Travel Diary -1 (Himalayas - Mussoorie - Rishikesh)

For the lack of a concrete idea for an article, I am putting down my travel experiences from a recent backpacking trip to north India. Much like a backpacking trip, these random musings are without any direction and purpose.

 The Dead Himalayan Winter Trek

In quite some contrast to what I had expected, the winter in Himalayas entailed most difficult conditions for life that I had ever come across, let alone being conducive for some leisurely climatic indulgence. During a 4-day trek to Kedarkantha summit, I could only mostly see a bleak stillness around – like a spinning and springing ballet dancer in a flowing white gown suddenly becoming transfixed as the music stopped, the mountains seemed to come to stand still in the cold winter’s fury.

                                     

Looking at the naked trees, standing tall and fighting for survival; vast swathes of tiny grass smothered by the weight of thick layers of snow; lakes frozen and streams rendered almost motionless; the wild hiding in caves leaving only trails of footprints and hollow-eyed locals squatting in the corners of their tents, one can only wonder what is life without Sun and its warmth.

 Mussoorie

After the rugged 4-day trek under helpless conditions and an enforced routine, it was time to let myself loose.  So, the day after the trek, I set forth to Mussorie in the coolest attire I could pull out from my baggage, along with all the accessories that I might need on my mission to chill. With good ambience, scenic views and decent food in mind, I explored cafes strolling along the hilly terrain of Mussorie, with a narcissistic pleasure.  I managed to find a couple of nicely furnished, artistically decorated cafes situated in places offering panoramic views. They looked like ideal settings to satisfy Instagrammers' fetish for food-centered photography; a latte topped by delicate froth-art with distant hills as the backdrop, a grilled sandwich juxtaposed by antique art pieces, pastas looked over by abstract wall-posters  and cheesecakes melting against dew drops - you have all the shots covered. Talking about myself, sitting in those places, with an intriguing book on one hand, sumptuous food on the other, and sceneries that hooked my gaze, at one moment it felt like the ultimate freedom that I might had been chasing all this while, and the very next moment it struck as a disillusionment of fleeting worldly pleasures collapsing all the frills around like a pack of cards.

 Rishikesh

Entering into Rishikesh the next day, I was as amused as a 10-year old kid in Disney World for the first time. It appeared like a seeker’s paradise and a rationalist’s nightmare. A town straddling Ganga along hilly slopes, Rishikesh, with its plethora of ancient temples, yoga ashrams, ayurvedic clinics and a whole gamut of therapy and healing centers based on nature, touch, sound, crystals, rudraksh, chakras, hypnotism, numerology, past life regressions etc. etc., in every nook and corner, opens the door to an enigmatic world that promises inner well-being  - things that will make rationalists squirm in discomfort, but I wouldn’t disqualify anything without a firsthand experience.  It’s not just this - from the fun and frolic of rafting, camping and adventure-sports by riverside to ascetic life styles of saffron-clad sadhus involving rigorous yogic practices, from pot-smoking revelers to pious devotees, from rejuvenating body massages offered by spas to holy dips in cold waters of Ganga, from sublimely original to utterly fake, it’s a majestic mixture of many things, all coexisting in one place. Words of immense meaning and gravity – Karma, Nirvana, Mantra, Moksha – are recklessly used everywhere for a touch of mystique.  I found my peace in encountering a whole new realm to explore and the possibility of knowing.

Body and beyond

                              Writing has been a means of catharsis for me. For the inarticulate and ever-confused person that I am, the ability to string together a few words and give a shape and form to my thoughts and emotions occasionally has been a great source of relief and joy.  There hasn’t been a particular theme in what I have written, but I have always liked to find some order and pattern in the chaos of human lives and behaviors, based on my superficial observations and borrowed ideas, so much so that I sometimes end up philosophizing profound things in a shallow and self-serving manner. As much as I want to avoid that, I am writing the below post, dwelling upon some moving life experiences while throwing light on an existential reality that we all know to some extent.

