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BUDDHA BARConversing with the Buddha 10月17日 An artist asphyxiates!An artist lives in me...creative, free in the mind, liberated of sorts. But sadly I am choking it to a painful death. In the life that I am leading, there is no breathing pauses, a mechanical hum drum of seemingly important tasks to be completed. A rush for goals that seem inane, the true meaning of education robbed long back! What remains is an empty shell, that I keep shaking and rattling to soothe my disbelieving ears, as if to convince myself, this life is worth living!
A dancer lived in me, grew and blossomed with all the accolades he got when he was young, pleasingly performing for one and all! A logical mind also dwells in me, that went on clamouring for a life more practical, not one surviving merely on chunks of passion and creative juices. It craved for money, social recognition, a family and bit by bit, day by day, isolated the dancer. One bell at a time, the dancer's joyous foot work grew softer and softer. Till it turned to the stick of a dance teacher. Drawing new found vigour from the experience of sharing the dancer within, the hard sound of the hard stick, became the only soft mellow that echoed the past rythmic beating of the bells. But the mind wanted more and more for itself, claiming the conventional its sole raison d'aitre. Racing fast ahead, it grabbed for money and fame! None of which it really got, as the artist in me never valued it too much!
A writer lives in me, an easier art form to maintain and keep alive. And then blogging opened the doors for the pen to freely swithe, remaining a metaphor in today's techno times. The words rushed out, filled with joy and angst, loneliness and fulfillment. The essential being of the writer breathed, through its dusty layers of cobwebs! The writer bloomed, writing, writing and writing.... rather typing, typing and typing. However, soon, it was like looking for the flavours of a lemonade in a cocktail punch, becoming merely an exercise in imagination. The logical mind and the pressures it had created in its life were not far behind! A daily dilemma of choosing what is important as against what is right!
The artist sits tied to a chair, the dancer and the writer...waiting patiently, asphyxiating, without losing hope. When will its time come? Time to break free and sing and dance and write, as free as the clouds in the sky? When will the logical mind give up its false occupation with maya? When will the foot bells ring in harmony with every movement of the hand and the eyes? When will the fingers click, joyously typing every word that bursts out from the heart? Some day, when the world will be a cleaner place, with less pollution in the air and in the mind, when time will stand still, when eternity will be in a single moment and the world will stand still too to pause and watch the artist in me perform its glorious act of self expression! Till then, the artist waits for death in the gas chamber! 7月16日 WHOSE HOME IS IT ANYWAY?
I live on a campus tucked away in the Aravali Hills. It is almost a 15 km drive away from the heartland of Gurgaon, and one has to drive through a long stretch dotted with farmland and interspersed with villages, till one reaches the Aravali ridge, that incidentally continues into the bordering state of Rajasthan! The forests here are reserved and hence, our campus one of the most eco friendly, to justify its otherwise commercial existence. We have our own generator backup, rainwater harvesting setup, water filtration plant that reuses all non potable water and our residents’ commitment to preserving nature! As a result, we have regular hikes in the forest, surveys of all the birds that one can see here, talks with the local ministries to help us protect the forests and the likes. We are as one would like to claim a harmonious campus in the heart of nature.
As a result of this close proximity, one cannot avoid the coexisting fauna all around us. We have been living on the campus for five years, and the first year we moved in, the greenery around was minimal. Trees had just been planted and hardly had anything but a utilitarian design value. Our landscaping however was not run of the mill, and hence, not smooth lines of hedges and manicured lawns. We had planted trees too, that would grow to give shade, fruit and something we had probably not anticipated then, shelter! In the last two years, with two successful monsoons, the flora had a burst of growth. Trees shot up and branched, flowers bloomed all year round and the campus became greener and cooler. Such is nature, that this immediately made the environment homely for the fauna. More flowers attracted more bees and insects. More bees and insects along with the cooler branches of big trees, attracted more birds. And soon, in an interestingly artificially induced replay of an ecosystem, the monkeys couldn’t be far behind.
