MELTING POT OF YIN AND YANG

Being a messenger of God, I was gliding upon the wings of the wind one day.
My presence in dazzling white and blazing glory was not visible to anyone. I could move around unnoticed by mortals; my job being to observe things, both in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, to carry out a variety of tasks to serve my Almighty

In due course that evening I came across a party on a sea beach.  There was an exquisitely manicured garden with a massive lush carpet of the finest grass and a glittering dance floor, in the background of an azure blue sea.
The splendid site charmed me. I desired to hover there for few moments to figure out what was happening before moving on. I however didn’t realize how time flew by.   Soon I was transfixed, absorbing the grandest royal evening party I had ever seen. It was so gorgeous that it was impossible for me to steer away from its grandeur.

Flowing dresses and smiling faces were roaming all around; graceful and elegant, despite the formal air. The guests seemed to be very relaxed enjoying the evening in the bounty of nature just as much I did.
I felt a tinge of pride in God’s creations on His beloved earth. People looked to be so happy in their worldly lives. Engrossed, I sipped in the evening’s delight, like manna.

The people gathered there were all great dignitaries from all over the world - ambassadors, managing directors of the business world, members of royal families, ministers, renowned bankers, journalists, great lawyers of the time, celebrated artists, actors ,writers, poets, painters and many more.

The small clusters of women resembled bouquets of exquisite flowers. They were shining both with their beauty and intellect.  Many of them were distinguished in their respective fields.
Floating around on their high heels and flowing gowns, they looked like fairies or angels.

Soon it was the time for families to introduce each other.

Each man spoke rather  highly of one’s wife.  They introduced their better-halves as  ‘worthy’ and’ much adored’ life partners. The ladies in question smiled courteously and said how inspiring’ and ‘noble’ the men in their lives were. They were all lucky and blessed in their companionship which was nothing less than a gift from God.  

A  handsome young journalist from that gathering said exuberantly,
“I am blessed to have Julie as my fiancé. She is so clever and fun at the same time.”
The lady had been quite the centre of attention that evening. Her brilliance and her innocence had every one smitten instantly. No wonder her beau was so proud of her. I had not seen such combination of beauty and intellect myself.

Another oriental couple with lovely melting eyes and rosy pouts drew my attention. The lady was watching everything with her quiet but elegant and watchful eyes, stood like pillar of support beside her husband, a renowned banker, who had the most blissful smile on his face.

A Royal couple from India was present too,
the Queen looking absolutely divine! Her admiring husband spoke endlessly about her spiritual experiences and illustrated in details how her divine power, from time to time had helped him to keep all the evil spirits away  from his kingdom. I found her very distinctive soul, and felt rather pleased.

There were many, many such illustrious people who drew my attention that evening. From artists to singers, from engineers to financial wizards, they were all brilliant in their respective fields and equally inspiring as couples, who seemed to have got their steps right and dancing  through life with easy grace.

Everything was so very captivating that it was many hours, before I retired along with guests.
But I had resolved to join the men again in their stag party next evening.
It was my long cherished dream to know the human beings from a very close range and this was a great opportunity.

The next evening, in the dazzling twilight, the gentle men assembled for a stag party. No ladies were allowed there. At first glance they looked happy as ever and full of good humour. They greeted each other cordially and started drinking and smoking filling the air with great revelry. But as the evening proceeded, and no sooner they were a  few pegs down, the atmosphere changed beyond my anticipation. It was so abrupt that I had to recoil for a few minutes to readjust myself to the new setting, its unexpectedness catching me by great surprise and a little  sadness.

Hush! Hush! I couldn’t believe my ears!
How many shades can a life have?  Human lives are not full of roses I knew but I was suddenly aware of  the  thousands of thorns that came with it.  My friends seemed to suffer from many problems which I was not aware of before!  

To my great surprise I noticed some of  the great and grand figures from the evening before, had started looking vulnerable and even stupid! Their poised behaviour from the evening before had vanished and had been replaced by foul mouthed allegations.


What a change!  It worried me a bit!

