the eternal quest

Buried the dead squirrel
under the same mango tree

her melted essence
ascends the tree she


loved so much
She knew so much

Another way
Another life


Village elders say, this summer the mangoes of that tree were little more sweet...

A Kashmiri Love Story....Three Datura Flowers....

It was a chilly December day, when he saw her for the first time. And it was perhaps snowing high up in the mountains, in the Himalayas, the abode of Shiva. Seeing the sheen on her face, an ancient favourite Zen saying echoed in his heart– “Every snowflake falls at the right place”.


Can Datura change a person in some subtle way, make him or her fall in love? Nagarjuna feared that whosever comes in contact with Datura is affected by its strong presence, by its aura. In the Cult of Shiva, this plant is a Rudra plant and can be ferocious, if not approached in the right way. But when approached rightly, with respect and love, doesn’t it reveal mysteries; doesn’t it open new vistas of consciousness, giving glimpses of the `Other Shore’?


In the heart of every Datura seed, lies also the mystery that tells it about the moment when its fragrant white flowers will perfume the night breeze, intoxicating the distant receptive feminine, opening the doors of consciousness. At that time, Nagarjuna hardly knew that she had researched on datura, the celebrated plant in the cult of Shiva, the plant that had secretly fascinated Nagarjuna for many years.


Distant, aloof, non-socializing, skeptic, serious, practical and a certain sense of coldness about her being, an aura of intense detachment, some unexplainable traits like that of sacred Datura, some mercurial alchemical like mystique. Cold girl, the metaphor of a snowgirl, Himkanya. But despite all this, there was something that transcended all these and struck his shore, making impressions on the chaotic sands of his being. He felt awash in the experience, the experience of some distant waves clearing the familiar patterns on the sand, making it afresh, giving it some order again, some illusive virginity again.


This is the story of a Kashmiri girl who loves researching but hates PhD boys, who doesn’t talk much (strange for a girl), who loves her solitude like the busy scientist in the lab on the verge of making a breakthrough, wishing not to be disturbed. This is the story of girl who takes her lunch on the staircase of her research institution, while basking in the winter sun, with frill lighting giving radiance to her forehead. This is story of a girl who researched on Datura, the celebrated plant in the cult of Shiva, the plant that encouraged many people on the path. Engrossed in her own world, who rarely takes interest in the current developments, politics around the institution or who is moving with whom these days?


There was something strange about her, something unusual about her. The way she walked-it was raw countryside girl walk, with no urban sophistication. Her gait was little different, with a tinge of some ancient wound. There are many secrets about her, to be revealed, to be hidden in this story. Why Datura? Why she? Why Shiva?


The first time Nagarjuna saw her, he felt the faint impression of her being a Shaivite girl, an ardent devotee of Shiva in some ancient ashram, with a bhasam teeka (ash mark) on her forehead that added to her spiritual aura. She seemed to him an ancient sadhika, a seeker, struggling with the complex modern constructs around her, trying to make sense of this consumerist world, hurt perhaps by the non-understanding non accommodative relationships.


Simple and pure like snow and yet complex like snow again, she is the daughter of Himalayas, born again, to seek the path of Shiva. She held so many secrets.


After he met her for the first time and perhaps for the last, she told him that Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist was her favourite book. He had read some of Coelho’s books like The Witch of Portobello, but not The Alchemist, though he had it in his library back home and had been planning to read it for some time, but couldn’t do it for want of time. When he returned home that day after meeting her, with his inner sky little overcast, he took out the copy of The Alchemist from the bookshelf in his study cum room. As he did on such rare occasions, he turned to the book, to consult it as an oracle, as has been tradition in Eastern cultures since antiquity with epics like Ramayana being consulted as oracle in difficult situations with different questions, like Chinese do with I Ching, the Book of Change.


Held the book close to his heart and asked the all pervading field, or call it God, with the secret wish in his heart. Closed his eyes and opened the book, to see what sentence or paragraph came before him, and what meaning it held for him. To his surprise, when he opened his eyes slowly, it was page 100 and the sentence read….……`` `I came to tell you just one thing,’ the boy said. I want you to be…………...’ The girl dropped the container, and the water spilled…’’


He was not sure what it meant really. He had not read the book. As he came to know later, the story in The Alchemist teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, to read the omens strewn along life’s path and following our dreams. After he read the book, considered favourite book of so many people, he felt that the book was much overrated; just a plain inspirational book with a simple narrative weaved into a mystic tale.


