News – Page 13 – Nourish-n-Cherish

Wildfires, Droughts & Other Things

A visit to the grand old trees of the West is always a humbling experience. Last week, it was the turn of the Sequoias. Most folks check climatic conditions, pull up traffic conditions and ensure that the travel route is free of terrors, man-made or otherwise. I like efficient folks like them. We are just not one of them.

So, obviously, there we were, entering the beautiful forest park only to have the ranger look us strangely in the eye and ask whether we knew we would not be allowed into most of the park.
“Why is that?” I asked
His eyebrow twitched a bit showing us that his base, unchecked instinct was to utter an irritated tut, but his excellent training made him stamp down firmly on that instinct and instead answered with a civil nod.
“Well, Ma’am. There is a forest fire on the Kings Canyon side, so you may not go.” he said
“Will we be allowed tomorrow?” I said swiftly updating plans for the next day to see if we could do a shabby run of Sequoia and Kings Canyon the next day. The ranger sized me mentally to be one of those tick-it-all-from-the-list types and gave me a pleading look. He said that the park had been closed for the past month and the only grove we could visit was Grant Grove, for the fire was burning relentlessly on the King’s Canyon side.

All the way up to the parks, I had been in a feeling of sinking unease. The river beds along the 3 hour drive had all but dried up. The lands lay caked and what respite greenery could have provided was all but missing in the urban factory areas spewing out dense smoke. I remembered our last drive up to the same national park and I remember exclaiming at nature’s bounty every few miles. I also distinctly remember leaving the car windows open so I could hear the river crashing down below in the canyon. There was nothing of the sort this time. Just an eerie quiet. I had never seen California this dry. I found myself worrying whether the Sequoia trees would survive the massive drought that lay upon us when the husband reminded me that these trees have been through it all, and are far better equipped to handle nature’s adversities than we are. It was true. Our entire generation is but a blip in the forest’s existence.

I looked around to see folks clicking photographs relentlessly on their phone and cameras. Hundreds of photos every minute. Some of these photographs will be liked, some of them may not even have the privilege of being edited/uploaded, but they existed all the same. I thought to myself, not for the first time that to the grand old trees of the West, we are like those pictures. Mere blips on the timeline. Some of us may achieve more notice from those around them than others, but that does not mean we weren’t there.

As we walked around the tall, squat Sequoia trees in the grove, I succumbed to that beautiful feeling of peace. We watched the chipmunks chattering away and our attempts to imitate them got us a chipmunk-shelling in time. We listened to bird calls and wondered why there were so few. We squealed at sighting an occasional mule deer. Most mule deer might have been startled out of their own grove, but this hardy fellow turned and gave us a pose.

It was all so serene, it was hard to believe the fire was raging just a few miles away. It was a sage thought. The wildfire has now spread to the Grove where we loitered around a week ago and my heart skips a beat thinking of the teeming life we had seen there and how it all suffers.

http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_current

How much of this agony we inflict upon our environment and how much of it is part of the natural cycle that Earth follows?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/09/15/the-summer-of-2015-was-earths-hottest-on-record-nasa-data-show/

Can A Bark Spark The Media River?

How many of you have barked in your lives? If you haven’t ever. Try it now. Bow Wow. Good.

Now imagine one time you came off sounding (to a dog) like you need to get your act together, for you sounded like a sheep trying to talk pig. Not just that, the word spread in the dog community that bark they heard from you on that day was a menace to dogs in general, and decided to hunt you down. Relentlessly. They get all the stray dogs in town, get the domesticated ones to break their leash and come after you. All because that day when you barked, it sounded like a sheep-ish pig snorting.

You could try to leave, but world over, canines are incensed that a person who barked like a pig is allowed to live at all. There are dogs in every part of the world, and no matter where you turn, you are besieged by angry dogs.

They do not know whether you are a person who loves dogs in general or not so much. They have no idea whether you are for or against animal cruelty, or if you care about the environment, whether you are friendly, loyal, caring or warm. From that moment on, there is a canine war against you – for you have been singled out.

You try telling them that you really do things well in life. You run, mew, walk, sing, read, say “Down boy!” with aplomb, walk-like-a-penguin, spend time with your friends, family and other animals, are loyal, forgiving, funny, easy, curious; but that bark that insulted dogs removed every other aspect of your personality.

This to me, is what the mutating self-righteous internet-user base has become. We all watched with horror about how the world went after the dentist who killed Cecil the Lion, we know what happened to Foy.

Was this how the world always was, or have your tolerance levels waned, I asked myself as I sat quietly with a notepad in my hand admiring the view of the lake before me and idly jotting down bits and pieces of conversation I heard as people ran, jogged or walked around the lake. There were so many seemingly innocuous statements I overheard that could cause a storm when taken out of context. Like this one for instance:
It all comes down to what your mother has fed you over the years.