The birds on the other hand were an absolute pleasure. Sunbirds, bee eaters, sparrows, cranes, seven sisters, drongos, sparrows, mynahs, cuckoos, robins, barbets and kingfishers have all been sighted by my untrained eyes! As I look down from my balcony, with my morning cup of tea, it is always a pleasure to witness the sun birds, merrily sucking the nectar from the bottle brushes! Petite and chirpy, they were adding wonderful sound effects to the visually colourful environment. The sparrows, as is their nature, love making homes in houses, in close proximity to humans. In a way fearless, as they search for a concrete nook or cranny to nest, they are an interestingly determined species. The first nest they made was in the hollow of the bit of the AC that protrudes outside. Eventually they laid their eggs, till another goon of a bird, a black one with yellow beak, a slender body and mean eyes, attacked its nest and maybe stole its eggs. How alarmingly similar their struggles for life are to our human race! This bitter experience hence, they desperately wanted to nest inside our home. Every time I would leave the balcony door open, these chirpies with grass and straw in their beaks would land up in my house, coyly stacking the strands against the space between the curtain rod and the pelmet. What a clever idea and an engineering marvel was what I thought observing their dedicated effort at layering dried grass against dried grass to make a villa for themselves, with security taken care of. Of course, I couldn’t leave my balcony open all day or invite these sparrows into my home like this, and I would invariably shake the curtain to upset the foundation of their future nests. Surprisingly, the sparrows never gave up and it has been more than 3 months and they haven’t yet given up. It is almost like a game for me to open the balcony as if to invite them, and with tireless resilience they keep getting dried fibres, and in a serious chirp of discussions start rebuilding again. I also wonder watching them and while playing this cruel game of man against a small puny bird, where in the line of evolution did humans lose this resilient and never say die spirit? Well, that is another story!
Eventually, the monkeys arrived on campus last year. First they were three, a male, a female and a young one! Seemingly harmless, hopefully lost in their jumping from tree to tree, more like a tourist than an immigrant. The initial mistake we made on campus was to let them feed. Our dining hall staff would gladly offer them peels of vegetables and other wasted food. This made the monkeys wonder, whether they should leave this destination at all? Lots of high trees to swing on for little roger to play and grow, lots of food all around to feast on and lots of children all around, which made the environment safe and entertaining! What more could a monkey be ambitious about? Thus, the monkeys stayed on! Their family has now grown to a whopping eight, as a result of incestuous affairs! They are all around us, grating their teeth when we pass by, as a warning sign to others. Being an environment friendly campus, we just can’t think of what to do! We don’t want the forest officials to come and capture them in an unsure fate net. We don’t want to hurt them either and hence emails were floated regarding the behaviour of monkeys and the dos and don’ts if we are in close proximity. Guards would shoo them off from buildings and terraces and window sills by aiming native hand made rubber balls. My home seemed to attract the monkeys too. Once, when the balcony door was left invitingly open, while we were at work, the pack ventured boldly into our home, raided our kitchen, feasted on a few peeled potatoes and an open pack of lentils, some cough syrup (sadly not the Phenargan) and left when the guards noticed activity in our balcony and started making noise near our kitchen window. We were called back from mid work, and asked to keep our balcony doors locked all the time in future. The other time was when I was in the toilet and my wife and daughter having returned from a tiring day, were relaxing on the sofa with their backs to the balcony and of course a balcony with an open door. A risk taker of a monkey saw this opportunity more as a source of frolic than anything else. He first sat on the railing of the balcony, at which time, my one and a half year old daughter, babbled some words, which to her meant ‘MONKEY!’ but to my wife garbled letters of an infant. She continued reading her newspaper! The adventurous chimp soon landed himself inside on our dining table and then brazenly crept up right next to their sofa. By this time, my daughter’s incessant calls had made my wife take notice that something was right and to her utter shock turned her head to find the monkey seated on the floor right next to the sofa! From inside the toilet I heard a whole lot of shrieks and screams and screeches, which I couldn’t all decipher then, till I came out to find my wife making paper balls to throw at the monkey which amused, sat and observed my wife in her foolish act of scaring the monkey. One could almost notice the grin on the monkey’s face, when I decided to act. Armed with the rubber wiper from the toilet, and drawing forth my animal instincts, I ran out in a gorilla like frenzy, clenching my teeth, doing a few monkey jigs and jumps, screaming like an arrow had struck my chest, and holding the rubber wiper more like the trishul in the hand of Lord Shiva. The alpha male act worked its magic, however fits of laughter it generates in your mind as you visualize the scene, and ever since I can hear fearful chatter amongst the monkeys when I pass them by! If evolution were to work itself out in a matter of years, soon I will get cornered and attacked by these otherwise harmless creatures! Till then I can only shoo off the peering, innocent monkey eyes that belie the mischief they are capable of, from all my windows and balcony. I also thank god, that the legend of a leopard, rather a wild cat, the jackals, the foxes, the snakes and the mongooses, all live outside the walls of our campus, in the vast forests of the Aravalis. However, I can’t stop myself from always asking this question and feeling guilty with the honest answer that my mind throws back at me, ‘Whose home is it anyway?’
