A hint of PURITY

"No, I cannot understand what you are saying. I don't know what these words mean. I don't know your language. I want you to understand mine. Don't open and close your lips; just extend your hand and hold mine. Please! I will give you a chocolate that I hid in my pocket two weeks back - but just hold me. Can i listen to your heartbeat? It makes me feel secure. Just hold me close to your heart so I can feel warm and comfortable. I will learn my ABC later; I promise I will. But can you just touch me right now? I will learn my 123; I know I will. But if you just let me feel your warmth right now, I will be able to dream of a pink coloured teddy.'

I was in a room full of abandoned children between the ages of 2 and 5. Silently, through their eyes, they told me this. Eyes speak volumes and those expressions touched my heart.

With all the love, warmth and touch I have experienced in my growing years, I still have my insecurities, my moments of unbearable lonliness, which goes only when I hug someone I love. What must these kids be feeling??? My childhood is filled with moments of me dancing in my father's oversized shoes and him hugging me with enormous pride.... with memories of amma holding my hand and taking me to the school and to nearby shops.... with images of myself and my elder brother being partners in crime and he literally pouncing on my mother so he could hug me... My childhood was filled with touch. It was filled with someone lovingly caressing me curls. It was filled with listening to old melodies and the steady, stable heartbeat of people who love me. What about these kids????

Once for my brother's birthday, we had to go to one of these places which was an old class room for several of these kids. Slinging my jute bag over my shoulder, wearing my favourite purple shirt, I confidently walked inside the calssroom with with my bro, my parents and a tremendous love for children. The class was so quiet that i actually was wondering whether they were kids or something else.... We intutively knew they were forced to sit this way since we went to visit them. So my dad kindly asked the teachers to go out of the class room for sometime so that we could spend some solid time with the kids. After the doors were closed there was an eerie silence in the room for the kids were confused about what to do with us in the room.... but after a few minutes the fun started....n Did i just say the word 'confidence'? About 30 two feeters were running helter-skelter.... a girl was wailing loudly in the corner; one boy gave another a slap; and right in the middle, two girls were fighting for a battered soft toy and a few came running to eye us curiously.....

It was actually kind of shocking to see the transition in a few minutes. So i made an attempt to get back those angels that were sitting inside the class by trying to get them sing along with me.... but realised that i was the only one singing - the rest were either screeching or looking at me, hands on their little waists and faces marked with indignant indifference. I even tried dancing, but all the little ones started jumping and running around me; so, I sat down. A little boy called Adit created a great commotion. He kept hitting just about anyone who came anywhere close to him. And like a synchronised orchestra, a loud wail emerged from one corner, then from another and then all together. I wanted to tell each one of them that i loved them. I wanted to calm them and make them feel special, but didnt know how. What to do, what to do? When confused, go back to your basics - this is what i believe. Si i made them all hold each other's hands and do 'ringaaaaaa ringaaaaaaa roses'... I realised that when they were touching each other, they were somwhow much calmer. I knew then that i love them - I would have to show them. At the moment, they didnt need inputs - they just needed someone to hold them close.

I started with Adit. I asked one of the teachers about his violent behaviour n she told me that he had recently lost his mother and was very traumatised. I, who find it painful to see my mother cough, could understand what the little one must be feeling. He was walking towards all of us, ready to pelt somone with a toy car. I caught hold of him, kept away the toy car and just made him sit on my lap; I then placed his head close to my heart. There was a little resistance initially, but when i continued to hold him he put his tiny arms around my neck; ten minutes later, he was fast asleep. Iam finding myself short of words to describe that moment.... It was so beautiful and so profound... One cannot be told; one must experience what it is to hold a sleeping child who trustingly, happily, puts his head to ur heart and frolics in his dream world.

A ruffle of hair here, a nudge of the hand there, a pat on the back and a tickle in the stomach was all that i was doing that day.... after some half an hour all those little ones were hanging around me, fighting to sit on my lap, playing with my hair, touching the little flower on my watch.

I pray with all my heart that all these little angels of blessings should not be abandoned any more and even if they do, they should find a better place to live in......

YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.........
Atlast my brother's marriage is over..... That was like one of the major things in the whole of the family that had been looked fwd to with great excitement.... great expectations by everyone... ppl have been saving up special dresses, special presents, special everything for this.... everyone has been just waiting...

My sister in law is just amazing n am so happy that she is a part of the family now.... though they made sure that i did most of the work during the marriage, it was absolute fun to act all important n busy :P.... n the best part is, everyone was happy after the marriage got over n the whole place was full of smiles n laughter...

the small reception after everything got over was like super good... it was just for family n close friends n it was so good to make everyone go on stage n perform something or the other like singing, dancing, dialogues, jokes... anything!! n thanks to my dad for that idea.......

i thank god that everything went on very well n everyone was happy n content at the end of the day.... it feels good to have all the blessings from everyone in the family at the end of the day.... i guess i have to thank all my relatives n friends for making it so special n my dad the most for making it happen....

n the one interesting line that ive been hearing for sometime now is "r u happy that ur line is cleared?"..... makes me wonder..... really!!!

I am, Therefore I Think - 1

"I am". What does it mean????

We use these words constantly in our lives… Like “How r u?” “I am fine” or maybe “I am upset”… we say “I am going here or there” or “I am doing this or that”. The “I am” is normally used as an introduction to what is really important…. It could either be the emotion that we r feeling, the thing we r doin or the place we r going to. But there is an experience that can be had; a space that could be beyond the egocentric viewpoints n judgments…a space of just I AM…. It is this I am that Descartes reached after his lifetime of brilliant study, research n search for the truth, when he wrote “I think, therefore I am”

Sometimes when I think… I find myself shying myself from moving into the awareness of I am. It somehow makes me get into a familiar bondage where it always makes me think that I know who n what I am, simply by asserting a verb or adjective after the I am. Nevertheless, just bcoz something feels good or comfortable DOES NOT MEAN that it is true or even something that is good for us.

Clearly, I guess this comfort just builds a false shield around us…. Something that makes us feel safe n secured. But I guess it is so important to grow out of that bubble… n it is damn painful. Ive had so many experiences like this where ive actually felt so out of place when I thought I knew something…… but at the end I didn’t know that much afterall… growth is painful where it gives a moment of pain n discomfort as our worldview stretches n our concepts r shattered.

Mostly it feels soooo comfortable to stay inside the egocentric circle of thought in an “ignorance-is-bliss” way… but eventually life teaches the reality at one point or the other where we start realizing the ways in which we were wrong, limited n close minded about life. But this most probably than not, comes as a shock where it is either a difficult situation or after the attainment of a long wished for dream which, having been attained, is quickly revealed to be empty of the joy n fulfillment we expected. If nothing else, I think this shift often comes at the moment of death, when we realize that practically nothing…. NOTHING we put our life energy through out our life time…. The worldly success, the reputation, the material possessions.... anything…. r not worth even a grain of salt, in the face of a larger reality that extends beyond the threshold of death. Talk about bursting of a bubble… Just imagine how many millions of ppl throughout the centuries have gone through their lives putting off all their life energy into satisfying petty desires... if only we could get it now n live the rest of our lives from that awareness…

STOP for a moment

Imagine the building u r sitting in just collapsed on u. SMASH!!! If u r outside, u better pretend as if u r in a building.

U r suddenly trapped under many layers of debris… u don’t know what happened… was it a bomb?? Or an earthquake??? u lie pinned under the fallen building in a state of confusion. U smell fire.. u r injured but in shock, so the pain has not yet reached the awareness…

Smoke fills the room…

Ur precious oxygen is not there for u.

Ur body begins to perform its preprogrammed maneuvers for life preservation. U begin to gasp… rather ur body gasps for u as u observe, helplessly. Ur lungs open further n further to try to take in any particles of oxygen that might be available, but mostly fills the starved air sacs…

The blood tries to continue its work, but without oxygen from the lungs, everything in the body begins to break down.

But u….

U just watch….