This simple sentence could go viral within minutes in a hundred different dimensions.
Feminist groups going: Why should moms be held responsible for the feeding?
Indignant moms going: The mother always knows best!
Disgruntled fathers going: Hey! We know a thing or two about nutrition too!
Young folks going: Please! Stop. We know how to feed ourselves.

But what this misses is context, tone of voice, reaction of those involved, an explanation. This is what I overheard from a family of three walking together briskly. That sentence could have been advice doled to the teenaged-son on good nutrition and exercise, or an offhand compliment to the mother in that family, or the father’s own story about how he associated certain memories with what he ate at his mother’s kitchen, or the line from the latest Hindi movie they watched.

It was not always like this. Somehow, with shorter message contents competing for our attention, our attention spans seem to be becoming directly proportional to our tolerance and our ability to assume the best in people.

Maybe next time we stop and make an effort to think that maybe not all is as bad as it sounds. (Well….except in Donald Trump’s case in which case, you may quack before you bark.)

Can We Fight The Media River?

I called and spoke to my parents the other day.

It is always a pleasure to chew the fat with the old father. We were talking of this and that – me trying desperately to get a word in edgeways. Grandfather and grandson talk like they are releasing cannon balls from the top of the fort, and that they must somehow made it heard to the populace 1000’s of metres below about the cannon balls before releasing them. People with voices, even like mine, sound like bleaters on the side. Finally, Dusty Crophopper, that wonderful firefighter who is also a racing world champion and works as a crop-duster (if a plane can be that useful, why can’t we?), needed to tend to a fire rescue operation and flew off with his owner and I was allowed to carry on talking to my father.

Dusty Crophopper - The Useful plane: Firefighter, World class racer, crop duster, best friend & model citizen — Dusty Crophopper – That Useful Plane! Firefighter, world-class-racer, crop-duster, best friend & model citizen

We spoke of this and that and the father took to criticizing the evening leeches who sucked blood and happiness from his being, namely evening Tamil soap operas.

“Well…nobody is asking you to watch them.” I said fairly. “You have so many channels, you can always watch National Geographic.” I said.

To which the mother quipped, “Given a choice he has the news going on in endless loops, and all day long there is apa-sagunam(bad omens). Somebody murdering somebody – all on Friday evening. Who wants that? ”

I wonder if it is okay on other days for bad omens, but know better than to ask her that. The mother has a special place in her heart for Fridays. She has complex algorithmic suggestions that would do well with some refactoring. The lot of us are constantly flouting these rules, with or without knowledge, and getting in trouble. I try to classify them simply.

“Well..you could watch the financial news then.” I said. I never learn I tell you, I must be as dim-witted as a drunk banana slug. There is no point in providing suggestions, for people are going to do exactly as they please, but I blunder on happily every time.

Anyway, there was a small scuffle at the other end of the phone about financial news and stock markets during which time I was called on an emergency rescue operation of Dusty Crophopper who flew so fast, he crash landed behind the sofa with the owner in close pursuit.

By the time I was back to the conversation, the father was in a melancholy mood. “Wasting time is so easy these days”, he said. I agreed. He continued on, “It is increasingly sad to expect the younger generation to overcome monumental demands on their time to waste it and use it towards something constructive. When you were young, there was only a television to grapple with.”
I disagreed.
The television was nothing to grapple with when I was young. There was no grappling there. Anyone who has spent even an hour watching “Vayalum Vazhvum” at 6 p.m. will provide ready testimony to the fact that it was phenomenally more rewarding to pretend to study. The benefits were multi-fold. You could drool and day dream all you wanted, you had your room to your own devices and authority figures off your back, for weren’t you studying? Also, when you came out refreshed, you sat yourself down to a wonderful dinner where nobody told anybody about the benefits of hard work, because the poor child has just been working really hard. It was marvelous.

https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/india-and-love/

I told him so and he laughed heartily.

In today’s world, I’d be sorry to be a kid laden with homework, when there are more Television programs than people have the energy and time for.
Link here:
http://nextdraft.com/archives/n20150831/the-great-tv-overdose/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/business/fx-chief-ignites-soul-searching-about-the-boom-in-scripted-tv.html?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=website&_r=0
Quote: The number of new shows this year could, for the first time, surpass the 400 mark.

The laughs from comedy sitcoms are far more numerous than ones your own friends and family can come up with around the dinner table.

When Television gets boring, there is a wide variety of apps and games to amuse oneself for we live in a psychological bubble.
Link here: for tech bubble vs psychological bubble.
http://nextdraft.com/archives/n20150901/we-are-in-a-bubble/
I quote:
This time it’s not a financial bubble. It’s a psychological one. The psychological bubble makes you think that because you can code a photo app or design an algorithm to get me to the airport a little quicker, that also qualifies you as an expert on every other topic.