                                  Yoga, as I understand, is a profound science which embodies methods and processes to enhance human faculties (body, mind and life energies), enabling one to reach his ultimate potential and experience life in the highest way. Talking about human emotions, as anyone would have noticed, every human emotion is associated with a physical expression – like one naturally smiles when he is happy or grinds his teeth and clenches his firsts in anger. Human body takes many such common, recurring and noticeable patterns depending on the emotional state one is in. There is a stereotypical wall poster silhouette for every emotion that we go through. By a symmetric logic, one aspect of Yoga is about consciously maintaining body in different postures to establish certain equanimity and emotional pleasantness in oneself. To put it simply, it essentially uses physical geometry as the basis of creating a human experience. However when it comes to our day to day lives, we  go through a variety of involuntary and compulsive physical motions, without often noticing how they affect us and what they indicate about our state of mind. We live sliding in this spiral of cause and effect oblivious to their connections. But, when the most seemingly mechanical and stereotypical physical expressions manifest naturally within you out of some intense experiences, you cannot help wondering at the gravity of these connections. So was I through a few experiences and emotional rides at different points in my life standing as a witness to the antics of my own subtle transformations. Let me call these emotions as devotion, bliss and despair, though no single word can encompass the intricacies of any human experience. Here is a glimpse of each of these times.

Devotion

                       
                                After much anticipation and procrastination, I finally enrolled for the Isha foundation’s Inner Engineering program in Bangalore a few months ago. The program is designed by Saghuguru Jaggi Vasudev, based on yogic practices with the objective of enabling people to manage their inner well being. It was the final day of the program where Sadhguru himself was to guide a large gathering of people to perform a powerful Kriya (a 21 minute practice), which was meant to be the start of a spiritual journey for many. Having myself read, heard and seen much about the possibilities of Yoga and what Sadhguru had to offer, I was excited to be a part of it and hoped to practice everything that I was going to learn with necessary commitment. As I got down at the location that day and walked towards the venue it was amusing to see a large number of Isha volunteers spread across the place, greeting everyone passing by with an immaculate ‘Namaskar’ (placing palms together) and a smile on their face. Their gestures and greetings never faded throughout the day. They were so endearing and natural that, I kept wondering about the source and commonality of their exuberance. The venue was a large exhibition hall with a stage at the front for Sadhuguru and Isha’s music band performing live. Thousands of people came by to attend the program and they were helped by volunteers to sit across the vast hall in an orderly manner. After an opening address from an Isha member, Sadhuguru took over and gradually set the context and condition for the Kriya to be followed in a very sensible and witty manner as always. Despite my inability to comfortably sit in a cross legged posture for a long time, I had prepared to keep myself as undisturbable as possible for that day, for those 21 minutes. Finally, the much awaited 21 minutes transpired under Sadhguru’s instructions and invocations. There were no thunderstorms of enlightenment, nor any outbursts of liberation as my mind hesitantly wished for. But at the same time, it was not just another few minutes of my life, of closing eyes, trying to do some breathing exercises while hopelessly fighting daydreams. A few minutes into the Kriya, I felt some strange and heavy vibrations spreading through my body ion by ion in an unfamiliar manner, trying to sweep me over completely. I didn’t know what it was, but the grip and hold of the vibrations was so strong that I felt a frightening sense of excitement about what was going to happen. The experience lasted for a few minutes and ended before those frenzied vibrations could engulf me. After I opened my eyes, I sat there in stunned silence, a silence deeper than quietness, submitting myself to the realization of unknown forces within me. In the dawning of an unexplored aspect of my own being, I was left spellbound. The logical mind took a backseat; I was not interested in what it had to say. Despite the short and fleeting nature of the experience, just thinking about it brought tears to me. Immediately after that, as Sadhuguru started greeting everyone, walking along the podium which dissected the hall - in quite some contrast to the cynical and rigid personality that I am, I stood there unmoving, with my head bowed down and palms glued to each other with absolute humbleness and moist eyes, oblivious to the surroundings - not merely because it was the formality there, not because it is a social etiquette, not even because I had to reciprocate the gesture – I just had no other way to be. In submission to the overwhelming experience of an unknown and untouched energy within me and to the guru who shook me out of the ignorance which never saw it, bowing down and joining my hands was the only way to be. I realized, when you understand your insignificance in the larger scheme of things or appreciate the essence of anything you look at, joining hands and bowing down is a natural expression. I realized 'Namaskar' is not a mere social gesture or a moral code but a conscious mechanism to drop your self-infatuation and become appreciative of the opposite. 

To be continued...

