word “Soneeec Boom, Soneeeeeec Booooooom!”, then with a sudden thump clipped the syllables… “Sonic B’om! Boom Sonic!” and so went the song.

A deafening rock concert on the wings of a plane… I watched them as they played out the rhythm from my mind, dripping words into the raging sea storm of the music. Boom Sonic!

Then suddenly, there was turbulence in the air and I peeped down the wings to see how the world looked. The moment I tilted my head, hoping to get a better view of the world from the window, the metal beast, the Garuda, swayed to the right, plummeting rapidly. I sensed it was to do with my vision... I had caused it to drop, my need to see the world below has pushed the aircraft to drop… now I was in a daze... the drop in altitude had caused the blood to rush up to my brain… I was feeling light headed… I tried to look up and focus on the monster band playing on the wings… what I now saw was very different… instead of four ‘MEs’ it was only one ‘ME’ but like a headen god, like Ravana meshed with Vishnu, I had four heads, eight arms, like one composite stage act, each doing his own thing, playing to the Sonic Boom. One gothic monster playing out my song. The bassist, besides the window was now one of the heads protruding from the analogous neck, was giving me an eyeball. I looked out at him in amazement. He looked at me with rage. I heard them out play my song, multifarious variations of it, numerous times over and over again.

I looked inside the airplane and the Wanderer was staring at me. I asked him if he also saw what I saw.

He said – “I was too busy being me, my dear, I was watching the night scorpion circling the sky, looking at mortals below, eyeing her target, mounting her sting and inflicting me with her venom, the venom that makes me the wanderer, the one who rides the desert winds, the one who understands each one of those mirages, the one who forever seeks the oasis by the palm tree.”

I ask him, “how does she look like, is she really a scorpion, an arachnid?”

He smiles back and asks me to look outside the window.

I look out and see that the rock monster of me has disappeared into thin air and now I could see the plane gliding over the clouds, white clouds, like blurbs of shaving foam. Slowly one of the bigger foam blurb starts to shift shape, I could see a face emerging, a familiar yet distance face, I could see that it is a face of girl, big and bright, the rays of the sun reflecting on her face or is that she is radiating that light I am not sure. But the face is huge and round, like a moon, and at the same time bright and glorious like the sun, the face is fiery orange, and I can see a pair of eyes as if exuding fire… and I feel a sense of déjà vu. I have seen this face. It is near. But I cannot confidently ascertain who this is. I look at the wanderer and he is blissfully lost in thought. I look out again, but the face is gone. Now there is no face. Just more white blurbs of shaving foams.

I turn to the wanderer and say, “I saw her. Was it her? Was it your night scorpion? Well she doesn’t look like a scorpion. The face was beautiful.”

The wanderer responded, “Well she has many faces, she too like us is a shape shifter, she is both the sun and the moon and the intervening darkness.”

He then takes out from his hand baggage an ivory saucer and a vial of purple serum. Pours out the liquid from the vial into the saucer and hands it over to me.

I drink without question. And then my mind slowly blurs. Before I passed out I recall the Wanderer’s words… “I will be with you through this trip, in you, you won’t even notice for most parts, but then you will know that there is someone inside of you, inside your freaking head who is not you. That would be me Bala. We wander together for some time now.”

I passed out.

Wanderer – beyond the pale blue dot

After reading the letter from the Wanderer, I was all set to meet the Wanderer’s friend at the café. I believed without doubt that I will find him sitting on the same red wood table where I had the two encounters.

I folded the letter into my blazer pocket and headed out. I was back to travelling public transport. Wanted all my time and attention to be on my journey, not on driving, not looking out for traffic of life, not bothered about looking at indicators of turns in life, not sucked into shifting gears, or the need to accelerate or to break. I wanted to be driven to my destination like a prayer.

I kept taking out the letter from my coat pocket and reading portions of it before I put it back. This happed a few times before my ride ended and I was just across the café.