As if all this was not temptation enough, there is also the phenomenal lure of facebook, twitter, youtube, pinterest and instagram.

It is enough to make anyone feel helpless. I sometimes feel like a mute spectator to a torrential river devised to distract you from everything including distractions.

Which brings me neatly to the most entertaining hour of my social media simulation experiment. Coming up next – stay tuned.

The Art of the Considered Response

In our age of reminding us to breathe, here is a breath of fresh air!

This 15 year old girl came up with a solution to reducing online abuse: It is so simple; it is brilliant.

http://magazine.good.is/articles/how-a-15-year-old-tech-whiz-is-using-software-to-fight-internet-hate

On reading about a teenage girl who committed suicide after being at the receiving end of abuse, Trisha Prabhu, was shocked. That a girl who could have had a productive, love filled life chose to deprive herself and her family and friends of the opportunity was nothing short of devastating for her.

She spent hours researching the topic. She found out teenagers tended to be way more impulsive than adults. The efforts led her to Rethink. The problem is we are in such a rush, the heady feeling of sending that email response, that comment out the door, so we can get started on the next stimulus is draining. Something has to give and that something is the ability to stop & think. So, her solution is simple: Her algorithm detects abusive language and pops up a message that says, “You are about to say something that may hurt the other person. Are you sure you want to post this?”

The rate of abuse with this simple action was down by 93%. A whopping 93% of the time, all the brain needed was a second’s introspection.

We are rewarding behaviors requiring instant reactions.

For instance, I do not like it when somebody is notified that I have read a message, because the clock is then ticking. I am fairly certain some team danced their way to the bank after that feature was rolled out, but I cried. Now our brains go: They know I have read it, they are wondering why I have not responded. They now know I am thinking about it. How long can I think about it? Will they think I am thinking about it?

I read another article on the gentle art of letter writing and thought to myself that what I miss most in these days of frenzied communication is the space to ruminate and practice the Art of the Considered Response.

http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/27/lewis-carroll-letter-writing-email/

There are certain gems that Lewis Carroll says that are as relevant to the letter writing era as the social media era:

Don’t try to have the last word!

Don’t repeat yourself.

When you have written a letter that you feel may possibly irritate your friend, however necessary you may have felt it to so express yourself, put it aside till the next day.

This post could go a hundred different ways and indeed has been written and rewritten multiple times over the years and has not made it to the blog on each of these occasions because I was not satisfied with it. I still am not satisfied with this post, but I am rewarding my sense of instant sharing by publishing it now.

The Climax – Part 3

I had left folks off on a cliff hanger in the last post(The Lure of Fernweh & Veg..) We had arrived, with ample time left to eat a hearty evening snack, at the airport from which to fly towards Seattle. We were told by the crew, that forgot how to smile, that we had come to the wrong airport. Our flight, was to leave not from Oakland airport, but from San Jose at the same time, said one of the crew and the pair of them at the desk scowled.

I never knew what people meant when they said they were struck dumb. I now know.

On hot days, inside the brain, it feels like ice cream is melting and spilling over into the Broca’s area commonly known as the left frontal lobe.
Weather Forecast in Brain: Snow avalanche

The Broca’s area is the part of the brain that controls speech and having melted ice-cream over it renders cohesive speech delivery impossible. All that is manifest on the face is an advanced level of ogling, noisy gulping and impressive eyes opened in wide disbelief. Some people can then say, “Eh?”, but most like me, just continue with the ogling, g-ping and eye-strengthening exercises.

About a minute later, I found my voice. “What? I mean how? How could Alaskan Air send the flight notifications for Oakland then?”

The husband, was having a pretty tough time reigning in his Broca’s area too, but he coerced his left frontal lobe into speech. “I set up the alerting. I mean, we are flying back from Seattle to Oakland, so I must’ve gotten confused. The flights from San Jose and Oakland are at the same time remember?” he said.

“Well, the airport is pretty empty, so the flights must be quite empty too, who not ask them if they can put us on the flight from here?” I asked simply. It was a reasonable request I thought, but the flight crew taking in our plight did not seem to think so.

“We cannot do that. Call the reservations number. There is a 1-800 number on the website.” she said petulantly, like we were badly behaved, very naughty children, making mischief for her by arriving at the wrong airport. I could have told her that playing games with her apparently absent sense of humor was not exactly my idea of a vacation. But something about her face and mine, made the husband step in. Using his omniscient diplomacy, he held my hand. He had sensed the loosening of my left frontal lobe and he knew, it would be quick in making up lost time. His hand held back that sharp rebuke hovering near the tongue. He then asked her, politely, if there was anything at all that could be done, and she said “No.” (I mean there wasn’t even the perfunctory ‘sorry’ that most crew members throw in without meaning it.)