Was he listening to his heart? Had he read the omens carefully? ``And the water spilled…’’ Coming back to the paragraph in the book, what meaning it held for him and what it hinted at? What synchronistic event it was unfolding? ``Maktub’’.


He thought what a joke. He couldn’t hold his smile, though some inner clouds had by now precipitated, surprising him. Soft rain…made him remember light showers he loved to watch from the window of his ancestral house in Kashmir. Soft non-aggressive rain with gentle swaying winds, as if echoing the romantic sentiments of still mountains. He remembered the image of that grand old chinar tree near his ancestral house in Kashmir, fresh and a little young, after the first downpour, with mist playing hide and seek with mountains high-up there, the peaks flanking the Lidder valley. The image of cloudy mountains in his eyes got little blurred, as water welled up in his eyes, almost taking him by surprise.


She too loves rain; because he saw the faint reflection of the distant white clouds adrift in her inner sky, in her deep clear eyes, which could have rained anytime, small-unwept drops. How can a girl born amid the Himalayas, not love rain or snow. He could see little ancient hidden water in the depth of her eyes. The secret storms of her past they were holding. No doubt her soul was cold.


If eye is clear, one can see clouds floating in many places, in objects and persons. In this paper too. Buddhist Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn says somewhere, `` If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud there will be no water; without water, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, you cannot make paper. So the cloud is in here. The existence of this page is dependent upon the existence of a cloud. Paper and cloud are so close’’.


Nagarjuna liked to imagine her watching rainfall on the grandfatherly-old Chinar tree in the compound of her ancestral house in Kashmir. He imagined her sitting in a favourite corner, listening the soft patter of drizzle on the rusted tin roof and the creaking of the thick-wooden hand-polished doors against the beating night wind.


The rain days here in exile, the aroma of earth after first rains, he imagined, should remind her of childhood days in Kashmir, where she must have watched snowfall in the backdrop of magnificent Himalayas, with her warm breaths giving some succor to her cold trembling fingers.


But to his surprise, she was not reminded of Kashmir much. No trace of nostalgia on her face. It was clear to him that she was not much attached to Kashmir, having spent very little time of her childhood in the valley, where she grew up near the famous Dal Lake.


Is attachment to one’s roots always good: does it impede one’s growth, impede one from achieving the full potential on favorable soils, which could be anywhere, far away in exile? Isn’t evolution also defying one’s roots and moving ahead, trusting the journey to uncharted paths ahead? Is not the earth same everywhere? Don’t we carry a part of our roots in our branches, in our marrow, in the spirals of our DNA, wherever we go? Don’t we grow new roots again in the course of time, though not always to our liking? Sometimes even not being conscious of it for a long time! Roots are always in transition too, and after some generations they change. Are roots always fixed?


She lived somewhere near Dal Lake. So she told him. So he believed. But he thought, in those innocent days, she must have fed crows on Kaw panim, the birthday of Crows, on the little square grass-platters from the window of her ancestral house in Rainawari Kashmir where she spent the initial years of her childhood, before exodus in early 1990s forced her parents to leave the valley, with its black well-fed crows and silent stone gods.


Has she forgotten the long icicles hanging from the tin roof outside, about which her dad had warned, that they could make a person fall ill, if eaten. Eating icicles was a forbidden fruit for young in snowy winters. Most of them relished it, despite the parental thrashing later. Has she forgotten the tale her grandfather Bobji told her that evening while it was snowing heavily outside and she clung to him for warmth, with hot kangri under her feet, doing shalfa (sharing Kangri) with bobji under his pheran.


While having coffee with his friend Sameeksha one day, near his favourite café point near her institution, Nagarjuna told Sameeksha, pointing to one girl nearby talking to her friend under the shade of some trees:


``There is something in that girl, some countryside innocence, some familiar ancient aura, a melancholy on her face that somehow adds to her charm. She is the one with whom I would love to cover my journey’’, he told Sameeksha, in a very low voice, fearing as if manipulative Devas would listen their conversation.


Sameeksha was both excited and little shocked, when he told her this. He had generally not shown much interest in any particular girl in recent times, though she knew that he was a born flirt and was often associated with many girls. She knew he was a kind of man who would often say, ‘’flirting, polygamy is in the DNA of every true man, if he is perfectly healthy. So-called monogamous men are either liars, hypocrites or there is something wrong with their biology, their DNA’’.