The pitch and the decibel of their chattering, increasing by the minute, made it impossible for me to hold on any longer. Amidst puffs from cigarettes that filled the air with nauseating gloom, their babble grew intolerably loud and their cackle sounded almost fiendish, at times.  It didn’t seem like a hearty affair anymore, some of them falling like nine pins amid all the commotion. What was I seeing?

Their incorrigible remarks on others – friends or foes, disturbed me even more.

Their passion for cutting poor and insensitive jokes on their  high profiled wives showed how much they lacked in judgment and sincerity. They were calling their wives all sorts of names and ripping them apart for their slightest flaws. They were not goddesses anymore. 
They were being described from being dull, dry, stuffy, stodgy, barren to even being characterless, spiritless, heartless, uninteresting and stale.
What a tremendous swing from the perception of the evening before!
Pity, most of them seemed to agree that their better halves didn’t understand them at all and that their conjugal happiness was just a façade. Far from being a blessing from heaven their lives were living hell.

My soaring ecstasy of night before evaporated to nothingness. I was both shocked and disappointed.

The Royal Highness got up to go meanwhile. “I must leave now”, he said.

“What’s the matter? Is there a war raging that you have to go so early? others asked

“That’s right. You don’t know Mira –my wife.  There is small war raging every day at my house.  She is so arrogant , trying to control other people all the time turning. She gets further stubborn when she cannot get them on line,” the king accused.

“She  can get murderous if I fail to reach home on time!

The face of the divine Queen flashed upon my inward-eye.

“Forget it!” one advised the king in a smiling face.

“I brush off all the allegations of my wife like petty burrs. Do as I do. We must not give them so much importance.”  

“My wife, is such a snob too!’’ started another with a sympathizing nod to the king.

“She has great respect for people from her own social status, and looks down on all others.  In addition, she believes, she is sharper than me and all her works are thousand times better than mine. For years I am listening to all these and I feel like murdering her myself.”

The evening rolled on in this way … very man on sight complaining about his wife and sharing the complaints of their wives against them.

I was aghast! Hardly a few hours…  The night before, I was appreciating the couples for their divine looks, developed minds and cultured bearings.  I appreciated the way they were paying tributes to their respective life partners. I was moved by the ways they had shown respect to each other. And a few hours later all that had changed dramatically.

Human beings have such dubious characters! They have masks of different personalities at different times, which no doubt is the source of all pain.

What a puzzle. I had rush to God to get some answers.

God smiled benignly when I reached him. He knew what I had in mind. He had something to share with me. He said,

“Both male and female are created out of me if you remember. They represent the Yin and Yang- the two complementary but opposing forces in me. Yin is symbolized by water. It is feminine in nature; Yang is symbolized by fire and is masculine in character.

Most forces in nature can be broken down into their Yin –Yang states. Their mutual interference with each other or intolerance with each other, can create great destruction but when used as complementary forces they attain godhood.
Life’s lessons are in looking for that middle path that can incorporate contradictions to complement one’s growth instead of getting destroyed by the pressure of one force. The essence of Truth in life is hidden in these complexities.

The men and women who are fragmented during their creation have knowledge about “many” but they must learn how to live as “one”, as a whole, in this Universe.

 

I got enlightened at last and left the place with peace restored in my heart once again. 

God’s words were ringing clear in the air… “Absolute is the melting-pot of all apparent differences in timeless eternity. Human beings have to learn this lesson and experience this truth through their struggles”.

FIR LODGED, 2011

I woke up early in the morning from my unpleasant dreams and rememberd that I am to dash to the court to stand as a witness this morning. This is the first time I will be visiting a criminal court. Presenting myself well dressed and right on time I was in the belief of venturing into something bold and hot state of affairs, as we observe all the time in reel life.

When I reached there my impression  about the ambience of the court which should be distinguished from other buildings,I am sorry to say, at least in my opinion,was lacking at my first glance.

How dark and dull the place was even in that sunny morning! An age-old gate was  thrown open to embrace every body there -from cats, dogs, beggers, accusers, accused, police and their worn out- rustic vans.
A miserable scene to witness.