Without wasting time, I rushed into the oriental old-world building that housed the café. I entered this time with such certainty that I could see the Wanderer’s friend smiling at me even before the door opened. There he was, broad-shouldered and quaint, wearing a steel gray cots wool overcoat.

I said hello.
He said, “About time” and smiled.

Without saying much I handed over the letter. He kept staring at me while holding the letter in his left hand. I said, go ahead. Read it. He didn’t care much. But I insisted. Suddenly his face turned a bit tense, a bit irritated, a bit of every emotion that I was uncomfortable with.

He said –“So all this is a damned joke to you. You consider this to be some kind of a thrilling story line. You come here, we tell you some crazy stuff, you glorify it, you pen it down, garner the creative credit, and greed for more. You have any idea how you are making it seem like? Do you have any idea? Any fucking idea?

Boy, do not test my patience. There is nothing that you can test in me. For once get this straight; I am not your juke box of knowledge. I came here because the Wanderer saw something in you, something that I believe to be true. I did not come here for your misguided projectile youth. So stop treating this as your prerogative.
Do I make myself amply clear?”

I was taken aback and it took me a moment before I could gather my thoughts and respond.
I said, in a shocked state of mind, “what did I do? I do not understand what you are saying.”

He retorted – “Well, look around you. What do you think is happening? With you and in your life? Do you actually think that all this while we have been here to gift you a story? Really?

Damn it. Do you think all this brewing is for some forsaken story of love? Do you think this is all about some random guy, who knows nothing but Wandering, falling into love endlessly? Do you think this is about some melancholic story of love, longing and completion? Or do you think this is about some moment in your life when your art of writing has been earmarked and some benefactor has sent down two agents to guide you to your glory. Fuck you!

This is not a linear, chronological, epitaph for you to journal.

This is life as it was commissioned to be. LIFE, the story of its commissioning, the narration of being, the counting of the mid-day cash at the counter, counting of the sheep before moving ahead, this is the journey back, the journey to when it all started, to where it all started, to why it all started, to whom it all started with. This is the story of nature and its beyond. The story of the great beyond.
Look at this picture (taking out a photograph out of his coat pocket). Look at this grand revelation, the spoof of all times, look at this, do you understand what you are looking at? Can you spot anything of significance? Anything at all? Do you even see anything you recognize in there? Anything?

Damn it and you think it is about some wandering bugger. Damn it!
Look closely at this for a moment or as long as you would want to (pushing the photograph towards me on the table).”

I looked at it and could not make head or tale of it. An underexposed photograph with slanting lines going through as if some murky light filtering through a black curtain into a dark room. That’s it. That’s all I saw.

I looked up to him, and made a contorted lip movement amply displaying my ignorance and the disability to make any sense of the photograph.

He asked– “What is your favorite color?”

I responded, “Green, bottle green, in fact clear bottle green to be precise.”

He continued – “Well, do you even see a semblance of green in there? In the photograph! Look closely, young man. Look at the tiny dot on in the middle of the brown inflection bar to the right. Look at that pale blue dot. Do you see it?”

Following instructions, I looked closely. I found what he was referring to.
I said, “Yes”

Moving on, he said – “Well that little spec, that little pale blue dot, that “you don’t even have to blink to miss” dot is our beloved planet. It’s a real photograph. Taken by the Voyager from space panning into our solar system.

Understand the perspective. It is important that you do so. This snapshot puts our planet in perspective of our solar system. Now imagine the enormity of our solar system. Can you? How do you feel? Weird? Small? Insignificant? Like a non entity?

Now consider this. This was just a view from within the solar system. Imagine how our planet will look if we pan out and look at our Galaxy, which contains innumerable such solar systems. Imagine the swirling Milky Way with millions of such solar and interstellar systems and then try and picture earth in that pudding of heavenly bodies and stars. Flummoxed? So soon?

