Vaitarna....

Green. A very wet, very Hopkinsian “glad” green, carpet of foot-long blades, with the back-drop being six hills and three hillocks: silver-grey, with a blue blanket and a mist-scarf. Raise your eyes a bit, and the skies seem to be in celebration; with three big garlic-bread-loaf-shaped clouds (Sreejith or Vidya would know the exact term) converging towards each other, and towards the hills. A steady breeze stroked the happy grass. The sky was overcast: white and grey (a very promising monsoon-sky); and there were rain sprinkles, occasionally. Towards bottom-right was a boisterous, rain-fed, muddy stream: the only rough presence around. But, though “rough” is a hard word I use, the stream was not a disturbance to the beauty of the place. It was, on the contrary, completing the picture: much like what some naughty kids would have done in a family photograph.

Put all of the above in a rectangular frame and you might be able to see what struck me through the 3’X2’ bars-less window of a Shatabdi Express that was bringing me from Bombay to New Delhi. The name of this place, or of the nearest railway station, is Vaitarna. Looked like one of those places that He seems to choose as promotionals for heaven.

17th August, 06.

The Shut Chest

Have you ever seen a shut chest?
A chest, shut by weak, half-torn straps;
Straps, striving to keep shut the chest,
Yet threatening, all the time, to lose their integrity.

What good is a shut chest? What can it contain, give out?
Can it receive new things? Can it distribute its old?
No. Such a chest can only be stepped on:
Others can use it to see greater heights,
Its self can see none.

The straps weaken by the day;
Yet their pressure never eases.
Can the chest break free?
Throw open all doors, add meaning to its being?
Explore what it really is, and what it can be?

No. Never! For then the poor straps are ripped apart.
And, after all, they are a part of its being.