The Freebies of Partial Enlightenment !

Yeah! It is interesting to talk about the 'freebies' one gets on the path of enlightenment. There is only one hitch - you cannot claim any of the credit either to knowledge or to the intelligence of the piece of writing, or to the style of language or anything. Yet it is yours.

Now there is another aspect. That of remarkable coincidences. On the route to partial enlightenment one is often struck with remarkable coincidences that can leave one dumbfounded. These coincidences can make you conclude that a thought of yours, or again a particular action of yours caused a cloudburst in Bangalore resulting in some tragic deaths and so on. This can turn out to be scary for you tend to assume responsibility for all sorts of tragedies and human suffering. Then again, like it happened to me today, I wanted the telephone number of a former colleague of mine (Mr. Bhasker) since I was interested in getting some articles that I had penned and given to him for his consideration many years ago. The trouble was I didn't have his telephone number. So I rang up another colleague with whom I am in closer touch (Karthik) to fetch the number of Bhasker. So when I rang up Karthik, he told me that he wanted to in fact ring me up just to enquire how I was. Then again, on getting the name of Bhasker and ringing him up, he told me that he too was thinking about me and was intent on ringing me up or contacting me as he was perchance attracted to information on Mount Kailash which I had visited recently, as he had suddenly come up on the name of a certain Sadhu Sundar Singh and CHRISTIAN HERMIT IN A MOUNTAIN CAVE  - THE MAHARISHI OF KAILASH. Mr Bhasker asked me to consult the Internet by searching on 'Sadhu Sundar Singh'.


So it accidentally happened that I got the information that Sadhu Sundar Singh was born a Sikh at Rampur, Punjab in 1889. He converted to Christianity in 1903 after he had a vision of Jesus Christ while he was intent on attempting suicide. He first visited Tibet in 1908 before entering a Christian Divinity College in 1909. Abandoned his preacher's life in 1911 and again became a 'Christian sadhu'. And from Wikipedia I get the following: "That first year, 1912, he returned with an extraordinary account of finding a three-hundred-year old Christian hermit in a mountain cave-the Maharishi of Kailas, with whom he spent some weeks in deep fellowship."

For many years I've been strongly feeling (thinking?) that God is either not Muslim (Allah), Christian or Jewish (Jehovah), Hindu (Shiva, Vishnu, etc.) or Zoroastrian or is all of these. I tend to credit myself with having a rather secular and liberal viewpoint and in being broadminded. But could what I'm feeling and thinking be due to a reason outside me? Like being exposed to information about Sadhu Sundar Singh and such things for instance. In fact most of my readings that I came across by chance were such that it promoted a secular nature. Of course, it is also true that I had an inherent preference for such a bent of writings. But then, is it only the environment in which I was raised that is responsible or are there other factors that have not been given due importance. Why do you find a one year old (or maybe a two year old) child having strong preferences - some don't like curds, some have an inherent dislike for certain vegetables. So if by some outside chance I have a character that can be called 'liberal', 'good', 'progressive' how much credit must I appropriate to myself.

If such happenstances help to make this blog interesting am I to take the full credit?

At the Jayanagar 5th Block gardens.

It is just around 7:00 a.m.on 23rd Sept. 2010 as I start writing this article. Today I just decided to enjoy the crispness and the freshness of the dawn. I didn't care too much about exercising and just wanted to enjoy the chirping of birds and look at flowers and the pale green leaves of the hedges in the beautiful garden behind my house.

I ambled across to the park around 6:00 a.m. and watched the day break in gradually. It was my wish to see a clear blue sky, but it was moderately cloudy and it was unlikely that I would see the sun come up. But then there is a beauty of its own in a cloudy morning. I noticed a lot of dragonflies flitting about in the air. For a moment I saw that these were just flitting about randomly in a sort of Brownian motion. For a while I felt like wondering what they could really be up to! They were definitely not seeking the nectar of flowers because they were not hovering around flowers but were rather flitting about in mid air with nothing live in the vicinity. Then I wondered what, in fact, were they seeking. Is it worth a study?

(Today (April 16th 2013) I learnt that dragonflies are carnivorous and it clarified why they were not around flowers seeking nectar.  Perhaps it is worth a study !)

At that moment I stopped myself. Mankind has collected enough and more of such knowledge. I myself have remarked about the wondrous touch-me-nots. I envy the primitive man who perhaps watched their leaves fold in salutation to God even as a man touched them. There was magic in creation. Now the scientific Man knows that the leaves fold-up as water is expelled from one part of the leaf to another. The magic has been removed from creation! We now have information, but how sad! How dry that information makes this world of ours. So for whatever reason those pretty dragonflies flit around I decide to just enjoy that magical moment.

And there was another magical moment too this morning at the garden. After I spent over three-quarters of an hour just enjoying nature, a young man and a young woman came and sat down on one of the other seats some distance away. They seemed to be doing some warming-up exercises, and after some minutes of watching them it became clear that the woman was leading the man in these exercises. As I kept watching out of curiosity I found the woman giving the orders rather firmly but soon the tenderness behind the sternness became obvious. After some more minutes of watching as the couple began practicing the chanting of the OM sounds, it became apparent that the man had an obvious health problem as he could not keep his voice at the required modulation. As I continued to watch with greater intensity I came to realize that the man had a slight degree of retardation. The man apparently looked older than the woman.

I just surmised, seeing the man's obvious handicap, that the couple must be a brother and sister and that the concerned woman was helping her brother cope with life. I felt like congratulating the woman, but  being of a reticent type, I just felt hesitant to approach the couple. After many minutes of dilly-dallying I found the urge to talk to the couple building up within me. Finally I went over and said:

                                 "Excuse me! Are you a brother and sister?"

