Waterfall

There were the Western Ghats, bursting throught the bellies of which were leaves, branches and roots; of every concievable shade of green, though now with a lazy stroke  of dusk rendering them a sort of hopelessly beautiful, tragic quality, with the promise that the night was about to come... or maybe hopefully beautiful haunted quality of the promise of the morning that will eventually chase away the night.

There was some mist hanging across them- like the veil of something that needs protection (not everyone will find it easy to believe that something as tough as mountains need protection in the form of a gauzy lacework of clouds and mists,though). And right across the heart of the mountains hung this infinitely fragile threadwork of diamonds- molten diamonds (if anyone has ever heard of melting diamonds), trickling like beads of prayer. This was the most beautiful present the monsoons decorated the Ghats with. Yes, it was the most beautiful waterfall.

Why, when one sees a watefall (water fall) across rocks, one feels joy, longing, beauty, hope and sadness all at once?

a sheet

of drizzles across my misted window

a trickle

of the waterfalls that flow

a sound

of the word  unsaid

a beam

of sunlight on my bed

a beginning

at the beginning of time

a blessing

of your hands in mine

a moment

of realization of our dreams

a sigh

that surpasses all our screams

a you

who could make my life

a me

who could be your wife

a love

that like silences and words will grow

a life

that through ethers, spaces and time will flow

Our Traditions

Our lives are connected to the immutable life force that is physical and spiritual, tangible and invisible – an inner force of nature that stretches beyond the mortal coil of living into infinite celestial space. I believe that the present state of chaos and restlessness in the world within and without has its roots in our relationship to the ancestors. Vedic tradition, like many other native cultures, informs us that the ancestors play a significant role in our daily lives. They have a vital connection with the world of the living since their subtle energy intimately presents itself to guide, inspire and safeguard our progress and well-being on earth.
There are certain concepts that are part and parcel of the teachings of our culture, which is essentially an all-embracing approach to life. One of these key concepts is that the world is made of consciousness. In Physics, they speak of potential and kinetic energy. If the potential energy isn’t present, let’s say for a pendulum at the top of its swing, there won’t be any kinetic energy of its downward swing. Even at the time when rocks were formed and the planets began to take shape, consciousness had to exist as a potential. If it had not been there, lots of things wouldn’t be around and I wouldn’t write and you wouldn’t read. There had to be a potential for it from the beginning of time for the universe to produce life, consciousness, and the reality of my writing and you reading.
With too much emphasis on technology, we are losing our appreciation of intuitive consciousness. Wouldn’t we have something substantial to gain if we paused for a while to raise our heads from our heavily laden desks to appreciate the subtle promise of spring in the air or the sound of a flowing river? It would tell us the importance of existing, living and make us realize what we could have been and what we really are without and with consciousness.

