Like a record player Rebecca’s mind plays umpteenth tunes, ceaselessly, shifting and slowing as per her mood. A second track plays all the time in her head.
Ha ha now is the time to laugh and sway in joy, oh no it is the moment to exclaim in surprise, my love let us dance hand in hand, shush stay focused life is in a rush.
The second track requires a different set of shoes feels Rebecca very strongly. A pair that can match the track’s rhythm, can dance, tip toe, jump and even fly.
Yes fly! For walking on the second track is dull and usual, but dreaming high, high, high requires tools. Tools like the right pair of shoes, a chirpy, gritty soul that eats butter-jam dreams, a soul that drinks milky-milky creams.
Also, being little absurd guides.
Rebecca always acts absurdly, but at times just a little bit because she does not want to lose the touch of reality. If she loses it, how will she attempt the paper?
Oh no! It is the moment to exclaim in surprise, Rebecca is in the examination room and the fresh ink on her question paper is making her dizzy.
Captain, captain mayday! Switch off the second track for three hours and be in the present moment, I repeat, be in the present moment. Over and out!
Attempt the question paper, start with the ones you know, and relax, and calm down and breathe.
A joy so complete without any rise or fall, so free without any time corners, so real without true being false, false being true.
Witnessing the colours dance by, I swayed along to see I am nowhere around.
Light’s brightness pierced through and through with love and warmth, permeating the space and beyond. Embracing it, I started to radiate but didn’t see myself around.
The whole enchilada gathered momentum, passing and reaching the whole enchilada.
I gazed and found the beginning and the destination to be the same, but I didn’t reveal it for I was happy and still, not present there.
Rhythm flowed through the grand wadis, deeply and rapidly it flowed to form a vortex. Whirling merrily in rhythm I followed without any wish for more or less, when I realised I am missing.
The sea of quietness fulfilled itself and the sound of stars falling enhanced it beautifully. I saw it in double wonderment because it was sublime and my presence there was a lie.
If not the gust of wind, what was so strong there, if not the heat of fire, what then burned majestically there, if not the heavens of this, that and all the worlds, what made it truly blissful there?
I do not know the answer, for I was undeniably not there.
I could never reach there, no ‘I’ ever did. One with the One, alive and in absolute existence, surpassing the limitations, one in Union is the one with the answer.
And once you get the answer you choose to forget it right before entering the door to illimitable splendour.
Pedalling the cycle in a rhythmic motion, Aunty Ji moved ahead towards a destination unknown to me. I saw her through the bus window and I don’t remember her face clearly.
She was wearing a dull purple sari; now was the sari actually light in colour or was it the hand-washing that the sari went through for infinite times that made it dull, I have no idea about it.
Her complexion was rough. Her hands, arms, and neck looked very rough; and rough not because her skin was bad or simply dry, but rough in a sense that reflected how hard she has worked for ages and how hard she will work for ages.
The skin was rough and dry because the sun rays befriended it; the sun rays and the burnt skin smiled together whenever they met.
She also wore a chain. She was married. She was bulky, but not because she was lethargic or slow, it was the birth of her three or four children that left her on a heavy side; and also the fact that she rarely got any time for herself.
However, she did take two minutes in the morning to dress up, apply powder, bindi, and comb her hair, she enjoyed these two minutes every day.
I didn’t know where she was going to or coming from, what was in her mind – capitalism, liberalism or food, what was her religion – Hinduism, Christianity or food, what was her educational qualification – was she a maid, a saleswoman or a sole breadwinner of a family, what did she know about the world – about global warming, the war/peace game and the wastage of food, and that whether being a human being was she even aware of her life’s higher purpose, was she following a godly Saint or a reasonable atheist, a complex God or a straightforward Holy Text?
I am not sure about anything and nor am I interested to be. Because she was cycling in rhythm and I connected with her as did the wind.
She was nothing extraordinary and almost obscurely invisible. She camouflaged with the out-of-city-region-before-entering-the-proper-country-area perfectly.
Yet she was the most alive person there – the Skylark of the sky and the Albatross of the ocean. She was the solution to the puzzle; she was the answer to the riddle.
Amusingly, she carried the answer and the solution in her bun- the lively, fresh orange flowers. There were two or three orange flowers, beautifully and so neatly pinned to the bun that even the speed breakers were unable to disturb the setting.
The orange flowers – what was the type I don’t remember – were fresh and sweetly orange in colour. The orange flowers hummed a soothing tune. Oh! It was melodious, it was magical, I can’t explain in words…it was a feeling.
A strong, but a fleeting one. And after all, I had just seen a glimpse of Aunty Ji.
I was inside the bus and we passed her and many other bicycle riders.
Everyone moving towards an end, busy garnering their life without truly perceiving it.
She possibly was ignorant, out-dated and wronged, still she had found a way that was orange in colour and alive and quiet and true.
Fresh and sweetly orange in colour. Image by M W from Pixabay
Clouds in the evening sky/
Tell the old mountains a secret 'secret'/
Lights on, we turn deaf.
Greetings!
A storyteller, following the ancient tradition of cave chroniclers, standing in vrikshasana (the tree pose) on a hill top (it is sunny, but windy), breathing in and out stories (relishing it all, but at times overwhelmed), declares animatedly that she will continue to – tell stories, share rare story gems, and connect with the pacy universe while also keeping the website ad-free.
Big thanks to my readers. Stay tuned!
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Ya-hoy!
Chiming Stories (formerly Home Chimes)
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Gabbeh, the 1996 film, is a simple tale of a gipsy girl, her clan and the way their life goes on. Unfolding beautifully just like an artist painting a canvas, Gabbeh quietly touches the grand questions.
Godard… Breathless and Alive
A Tribute to Jean-Luc Godard, the Film Philologist who Reinvented Cinema.
Arthdal Chronicles is a South Korean fantasy drama TV series that takes us back to the Bronze Age in a mythical land named Arth, where different human species and tribes struggle to be on the top of the power pyramid.
Yes fly! For walking on the second track is dull and usual, but dreaming high, high, high requires tools. Tools like the right pair of shoes, a chirpy, gritty soul that eats butter-jam dreams, a soul that drinks milky-milky creams.
Universe’s a Disciplined Place
Silver cascade shimmering the night sky, music to the waves and surreal beauty to the eyes, the Moon loves the art of discipline.
It may be difficult to believe for the Moon’s splendour defies time, it stupefies the clock, it follows the path of a dreamer, but how could this be possible if the Moon knew not discipline?
In this moment, I am a little bit of this and a little bit of that, I am complete and incomplete, I am pleased and uncertain, I wish for nothing and I know I have to wait.
Because the distance covered reminds me of the hurdles I have crossed and the ones I could not, it reminds me of a throbbing past and a dreamy future and it reminds me of how much time is left.
Meredith and the Green Lake
Illimitable Splendour
A joy so complete without any rise or fall, so free without any time corners, so real without true being false, false being true.