Now try and put it in perspective the fact that in the “known universe”, as we know it, as Science and human race understands and defines it, there are about 500 billion such galaxies. So if one has to spot Milky Way in the burst of galaxies in the known universe it might not even be visible as a dot.

And to loop this up, let us put the so-called “known universe” in perspective to the entire ever expanding cosmos. Well, well! That’s a tricky order. Would you agree? The known universe, the extent of Science’s reach is only a drop in the larger ocean of the unknown universe, perhaps even less.

Having said what I just said, look at the pale blue dot in the larger schema. Does this mean anything? Anything of real consequence?

The life, the complications, the splendor of the perceivable, the aching of the unperceivable, the gimmick of success, the dangling of failure, the edginess of wait, the strut of the gait, the rhythm of the rhyolite, the silent smirk of ignis fatuus, of all that and everything else. Is it of consequence on a nearly non-existent planet of ours, the collective memory of millenniums, the million and one gods, the theology of religions, the billions and billions of life forms, the rock and roll, the blues, the maroons, the long hair, the crew cut, the nose pins, the roadster, the toaster, the ipod, personal gods, the velvet fist with a iron rod, the make belief, the military chiefs, the romantic novel, the white witch, the dark knight, the dull and the bright, the ace of spades, the queen of hearts, the jester card, the Avon bard, the B-52s, the concord cruise, the Titanic, the Carpathia, the Sitar, the electric guitar, the walking mummies, the dying babies, the virgin mother, the unborn god, the fluke, the lucky princess, the unlucky toads, the flying monkey, the barrels of sin, iss din, uss din, ye saare din.

Do you get me young man?

I mean there has to be some grand design. Don’t you think so? I mean this can’t be just for kicks set up. Can it? Look at it, why would someone, say GOD, sprinkle dust of life on this pale blue dot? Importantly, is it not naïve to believe, and not merely assume, that life roots only on this tiny spec of a planet? I mean come on.

Give up your screwed up blockages and think rationally, and I mean truly rationally for once. Putting all this in perspective… Who could have, would have done this? And why? And then what are we supposed to do? Just play out this seemingly insignificant existence of ours in the ant hole? Is that all? Is this all that we have or are meant to do. To foreclose our being in a tiny wormhole in this universe. Loose our sense to anonymity?

Think of this young man and seek your answers. For we will meet again here in a few days time. For now I need to go.”

And he left me there… in this café… with a lukewarm cuppa by my side to chew on this.
End of day!

Letter from the wanderer

After meeting two forces of nature, the wanderer and his friend, over two different encounters, I was ready for more. I knew my next meeting will be with the wanderer’s friend. I was all geared up, packed in my questions, neatly rested my mind, was all happy.

Just then the door bell rang, my mom went to open the door. After about half a minute, I heard calling my name. I rushed out of my room to the door. It was a courier. I received the envelop and signed the counterfoil.

Walking calmly back to my room, I ripped apart the envelope from its sides and pulled out the letter. It was addressed to me, “dear Bala”. I flipped the pages to see who had undersigned. It read, “Yours, always, Wanderer”.

I felt a cold sweat trickle down my spine, my hands were trembling and were cold. For some reason I was shit scared. It was as if the motifs of this entire episode had started to invade my life, my home.

From meetings in some coffee shop to my home, my bedroom, “The sanctum sanctorum”. It was until now, a just for kicks, bring it on, let us have some metaphysical fun. But now it was in my life. Forcing its way like a gust of wind from below the door.

I started reading the letter…

****************
Dear Bala,
Last day of October!
Since now you are truly into my story, and are penning it for me I would like you to publish this rapture for me.

“Yuppie! My hunch worked. It feels awesome. Losing as a word has ceased to be in the dictionary of my life. This has primed me up. The meeting with her. One glimpse of her and it felt like love. The same it felt before. Marquee feelings going round in my head.
It tasted like ecstasy for a moment. Like choco-chip muffin. The melting cocoa of love. The boiling pot for that instant. The scorpion of the night sky. She, the “now-for-the-moment” angel with big moom like face, eyes bright as sun rays, smile half concealed of our past. Basically, the works.