But he had never spoken like this before, with an emotional tinge that couldn’t be mistaken. But this time it was different, she could feel it. She was surprised that without knowing anything about the girl, he had said so. She couldn’t understand how can one take such a decision without even having talked to or met the girl, or knowing anything at all about the girl. She felt it was foolish, it was gamble.


Excited to help Nagarjuna anyhow, Sameeksha went straight to the girl and told her many things about him, his interest in her and what he had wished. Sameeksha told many things about his background, his family and his work and also tried to have similar information from the girl.


Where he met her first? That is a little difficult question. Hasn’t she has always been there? ``A canvas we fill with our colours patterns. A blank page we give meaning by putting our words-thoughts in the right order. A girl that mirrors our inner being, our inner world, seems someone who has always been there and yet the miracle happens-one day suddenly you see someone and feel that finally you have met her. The inner feminine confronts the outer feminine’’, he thought.


To tell you that he first saw her in matador or on the staircase of her institution will not be entirely true. In a sense, he felt, he had known her much before. Looking at her, suddenly, in a flash, he was reminded of a particular stone he had once found during his wanderings. It was still there in his stone collection. That stone somehow resembled this girl, or the qualities she evoked. The being of that cold stone, ancient as the earth herself, somehow evoked in him the feelings which cannot be described. Some stones are very expressive, while some are serious and hold much gravity, hold many secrets within the visible surface. Some are simply cold and don’t reveal their mysteries so easily.


From the core of his heart, he expressed gratitude to her, for awakening something of beyond in him, as he mostly drowned himself in his work and research, leaving almost no time for the mysteries of a relationship, the experience of letting unknown waves thrash ones shore. To let the hardened academic sands loose a bit, to the call of the distant, to the call of the chaos.


And when there is this experience, it doesn’t matter much whether that person, that wave, reciprocates or not, whether that wave later remembers the moment or forgets it. In life, at the end, the moments that remain etched on one’s heart are the moments when one’s being flows oceanically, when one’s love flows unconditionally, like sunshine, like rain, like waves, like starlit sky that doesn’t discriminate, to somebody somewhere, to all everywhere.


Loving anybody or anything means loving a part of Shiva, a part of Shiva attracted to another part of Shiva, to have the experience of the whole. A Zen koan flashed in his mind, ``If you meet Buddha on the way, cut his head with the sword’’. The final let go. The final let in. The mental bullshit !


He just went to her, straight. He had thought he would be nervous, while going to her. But surprisingly, he felt access to some timely reserve of courage. There he was before her, under the canopy of trees, under the open sky, with white clouds adrift over the Shivalik hills in the distance. Was his path too the way of the white clouds? Ever wandering clouds?


Understandingly, Sameeksha went to get some coffee, to allow them to talk one to one. One solitude talking to another. She was little uneasy, and he too felt strange.


He was quiet for sometime, gathering his thoughts like a shepherd trying to keep his flock together while moving along a mountain path. But this time the familiar sheep-thoughts in his mind-field were behaving oddly. There was a strange commotion, as if some deity had suddenly appeared before them and they were unable to make out how to respond.


When there is little more to say, it is difficult to put coherence in words, to begin a sentence, to animate a gesture. To talk about certain special experiences in just spoonfuls of words is sometimes difficult.


But he started, saying, ``I am sorry, if I have hurt you in any way. I understand Sameeksha was too fast in all this. It feels like being too aggressive and intruding into your space on the part of a stranger. But I never thought it will be so fast and she will actually go and tell you everything’’.


She said, ``It is ok. Don’t worry. I can understand. It is fine. Don’t feel so formal’’.


This gave him a lot relief and he felt better, but he was hit with the fact that there was no emotional string in her voice; it was pure formal practical voice, used generally by girls against street boys who stalk them or propose them.


She added, ``I understand, even I can start liking somebody…what can one do…’’.There was silence for some time. As he saw around the café, there were groups of young boys and girls talking to each other, some gulping coffee over peals of laughter, some munching sandwiches while trying to make sense of their strained relationships, some trying to be intimate with someone special in the group, their body language so clearly showed it. Nagarjuna thought, how many love triangles, quadlaterals, straight lines and confusing spirals of relationships such groups must be having.