Of love

My first Telugu writing attempt..(translation of Sadhguru's poem "Of love" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpJVKQS6sps)

ఏ రేఖ మలిచింది నీ ప్రేమ తీరాన్ని

ఏ అడ్డు ఆపింది నీ జాలి కెరటాన్ని

విశ్వాన్ని శాసించే ఆ బ్రహ్మ రాతలా

శూన్యాన దాగున్న గ్రహ, తారల కక్ష్యలా

సంఘాల, సంస్క్రుతుల నియమాల కంచెలా

అరచేత అచ్చైన అస్పష్ట రేఖలా

అహ, పక్షపాతాలు స్రుష్టించు గోడలా

ఏ రేఖ మలిచింది నీ ప్రేమ తీరాన్ని

ఏ అడ్డు ఆపింది నీ జాలి కెరటాన్ని

గడిచేను జీవితం ఈ వ్యర్ధ స్పర్ధల్లో

సర్వం విస్తరించాలనుకునే తన స్వభావాన్ని గుర్తిస్తే,

సరిహద్దులు ఎరుగడుగా, ప్రేమించే మనిషి.

Chasing experiences..

Disclaimer: Bits and pieces of what I am going to write and assumptions I make below are heavily influenced by the philosophies, theories or wisdom of the people living or dead.

                   As the long Christmas weekend set in, my mind scampered restlessly in search of a retreat far from the routine and glitz of city life. Facebook walls had already started screaming of people flying to a variety of destinations, engaging in myriad activities for that another experience in their lives. Experiences which they wish to be bigger and better than the previous ones, experiences spread across the physical and mental planes of existence and feasible to fit in the finite boundaries of their perception,  nevertheless, experiences which are short and fleeting as they know subconsciously. Finally, I found a place and a mixed bag of people to accompany me. The place held promise to fulfill all our objectives. Kodaikanal, popularly known as a honeymoon destination, is also famous of late for "magic mushrooms" (Shrooms) which grow on its high altitude hills.  These Shrooms apparently make people hallucinative, introspective and spiritual according to the experiences of people who consumed them. My company is a couple of excessively alcoholic and chain-smoking friends who display a carefree and wanton consumeristic attitude towards every other aspect of life. Having become a bit placid to the highs of alcohol and having experimented with a few psychedelic drugs of late, they now wanted to try Shrooms. Another is a teetotaler and submissively indifferent old friend of mine who just seemed anxious to add another event, whatever it may be, to his bucket list. I, on the other hand, having had a dose of spiritual preachings recently, was particularly drawn towards mountains hoping to awaken an apparently hidden consciousness and getting an inch closer to the ultimate truth in their serenity and seclusion. 

                                               

                   With a gentle push on the accelerator and high hopes of the days to come, we kicked off in the late hours of Friday. After six hours of pop, rock, metal, bollywood, tea breaks, flash lights, cigarettes and chit chat, we were at the feet of the mountain ranges. A couple of my recent treks on the hills around Bangalore have brought down the surprises that mountains got in their store for me. However, as we rode up on the circuitous roads of the mountains during the dawn, watching the full moon play hide and seek behind the tall trees from the comfort of the back seat, while the cold breezes smeared the face and the woofers slickly relayed the beats to the ears, was mesmerizing enough. About 500 kms from the origin and 2.1 kms height from the sea level, we reached our destination and without any delay we crashed in a hotel room.

                    What was supposed to be a tryst with the nature seemed to turn out like a meet and greet affair for me as we overslept and we just had one evening in our hands. After a short tour around the town it was dark already, and I was left to choose between the company of chilling cold outside the hotel room and soon-to-be trippy friends inside the room. At first, I resisted the idea of having Shrooms, having read about the bizarre experiences of a few people and being aware of my own inability to handle new substances. But, it was hard to believe something that looked so organic and so small and insignificant as goat droppings, could mess with ones mind.  A few minutes after my friends consumed it, I took a leap of faith and I started nibbling at it.