TWIN TREASURESI am gifted with the twin treasures
which give me joy in endless measure.
One is called faith and the other hope,
two words, that helped me cope
with the disappointments of life.
Faith - my loving wife, who's been with me
through thick and thin, taken care of me.
With her sixth sense, I've always been protected,
and her care and patience healingly helped
to drop every wound of the past and present.
Hope - my endearing daughter, whose smile
twinkles in me, keeping me far from being senile.
Her unconditional love and sudden hugs and kisses,
make me humble and grateful; my heart misses
a beat, thinking of how fortunate I am !
What could a man ask, further...
than a trusting wife and a loving daughter?
What can a man not achieve with the powers
that can be drawn from these two treasures?
In the material world I am simply lucky!
What could a man ask, further...
than a life of faith and a hope filled future?
What can a man not achieve with the powers
that can be drawn from these two treasures?
In the spiritual world I am simply blessed! RAINBOW BEGINNINGSDelhi and Gurgaon had been sizzling in the heat as late as the first week of July with headlines in the newspapers ringing the bell of doom, in case the monsoons, which were delayed, never arrived! Hence, when the rains finally decided to shower, it was to everybody's relief. The first four five days, just had the clouds accumulating, much like a military positioning. Then we had a day of drizzles (almost like a trailer of what we all hoped would eventually arrive), followed by a few days of sweltering and humid heat. Till finally, came a day, when the air had gone still and heaps of dark rain clouds had blocked the sunlight! The humidity was at its peak and the low lying clouds pressurised not only the body to sweat more, but also weighed heavy on the mind, much like the end of a Ludlum thriller. Finally, last week, it poured. When heaven opened its floodgates, every bit of our city got washed in the downpour.
Yesterday was one day when it really rained and I was lucky to be caught in the middle of it in the city! The clouds were thick and dark and had been gatering all morning. Around noon, they gave away and the showers drenched the city with abundant joy! Everyone was happy though, unlike other years when you find people looking irritated or grumbling at the rains and at the effect it has on our poor drainage systems. There were people merrily getting wet. One group of school boys, of course it is their age to enjoy the rains, were actually walking through the downpour as if nothing was happening differently than any other day. One could literally see them washing their body and mind in the pure heavenly water! Another young couple was actually out in their shorts and tees, jogging in the downpour. They were getting wet and muddy but loving every bit of the fun with all the wetness around. If you looked closely enough, you could also see the trees and plants all around you breathing huge sighs of relief. With a lowering water table, they would not have survived another harsh summer without this wet break in between. Even the dogs on the street were merrily playing in a puddle after the showers had stopped. When I reached home, my balcony view was spectacular. It was as if all the plants had gained a fresh lease of life, apart from looking squeaky clean! All the greenery around me looked splendid, vibrant, lush and gorgeous in its new attire. The plants which were wilting in the heat, stood up straight with pride and the ones which had shrunk to conserve water, now burst to freshness! When I looked at the sky, heaving and sighing out of relief after the tremendous downpour, with a few scattered clouds here and there, between the gap in the two buildings that faced me, I could see a crystal clear rainbow emerge. The sun was setting and in its last few minutes of warm rays, it shone colourfully through the moisture laden clouds, creating a mystic rainbow. The rainbow seemed to begin in the building in which I worked, which was lying overlapped behind the other two in sight. The rainbow royally arched outwards to the open sky, like a majestic signature of nature for its much needed and much awaited shower of mercy! All these sights and sounds and emotions churned something within me to write this. The metaphor that one can deduce from nature are often subtle, but true! I had been ignoring it all this time!
