"Say a prayer for The Pretender..."

Brave new world.

Everything seems that way when it starts. Till the dream rots.

It's easy to live the highs. Easy to ride the crest of the wave, even though it may not be ours. But when it comes to calling the lows, naming the hollowness, facing the wormwood, writing about the canker, where did the brave new songwriters go?

Rock music always seemed sad to me. It was real, because you could have fun, but you'd have to face your ghosts and demons. The sadness was real, sometimes more real than the happiness. We had thought that after Haight-Ashbury, Woodstock and a host of culture heroes, the new music would break new ground and provide answers - in the seventies.

It didn't.

Most of rock was repertory, the pale-white cover version, after 1970. It was not new - the life-blood was gone. In fact, even the things that provided the knife-edge during those groundbreaking days were gone. Gone was the wonder, the heady elixir of discovery.

I want to know what became of the changes we waited for love to bring
Were they only the fitful dreams of some greater awakening?

Somewhere from within, in our self-worship and ritual mirrors, the canker began to eat away. Rock music had had a memorable and fondly-remember'd voice, but was now being sold to the highest bidder, ideals and all. The accountants owned rock music in the seventies; rock music was not itself, did not own itself. The flights of fancy were now landed, to perform at order, for somebody's gain.

Caught between the longing for love and the struggle for the legal tender
Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring
And the junk man pounds his fender
Where the veterans dream of the fight
Fast asleep at the traffic light
And the children solemnly wait for the ice cream vendor

It was the day of a unique type of person, who was to be the prototype for later decades - one who had seen love, freedom and creativity, but had sold his soul. Or, of a person who had seen dreams die and never recovered. Cut loose from his tender anchor, he was adrift without a beacon in a world that knew nothing of and cared even less about hopes or his dreams.

Out into the cool of the evening strolls the Pretender
He knows that all his hopes and dreams begin and end there

Are you there?
Say a prayer for the Pretender
Who started out so young and strong
Only to surrender

The Pretender WAS the seventies; either he had no higher dreams than his own, or had no dreams anyway because they had been crushed. Either way, he had cold blood flowing in his veins; his emotional nerve had been severed and the wound cauterised. His unseeing eyes were fish-grey and dead.

I don't think it was just rock music, it was everything that we call life. Everywhere, the Pretender set up shop - caretaker, and undertaker. He provided security, when there was nothing to guard; the seeming exhilaration of freedom when there was no creativity or song; wistfulness and nostalgia, though the anchor to their day had been cut away; fanfare, pomp and circumstance, for paper kings on paper thrones; the very substance of a mirthless smile. The Pretender knew nothing of causes, of the river of life or where it flowed, the raw nerve or where the sensation was; but he acted the part all the same.

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This has been really difficult to write. The song has been such a life-changing force over the years and I always despair of capturing its life-blood and putting it on display.

I heard of Jackson Browne in 1990. I had heard his name in connection with the Eagles earlier, and that he had written their earliest hit, "Take It Easy". 1990 and 1991 were the years of the singer-songwriter genre for me. Donald Clarke wrote, "the singer-songwriters were the true art-rockers, but they would never have accepted the label". I searched hungrily for songwriters who wrote their own songs and sang in the folk-blues-rock'n'roll idiom, and found a host of them; Jackson Browne was one shining star in a constellation.

Jackson Browne captures my attention as much now as he did twenty years ago, because he seems to take thoughts, feelings and deep impressions out of my heart and put words to them; like something I've always suspected to be true, he puts them into words. He certainly is the blue-eyed singer, with the full sunset behind him, on a beach, writing songs by picking them out of my heart.

Songwriters of that noble genre and tribe are many and they're all equally skilled. To be fair, however, none of them captured the seventies so completely, tellingly or hauntingly as Jackson Browne did in "The Pretender". It was and always will remain a song that captured the essence of an entire decade - the sadness, the hollowness, the "it's all over"ness, the facadeness, the "shards-of-a-dream"ness. No brave new world here, just ghosts.

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We still can recognise The Pretender in this age. The links with Jackson Browne's 1976 portrait have been SEEMINGLY severed, but what has happened is a mutation, something like what happened to Jack Napier when he fell into that vat of foul fluid and emerged as The Joker. In the seventies, the Pretender was merely immature; today, he is past recall.

Words like "sinister", "eerie" and "evil" come to mind, words that seemed aeons away in 1976. It's just the age, it's just the stage......

The cumulonimbus archives - excerpt 2

Thirlmere is one of the lakes in Lake District.

All the lakes are considered to be gems, like jewels set inside lush green mountains. Most people eulogise (actually rhapsodise) about Derwentwater, Buttermere and Ullswater. One poor man gave out of his want, to see that Derwentwater was not touched by tourist influences and for its upkeep; he was absolutely mesmerised by its unsurpassed beauty. Buttermere is one of the most beautiful of the lakes, and on the shore of Ullswater, there are daffodil banks that surely inspired Wordsworth's immortal poem, Daffodils.

(probably one of the daffodil banks that inspired the poem. Photo courtesy John Butler. The lake seen here is Ullswater)

The other lakes, though not thought of in the same breath.......are also favourites. It's like each man has his favourite. There's Rydal Water, with that lovely green slope leading into the water. Grasmere has this grand old oak right on its shores. Bassenthwaite looks the most peaceful. Ennerdale Water is dramatic, with mountains hemming it in. Crummock Water looks lovely in the rain. Coniston Water and Loweswater also have their moments of glory. Even Wast Water, the most chilling and sinister of the lakes, has its gentle side. Haweswater, though little more than a man-made reservoir, has a lovely little island right in the middle. Finally there's Windermere, the largest, which is not lacking in beauty, if only people would stop kayaking up and down in motorboats.

Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons, a picturesque and idyllic tale of children adventuring in the woods, generally accepted as happening along Windermere's shores, but sometimes resembling Coniston Water as well (Wikipedia). Matters very little which of the lakes it really is.

This post is about none of these lakes.

Derwentwater, the lake that inspired a poor man to part with his earnings for its preservation. Photo courtesy John Butler.

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Have you ever felt chilly inside of the heart?

When winter's frost descends. An opaque, sleety white enshrouds all. Apparently, before Herge composed Tintin in Tibet, he had dreams of white, where everything turned to white and he would wake up screaming. Not the PALE WHITE of death, but just icy, pure, white. Like a snowflake.

Under the snow, water freezes. I have this picture of Ullswater and the surface is frozen. The lovely ptarmigan is seen. Snowy buntings and snowy owls. Like the white of tropicbirds.

The heart freezes. It doesn't die; it just stops. The physical still beats, but the heart of the man has stopped. It doesn't matter anymore to keep moving. It's rather time to look around, and see what the white looks like. It's no longer you, but the white around. The crude word people use is hibernation.

It's no time for energy, action, DOING, moving, production, industriousness, enterprise, war or food. It's just stop-ness. Still. Silent. Watching the white come down and enshroud, silently, wordlessly. STOPPED. Not INTERRUPTED, not PAUSED, nor STOPPED DEAD. Just S.T.O.P.P.E.D.

You realise that moving would be wrong. To do would be to disturb the stillness. To expend energy would be such a tragedy. You don't really want to go anywhere or see anyone. You don't WANT. You're not upset or angry, or disturbed or hurt, or ANYTHING. You've just stopped. Slowly, you put things away. All instruments of energy are slowly folded away. The cabin's boarded up. The phone is off the hook. "Gone south for the winter".

Underneath the chilly white sheet, there is life. No one can see the gentle soothing river that flows, but it trickles into your being. Like the Brook of Cherith....in a dry land. It makes no sound, but flows gently over stone-hard rock, softening it and warming it under the chilly white sheet. Healing comes. Depleted mineral stocks replenish. Life slowly eases back into veins. Summer slowly percolates into the deep recesses of winter, underneath the chilly white sheet, waiting its turn..... but for now, no movement.

On the surface, gale force winds blow. Cumulonimbus clouds gather. Icy white and harsh, silhouetted black criss-cross. But nothing moves. You can't tell that anyone lives there.

The dark, dark, dark chilly night of the soul. You do not know whether there is a way out, but you trust in God. Your fears batter you and beat you to the ground, but you have found your refuge. You are not out of the woods yet, but you know God leads you.

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I don't know that my words strike a chord, but underneath the chilly sheet of white, life slowly forms.

I saw this photograph in 2003. Actually I discovered John Butler's site on a frantic search for pictures of the Lake District. Earlier, in the nineties, I saw a picture of an island on Thirlmere, and a leaf in the chilly water. Then came John Butler's picture, taken through the trees on this rise called Raven Crag. Thirlmere looked silent, frozen, still. Not dead, just still. The trees on Raven Crag had bare, frosted branches, creating a bizarre, poky haze. But through the boughs, I saw silent, still Thirlmere.

Thirlmere isn't my favourite lake; Derwentwater is. Or probably Bassenthwaite. Or even Crummock Water. But Thirlmere is more me than Derwentwater is today. Silent, still, unwilling and unable to move a muscle. Inside me, life slowly takes root. Where it may lead when summer comes, I don't know and I don't care. There might be harvest, or there might be colour. Green, maybe, after the frost has cleared.

But for now, Thirlmere lies silent and still.

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Steve Miller and Ben Sidran wrote this absolutely lame, three-chord thing for their album Book of Dreams in 1977. I heard it in 1988, in (!!!!) winter. I didn't know about Thirlmere then. But my heart was already on Raven Crag, looking at that frosted-over surface in the chill of winter.

I wouldn't say it's a beautiful song. But it does say something real and absolutely right. There are times you need to stand back from your life and let those that rush on go right on ahead. We need silence. Stillness. Solitude. They're not indecisiveness; they're just agents of rejuvenation. Things take time. The world is not such a peaceful place where you will get time to reflect and learn, for your future. But you got to create your Thirlmere. You got to get to Raven Crag all by yourself, and take no one along, and then look through the trees. Then you got to let the silence sink in.

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I would like to thank John Butler, and his site on the Lake District, and for that IMMORTAL photo of Thirlmere. I don't know if any other photo I've seen of the Lake District has impacted me as much.

I also thank Steve Miller and Ben Sidran, for their two-penny effort which has gone so far.

Gilboa

"O mountains of Gilboa,
may you have neither dew nor rain,
nor fields that yield offerings of grain.
For there the shield of the mighty was defiled,
the shield of Saul—no longer rubbed with oil."

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A sleet wind blows, and with it, bitter rain falls. Soaks deep into the warrior's skin. He came back to see if he could find his king, so he could carry him back.

On the top of the mountain, a few bodies lie strewn about. The rout had been complete. Defeat hangs thick in the air. But the king he could not find. The godless.....had taken him away.

Jonathan lay there, body mottled with blood. A mighty man of valour, laid low in the dust.

The wind howls.

The warrior surveys the battlefield as his thoughts race back forty years. The Valley of Elah. A headless Philistine, fallen hard into the ground. And a day of great victory. Today, however, forty years later, is a day of defeat and rout, on this bare mountain.

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In Beth Shan, the headless body of a mighty king is impaled on the city wall. A grisly sight. Everything happens again. A few hundred years earlier, an Israelite warrior, captured, stood in chains inside the pagan temple, between two foundation pillars. And the godless rejoiced. Sang songs.

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The warrior rides hard......into Jabesh Gilead. As he dismounts in the town square, the townspeople gather round. He shakes his head.