                      Our hotel is perched on one of the high points in the hilly terrain of the town and thick clouds of mist frequently passed by our windows. The backdoor of our room opened to a dark, open-top lobby surrounded by thick, tall forest trees. After an hour of sanity in the mind, and a cloud of fear and excitement surrounding it, the demon of the Shrooms pierced into my mind. As I stepped into the backyard and looked at a thick pine tree surrounded by mist in the darkness of the night, the visual in my mind appeared more vivid than real. The image was terrifying and absorbed all my cognitive senses at once, dazzling my eyes with rainbow like colors. That is it, I realized what hit me and could sense how the next few hours were going to be - it was totally bad. Any dark space that I stared at for more than 5 seconds, conjured spooky images and tried to pull the light of my mind into an abyss,  sending chills down my spine. I tried to be in senses, focusing on the reality around and bobbing my head to the music faraway in the background.  Like a person holding onto a rope to stick to the trail in a dark and dense forest, I held onto the beat with a lot of determination and bobbed my head relentlessly. On the contrary, one of my friends was going through an absolutely thrilling experience. He had fallen in love with the nature. He said that the same pine tree shrouded in the mist was trying to tell him something intimate. He went closer and closer to the trees and gazed at them for minutes without batting his eyelids. He spoke to us with a certain seriousness about the deep rooted connection between trees and humans, as we inhale and exhale the same air and as a human body is just a gathering of the organic mass of trees and earth. Such sensitivity! After a while he said he felt a strange sensation of an another strong sense within him, something which he cannot recognize, wanting to come out forcibly. It kind of knocked me out. Things I never expected to be uttered by him, things that can only be found in spiritual parlance. The other guy was conspicuously silent for too long, which was not him at all.  As this psychedelic drama continued, like the photographer instinct which makes one to take out the camera just at the sight of anything beautiful, irrespective of the experiential value associated with it, the blogger instinct in me woke up and kept recording the entire experience. Our non-alcoholic friend was sound asleep by now, whereas we struggled to sleep that night unable to contain our relentless and unsettling imaginations.

                          I woke up sane the next morning, but the whole experience only managed to open up a Pandora's box of questions for me. Was the whole trip of the Shrooms a figment of unruly imagination of the mind, or did it manage to expand the boundaries of perception beyond the normally perceivable? I was not sure about it, but I was fairly sure about one thing. Be it for a 5 year old kid fully engrossed in his Christmas toys, in a night club, oblivious to the loud music, an assortment of drinks, food and people shouting and dancing in high spirits or be it for a celebrity who has taken to drugs and is in depression despite the following  of millions of  people, a lavish lifestyle and riches that can last for lifetime, the more things one identifies with physically and mentally, the grander the experiences of life one will need to be joyful in life. As long as one leaves the choice of these identifications to the whims and fancies of the same faculties, and not to a deeper and wiser consciousness, life will be a trap of an endless chase of experiences. This chase might be worth living for, but it is not the full worth of life. Thinking about this elusive consciousness and looking at the pine trees wishfully for the secrets they held, I descended the mountains.

If not now, when?

                            

                               It is quite disheartening to see the political scene in Andhra Pradesh these days, with two regions at loggerheads over state division. But what’s more disappointing than the political ruckus going on around in AP is the public indifference towards good politics. We are so passionately fighting for Telangana and Samaikayandhra that we forgot there is a better goal to achieve that is good and clean politics; good and clean politics in the form of Loksatta Party. We have seen the antics of our traditional political parties for years and years. Some make large and careless promises, some guzzle out half of what is promised, some see opportunity in crisis, some see crisis and bide their time until it fizzles out, some play the caste card and some bring in the region, some live off past legacy and some conjure up a legacy where there is none: all in the name of votes and one more term to rule. We have been there and seen all of that. The present crisis is a result of such opportunism. Even a passive observer of politics in AP over past few years cannot disagree how political parties have switched sides, remained silent or fanned discontent in people of Andhra Pradesh. Why then we should still put the blinkers of Telangana or Samaikyandhra on and fail to see a bigger picture? Why are we not looking for changing the nature of our politics though a party that has never compromised on its values and always stood by its words? Why are we not discussing about this positive force in AP politics and why are we only busy criticizing the present parties? Why are we are hailing and cheering the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi for the overhaul of system it is talking about but ignoring a decade old party at home which is a million times more rational and more systemic in its approach towards governance? I was confounded by this phenomenon at first but I can gradually see some reasons now.

                                 One reason I think is the binary nature of our morality which can only see things in black and white. JP charted out a solution to state division by trying to address the reality at hand and grievances of people from all regions. He essentially took a middle path in a scenario where people are bordering on extremes. But the grey shades won’t appeal to us as much as the black and white and they can’t gain mass popularity. In the current state if one doesn’t fully agree with our opinion, he is our enemy. We seem to be in need of extreme stands even if they tend to be fascist, like Kejriwal supporting Khap Panchayats or denying FDI in retail.