The husband tried yet again, “If there is a change fee or something, I can pay it here. “
“No. Please call 1-800 line Sir.”
“You cannot do anything?”
“No.”
There was no denying it. Alaskan Air had missed a golden customer service opportunity. For, we are easily appeasable folks and would have gladly taken any help they could have given us.

We had flown Southwest Airlines before and though, this was a first when it came to airport bloomers, there have been many occasions when we have arrived early and had been delighted to find that Southwest could accommodate us on an earlier flight, or on a later flight if the security lines were horrendous, and we would have a mad rush getting to the gate on time. Every time, their proactive customer service was exemplary and better yet, unceremonious: It was handled by the crew checking or printing out your boarding pass.

Why then was this so difficult? Maybe, that is why Southwest was exemplary, because it was out of the ordinary.

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/02/05/oliver-burkeman-antidote-plans-uncertainty/

But, of course, life is in the uncertainties and given that there was no help forthcoming from the airline staff, the husband called the 1-800 line and was listening to some music on their hold line. A thought struck me as I checked my watch: there were another 35 minutes in which to make it to San Jose if we caught a cab quick enough from here. The drive time at current traffic rates showed 40 minutes.

Time for a climax nourishncherish household! Time for a climax.

Say what you will, during moments like this, some people, like the flight crew above make you want to throw your hands up in despair; while some others make you want to congratulate their attitude and spirit. It just goes to prove that attitude is everything. Intelligence, rank, position and everything else seems secondary. The taxi driver arrived and within moments had the situ. surmised.

Here was a man who was determined, and sorry for us. He caught the high occupancy lane and concentrated rigorously enough to get us to the San Jose gate at 6:10 p.m. The flight was at 6:55 p.m. San Jose airport was empty too. We tumbled through security, raced past the terminals and ran into the aircraft. Then, we stood around choosing convenient spots in a half filled aircraft, and taking deep breaths, before giving ourselves congratulatory high-fives. The children were marvelous throughout the adventure and we made it. Just about.

Before switching off my phone for take-off, I checked Facebook. The results of the Vegetable Quiz were out. It turned out to be Cauliflower Paneer and Vegetable Biriyani with this helpful photograph to tide us over.

vegetable pulao — vegetable biryani with cauliflower pulao

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/science-hangry-or-why-some-people-get-grumpy-when-they-re-hungry

We are not angels. Neither are we yogis. I found myself irascible. We had not had time to buy food, we had barely time to catch the flight. This photograph was too much.

Weather Bulletin in Tummy: Strong thunder storm.

I weakly waited for water, while my stomach rumbled loudly and frequently. The flight crew handed me 36 ml to sprinkle into the thunderstorm.

“If we had stopped at their house on the way, we could have had that excellent biriyani and paneer!”, said the husband and I moaned.

Weather Bulletin in Tummy: Hailstones & mild rain
The tiny packets of airline honey roasted peanuts landed like hailstones and more water rained down.

We bought a cheese platter from the crew, and waited. In our hungry minds, the fruit & cheese platter grew in dimensions. There were water melons jostling with grapes, and blueberries were complaining about the lack of space. The oranges tried to mediate the fracas, but got hit by the cantaloupes. The cheese just tried to get in wherever it could. The platter came, and well….see for yourselves:

By the time we landed in Seattle, the hunger pangs had quietened down somewhat, apparently given up on the idea of anything substantial.

That is why our hosts at Seattle saw us demolish the food laid out on the table like that. I always enjoy my friends’ hospitality, and the meal was doubly enjoyable given the circumstances. There was only munching for the first 10 minutes. Then, we sighed contentedly and gave them the lowdown of our journey there and they were suitably impressed.

The after dinner fruit platter showed us what fruit platters should look like and we retired happily to start our short vacation in Seattle & Vancouver.

Life is a Tricky Canvas

There are a few trees by our walking path. Great firs, pines, eucalytpus with their mild scents and some bottlebrush trees (Apparently their biological name is Callistemon Melaleuca Myrtaceae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callistemon. I mean if you can call Anantha Padmanabha Venkateswaran as Nandu, would you rather call him Anantha Padmanabha Venkateswaran? I think I will continue calling them bottlebrush trees.)

Often when I walk past these trees, I think that to be a tree must be a great thing. To foster life by just living, to be the cornerstone of life as it unfolds around you must be wonderful if you have the right mindset of course. I mean, I don’t know whether trees are contented beings or go through the same tumultuousness that humankind does. But they are the steadiers for scores of nature lovers, so we assume they are content.