The rainbow helped me realise the beginning I was making with some trepidation this academic year. An old boss was gone, a thorn removed from the throat! At the same time, the safety valve of the pressure cooker also got released. Which made the cooker, prone to bursting or heavy discharge of steam, not a safe place to be in! At the same time, a new boss (an old colleague) was also taking the reins of the working place and it would be but fair to give her the chance to prove her honesty and integrity! Having suffered the machinations of colleagues who feigned masks of friendship, and having realised the helplessness of these human minds in the wrenching arms of insecurities and fear, I only wondered how I did not see the games earlier! Maybe because I have no fear and am clear about the source of my income, not being my employers, but Life itself.When your trust is betrayed, not by the person directly but by the circumstances she has created taking full advantage of your goodness and your intelligence, you are caught in a room of mirrors, not knowing who to blame, as your image repeatedly haunts you as the culprit! However, when the Buddha's compassion swells forth, the common mortals fail to see the negative karma they have accrued through their clever moves, while I breathe a sigh of relief, knowing and feeling the ultimate protection of the truth and understanding the need for these persecutions, which have helped me grow! Thus, with a sense of relief and cautious footfall, I was gently and quietly moving in to the new working year, hoping that my wisdom stemmed from the fount of Buddhahood. When I stood in the balcony admiring the rainbow and noticing its origin, everything that my mind was helping me think and deal with, calming me and giving me peace, seemed to fall in place. I could even hear the proverbial click! The rainbow was an indication of my future, colourful and majestic in all nature's beauty, and interestingly originating from the building of my work! And at the same time, the arch was endless, unfathomable and its end limitless. The summer heat had been symbolic of all my struggles in the last year, and the brunt of all my honesty and transparency, and all the advantage people took of me! Every sweat was my self pity released, back into the environment, making me lighter and lighter. In the end, the rains had washed my soul clean, squeaky clean. The prayers I had so whole heartedly put in had accumulated realisations more than anything else...the knowledge that I was still on the right path of faith! The understanding that in the eternity of life, the machinations were like minor tremors or ants on an elephants' back, dawned upon me. The Buddha has nothing to prove, but it only manifests. Hence, one has to wait for the right moment and not plan circumstances to prove how good one is! In the last three months, I have felt that protection in my workplace from a higher superior and comforted myself with the growing satisfaction and sense of security.
However, just like a long summer, and thereafter waiting for the rains with hope, and then when it is delayed waiting for it with frustrations and finally humility and earnest prayer, followed by the actual soul quenching showers, I too have taken a similar journey in faith! One of conflicts and resulting disappointments, and then hoping for miracles, none of which happened, as my own attitudes were not in sync with my Buddha wisdom. Finally my earnest prayers, started collecting the clouds of comfort, exuberance and life's nourishment! The rainbow was the final piece in the puzzle of my journey in faith. As I make a fresh departure at my rainbow beginning, I am overwhelmed with gratitude towards nature and its omnipotence! 6月17日 SEVEN POUNDSHave any of you ever thought of giving your life away for others? Do we have that courage in us, otherwise? Or do situations of deep regret draw forth that strength? Situations where, through one mistake we take the lives of many others? What can be our biggest punishment? The life we lead thereafter, our heavy conscience or the death we embrace? Can the damage be undone? Can the dead be reborn?
I found answers to all these questions in a deeply touching movie, called the Seven Pounds! A best from Will Smith, whose I AM LEGEND was my previous favourite! If you have seen the movie, do share your thoughts with me! For those who havent, leaving this to mere questions! Find your answers in the film! 6月15日 Scope and Sequence... continuedThis is more an effort to clarify myself to a kind friend who, much to the shock of conservative educators, boldy spoke against learning being structured from the external to the inside! Well, with regards to life's experiences, I would totally agree with her! And that is why I feel glad that my scope and sequence is for me to discover and shape and mould through my own needs and experiences, my own desires and aspirations, my own mistakes and faults and my own strengths and acts of goodness! It is shaped by me like a pot in the hands of a potter, sometimes it breaks, and sometimes a wonderful piece is born!