The geometric definition of straight-line made him remember another imagined definition: true relationship emerges when the shortest distance between two hearts becomes zero. Can distance between two points ever become zero? Given the fact that space is curved, how many people fool themselves with simplistic and exotic definitions, the faith on straight-lines. But in his heart, secretly he wished the success of all relationships in the groups that were either strained or taking form, and in whatever geometric form. He laughed within, he felt foolish. He felt good.


``I did not want to keep you in darkness. I am engaged. I have seen the boy just once. He is in Delhi, an MBA working in some software company. Perhaps we will marry next year. I was asked to see the boy and I said it is fine….’’


She packed much in just few words. He wished he could rearrange the words she had said, like the game teenagers play with words, making different sentences with fixed number of words. Wish I could change the position of `not’ a few times, he thought. What could have been the different outcomes… see:


I did ( ) want to keep you in darkness.
I am (not) engaged.
Perhaps we will (not) marry next year
I was asked to see the boy and I said it is (not) fine.


Does Godfield orchestrate or write the fate of people like this, rearranging words, enjoying the game, the permutations and combinations, the leela? Does He know the implications of his simple words, the seed vibrations that ripple across, the steps he orchestrates? Sometimes just one word, one flicker in the eye, one drop or one gesture, that makes all the difference.


Even if I could, I would never change or rearrange the words….For she had spoken those words, he thought and felt good at his never-to-be-known inner gesture, even if imaginary.


``Well, best of luck for your journey. I hope you will invite me in your marriage. I will come if I am here’’. She was silent; a faint smile crossed her serene face, meaning perhaps no, to a stranger like him.


He could see in his mind’s eye: the distant image of a monk in saffron robes, serenely walking along an ancient moss laden path, with his back to him. This image had haunted Nagarjuna for many years.


``I saw you here on the staircase and in the matador also. You appeared simple and innocent and I liked you. I wanted to cover my journey with you, rare thing for a flirt like me who fiercely loves his freedom. I felt that was the best and shortest way to approach this. But I did not know you are engaged. Besides, you have every right to reject or keep your secrets or say anything. I respect whatever decision you have taken. I am again sorry if I have caused you any inconvenience’’, he said , while gathering enough courage to say so. She kept silent. He was content, irrationally, for having said this


She was silent.. Generally he didn’t like to talk about such feelings like this. He always felt that articulating such feelings was like being too loud. One should be silent about such things, he thought. He believed that it should be the fragrance that should speak for the flowering. But perhaps in this too intimately wired world, in the cacophony of market sounds and software buzzes, people have forgot to listen the simple. Perhaps in this consumerist culture of exotic smells, simple fragrances get lost, he thought. But he too at some level was curious about exotic smells, he too often googled in the cyberland, he thought, feeling a little guilty for acting so funny.


Two parrots perched on the nearby tree. Perhaps a couple. It is said that parrots are monogamous and live for nearly a century, devoted to their partners. Nagarjuna wondered who must have kept a watch to establish this fact, on whether a parrot flirts with some other parrot or not. He imagined how this he-parrot must have proposed to the she-parrot? And where they would have frequented for dating, some favourite branch, some good cover of dense foliage, with some good view of the setting sun. He imagined their little downy feathery bedroom atop some tree, with night breeze cradling them to sleep and …. Ha ha


``If I can help you in any way as a friend in future, I would feel very happy’’, he said. She snapped back, ``please, don’t mind if I don’t talk to you in future. Because I don’t talk to many people. I am a little reclusive. I have just two to the three friends. And with them I talk a lot’’.


Anyway he respected her wish. Then they talked about more mundane topics- her present research topic, her earlier research. He was wondering why she didn’t continue her work on Datura, readily available in the Himalayan state, the abode of Shiva.


Nagarjuna thought, ``wish I could tell her my own interest in the Cult of Shiva and his favourite plant, Datura, the consciousness changing plant used for centuries by our Rishi-scientists for inducing mystical states in the seekers and encouraging them on the path, with Datura helping them in loosening the known fetters, opening the unvisited vistas of consciousness and perception, making it clear to the seekers that there are uncharted paths they can seek and move ahead. How I too had researched on Datura long back, as it was used in Shaivite cult, especially in the tantric traditions’’.


