A Conspiracy of Silence

My cell phone(s) (that's right, I own 2 of them) I suspect have taken to playing games with me. It is, I am sure, a conspiracy. A downright dastardly one at that.

They are, I'm sure, giggling between themselves even right now, even as I am sharing these thoughts with you through THEM

They are naughty. Pranksters out to deprive me of my peace, trying to drive me out of my mind.
They listen in, quietly, silently spying on my conversations with the people around me - and they remain silent, mute for entire long stretches of time, nary a cheep out of them.

So, there I would be, working away on my laptop, and there they would be, right by my side, holding their breath in pin drop silence. After a while, in these days of W-ingFH, in the kitchen washing the vessels, and there are are, watching me gleefully as plates and pans slip out of my soapy hands and clatter around - from the other room, the (by now bitter) half has plenty of paragraphs to say while both these Korean brothers remain silent in their mirth. Their maun vrat remains unshakable as I read a novel, as I nurse my evening Scotch... They are imperturbable almost all through a working day.

A little further away, their fellow Korean cousin who does duty for the wife is one hell of an excitable, garrulous chappie. Every few minutes he bursts into chatter, bleating out AND vibrating too, as he urgently summons "Madam" - meanwhile, my two guys remain stubborn, silent, almost showing a Zen calm..

I am not unhappy. I have no complaints. Silence, after all, is.golden...

And I decide, keeping this book that I'm reading, or setting my laptop aside, or keeping those just now washed/dried vessels neatly away... I decide it's time to bathe, or to use the washroom, and I've just entered the bathroom, and I'm standing under the shower, shampoo in my hair/eyes.

And that is EXACTLY when they call out to me.

One goes off at a shrill RRRRRRIIINNNGGGGG RRRRRRIIINNNGGGGG and half a beat later his brother blares out a manic melody.

Again, and again, and insistently again as if the Heavens have decided to fall on my head.
Bleddddy bas#@*ds, I curse viciously, grab a towel, step hastily out, almost slip and fall, and grab for the first fellow while the second still screams.
As I flip open the cover, he clams up, silent as the Sphinx. Muttering to myself, I now grab his brother and keep it to my ear and say, "Allo, Allo" - I'm speaking into air, to an empty nothingness...




I now glare at first the one, then the other, to no avail. Even Bharat Bhushan had greater expressions on his face.

When MAN is caged....

With Man in retreat
Cowering behind walls
And hiding behind masks
The streets have been reclaimed
By others, perhaps more deserving
Of this earth than Man.
From here, from there
Friends and acquaintances
Have been sharing videos
And I have been absorbing data
And observing perspectives
On life in a lockdown.

From the streets of Ahemdabad
On an early morning, a flock
Of Rosy Starling on wing
(A murmuration is the term)
Wheel around the empty streets
In numbers larger than before...

Elsewhere from an unknown land
Through the dark night a herd of deer
Walk bravely now where once they timidly trod
Now without any fear..

And finally, the best of all,
A little clip, a little deer
Gambolling in delight beside a
Rolling sea on an empty beach
A sight that makes me wistfully hope
For this season to last and stretch
Into the distant forever...

Today is Akshaya Tritiya - and, due to this lockdown, instead of being inundated with full page advertisements, I look a bit more closely at this festival and the significance of this day...

This is a day of "endless/boundless wealth/prosperity", actually the THIRD day of endless endless prosperity..

Akshayya, meaning eternal, never ending, etc is a word many of us familiar with the story of the akshaya patra from the Mahabharat would know.

It is believed Lord Krishna gave this vessel to Draupadi on this day. Or, was it given to Yudhishtra by Lord Surya, my memory is a bit off..

Today is also the day when the (Hindu) world's first "stenographer" began to take down the dictation, from Ved Vyasa, as the latter started narrating the Mahabharat.

So, why and how does this festival get so closely linked to GOLD? It is on this day that a certain gentleman, whose name is Kubera, was appointed as the Lord of Wealth. Richer than anybody else in all the three worlds, Kubera is still collecting interest on a loan he gave to the presiding diety of Tirumala in Tirupati, Lord Balaji - and that, mind you, was a marriage loan. Speak of a big, fat, Indian wedding 😃

And oh, by the way, Kubera had a brother - shall I say more notorious? A Shiva bhakt second to none, master of arts, receiver of many boons..  and better known to our world as Ravana

Happy Akshaya Tritiya to all of you. May you have never ending joy, success and just enough wealth always.

Planet 2.0 - Will this happen?

When all this is, hopefully, over and behind us I wonder what new world will we step into.

I'm actually growing used to the idea of lockdown, it seems a good intervention - as a society, we seem to have adapted well.

Consumption is now minimal and need based.

Stress inducing commuting is history.
Instead of a "work - life balance" I think many of us have discovered life is bigger than work.

We stand in queues, without jostling.

Men have learnt to shoulder at least some responsibility of work AT home...

I did see a news report (hopefully fact, not fake) that even said that seismologists are saying the earth's mantle is quieter than a month ago... Because of the slowdown/lockdown across much of the world. Reminds me of TS Eliot's poem's (The Waste Land) ending, Shantih Shantih Shanti

All in all, this is good. I hope we remember the lessons were learning now.

Meanwhile, the lady of the house has acquired sufficient skills to find her way through my (MY? Hers, now) smart TV. We are now sitting, engrossed, watching that delightful comedy series from the 90s... Yeh Joh Hai Zindagi  Life, was it simpler then? Or is that merely the camera tricks of nostalgia?

The Religion of a Virus

Religion is business, BIG business. And this is a truly secular statement of a fact. Whether one is a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian or anything at all, there's tonnes of money to be made... No?
So, to reiterate, entirely unnecessarily, merely for effect - religion is BIG business.
Perhaps - in fact, almost certainly - religion, in pure "turnover" terms must be much, much bigger than my sector, which is insurance.
And so, having set that "background", let me look at a mirror to my own actions...

There I was, earlier last month, in the first week of March, flying out to Delhi on an overnight trip. Business beckoned, I chose to travel. (Also, spent a fantastic evening with a very dear friend, catching up on old times)

A week later, again a business trip, this time down to Chennai, and once again, did not miss the opportunity to meet a couple of very dear friends...
All this while Corona was in the air... I flew, I met clients, I met friends, stayed with relatives, etc.
On return, both times, it was life as usual AND business as usual...

I am (as of now) not a Covid "case" (and, hopefully, won't be) and hopefully I haven't passed on the virus to anyone else...

Now, compare this with the "irresponsible idiots" who went to Nizamuddin Markaz... They, too, went for "work", no?

Or, compare us with the (allegedly) "massive" rally that the BJP took out in Gwalior to welcome a certain Mr Scindia into the fold...

I cannot resist quoting one of the most spectacularly famous "men of god", a certain Jesus of Nazareth