Anyway, what I wanted to talk about was not the trees, but the drama these trees witness every now and again. There is a spot of pavement near these trees that is uneven. One large slab of concrete is about 2 inches above the adjacent one. This makes for bumpy rides, trippy walks, parents telling children to be careful, husbands telling their wives to be careful and being met with retorts as to how they too can see the pavement is uneven, walkers yelling to cyclists to be careful, kids yelling to one another to watch the bump and a few scrapes and bruises as people busy squabbling about having eyes of their own neglect to watch for the step and go hurtling down.

Yes if that does not constitute Drama, I don’t know what does. Many attempts have been made to smooth the mini step over: logs were placed, stones were provided. One try was pretty smart, for they tried to make it a slope instead, but somehow, all attempts been half hearted. One time, there were a great many cones and much hullaballoo. A tar laying machine managed to get one half of itself on the pavement like a dog raising a foot to pee against the fire hydrant, and was making a great noise filling up the hole. It was definitely a wonderful scene to stand and watch. It proved to be a fascinating evening as we watched the gravel held together by some tar. The loose gravel was there, tar was poured half-heartedly as if wondering whether the sidewalk really needs tar, and anyway the huge thing that rolls on it to pack the gravel together couldn’t make it to the narrow pavement, so the repair-folks just left it there. The next day, the gravel started disintegrating and within a week, there was nothing left except the trees waiting to see what the next endeavor to tackle this spot would be.

Things went on and every now and then there would be an attempt to level the flagstones and nothing would happen thereafter. All that changed last week when the city decided to pour cement and make it all even instead. This looked like the thing.

Once the cement dried, I was appalled to see that some couple had used the drying concrete as a canvas on which to declare their undying love and had carved their initials in while it was still drying. Looking at that graffiti annoys me much more than the inconvenience of tripping up every now and then. I have the same feeling of bubbling annoyance when I visit any of the heritage sites in India. Beautiful structures all telling us how much DV loves BB. If you are DV, and truly love BB, please use that marvelous force to forge a meaningful life not just for DV and BB, but DV&BB’s friends, colleagues and community too.

When I saw this news article, it looked to me like nature slapped us all in the face with her sarcasm.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/24/face-in-cliff-canada-island-hank-gus_n_7651798.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news

I quote from the article:

“Mother Nature is capable of creating all sorts of amazing things, though the face is very striking.”

Of course, this tied in with another alarming news article with a typical doomsday line to the mass of grey cloud:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/22/earth-extinction-phase_n_7629330.html

The article states that the rate of extinction brought about by mankind is 114 times the normal rate for species to die out and regenerate themselves.

At this rate, the human rock face maybe the one to tell future lifeforms about our race, and if they look elsewhere, they may also know that DV loved BB, if those lifeforms also have hearts and use that to symbolize love.

Life is a tricky canvas.

Buddha in a Lotus

International Yoga Day is approaching and consequently there was an intense discussion amongst our diverse group, that involved yours truly foraging in the murky forests of my Indian-not-at-all-devout-Hindu upbringing and serving up dubious explanations. As we leaped and scoured the real and mythical worlds alike, the venerated Vanars would have been proud to see us. We started with lofty enough topics, but ended up – well, see for yourself where we ended up.

The discussion started with Yoga-in-the-park for International Yoga Day. Why must it be so early? said a colleague and I sympathized. Regular readers of this blog know that I am not at my brightest in the mornings. I am best left alone to peek out from behind my coffee and quickly pull myself back into the cup, peek from the c., pull back in, and then slowly, like a snail, venture out into the world.

I deplored the state of affairs in India and how we deify the early-riser and leave the poor late-risers feeling somewhat inferior and catching up with the early-risers for the rest of the day. We traipsed around early morning rituals and temples and why meditation in the first place.

Just as I was patting my back on the spiritual plane the discussion could reach from the lofty stepping stone of Yoga, it slid straight down the slide to idlis, dosas & sambhar. It was like playing Snakes & Ladders in the thick Madhuban forests, I tell you. From the spices of the foods, it was but a natural stop at yogurt.

After moving to the USA, I like flavored yogurts such as strawberry or apricot yogurt, but I also told them about the slurpilicious plain-yogurt and rice. There was a sticky moment when folks could not see the appeal of plain yogurt against the Apricot yogurt, but I scored a goal by bringing up mango pickles.

When you bring yogurt and rice up to a South Indian at lunch-time, she can’t but help talking of mango pickles. Other colleagues of Asian origin chimed in with durian and jackfruits, and we all sighed collectively at the exotic fruits and tropical vegetables of the East. Some bright person then said something about lotus roots and another said that Buddha sits in a lotus.

Spiritual-plane-wise, we were getting back up from the hard fall into dosa, sambhar and curd rice territory, so I felt I had to wade in.

“For some reason, the lotus holds a special place in Indian Mythology”, I said.