When he asked from which part of Kashmir valley she originally hailed, she replied, ``Rainawari Srinagar’’. So she was from the area of Vetalraj Bhairav, one of the eight Bhairavas that are said to protect different regions of Kashmir. Bhairava means a protector, the protective aspect of Shiva. All Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir valley, in their own specific areas, had their own Bhairava, whom they prayed for their welfare, longlivty and safety. It is said that there are about 40 to 60 Bhairavas in different parts of valley. Tradition holds that it was King Praversen II in the 6th century AD who laid the foundation of Srinagar city and divided it into 8 zones, as per the instructions of his family deity Vetal Bhairav. These 8 zones were protected and looked after by 8 Bhiaravas respectively- Ananadeshwar (Amira Kadal, Ganpatyar, Sathu, Maisuma), Bhokatkeshwar (Safaakadal, Chattabal), Jayakesan (Zaina Kadal) Puranaraja (Hari Parbat, Haval), Toshkraza (Habba Kadal), Magalraja (Fateh Kadal, Bohri Kadal), Vishek Sen (area beyond Zaina Kadal) and Vetalraj, (Dal lake, Rainawari), where she lives.


Animal sacrifices and yellow rice (Tehar) with meat offerings were offered by our ancestors to Bhiaravas to keep them happy and have their blessings. If there was any mishap or any thing went wrong, our forefathers used to say that their Bhairava was unhappy or angry with them. Some Bhairavas had distinct personalities and could turn out to be very moody. But now after exodus is nearing two decades, most of us seem to have forgotten our Bhiaravas and the associated rituals, many intricacies of the Shaiva lore, including the original tantric use of Datura, which had intrigued Nagarjuna for many years.


Nagarjuna wanted to tell her something about the mysterious traditions related to the use of the datura in different world cultures, especially in the Indian and Native American since ancient times. He wanted to ask her many questions about Datura, as he never found any person who knew much about this mysterious and dangerous plant. He was not sure what sort of research she had done on Datura.


He wanted to tell her about his own fascination with sacred plants, especially the ones revered in the cult of Shiva. He also wanted to tell her about his apprehensions that working with the Datura might have changed her personality.


Datura is such a strong plant that people since times have held it sacred for consciousness changing powers, and in certain cases the change has been permanent. Is there a possibility that while working with Datura inoxia, which has a strong ordour, one could have breathed in some fragrance wafting from the plants parts of the Datura or the chemical extracts of the plant while working on the same in the lab. Has Datura changed her in some way? He feared that whosever comes in contact with Datura is affected by its strong presence in some way. This tree is Rudra plant and can ferocious, if not approached in the right way.


In the cult of Shiva, Datura represents the male polarity, the polarity of ferocious Rudra, while Bhang (Cannabis) symbolizes the feminine aspect, the polarity of gentle Devi. When the two are smoked together, the inherent powers of these sacred plants are transformed in union, helping in or giving a taste of invoking Kundalini, fast asleep at the base muladhara chakra to higher levels of consciousness.


For thousands of years, Datura has been regarded as sacred and especially valued for its power to induce visionary dreams, to divine future events and to reveal the causes of disease and misfortune and to gain entrance to ``other worlds of existence’’. These plants were so sacred that in some cultures only the priests were allowed to use them as it was believed that it helped them to have conversation with the gods and divine future events, find the location of lost or stolen objects and know many others things. Virgins who resisted to becoming prostitutes were given Datura brews due to which they are said to have actively contributed to the loss of their virginity and later had no memory of their actions.


In recent times, famous mystic saint of Kashmir Bhagwan Gopinathji (1898-1968) is said to have used Datura during his intense sadhanas. It is said that he would sometimes take handfuls of Datura (Stramonium), opium, panak and other intoxicants during his period of intense sadhana in 1930s.


Nagarjuna’s first memory of Datura was that of a woody-stalked, leafy herb growing in their kitchen garden in Kashmir that produced spiney seedpods and large white or purple trumpet-shaped flowers. He still remembered the splitting open of the pod when ripe to release the numerous seeds. It is said that Datura’s flowers open and close at irregular intervals during the evening, earning the plant the nickname Moonflower. Most of the parts of the plant emit a foul odor when crushed or bruised. Datura flowers have a reputation as a powerful aphrodisiac and have even been mentioned in Vatsayana’s Kamasutra.


Nagarjuna’s love for this dangerous plant originated from his love for Shiva. He loved all the facets associated with the cult of Shiva, be it Shaiva tantra, the serpent, the moon, the bull, the rudraksha, the Shaiva masters of Kashmir, the sacred plants, flowers and trees revered by the Shaivites and Himalayas, the abode of Shiva and Shakti. Shiva is also called Aushadhishvara, the lord of herbs and consciousness changing drugs. Bel, Hemp and datura being his favourites. In the garden of Shiva, we find that he is worshipped on special days, with special flowers, including Datura flowers, the moonflower.