                                 "No! We are husband and wife!", the woman replied.

On further questioning she told me that they were quite distant relatives and that she had married him to help him out in life.  My thoughts went back to my own nature at the same age - around 25 yrs. How I had intensely desired a pretty woman for her beauty and saw the contrast with this young lass. The woman's name I found out was Leela and the husband's name was Karthik, they perhaps live on the 11th Main, Jayanagar 4th Block.

Postscript: I'm adding this  on 24th Sept. because I chanced to see a question in Yahoo! Answers which was worded "What is beauty to a blind man?"  Ms. Leela of the above episode looked homely to my eyes, but if I were blind would I have found Leela extremely beautiful?

My Teacher

I have a Teacher whose contribution to my well-being I am yet to fully appreciate. But I seem to get a rough idea of how it could be. Suppose you are about to make a 3000 mile long journey. You are sitting in a craft as a pilot and have just taken off. Suppose a person comes over and makes a slight three degree shift to the right, in the direction in which the craft was headed almost at the very beginning of the journey. Suppose you just accepted that direction shift without much knowledge about where it would lead. And then suppose as time flowed on, and after a considerable distance has been covered, the landscape around you was getting more and more pleasant and you become more and more sure that you are traveling in the right direction and the destination is up yonder.  You may never guess the importance of the small change of direction at the very beginning of the journey! You may have initially been heading towards a desert!

My Teacher asked me to seek knowledge from my Guru. In accordance with those directions I prayed for knowledge.  I feel I was thence blessed with a degree of self-awareness that my Teacher didn't seem to possess. My Teacher had blessed me with a certain set of procedure for my spiritual uplift, but I surmise (I stress that I only surmise) she didn't quite know the logical purpose or the reasons why the procedures worked. It apparently appears so to my perception.  However the Guru's directions to me clarified the purpose of the procedure to me (I add that it could be only one of the purposes among several others that I do not know).

And in accordance with the innate human tendencies I had mentioned in my previous blog entry, I sort of judged my Teacher for a lack of self-awareness that I seemed to perceive in her. This after my Teacher only had directed me as to what to ask my Guru for !! I do feel quite contrite now but I do keep my fingers crossed that I do not make a grave error by being ungrateful.

One of the main steps that spirituality advises is a set of procedure to still your mind. The more restless and rapidly flitting your mind is, the greater is the danger you are supposed to be in. So before anything else, the Teachers try to still your mind and to achieve this you may be advised a Mantra to suit your personality or even advised to watch your breathing. The mind - body - breath interconnection has been given a great degree of importance in Yoga and if one is really open, one can get to experience how watching your breathing and thence regulating it can bring a degree of stability to a troubled mind.

The advice that is frequently given in India to respect your teachers is to forewarn you about the tremendous value that lies in the teachings that you are to get and the extent to which they can change your life.

          xxx

Mt. Kailash - Manasarovar - Pretty pictures !

Dusk at Manasarovar. The planet Venus is seen shining bright.












An artistic Tibetan Building at Changan village near Millarepa cave.












Ramesh Perumal on a Chinese bike near Paryang.

Mountain adjoining Mt. Kailash.

Farewell to Car drivers before our return to Nepal.

Perilous road prone to landslide on our way to Kodari.

A meandering river in Tibet.

Another river landscape.

Trek buddies:L to R  Author, Udaykumar Naik, Ramesh Perumal, Mahesh Acharya and Balamurugan.

Tibetan girls in modern attire.

Some Tibetan women - both traditional and modern.

Ramesh and his Tibetan porter.

Mahesh Acharya (L) and Balamurugan at the gardens of Hotel Shanker.

Mt. Kailash - Manasarovar Sojourn - 10

The last aspect of the Kailash - Manasarovar Sojourn consisted of a three kilometer trek up a streamlet issuing forth from Mount Kailash. The path is a mildly steep gradient that commences with a grassy surface but soon transforms after a short while to a valley strewn with granitic and basic igneous boulders that makes the trek a little difficult. As one ascends, you chance to see the grandeur of the valley around Dirapuk and the Tibetan village at a distance. Mt. Kailash looms large over the valley as we approach closer and closer. After a considerable ascent, the troop leader Swami Prabodha together with his associates performed with intense devotion a holy offering to Shiva in the vicinity of Kailash. Swami Prabodha led the whole group in various chants and mantras. It certainly was a very solemn occasion marked by total surrender to the power of the Divine.

After the adoration and worship of the divinity, some of us made a further climb along the valley up to  a point where Dilli's altimeter gave a reading of 5250 m (17,325 ft). At that point I collected a rock fragment that seemed to resemble the rock of Kailash parvat. I also collected a bottle of the holy water of the streamlet issuing from one of the glaciers of Kailash. After a round of silent meditation we headed back downwards towards the Dirapuk hotel. I would like to mention that Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev speaks that the rocks of the Kailash Parvat are of a metoritic composition. But to my perception and even in various photographs of the North Face of the Kailash Parvat I seem to see the presence of distinct sedimentary layering. While to my eyes the rock appeared to be a layered ferruginous chert, I cannot deny that the boulders in the stream that we traversed were mostly granitic, with a few resembling mafic igneous rocks. But I did collect a fragment of a ferruginous chert cobble, which to my perception formed the upper layers of the Kailash Parvat. In my assessment it didn't resemble a meteoritic rock.

(Top) The hotel at Dirapuk in the distance. The village settlement is seen on the opposite hill slope.


Left (3 km trek upwards toward Mt. Kailash)




The rest of the day after returning to the camp was spent in light-hearted banter and relaxation. Thus the final aspect of the Mt. Kailash - Manasarovar Sojourn drew to a close.