I turned and looked at the awed expressions on my co-conversationalists, and this gave me the confidence to plunge on. It is a knack. When people expect something profound from me, as if they are making up their mind to see whether or not I am intelligent, I say something like this and dash all hopes.

“Most goddesses I know like to sit in one. Although the lotuses I have seen are pretty small – I don’t know how goddesses sit comfortably in them. “

“Really? Goddesses sit in lotus too? I don’t know much – I have seen some pictures of Indian Goddesses, but never saw that – maybe hard to make out from the saree and all, but Buddha I know.” said a colleague who has taken the Myth of the Mystical East to heart.

I summoned up the picture of Saraswathi and Lakshmi in my visual eye. I don’t remember seeing their saree flowing over their lotus seat. I mean, they were caparisoned in beautiful garments and jewelry, but the lotus was apparent too. I have never seen the saree flowing all over the lotus hiding it from view. Have you?

Somewhat befuddled, I prodded on. “No, I am pretty sure the Goddesses sit in lotuses. I do remember seeing some stylistics paintings of Buddha in a lotus, but mostly he is under a Bodhi tree, looking happy, right?”

This must have been interesting to watch, if it wasn’t me, sinking deeper and deeper into the mire. Anyway, neither of us backed down, and both of us were equally sure of our lotus occupants. The birds stopped twittering to watch the great philosophical debate. Apricot yogurt or plain yogurt with rice: Which one would emerge the victor?

“Really? I don’t know. I have always seen Buddha in Lotus Asana – except for some statues in Pier 1 Imports, of him lying down.” said she.

Wait a minute. I knew what was going on. I observed, deduced and felt that faint feeling of relief and comprehension dawn on me and the birds twittered again. I asked, “You mean the yoga posture Buddha sits in? Lotus Asana?”

“Yes! Isn’t that what you have been talking about? “

“Oh when you said you couldn’t make out the lotus in the Goddesses, you meant, you couldn’t make out whether their legs were truly crossed in Lotus Asana with the saree and all that?”

“Yeah.”

And then, I laughed as I told her that I was talking about the seat in which the goddesses sat, although, I conceded they may have been sitting in lotus asana too.

So, both of us were right. You can have apricot yogurt or plain-old-curd-rice-with-mango-pickle. Yes, in the Lotus Asana, if you like.

Maybe that will remind us to be truly humble while talking of Lotuses or anything else. We are, after all, a fraction of the small blue dot in the Cosmos, like Carl Sagan said.

http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/12/10/pale-blue-dot-motion-graphics/

Now, if you will excuse me,I need to practice my half-lotus position for International Yoga Day.

The Tree’s Spiritual Path

Monday’s heat wave sent a shocking yearning for the milder, cloudier days that we have been enjoying in May. It is wonderful when one gets to enjoy the burst of Spring without the stifling heat that the Californian Springs and Summers crack up the Earth with. It was, therefore, with a whole-hearted mind to enjoy the mild drizzle that I set out on Wed morning.

I was thinking of the week of the storm about six months ago when it truly rained and brought back memories that I had, in my typical butterfly-wing-ed fashion, jotted down as ‘potential blog material’ and forgotten in the ensuing months of rigor and tedium. So here goes.

The rains had been lashing down with some vigor and I sat next to a man on the train, who behaved like he was a Grade-C Hollywood actor. For one, he pulled out his goggles when there wasn’t a spot of sun. Then, he turned this way and that, with a sort of expectant look on his face. It looked to me like he was hoping to be recognized, but was relieved to not have a line awaiting his autograph all the same and in that state of mind, went to sleep. A sleeping co-passenger is infinitely better than a co-passenger who is catching up with relatives and friends on the phone(A subject for another set of blogs altogether). I sent a silent thanks and sat back to enjoy my book, sending admiring glances out the window every now and then. I am a pluviophile through and through even if the pouring rain can sometimes be an inconvenience like I am about to explain below. A few minutes later, I was jolted out of this euphoria by what sounded like a slurpy trumpet. It turns out that the G.C.H.Actor was also a Grade-A snorer. His snores were audible over the hum of the train and din of the storm, to folks three seats away and they sent me quick smiles of sympathy before turning away. I had not the heart to wake him for he seemed to be flying over the clouds happily and smiled in his sleep. A dream probably.

I, however, was on Earth’s solid surface and was left listening to a static crackle that precedes a service announcement. These trains have many advisories: station service advisories, service advisories to name a few. The announcements are meant to help commuters with service announcements that impact all riders for more than 10 minutes. All other announcements are left to the discretion of the train operator. (I will have to write about that one day). I was especially attentive at the time, for rains can mean delays. So, every time it crackled, I sat up and listened attentively.

But I need not have worried for I heard notifications such as:

This is a service advisory from the Bart Operations Control Center. All elevators in the Bart system are now functioning. Thank you.