The prima facie evidence of heart’s calling. The magic of small moments, the innocent overture of young love. That’s the thing, bamb! Love keeps us young. Irrespective of our recent conditioning. It makes us young, defying age and experience even if for a few moments.
It breaks the occult of time and bondages. It frees the spirit and at once we kneel down and drink out of the ocean of love.

For me, it is a promise that I will never fall out of myself. I will stick to my convictions, go by my heart, abide by its calling, and shamelessly give into its command. And in doing so, feel sane. And hope that one day, just like that, love will answer back and I will be taken.
Now, I am relying on such miracles. These miracles are my norm. The joy of loving each wandering step. Finding a soothing balm in every tiring step. I don’t know if I have choice, or even if a choice truly exists. But that doesn’t hinder me. I carry on, without boundaries, into shapelessness. Rules merit no mention, and rules of the world merit no worldly mention.

The wait is enjoyable. I am liking it. Nice and soft and this time so full of wisdom, especially knowing how it’s going to end. I feel the path ahead, like clockwork, every step, it’s as if god gave me the power to love, and that love gave me the power to control it. But I let it go, scot free… like a bird in the open sky, like a flowing river, like an overflowing giblet of wine.

I touch thee or thy ‘will’ not. For this sweet bitter longing and “up to chance” thing is more fruitful than all of certainties. The anticipation, the verve, the moments, the spark, the ocean of love overflowing into me, like a never ending saga. My heart pounding, just by her presence in the periphery. The shake of my hand as I write this, the thoughts overflowing out of me, but my words failing to keep up.

I wait in pure anticipation… for her, for her acknowledgement, for her to walk up to me, break the code of social and safe conduct and say something, anything. I don’t care. Just about anything, anything at all. God help!

It is a feeling I am sure of more than I ever did. It is the anticipation of love’s response through no less than love itself.

Well as for me it tells me that love is worth all this. It tells me that I am still young; it tells me that no matter what… there is a safe white place for love. Where is there no harm, no fears, no inhibitions, no restrains, no stoppages, no nothings. A place where love and hate don’t collide, no boundaries that divide, no masks that hide, magic and love, all of selfless pride.

I don’t think it’s a waste, no its not. It is all worth it… centum worth. But I also know… despite the fanfare, it’s at best is going to be a fledging moment, post which I will be all alone, stranded.

“But how can I be lost, when I have no place to go”, sooths James Hetfield.

I stay focused and stray for that once glimpse. Please don’t steal it away from me. If it has to come as a clichéd writer’s moment… so be it.

I will wait and let the summary of the world be written at this moment. Steal it boy! Steal it like a breathing populace. Steal the charming by the dozens.”

After reading this letter, I was finding it difficult to picture up the wanderer. He was old, full of wisdom, full of fullness. This was juvenile, young, quirky, like a young kid throwing tantrum for candy and trying to romanticize his craving for it. But what the heck, as a writer I am loving every moment of this. So much to write about, so easy to get a hook, so easy to fantasize and mesmerize.

I am going to take this letter to the Wanderer’s friend and show him what his old buddy is up to.

Before I brush this aside as some clear happy shit, I am tempted to read into the date when the Wanderer wrote this and it kind of spooks me.

Seeking the wanderer... God Gene

(Suggested pre-read Wanderer)

I have been wandering ever since. The encounter with the ageless wanderer had left me muzzled up. All I could do all these while was howl and scream and run the last words the he left me with in my heart.

“My love train stops at no station, no passengers abode, just the driver and the guard… set perennially apart by the manifest, by the jest, by the infirm test, by the world and the rest…”

I kept going back to the same café in search of the legendary wanderer but to no avail. With each failed attempt my angst and frustration grew louder. Today was supposed to be the last visit to the café. The moment I entered, I saw a familiar silhouette; of a man sitting at the exact same table, where I met the wanderer earlier. My heart was overjoyed. I rushed to grab a seat next to the gentlemen. I sat down and greeted him.

