Trek to Dushsagar Falls

We were a group of 20 adventurers who started the Train journey from Hyderabad to Castle Rock Station. I did not know that I was about to spend some really wonderful moments with these 19 unknown people.

Trek which we followed was filled with heart filling greenery, gentle showers of monsoon, dark horrifying tunnels cutting through the mighty Western Ghat mountains and the pleasure of walking (while carrying all our luggage on our shoulders.)





After five hours of trekking through the mountains along a fairly zero slope railway track, we reached our destination - A breath taking view of a real mighty fall! It was such a pleasure to see this white cladding monster waiting there for tired travelers like us.



It was monsoon time and the fall was at its best. We let ourselves free in its streams. On one hand water was soothing in some small adobes of accumulation; on another it was really powerful where it had to make its way to move. Ah! the pressure of free flowing water.





After spending one night under the mist within our fairly safe tents, we trekked towards to a small town in Goa called Kollam.



At Kollam we had delicious Goan food and from there came back to Hyderabad via Londa with lots of smiles and a heart filled with gratitude towards the créateur belle, nature!

Freedom

Aha long time!

How are you doing? I am doing absolutely great. A lot of things are happening these days. Really a lot if I look at it. New work, absolutely new team mates, a very new work culture. Earlier I was with a Research Lab and now fully into product development which means deadlines, managers, coding, delivering work...hufff! Too much! I might be over reacting, but I need some coke to swallow this "new" thing.

The "new" list is not over with that. A new place altogether, Hyderebad it is. New house, new housemates, new living habits. Today with my housemates, I watched 15 episodes of Friends back to back. Was reading a novel during the rest of my time and I have no need what so ever of being answerable for what I am doing with my time!

The best part is I never see my time being spent as a waste at any point. This was one bad thing about IAS preparations or about the way I used to perceive things. If I am doing something other than study, I used to find it an utter waste of time. Same is not the case now. Every moment of my day is now useful, because there is absolutely nothing that I "want" to do/ "have" to do. So whatever I do is out of my own free will. And I mean it. I am experiencing free will after a long time. May be a life time!

This might sound freaking but actually its not all that freaking. I am still doing the very same things any normal person will do. Its only the added perception of freedom that makes it more beautiful. Freedom from committing myself to one narrow aim and cutting myself from a wide wide range of activities, hobbies etc. I hope this perception which has nothing to do with circumstances just continues. No matter what I want to do, I will not be a slave of that "want" and this very fact simply frees me!

Bigger Scheme

There are times when we want certain things and those things are never granted. This usually happens during those chubby childhood days, when our parents forbid us from certain things. And we helplessly live without them. I will give an example to illustrate the situation.
A small 3 year old is asking his mother to give him a sharp knife so that he can tear open a birthday gift. Mother knows that he can hurt himself with that, but child wants the knife and nothing else. He cries, runs up and down, is totally drown in tears and dust. Mom says absolute NO! Child is also adamant and continues with whatever he could. He is throwing things, crying at even a sharper pitch with even more tears than ever.
Finally inspite of the child crying she opens the gift wrap herself and gives it to him. He couldn't do anything after that. The gift is open and he could not use that knife, something he wanted to do so desperately. He is upset but mother knows and an observer like us also knows that she did the right thing. Child is upset though.

This is the same way, we sometimes become upset when we are not granted our wishes. Though in the bigger scheme of things, that not granting was the most correct thing that could have happened. Oblivious of the bigger scheme, as we are also supposed to be, we continue being upset. Though children soon forget and become busy in something else, we sometimes keep crying. What is more important is to move ahead and forget what happened a while ago.

One more observation. In future, child will ask for something else, may be flowers, may be fire; and mother will grant somethings and not grant somethings else. But the child will keep asking and so should we. Because we know that the mother is always willing to grant our wishes, after all we are her favourite children ;)

Mamma

Actually wanted to title it "Meri Maa" from the song Taare Zameen Par. I watched this movie today again for a third time. It is simply amazing. There is this scene when Ishan's parents are departing, in a Qualis I think, leaving him in the boarding. This scene completely goes through my heart, a Hard strike right into my heart and through it, great shot! Hats off! I know there are many such heart touching scenes. But this one reminds me like many others I am sure, of my first day at hostel. I felt the same emptiness and nothingness when my family was leaving me at the hostel gate. My mom kept looking at me and I kept looking at her. Though we never talked about it but both of us know how we felt. When they were leaving, I just didn't want them to leave, I wanted to run and stop their car but I didn't, taking care of my "brave courageous kid" image. And after the car disappeared in dark, each step that I took to get into that unknown building was so heavy. I couldn't even lift my head up. But as soon as I reached reception area i was once again drawn into the excitement of a new place, new people, a completely unknown room mate, classes next day, list of freshers events and everything that I thoroughly enjoyed in every moment of that new life that I entered soon after.

