Indian Coffee House

After a very long time I visited Indian Coffee House (ICH) in my native town Trichur. The décor and the furniture’s are all the same. Once inside memories rushed back as I am fairly familiar with this place. I was automatically drawn to the same corner table where we can see the entire view of the coffee house. Once up on a time we used to spent long time here. The restaurant is filled with its distinctive Coffee smell.

I was dripping into nostalgia of bygone era. We discussed Marxism, existentialism, jean Paul Sartre, Franz Kafka, M. Mukundan, O.V.Vijayan, Aravindan and what not sitting in this table. All that was fashionable then and we used to spend the entire humid evenings during college holidays talking meaninglessly about all this. We pretended to be a part of intelligentsia - perhaps which was a part of growing up.

In this place you can spend lot of time chatting, discussing or dreaming without any interruptions. Café Coffee Day and Costa coffee and the likes perhaps borrowed this concept from Indian coffee house or In India ICH is the first to introduce this model. ICH is always very loud, people talking and laughing without bothering about etiquettes. I always felt this is the best place to share secrets as no one will bother about you nor will any listen in this chaos.

When I left Trichur to Delhi my friends gave me a goodbye party of Masala Dosa and coffee in this same table. That was a very touching moment. I left the place as if I will never come back.

Fortunately I found one ICH in Delhi, near Connaught place. I frequented the place alone, watching and experiencing Delhi. The Delhi ICH was very loud with politicians and advocates; I realized that student population has ignored this place. Habitually people talked politics and cheap gossips and they used abusive words without any mercy.

As I started working I didn’t had any time to go to ICH and slowly lost touch. During my vacations to home town I was curious to venture to new eateries as I wanted to explore the progress of my town. I forgot Marxism and Existentialism, as I more and more concentrated in the fight for my own existence. I lost touch with Mukundan and in fact to the literary scene itself. Occasionally I turned the pages of cineblitz or some other gossip magazines. Although I made some material progress I lost touch with most of my passions.

When I relocated to Bangalore, again I found an ICH on M. G. Road and I regained my connection. The ambiance was very good and as usual the food tasty and modest. I frequented this place with friends but this time like most office goers the talk was about office, increment, promotions and stupidity of superiors as if we got into the vicious circle of life’s futility.

ICH always attracted crowed with a difference. They served the same humble food over the years without any fancy and fare; still standing tall with all its modesty in these times of café coffee day. If anyone gives me an option of ICH and Costa Coffee, I will certainly prefer ICH.

My salutation to you ICH!

Death & Dying

We human beings live our life as if we are going to be here forever. At younger age we do not bother about death as it does not come into your thoughts and dreams. We become so possessed with our possessions and pleasures, we spend most of our time engaging in this activity and there is no time to think about death.

Someone has said each second we live and we die. Death is like a shadow that is always with us as inseparable. We are alive, therefore we have to die, and I think this is the simplest explanation available.

Death started haunting me from very young age and it was a never ending journey in search of the meaning of death and dying.

I still remember when my grandmother died, immediately they shifted her from bed to the floor, tied her legs together and put cotton in her nose and ears, removed all her jewellary. I could not believe this transformation from human being to corpse in seconds.

What makes a body to a corps in seconds? Is it because the heart stops beating? Or all the biological activity and breathing stops. I learned in my quest that it is more than due to all this. What we call as myself somehow is seems to be something more than our body. It is because our mind leaves our body, or the connection between our mind and body ceases.

There are different thoughts in different philosophies round the world. Hindu’s believes that once the “Prana” leaves our body we die. Since I do not experience my “Prana” it is easy for me to refer it as my energy. Prana or Mind or energy whatever it may be, I think we can feel that.

So there is something which you can feel within you but not see. Therefore the medical explanation available in books describing death is too mediocre. We die because that something which you can feel but not see ceases to exist in human beings.

There are several good books written by Dr Elizabeth Kubler Ross, like Death and dying and life after death etc. In these books she documents the transition very clearly. She has given narrative instances from near death experiences. Those who have undergone such experiences have explained their feelings of floating outside the body for few seconds.

We also indulge in extensive rituals after death in the family. I feel we ritualize death and dying as humans need ritual to deal with mortality. Often I remember the rituals I had undergone at the time of my grandmothers death and it has left an ever longing impression on my mind.

I have seen inscriptions of “Rests in peace” in cemetery, and wondered whether we have to die to rest in peace. If we cannot rest in peace in the present life which is very much in our hands whether we can rest in peace after death? Will our “prana” carry the burden of sufferings forward?