The trees, plants and a lawn  which was not very large - all were lying in a shabby order. Hardly any body looks after them. The railings inside the gate were dirty with birds’ droppings.

I proceeded  slowly  through them.

Large number of lawyers  were wandering here  and there,  not a single bench to seat. Some of them were standing clustered together near the entrance of the gate with particular motives might be or were loitering aimlessly.

One lady lawyer caught hold of me to whisper something in my ear. I couldn’t make out initially what she was saying.

 “Excuse me!” I said.

“Do you need an affidavite?” she repeated for the second time.

A few steps ahead, before answering the first  one, another lawyer stepped forward and  whispered in my another ear,

 “Let me know the case, I can help you”.

I was perplexed.
"Do the lawyers have to get their clients this way every-day?” I asked myself.
I never expected the respected lawyers doing something like this.

We, the Hindus usually encounter this sort of persuasion in our religious places where a class of  Pujaries, whom we call “Pandas” run after the worshippers to help them in performing Pujas and expect money in return. This is their way of every day earning. Here the same thing was happening as well.

Our honourable young Lawyers were being driven to persuade and help their clients in their cases and were being paid for it. It was really humiliating, not on their part, but for the system of the court itself. They should have been allotted one special room for them which probably was there but none that I could notice.

Most of them were not looking very well-off either, as I noticed them closely. I regretted their helplessness.

“I prefer not to take any", I answered in short and moved ahead.

My eyes met Mr. D’souza, the accused, in the lounge but he instantly changed the direction of his eye-balls and pretended to follow the movements of other people around. His innocent,so called pious and calm look,  no body knows, how could deceive people on some occasions.

“A difficult person to handle,” I murmured.
"Nothing could be done without his help in the business, he knows it very well, still he is making such illusions. After a long thirteen years of suffering, a radical change is inevitable. We must come to a  mutual understanding through law to obtain all my dues rightfully .” I thought.

I moved onward leaving him behind in the midst of other people. The door of the chamber had just opened.

A cat was preceding me whom I had not noticed a while ago. I slowly walked behind it .

 “There is no reason why is it here!”
Perhaps, as I guessed later, it was one of the witnesses as well  like me, who had to be there to witness some evil rats’ rattling  underneath the age-old legal records as files of cases in adjacent chambers.

It entered slowly, sat silently under a lawyers chair and made a sound “Miaon”.

Carrying the same value and silence I too entered the room quietly and sat on a bench.

It was a suffocating square room without very much of sunshine and without any window. Two narrow passages showed the ways towards the other two chambers in the east side of the room.

A portion of one of those rooms, could  be seen from the place where I seated myself.  It was so dark inside, due to its unwashed walls that lights had to be kept on throughout the day.  Lots of files were stacked on the shelves,dust and might be cobweb filled, as I presumed from distance.

An old fashioned ceiling fan was hanging at the end of a long rod in my room. Its screeching sound at  regular intervals drew my attention. Twelve calenders in rows with dates written in large letters were hanging there on the wornout wall, facing the Judge, in  the west side of the chamber, might be to help him watching its big numbers very easily without any hindrance.

One big table was laid in the east side of the chamber for the judge. He was supposed to enter any time from one of those passages of other chambers.

The calender pages were flip- floping when air was passing through them from time to time, making inevitable sound polution in the room but nobody bothered.

This  scene of a court I hardly imagined in my wildest dream ever. “ Reel life is so far from real life !” I racked my brain.

In minutes the room became crowded - the lawyers, police, servants, assistants, clerks and many others  entered the room one after another.
I was sitting cross-legged. One police man correctd me not to seat like that in a chamber. I was amused to see that  some etiquette were still carried on with due rspect in the  midst of other un-methodical arrangements of the place.

Then there came into the room our very Judge. Every body stood up and bowed. I bowed as well.

He was in his middle ages. He looked slightly unwell even in this fresh hour of the morning.
He wore a loosely fitting black suit.