Mt. Kailash - Manasarovar Sojourn - 6

It was quite late by the time we left Saga on our way to our next destination at Paryang situated at a distance of 235 km from Saga. We could leave only by 10:00 a.m. local time.   This route is quite treacherous and we had to pass sites where the roads were actively under construction, and the prevalent rock types (purple, green and carbonaceous shales and in variegated colours) yield a rather clayey mud that forms a thick gooey slush through which the cars have to negotiate. One of the cars lost direction and missed the path and came down a precariously steep slope that left the occupants of the vehicle quite rattled.

(Photo below: Highway where we were stranded by the authorities)

Along this muddy and bumpy route that rattles your bones, you find that the authorities block large tracts of the path and force the convoy over the rough countryside. It may even happen that the road authorities may deny permission to move ahead and forcing you to spend hours on end stranded in the middle of nowhere. This is precisely what happened to our convoy around 11:45 a.m. or 12:00 p.m. when we were halted by the authorities who vaguely said that they may condescend to give us permission to travel further by 2:00 p.m. or failing which we would be permitted to move ahead only after 10:00 p.m. in the night. This was rather disconcerting and the leader of the team decided that in such an event we would move directly to Manansarovar without stopping at Paryang. Such a scheme of things would really be exhausting and we kept our fingers crossed that matters would not come to such a head. In the meantime we decided to put the time to the best possible use and finished our lunch as we waited. Luckily, the authorities cleared our passage by 2:00 p.m. and we headed on our way to Paryang.




Enroute we saw some wonderful arcuate sand dunes of quite large sizes that appeared very attractive in the golden glow of the late evening sun.

Arcuate Sand dunes

Sand dunes

For the first time after several hundreds of kilometers we saw a petrol filling station with filthy stinking toilets. It was the only gas station that I saw on the entire route.

After a drive of another hour or so we reached the village of Paryang at around 8:00 p.m. The hotel there is a very threadbare one with four beds to a room of rather small size. The toilets are in a miserable condition which forced many of our group members to go out in the open. We were warned about the dogs around here as they are reputed to feed on corpses of humans that are abandoned in the open air when they die. So we were advised to be wary about the dogs here which created an additional problem of going out to the toilet in the open air.  Later in the evening we had a satsang and around dinner time, the B3 Group which had left for Manasarovar around August 16th came to Paryang on their return trip to Katmandu.

In my effort to get some information on the difficulty of the Shershong - Dirapuk trek I was surprised to find every single man and woman advising me to take a pony for the journey. Not one person assured me that I could make it on my own steam. This was bad because the pony costs 1200 Yuan (Rs 9000) and I did not have that kind of money on me. Further, I viewed the trek as a challenge to my physical capabilities and I had undertaken to do it on foot as a religious observance and vow of some sort. After dinner we rested for the night.
(Photo Left: Hotel at Paryang)

Late evening Views of  Paryang Village at an altitude of 15000 feet in the Tibetan Plateau

Mt. Kailash - Manasarovar Sojourn - 1

For over 35 years, ever since I happened to trek vast parts of Arunachal Pradesh in 1975 and subsequently trekked parts of Kumaon Himalaya, I had heard of the Lake Manasarovar -  a large turquoise and emerald coloured body of freshwater occurring at dizzy heights of roughly 15,000 feet in the Tibetan Plateau, and I had nursed a dream of being able to visit the place. Back then, the Chinese were still wary of granting permission to outsiders to visit these places. Perhaps it was only in the early 1980s that Indian pilgrims were granted visas in limited numbers to visit Lake Manasarovar and circumambulate Mount Kailash. I myself had dreamt of making a trip through the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, but had refrained from taking active steps in this direction as I was not too confident of my physical abilities for the arduous journey.

During the past ten years I had constantly heard of private tour operators from Nepal who offer an opportunity for the trip in a much easier way from Katmandu and traversing through extensive tracts of the Tibetan plateau in motorized vehicles to reach Manasarovar and Mount Kailash and I was always keen on exploring the possibility. It so happened that my spiritual quests led me to an intimate association with the Isha Foundation, Coimbatore and when I heard that this Organisation also offers a trip to Kailash and Manasarovar, I felt doubly blessed. I immediately picked up the strings to explore the possibility of making the Mt. Kailash – Manasarovar Sojourn and felt happy that I had done their Inner Engineering Course on my own volition and interest, which in fact they lay down as a statutory stipulation before they enroll you as a member on the Kailash trip. One thing led to another, and I found myself as a part of the B4 group of the Isha sojourn to Kailash – Manasarovar for the year 2010 after having been found medically suitable to make the trip on their examination of my medical reports.  I left Bangalore for Delhi on the 19^th of August by rail, and on reaching Delhi on the 21^st, immediately boarded a flight to Katmandu, Nepal.



A bus transported the group from the airport to a fairly comfortable three star hotel called ‘Hotel Shanker’. I was allotted a twin-sharing room with a fellow traveler from Bangalore, Mr. Balamurugan. The room though comfortable and spacious was unfortunately a split-level room with a steeply descending stairway to the beds and the bathroom.  This aspect made it a little uncomfortable, but we were amply compensated by the excellent service and the tasty food that was served.  

Right: Split-level room - a rather inconvenient arrangement. The entrance is seen on the top.

The hotel has a neat garden with lush lawns and flowering plants and on the whole we were quite pleased with the arrangements. A swimming pool that was on the premises was very enticing, but prudence prevailed over adventure as none of us risked catching a cold before our main trip to Tibet was to begin.

The bell-boys, butlers and staff were very courteous and on the whole we had a very comfortable two-day stay.