With regards to learning in school, a similar situation would be ideal! Tagore, to some degree experimented with the thought process and hence, the classrooms were under the trees, the content earthy and yet internationally minded! Similarly Krishnamurti often left his disciples in a lurch as he told them to find their own path and own way! Having taught in a school like the Sahyadri School, where each teacher had the complete freedom to etch out the curriculum the way they envisioned it and to deliver it in his own style, I have also seen the negatives of such a system, especially for children, who often are caught between the pressures of a board and its exam against a deeper understanding of learning! A more balanced approach is needed and coming back to the PYP SnS document, it achieves exactly that. It has more leg space to stretch out your mind and give birth to your wings, and hidden layers that can help you grow a banyan tree of ideas and activities! The possibilties are endless and especially unfettered in its continuum format! Sadly, as educators, we often feel limited when given wide boundaries, and for the benefit of the dewinged, we have fleshed it out in more concrete terms, in greater black and white! An exercise that has both been inward and outward.So here I take the opportunity to invite you to explore it further, my friend! SCOPE AND SEQUENCE ... Entry for June 14Scope and sequence! What thoughts do these words arouse in your mind? Does it make any sense? To me and many of my colleagues, it is the master bible of a word! Yes, in layman's term it merely means a curriculum or a syllabus. Being a teacher of the Primary Years Programme, we like to use words that sound different and most often refreshingly mean different! Scope and Sequence is one such term! It is a document that articulates learning objectives and the depth at which they need to be covered in different stages. The thus resulting gradation contributes to the sequence, which can be age wise, class wise or level wise!
The IB PYP has reorganised their own curriculums for Literacy (ok...it simply means, English!), Numeracy (you guessed it right, Maths), Science and Social Studies. The reorganisation for Literacy has been the most radical and at the same time helpful. It is now a more clearly articulated document, with real practical examples of what they mean and no longer a set of age wise esoteric and hence, often misinterpretable learning objectives! They have done away with the age wise categorisation and made it into a phase wise continuum. So a child in any grade could be learning language at any of the phases! It would become too technical to go into the details of how it compares to a regular syllabus and maybe boring for you to read and comment! In a nutshell, however, the process has been tediously reflective and at the same time it has explicitly clarified my/ourown understanding of acceptable learning outcomes for Language learning.
Interestingly, the the reason why I mentioned the Scope and Sequence (document) was for a more profound cause. Imagine, if somewhere we could find a Scope and Sequence document for our lives! What would it be like? What would be those learning outcomes? How often would we need to learn about the concept of kindness begets kindness, as that would be a concept we would need revisiting all our lives! So the scope would remain the same but the sequence would be self repetitive! Contrastingly, managing money, would have to start from the very basics of managing resources from a young age, to managing pocket money in the teenages, followed by managing small incomes in youth and later larger incomes in adulthood. The scope would also vary for this sequence. For e.g.
Pocket money - managing pocket money, budgeting weekly expenses, profit and loss, discounts
Larger Incomes - debt management, credit management, savings for tax reduction and maybe tax evasion and hiding black money for some nefarious others!?
Well, if we look at our Vedas, the four stages or ashramas of our life were broadly the sequence we followed. Shakespeare called the sequence the seven ages of man! Buddha was progressive and identified the ten worlds which are interwoven through three different realms. Phew! That would be a really complex scope and sequence document to write! I truly believe that our scope and sequence document for our lives exists somewhere and most often the purpose of life is to discover it and if possible rewrite it....much like the review we have been doing! Whether the fact, that we dont have access to our personal scope and sequence, is fortunate or unfortunate depends solely on the way you look at it!
6月13日 Writing again!I have begun writing again, forced by the leisurely paced life I temporarily have (as long as the holidays last) and the bunch of words that have been prodding like a mid term embryo kicking against the grey cells to take birth in my writing! As a result, I have begun writing again!
6月12日 Observing oneself with easeYesterday's thinking aloud was a reflective effort. Today, I feel more free to articulate the same realisations in simple verse, as I tenderly slept close to my two darlings, swam with them joyously, and then played on the field, one with the grass, birds, trees and the breeze!