"The king...died a valiant death on Mount Gilboa. I found Jonathan there too, dead."

"Did you find the king's body?"

"The Philistines......have desecrated it. His headless body hangs on the wall in Beth Shan."

A shocked silence.

And amid the grey of rout and defeat, a purpose comes. Let's do for the king what he did for us. He saved us; let's save him now. In defeat, gratitude and duty still burn in Israelite hearts.

There are no words; everyone agrees. The bravest in Jabesh Gilead......leave the town square one by one. Mount their horses. Ride all night to Beth Shan. In the hour of crippling defeat, a personal debt remains to be paid. A king of Israel must be respected......even in death.

In Beth Shan, festivities suffer a rude jolt as a fierce battle ensues. The body of the king is captured.

As all Israel is scattered yet again, a solemn laying to rest is seen, under a tamarisk tree in Jabesh.

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Meanwhile an Amalekite rides a black horse to Ziklag. A brave ride, considering the decimation of the Amalekites just a few days before. But this Amalekite knows nothing of David; he only knows of Saul on Gilboa. An opportunist; perhaps David will withhold judgment because of the "news" he brings.

And the news he bears hangs on his own head, but he doesn't know that yet.

Decapitating a king is just a convenience for an opportunist. Only, he lies; he hopes his lie will safeguard his life. Who can unmask his lie? Why, here's the very crown that was on Saul's head!!! The crown of a king of Israel.

Then David said to the young man who brought him the report, "How do you know that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead?"
"I happened to be on Mount Gilboa," the young man said, "and there was Saul, leaning on his spear, with the chariots and riders almost upon him. When he turned around and saw me, he called out to me, and I said, 'What can I do?'
"He asked me, 'Who are you?'
" 'An Amalekite,' I answered.
"Then he said to me, 'Stand over me and kill me! I am in the throes of death, but I'm still alive.'
"So I stood over him and killed him, because I knew that after he had fallen he could not survive. And I took the crown that was on his head and the band on his arm and have brought them here to my lord."

What a story!!!!! Snuffing out a divinely anointed king......comes easily to the godless. Only.....he lied. He'd probably never even been on Gilboa......he had, perhaps, stolen the crown from some mercenary. Or had stolen it himself before the Philistines decapitated Saul.

Now the Philistines fought against Israel; the Israelites fled before them, and many fell slain on Mount Gilboa. The Philistines pressed hard after Saul and his sons, and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua. The fighting grew fierce around Saul, and when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically.
Saul said to his armor-bearer, "Draw your sword and run me through, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me."
But his armor-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it. When the armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him. So Saul and his three sons and his armor-bearer and all his men died together that same day.

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Mount Gilboa. Cursed by King David. A lonely summit, barren and arid.

On this arid summit, a king ended his life. In despair, in fear. Capitulating to forces stronger than him. Exhausted with waging war against God. In the torment of his mind, with evil foreboding and premonition, King Saul ended his life.

It had been a life on the run, reckless, heedless, with no restraining influence. Insecurity, unbridled rage and jealousy, blinding hatred, a life of defiant opposition to God.

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Today, Gilboa is still the same - barren, inhospitable, arid, grim and hopeless. David's words ring true still, hanging over the mountain like a shroud. All around is life-giving green in the plain. But Gilboa stands defiant, still in darkness.

After Gilboa, Israel walked into the light of God.......for forty years. The light of blessing, not torment. The light of yielding, not defiance. The light of security and rest, not opposition and fear.

A new fortress was born on another hill; one that survives till today.....chosen and protected by God.

David then took up residence in the fortress and called it the City of David. He built up the area around it, from the supporting terraces inward. And he became more and more powerful, because the LORD God Almighty was with him.

India's unsung? winged wonders

India boasts some really stunning birds.

Birders will often remember, with appropriate and unfading ecstasy, their first sight of an Asian Paradise Flycatcher. The phrases they use sound absolutely kitsch and totally exaggerated till you actually see one - "like a ribbon of pure-white muslin floating in the air" And some have likened the Asian Paradise to angels, and quite understandably.

Then there is the high drama and heart-stopping adrenalin rush of seeing a Lesser Pied Kingfisher on the hunt - the snowy-alpine bird hovering, and the vertical "missiling" into the water which cannot be stopped after the bird has passed a certain proximity to the water surface. For the bird, it is a matter of either coming up with a meal or going hungry, but for those who have watched it close-range, it is not a sight one can forget.

Scores more can be found - the brilliant blue-green of the Verditer Flycatcher - a colour that makes the bird so unique, the absolutely regal, deep, rich navy-blue and distinguished orange of the Tickell's Blue Flycatcher (known affectionately and fondly as just the "Tickell's Blue"), the immortally golden splash of black and yellow of the common Eurasian Golden Oriole, even the black-angelic wafting of the Greater Racket-Tailed Drongo, like a black dream floating through the air, the brilliant blue-green-red splashes of the Indian Pitta, deep inside a ravine....and so on, and so on......

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Birders usually go after the big catches - Hornbills, Flamebacks, Ospreys, Pittas, Shrikes, Kingfishers and so on.....I just wanted to write a few lines to a few birds that I do not see hogging the limelight among birders in India. These are birds that get very little play for whatever reason, but they are every bit as brilliant as the sought-after ones. I do not mean that birders do not talk about them at all, but I've seen very little action by way of photographs or passion among birders to obtain photographs and accomplish sightings.

One that comes readily to mind is the Marshall's Iora. This is a desert denizen, an arid-land cousin of the more readily seen Common Iora (which, in itself, is not getting much play among birders these days). Recently, I saw a survey of birds in the district of Barmer in Western Rajasthan - prime Marshall's Iora country. And believe it or not, there was no mention of any Ioras at all!!!!! I cannot believe that the surveyors either did not sight one or did not seek to sight one - ignorance, verb or noun? This is a delightful little bird, quite yellow, black and white like its more common cousin but also carrying the markings of a desert bird -more dull yellowish and not as showy. Thank God, even given how the bird is ignored, its status is still LEAST CONCERN.