During our stay at Katmandu the organisers had arranged for a visit to the Pasupathinath temple. The Nepali guides try to entice you to offer expensive 'sevas' and poojas by misleadingly telling you that it would guarantee a speedy darshan, but if you approach the guards at the doors and tell them that you just need a darshan, they let you in for a quick view of the deity and subsequent hasty exit. The Pashpathinath Temple has four doors in the four directions and likewise the shiva linga has four faces - the eastern door is known as Tatpurusha, the one facing south is known as Aghora, and the ones facing west and north are known as Sadyojatha and Vamadeva respectively. The present temple is supposed to be roughly 400 years old, though the locale of the temple has been an active religious and spiritual centre for several hundreds of years.

  We later visited the Stupa at Boudhnath which has 13 steps and a lotus shaped structureon the top. At the very top of the Stupa there is supposed to be a chimney-like conduit, down which kings and royals are supposed to have cast down precious jewels and money.   As a consequence, these stupas are supposed to contain a lot of wealth within them. At the outer periphery of the stupa are fixed several cylindrical wheels with Buddhist prayers engraved on them, which devotees set in rotatory motion as they repeatedly circumambulate the stupa.

  The Boudhnath Stupa is surrounded by several shops marketing antiques, art, music CDs and clothes. A small Tibetan Buddhist monastery also is seen where Tibetan monks were chanting sacred mantras. We also visited an art gallery where artisans were painting very intricate paintings on specially treated canvasses made from cotton and wax and rubbed with a polished rock and using carefully selected vegetable and mineral dyes. These paintings, called 'Thanka Paintings'  largely depict stories from the life of Buddha and include elaborate detail and are very skillfully executed.(See below)

Later in the afternoon we visited the Dakshin Kali temple about 50 to 60 km from Katmandu. The guide plodded us to do some steep climbing of steps as a preparation of what was to come further in the trip. These were the activities of August 22nd 2010.

 

                        Right : Dakshin Kali Temple

INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

Interpretation of Dreams

Perhaps Sigmund Freud is somewhat overrated. Or is he? I'd assume from my later experience of people that people's dreams are more likely to be Freudian if they have read Freud or know somethings about his theories. People innocent of Freudian structures just dream and that's it.

Like this friend of mine once had a dream. He dreamt that some archaeological digging was being done in 'Ayodhya in Greenland' (sic) and that his son picked up a beautiful vase and went running. My friend is supposed to have shouted to his son 'Don't break it!!'

If I were to add that I had visited Greenland in 1982, perhaps that would clue everyone to believe that the dream was somehow related to me. Freud famously links objects like 'vase' to symbolically represent women for obvious reasons and that his son picked up the vase should leave no doubt as to who that woman is. What about breaking the vase? Evidently it has to do with violating the woman. But my friend is no ignoramus of geography and why did he come to dream of Ayodhya in Greenland. Obviously in his mind, for some reason, he links up a scoundrel like me to the likes of Sri Rama. But what would I have to do with his wife?

It might be useful to draw attention to the fact that I had borrowed Rs20,000/- on my personal guarantee of paying up the money to help another friend who had a penchant for charitable deeds. This other friend was seeking to finance someone who was in financial trouble. So I took it upon myself to borrow the amount from this guy on my personal guarantee. Another fact is that at the same time all of us had seen a very nice French film 'Vincent, Francois, Paul & others' by Claude Sautet. Yves Montaud - one of the main character is portrayed in a very sympathetic light who deals with his estranged wife in a very straight and cordial manner and even seeks her financial help. Having been influenced by the film and my trifling act of helping a friend in a monetary way, perhaps he unconsciously came to mistakenly associate my character with Sri Rama !!! Try as I did to draw his attention to all the complexities of his dream by saying to him several times that it was a favourite film of mine, he never took the hint.

He is supposed to have had another dream. In that he dreamt that he was sitting in a bus traveling to Belgaum, but some time during the journey he fell asleep. However when he woke up he found that he was in Tel Aviv, and in the dream he is supposed to have asked a girl as to which place that was. The girl told him somewhat crossly "Can't you see with your eyes. Its Tel Aviv". And when he looked around he found buildings with chandeliers and the works. When I asked him why in one dream he considered Greenland and in another Tel Aviv, he told me that Greenland was extreme north and Tel Aviv was more west than Belgaum.

As I can see he tends to exaggerate in his dreams. For one thing, my friend is a little too thrifty, so he exaggerates his weakness to call himself a Jew (Tel Aviv, Israel, Jew, Shakespeare etc). Likewise he grossly exaggerates my so-called large heartedness with Sri Rama. Ayodhya which is to the north of Bangalore is exaggerated to be in Greenland, which is even further north. And Belgaum which is to the west of Bangalore is exaggerated to Tel Aviv which is likewise further west.

Such are the dreams of the sophisticated. How do the simple ones dream? A junior colleague of mine always told me that he never ever dreams. He had told me so over a period of one or two years of talking to me. One day he came to me and said "Sir! Today I had a clear dream that was strongly registered in my mind! I dreamt that Shiridi Sai Baba came and told me 'Bete! Neenu illivarigu ninagoskara badukidiya! Inna mele bere avarigoskara baduku'" Except for the first word that is in Hindi (meaning Son!)the dream was essentially in Kannada and means "Son! Till now you have lived for yourself! From now on live for others!"

My wife too reports that a majority of her dreams are either about temples, or gods, or Sai Baba (her guru). Wonder what Freud's take on this would be!

Viva Ms. Ungleesh !

Ms. Ungleesh


This story is about the days when sex determination of fetuses by ultra-sound scanning was rampant in India and was not yet outlawed.