                                   Secondly, our short attention spans need heroics all the time to register something in our minds. Going out on to streets, mobilizing hordes of people and appearing on TV every now and then and making baseless allegations against everyone seem to be the only methods we empathize with. What about studying issues thoroughly, charting a solution and agenda to address each and every problem in the country and pushing government to pass laws that can change this country in the silent corridors of institutions? In this era of movies where things change overnight, where heroes beat the shit out of every one around, we forgot how real heroes would look like. The virtues like patience, modesty and hard work have become uninteresting. The news is already out that Kejriwal resigned as Chief Minister of Delhi after 47 days in power, being impatient over failure to see Jan Lokpal bill pass . On the contrary, JP has led his party for 18 years through appreciation and ridicule, through successes and setbacks with unflinching optimism. He was even manhandled twice, but no one could touch his steely resolve to clean the politics in this country. Friends, it’s an earnest appeal to every one of you to think about Loksatta, spread their message and influence as many people as possible to vote for Loksatta. As JP always quotes Hebrew saying "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am only for myself, what am 'I'? And if not now, when?"

Society and You

                                     

   

                              Imagine an overnight journey in a bus between two cities. Let’s say the bus has a capacity of hundred. Everyone boards the bus and settles comfortably in their seats. The temperature of the air condition is perfect, the seats have enough cushion and the quilts are good. As the bus starts, the attendant of the bus plays a movie in the TV set at the front end of the bus. Some people are thrilled about it and watch the movie with eyes wide open, some people are partly occupied in their own worlds and give an occasional glance at the movie to amuse themselves, some people are piqued as the sound is so loud that it doesn’t let them relax or talk something important on phones or concentrate on their official work which they need to make ready for the next morning. But since it’s business as usual in buses they ignore it and continue with their works normally hoping the movie to get over soon. The movie continues and people involve in the movie at different levels. When a comedy scene plays out, some laugh hysterically, some muffle their laughs, some don’t give a damn. After a two and half hour journey the movie finally ends. The people who didn’t want it take a sigh of relief and some more people also feel relieved since it’s about time to sleep. After a brief gap, to the surprise of many the attendant plays another movie. This time it is another gross comedy. Now around twenty people in the bus still crave for the movie and they are all ready to gobble it. Eighty people don’t want the movie. They feel playing movie at this point of time is not appropriate as people have to sleep and go back to their routines the next morning. Twenty of them are seriously frustrated and are seething in anger. Another twenty are confused as they have doubts in their mind that playing a second movie might also be business as usual in buses. Remaining forty don’t bother much as they have their iPods and ear covers to muffle the disturbance. They just look away and pull the quilts over their faces. Everyone feels that majority of the people in the bus do not want the movie but they don’t want to stand up and ask the movie to be stopped. They have their defense mechanisms and tolerance mechanisms. They feel they can just ignore the movie in the comfort of air condition, cushy seats and soft quilts and amuse themselves with their phones and iPods. They feel the movie is for only two and half hours again and they can sleep after that. The movie plays that night with eighty people twisting and squirming in their seats. The impatience and anger of the eighty people does not meet. All of them let their impatience and anger die a slow death in them. The collective good of the people in the bus doesn’t matter to any of them. They are fairly comfortable in the cocoons they built up around them. They just want to get over with it and get back to their lives where they can live on their own terms. 

                                             Isn’t this the current state of our society and so called democracy? There can be many parallels drawn. We all must be concerned at some level about the collective good of the society. But have we ever taken the pain of standing up and speaking against the irrational stuff that’s going on around us? Aren't we hurting our own selves by being silent? Is paying taxes alone enough to show our responsibility for this society? I feel instead of paying taxes in the form of money, if every one could pay a tax of concern  to the society out of the concern we have for ourselves and our families, society would be much better off. If everyone in this world decides to live lives in their own comfort zones, would we be enjoying the same luxuries that we are enjoying now? In a generation of people whose eyes are invariably hooked to the screens of their tablets, ears are plugged by the ear phones and minds are in search of individual comforts, can we ever look at the unpleasantness around us, listen to the cries of the people around us and do something about it? Remember if you ever speak up, like those eighty people in the bus there would be thousands of people who will add their voices and join their hands to drive the bad out of the society.

Night

It engulfs your mind and it awakes your senses.

It spills the seeds of desire and dispels the reality.

It teases the evil in you and mocks your morals.

It builds illusions and breaks your will.

It pulls you deep inside and sells your soul.


Don't get entrapped in its spell my friend,

for the first ray of sun crumbles all of it it down

and you will wake up to the scars it left on you.


I feel, in a quite generic sense,

Day and Night are like the good and bad company in one's life.

Embrace the freshness of the early mornings, brightness of the noons, serenity of the sunsets and fight the illusions of  the nights.