For some people death comes as a blessing, for those who suffer painful disease. Perhaps they may rest in peace at death. I have experienced that people who dye a natural death enjoy serenity towards the end.

Recently I went to an ICU to see my mother in law and found many critically ill people surviving there supported by machines and tubes r. That was a suffocating scene. The ICU smelled the smell of death. The smell and silence was haunting while the patients struggled alone in a caged atmosphere.

I feel one should have luck to have a natural death. A peaceful transition in a calm and serene atmosphere is all we can long for.

If we realize how fragile our life is and how at any moment it could be turned upside down, we will walk very kindly and modestly in this planet.

Cowards Strike Again

The cowards have attacked again from the darkness targeting innocent people. These innocent people’s sufferings accomplish their goals of instilling fear and use them as specific symbols.

I know for sure that religious terrorists are not believers, but misguided lots by so called religious leaders who use them as weapons to meet their hidden agenda. Any religion which propagate killings of gods own creations as a means can only be that of anti Christ’s. Going by any religious beliefs or teachings by realized masters, they are not going to attain heavenly abode, but will be trampled between the wheels of life’s cycle itself.

“Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, The Beneficent, the Merciful. Owner of the Day of Judgment, Thee (alone) we worship; Thee (alone) we ask for help. Show us the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast favoured. Not (the path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray. “

In the above verse from Holy Quran we pray to Allah to show us the straight path, the favoured path. The terrorist simply refuse to understand this, as they do not belong to any religion, leave alone Islam. The “owner of judgment” will decide their fate.

I have started believing that religious terrorism is clearly a failure of the very purpose that religion stands for, as it failed in creating harmony in the world. The basic purpose of any religious teachings is to enhance human wisdom and to elevate us to blissfulness by the teachings. If any religion fails in this endeavor that is the sign of its irrelevance. Therefore the religious leaders should renounce these terrorists from the respective religion.

Like terrorists our political leadership is also full of cowards. They lack commitment to eradicate terrorism. They have to survive with vote bank politics. Our police join hand with underworld that has nexus to terrorists. It appears in this vicious circle, we the common man is crucified time and again. Long live our democracy!

Central government had no time to govern the country since the day they came into power as they never got out from the scandals one after another. With a weak and invisible leader the team was busy harvesting wealth by all means. Terrorism and havoc in the country perhaps help them to do this without gaining much attention.

Our legal system is so liberal it allows the terrorist to have a safe stay in the jails spending tax money collected from the people. I have no idea whether justice will happen and if so when?

I know that the time is not to talk or analyze but to act. “Aam Admi” needs to wake up from the sleep.

Keith Barton wrote:-

Terrorist threats predicated by ideology
Of a sick mind who worships idolatry
Cowards disguised as martyrs
Who destroy and slaughter
Innocent people
Who worship under steeples

Terrorism is not a war
It’s fear from those we abhor
Religious epithets and ethnic slurs
Produce a monster like swine before pearls
Innocent children
Hearts not yet hardened

Terrorism will not be defeated
Until nations unite against those conceited
Misguided souls propelled by delusion
That life is but an illusion
Governments cannot win this war
But each person must face this chore

Terrorism is part of our history
Since Abraham, it’s not a mystery
Inhumanity and humanity co-exist
Between the precipice and the abyss
For we reside between heaven and hell
Where will you be when He rings the bell?

A walk in the Rain

It started pouring from the sky one day all at once, as if the thick clouds released its entire burden on earth. The monsoon has arrived as a guest before time.

My place is most beautiful when it rains.

With the explosion of electronic media, monsoon is big news for the channels. Weather analysts predicted a good monsoon, it reached Kerala in time and now it will reach the rest of the places in time. Share prices gone up the next day. Agriculturalists and Financial analysts appeared in TV screen and avowed good fortune for the country.

Poor rain, she is not used to all this attention earlier.

Whatever it may be I enjoyed the rains sitting in the swing in my balcony. It rains like cats and dogs, continuously for days together. I have never seen this sort of nature’s benevolence anywhere else. Rain cascaded through the slopes of the terrace and filled my soul.

Monsoon arrives with its live orchestra, accompanied by frogs and insects. Some time it sounded like the tintinnabulation of a thousand tiny bells. When it drizzles it is like a susurrus of a lover. Then it is like a thousand drums playing together. Occasionally rain took the avatar of Shiva the destroyer and danced with full fury as if it will teach a lesson to human insanity.

I enjoyed rains more during my school and college days. Just getting wet and walking in the rain with an umbrella for name sake is a thrilling experience. Those days there were no Rat fevers, dengue, or chicken guinea and we walked without any fear of getting any disease. There were no plastics and garbage on the road, Rain water filled the road we played with paper boats, and our parents did not stop us from playing in water.