It was very common in North India, especially in the smaller mofussil towns, for families to use the services of ultrasound scanning centres to determine the sex of their unborn child. A female child would cause untold anxiety to wedded couples as it would mean that they had to make intense preparations for saving up substantial amounts of money and wealth to pay as dowry to get their daughters wedded. Male babies caused no such anxieties and were considered the harbingers of wealth and prosperity, besides being assured agents to lead its parents to heaven and salvation after their deaths – something which only male children could do.

In such circumstances female fetuses were rampantly aborted all over the Indian subcontinent leading to a rather unhealthy and precarious male:female sex ratios that finally led the Indian Government to ban the usage of sex determination of unborn babies.

It was under such circumstances that Ms. Ungleesh was born. Although the name, to those who are familiar with Hindu names, strongly suggests a male gender, it is actually the name of a girl. A rather uncommon name though! But how she came to be named so is a story of extraordinary and surprising awareness for a fetus within the womb of an anxious mother.

It is said that when the mother went to an ultrasound clinic for scanning, and while she was being scanned in the abdomen, the fetus had positioned its hand with its finger projecting strategically in such a position that the doctor had no doubts whatsoever that the fetus was indeed a male. The photograph of the scan was also provided and the doctor confidently showed the proud parents the evidences of the baby being a boy. The parents returned home mighty pleased with themselves and pleased with the good fortune that had blessed them with a future boy. Being devotees of Shiva they had decided to select a name that would reflect the potencies of Shiva.

When the delivery actually did happen, it turned out to everybody’s surprise that the child was in fact a baby girl. The parents were shocked beyond their wildest expectations. How had the doctor been misled? On a careful scrutiny of the images they did realize that the fetus had fooled all of them by a clever use of a finger. Astounded by the remarkable awareness even when in the womb, they had no doubt that it was one of the potencies of Shiva that in fact had manifested as the baby girl. And the proud parents named the baby after the crucial feature of the baby’s body that had protected the child and evidently with the grace of Shiva. Hence the girl came to be given the name Ungleesh (Ungli – finger) – a seemingly masculine name for the charade she had played in great awareness despite being just a fetus in a womb.

When a Venkatachalaiah Died !

My father who is 92 years old has been frequenting the Jayanagar Shopping Complex daily for the past 30 years just to spend a few happy moments with other elderly folks who come there for similar reasons. He says it is the fourth batch of elderies that are current there now – the other three batches having expired gradually, one following the other. Perhaps in his group he is one of the senior-most who is strong enough to walk up to the complex unaided. He sits there with others and chats up the political and social scene of Bangalore and the whole lot of them eye young maidens who (alas!) are beyond their reach.

The news of death among one of their group is fairly common occurrence. It so happened that one day somebody brought the news to the group that ‘Venkatachalaiah expired!’ So the group pooled in their funds and bought quite a big heap of flowers to be showered on the deceased.

As the group of elders headed towards Mr. Venkatachalaiah’s house and as they were in its vicinity, they found the said Venkatachalaiah coming out of the house and heading towards the Shopping Complex. They confronted the man with the news that he was supposed to be dead, and it was then that it struck them that it must be some other Venkatachalaiah. They felt relieved and the whole group including Venkatachalaiah headed back to the Shopping Complex. And upon arriving there, the heap of flowers was divided between the whole group, and of course, Venkatachalaiah got a portion too. The flowers were meant to be offered to God during the following day’s regular worship.

A Funny Incident In An Office

A FUNNY INCIDENT

A friend of mine is a small scale industrialist and is a Managing Director of his business. He has quite a few accountants and other clerks to run his business, and one of his assistants was a follower of Jainism.

It so happened that on a particularly tiring day of work when he could not apply his mind to the job in a meticulous manner due to being preoccupied with some personal concerns, the assistant approached this friend of mine for a seemingly small error and said:

“Ek chotti si galati hogaya saab! Is totalling mein maine aisa mistake kiya!”

My friend excused the error and said “Try and be a bit more careful!”

About an hour later the assistant again came to my friend and pleaded:

“Ek aur chotti si galati hogaya saab! Humne is letter ko Aisa likh ke bejdiya!”

My friend said “It’s o.k.! Like I said earlier, be a bit more careful!”

When the assistant came to my friend later in the day for the third time saying:

“Arre Saab! Ek chotti si galati aur hogaya! Humne …”

My friend interrupted him and said:

“Suno Mere Bhai! If the sculptor who carved out the Gomateshwara sculpture instead of carving the sex organ hanging down, had carved it erect and perpendicular to the body and said ‘Chotti si galati hogaya!’ would you keep quiet?”

He further said “Aisi chotti si galatiyan mat kiya karo!!”

Fear In The Mountains

Published in Deccan Herald, Magazine Section, July 12, 1987. Reproduced by Permission.

            In the month of March 1975, I was carrying out geological traverses in the Kameng District of NEFA Himalaya.  I had started out from Delhi with two scientists of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology and the three of us had traversed along the Bholakpong – Bomdila road up to a place called Jamiri Point. At Jamiri Point we parted company and I was left with a Kumaoni called Haiyath Singh, who played the dual role of a cook and field coolie.

            We shared a room in a tiny Border Roads rest house constructed mainly from wood and asbestos sheets. The rest house was rather isolated and lonely, being about two km from Jamiri village which was upstream of the Tenga River.  The village settlement consisted of five or six huts and a Tibetan coffee shop. At Jamiri, the swift flowing Tenga River executed a very broad meander and flowed southwards in a narrow gorge.  The Bholakpong – Bomdila road bordered the Tenga river on its western side, and at a point where the river took a southerly turn, the road veered off to the left. The rest house was located beside the road just before the point where the road left the river.

            The sides of the valley were rather steep but that did not prevent the growth of a dense mixed jungle on either side of the river.  There was no electric supply anywhere nearby, and during the night one could see more stars than a city-dweller could imagine.  In the stillness of the night one could hear even the beating of one’s heart above the soft murmur of the river.