He looked up. To my dismay it was not the wanderer I had met before. It was someone else. I felt disappointed and at the same time also embarrassed that I had barged into someone’s personal space. I said sorry.

The man, almost sixty, replied back –
“Boy, you must be Balaji and must be looking for the wanderer. He told me all about you and how you helped him pen his story. He told me you come here every day and wait for him and go home disappointed. He feels sorry for you. But he can’t make it to this place for quite a while now. Instead he asked me to meet you and here I am.”

I felt strange, really strange. I asked him who he was.

He responded, “Well, I am an old friend of his. He wanted me to thank you for taking his story to the world and he knows it is in safe hands. But he also knows that the encounter with him had left you with many questions. You can ask me the questions boy; I will give you the answers that he would have given you. Word by word!”

My first question, Is it really love? Really? For so many women?

He responded, “Poor you! must be traumatized. Well young man, let me put in a way it really is and then you decide whether you want to call it love or not.

Technically speaking, right at the time when god was toying with the idea of Genesis, he realized that he needs to have a one-on-one connection with all his creation all the time. He knew he needed a platform that afforded no outages, no noise. He also felt the need for peer to peer connection between his creation so that he could relay signals. After much mulling over this, he knew what was required. He embedded invisible traces of himself in each of his creation. Ardent grains of god blended into each soul. Each grain having a certain, specific and unique pairing code for relay signaling and a universal architecture for seamless summation at the cosmic cash counter. This was full proof, tiny seeds of gods embedded into each vessel.

Well don’t get overwhelmed young man, this was the only technical part, rest all is emotional as you would like to call it.

The flavor of god within our Wanderer had started to churn. When the churning gathers momentum, it releases a sweet, heavy, pull somewhere between his lungs. An ecstatic central thump in his chest, a dish-dash, which suddenly makes you see the seams of the universe. A feeling of glorious foolishness, a kick, a swirl, a tilt, a sway, a connection stronger than the one when we pray. The onset of god’s direct, overbearing, tangible presence in us. It’s flame, a spark, a mark, that would talk. It talks, he listens. It commands, he obeys. It directs, he delivers. Now his heart is fully radioactive – like an active radio it transmits and receives, without modulation, the link to the absolute signal.

He continues to wander… for he searches and searches for years, decades, centuries, millenniums, within the shores of eternity. He searches for the vessel, which not only emits, but has become the true emblem of that cut piece signal. He searches for his completion, the one that resides in the hallway of time… a consummation of his soul with the stark water paradise. A cosmic union, at a time and place when and where he himself will attain his pinnacle and his love will wander carelessly to a woman who would be ready to relay the signal home. The magnetic match whose value will be precise to the value of Pi to the last decimal. A day and place when he will cease to wander. A day and place when he will unfold the hammock by the tree and laze around in company of his love and slowly disappear into the sky.

Until then, this wandering is his calling. To find the vessel, to find vessels, to understand her, to understand them, to understand his true calling, understand the mechanics of love’s true nature, to understand why his radio hooks up to this frequency, to understand where this channel will lead him, to understand this sub-relay (relay within the larger relay), to understand his own self, his true currant, the blackest currant.

And through this journey, many worlds would swim across him, bringing him hope and despair, love and hate, free will and fate, timelessness and date, empty bottles and crates. Then the spark will be fanned by his true pursuit and it will engulf the forest of his life, blow out of proportion, like a million supernova exploding at the same time, it will be the brightest light on the every darkest night. It will be his absolution. His answers without the questions. Like an electromagnetic wave it will dissolve all else, and love would shine the brightest.

