Lost ground

The wind updrafts have died long ago…The eagles aren’t circling above them anymore. There were no boats in the lake. The trees have shed all the leaves. He mumbles as if asking himself “Do we die in an instant……” She looks with an air of surprise. ”…or over the years??”

Sometimes she feels as if this guy is just mad. He slips out almost imperceptibly into a different world which she can’t access. And then she is left wondering whether to remind him that he is with her. It’s a curious struggle. She has to keep him engaged in conversation other wise he would “slip”. But she is afraid overdoing it. He doesn’t like talkative people either.

This has been going on since an year now. They did have beautiful moments together. Like that morning watching the lake change its color from dark black to green. The defrosting action of sun bring life back into flowerbed which looked almost dead in the morning. She doesn’t recollect what they had talked during that entire morning but she remembers the warmth of that moment..or was that a shawl.

By all accounts he is much more alive than any normal human being. When he is at it you can’t shut his mouth. When he is curious you can’t just lull his curiosity by reasonable looking answers. But she wonder if he has been that alive in love. He can spark her emotions almost at his whims but when she tried it she has always found him immovable.

He would be humming a song and suddenly ask her how is it? She almost feels as if she has heard it somewhere. Then he would show a crumpled piece of paper and tell her that he wrote it about her. She would cajole him to repeat it and he would. With each word she would feel a swell of emotions. The blissful embrace would be interrupted at the sound of stones disturbed by the steps of passing Nepalese coolie carrying a load almost as heavy as his on weight. Sweat lining his eye brows in that cold evening.

Then he would pick his camera and carefully position himself to take a photograph. The Nepali would give a shy smile but he won’t click. He would just wait until the wrinkle in his forehead tells the story of weight and perseverance. A click later he would smile and beacon the Nepali to have a cigarette. The subject and the photographer would be lost in intimate talks. She won’t understand what Nepali said about the cigarette and she won’t understand whether he understands Nepalese. She would feel the loss of a beautiful moment..feel being forgotten

But no. he would come back…grab her hand to take her to patch of jungle left untouched by the burgeoning town. She would find it hard to keep pace. At the top of the hill amid wild rose plants he would point at a gorgeous red flower. He would tell her that he has gifted the flower to her even before it bloomed, carefully taking of a paper strip wrapped around the branch.. Written in an unmistakably bad handwriting .“For my love”.

She doesn’t know if she loves him. She knows when she does. She knows when she doesn’t. Like that day when he told her that for him, she is nothing but a subject of his photographs, much like a beautiful flower. She was hurt..even more so knowing the fact that he know precisely what she would feel when he says it. But she forgives. She yields to his weirdness.

He looks at her and she too is lost…just like him…what if he just walks away… never to come back…Many things which made his life till an year ago, are losing their meaning.… The shadows were slowly reclaiming the ground lost during the day…inch by inch

The norm

In our village there is an interesting norm. If I grow a tree on my orchard and the branch of that tree grows beyond my field into neighbor’s field, I’m liable to share, half the produce of that branch, with my neighbor. The more simple the life seems on surface, the more complicated are the laws of a community.

There was a person in that village who didn’t like his neighbors. Who does? And he planted an orange tree. The tree, ignorant about the boundaries of land grew in all directions. A few years passed and a wayward branch crossed the diving line between the fields.

The person realized that he will be forced to do the unthinkable.. share the fruits of his toil with his neighbor. That was out of question. So one day as the sun was rising he climbed the tree with an axe and cut the branch.

I’ve no comments on the norm or the implications for either of the neighbors but I do feel bad about the tree. But isn’t that too a norm. In all conflicts the innocent pays.

Fear

What does it take to get afraid? Imagine walking alone in a dense forest..A small mouse that scurries around in search for food, a stump of a fallen tree, any thing, a shadow of anything, a sound or lack of it, a sight or lack of it, is capable of raising a chilling sensation in your spine.

You aren’t afraid so much about the subject of your fear but you are afraid of fear, per se. Don’t try to reason it out. There have been tiger attacks here..Bullshit.. Don’t convince yourself that you fear is reasonable. Just be afraid and you would soon realize that its so silly.

Here you are..whistling a song so as not to focus on the fear which is gripping your mind..Your fear fueling the imagination and the imagination tricking your senses to see a ghostly shape, a frightful sound..

I’ve been around Jim Corbett park in the moonlit nights and I have seen that the fear is only animal that keep with you. All wild animals, in whatever small numbers they have been reduced to, keep a safe distance from humans. They know about you much before you come to know about their existence. And they won’t kill you for a meal because humans aren’t that tasty choice. Even if they are tasty they aren’t worth the risk…You never know when a bullet will come out shrieking.

I believe in rationality of wild animals which makes me take supposedly irrational decisions of roaming fearlessly in jungles. When I went out for the first time my family tried to convince me about the dangers in the wild but I didn’t pay heed. Finally..my father asked “Till what time should we wait before sending a rescue party?” I said "4’o Clock..tomorrow evening". I bet he had a sleepless night. Me?? That was one of the best night I ever had!

Crow attack

Swoosh…. I bent down instinctively..What was that? As soon as I raised my head to look around there comes another attack..A pair of crows..attacking in turn..Keeping one eye on the sky I quickly head for the cover..

It doesn’t take a lion to hurt you. A crows’s beak has enough punch in it to break the skull. You don’t believe..Then you see the wild variety of a walnuts in the hills of Kumaon..These nuts are tough and it takes a solid hit form a 5 pound stone to break these nuts...And crows find these easy enough to break.Don’t worry though..Like any other wild bird or animal they need a reason to attack you. “The Birds” was a piece of fiction.