Was it because of the Shaiva connection that Nagarjuna was attracted towards the girl.


He was not sure why he gravitated towards that girl. Perhaps there is something deeper for him from this synchronistic event that may unfold slowly. I have to go more within, he thought. Synchronicities are events, people, places, books and even plants or stones our soul attracts into our life to help us to evolve or learn some important lesson. It is said that if one desires something with a strong will, the whole universe orchestrates the dance of events to fulfill that desire.


While he was saying good-bye to the girl, Nagarjuna was reminded of an incident in Franz Kafka’s life. It is said that once when Franz Kafka visited the house of his friend Max Brod, he noticed that Brod’s father was asleep in his room that he had entered. Feeling that he had disturbed the old man, Kafka tiptoed out of the room. Fearing that his sudden entry might have awakened the old man, he whispered in a low voice while leaving the room, ``please consider me a dream’’. Nagarjuna also wanted to say the same thing, but he didn’t.


While tiptoeing out of her life, Nagarjuna wanted to leave something for her. He took out of his bag- Thich Nath Hanh’s wonderful book on the life of Buddha, Old Path White Clouds. She didn’t take the book; no gifts from strangers. New Path, New Clouds for her.


Some feelings are like snow; the softer they fall, the longer they dwell upon. That evening somewhere a warm drop tripped down on the snow. It froze and turned snow, crystallizing into white silence.


When Nagarjuna went home later that evening, he penned his impressions about the incident, with his favourite stones by his side on the table. In the refuge of his favourite poets, their poetry, that night, he felt so good. Splashing white silence on the paper.


In the night he felt much gratitude in his heart, that he couldn’t contain himself. He went upstairs on the roof and watched moon for a long time. Moon, the disc of Shiva, seemed to have assumed life of its own, moving behind the mountain of clouds, as if going to meet somebody. The distant, years-away stars, shivered in his view. He felt cold. Cold like the whiteness of the moon, like the datura flower, like the rain drenched bulbul with a hippy wet style, like the old monk in the high mountain retreat, like the Himkanya.


After a few days, one night, Nagarjuna had a strange dream, a dream with perhaps some cryptic message. He saw himself wandering in some far away land, as if he had lost his way. He saw he was searching his way, when some village girl tells him that there is an ancient Shiv temple just near the hill in the area. She tells him that he should visit the temple; he should not miss it, as having strayed so far. That girl also tells Nagarjuna that the ancient temple is called Shahadhwallh Shiv Mandir (Honey Shiv Temple). He enters the temple premises and has a feeling as if the temple had not been visited for years. It was all in ruins. From the state of the age-worn sculptures, he gets a feeling that the temple is thousands of years old. Even in the dream, he wonders why it is called Honey Shiv Temple, as he sees no bees or beehives anywhere. As he moved around the temple ruins, in the backside of the temple, he finds a Datura plant.


He goes near the plant and uproots it with the intention to take it back home, as he loved the plant loved by Shiva himself. But the plant comes out of the soil without roots. The roots were too deep and entrenched tightly with the soil and could not make it. Perhaps they could not shake off the pull of the centuries old soil. And without roots the Datura couldn’t have survived in the compound of his home. It would have perished in just a day or two. Taking it as a signal that perhaps he had not delved deep into the Shaiva mystery, he placed the plant back in its soil, hoping it would continue with the grace of Shiva.


A gush of wind shakes off the pollen from the Datura flowers nearby and drenches his body. Fearing that he might get high on the pollen, he shakes off the pollen from his body, feeling joyous in his heart, feeling as if he was blessed by the plant spirit to penetrate its mysteries further, to penetrate the mystery of the real essence of the Datura that pervades the whole universe, the fragrance of Shiva-consciousness. From the nearby Datura plant, he took three fragrant white flowers. He placed two on the Shiv Lignum in the temple. While the third one he kept in his hand…to understand the real aroma of Shiva that still eluded him. He felt that he had not understood the real meaning the Shiv Sutra ``Udhamo Bhairavah’’ . And then he just walked away…with that white flower…. without looking back…..