And through this journey, he will touch upon the vessels of his calling, the women in whose being his god finds a match, he will seek, until there is nothing left to seek in that vessel, and through this he will learn the baby steps of god, of tactical deficiency of life and attainment, and en route rub off his magic to these women, and unassumingly guide them towards their own destiny, prod them to their wondrous acme, and one of these very women would without fail quench his eternal thirst and making him flow into god, eventually.

That’s it young man. That’s the all I wanted to tell you when you asked me the question.”

Whoaaaaaaaaa... I had no clue what to do now, what else to ask him next.

But cutting through this seamlessly endless ocean of knowledge, the gentleman asked me a question.

“Tell me young man, what should the wanderer do? If I told you that the women he pursues now holds only promise of knowledge and would not be his grace. Should he hold back the wave of his heart? What should my friend do?”

I looked into the old man’s eyes and replied –

“So if from rank to rank she darts her ardent eyes,
let she find only love, and if love be thy true calling,
let it find its own path!
Keep the flame burning bright, Foreknowledge is alright,
You take only what was yours, in your unending flight.”

I was amazed at what I had heard, at what I had said, at how all this was beginning to shape up. I felt an irresistible urge to dart back home, write this down, word by word… the way it happened.

I asked for the old man’s leave. Said I will be back tomorrow to meet him again. He only smiled back. Put his hand through his coat pocket and pulled out an old world silver business card holder. Carefully, like all old men, he took out one card and handed it over to me. Without looking at it I put it in my kurta pocket.

I still do not have the guts to see what the card reads!

At this juncture, I would like to quote myself - “A day will come when you will see, I will turn into the answers I once asked of thee”

Wanderer

Off late I have been making wandering visits to coffee shops, pubs, old world shopping arcades like Connaught Place and even to weekend flea markets. Not for fun or recreation, but to find pieces of life I had lost. Moments that now seem too distant to be real, yet so real to be close. I am turning into wanderlust!

In one of my wandering visits to a quaint coffee shop that also served hookah I met this seasoned wanderer. A wanderer who traversed through life like a smoke screen. He was now beginning to blur at his edges, getting sort of translucent, almost like a watermark. Yet he held on to his stories, his experiences, his only definitive definition.

My privilege of getting to know him was a result of a lazy Saturday afternoon that had hordes of people flocking the coffee haven. Unlike the super-commercial Cafés of the times, this one had an old world bookish charm. I had to park myself at the only available seat in the joint, and with due permission of this gentleman who didn’t seem to mind having company on the same table, at such close quarters.

I ordered my hookah to be made ready and a mug of Cuban coffee along with raisin croissant. It took about ten minutes for the order to be served, and during these ten minutes I had started to write something in my diary… totally oblivious of my company.

The gentlemen spoke, “I remember you, I had seen you years ago. So frivolous you were. Full of possibilities of defining the world as you deem fit. And look at you now; you are falling into the same pattern as I have.”

I looked up at this unwelcomed rhetoric. Hoping to snipe back… but looking at him, into his eyes, my tongue froze. I was transfixed. I was his slave until he deemed fit to relieve me. He had some kind of supernal power over me. I gave in.

He said, “I need you to write my little story, my little thought bubble, on this piece of paper.”
I started to write as he spoke – “I have been wandering through this life in search of something that I haven’t found until this date. I have tried life, love, lust, longing, labor, trust, adventure, alcohol, drugs, coffee, wine, women, god, truth, temper, fear, levitation, and the list is endless. I have tried all there is to try. But I still am unquenched. My soul still longs for completion and cessation.

Of all things, I gathered through this tireless and unending journey, it is my memory that I cherish the most, my memory that I hold close to my heart, like a lover who keeps image ethereal images of his first love.

And I want you to write this as I remember it. Word to word. The story of my love, the stories of my love. I am incapable of not being in love. The one state of being foolishly in love defines my core. As my memory serves me right, I do not recall one moment when love was not washing me ashore. Sometimes like gentle tide of the frothy ocean and at other times dashing me to the rocks, until I bled through my eyes and created the Red Sea.

