Looking without the looker. [Source – Pixabay; Illustration by Elisa Riva]
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Quite unique it is… It confines, it suffocates, it destroys a troubled soul… it frees, it liberates, it celebrates a calm self. It scares the same one for whom it holds the beacon. It likes to play games and break promises. It supports, creates and imagines the unimaginable. It forgets almost everything. It remembers almost everything. It never forgives, until it realises that it can forgive. It is a true lover. It loves itself the most. Quite unique it is… the human mind.
A journey by air, by road, by rail to reach the ocean started with me sitting cross-legged, looking through the window, and thinking about myriad things.
While the world around me appeared to be the same – it smiled when I did, it passed a dull nod when I did – it was secretly weaving a plot.
I got to know about it when I wore my sunglasses.
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The unbiased tracks. Image – Jagriti Rumi
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Live wave-like. Image – Jagriti Rumi
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Everything then moved in a wave, including me.
Immersed in one colour, we were all attuned to do the Samba, and Samba we did.
When the ocean wind joined us, it enthralled us, we chased the beats faster to match its incessant flow.
A heavy old bridge tried the same, corroding swiftly, meeting the ocean wind in rhythm.
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Standing steel solid until… Image – Jagriti Rumi
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I saw the iron steel heavy ocean wind, dancing, through my sunglasses.
The fishermen left their boats, swung their nets, and summoned all the others to sing and dance, to be one with the wave.
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Rowing is knowing life. Image – Jagriti Rumi
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I hopped and tapped along and beamed, my smile touching my sunglasses.
At night or was it at dawn, what did the quaint temple said to me? It spoke of its time, the artisans ritual of worshiping their tools, shared an epic tale and sang good old folk songs.
What they say about its static avatar is not true, for the temple sways with wind and sings and adds to the music.
Luckily to see this, you do not have to stand at the ticket counter or wait for hours in serpentine lines.
Walking towards nowhere in particular QJ dared not to stop. For last time QJ couldn’t bear the pandemonium that started within when she dared to stop and nothing happened.
With fragments of that dollhouse in one hand and the key to its door in another, walking often becomes cumbersome and a dull routine.
Only lightning wakes QJ, though her afterthoughts always make an indelible note to herself to wake up before being struck. QJ later laughs loudly looking at her scars.
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Lightning in full glory. Image by Anja, from Pixabay.
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Walking towards nowhere in particular QJ glanced at her umbrella. Tap! Tap! The umbrella changes its colour yet again, confusing its owner for a dash time.
Fill in the dash with a pleasant-sounding time period, a warm moment, and a lovely realisation. QJ wonders why she never tumbled while gazing up at the umbrella or the sky, maybe she should have stopped and asked the path.
Instead, QJ makes a funny face, fidgets, and gestures to no-one around her that… oops, she almost fell. Click! Train of thoughts leave a compartment at a station at this moment.
QJ ate dreams, but not the ones that came true. Work makes you hungry for more work, it makes you kind towards your dreams. And this is your prize.
Walking towards nowhere in particular QJ is joined by the others. All assuming it strongly that everyone knows better than them.
QJ didn’t agree or disagree for hours full of ages and once upon a time when she did, they all left her immediately to follow someone else.
Just a mangy, horribly plump in the middle, slow dog stayed with QJ. It smiled (or didn’t), but those remaining teeth, all-dancing in opposite direction made her feel that every 21st-century disease, malady, sickness was represented by that slow dog.
Hell yeah! QJ cried for the dog didn’t die, but just slowed down further and sat on the path, resting, waiting. Hell lingers.
Walking towards nowhere in particular QJ thinks about faces, veneer in fashion, layers, surface deep dialogues, and her reactions.
A trap! Superficial flamboyant messages received and sent. Afraid of any change, she blindly accepts repetition.
Walking towards nowhere in particular QJ takes out an empty map and begins to draw.
Lines start to run and form a track. QJ retraces her steps and finds her first direction.
The sunflower warmth just touched you. Image from Pixabay.
Smile that sunflower smile, I love to see your beaming face, eyes closed and the rosy glow. Oh, come on! Remember those winters how we huddled to be in direct sunlight… warmth of the burning star touched our souls, and we smiled.
Peeping through the bushes, the sunlight always made me feel like I am in a photograph – yet to be taken.
While the tiny white daisies were busy decorating and tackling the mad wind, blushing, swaying and often taunting it for impeding their progress, the sunflowers stayed glued like a crayon drawing on the wall, letting the sun seep within.