U become a witness to the event, perhaps even lifting in ur subtle astral body above the physical body to view the scene. U realize u have stepped out of the body as u might disrobe at the end of a long night of dancing….. this body that u thought was U… lying there helpless on the ground without u. REALITY HITS…

I guess the most shocking part of the experience wouldn’t have been the experience that u r not the body, but that u were not aware of this fact throughout ur life… U- the u that u r right now – know this as the obvious truth.. we all have known this before as well… but how do we manage to forget this again n again is the $1000000000000 question… at that moment u understand this n so much more, so much more about life, knowledge u now realize that uve always had.

u feel as though uve woken up from a dream filled with delusion n misunderstandings. “How could I have forgotten again?” u cry, not outloud, but with ur entire being. U don’t know whether to laugh or cry. U look down at ur body n see it lying there unconscious. U have a certain tenderness towards it.. no longer an attachment of thinking it is u, but just a recognition of the heart that one might have upon seeing an old childhood house or a favorite toy of the past.

Now put urself into this space n look back on ur life. Look at all the things that were bothering u this morning or this week, this month, this yr… look at ur current list of priorities from the vantagepoint og ur last moment of life… ur work.. ur lovelife… ur money…. Ur dog… all of these things that have so much importance to u. where do they fit in now????

An unforgettable experience...

The incident that am about to narrate now was one of the most terrifying incidents that ive come across in my life... I'am really lucky that am alive to even type this post... It changed my perspective about life that things need not be the same even the next second... anything could happen... ANYTHING.

I was in my 7th std at that point of time. I can still vividly remember everything that happened that day... Our school had planned to take the 6th, 7th and the 8th std students to the local children's park. We started to plan out literally a fortnight before the trip... the topics of discussion before, during and after school were necessarily about that trip...

Thank fully,the day was bright and pleasant and the weather was just ideal for an outing. So the whole of our gang were packed with all kinds of guddies from ice creams (yes! we took ice creams in our water coolers), chocolates, pastries, chips, lunch n just everything. Our teachers had an impression that we were famished for the whole of the previous month.

We couldnt shut our mouth all the way from our school to the park. We were either yakking, munching or singing. It was just absolute bliss to have an opinion about everything that was happening around and it necessarily had to be stupid and funny and not to forget the non stop giggles. Maybe if i had known what i wouldve had to face after a couple of hours from that time, i wouldnt have even thought about opening my mouth for my life time... but the energy and the excitement level inside the bus was just crackling... Whew!!! The teacher incharge did have a tough time copping with us.

We got down the bus and we just drew a bee line to the play area (warming up session)... after we got over with the play area, we unconsciously divided ourselves into small groups and started re-discovering the park again. the children's park in the city was and is owned by the govt n so it was obviously quite huge compared to all the other usual parks in the city... So we started walking through the endless roads all around the park...

All of a sudden i spotted a nice, white fluffy rabbit just around the corner. It looked soooo adorable that somehow i started following it all alone with a 5 star bar in my hand... But obviously the rabbit was much faster than me and I had to stop to catch my breath... But something made the hair on my neck tingle and rise and i turned back...

To my horror, I was standing FACE TO FACE with a LION!!!!! It was an utter shock and everything stopped around me... guess rather inside me.... I knew it was foolishness to even make the slightest movement and i was obviously not strong enough to face even a german shepherd puppy... I knew with my first glance that the lion was definitely old and hungry... yes... it was HUNGRY... I could sense it with the way the lion was looking at me... I guess even the lion wanted to be careful not to miss out on the prey coz it didnt seem to make a move either... both of us were weighing each other... i dont even remember for how many seconds this battle was going on but i definitely felt as if i spent hours together looking at the lion...

I bloody well knew i had to make a decision now or never coz it was getting late... As i was trying to make a decision something touched my shoulders... THAT WAS IT.... i SCREAMED OUT IN HORROR and turned back to find that my teacher was holding me... I could see that even she was scared from the sight of the lion... I could sense it from the way she was holding me...

At that moment i somehow felt tired... physically, emotionally, mentally.... i couldnt bare it anymore... i could even say that i was getting bored... i guess even the lion sensed my weakness... but well.... i really didnt know what else to do.

So i just had to go to the next cage to look at the tiger... :P