For all these years, I am constantly falling in love. It all started when I was a young lad, probably four or five. I saw this girl, big black eyed, huge face like a full moon, and I knew that for that moment and forever I wanted to be with her. We were in our first grade, we spent three wonderful years together in school before my parents moved to a new place and I had to switch schools. I love her until this day. She might have changed ever since, might be all old and wrinkled, but I still remember her as my morning sun. I wish she could read this. I wish.
Then years went by, switching two schools since then, I fell in love again. This time with the perfect Juliet of all times. If I were a writer like you, I would cast her as Juliet in every story. I was in my sixth grade, I had fallen head over heels with this silky haired girl. I could see no further, I knew that she was the girl I would like to grow old with. Boyhood dilemmas played havoc with my young innocent beating heart. I could not gather courage to walk up to her and paint her red with the teenage mush that I was the prime originator of. The opportune moment passed by and I experienced what we melancholically call a one-sided love. The prima- genitive of all of the poetry in this world. I then realized the bridge over the troubled waters could only be crossed by the true poet and the lover had to concede to poetry at this juncture. I became a poet.

Then life trudged on and I had frequent bouts of love for new women and recurring occultism of unending nature of all my loves. They all came back to me in my head and made it a timeless museum. They came in hordes, they outnumbered me. Yet I always had unwavering and abundant love for all of them. I was feeling like the giver of thoughts, the cornucopia of love for all those who were flushed with my heart. My sanctuary grew in space and in humble numbers, I fell in love incessantly, repeatedly, with the same women, finding her in new faces, in gazes, in new chases. I fell for her every time, through voice and mime, through whisky and lime, through cedars and pine, until I lost what was hers and what was mine.

Many summers went by and the winter’s cold kept at bay, by the unrelenting lantern of love. I was now a young man, all of twenty two solar revolutions old. And love my boy was the perfect bride I was waiting for.

And she happened. Love happened. Yes it did. Again.

I stepped into a room full of people who were hoping to make the cut into the post graduation school. I saw this timeless beauty, somehow knew what her name was, went ahead and called her by her name and she answered. Surya. The sun goddess, the miracle of light. The poet in me was now dancing in the ecstasy of a new found love. The poet was on a song. A rockstar! We started connecting at levels where consciousness ends. We exchanged thoughts through mere gazes, understood all before anything was ever said. It was the dream run, this machine was waiting for. But little time played its tricks. It was to be my mnemonic to move on. She got married, I got wasted. But that was that, for we before parting exchanged our art. I gave her my poetry and she her sketches. Our love had consummated. The meeting of the artists. Those dizzying heights of artistic playfulness when we knew what our hearts and arts meant.

Then for a while I was down, blood drunk in the darkest corner of my poetry. Like a ship wreck, I floated up unto the far reaches of eternity to find my love’s longing back. And in one of those eclectic visits to the other side of the universe, I felt a strong need to go back to where I came from.

When I reached life, I found my dear friend, morphed into my love. She and I, I and She, we fell in love. We loved. For years, we were together, we married each other. She was, presumably my best foil. Then my destiny cornered me. We fell off, but my love endures. Forever it endures. For it endures, I give it the least footage in the story. This is the meatiest part, hence hardly any need to marinate. She taught me, for the first time, how to love when you fall apart.

Through all this surreal and often chaotic experience of loves in my life, I found this sharp-eyed half-real women. Instantly fall head over heels with her. In her kurties I see pagan symbols of my own life, mocking at me, yet I fall in her, until a time that I would indulge in my root’s call and the shape would shift, the moment would drift, the veil would lift. Till that time it is “Aradhana”… the scorpion at the night, the lotus of fire, the balance in my lunar aspect, the conditioner of the moon, the disciple of the divine spark.