Seeing the clouds approach, the sunflowers never trembled or rebuked the sky’s spongy friends… for the sunflowers could feel the presence of that warm burning star, part of it now stored inside them.
Maybe that’s why sunflowers’ signature reads ‘Forever’ rather than their glowing name. Oh, how lovely!
Now just smile that sunflower smile, I love to see your beaming face, eyes closed and the rosy glow.
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Smiling sunflowers and the gin-soaked hour. Image from Pixabay.
Living in a quiet and slow dust storm, I wonder if I am moving at all. Just as I approach the wall, it becomes dust and so does everything else.
What makes me thirsty? Is it the sound of future, my desire to see it or the knowledge of nothing? Sliding, swaying, fumbling I reach a well and quench my thirst happily.
Often a friend guides me, though, who borrows memories from whom isn’t clear to me as of now. But I am sure of my useless attempts to gather the dust after it is all gone.
Standing still I come across a sea of mirrors, I choose one and take the place in front of it. I tell myself I am ready to take the dive, the mirror repeats my words and then without a sound or any movement, I turn into dust.
Going up, coming down, the stone steps remain the same. [Source – Pixabay]
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Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
Simone Weil
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Stone steps lead up to a place I am yet to see. Dealing with the quietness interrupted intermittently by sweet songs of the birds, I continue ahead. My mind usher some unwanted thoughts and force me to dwell on and on and on, until I refuse, pause and take a deep breath. Don’t inquire for I don’t know why I am smiling, but I am and it has opened the collection of happy memories. Beaming face feels like being in an ocean of flowers. I start knitting happy thoughts with the golden thread of dreams and everything seems possible, the world is mine. A castle is constructed, my reign flourishes in seconds and in seconds I see my downfall. When I gather the broken pieces and stand up, I see the stone steps staring at me. No dialogues are exchanged, and I continue ahead.
*
I wake up, and then I don’t think much of this dream. I am already late to rush into my monotonous routine. The running time never bargains while I always find a reason to… though haven’t cracked a deal even once.
The whole day I critique myself, like a ritual, except when the dream hushes me-the-perfect and me-the-kind takes over.
“We are old friends.” “Hai-hai!” [Japanese vintage candlestick; source – ebay]
Our blacksmith picked up the mould and studied it. His expressions were not discernible, but the sweat on his forehead highlighted his precision as he poured the molten metal into the mould.
Whilst he worked, many frames, metal shapes – some contorted, some flamboyant – stared at him, acknowledging and appreciating in utter silence.
Our blacksmith, on his way back home, saw a little kid who was standing against a wall along with his friend, wasting time, living.
That little kid whispered something to his friend and they both started following our blacksmith, copying his gait.
A silly game, a random thought, a reason to smile.
Dear reader what does time say?
Time says it is next day.
Every frame, every metal shape was eagerly waiting for our blacksmith. Roller shutter made its habitual noise and our blacksmith entered his workshop, and along with him came his two buddies, those two kids we saw earlier.
Quickly they went and stood next to his grand table, jumping with excitement.
Our blacksmith finally showed them what was now ready in the mould – it was a crane on turtle candlestick holder.
The two kids laughed and so did our blacksmith. He said the crane and the turtle were friends and the kids inquired if he had seen something like that in real.
Our blacksmith nodded and said that when he was their age he went with his father to a lake side and saw a crane standing on a turtle’s back.
Amongst the clouds… yes, this is how the journey began. Mushy clouds, mushy dreamy clouds all around her. Whether she walked or the white dreams floated around her isn’t something the music ever revealed.
The music was busy playing and she was busy colouring. The sky and earth colours participated and turned rich.
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, someone took a flight, landed, took a cab, halted for a coffee break, laughed with her friend and continued the road trip.
Warm waves of velvety starry blanket covered the existence and hushed those who listened to the happy silence. She stayed awake for a while just to witness it all. A simple melodious note filled her ears and she swam to sleep.
That someone talked to her friend, they ate pastries and called it a day. That someone, with ‘oh’ look, got up to brush her teeth and then went to bed. Phew!
She opened her eyes, awakened the self and stepped out to see the end of a long search. Birds and buds, earth’s aroma and touch, giant trees’ humble smiles, the sun’s vocals and the wind’s compositions, other human beings, all dancing, and of course, the bicycles… everything she laid her eyes on glanced back at her, welcomed and sang to her.