Now rains are looked at suspiciously, as a spreader of contagious dieses. I call my daughter for a walk in the rain and she will say it is dirty out in the rain. No one wants to go out in rain. New generation miss the romance of rains.

In fact rains wash the dirtiness spread by human beings in vain year after year. Rains can cool human minds, fill their souls, Wish it could reach out human minds and cleans it year after year! How exhausted the rain will be!

Let me not think any more, I just want to see the rains soaking the earth and drifting to the roots of human existence. I just want to lie down in my bed staring at the darkness and listening to the live orchestra just outside the window.

Dilli

I came back to Delhi after fifteen years for a short stay. Delhi stood like a Big Banyan tree, welcoming me to its shades. I felt as if I found my lost love.

The smell, color, language and the people all are the same and very familiar.

The memories also are rushing through, Delhi hold lots of them, good and bad, happy and sad. I still remember the lanes and by lanes of Baratooti, Paharganj and Karol Baugh. These lines taught me the tastes of Delhi, and eventually I fell in love with their culinary expertise.

In early eighties I ramble through these galis, and the corridors of Connaught circus and Nehru place searching for job. After each failed interview I went to the lawns of Nehru Park and India Gate in search of solitude.

It was fashionable to go to Chanakya Theater and watch English movies, and I wanted to be fashionable. Delhi taught me to pretend even though I often failed in that art.

Punjabis, Jats and other locals were very kind towards me. They said poor “Madrasi”, and I got accommodation without much effort. They looked at me sympathetically and I survived the sweltering heat and freezing winters.

I found my companion in Delhi. We both bunked our office and went to Buddha Jayanti Gardens often. She gave birth to my two kids in Delhi. Those were the happier times. We went to Pusa campus and watched peacocks in weekends.

My father in law and maternal uncle were laid to rest here, and their ashes were scattered on the banks of Yamuna as a seed of immortality.

The Toombs of Mughal’s never attracted me, and I hardly went there to wake them up from their sleeps. I always loved to go to Chadni chowk and sadar bazaar. Those grimy galis mesmerized me always. I also loved to frequent the lawns of Nehru Park and Lodi Gardens.

Delhi made me to look at life differently, and I learned to be practical and brave.

I will go back now, but Dilli, I will come visiting again and again with my children. We will roam through your galis, and corridors without waking up the Mourians, Mughal’s and the Thuglaq’s.

After all Dilli Dilwalon ka Shehr he!

Vedic Wisdom

In pursuit of money, man descends to the level of the beast.

Money is of the nature of manure. Piled up in one place, it pollutes the air.

Spread it wide; scatter it over fields; it rewards you with a bumper harvest. – Atharva Veda.

I came across the above Hymn from Atharva Veda Recently.

Atharva Veda originated in 1500 BCE. Don’t you feel astonished about the clarity of thought and wisdom our ancestors had? How beautifully they have educated us about it.

In Pursuit of money, man descends to the level of beast; does this sentence need any explanation? Let us look around and you can see a Raja, Kalmadi, Kanimozhi, and even a chief justice. Everything is up for sale for money, including motherhood.

Money piled up by the wealthy is polluting the society in the form of arrogance, senselessness, mercilessness of the higher stratum and need no examples. As you know the pollution has already reached our shores from Swiss banks and all of us are waiting to see the skeletons.

Our ancestors knew the principles of business even in 1500 BCE, they advise us to “spread or scatter it over fields to earn a bumper harvest”. Investment explained in such a simple words!

I am so fortunate to take birth in this blessed land.

Road less travelled.

I am neither talking about Robert Frost’s poem nor of Scot Peck’s book in the same name. This is about a brave attempt by an ordinary man named AN (name changed for privacy)

AN was a chief priest (Melshanthi) in a famous temple in my native town of Trichur for a long time. I used to see him from my childhood, a humble and divine soul, spent most of his life in and around sanctum sanctorum of temples chanting mantras.

During one of my visit to native I met him in the temple and was surprised to see him very week .He has suddenly reduced weight and appeared as suffering from some grave illness. Divinity no more adored his face. My mother told me that he is recently diagnosed with cancer. She astonished why God mercilessly chooses people who serve him to experience all this pain and agony.

For several months he was running around various hospitals and doctors from Allopathy to Ayurveda. All these treatments and trauma made him very week. They treated him as if he is a few days guest in this world.

AN was fed up by all these and finally decided to surrender himself to the almighty. “Any way they decided that I will live only next six months, I thought then let me be with myself, let me be with God,” AN told me.