Many thoughts were running through my head as I gazed at him.

Possibly he didn’t have a good sleep last night. Many cases to be solved very urgently in short period of time or may be there is no body to look after him at home after his wife’s demise. Probably servant came late this morning and cooked same typical “poha”( the  judge was maharastrian ) for his breakfast in a hurry which he put aside or sent back. Might be he couldn’t afford enough money for his childrens’ education abroad.


Had  these things kept him worried?  Otherwise why he looked a bit down in the mouth?

Whatever might be the reasons I felt sorry for him and I worried also. Would he be able to give his fair judgement for every person sitting over here? Would he ever find the right solution through all these difficulties when he looked to be so under the weather?

I suspected if he could do that. After all he is a human being.

"What will happen to those people who were religiously waiting for his verdict including me?  These days increasing number of Indians criticise our Judicial system and our rule of law.  In many cases there has been erosion of democratic value. Some judgements could be “fixed”.

Levels of corruption in the lower courts may be even higher. The case may go in favour of the other party against cash offered, perverting the law and stopping it from persuing the true end of justice . Sometimes the judge and the prosecutor even worry about their own safety against the criminals!

“Que sera, sera’’ …..I muttered.

 Various adjustments of the chairs for the lawyers, and  arrangements of papers were going on,  -inclusion of this thing or abandonment of that thing etc.
I couldn’t appreciate the way they were managing all those things. Everybody present there, was busy at discussions, standing awkwardly in the middle of the hall, pulling their chairs from  here to there.

Police arrived with attendants, attendants came in with letters and Clerks with inquiries. Some people – I had no idea who they were  - were coming in and going out constantly jamming the doorway.

I felt a bit isolated, tired and oviously disgusted.

I left the room for few minutes to have some fresh air.

A ridiculous thing happened just at that moment  outside. An awful scream of a cub, I heard.
It was an ordinary street dog black in colour . The cub was trying to run away from an adult male dog who seemed to be one of the  permanent inhabitant of this enclosed area of the court. The cub was shouting on the top of his voice and was running as fast as he could and passed by the court gate.
Probably our honourable adult male dog, maintaining its dignity of  higher class order, couldn’t tolerate  this type of intrusion of a common street dog in his domain.  He returned back with great satisfaction after the cub left.

Meanwhile another incedent happened. A flock of  mobbing crows entered the complex with harsh and drawnout noises which is always their stronghold in their behaviour and one of them dropped shits on the cloak of an advocate. He was on his way to reach his car.  Another young advocate rushed for his rescue but  unfortunately there was no availability of water  nearby  --no bathroom, not a single tap or wash basin. You could only find them in the canteen at the third floor.

I felt amused watching all these dramas; but couldn’t wait for long to witness the end of it.

I was summoned to appear in the witness box. Public prosecutor carried on the legal proceedings with reference to my claim . Honourable judge listened to everything carefully and dictated a person to note down all the facts .  Proceeding  moved onward. Then the lawyer of the accused  was asked to cross examin me. By that time the room overflowed with crowd . Everybody was listenning to our arguments in rapt attention.

One hour went past easily. An awful day I experienced.

I recalled my memories of many stage shows I had done in my young life as a performer.

The immediate impact of a performance could always be seen on the faces of the spectators whether they liked it or not.

Hopefully this would going to be my last stage show, I thought, but here in this show I couldn’t achieve anything instantly what I achieved in my earliar shows.

Reserve in speech, silence and emotions, had to be maintained strictly here. I would have to wait for Judge’s verdict for few more days.
I won or lost the case,  I could hardly perceive. 

The widespread last rays of  the Sun came to be visible in the horizon when  I left the court.
The incessant flow of  life with its sorrows , hopes, desires, aspiratoins, haves and haves-not was  around me.

I reached home safely in an empty mind.

CHIRPY - CHRUK

This is a short story  about two of my favourite sparrows who visit my house everyday. This is a touching, true incident  depicting  the human qualities of love and friendship and a strong bond that may exist between two birds. 