            After a tiresome journey one day, Haiyath Singh and I returned to the rest house around five in the evening and refreshed ourselves with some biscuits and a cup of tea. Later, I suggested that we go and get some cigarettes.  The shop was situated downstream and we had to walk two km in a direction opposite the village.  When we left the rest-house it was already dusk and one could barely see ten metres ahead.  We had walked some distance from the rest-house when our attention was attracted by the sound of a bell.  It was ringing intermittently and softly.  Ding-Dong… Ding-Dong… it went and rang again after a gap of a few seconds.  We could not discern which side of the river it was coming from.

            As we stood trying to locate the sound, we noticed a tiny red spark rise up, apparently from the river, on the other bank, become brighter and fall back into the river.  This was curious.  So we stood still for another half a minute when we saw the spark rise again and fall back.  Except for the ringing of the bell intermittently, and the soft gurgle of the flowing river, the silence hung so heavily that one could cut it with a knife.

“Saab, woh Kaali bhooth hai”, said Haiyath Singh in a soft whisper.

When I turned to look at him, I noticed that his eyes were crystallized with fright.  I could understand the cause for his fears, as he was from a remote village in the Almora District of Kumaon, where numerous superstitions are rife regarding ghosts and evil spirits.  We started walking away from the place towards the cigarette shop, and all the while I busied myself in allaying his fears about ghosts.  He persisted in relating various ghost stories of Kumaon and especially of the ‘Kali bhooth’ which was known to chase people, particularly young virgins, and set them ablaze.

            We reached the shop, purchased some cheap cigarettes that were available, and on our way back, the sound of the bell and the spark rising and falling were still there.

            We reached the rest-house and Haiyath Singh proceeded to cook dinner, which consisted of a few chapathis and dal. All the while he kept insisting that his ghost stories were true.  I could see that he was working himself up to a frenzy.  We dined around 8 pm, and by nine, having nothing much to do, put out the candle and lay on our beds.

            In the silence of the night and in total darkness, still wide awake, I could not help my thoughts racing back to Bangalore – thoughts of Central College, of beautiful young girls, and specially of the pretty girl I had left behind.  While I was enjoying my reverie, I began to hear the sound of the same bell faintly but distinctly and it was certainly far off.  More than the sound of the bell what had troubled me was the spark of fire rising and falling, for which I had no conceivable explanation.

            “Saab!” groaned Haiyath Singh.

            “Kya bhai”, I asked

            “Aap ko neend aayee?”

            I kept silent, and in a while, he rose up and lit the candle.  In the feeble glow of the candle light, I could see that his face was contorted with fear. The light cast eerie shadows on the wall, and in the stillness of the cold Himalayan night, the intermittent sound of the bell was disconcerting.  The grave expression on Haiyath Singh’s face was not very assuaging either. Then there was that inexplicable spark of fire. And those gruesome ghost stories.

            The bell was getting closer and closer and in a few minutes it sounded just outside our rest-house.  Haiyath Singh threw up.  I was disconcerted. I decided to settle the matter once and for all. Lighting up a torch, I crept out of a door which opened to the rear of the rest house, avoiding the front door, and trudged slowly around the building towards the barbed-wire fence, from which direction the sound was coming. I shone the torch in the direction of the sound, but could not see anything from the distance. I stood still for a while, and when matters seemed pretty safe, I mustered up enough courage to take a few steps in the direction of the bell, the sound of which was now mixed with the rustling of leaves.

            In a few steps all was clear. There stood a brown horse munching away merrily. And around its neck was tied a bell. I could not help smiling. I walked back to the room and reported the matter to Haiyath Singh. He still would not believe what I was saying, so I was forced to drag him out the front door to show him the horse. I am still not convinced his mind was set at rest after seeing the horse, for when he woke up the next morning, he was complaining of a headache. I was still troubled about the spark and decided to investigate it the next day.

            We left the rest-house early next evening and went and sat down at the spot. A little later, just before dark, we saw a fisherman arrive on the narrow eastern bank of the river.  Haiyath Singh told me that it was the practice even in Kumaon, to cast the net in the river after dusk, when the fish cannot see clearly and are easily caught. He squatted hunched beside the river. A little later he lit up a beedi.  Then the whole thing became clear. He would cup the lit beedi in his palm and when the hand was dropped beside him, the spark was concealed by his fingers. Whenever he lifted his hands to smoke, the spark became visible, appeared to rise from the river, would glow and fall back.

            “Jo bhi hai, Saab! Kaali Bhooth ki kahani sach hai”, insisted Haiyath Singh.

xxx

The Noah's Way

Some hilarious satires on religion are locked up and lost in past issues of various magazines. I plead with the Reader's Digest to permit me to use this short piece which appeared in its issue in 1976.

THE NOAH'S WAY

(From Reader’s Digest 1976)

And the Lord said unto Noah, “Where is the ark which I have commanded thee to build?”

And Noah said unto the Lord, “Verily, I have had three carpenters off ill. The gopher-wood supplier hath let me down – yea, even though the gopher-wood hath been on order for nigh upon 12 months. What can I do, O Lord?”

And God said unto Noah, “I want that ark finished even after seven days and seven nights.”

And Noah said, “It will be so.”

And it was not so.

And the Lord said unto Noah, “What seemeth to be the trouble this time?”

And Noah said unto the Lord, “Mine subcontractor hath gone bankrupt. The pitch which thou commandest me to put on the outside and the inside of the ark hath not arrived. The plumber hath gone on strike. Shem, my son who helpeth me on the ark side of the business, hath formed a pop group with his brothers, Ham and Japeth. Lord! I am undone!”