The adventurous one, among the young crows, often falls down its nests while testing the strengths of the new found winds. As it can’t fly back to the nest, the parents have no other option but to defend it while it hops around the ground below the nesting site. If you happen to come near the baby crow, you become target of the bird attack. The beauty of the attack is that the parents work in pairs. The mother would come down from a tree, and hit you with the beak and then continue to the next tree. If you continue to move closer to the baby crow the father takes off from the opposite tree for a follow up strike.

I soon left the crows to their own devices. But the problem persisted throughout the day. The baby crow caught attention of my dog. While the dog was watching with heightened state of curiosity when crow attacked my mother. She was actually hit in the head and got a goose bump in her skull. The dog, helplessly chained, started barking feverishly. After all it was encroachment of its air space.

The beautiful part of the childhood was the novel experiences like this which happened almost without notice. It was fun. Soon I decided that the best way to put an end to the commotion it to let the dog go loose. The small amount of guilt was soon overcome by the argument that the dog is also part of nature and if it kills the baby bird, its nature’s rule. It was a convenient argument.

As I released the dog it approached the baby crow in a confidant manner. It didn’t rush, the way it usually does while attacking unannounced human visitors. The crow came swooping down but the dog escaped the beak in a quick reflexive move. Before it could recover the other crow made the swooping attack, hitting its back.

The dog, visibly distracted, started looking at the tree anticipating the next attack. The baby crow, on its own accord, hopped into a relatively inaccessible position. The crows had achieved their aim so they remained in the tree, closely monitoring the situation on the ground. The dog, soon decided to put its mind on the unfinished business but the baby crow wasn’t there. It looked perplexed. But the dog soon figured out where the baby crow..As the dog tried to approach there were more attacks. The dog now got real angry and started barking and showing of as it its about to pounce upon the baby crow..The crows on their part refused to give up and mounted a unceasing strike. They started circling the dog and swooping down at an opportune moment. The dog had no option but to give up and it did.

The crow has a special status in Kumaon. Every Makar Shankranti, a festival in the January, the Kumaoni people prepare a feast on the previous night. No one is supposed to eat any of the prepared dishes till crow eats a piece on the morning of Makar Shankranti. All crows are busy that day. Everyone is shouting from their roof tops calling the crow to eat the poori(a type of bread) but they are overwhelmed by the calls

But they do a good job. They take the offerings and transport them to the hiding places and come back. Within 2-3 hours every house in the town gets to eat what they prepared last night. But no one bothered to ask the crow how does it feel on that day? “Aren’t humans lil crazy??”

A drenched evening

Is it not little silent today? The usual noisy rumbling stream is eerily quite.. rushing past as if in a hurry. But then where are the stones? They aren’t talking to the stream anymore. Are they submerged or may be rolling under the stream.. the water has got a greenish.. brownish color .. It had rained continuously for 3 days.. I’m out for the first time since the week begun..

Look at those drops.. Hanging to the edge of grass.. Shining in the evening sun.. “Hey Don’t move..I’ll fall” But the grass seems more adventurous.. swaying in a gentle rhythm of the breeze.. I get a thrilling sensation. A memory of being thrown up in air.. two hands waiting to catch me..to throw me up again.. As a kid I used to laugh..I used to ask for more heaven bound launchings.. But I lack that trust now.. A trust on an invisible hand..that it would be alright when I come down.. free falling..

I haven’t got rid of adventurous spirit.. But my adventures are solo performances..I take calculated gambles. I flirt with chance..but I know I can fall down. But isn’t life a sum of memories of such escapades.. Aren’t we actually meant to challenge the laws of gravity..

Oops..How do I cross now? There used to be a wooden bridge.. Its all gone..I rarely used it.. You may not know, up there what we call a bridge..A log thrown over the stream…You got to stretch your hands and do a tight rope walk across the stream..As you move it moves under your feet.. If you look down the water invites you to lose your balance..So the best strategy is to look ahead and cross.. Trust you legs..

I prefer hopping across..Further up the stream..there was a stone..well placed exactly at the center of the stream..Take a deep breath..One..two..three and jump..It take skill to kill your forward momentum..You have to balance on that stone..wow..You are in the middle of the steam. .vortexes dancing all around you..Touch it ..the cold water from glacier hasn’t gained one degree of warmeth..It can chill you right here..Look at the flow…It can kill you right here.. smashed against a stone..You would be dead before you even now..But you can’t drown..So it doesn’t matter if you know how to swim.. I don’t know how to swim..Look how the mind tries to justify the shortcomings of self..

Today it seems rich in water.. Its still impossible to swim but its ofcourse possible to drown.. My stone is submerged.. Should I jump believing that it would be just under the surface..’Trust your fate..The stone wouldn’t have budged..Water corrodes the strength but not in a day..the stone willed give up..atom by atom. against the unrelenting strokes on water..’

‘No.. it wouldn’t be a wise move..I can cross all right but the sun is about to set..If I cross it would be difficult to come back..’

I. distracted by moisture in my socks..The blood sucking bastards have managed to get in there.. Got to head back. Leeches are interesting animals..Imagine what would it be like to sit still. hungry and wait for you’re your food to come to you..’Buddy…I don’t have too much blood in me..You will have to shed your’s today..Your time has come..’

I put a pinch of salt on the leech..the blood oozes out from its permeable skin..The salt slowly turns red.. crystal by crystal.. I can feel it loosening the grip from my skin..Its dead now..

The sky is turning red too..The wind has stolen the chill from the water..The night would wrap the hills in black shroud..A perfect background for displaying a tapestry of stars.