I AND MY WORDS

Yesterday evening, as I was attending the sandhya aarti at the local KaliBari, waiting for the unveiling of Durga's pratima, I had a moment that felt too deep to not be shared. As the pujari carried out the aarti with the lamp, camphor and flowers among other things, the dhak drummers called in for the puja accompanied the aarti by giving it rhythm. As Maa Kali kept staring at us, there were two small kids who were dancing to the beats of the dhak inside the temple, absolutely overjoyed by the musical overtones to the aarti. All of a sudden it dawned upon me that there's Shakti everywhere. It was in the beats of the dhak , it was there in the joy and dance of the children, it was there in the vigorous aarti of the pujari , it was there in the bells that people entering the sanctum rang. It was an overwhelming moment to experience the leela and maya simultaneously getting dissolved into the realization of this connect that we humans have with the divine force that flow...

Shailesh had walked back home. The strikes had ensured that no buses would ply even today. Thankfully, he did not live far from his work place unlike many colleagues of his in Delhi. The application for the scooter had not yet been granted. Of course it would not - he had tried to be honest, and not grease palms like a good citizen, only to realize just how empty those ideals sound in the face of a grim reality. Being a man of the hills meant that he had not piled on a lot of weight, and had long legs. Perhaps it is genetic in nature, this trait often found in the people of the mountains. But it was worrying to see the chaos and anarchy that Delhi was descending into. There were protests everyday; the nation’s politics had ignited sparks people had almost forgotten about. On top of that were the concerns of blasts by terrorists. In moments like these, where an uninterested party gets caught in the crossfire, even these long legs will not take one far, brooded Shailesh, as he rang the ...