Eastern Purity

It all triggered with the morning visit to Mother Dairy today. I saw a gentle man putting a white hanky on his head as he approached a small gurudwara. A very small gurudwara which might as well resemble a house. He closed his eyes and stood there at the gate for few moments. The faith that I saw he had in god, and the faith in that minute he spent there was overwhelming. I have waited many times outside temples for my friends offering prayer inside, or waiting in queue [temples around Jama Masjid attract huge crowd] for their turn to offer prayer. Generally this happens on Tuesdays. I don’t have any issue getting inside an have a word with almighty, but I enjoy more waiting outside, I get the delight to watch! Last Tuesday, I saw Prateek standing quietly with closed eyes and folded hands, as I waited outside. The innocence on his face and the faith that the situation exhibited was enough for me get that rare standard emotion, “I wanna die here.” That’s how I felt when I saw Darjeeling for the first time or when I saw river Ganga in Rishikesh. These feelings are inexplicable by a word but I would like to coin a phrase, “eastern purity”. This is what I find most appealing about Asia and more so about India. The mandir, the masjid, the ganga, the flute, the Hindustani classical music, the morning, the sitar, the feminism – all these go into formation of ‘eastern purity’. Everyday, I see some lacunae around me to crib about India. But whenever this sense of ‘eastern purity’ prevails over my head, all cribbing fade away.

When rain rains

It is raining here at a time when winters were supposed to have arrived. This might be a welcome gesture of Mother Nature to receive winters in this part of the country. Clouds are intensely dark. They have enveloped the entire sky above our campus. Looking above gives a feeling that the world is going to end.



It now begins raining so hard, that I feel like going out and get soaked. But tomorrow is Diwali, and there is a fair chance of me catching cold. But these rainy winds are truly seducing, I feel as if they are calling me at the loudest pitch. And how unfortunate I am, I have to close the windows of my room today for the first time in this semester, that too when rain , my most beautiful gal friend is knocking my door. But as human, I also have erected walls to insulate myself from nature. The window when kept opened allows the rains to enter my room sousing my belongings. But I want to somehow capture these intense moments of the rage of Mother Nature. I try to capture it on the lens of the camera of my mobile, but rain doesn’t want anyone else to come between me and her, she souses the lens as well. God, I also want to be with her, but the price might be too high to pay, I am perhaps too weak for that. Perhaps that is why rain is so angry that her dearest lover proved to be so weak. I won’t say sorry for that will bring even bigger disgrace to our love. Only way I can capture this beautiful time is by writing.