(Source: Kolkata Birds)

There are just four species of Iora in the world today. Two of these are almost endemic to India - the Common Iora and the Marshall's Iora. The Common Iora of course does turn up in South-East Asia, but if the Marshall's Iora disappeared from the Thar Desert, it would be extinct. Well, I haven't heard of any birders itching to come back from a birding trip having found the Marshall's Iora.

Of the other two Ioras, the Green Iora, endemic to South-East Asia (not found in India) is near-threatened.

(Source : The Internet Bird Collection)

At least the survey mentioned the Desert Wheatear, which is also a species that gets almost no play. There are two Wheatears in India - The Desert Wheatear and the less common Isabelline Wheatear. Others are also found, but far less common than these two. Wheatears are lovely, small passerines, insectivorous, related to the thrushes, chats and robins.

(Source : The Internet Bird Collection)

I also did not see, in the survey, any mention of the Black Redstart, a delightful little orange and black bird with a silver streak at the eyes. I thought every village in North India had its own consignment of Black Redstarts but when I visited Dehra Dun last year I did not see any, and I never heard the bird being mentioned in any birders' lists either.

(Source : The Internet Bird Collection)

What I did see at a stream near Dehra Dun was a lovely little gleaming jewel set in the flowing white water - a White-capped Water Redstart. This would be a Black Redstart with all the trimmings :):) In any case, the Black Redstart gets no play among birders.....

Another bird I have NEVER heard mentioned anywhere, is the Long-Tailed Broadbill. The broadbills are brilliantly coloured birds related to the parrots and parakeets, with, as their name suggests, broad gapes in their bills. Of course the more brilliant Silver-Breasted Broadbill is seen in the Himalayan foothills, but its cousin the Long-Tailed Broadbill is a soothing, absolutely breathtaking splash of grass-green and yellow, very soothing to the eye, and a bluish-green long tail (which is unusual among the broadbills). I saw a video of this absolutely soothing bird in the Internet Bird Collection. It made me wonder why I have NEVER heard any Indian birder mention this wonderfully-coloured bird - I've seen the parakeets and the barbets, but the Long-Tailed Broadbill beats them all.

(Source:Eaglenest Gallery 2008)

Then chalk up another entry for one of the most brilliantly coloured birds I have NEVER seen - only seen it on photographs - the Silver-Eared Mesia. I absolutely HAVE to share these two photos, courtesy Paul Huang:

(Source : Paul Huang)

I believe Paul Huang has made this bird immortal with these two photographs. Salim Ali calls it a "brightly coloured arboreal babbler", which just skims the surface of the immortal beauty of this little babbler. Alas, again, on my trip to Dehra Dun last year, no one even mentioned this bird, let alone set off on a quest to photograph it.

The Silver-Eared Mesia has a cousin, also brightly coloured but not as splashy - the Red-Billed Leiothrix. Again, this one also gets very little play.

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Then down South, to the Western Ghats - another brilliantly coloured bird that gets far too little play - I don't see the same enthusiasm as I see for the Hornbills - the Malabar Trogon. Perhaps, being a bird of the twilight, and also remote, the trogon is a little difficult to sight. But a sighting will reveal how absolutely stunning this bird is.

(Source : The Internet Bird Collection)

Then there is the elusive Great Black Woodpecker (I love to call it that; that's what Salim Ali used to call it, but now they have this really obscure and didactic "White-Bellied Woodpecker" which is what people would name it who thought that its least interesting colour was its highlight). This is an interesting bird, found only in the Western Ghats in India. The tribals, they say, prey upon this magnificent bird for food, probably the only woodpecker that is eaten. Little wonder that, being a bird of the tall trees of the Nilgiri canopy, it "utterly forsakes" areas where logging begins. I have seen very, very few reliable pictures of this magnificent, majestic woodpecker. To me, it's the bird that put the word "woodpecker" in the species - almost twice as large and imposing as the flamebacks.

(Source : Rajiv Lather)

Other birds that get very little attention are the Chloropses, or the Leafbirds. Brilliant green all over with darkly coloured throats, there are two species in India - the Gold-Fronted and Jerdon's.

(Source: Bird Quest)

Then there is the absolutely dream-like Asian Fairy-Bluebird, an absolute vision in regal, gleaming navy-blue and black. None of these birds seem to be sought after as "catches" on birding trips, for some unfathomable reason.

(Source - Paul Huang)

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In the north-east, we have a bird that, if we manage to capture on film, will make birders so green with jealousy that will, hopefully, spark more interest than the ignorance/apathy of today. This is the absolutely rarest of the rare, simply called Beautiful Nuthatch. It's unclear whether the bird is threatened, or just happens to be so rare, but either way, it is surely one of the least seen birds in India today. I have read that it is endemic to the north-eastern Himalayas, which makes it even more prized. One or two absolutely hazy pictures exist out on the Internet - a Google search produces these fuzzy pictures. They lend a legendary, myth-like quality to this absolutely stunning bird - the brilliant pattern of azure-blue and black stripes. Wikipedia states that this is indeed the rarest of the nuthatches. Let's hope we see it in full blazing colour on a photograph or a video soon..........


(Source:Eaglenest Gallery 2008)

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Well, no offence to Indian birders....we've done a stellar job in keeping track of the absolutely stunning birdlife we have been blessed with. But I would certainly like to see more action on the species I've mentioned here.........

