Scruncher: As Is Your Deed So Is Your Destiny

Yes, I took the picture.  Isn't it perfect for a new year's post?  I have said that I never tire of shooting sunsets, sunrises, moonlit evenings, and clouds!!  This one is taken from a plane, May 2009. 

You are your deepest desire;
as is your desire so is your will;
as is your will so is your deed;
as is your deed so is your destiny."
---------------Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:

May you choose wisely this year....and may you all be filled with joy and love.....Gott Nytt Ar, Naya Saal Mubarak, Feliz Navidad, A Very Happy New Year to you all


The following entry was written nearly a decade ago, randomly in one of my notebooks.  Since it was not a regular journal, it stayed on those pages for a while.  But every time I came across it, I looked at the content with a new eye. A decade ago, I was trying to sort life just as I am right now.  So, this message comes in handy. I hope that some of the readers will find it useful.  Do let me know......:))

Scruncher: As Is Your Deed So Is Your Destiny

February 2002

The tragic becomes beautiful when accepted with grace, it becomes comic when seen through a child’s eye, it becomes “salvation” when used to transform one’s consciousness –and it becomes magical by acknowledging its powers to make us superhuman.

                 -----------Accidentally Seasoned Hobo

All you need is a cruncher to begin renovating.

And I am not just talking about buildings.

Although that is how I found out about it.

Those of us who park there, were told that parking lot Green B will not have as many spots open for a while.  We might be assigned newer spots.  We were told that it is being renovated.

Renovated?

“That six-floor parking deck made of steel, concrete and mortar doesn’t need renovating,” was my first thought “It’s fine the way it is, huge, concrete and stable.  Besides, it’s been there forever why waste money?  Effort?  And most importantly why waste time?

Time !!  

But as the days passed I saw one section after another of the six-floor deck crumble.  

At first it had seemed unimaginable.  The sound of crumbling and crunching was obscenely loud.  Every time I parked there I could feel my blood stopping to circulate.  Fearing a hemorrhage I’d park as quickly as I could and run away from the screeching walls.  

Then it seemed ridiculous to take down what several men had put together.  What had served us for a very long time.  Then, I noticed on the days that I packed in the unbroken side of it, they had the time to come apart from its ¬amidst, loud clanking, roaring screeching and that deafened our spirits and deadened red blood of all those who live in half a mile range of it.  A few days later, it had started to look ugly.  The steel rods strong they are and useless, first supporting themselves, tough and malleable, and yet absolutely useless.  These rods now supported nothing and so looked bleak despite the inherent strength.

One day on my way to get my car, I stood watching it in awe, as massive bulldozers run at the speed of 5 miles per hour driven by men under 6 feet, elegantly grazed over the concrete.  

Concrete, solid, definitely a substantial foundation – concrete.  Another machine, driven by an average sized man pulled bricks and mortar away from –wires, rods and other building material.  

I asked the overseer—“so what’s this thing called?”

“That?”  still driving the machine, he smiled at me quizzically, “is a scruncher ” and then he shrugged, may be wondering what is a woman dressed in a business suite, holding a brief case in her right hand and insulated mug in her left want with a scruncher….??

As I walk towards my car, sipping my cold tea, on a chilly February evening, I pondered over the number of times I had been accused of being an idealist, the number of times my own negative thinking had neatly arranged the world in blocks of concrete and laid it out as a various levels of priorities, so beautifully than I knew exactly where to park my thoughts on which day, where to extract the car of my ideas from, how far to take them in, how far to pull them out, how well to steer my thoughts so that the adjacent cars weren’t hit –

Huh?” I wondered!  I just wondered if we all needed, a high-powered scruncher!

Yeah, that’s what it is ---we need a scruncher!!

So, don’t tell me this is the way things have been done, or else I’ll show you the scruncher.

By the way, good portion of parking lot green B is now a vast field, and for the time being, it can be turned into a playground, a daycare, free health clinic, a music school, a temple, a synagogue or a, mosque, may be a museum, or may be a parking lot……..

I know, in all likelihood, it might end up being a parking lot—but for now there are numerous possibilities—in its emptiness—

That’s the power of a Scruncher!

2002.

We Make the World

The following story is something I wrote for my University newspaper in the 90s, when after graduating from the MS I moved to DC.  It was published in the university weekly newspaper, since I was still in touch with Editor in Chief who was my Prof. Every time I read this, I long for those days when writing came so easy and simply flowed from my heart. I could do that even until Fiji.  And now, even though I write all the time, words do not flow as they used to.  Citations and references and ideas, that is a different kind of writing.  I do believe that requires much prior reading...like doctors need to have read and understood much before they can prescribe medicines.  But also that is a very different profession from being a poet, or a musician that speaks a level of truth that resonates for generations to come, and is healing every time we listen to it.  So, I present this article here as a window into my first few months of living in Washington DC, having lived in a small US town and a very small town in Southern Africa before. I will not count my stay in Delhi here, since that was home at some point and I lived with other members of the family.  DC was really being an adult.  No one was taking care of me, I was always looking out for a room for rent, on month to month lease so that I could call it quits if I wanted to.  

Other than that, the article is also presented here as a reflection of our own selves.  Especially when we critique others....would we choose to do differently in a similar situation, if not then do we have the right to be critical?