But this nausea of leaving my mom still follows me everywhere. Just four months ago I went to write my IAS mains exam and like always mamma was there with me. On all 7 days of exams she would get up before I do, prepare my breakfast and lunch, pack some refreshments, a mattress and other essential things to stay at the exam center for the whole day, so that I can relax during the in between break time, can lose all worries and concentrate on the exam. She would never put any pressure for success, but would always ask me to relax and enjoy even in the hardest of my times. She always has her set of jokes ready for me to smile and to hug her and cuddle her with all my force. When I am worried, she will make me put my head in her lap, and that in front of six other examinees of my age and you know what it actually always helps. She does just so much and has never stopped all these 25 years. Yet she demands nothing, absolutely nothing.
Today also she will always quickly get up and will not let any of us move from our chairs when we are studying or our beds when we are ill or her lap when we are crying. She does so much.

Some of my friends keep telling me that I am an over protected / pampered child, that I should come out of this comfort zone and train myself with the real world. I agree but at the same time I feel so blessed, so fortunate for having her all the time. I really want to thank her for everything, e v e r y t h i n g. I am deeply sunk in her love and care. She doesn't even realize how precious she is and I can never thank her, never, for being like she is. Gratitude is an understatement.

One advice I want to give away for free and from my experience, just tell your parents how much you love them and do it right now because sometimes it gets really late when you realize you should have told them. I never told my father how much I love him. When I was in hostel, he once told me over phone that he thinks his children don't love him. I was too foolish at that time. I should have run home, hugged him, kissed him and told him "No Papa! I love you so much! You are the greatest greatest Dad ever!" I don't want that to happen in my mother's case, I want to love her, care for her as much as I can. And not just her, let all parents be loved and told softly, subtly, smilingly, shoutingly, cuddlingly or whichever way you find appropriate, how much we love them!

Butterflies

With the days
passing by
singing in silence
dancing in joy
in the seed
of emptiness lie
some small
butterflies

Looking at me
furling their wings
for me to see
and enjoy

But often I
close my eyes
from those little
butterflies
born of
the very emptiness
that I
often enjoy

And whenever I
close my eyes
from those little
butterflies
my eyes
are open ajar!?

The pair of glasses
The Kajal I put
All are useless
So are you!

You my stupid
useless eyes!
Can't just I
see my
butterflies?

I am in tears
begging my eyes
Let me see
my butterflies

A moment's silence
No reply

Then comes in
The Maestro Grand
And He's here
to stand by
and to open
my open eyes

All I do
is close my eyes
to see my those
butterflies

looking at me
furling their wings
for me to see
and enjoy!

Message Delivery

About an year ago, I attended an Art Of Living Course, it's called DSN or Divya Samaj Nirman It was one course which brought me closer to AOL and still closer to Guruji, though Guruji in person wasn't there. Atika di took this course and amongst many stories she told this one little story that I will reproduce here.

It was about an Art of Living teacher, who for teaching purposes went to a naxalite affected area in North East, in spite of Guruji's warning that it's quite dangerous there. He went and unfortunately militants captured him and kept him in custody for some days; because of his very nature, he was very friendly to the person who guarded him. One day that guard was sitting besides him; he had a lot of sympathy and remorse in his eyes. When teacher saw him he knew that his friend is sad because he (the teacher) is about to be killed. Teacher lost is calm, he was too frightened to know that. The guard went away for sometime and teacher was restless.

Guard left a radio there and this radio which was poor at catching any music station started singing "yu hi chala chal rahi.. yu hi chala chal" and teacher suddenly knew he must run out of here. He started running and chose the more rugged way in stead of the common commutation route fearing chase. On his way he saw some militants waiting for him but escaped them luckily, finally he reached a pakka road where he also found a bus coming. He stopped that bus, climbed it and as he sat he could hear his breath running at its fastest. He was busy pumping all that air in when he heard another song coming from a radio held in a nearby hand, it was a love song. "Hume tumse pyaar kitna..." or something like that, I don't remember exactly, but teacher started crying, tears were rolling on his cheeks because now he understood, it was Guruji who sent him that message and it is Guruji again who was telling him how much He loves him.

Difficult to believe, haan? Those songs could be mere co-incidents. But I don't think so. Guruji tells us that this universe has a big mind, we call it Guru Dev (Guru means Big in Sanskrit) and all of us, even non living things have our small minds which are projections of that big mind, the mind of universe. When we are connected to that big mind we are connected to every other being in this universe, living or non living. And it is through this connection that we get signals. It only depends on our level of alertness, how easily and often we catch those signals and understand them. Satsang, Seva and Sadhna helps us tune our radio sets i.e. improve our understanding and that is what we learn at Art Of Living. It is nothing we don't know, we only forgot with time.