DREAM BIRDS

This is a short imaginative story of how there can be unity in diversity and how such a union can lead to a bounty of beauty...

DIVINE BIRDS

This is a short funny tale on one of the so called divine species - the pigeons, who are supposedly classier and more dignified of the lot, holding a rather esteemed position in the bird world. A closer look and you discover quite a few chinks in  their divine armour. 

DANGEROUS NEIGHBOURS

A short story of matching of wits with the wise owl...

THE STORY OF SAHADEVA

Myth tells us very little about Sahadeva - the twin brother of Nakula the youngest of the Pandavas. A study of the past events in the life of Sahadeva is however very interesting. His eventual dénouement into “The enlightened one” in the most unexpected circumstances is infact a story teller’s delight. I am drawing upon my own readings to narrate

that story today with an amazing twist in the tale.

DIWALI GIFT

In the busy routine of our lives we sometimes forget to pause and look around. We miss out on seeing how others around us are doing. What problems they face and how we can help them. Only when we extend our help that we realize how satisfying it is to be of help to those that are less privileged than us

ONE EVENING

A memorable evening with the Masai dancers in Masaimara  - a picture that would remain etched in my mind forever for reasons more than one.

The Equator

Most of us know that Equator is an imaginary line on the Earth’s surface which divides the Earth into Northern Hemisphere and Southern hemisphere, but we hardly have any idea about the effects of Earth’s rotation on moving objects in these two hemispheres.
Anything which moves in the Northern hemisphere will experience a small turn to the right .
In southern hemisphere it is just opposite . Everything turns to the left . This is called “Coriolis effect.” This force is not effective on the Eqator itself .The coriolis force is zero here.

Eqator runs through Central Africa and many other places of the world dividing the Earth in two equal halves .

Recently we went to Nairobi –capital city of the Republic of Kenya . From there we went to Nanyuki town which is situated on the Equator- to experience this coriolis effect . There we came across a board where it was written that the Equator passes through this place which has latitude = ‘0’. That means we were standing on zero zone.
It was really very interesting to go through such a new experience. We don’t know many mysteries of our planet Earth . This was one of them .

One teacher was present there to explain “Coriolis effect” to us. He took the help of a bucket of water , a small stick and a funnel.

In Equator region he poured some water into the funnel closing it’s other end tightly and put the stick into it . Next he released the water from the other end. The water moved down steadily . The floating stick remained in a horizontal position into the water. It moved neither to the right nor to the left . As coriolis force was not effective there .

Now the teacher walked further- twenty feet away from the zero zone towards North . Again he poured some water into the funnel and put the stick into the water. Here a strange thing happened . While releasing the water from the other end the stick into the water immediately turned to the right and moved in a clockwise manner. The teacher said it happened due to Earth’s rotation . Earth rotates from east to west. ,so the tendency for any moving body on or above the earth’s surface such as a water current, is to drift sideways from its course.

The teacher came back to the zero zone again .


Next moment he stepped towards Southern Hemisphere to go further- twenty feet away from zero position . He repeated the same task again . This time the stick into the water turned left to move -in just opposite direction , in anti-clockwise manner .

We were really very surprised. Why this difference at all?
We were curious to know about this Coriolis theory and why it happened at twenty feet away from Latitude=”O” .
Later we realized that a minimum distance is needed to see this effect very clearly . The Coriolis effect cannot be experienced significantly from very near to the equater , though it starts from there only . This deflective effectis are present on all free-moving objects including the atmosphere and oceans

Coriolis force is a concequence of inertia ( acts by an. external force).On the earth an object that moves along a north-south path or longitudinal line, , will undergo apparent deflection to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere . There are two reasons for that :
Firstly earth rotates eastward. Secondly the tangential velocity of a point on the earth is a function of latitude .(This velocity is essentially zero at the poles and it attains a maximum value at the equator). The Coriolis deflection is therefore related to the motion of the object and the roation of the earth.
Coriolis force is proportional to the speed of rotation of the Earth . For further informations : ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect ) can help us .