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In Auroville, in a blissful place. [Images by Jagriti Rumi]
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Tring, tring… tring, tring, she replied to them. Crossed leg sitting inside an apple she relished it, sweet, sour, juicy and fresh. When she jumped outside, she gave the left-over bit to a dog. Questioning her about nothing, the dog finished the apple.
Tring, tring… she went ahead and met a mathematician’s spirit, who gave her the map that took her to the grand golden lotus with twelve petals. Its beauty struck her hard and she kept standing there for ages in admiration.
Primary and secondary colours, in circles, pyramids and cylindrical shapes all passed by her. She blinked and found herself inside the grand golden lotus.
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The grand golden lotus! Matrimandir, Auroville. [Image by Peter Anta from Pixabay]
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Earth, Fire, Wind and Water were there, she saw it, just a glimpse, but they were there in absoluteness. She blinked and she was back outside. Oh! The joy!
She danced all her way, lal-lal-lal-laaa, rotated and laughed, climbed the musical rainbow and listened to what the colours were playing and then surprised herself with her quiet self, quiet but not low, because her eyes were beaming and her soul still dancing.
By the hourglass the journey continued for that someone and her friend, click-click-click, pictures taken, tring-tring-tring on the cycle path, resting, eating and laughing.
That someone’s friend like a darling blue bird sang and danced… unable to resist she also joined her friend. Together they collected memories and both filled their hourglass with it.
Smart! Now time reminds them of those memories all the time.
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Auroville… the journey, the destination. [Source – eco-villages.eu]
O journey, when did you start and when will you end?
O journey, can I stop and meet my friend?
The beginning is hazy, but true and the end will be a new beginning for you.
Don’t stop if you want to meet your friend, for she is on a journey too.
All I could see was a few small trees and one big grey building. Shades of black, patches of dirt… the peeled paint made it look more like a sketch of a building…
A sketch of an old building that has seen eras pass by.
An era that changes almost nothing, but still does. Change that life awaits. Life that holds colours. Colours combine to form black, if it’s light they combine to form white.
Remember the prism experiment? Black and white…and grey. Grey characters say a lot. A grey building says a lot.
Endless footprints following footprints/
When suddenly a few of them rise/
To bloom like a flower.
Greetings!
A storyteller, following the ancient tradition of cave chroniclers, standing in vrikshasana (the tree pose) on a hill top (it is sunny, but windy), breathing in and out stories (relishing it all, but at times overwhelmed), declares animatedly that she will continue to – tell stories, share rare story gems, and connect with the pacy universe while also keeping the website ad-free.
Big thanks to my readers. Stay tuned!
Also, a humble request to the new subscribers to check the spam folder after subscribing. Silly (but necessary) confirmation emails often land there instead of the bright inboxes. Merci!
Ya-hoy!
Chiming Stories (formerly Home Chimes)
P.S – Supporting a storyteller is good for the world’s health (and undoubtedly, for the storyteller’s health as well). Shower some love by sharing, commenting and subscribing to the Weekly Newsletter.
Gabbeh, the 1996 film, is a simple tale of a gipsy girl, her clan and the way their life goes on. Unfolding beautifully just like an artist painting a canvas, Gabbeh quietly touches the grand questions.
Ranked as one of the greatest British films of all time, The Lavender Hill Mob confides in the audience, letting them see, feel, laugh and think without tickling persuasively with a joke here and a punch-line there.
Godard… Breathless and Alive
A Tribute to Jean-Luc Godard, the Film Philologist who Reinvented Cinema.
Yes fly! For walking on the second track is dull and usual, but dreaming high, high, high requires tools. Tools like the right pair of shoes, a chirpy, gritty soul that eats butter-jam dreams, a soul that drinks milky-milky creams.
Silver cascade shimmering the night sky, music to the waves and surreal beauty to the eyes, the Moon loves the art of discipline.
It may be difficult to believe for the Moon’s splendour defies time, it stupefies the clock, it follows the path of a dreamer, but how could this be possible if the Moon knew not discipline?
In this moment, I am a little bit of this and a little bit of that, I am complete and incomplete, I am pleased and uncertain, I wish for nothing and I know I have to wait.
Because the distance covered reminds me of the hurdles I have crossed and the ones I could not, it reminds me of a throbbing past and a dreamy future and it reminds me of how much time is left.
Meredith and the Green Lake
Illimitable Splendour
A joy so complete without any rise or fall, so free without any time corners, so real without true being false, false being true.