ACTIVE PASSIVE
The Sun seems to move in its own cycle,
energetic, active and illuminating
the world it sustains!
Not once waiting for anybody else,
ruthless in its glare.
Supportive in its bright stare.
At the end of the day,
the moon rises, aglow with serenity.
at ease with itself.
Calm, relaxed and soothing rays
sedate the tired, tempt the lunar and
romance the lovers.
6月11日 Breathing freeWhen we were born unfettered, why do we have to live in chains? Chains of work, chains of social responsibilities and chains of human emotions and relationships. Were we actually ever born free? When I stare out of my balcony door at the all encompassing nature around, I wonder, whether those sunbirds, vivdly inky blue, flitting from one bottlebrush to another, sucking on nectar, are actually free? Or are they too, tied to their own cycle of birth and death? Are they aware? DO they reflect? Or is it the painful burden of the human mind, that we cannot stop from analysing and observing what we see, trying to make connections amongst what we see and with ourselves?
However, this is not to answer all those questions but to proclaim to the world that I am at last breathing free! Free from chains that I had choked myself with over the last 6 months...a time of tremendous turmoil, self questioning and trying to understand not only what life has planned for me, but also whether life has at all planned anything for me???!! Of course, it has, but it has its own time and pace. So in January, my wife and I were busy getting ready to shift to a new school in Hyderabad, with promised goodies to steal us away from our existing job. However, just when we were getting ready to finalise the packers and movers, an inexplicable change of heart on their side, made on baseless arguments provoked us to get totally shaken! In the midst of recession and the Satyam fiasco, on one hand we had two jobs and in the next instant we had neither. Hence, just like a firm yet loving mother, when our current boss took us back gladly, we realised that life did have plans for us! What they were, we had no clue. Anyways, you can imagine the turmoil we went through being totally shaken from our roots, that we had so endearingly grown into the Buddha soil of the Aravalis over the last four and a half years (by the way, the longest we have stuck to one job) and which we were spurning due to the illdoings of a few common mortals. I had lost my otherwise broad vision of my speck of life in the vast eternity of the the Holy Trinity. Doubt and fear were waiting to pounce on me, as I lamented the loss of an opportunity, an escape I was seeking that I had been in denial about! None the less, more hurt and angst came when I was rejected in a training course for a third time. What could the message have been? A month or two of reflection later, I realised that it wasn't the passion or the heart that I lacked but it was the same heart and passion which made the acceptance an even greater challenge. Because I did not approach it from technical superficiality, I had to prove myself all the more. This was THE test through which I had to pass, to prove no longer to myself but to the Universe that in the face of all these persecutions, slander and injustice, my faith in life's plans would remain unshaken! Patience and perseverance became my new weapons, once again! Amidst all this, new responsibilities, that not only satisfied my innate managerial acumen, but also my intellectual needs, got me busy and extremely preoccupied. Tied to deadlines, against the stake of public attention...I had a lot to prove and otherwise be burnt against the same stake that was so trustingly placed as support behind my back! Thankfully, I was able to tie all loose ends, settle back into the school climate, accept the injustice in my environment with Buddhist kalm, and focus myself on fulfilling my responsibilities, with the spirit of oneness of mentor and disciple. I was finally able to untie myself!
This week, I can feel myself relaxed and at ease with the nature around me, as the rains washed away the grime and dust of the last 6 months, letting new grass emerge and new buds bloom! This was only a teaser I know, but I do hope that like the eternity of seasons, I too will be able to soak in the freshness of monsoons as an intrinsic value, an inner oasis, an introspective escape from reality, where once in a while I can take a dip and rinse myself clean of the tar and soot of the daily vagaries of life. A life riddled with human insecurities and negativities, by the bullets of verbal and physical violence. Thankfully, the nature around me acts like a healing balm, a mud pack that cleanses every pore of my being and rejuvenates, every cell of my body, with the verve of the sunbirds, the dash of bright of the sun, the colours of the flowers and the moistness of the squally showers! As of now, I am breathing free! Content in the quiet process called life, undercurrents of which are strengthening the seeds within me to manifest...at the right season, when the rains drench the fertile soil of my existence! It is truly a delightful feeling! |
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