That morning, when Nagarjuna woke up, he had faint idea what the dream hinted. He looked at his hands; they were empty. There was no third datura flower. As he rubbed his hands ritualistically to touch his face and eyes, as Kashmiris traditionally do, he felt a very faint smell of Datura coming from his hands, or it was in his heart. He looked up for a while and smiled…


He felt joyous and full of gratitude. The image of a golden yellow Chinar leaf falling from a high branch on the clear Lidder waters suddenly flashed in his mind. It was a distant childhood memory. The leaf got adrift and finally became a yellow drop in his blurred view... and then suddenly in his view, the yellow dot morphed into a monk with golden orange attire, walking serenely towards the misty horizon.


The mists were rising and he just walked away…to enter the silence of the snows…to understand the aroma of Shiva… to understand the white silence crystallized in the Himalayas… He just walked away…..

Haiku on a flower soul....

Only if I can

write a haiku


two lines on your two beautiful delicate wings
with the movement of my shivering breaths
or whisper them in your flower soul
and then see you flutter away


O butterfly
The rainbow in your wings
unfolds a song in the distant almond orchards… white almond flowers near the monastery


your every flight seems to me
the search for that illusive third haiku line


to distill the nectar of myriad hues into one essence

A Lost Window.....

I remember looking at rain one fine afternoon from the second-floor window (Kanee Dhaeer) of my ancestral house in Kashmir. My grandfather Tathya, while sipping hot Kahva, Kashmiri tea, was telling me a story about some king who had lost his kingdom. I had irked him by asking continuously why the king had lost his kingdom, why he had to leave his land. Tathya loved to tell stories and I loved to listen them. I loved the way he would punctuate them with his inimitable Te che maej deevi raksha karinay (And may Mother Goddess protect you).




The trail of the long forgotten scents is set in exile. The ancient seeds lost in the belly of earth feel the coming of the drops.


It is raining here today. Some ancient water wells up in my searching eyes. I know windows are absences, absences in the walls. But sometimes windows can themselves get walled in one’s memory as a fixture of a sorts.


I know, there in my village when it rains that empty window, where Tathya told me numerous stories, misses me too. Its empty frame is a picture pregnant with thousand questions. Everybody who has an eye can see the ‘familiar absence’.


Empty windows have always seemed to me as big questions marks. But that was my first window to the world, literally and metaphorically. It was from that window I had for the first time seen the wonders of rain and seasons and the few pretty neighbour girls, whom I later knew I could not have loved any way. So no regrets. Really? Am I speaking the truth! Zorba must be laughing somewhere.


Whenever there is a downpour, I miss that window here. We were the companions of so


many rainy days for years. Those were the days when I would let raindrops fall in my eyes-wide-open that always liked their pure crystal coolness.


I have lost my little window to rain, to my past, to my own small world. I don’t know how that window feels, when no body looks to the new blossoms through it, or the rain or those chirpy red-bottomed Bulbuls.


Today it is raining and night is immensely beautiful. Whenever it rains here, in my room, a few drops of gratitude for that window also fall from my eyes. The absence of that window has somehow added perspective to my life.


Wherever I see, I feel I am seeing through it, or so I imagine or so I want this world to be seen through.


The sound of rain in the windy winter night is immensely beautiful. Cold shivers go down my spine and some ancient longing is awakened. In rain, I feel some one in the distance calling, someone beyond ages, and someone beyond mountains and clouds. I feel the ancient movement and struggles. I feel the beat of ages in the patter of rain. I feel the mystic wriggle.


The primal urges of animal origin or may be the memories of my childhood, or of even beyond, touch the inner strings. Does rain remind us of the comfort of mother’s womb, where everything one needed was showered, just like earth showers rain, sunshine, air on us without asking?


I can still see it clearly, like it was yesterday. The childhood image of looking towards the sky, from the window of my ancestral house. It never leaves me. I used to wonder, from where all these drops come and how high in the sky I could see a single drop and follow its flight and final kiss with earth. Those small pools and the reflection of those cloudy skies in the pools. And the small concentric ripples in those reflections. I used to watch the play of drops for hours. It was then I understood the power of a single drop, how far the ripples go and the fact that they never actually stop.


When it rains a strange unrest clouds my inner sky. There are flashes. In the darkness I see something in the distance so beautiful. I want to go out, far away. Somewhere far far away, where I can dance in the rain, leaving all my clothes far behind–all that covers me, far behind. Just rain and me. Wish Zorba could jump out of Kazantkis’s book and dance with me and become rain.