Movie review: The Wizard of Oz

This is a fairy tale from the MGM studio, well known for its very famous ‘Tom & Jerry’ series. They produced ‘The Wizard of Oz’ way back in 1951.
The story is about a little girl called Dorothy who lives in Kansas with her family and her pup called Toto. Toto lands up in trouble for going after rich people’s cats. A rich and cruel lady comes to take him away from Dorothy, leaving her crying bitterly. But Toto manages to run away, back to her. As children always manage trouble over things they are sentimentalists about, Dorothy decides to run away with Toto. That’s where adventure begins as a twister hits the neighborhood and her house and plucks her house off the earth. She finds herself flying all across the sky. When her home finally hits ground, she finds herself in a strange land and she concludes that she’s reached the land across the rainbow.
The land was inhabited by little people called munchkins. She becomes quite the heroine there because where her house falls in Munchkinland, it hits and squashes the life out of the wicked witch who had troubled little munchkins for a long time. But another wicked witch, the dead witch’s sister wants to avenge her sister’s death. In order to return to her home and save herself from the wicked witch, she sets out to find the most remarkable and powerful and great wizard of Oz. She makes friends on her way, a scare-crow who wants a brain, a tin-man who wants a heart and a cowardly lion who wants courage. How they find the wizard and what they get after finding the wizard forms the substantial part of the motion picture and keeps the interest of the audience glued. They eventually find the Wizard of Oz after a great ordeal and he manages to satisfy all of them, except Dorothy. But a good witch comes to her rescue. Her ‘Ruby Slippers’ take her home
Finally when Dorothy reaches home, she finds that she is in bed with fever and probably it was all a dream.
The commendable part of the theme is the way teachings have been offered to the audience. It’s like some literature by Socrates, and as important, but wrapped in the cover of an Archie comics paperback. They’ve presented morals inside innocent pink humor, through the dialogue and dialogue delivery of the characters. Only, the Archie paperback cover has been more aesthetically done.
The most important thing for young adults to learn is that there is no place like home, which Dorothy realizes after running off. And other things told to us through the scare-crow, the tin-man and the lion point that we are what we think we are. There are no limits to what we can be only if we remove the limits we have decided to impose on ourselves. The shock that viewers get when they find out that the great wizard of Oz was not so great after all is very well handled and tells us that looks can be deceptive and we ought to be able to form opinions ourselves without being affected by rumors and reputations. The noteworthy thing is that even though conventionally a failure, this wizard manages to give to each of them what they want the most, that too from inside themselves.
The end is the celebration of two things, one, the occasion that Dorothy gets back to home and the second that her friends get everything they always badly wanted and strongly believed that they did not and could not have. Both point towards just one thing, the celebration of our ‘will’. Where there is a will, there is a way.
They picture deserves credit for honest adaptation of the original story, very melodious dialogues, musical rhymes and mind-blowing performance of the actress playing Dorothy. They movie is half colored. The part showing Munchkinland and Oz is in colors, though rest of the movie is black & white. The special effects have been much ahead of the time the picture was made. Humor too, though almost five decades old, it has universal appeal and manages to tickle audience of every age.
All in all, the movie, of the genre ‘fantasy’ will never cease to appeal to the psychologies and the deepest desires of young adults.

Atlantis

In mid-Atlantic there is an island that only the souls of the heroes can enter- without dying. The Greek philosophy holds that these are the Isles of the Blessed. It is on the floor of the ocean and glinting and glowing are towers of Atlantis. The ocean floor is too deep down, but the lights too strong, visible to every ship that would pass, the Isles keep shimmering under the waves.
Another legend holds that the greatest explorer of all times found the Fountain of Eternal Youth. He had worked very hard to reach it. He worked harder to get it down from the mountains, where he had found it, to his fellow-men. He tried and tried. Only he never came back, because he learnt that it could not be brought down.
If we look closely, we will find that the two legends are inseparable – the Fountain of Youth and Atlantis. And yes, they cannot be shared, presented or received in charity, because they are in the depths and the heights of our own selves, our bodies, minds and souls.

[From ‘Atlas Shrugged’ and ‘The Fountainhead’ by Ayn Rand]

Burning bridges

There’s something I’ve got to learn,
I can’t cross bridges that I burn.
The alien waves lapping at feet
In foreign colors like fields of wheat.
Walking alone I must know now
There are natural answers to ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘how’…
The world is grey and at times green,
Doesn’t help if I refuse to see how things have been.
Community they say…that’s where people belong…
How could I know? An outcast all along….
Square pegs and round holes…or round holes and square pegs?
Rat-a-tat… I’m still as anomalous as cocktail dregs!
There’re some things I just can’t learn…
I still try to cross the bridges that I burn.

There are people they call normal around;
Can you tell me where is the ‘normal’ species found?
I’d get my ticket, get my visa and passport stamped,
I’ll jump on that first jet that comes to the ramp.
Then I’ll come back with a ‘brand’..
I’d be called a return from ‘Normal-land’!
The world feels crazy and upside-down,
Like maids cleaning with their hair and the king sitting on his crown.
Like seas coming to the rivers and not the reverse,
And Gods blessing with bloodshed and curses.
Like the pyramid that stands on its tip,
The pharaohs and mummies, their knuckles white in their grip.

Why are the bridges burnt, you ask?
Because I like to stick to my own task.
Love, appreciation and respect are ‘normal’ to me…
Though jealousy, hatred and killing are all that I can see.
How should I understand the language of the gun?
Why should I accept the color of blood as the color of power?
Were you mis-pronouncing it, or I caught it right,
A war was called so your traders could benefit from selling fright?
Fright wrapped on a bullet or stuffed in a torpedo…
Powdered in cocaine? Ohh what credo!
I’ll burn all the bridges till I can…
So that I can’t cross them nor can another man.
Yes there is something you’ve got to learn…
No one can cross the bridges that I burn.