Infernal Spirituality

In the hell, as one would reasonably speculate, virtually everything is infernal. The inmates of the hell are perpetually possessed by the seven infernal ghosts. And when an infernal speaks, a gray lizard leaps out of mouth and spits dark venom fuming with an infernal hatred. In an infernal complicity, the nostrils would burst out black lathers of smoke, and the eyes would lash out infernal violence.

In the hell, ugly is not untrue. If it sounds terrible, so it is.

Perhaps worse than that, since hell is name of the Shawshank where even hope of redemption is mocked at. Even the God has been, so to say, infernalized. After being carved in gold and glittery, He has been given a kingdom, a virgin, a gun, and an absolute power to do whatever He would like to do with them. His sloth is salvation for Man. His gluttony is waited on, His pride is flattered, and His wrath is pacified. His phallus is washed by milk.

He was reportedly heard saying "yada yada... sambhavami yuge yuge". Perhaps Dharma has not decayed enough for Him to descend. Perhaps He is waiting for the Dharma to decay more enough, and meanwhile, He is getting His phallus washed.

On the other hand, oblivious to their sins, or incorrigibly impenitent, the inmates of hell cross their hearts and pray - "O almighty Lord! Please accept my humble offerings. And have mercy on me. I will come to your shrine on your next eleven birthdays if you bless me. Give her to me; if you can not, then kill her so that no one gets her. Amen."

To the infernal God - the God of gold and the God of gore - they bring their hard-stolen herd of cattle to sacrifice. They cross their hearts, make the bleeding obeisance, and cross their hearts again.

As Shaw would swear, hell is hell of an interesting place, where sacrifice is not only painless but also delicious. Hell has life, especially in night, with loud-speakers blaring on. With neon-light dinners more than making up, even fasting is fun. In hell, religion has work-arounds, and short-cuts. You just need to have the right resources.

Home and Home-Coming

Any sincere search of truth must begin with a confession. Let me confess - I am home, and I am feeling homesick.

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I lie down on my bed and wonder - What is home? Where is it? Was it home that I had left years ago? Was it home that I have lost in the years bygone? I guess so, no matter how strange it might seem to me now. I have left home multiple times, though leaving home was never easy for me. Taking that fearful step, the step from the perch into the vast depth of air was never easy. I dreaded it, and I took considerably long time to get used to it. But now when I am finally used to the vastness of air, I don't like sitting on the sticky perch anymore.

Till recently, home has never been a simple word in my dictionary, till I finally decided to simplify its meaning in order to get rid of an unworthy inconvenience sitting heavily on my back. Now, I have finally decided to choose brevity over the labyrinthine details of an irrelevant truth, for which no one, including me, had any patience.

To me, home is not a place any more, it's a memory - the home to all the home-towns. Every winter, sitting on a silent ray of a morning sun, or on a tiny droplet of a piano tune, my memories come to visit me. Lifting me in their white feathery arms, they would touch me tenderly, ruffle my hair, and make me feel like a child in the warmth of their embrace. Safe home, I would fall fast asleep.

But when I would wake up, I would be homeless again. When monsoon arrives, I would go home in search of my memories, looking for anything that could remind me of my lost past, but I wouldn't find anything familiar.

"...and that wherever they might be they always remember that the past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth in the end." - One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

When I would visit my foster home, people there would ask me, "where are you from?" And I wouldn't know what to say to that. In an imaginary nostalgia, I would look around to find the traces of my childhood, but I would see nothing. In the end, I would end up feeling like an outsider in my own home.

I have certainly experienced the sweet forgotten feeling of home-coming. But ironically, and miraculously, I have experienced home-coming only when I was exiled away. It's a rare, and a distinct feeling, which is vague but equally intense, and which I cherish in the innermost safe of my heart. When I have felt it, I have felt it in the air. I have felt it in my blood, on my skin, everywhere. Around 5 years back, on June 27th, the day I had set my foot in Pune, I had felt the same. I knew I was home, but I didn't know how.

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While I was in IIT Delhi, I had visited JNU by chance. And I had instantly felt that "this is the place to be". Away from the frenetic war-cries of our campus, where the rats burnt their youth running in a blind urgency to be yet another brick to fit in the wall, JNU was a forested haven, where the ceiling didn't seem to descend on your head to suffocate you, where air was less oppressive and breathing was easier, where mind was allowed the minimum peace and leisure to unfold itself. It felt like a home to me.