Here are some other wonders, from this wonderful site Eaglenest Gallery 2008), who, commendably, have undertaken a really grand tour of the Himalayas, and captured some really rare, brilliant birds:

The Fire-Tailed Myzornis


The Green Cochoa


Grandala


Leave you with a rare raptor that, thankfully, is high on the birders list (and definitely justified, for it is indeed a unique raptor), the absolutely exotic Black Baza.

(Source : Oriental Bird Images)

The cumulonimbus archives - an excerpt

In April 2008 some of us visited the awesome Iruppu falls near Wayanad.

Geologically it's just one giant gash in a mountain gorge, a great big jagged gash. The water just kind of tumbles down into the crevices of this gash.

About a few hundred metres to the top of the mountain where the descent of the water begins, there is a stage with standing water, enough to hold about thirty persons. Here a few tourists reveled in the mountain stream and let their voices intrude in the awesomeness.

The mute(?) verdant green and the jagged granite outcrops listened to their self-absorption in a place such as this (!!), and looked on them as they reveled. The water, as always, just kept falling over itself, hurtling delightfully down, twisting and turning its way down the sculpted ravine, oblivious, as it had been all through the years, to people, their presence and their intruding voices.

Every place knows. Looks on the people that come. Sees what it evokes in the onlookers. And every place has its own presence, something that it says. It never fails to say its piece.....and the ones that hear it, know. They will come again, not just to see, but more to hear.

Iruppu falls. An exquisitely lovely cascade of white water, tumbling down the gorge, reverberating in the echo pipes and the natural theater, framed in verdant green. It seemed like no one had EVER been there.....no footfalls, no one to hear its awesome voice in this forlorn, pristine valley. To speak in such a place ....would be to intrude and not listen, so out of turn.

I tried to imagine Iruppu Falls in the rain. On a murky day. Perhaps there had been endless, ageless murky morns on which the foot of a rainbow gently rested on the top of the fall. Anyone that's seen this sight would have seen it as in a dream, through the silver, dreamy tint of a raindrop on their eyelashes. Through strangely suffused sunlight, trying to break through silver-lined clouds to dispel the rainbow. I hardly believe anyone that saw this would ever forget. As it was, I never forgot what I saw - and it was almost a cloudless, still day.

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Later, driving pell-mell through the rain through Nagarahole on the way back to Mysore, a strange warp occurred. The water falling down was also white, or a strange, whitish-ashen grey, with something unimaginable behind its veil.

Criss-crossing the veil of grey were black, distorted dendritic skeletal tentacles opening out to a gigantic cumulonimbus cloud that had well and truly burst its seams. These tentacles happened to be the trees in Nagarahole, devoid of any leaves, trying to brave the gales and the sheets of water. It really was surreal, a scene not from nature but from one of Herge's original black-and-white creations. I felt I was running away from some villains that had sprung up from Herge's pen-strokes. Strange, I always remember flight with the villains in hot chase, from Herge's books.

There was no indication of the time of day in that dream-distilled downpour. The ashen grey cleared slowly, very slowly. The brown in the trees (with patches of green touched with grey) slowly emerged. Something that resembled nature, a forest in one of India's foremost national parks, finally materialised. The warp had gone.

But while we were in it, the warp told us any number of stories; all adventure-comic, all copy-book and all Herge. I was a child again.

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Every place, I believe, has strange stories to tell; and not all of them really have to do with what our eyes see; and certainly, many, many of them have nothing at all to do with the people in those places. I've learned to listen, not merely see; I've learned to tune out the people and tune in to the voice of the forms of rock, water, green and sky.

Thank you Avinash, Amit and Anil.

"Trembling on a rocky ledge"

I wanted to be alone.

But I have no idea for how long. Sometimes you tell yourself it's always going to be that way. Lonely. For ever. The first time, it just felt like no one could ever find the way to me. I didn't want any one to, actually.

After a while, I boarded up that gate and planted a garden. People still talked to me from across 'the fence', little knowing there was a gate under the creepers. They thought I lived alone. They were right. I did.

But let's go back to the first time. That gate was open. People came through it. Most didn't want to stay. Sometimes they passed by on their way to somewhere else, always more important. People always came to see someone else. I wanted to shut the gate and open it only to people I wanted to see. But no one ever came.

One day I boarded up the gate. It was scary as ever........I hardly knew how to handle the fact that no one COULD ever come in through the gate ever again. I guess I got tired of waiting, and hoping, and expecting, and something inside just snapped. I never heard it, but something inside broke without a sound. It's like that when you smile at people as if everything's okay, and die inside, when you can tell no one that you want to open a door but are too scared to. It's basically soundless. But it is life-changing. No one may see or know.

I can remember wanting to end it. I didn't.

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If you're holding on today, dear little child, whoever you are ......... don't close any doors.

Someone will come. If it means waiting, you will be given strength. You've come to the pass; if something breaks, let it. If you are bruised, so be. But it's not over. This will pass, but you are eternal. And someone will come.

Someone will come.

Crumple in a corner, let tears fall. You've come to the pass. This is no time to throw it away. This is no time to give up. Someone will come. Leave those doors alone. If you close them now, it would all have been for nothing.

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I finally did open the gate. Someone did come. Someone who came to see me and not someone else. Someone who wasn't passing by on the way to someplace else. Someone who had started out to come to me and did.

Sometimes I still think of those days. Trembling, shivering alone on the brink and about to fall. The chill comes back.

But someone is here. The doors are open, the gate's open. And we sit together......and I can talk. I don't have to be alone.

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Thank you for helping me write this - you know who you are.

Songs come back from those days, like they do from most times of my life. It's amazing (and somewhat scary) that I don't remember too many people; I remember songs. I heard this in 1990...... it is supposedly about the nuclear age or something like that. I don't know. To me, it always was about a battle with oneself, always tempted to give up and end it.....and how there's no honour or heroism in ending it, and how you're utterly, utterly alone in your choice (and no one as alone as I). You've got to come back to fight, if you're any of a worthy soldier.