He then came back to his ritualistic way of life. He spent morning time for surya namskara, chanting Vedas, meditation and so on. Chanting and meditation continued in the evening time also. Over a period of time he regained the divinity on his face. He forgot about his disease.

Recently when I met him he told me that he is no more worried whether he is still suffering from any disease or not. He felt as energetic as earlier and he never had any symptoms of any disease. He has not bothered to check with any specialist as he did not felt the need to do so any more. He choose to walk a road normally people will dare to take. May be he had enough conviction and wisdom, or a blind faith. There was no doubt in his mind, no second thought about the outcome and surrendering himself to God may have worked out for him. We the common man lack all this. Modern education and exposure made us to look at everything with suspicion.

I came to know about Dr Deepak Batra’s book Quantum healing four years back. I had studied it Not once but couple of times. The principals of NAT (New Age Therapy) were gaining momentum and the miserable failure of modern medicine in my personal experience forced to me look beyond conventional treatments.

My brief stint with an Ayurvedic research and validation centre helped me in my exploration.

Nature has set us up with all the equipment we need to be perfectly healthy. Health is our natural state, and ill health is unnatural. Every day our systems are exposed to literally millions of bacteria, viruses, allergens, even carcinogens, and yet our immune system has the intelligence and skill to deal with all those invaders and keep us healthy. However, when stress, inadequate nutrition, or just fatigue weakens the immune system, those same invaders may produce disease. Dr Deepak Batra explains in Quantum healings that each of our cells has its own intelligence and each cell knows the correcting mechanism. One should not confuse the cells intelligence with illogical use of medicines.

Every second the body is adjusting to countless thousands of changing parameters, keeping us in homeostatic balance. No matter what comes along to upset the balance, the body knows its own nature, knows what ideal temperature it should be and the correct chemistry it needs to maintain, and keeps referring back to that blueprint to maintain proper balance.

The time has come for all of us to live our life in harmony with nature using the heavenly wisdom. Dr Drauzio Varella M.D, Chairman of Cancer Research Institute at UNIP, advise us to follow the below steps.

Speak your feelings – Emotions and feelings that are hidden, repressed end in illness. With time the repression of the feelings degenerates to psychosomatic diseases.

Make Decisions – The undecided person remains in doubt, anxiety, and in anguish. Indecision accumulates problems, worries and aggressions.

Be positive – Negative people enlarge problems, and negative thoughts generate negative energy that is again transformed to diseases.

Accept – The refusal of acceptance and the absence of self esteem makes us alienate ourselves. Being at one with ourselves is the core of a healthy life. Be accepted, accept that you are accepted, and accept the criticism; it is wisdom, good sense and therapy.

Trust – Distrust is a lack of faith in you and in faith itself.

Do not live life sad – Good humor, laughter, rest, and happiness these replenish health and bring long life. Happiness is health and therapy.

Wish you all good health, happiness and wisdom.

Devarayanadurga

Devarayanadurga is a tiny village surrounded by hillocks and jungle near Tumkur in Karnataka. There is a temple of Durga and Lakshmy Narasimha on top of a rock. My son used to study Engineering in Tumkur and one day I landed there just to have a break with him.

Once there, I found this place quite familiar, as if I had been there earlier sometime. The hillock, rock and even the murthy of lakshmy Narasimha seemed to be very familiar. Then onwards the place started haunting me, as someone was pulling me towards it.

I met a sadhu there in front of the Durga temple and he smiled at me instantly as I know him. His look was penetrating. I felt he knows me in and out and for a long time.

I could never forget Devarayanadurga till then. It often came to my dream and thought, like a nomadic journey through the mystic hillocks of Devarayanadurga.

I know there are things beyond human reasoning and intelligence. Why did this place haunt me, why I felt I had been there earlier in my first visit, Why did the sadhu smiled at me and looked at me till I vanished from his sight. I don’t know.

Scientist like Ian Stevenson did many years of research on past life remembrance. His research book and writings are suggestive that there is a possibility of past life and reincarnation.

Dr Brian Weiss’s clinical research reveals this more clearly. His book “Many lives Many Masters” discuss that each life is a learning session until we reach the ultimate destination.

Whatever it may be I am happy to believe that we had past life and we will come back to this world again. It is more enjoyable to learn that each life is a learning lesson and it is very comforting to believe that we correct ourselves in each life in order to purify before joining the ultimate energy.