And the Lord grew angry and said, “And what about the animals, the male and the female of every sort to come to thee to keep their seed alive upon the face of the earth?”

And Noah said, “They have been delivered unto the wrong address but should arriveth on Friday.”

And the Lord said “How about the unicorns and the fowls of the air by sevens?”

And Noah wrung his hands and wept, saying “Lord, unicorns are a discontinued line; thou canst not get them for love or money. And the fowls of the air are sold only in half dozens. Lord! Lord! Thou knowest how it is!”

And the Lord in His wisdom said, “Noah, My son, I knowest! Why else do you think I have caused a flood to descend upon the earth?”

The Only Thing Fine About B.B.M.P. !

Rs.100 is way too much for B.B.M.P. Urine even if it is Fine!

Arctic Fever ! Part 6 (Final Part)

First Published in 'Deccan Herald', Sunday, November 11, 2001 (Reproduced with permission)


It could only be an impoverished mind that could think of such a trite alteration. But the force of it was stark. I opened my eyes and sat up with a start and noticed that Karsten was already squatting on the sleeping bag, with the pistol in his hand. He peered into my eyes inquiringly. He immediately seemed to sense that I had arrived at a morbid realisation of the purpose of the whole game. There was a cold silence for a brief moment.

"Did you get the whole puzzle?" He enquired gravely.

"What puzzle? I think I got the solution to the last word you had given me. "I said in a tone as placid as my wits could muster.

The threatening stillness of the universe was being gently punctuated by the rain drops falling on the fabric of the tent. In my sharpened sensitivity I seemed to hear the ever so faint hum of the helicopter at an awfully far off distance.

"The word?" he asked almost benevolently.

" Is it ICY?" I asked despairingly.

" It is icy!" He declared with malevolent satisfaction.

By now the drone of the helicopter to me was audibly perceptible, but he seemed to be lost in his own thoughts.

"Now for the next word...", he trailed off and stared absorbedly for a moment at vacant space. I realised that he too had heard the drone of the approaching helicopter. I could judge by the sound that it was still hopelessly far off.

"Come on now! Hurry! Limb ... Give me a word for that !"

"Why are you in such a hurry?" I tried to play on. I contrived to buy some precious time by pretending to have wrongly heard the word clue he had given me. "Anyway there are many words for limp. Hobble, Totter, Stagger..."

"Stop it!" He cut me short savagely.

The helicopter was quite close to our camp by now. Karsten suddenly got up and rushed out of the tent. I remained motionless on the sleeping bag. I heard him take a few short steps. Within moments he rushed back and coldly stared at me from the entrance. Our eyes locked each other for a brief moment. His whole face was tense and he clenched his jaws tightly. He then withdrew and ran a few paces down the valley. I heard the loud report of the pistol above the din of the approaching helicopter. Karsten Allärt had blown his brains out!

                                           The Great Greenland Ice Cap seen in the distance 
                                              (estimated to be about 10 km thick at places)

During a brief stop at Copenhagen on my way to India, I made enquiries about Karsten . His violent suicide had shocked his friends. They could never visualise him as suicide prone. I had no heart to explain to them that things could have been worse: a murder and a suicide. Things were not too good with Karsten before he left for Greenland. Apparently his girlfriend of many years had left for Cambridge to pursue her studies in veterinary sciences a year before. Upon reaching England she had neither written him a single letter nor had she responded to any of his. There had been no fight or any disagreement and they had parted very cordially. He had confessed to his friends that he was deeply troubled at things having been left hanging and him not being given the reason for the break. Worse still, he was not very sure in his mind whether there was a final break at all. He was feeling lonesome. He had told me so while trekking one day.

xxx

                                                 CONCLUDED

Arctic Fever - Part 5 (Continued ...)

First Published in Deccan Herald, November 11, 2001 (Reproduced by permission ...)


I thought it was time I went back to the puzzle. What else could expert weaver suggest other than a spider. Perhaps it could be 'spied her'. I told him.

"It's just one word." he said helpfully.

Then I switched over to Weaver birds. Did they have some other name? I racked my brains and soon felt tired.

"I give up. Better give me the answer."

"No! Don't give up so easily." he seemed to plead, "I really want you to get the answer."

I asked for time and said that I would try later and picked up a book to read. I read till dinner time, and after dinner, I prepared for the evening roll-call.

To my dismay I found that the radio had broken down and could neither transmit nor receive messages. The drop must have damaged it. I tried jiggling all the switches and knobs but nothing worked. It meant that our separation from the outside world was complete. The dense fog that enveloped our camp and the treacherous precipices that surrounded us precluded the possibility of the helicopter reaching us through the fog. I felt terri¬bly unhappy as I would be missing the only source of entertainment and human contact and the dry British humour that other teams in Greenland were frequently indulging in while answering their calls. Karsten did not seem too upset by the loss as he rarely answered the roll-call.

"That gives me more time to solve your puzzle", I told Karsten as I got busy with it. I followed many wrong leads before I got close to the answer and all through he was stubborn enough not to offer any help.

"It's lace!!", I finally exclaimed.

"Very good." he said dryly, "Tomorrow if the same weather continues you can finish off all the words and get the quote."

The same weather continued. That night the temperature dipped considerably and it had been snowing. It was still snowing when I woke up in the morning. Karsten was already awake but was lying in the sleeping bag staring vacantly upwards. Having got out of the bed I put on a warm water proof jacket and went out. There was a dense fog and the whole surroundings were depressingly grey, wet and freezing. I recalled that the base would be missing our call for the second time that morning.

After breakfast and coffee, which Karsten also shared, we rushed back to the warmth of our sleeping bags. I tried reading a book, but the light inside was too dim. Karsten as usual picked up the pistol, cocked it and peeped into the dark barrel.