It's not as if this barricade blocks the only road
It's not as if you're all alone in wanting to explode
Someone set a bad example - made surrender seem all right
The act of a noble warrior who lost the will to fight

And now you're trembling on a rocky ledge
Staring down into a heartless sea
Done with life on a razor's edge
Nothing's what you thought it would be

No hero in your tragedy
No daring in your escape
No salutes for your surrender
Nothing noble in your fate
What have you done?

All of us get lost in the darkness
Dreamers learn to steer by the stars
All of us do time in the gutter
Dreamers turn to look at the cars
Turn around and turn around and turn around
Turn around and walk the razor's edge
Turn around and walk the razor's edge
Turn around and walk the razor's edge
Don't turn your back and slam the door on me

- Neil Peart (from "The Pass")

Suspicion

Do you suspect?

Suspicion. The one that got away. The wiring that went wrong. The break in the circuit. The "oddness" in the code. Not exactly a "bug" but just an irregularity. The slight movement of the dial where all else is dead. The girl in the red dress in Schindler's List. The unexpected, inexplicable spike on all axes. Do you suspect? "There's something there....."

The Red Tide engulfs all. A miasma hangs over the earth. Enshroud......entomb. God's clean air has putrefied. In the lower reaches, the whiff of life has rarefied, and in some places, no wind blows, fresh or stale. Particulate matter whirls about, blinding, now gone, now whipping round again to face you.

Still, life goes on, so why ask questions. Day and night. Summer and winter. Snow and burning sun. Rain and parched earth. Birth and death. Hunter and prey. Civilised and savage. Good and evil. Slave and free. Rich and poor. Master and servant. The employed and the jobless ...... season after season, on and on....for ever? and ever?

Is life going to last forever? Who cares, you say? What happens after I die? Who cares. Is there a meaning or purpose, a flicker on a dial somewhere? Not that I know of or care about. It's a mistake to ask.....just do what you got to do. Is there an afterlife? Who cares, when this life itself doesn't hold together for most. And even if it did, who cares?

Suspicion is the beginning of much. Life is odd. There's just that odd little streak about it - it doesn't all add up. There's leakage. Life is greater than the sum of its parts. Sometimes, it means just too darn much and then forces us to settle for, "it's meaningless". That we're under deception is very likely. Someone's withholding the facts. For those who don't suspect, it might already be too late.

In fact those who suspect have a harder life. They need answers....what could be worse than to go around life looking for answers. Most end up patronised, then neutralised, lied to, deceived, falsely motivated, lulled into a false security and then they become a nuisance to all unsuspecting folk who are peacefully trying to live their lives without meaning. Some just end up lost. And fade away.

Folks that don't suspect beat down the ones that do. "Conform or be cast out!!!" "Leave well enough alone" "Don't sell the world, you might not even find this thing you call the soul!!!!!" "Sell out, don't try to be brave!!!" "The truth doesn't matter, as long as the sun comes up tomorrow and the bank is where I left it yesterday" "There's no meaning to any of this - and that's the meaning of it all". Wide-eyed fortune hunters rush madly about, digging up every square inch of earth; some pore over ancient texts with glassy eyes. Sightless eyes and mirthless glee, unseeing and unfeeling. Some just live, fulfill their norm, merely surviving and existing. Spike up the readings but the dial stays stone-dead.

Some suspect that some enormous wrong has occurred. They feverishly clean out the plastic surface of many a dial and find that the needles are zinging. The tests show not just disease, but in many cases, mutation. Some find life as it was meant to be, but it doesn't make news......it stays underground like fabled Atlantis.

All of this happens, but I sit in my bubble and take my ease. I don't suspect a thing. Suspicion is the only trump I hold.......and I don't suspect.

.....and the Red Tide kisses the shore.......and the Red Tide kisses the shore.........

Nature has some new plague to run in our streets
History some new wrinkle we are doomed to repeat
Fugitives at the bedroom door
Lovers pause to find an open store
Rain is burning on the forest floor
And the red tide kisses the shore

This is not a false alarm
This is not a test

Stay out of the sun, it only burns my skin
Sky full of poison, and the atmosphere's too thin
Bless the sun, the rain no more
River running like an open sore
Black wind falling to the ocean floor
And the red tide washes ashore

This is not a false alarm
This is not a test
Nowhere we can fly away
Nowhere we can rest
The party is disrupted an uninvited guest

Deadline approaches for the weary land
It used to be something but we let it run down in our hands
Too late for debate, too bad to ignore
Quiet rebellion leads to open war
Bring a sea-change to the factory floor
As the red tide covers the shore

Now's the time to turn the tide,
Now's the time to fight
Let us not go gently to the endless winter night
Now's the time to make the time,
While hope is still in sight
Let us not go gently to the endless winter night

- Neil Peart, "Red Tide"

Silhouetted sailboats and clean new breezes

Summer comes.

Kick off your shoes; it isn't a time for journeys. Rein in the wanderlust and let home and hearth carry you. Listen to tales spun on the front porch and let the fresh evening breezes wash over you; watch the sunsets and silhouetted sailboats out at sea. Listen to young voices; lie back and take your ease.

The residual chill in the air will thaw soon. The leaves will be on the trees. The shade of a noble, mushroom-like rain tree, now a beautiful leaf-denuded sculpture, will soon seem like a gift from heaven above, heavy with leaf, flower and fruit. The first fragrant summer fruit will soon be here; the voices of barbets and koels will accentuate the heat of the day. Magpie-robins will sing their sweetest of songs.


It is the time to sail; to be on the deep blue; let the wind carry your sails while you lie back and take in the vast expanse in heaven above. Think of how limitless it all really is.