I urge my friends to read Dr Weiss book “Many lives Many Masters”

Japan Tsunami & Earth quake – A postscript

The state of affairs of Japan today haunts me day in and day out. More than half the population in the affected areas must have vanished in fraction of seconds. What does the transformation from first world to third world in two days teach us?

Why God has chosen this fate to the Japanese People. Have they done anything wrong? Was their destiny or Karma is the cause of this. If this is the result of Karma, what is the meaning of Life? Is there any Guru or Mystic out there to explain this in simple words without using Vedic jugglery?

Statistics about Japan is very impressive. A major economic power, and world's third-largest economy It is a developed country with very high living standards. Japan has the highest life expectancy of any country in the world and the third lowest infant mortality rate if we do not consider such earthquakes and tsunami.

In spite of all this today reports say thousand of people spent days without food, water and electricity, they stand in queue for hours to get drinking water! They are failing terrifically to contain nuclear leakage and a becoming a big threat to the neighboring countries also. A good example of technology developed by human being is running out of their control.

What lessons do we need to learn from this?

We have exploited this planet endlessly. We constructed sky scrapers on river and sea beds. Our comfortable life and longing for energy forced us to make nuclear power plants without any accepted wisdom. We dig deep into the earth to drain more and more liquid gold.

Instead of embracing the world human beings are trying to conquer it by all means. Science and technology has become a means to use everything in the planet for the benefit of humans and not for the benefit of the planet where we dwell. We think this world is only for the use of human beings. Every creature in this world has a right to live not only the humans. We conveniently forget this.

Human greed is increasing day by day. Money has become everything in life. We started believing that economic prosperity is everything. This Tsunami swept away all the economic prosperity within second.

Human population is increasing in double fold. AS per UN human population will touch 9.6 billion by 2030, is it possible for our planet to address this kind of human population’s aspirations? Are there enough resources in this planet to accommodate such a massive population explosion? Is there any meaning in talking about ecology and land conservations without controlling human population?

I remember the Malthusian theory of population I studied in senior secondary school. I am now strained to believe that Malthusian theory is coming true and nature is reacting to human senselessness in a cruel manner.

I am scared to believe that we are heading towards more and more natural disasters and rage in the coming years.

A Tribute to RAJI

She joined with me when I was 27 years old.

We travelled together for 15 years and then she decided to part ways and chose the road to eternity.

When I look back, fifteen years just passed like 15 days, too short a journey together. We laughed and cried together, We looked through the window panes and enjoyed the prospect. We took a nap on each other’s shoulders when exhausted. She showed me beautiful dreams and often made me realize the facts of life. It was indeed a journey to remember till the end of my time.

“ I am scared, I want you to be with me henceforth”. She told me one mid February after noon in 2002. I was working in a Japanese multinational Company in Bangalore then and she was in my home town. That was a lucrative job but I felt if she wants me with her nothing else should bother me. I resigned my job and went to her.

Cancer was spreading its arms slowly, but she used to smile at me as if nothing happened. She was in pain, but she did not show that pain. Occasionally she whispered, “don’t worry, I will be with you”. I realized the meaning of that only after her departure.

I stayed with her on and off in the hospital for eight months. The hospital room has become our world. Sometimes she talked a lot, about children and about her childhood. And then for days together we did not talk much. She was in her own world, perhaps she was going through a rewind of her life. She talked about her old friends from Zakir Husain College Delhi. Her study vacation to Mussoorie.

I learned that silence is also a beautiful way of communication. Her eyes spoke to me more intensely than words. Those were the moments I re discovered her.

Of late she has developed intense pain and one night she complained to me for the first time. She said “ I cannot tolerate this pain” I realized my helplessness. I could not do anything. I just hold her hands, and she said “I am going”.

We will have to start morphine now, Dr Mohan told me, “we want to help her to have a peaceful death, that’s all what we can do now”. Come what may I did not want her to suffer pain.
Death and dying started haunting me while she laid in a state of un consciousness, her eyes closed without suffering any pain. I started smelling the smell of death.

On one Wednesday evening she took a different route and continued her ultimate journey. I need to complete my rest of the journey alone. Children will be there with me for some more time and then it is a lonely journey.

Once in hospital bed she told me “ don’t worry I will be with you” and that always echoed inside me and every time I needed I felt the presence.

One of my friend sent Mary Elizabeth Frye’s poem to console me and I truly believe she is out there just a call away.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there ……. I do not sleep…
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle autumn’s rain
Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am the dew flecked grass at dawn
Where tranquil oceans meet the land
I am the foot print in the sand
To guide you through the weary day
I am still there…. I will always stay

When you wake up to mornings hush
I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circles
I am the stars that shine at night
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there …… I do not die…..