The Brave Pedestrian

Like I said in an earlier post, a crucial thing that they don’t teach you at school is that being a winner in life isn’t about winning in all that you do, but about building a good relationship of give-and-take with the world around you. How do you do that? Well, mostly by trusting and being trustworthy. You set out every morning trusting that the world and its creatures will treat you right, and play fair by you. You make a habit of casting a generally benign eye at everything and everyone. Without necessarily setting out to be a do-gooder, you must generally cultivate the feeling that if the call to serve comes (whatever that may mean in that particular context), you will serve honestly without holding back for any reason. That’s the sort of vague but firm belief that we have in our key relationships — with our parents, siblings, spouses, children and close friends. In the absence of this promise to the world, your relationship with the world and all that lives in it,  including...

Some of us believe (so much that it’s second-nature) that commonsense dictates that we must give no more to the people of this world than we absolutely are compelled to. This commonsense also dictates that we must take everything that’s on offer to us, and then some. Gujaratis have a name for it: it’s called  Vaniya-buddhi…  which roughly translates as ‘trader mentality’. While I understand where they’re coming from — a worldview that holds that there’s no room in society for naive people — I cannot help feeling that a worldview that’s as open to loss as it is to gain is infinitely superior. Let us give it a name. We could call it  Brahmana-buddhi –  the mentality of a Brahmana or a priest, because it implies the willingness or even eagerness to sacrifice to the Gods. (However, please please let’s take away the casteist edge of that term; even a  Shudra  may have more  Brahmana-buddhi  than someone descended from seven generations of ce...

    I keep looking for images and words that express what I feel our world should be like. Well, here’s a pic I saw on L Kini’s Rediff iland blog. What does this picture signify? I see humankind, having voluntarily given up all their technological achievements and all their acquisitions, all protections, comforts and clothes, bowing in the midst of the grandeur of nature. I see people bowing before nothing in particular. (Maybe in reality they were bowing before a guru, an idol or a symbol when this picture was taken, but that need not concern us.) They seem to be bowing reverentially to the world in general, which includes themselves. I see all of us at ease with our own nakedness and humanness. Our shame and self-consciousness is replaced by a superconsciousness, a supreme fellow-feeling, a sense of being one with all others. A serene oneness pervades this picture. ...

PRAYER – I Softly, softly He enters my heart Wearing masks I can never recognize. In my innermost recesses, He cuts me, leaves me bleeding. Gently, gently He wounds me, And in my bleeding, he rejoices. Mere mehboob, mere dost My beloved, my friend… Silently he sits with me And shares my sorrow, my grief And through his own tears, smiles. His smile makes me forget my tears. He laughs with me, He laughs at me, Sometimes the distinction blurs And frankly, I don’t care. I gaze at his radiant face And pray that he never stops laughing. (If he does, I shall gladly play the fool Let him laugh at me.) But I see him raise his hands To secretly wipe his eyes. And I seize his hands Because his salty tears are mine Mine by right to kiss away and to drink. PRAYER – II Mere mehboob, mere dost, mere aaka You struggle to express your love And then you struggle to conceal it. I have felt your wounding touch. My be...