There is all the time in the world; all the space in the world. That's how limitless it all is. Summer is a time for new beginnings.


You have not handed me over to the enemy, but have set my feet in a spacious place.
- Psalms 31:8

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The songs I've included here are some that are indelibly associated in my mind with summer:

"Summer Breeze" (Seals and Crofts, Summer Breeze, 1972). I heard this in the summer of 1987, when I finished my schooling. Seals and Crofts are a band always associated in my mind with winter and its chills, but "Summer Breeze" is a glorious exception.

"Sailing" (Christopher Cross, Christopher Cross, 1979) I heard the Christopher Cross album in June 1987. I later learned that the album had netted him 4 Grammy Awards (after which Christopher Cross promptly disappeared from the charts forever), and the song that took the album to No. 1 was "Sailing". I especially like the idyllic, azure-tinted piano solo (how typical).

"Cool Change" (Little River Band, First Under the Wire, 1979) I heard this in the summer of 1990. It's not exactly a personal favourite but it's piano-driven:) AND it has all those lovely dolphins; and the mention of albatrosses and whales, not to mention that shamelessly self-indulgent and playing-to-the-gallery sax solo.

None of the songs are acute personal favourites and they don't always rise above a certain level musically, but they're nonetheless important for the seasons of the past they evoke:)

Looking for signposts

We live in a world that resigns anything that happened a second ago (and everything earlier) to the "History" bin.

The human History bin is filled with a number of failed experiments, aborted ideas, scraps of yellowed paper and mutated ventures. Dust-caked, sand-blown and windswept rubble from ages gone by, from fallen empires and ancient pyres. A mighty throng of the slain - all victims of empire, conquest, conflict, extermination, annihilation, also lie there.

The human History bin also contains the glories of our more lucid moments as a race - the times we got it right. Relentless battles (not all of them victorious) against disease, warriors fighting justly against the enemy, the laying down of lives for others - the highest friendships ever known. Love conquering all odds.

Time and again, someone rummages through the History bin, searching. Hoping to find something everyone missed - and typically, hoping to use it myopically and selfishly, as a lever to determine our todays, and more so, our tomorrows.

Mostly, however, we are a race of what I call FBNOs - Fly-By-Night Operators. We neither know nor care what's in the History bin; our todays are always more important than our tomorrows. Some care about Today, Tomorrow and then, if there's time and inclination, Yesterday - in that order. Most care about Today and Tomorrow, and think Yesterday is dead. Some of us care only about Today. All of us, essentially, are in Today. Tomorrow is not a certainty, while Yesterday, though a certainty, is a past and defanged certainty which has no bearing on Today.

Mostly, of course, on a personal level, and in a certain sense, it's always good to consign Yesterday to a trash basket. Every day is a new day, and each day's choices determine our future. It's best not to let Yesterday colour our todays so that our tomorrows become hopeless - let failure not be final, but a stepping stone to success. But even that, is a two-edged thing - Yesterday, in one sense, propels one Today, to one's Tomorrow.

On a personal level. But what about us as a race? Have our yesterdays anything to do with our todays? And what can we do about our tomorrows, today? Has History any bearing on the current age? And can the current age prepare us for the future?

Are there any 'signposts' in our world today?

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He stood on a hill about fifty-five miles north of the City.

He'd been doing this for years - digging up ancient sites. And this one - it had been the 'city on the hill' that marauding conquerors lusted after, century after century. It was an artery, a feed-pipe - the life-blood of many an empire and trade-route had coursed through it through the ages. Riders carried cargo of all kinds, armies encamped, potentates met, accords were struck. Soldiers fell in battle, kings received death-wounds, conquerors planted banners, unfurled standards. It had been the site of the earliest recorded battle, in the fifteenth BC. About three thousand or so years later, another battle here ended 400 years of Ottoman rule.

They'd uncovered an ancient 'church' here over the last few days. Everyone wanted to claim it was the oldest Christian Church - from the third or fourth AD. A beautiful mosaic with the Icthyus at its centre. Everyone wanted to believe that it had indeed been a church. However, Christians were not known to build churches (as recognizable stone edifices) till the fifth AD. So this must have been only a meeting place.

(Source : National Geographic News)

But he wasn't thinking what everyone thought - he had been strangely disturbed over the past few months. He'd taken on this assignment to be closer to a place he had strangely felt drawn to these past few years - this all-important patch of ground that all nations seemed to think was so all-important. And everything he was seeing here brought more than a flutter - an impending, ominous dread. Where was he standing? He couldn't suppress these dread thoughts.

Something had drawn him, some strange sense of destiny. He had always wondered, for all the digging he'd done in his life, whether History really had something relevant to say about today and tomorrow. He was looking, he realized, for clues.....to solve something that was whirling about in his head. He was looking for signposts - to point him in the direction he needed to go.

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After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho king of Egypt came up to fight against Charchemish by Euphrates: and Josiah went out against him.
But he sent ambassadors to him, saying, What have I to do with thee, thou king of Judah? I come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have war: for God commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that he destroy thee not.
Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised himself, that he might fight with him, and hearkened not unto the words of Necho from the mouth of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo.
And the archers shot at king Josiah; and the king said to his servants, Have me away; for I am sore wounded.
His servants therefore took him out of that chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had; and they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died, and was buried in one of the sepulchres of his fathers. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.

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(Source : ABR)

History revealed that Josiah, king of Judah, was wounded here, in 609 BC, in a battle of his own choosing, with Pharaoh Necho of Egypt. He had later died of his wounds when he was brought back to Jerusalem. Barely twenty years later, in 586 BC, Judah ceased to be a nation. It was an interesting age of history; Pharoah Necho, having subdued Josiah, then met his defeat at Carchemish in 605 BC. Egypt was then trying to assert control over the Jordan valley and then-known Babylon; Carchemish changed the power equations in that part of the world quite unalterably in favour of the emerging Babylonian kingdom - the most iridiscent empire of the ancient world. The later kings of Judah (Josiah's successors) vainly allied themselves with Egypt against Babylon - a disastrous decision for which the nation of Judah paid with its nationhood.