This simple message is delivered with static in a sort of dead metallic voice. But really now – is it an announcement when all elevators in the Bart system are functional? As though reading my thoughts, there was another one about non-functioning ones:

This is a Bart Station Advisory. The elevator in the 19th Street station is out of service. Thank you.

To me, this announcement was as useless as the one that said every one of them was functioning. What were people to do on the 19th Street station?

Incidentally, there is never an announcement about escalators being off, which is quite another thing that folks are interested in. There are about 200 steps to climb from deep down in the bowels of the city to the surface. The escalators are hypochondriacs and put their hands to their heads dramatically every alternate day and sulk. It is never a pretty sight. I cannot tell you the number of times I see people groaning as they make their way up 200 steps. It feels like 2000 and the gratification is minimal. It is not like there is a temple up there or that you will have gained an inch towards your spiritual journey as these hilltop temples proclaim.

Will escalator malfunction help attain Moksha?

Where was I? Temples, stairs, elevators..oh yes, service announcements, storm. Right. During this time, the service advisories were busy static senders. Elevators are working. Elevators are not working. Mind you, through it all, my co-passenger snored, and I dutifully re-directed my attention from my reading to listen for any potential delays.

Then, with little warning, the train stopped at a station about mid-way to my destination and it fell to the train operator to announce something and get us all out of the train: Something-something, then something about a tree, and the storm, and some other thing and then apologize for delay and then some mumble-tumble. The whole thing caused a bunch of folk to look at each other and say, “What-didde-say?”

“What? No – you didn’t hear either?”

Oh well. Then the train sent a collective shrug and set about doing whatever-it-is people do on the train.

A few incoherent announcements later, we pieced things together and realized that we were going to have to leg it home, for a tree had fallen strategically across the tracks.

The shock is deep I tell you. I mean, for a person, who sets aside everything she is doing every time to see whether anything useful comes out of the announcements, there was nothing preparing me for this. Nothing.

I decided that the time had come to wake my neighbor from his slumber and I climbed the octave ladder with my ‘Excuse Me’s’. Somewhere before I reached Opera-ic frequency, he woke. His eyes opened with a thud and he looked like a tree had just crashed across his path in his dream. I gave him a moment to compose himself and then gently told him that a tree had indeed crashed our path. “Eh?” he said. I told him about the tree that decided to attain the spiritual end to its time on Goddess Earth across the train tracks and the trains were cancelled.

“Whaddowenow?” he said

I practiced my shrug again.

All elevators are now functioning in the Bart system said a service advisory. I smiled. Glad to have that problem sorted out.

P.S: Incidentally, I am just adding to the rich culture of symbolizing trees and spirituality. See here on 800 Years of Visualizing Science, Religion, and Knowledge in Symbolic Diagrams:

The Book of Trees: 800 Years of Visualizing Science, Religion, and Knowledge in Symbolic Diagrams

Truth or Perception of Truth?

I have written about my train rides before. (the first one dated about a decade ago: https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2005/10/27/commuter-blues-or-benefits/) They are entertaining, freeing, frustrating and are not entirely the best friends to the olfactory senses, but then, when else do you get to appreciate the fact that you have allergies and a blocked nose that essentially mean that you don’t have to screw up your nose when others do?

The trains are hugely helpful for people like me who don’t enjoy having their noses stuck to a steering wheel: I would much rather stick my long-ish nose into a book. The trains are functional and not at all fancy. They take me to and from work everyday and for the most part are reliable. I don’t know what it is with casting an evil eye on the most simple things. I typed this line out about 2 weeks ago for another blog, and in the intervening time, there were huge delays on the system causing much inconvenience and noise on social networks multiple times a week. There was one time when the website said, “We have been overwhelmed with the requests on the website, please check Twitter for updates.” Like any other person, I feverishly dug up all mentions of the trains and was greeted with dire warnings. News sites and social media told me that due to delays people have been queuing up on platforms and that the platform was so full that Police were standing near the ticket gates and turning people away.

All most disturbing. I summoned up that crowd instinct nestled in all of us and made for the station. That instinct is one of many things. One, it subtly points our body in the direction we wish to go and the rest is handled by the crowd. Two, it scans the crowd to see possible options and three, it senses danger. Number Three shows the vulnerability of mankind. For all our talk about finding one’s true self and being what you are and all that, one flaming emotion in a large crowd is all it takes for a person to lose their identity to the crowd. It is enough to sway people. To push them from their standard norms of behavior, and thus behave in ways that most of them would not pride themselves in.

I have been in situations where the crowd turns nasty really quickly and they are not memories I set aside for bedtime tales. For instance, there was this boy who worked at the corner grocery store in Bangalore in those days. He had a shy smile that he flashed every time we bought something. One time, I caught him running after chicks and not making a single victory. (Not eve-teasing, this guy had bought some chicks that looked like miniature powder puffs in various colors and had, in an unguarded moment, let them all loose all at once. ).