To a worldly wise it all might seem romanticism. May be that is true. In this shrinking world, and expanding universe, romanticism is a soft lens that masks the imperfections and gives you a feel of the translucent beauty amidst the harsh market realities.


Somewhere an all-pervading voyeuristic eye is noticing our all moves. From orgasm to dress sense, everything possible is being commodified. How to see a dream , how to make love, and how to say no to “How to..” books. Economics is increasingly shaping international relations as well as domestic relations. A simple glass of drinking water is being sold to us with the label “ Ingredients Zero”.


Don’t we need to leave behind our raincoats, and have a direct contact with out any simulation substitutes? Has not the remote controller become our most intimate controller? Has not the window of the computer screen become our Window to the world?


Does a deliberate romanticism or self chosen illusions help us to make the harsh edges palpable. Is mouse taking us down the virtual hole , in a world of end less loops and links.


In the world dominated by media generated hyper-realities, romanticism is at times very therapeutic, a timely antidote, a nice silky cushion over which one sleeps and tries to forget the unforgettable. Did Ghalib say the same thing, when he hummed - ‘Hum ko maloom hian jannat ki hakekat, Par dil ke khush rakhnein ka Ghalib yeh khayal aschha hain’?.


Somewhere in the distance a familiar faint song is in the air. Song of Rajinder Kumar’s film Arzoo. How I love the snow ambience in the song, reminding me of the snowy mountains, near which we lived in Kashmir. Scientists say the Himalayas are still rising, a few centimeters every year. They have grown in these 18 years, like me. Will we also get distanced from our roots slowly, like this? Inch by inch. Will folds obliterate our view ?


This reminds me of what Tathya told me once near the window, when I was low after having lost a cricket match to a rival team, whose captain eyed my neighbour girl: “Nothing stops, in the eternal flux- a drop that we drink today has passed the bellies and veins of billions of organisms. The raindrops the girl next-door receives in her fist must have been once a part of some earlyman’s urine or semen. Learn to see things differently and you will never feel low again. See a thing or a face as if you seeing it for the first time. See thing or a face, as if you are looking a it for the last time ”.


Music, memories and rain have some common link. Some times I feel rain is music of life meandering rhythmically ahead, of falling back into the womb with a thud. The very throb of life. When the first drop fell on the waiting parched lips of earth, was not it the Primal music, the primal sound, the mother of all sounds, that set the symphony going.


Rain saturates my being. Night is immensely dark and wind makes the leaves rustle and stirs primal desires in me. Here they stop. Here it starts again, slowly. Each leaf dances its own unique dance. Unique music. Unique songs.


Rain becomes more severe and patter on the roof is more audible now.


If death comes, it should come in a moment like this–silently without sound of any footsteps. Like a downy feather falling slowly from the nest. Like a long forgotten friend suddenly opening the door and embracing you. Like a song you had heard in the childhood.


Rain. Wafting desire.
Longing. Grey restlessness.
Forgotten umbrella.
Empty wrinkled hands of my nani. The face of mist.
Fading sepia memories.
New seasons. Rain on weathered petals.
Waiting branches of an old decaying tree (Brunn Kull).
Old crow perched on the electric line, drenched in rain, in an intellectual pose.
The shivering puppy looking for a shelter.
The undrenched smile of that girl.


The drop kissing the seed, sleeping in the lap of earth. And the seed sacrificing itself for some future seed, for some future branch, for some future flower dreaming of romancing the elusive moon.


Isn’t rain earth’s answer to eternal quest, eternal invitation for the penetration of its deeper mysteries? Isn’t every raindrop a love letter- of the distant clouds to beloved earth, of desires hidden to the fragrances adrift, of the oceans to the mighty mountains? And doesn’t earth take every letter to its heart and answers later in blossoms, in the freshness of the green grass, in the sweetness of the fruits, in the crystalliness of the gushing mountain springs.

Wish, before my frame returns to the elements or the frame of that window returns to the elements, we meet each other and I am able to watch change of seasons again as I used to with my grandfather Tathya.


Let Tathya’s stories never end, though his own ended half a decade after exodus, exactly on his eightieth birthday, with eyes wide open and looking across Pirpanjal. Tathya still tells stories through me, but in the absence of that familiar window, the stories are missing something. Familiar absence.


Tathya, I still do not understand why the King had lost his kingdom?