The first meeting, Face to Face

Long time. I hope you people are having a great time.
I haven't written anything since ages. Reading Bawa n Dinesh recently inspired me to write more frequently, let us see how far this inspiration goes.
In my last (to last) blog I introduced a super hero (as Vishal has pointed out, and Vishal you should know who He is) who was the first person whom I find absolutely suitable (this is definitely an understatement) for being my ideal.
The first face to face encounter I had with Him is a strange story in itself.
Around 4 o'clock on a fine evening, my mom called me to tell that He was at that moment staying at a place very near to my work place. I was in the mid of a team meeting, but attended to her phone. I generally ignore any calls while in a meeting, but she called twice, so I thought it must be an emergency. At first I decided not to go especially in between work, but then for about 15 minutes I wasn't listening to what my team lead was emphasizing upon and suddenly my mom called yet again just to add one more information, He might leave in 15 minutes. And I rose up.
'I have to go immediately.'
'Is everything alright?'
'Everything's fine.'
A pause. Question mark on every other face and probably also on mine.
'I need to meet our Guruji. He will leave in 15 minutes. I will go back home directly from there. See you guys tomorrow.'
Biplav, my team lead, cleared his throat.
'OK (pause) we will discuss this offline then.'
That was probably most absurd reason for leaving an important meeting and till now I didn't "really" regard Guruji as my Guruji!
Yet in between doubts, mostly mine and question marks, I left my office, paid autowala 40 bucks for a distance less than worth 20 and reached the venue.
There were a variety of people gathered in the lawns of a big Mansion in a posh Delhi locality. Mostly rich satisfied faces, their clothing wonderful, their hairs perfect and also a group of people from a small Uttar Pradesh/Uttaranchal town, I think 30-35 of them. All of us were waiting for Guruji to come down from a first floor room. Though I think everybody had their own reasons to meet, I was still thinking why was I there. I was still thinking why should I meet Him. If at all I happen to meet Him, what will I say? I settled upon just seeing him once, seeing him full length and from a good distance and going back home immediately after that. He was to climb down a stairway. In between the crowd I positioned myself at a comfortable spot from where I can see him climbing down the whole staircase. I kept standing there for about 1-1.5 hours, I had already spent an hour looking at the crowd (so a total of 2 - 2.5 hours without much purpose), wondering about various things and deciding upon what I wanted to do.
Some rich looking and generally old people were allowed to move up the stair case. Lucky ones, everybody around was feeling extraordinarily jealous. I was in no hurry, I was perfectly fine even with not seeing Guruji at all. This thought was more comforting than the thought of meeting him as I had absolutely nothing to do with a meeting. But by that time I definitely wanted to see him at least for 10 seconds. An order came from the room to let all 30 35 people of that small town to come up. Hurray! Yipppeee. People soon started running over each other to climb the stairs. There was a young looking white clad smiling guard on the door leading to the room, who was very politely not allowing people to go in till the final GO comes from inside. The moment GO came, a crowd rushed in and I was taken along by the ruthless devotees and soon that golden gateway was closed.
And there I was, in front of the legend of our times! Wearing all white, looking very tired, dark skin, having concern in his eyes for everybody inside the room. He asked everybody to settle down. I decided to keep standing but at the back and see him all the time I can. I was constantly looking at him. He was talking to people, sometimes smiling, but was looking really tired. Somebody came and felicitated him with a baansoori (flute) and a crown, he very gracefully accepted that and smiled again. He was sitting on a Sofa with his legs folded in vajrasan. People soon stood up, gradually everybody stood, I could not see him any more. I decided to stand in a position where i can see him side-ways. I was constantly looking at him. I don't remember if I ever blinked. Gradually people covered him from both the sides. He started distributing sweets to his beloved followers and asked them politely to leave one by one. I then decided to go forward to collect the prasad. As I came directly in front of him, I sat down and touched his knees. Mann, there was nothing hard like a knee socket, it was as soft as the pillows of a seven star, like finest variety of cotton. He was a thin man. Very thin. I almost drowned in that touch and its softness for I don't remember how long, but I was into that one single slight touch. I was nowhere for some time. Time stopped. Suddenly somebody pushed me and I knew I had to move. He had already given me the prasada when I was nowhere and by the time I came back to my senses, I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what, but something. And out of nowhere, I said "Guruji Ashirwaad" (Give me your blessings) Pointing to the sweets he said "yahi hai ashirwaad" (he was completely exhausted and wanted the crowd to leave) In his gesture he asked me to leave.(i didn't like tat AT All) And I myself not wanting Him to be troubled any more, wanted to leave. But; I didn't want to leave, I wanted to see him more and more. So I decided to wait for strict orders and see him to the maximum length that I can. Probably everybody else was thinking the same. Soon Guruji realized it was an error to call so many people up, all at once and he decided to leave himself. I watched him all through his departure again, till the point he was not visible any more.
In the room itself I ate up all the prasad, completely forgetting that my mom will be too glad to have have that. When I went home everybody was asking for the stories of my victory at "meeting" Guruji, a chance not every tom, dick n harry gets. People from distant places called to know how i felt. I was a victorious heroic figurine for quite some time. Everybody was asking how it felt. Actually I was feeling nothing. All of them thought I am the lucky one who got to meet Guruji after doing just one Art Of Living course. I was not sure. Nor was I too happy to have met Guruji!
In fact all this triggered a train of thoughts. Do I really like him? Is he really worth all the regards everybody has for him. And the bigger question, can he be my ideal?