The above picture was taken in Delhi, a few days before Dusshera 2009. Dusshera, also called Vijay Dashmi, is the 10 day of the month (usually between Ashwin and Kartik months according to the Indian calendar), is culmination of a ten day fasting and rituals, that include thinking about triumph of good over evil, people who have gone before us (The Shraad, a week long ritual filled period when the ancestors are honored by feeding the poor and handing out alms and donations). Navratri, or the nine days before Dusshera is when (almost) the whole country refrains from meat, onions and garlic, foods that are considered stimulants, engaged in heavy fasting and prayers.  Some even plant rice and wheat in small bowls representing the grains, in honor of those who grow them...and provide us our daily bread. On Dusshera, big effigies of the demon King Ravana burnt all over the country.  The above picture and the below one show simply the faces, giving an idea of how tall these effigies are.  Made from paper, they are filled with crackers, and people usually like to take the left over bamboo home as symbol of good luck.  As the crackers burst, you hear young children scream and dance with joy,  Dusshera also marks the beginning of Diwali celebration. Delhi, 2009. 

Cities are Cities.  And all cities have at some point tried to create an iconic image of themselves.  Here is Vancouver in all its glory.  A shot from Stanley Park.  September, 2009. 

Nope, Not DC, but Brisbane.  A shot from Brisbane airport, on my way to Thailand,  May 2009.  All cities, in some way, are chaotic in the same way...

We make the world

After two years of surviving Clarion I left it for good, a couple of months ago. Strangely enough I left Clarion exactly two years after I arrived. I have bags and trunks full of memories of Clarion. The assignments done, the tests taken, the notes written and passed while the class was in session, the cards from friends, loads and loads of computer paper, scraps of Clarion call, albums of pictures, lots of reminders from the library for returning the books, reminders from accounts office to pay my dues, a whole bunch of edited videos and even more of footage.

Like all new graduates I moved to a city too, in the hope of finding a decent job. Of course like any other person I realize the list of problems after graduation only increases, not to mention the responsibilities. Yet there are so many things to notice in the city every day that it takes my mind off the things that give me a headache. Life here is very different from Clarion yet much remains the same.

Like getting up early every morning to reach the work in time is just like rushing to make it to the class. So many similarities with the college makes me think if we really make any changes in our lives or just accommodate interestingly disguised adaptions of our old lifestyles. I see people of all ages running to the metros, after the buses, towards the offices. They do not seem relaxed even when rushing towards the theaters and entertainment places. Day after day I either find a seat for myself or give in to standing in a large crowd in whatever means of public transport I take. I prefer to be in the corner i.e. out of the noticable section. From where I muse at the dozing heads, that is, if I am not one of them. It is so much similar to the students dozing in the classroom, of course for different reasons but the consequences remain the same. I start scanning the people around me. An old lady with silver hair and bright red lipstick smiles at me, a man next to her is absorbed in his newspaper, a college student frantically flips the pages of a text book, a middle aged man resting against the iron bar tries to catch some sleep and then a squeal from a child brings me back to myself.       

To make up for my lack of time to work out I rush up the working escalator, wondering if everybody else rushes for the same reason.  As I climb up the steps I notice a man completely immersed in his

novel, some afro-american women with their hair bleached and other Euro american women with their hair dyed dark or permed hair (Why do we have so many racial and ethnic problems if we are constantly trying to look like others? are we ever satisfied with ourselves?), guys with long flowing hair, women with crew cut, guys with nose rings, women with tatoos, and people with hair dyed to match their clothes. Tired ones sitting on steps with lazy smiles and droopy eyes.

Streets are always buzzing with people. People of all races, people with expensive clothes and cheap looks and vice-versa.  Crazy traffic makes you think too. Its not Clarion after all, you have got to wait for the traffic! What effort! It requires a great deal of thinking to follow the traffic lights. 

Life in a city is much busier and faster for sure but do the basics change? The fact is that we are all trying to run after something, rarely do we have moments to ourselves, we are just as careless about our responsibility towards the universe. I say this because I often notice papers and other garbage lying around and within few feet of any given garbage can in the city. We insist on driving to the grocery store even though it is only two blocks away. Yet there are those great moments when a stranger lends a hand or passes an understanding smile and I begin to appreciate the harmony in the world. However I am not yet ready to accept my own hypocrisy which comes from the fact that I am not any different from the others who I notice and judge.I have not had my breakfast so I grab a blueberry muffin and

coffee. As I head towards my work place I come closer to one© man™street© band playing saxophone. It is enchanting, captivating, hypnotizing........!  Mersimerized, I stand still and stare at the richness of the music and the emptiness of the all the people passing by. Barely any one gives it a thought or stops to listen.

It is a monday, I guess. Every work day in the real world seems like a monday!!! I wonder why people wouldn't stop a few seconds or at least spare a few coins.  As I spill hot coffee on me I realize I am late for work.  But out of my good-will I scrounge through my new leather wallet and pick

up a few copper coins. As I throw them in the broken basket in front of the musician I ponder and condemn the people who will not stop or do something for this person. Whose beautiful music makes

us feel like we are a part of a fairy tale and we seem to wade‘through the early morning sleepiness. Slowly I move away from him sipping my coffee, nibbling on the muffin, dropping the crumbs on the street. 

The benign morning sun falls from behind me and casts a shadow that is the ugliest, darkest and the biggest I have ever seen. 

Bon Hiver: Good Winter: Bra Vinter!!

We got our first snow.  Light fluffy, cake-icing like, a very fine layer of two mm, above the ground. Brightened everything.  Now we know that can look forward to a white christmas.  Never thought I would say this, but I have already started to enjoy many of the things...flickering candles on dark days, the crunching sound as we trudge on fresh snow.  I miss the Fiji sunshine, but these dark and cold days will keep my love affair with Fiji's heat, pretty hot. The above picture is from last year.  I did take a picture today and will put it up soon as I have uploaded it.  Here is what I wrote today....

light

fluffy

like vanilla sugar

dredging

on frozen

ground cakes :))

Bon Hiver!!