Of course, he had imagined himself being seen to better advantage in front of his customers, but there you are. Both of us laughed at that, I bought my packet of milk and was off. A few weeks later, I remember, some riots broke out (somebody had died or somebody said something about somebody’s death – it doesn’t matter), but this hitherto mildly affable boy was transformed. I was alarmed when I saw the slightly mad look in his eyes, when I was hoping to find friendly ones.

I was strangely aware of all this as I made my way through the streets expecting to be pushed out through the escalators back to the street again, only to find that the station was completely empty. My senses jerked. One lone policeman was leaning against the wall and dreaming of his next coffee, so he could have something to do. Some homeless folk were there using the warmth of the underground pathway, a musician whose musical talent seems somewhat misplaced in a subway station, and two dogs. Nothing else.

Say what you will about news channels and social networks – they can make the happiest person court tears in minutes with nothing but a shred of news. Maybe all this real-time-update frenzy has us expecting to be alive and aware in a place, without really being there. That day, I was enormously grateful that the trains had got back on track and got me home, that I had worried for nothing. There were delays, during the day to be fair, it was the milking on that was quite unnecessary.

But it made me think. In this day and age of sharing and over-sharing, are we aggrandizing the mundane? Or worse still paltering with the truth. What is truth when one is flooded by so many perceptions of it, fanned vigorously by viral social networks?

If this had happened, would it have made a difference to what the grocer boy did in a crowd?

Patchy’s Lessons in Patience & Perseverance

Walking has always been a favorite with the Balas. From a mile away, one can identify the fathers or my walk. In moments of thought, we tie our hands behind our back, take long, energetic strides and march on. Walks are also the time when we come up with our epiphanies and learnings. Ripe with the lessons gleaned from a reading of Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, I took a walk near the cottage at Bala.

The mists were lifting and the sheep and their kids were starting to get on with their day. I looked at them and saw a number of tendencies that were downright endearing. The ewes and rams that were mothers and fathers cast a protective eye upon the surroundings and while they watched their kids frolic around, were quick to show they meant business if you approached too close to the kids.

After jumping over a gate and skipping over a gushing stream, I sat down to gaze at the surroundings.

The English Countryside – pic taken from wikicommons but where we stayed looked similar

As I sat there admiring the sheep near me, I mused on how wonderfully the whole society looked after one another. How they let the young ones thrive, while ensuring their safety. How they grazed, and what useful animals they were. Human beings have no means of knowing what animal thought processes are, but as I sat there gazing out at these gentle creatures, one of the kids came closer to me. I saw it approach, saw the mother cast a warning look and bleat at it to be careful (probably, for I don’t speak Sheep, but you can always get tone). I just continued to sit there and the kid approached me even closer and finally came really close to me, before bounding off to boast to its friends. There was much bay-ing among the kids when this one bounded back and I could not help thinking the kid had approached me on a dare. It brought a little smile to my face and I headed back.

But again, I maybe inserting anthropomorphic tendencies into that lamb’s demeanor.

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/can-fiction-show-us-how-animals-think?mbid=social_twitter

Over breakfast I told the daughter about the lamb and inserted a ‘lesson’ about the virtues of patience. A lesson I can learn myself as I know too well. “Sitting and patiently waiting for things beyond our control is a skill and one that can be developed, “ I said to the children like I was Buddha. To give the daughter her due, she did not call my bluff and she did not laugh, but absorbed the statement with as much mellow-ness as her character would allow. Which was to say that she continued attaching herself to the chocolate syrup and the pancakes and ignored the banana pieces.

In a place like Bala, it is phenomenally hard to do something filled with purpose. After a few hours, we decided to walk. After walking for a bit, the children wanted to touch the lambs, but they would not let them approach. They frisked and ran when we approached. After some time, the daughter decided to try what I told her and I was truly amazed.

She approached a lamb and sat at a respectable distance for a few minutes. Then she moved an inch or so and then waited again. Patiently. Quietly. Every time she moved, the ewes and rams gave her a warning look as if to say ‘Don’t mess with our kids!’. The minutes ticked on and though, at other times, she would have been anxious to move on to more gregarious activities, she sat and waited.

Apparently, she had taken my words to heart in the morning. It made me realize that though it looks like children are not sitting like disciples around the Buddha and listening, they are absorbing and it drove an even harder lesson to me.

It happened after what seemed like a long time. The kid approached her. He let her talk to him and look into his eyes. She named him ‘Patchy’. When she tore herself away after a few minutes, it followed her around like Mary-and-the-little-lamb. She was ecstatic in her joy as were the rest of us.

It was hard work winning the confidence of a lamb, but it was worth it.

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