My love train stops at no station, no passengers abode, just the driver and the guard… set perennially apart by the manifest, by the jest, by the infirm test, by the world and the rest…”

Just then, a voice interrupted, excuse me… here is your hookah and your order. I looked up to the waiter in daze. He smiled and placed the order neatly on the small redwood table and walked away. I looked back at the gentlemen. But he was gone. Although, the book he was reading was lying on the table. The cover of the book read… “The song celestial”.

I felt an irresistible urge to cry and I cried in the coffee shop for hours after this episode. I cried when I came back home. I cried for days. Whenever I think of this episode, I explode into howling cries. And it made me remember what love is.

Conspiracy

Humpty Dumpty spat on the wall,
Finding what we miss in every call,
The wall answered before the mighty fall,
When you stand together, you stand tall.
Humpty Dumpty disagreed and had a brawl,
They no longer played together with the ball.

Let us take an off the tangent view at everyday things. Let us just for kicks look at things in a different and not so “normal” way. Everyday happenings, events, “coincidences”.

Do you think there is a universal spoof being orchestrated on us? Some sort of a grand theft being carried out to steal little moments off our lives?

Imagine a day, when everything went along as if you were the director of the movie called life. Imagine it for a moment, how many retakes would you foster in your head to make it just perfect. And just when you are ready to roll, lights, camera, action. The universal spook begins to ghost direct your movie. All your dream sequences, randomly yet methodically, disrupted. Leaving you frustrated and at your wits end.
Does it feel irritating? If so, relax this was just a dream movie sequence. Not your “real” life.

What happens to your “real” life is worse.

You wake up with simple and achievable thoughts about a day. Thoughts so simple that they give you happiness, joy and contentment. But all of a sudden, some pieces are moved, wires switched, cards swapped. Your simple plans go for a toss.

Do you let this pass by as merely as a normal pattern of life? The way things are. Be subservient to the thought that we can’t control these things? That these obstructions happen randomly and have no “read between the lines” message.

Well as I urged, let us take a different view at life. Let us look at a day in the life of Mr Humpty.

“Humpty wanted to spend the whole of Saturday with his friend Dumpty. Humpty was feeling a deepened sense of having to share his feelings with Dumpty. This was very important to Humpty, yes it was. It was a deep craving. The entire day with Dumpty on the wall. It was all planned and agreed.

Come Saturday morning, Dumpty gave Humpty a call that he was to go meet another friend and will not be able to make it to the wall in the first half of the day.
Crack in the sky. Humpty’s craving quashed. Humpty felt that someone was trying and succeeding in parts to make sure Humpty didn’t live his day as planned. That someone was conspiring against his will to share his heart out to Dumpty on that day. He needed a full day with Dumpty for it to work for him. But now half the day was lost.

Humpty and Dumpty met in the evening at the wall. Humpty was irritated, Dumpty was confused.
The moment was almost gone, but Humpty tried to empty his heart . Just when Humpty was about to share his deepest feelings, concerns, it was nearly time to go. The rules of the world, its late, gotta go home. Again the intruder stealing away Humpty’s life.

When there were only a few minutes remaining for them of the evening. Humpty got a call on his cell, it was home calling, again those last few minutes too stirred.
And this joke continues, day after day, years at length. One day it is reason x, the other day reason y. It continues. Like a sick experiment.”

The above “day in the life of Humpty” might appear ordinary, so what’s the point, what’s the message kind of story. But the fact is that this happens to each one of us. Our little moments stolen. We don’t realize it. Like dishonest servant, who steals silverware behind the back for years. And when we get old, the thief becomes a robber. Barges in our lives and takes what’s rightfully ours at gun point.

Damn. I don’t know why I wrote this post. Just had a feeling in my head. Didn’t want the universal thief to steal it away. So penned it down. Irrespective of what sense this makes, I have managed to keep my moment with me. I feel happy, feel relieved that I could finish this.

But I feel sad for Humpty. But more than being sad, I would like to do something for Humpty.

Can anyone suggest what I can do?