"I'll write the next clue on a piece of paper" he said laying the pistol down. He picked up my field diary and tore off a sheet, scribbled something and handed it over. It read :

"I see my way as birds their trackless way,
When taken in a pair it talks about today."

His clues were getting more convoluted and ridiculous. I lay thinking about him and slowly dozed off.

I might have slept for ten minutes, when in my sleep, a concept just an idea formed and took shape in very concrete words.

"Death lays his icy hands on kings."

For some reason I woke up with a shiver and saw that Karsten too was fast asleep. I tried to recollect why at all I was frightened, but in vain. I even tried remembering if there were any other ideas leading up to the sentence that had formed in my mind while dozing, but no! There didn't seem to be any. Could this be an intuitive leap of my mind wrought by a heightened awareness of my surroundings? I picked up the sheet of paper on which he had scribbled and realised that the first two words did indeed add up to ICY, but I could not be sure about that. The other word that was already known was LACE, and suddenly I realised that once before he had mixed up a similar pronunciation.

My mind raced in all directions to avert a possible threat to my life. I toyed with the idea of hiding the bullets, and later even the pistol. Then I reconsidered. It was possible that he would get furious and attack me at once. There was nowhere I could escape to and no place to shelter. I really regretted not asking for a replacement when I had a chance. The inspirations that were providing me the answers to his puzzles were becoming terribly dangerous. There was only one hope: to delay my giving him the solutions to his puzzles, each one of them mortally dangerous to me, till help arrived. With no radio contact between our camp and the base, help would surely come with the sun.

I lay still with my eyes closed as if in deep sleep but with my mind churning out wild thoughts. "Perhaps there's some way of knocking him out cold and binding up his hands. Then I would be safe! I had a hammer. I could even do it. Now! When he is asleep. Or maybe there's nothing to all this. No malignant designs! No evil intentions! Nothing! Then I'd be charged with criminal assault."

My thoughts were running wild thus when I suddenly realised that I needed no further clue! The puzzle for me was complete. The word 'Kings' would be substituted by the clue to the first word for which the solution I had arrived at a play on my own name! Yes that would be it :

'DEATH LAYS HIS ICY HANDS ON DEEPAK'

 
                                                        (To be Continued ... )

Arctic Fever - Part - 4 --- (Continued...)

First Published in Deccan Herald, November 11, 2001  (Reproduced by permission)


"Are you good at solving crossword puzzles?" he asked me after some time.

That was the first bit of conversation he had started from his side in the past many days. Hitherto he would respond with just a grunt or a nod to the most essential dialogue.

"I'm not too good at it."

"Never mind!" he said genially, " I'll give you a puzzle. Why don't you try your hand at it."

I readily agreed, for I wanted to do my best in bringing about a cheerful air. The burst of the gun had done him good. On my side I wanted to play safe and avoid all disagreements. Should I tell the pilot the day after tomorrow and ask the leader for a replacement? This was the pressing question that occupied my mind the most. What if the whole threat was imaginary? It would upset the whole schedule and cause untold inconvenience. It would also damage my reputation irreparably. Now he was showing signs of being friendly and I decided to co operate.

"What is the puzzle?" I asked him.

"It's a modified quotation from a poem." he said. "I'll give you a cryptic clue to each word not necessarily in the same order. All you have to do is decipher it."

"Sure!" I said sportingly, "give me the clues."

"Here's the first clue."He began, "It's a definite article with the summer sprite."

I had never tried my hand at crosswords. His clue couldn't help me to get on the right track for a long time. I gave 'Sunfairy' and 'Mistletoe' as answers, recalling old memories from my school textbook. He just laughed and said that I was way off the mark. I was still at it at dinner time when I suddenly had a flash. I recalled the name of Puck from Shakespeare and got the answer, which was a play of words on my name.

"It's my own name!" I told him beaming.

"Right!" he said, "I'll give you the next clue tomorrow." The rest of the day was spent in silence.

Next morning he offered to give me the clue for another word. I however declined and told him that it would disturb my work for the day. In the evening at the roll call over the radio, I conveyed to the base our plans for a camp shift the next day. After dining we crawled into our sleeping bags and while we were relaxing idly, he gave me the clue for a second word in the quote.

"A leading addend with an expert weaver gives the homonym."

I couldn't get the answer that day as I fell asleep in a short while. Next morning there was the usual hurried activ¬ity that accompanied camp shifts. I felt more confident with Karsten and dropped the idea of asking the expedition leader for a change of assistant as he seemed to be getting friendlier. "All this crossword exercise could be his way of generating a friendly air" I thought. For my part, I decided to play along and later develop some game of my own to reduce the impact of isolation where the other person becomes the sole target of one's frustrations. When the 'copter arrived, we loaded our belongings hurriedly and flew to a place about 15 miles to the northeast. While unloading the cargo there was a minor accident. The radio was a portable one and it came in a case with a sling attached to it so that it could be hung on the shoulder like a bag. The sling of the radio hooked on to a bolt in the helicopter's body and slipped off my hand and fell on the ground with a thud. These radios were rugged and the impact was too soft to cause concern. Later the helicopter flew off.

We had to hurry with the pitching of the tents, for the weather was turning bad. The föhn had been blowing fairly strong from the southeast since morning. I cross checked with the pocket barometer and found that the pressure had fallen. By two o'clock, low dense clouds were seen to the southeast in the lower part of the valley. Within an hour our camp was enveloped in thick fog and it started raining.

    When the weather went bad, dark and gloomy with snow

Bad weather was the last thing that I desired under the circumstances. I had an ominous feeling that even a day's confinement with him inside the tent would catalyse animus and spell disaster. Karsten again retrieved the pistol and resumed polishing it.