Why was King Josiah struck down in his prime? And why did he choose to fight at Megiddo? What has this to do with me anyway, he thought. It's lore..... just something I dug up. And I'm always digging up things; that's what I do. I discover History, I don't interpret it.

Let Yesterday be Yesterday.....true or not. But his heart wouldn't let him let it go....... somehow, he felt within himself, it isn't over. This place isn't over yet.

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And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

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Prophecy. It wasn't his comfort zone. Still, his mind raced, not letting him put it down.

'Why should I know this?' he thought. Of course, I could always choose to dig up an Inca mummy or carve out more Nazca lines. But why do I feel so thrilled about coming here, finding this....... Then he realised, calmly, what had led him here - the disturbances within his soul that would not quieten; that would not let him put history down as no longer relevant for today. He had dug up an invisible cord that stretched from the beginning of time - to the end of the age; and he had to decide what to do with it. Like it or not, his destiny was tied up with the destiny of a people and a place chosen, apparently, by the Almighty. Not only his; everyone that ever lived as well. All people would have to know what he knew now, and make the choice.

In days to come, armies will again march here, he mused. This hill overlooking the Jezreel valley. This place where a righteous king was felled at an evil moment by the evil powers of the age. Not very far from Elijah's pitched battle with the prophets of Baal. This place will again be a gathering place for the sounds of battle. And what a battle it will be!!! Earth's most important one, perhaps; the true battle between good and evil. A conclusive battle, unlike all other battles that raged on earth. A battle, it seems, to end all battles. A battle where everyone has to choose a side - there will be no fence-sitters here!!!! Those who rationalise will be on the evil side, actually....the side they've actually picked all their lives when they rationalised the choice.

He had come to that point in his destiny - where he had to choose. He could no longer pretend that there were no opposing sides in this world - and that rationalising the choice would invalidate it. Today was the day of choosing....for an eternal Tomorrow, in the light of Yesterday.

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Rummage in the human History bin if you like. See what you come up with. Is History really a true thing of the past? Is History truly only History or is it tied up with Tomorrow? And where are you, at present, with all this?

Volunteers and destinarians, yo-yo graphs and still small voices

What would you do to protect something, someone, some place...that you chose?

Did you choose at random? Was your choice merely a whim? arbitrary? without reason? How far would you go with your choice? Is your choice irrevocable? Is your choice.....holy?

Would you SET APART someone, something, or some place that you chose?

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Destiny.

It's a strange word. It's becoming archaic, in this world of numbers, extrapolations, statistics, "informed guessing", forecasting. There's no such thing as destiny, we would be told; this is a world of the "deserving". If you work hard enough, or if you do enough or know enough, then you deserve a place. You determine your own "destiny". Otherwise, there's no destiny. None, apart from what you create for yourself.

And strangely enough, no one knows how things happen. Everyone thinks they could have predicted it....but no one actually did. World events are really incomprehensible, unpredictable, and seemingly "random". Forget world events, even personal events, ups, downs, sorrows, joys.....seem random and unpredictable. A function of "drawing lots".

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Destiny is a two-edged thing. There are delusional 'destinarians' and true 'destinarians'. The delusional destinarians assume a self-appointed, self-determined 'destiny'. That is, they choose themselves over all else; they believe in their 'destiny' alone.

True destinarians know who chose them. They know that they are not deserving, but were still chosen. They claim that 'deserves' has nothing to do with being chosen....they believe in being called, not being proud, self-proclaimed volunteers. They are unsung; even though destiny sits heavy on their shoulders, they live it out single-mindedly without calling attention to themselves.

True destinarians know that mere outward heroism will not cut it - it must be heroism in truth. The truest heroism in the world has gone unnoticed.

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Who am I, really? What am I here for? Is there some meaning to it all, or is it just randomness and mere probability?

Odds are, if you have no sense of destiny or eternity, you may not think these questions are important or worth thinking about.

I know of one who chooses only once. And never revokes His choice. I shudder to think what I might have been, had I not been chosen. Because, this one never changes His mind. Choices are made for eternity and no one can stop or alter the choice. In every age, this one passes by, calling. And choosing.

The ones that hear, never forget the call. The ones that never hear, the call still rings out. But once called, there is never any laying off. The calls are mysterious, seemingly undeserved, seemingly impossible, hard to believe.....sometimes downright crazy, on existing evidence. And the called are a strange lot - a motley crew of all possible kinds of men, not all good or righteous.

And the 'deserving' look on.....try to volunteer, try to be chosen. And this one usually does not choose from the volunteers. Volunteers are too self-important.....

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Does destiny sit heavily on your brow?

Or are you drifting, living in a world of numbers and achievement, of transitory happiness and the noise of a 'carefree, happy crowd'?

There are calls ringing out; so many workers are needed for this day and age.....the work is eternal, with a reach beyond the grave; there is a crying need for signposts, banners and pointers-to-the-way. For those who care for the spirit of man and not only for the body and the soul.

Too heavy a responsibility? Too intangible? Too obscure? Pass on, friend.....the call is not for you. Perhaps you heard only an electronic blip......the numbers will continue to whirl anyway and the yo-yo graphs are calling. Rationalise, rationalise! All things being equal, that was a 'Momentary Lapse of Reason'.

Would you be called? Mankind needs you. Come on in.....let your destiny take its course. In your mouth, the words of life form even now. You must speak them. Ears, eyes and hearts......will open like flowers. Your destiny is not merely your own......it is from one who called you and commissioned you.