But I couldn't stay there since I had to return to the kiln.

After years of oblivion, I came back to JNU. Though Tapti could hardly afford the comforts I had corrupted myself with, I didn't mind and the discomfort didn't matter. For I had come back to a beloved's arms, after all. And I didn't feel like going anywhere else. While sitting under the black umbrella, on top of the rocks resonating string sounds, in the warmth of the hundred flames burning dimly all around, I knew I was home.

Life is a Marathon

"If you want to win something, run 100 meters; if you want to experience something, run a marathon." - Emil Zatopek

Last year, I had participated in the 10K marathon, which is conducted every year in Hyderabad. The spirit of Hyderabad was showing itself even before sunrise. At 5:30 on a Sunday morning, when the only place one would like to be is his bed, there was virtually no place to stand on the Necklace road. People of both the sexes and all ages had covered every inch of the road. The mood was festive and refreshing, and the atmosphere was enthusiastic - as it would probably have been on the 15th August, 1947.

I had completed that run without any problem. In fact, I completed that run with a sprint in the end. When I do that, I feel that the conquest was comprehensive.

This year, last Sunday, I participated in the half-marathon - 21.1 kms.

Like last year, I had made my own set of rules for the run - no water, no walk, and no rest in between. It might sound rather arrogant, but it was not so. Though I concede that it was a little ambitious. In any case, I kept my rules only to myself. To make this all possible, I allowed myself a little leniency - I chose to overlook my speed, or the lack of it. I decided to run, nay jog, slowly. In long distance run, I tactically maintain such a speed that I may not run out of breath. And in doing so, I allow others, including old men and women, to run past me. I don't take hurt usually. I don't feel defeated. In unusual times, I find a ready consolation in the severity of my rules.

As a matter of principle, I would rather keep competition away from the marathon track. Not because I am not competitive enough, which may or may not be relevant to the point, but because I believe that the nature of marathon is primarily introspective, in which the presence of others is merely incidental. Besides, unless I am excited, I do not put too much premium on winning anyway. Especially in marathon, in my opinion, speed shouldn't matter much. All that should matter is running with the spirit of marathon, and taking the pain in the marathon way.

Why do I run? As far as I am concerned, I run because I enjoy running. I love to sweat. If that doesn't sound literary enough, then I have alternative explanation - I run to soothe my curiosity. I run to seek an answer, to probe my perseverance in an optional crisis. I run to try my will and test my endurance - my response to pain, as it were.

As I have mentioned earlier, running is introspective in nature - like praying, or preening. It involves an interview with self. As far as others are concerned, if I ever feel anything for them, I feel a sense of pride. I feel proud of them because I witness each of them fighting his/her case hard against his/her own private prosecutor. At the same time I feel a sympathy for them because I look at them in terms of their pain, and their response to their pain. With fellow sufferers, there can be no rivalry.

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The event started at 5.30 sharp from KBR park main gate, and I started with my tried and tested plan. Just a matter of time, I assured myself. The sun was still behind the bushes. Though the sky was clear, and clouds were playing truant, it was a timely and therefore an auspicious start. I was not afraid of getting tired, but I was bit wary of getting bored. So I plugged my ears and played on the music. Don't crib and don't cry, I told my body as I pressed the play button, for I won't be able to listen to you. The finishing line beckoned me. Today was my day.

I jogged slowly through the Jubilee Hills area, without water, without walk, and without rest of course. Many lesser runners ran past me, and I forgave them thinking "Life is a Marathon" and hoping to set the records straight in the last laps with my "eye-opener" sprint. Apart from my plan, I found solace in my imagination.

I imagined myself as an unsung tail-ender who walked to the pitch with a will to save a test. He batted bravely, in an empty stadium, for a lost cause, with an intensity so unfamiliar that it seemed rather grotesque to the onlookers. But he was well aware of his rights, and he had willed to make them wait. He had willed to surprise the dressing room. This day was his day, a hero was about to be made.

Keep watching, people. Keep running, hero.

No matter how ridiculous it was, I was serious about it. I wanted her to be present at the finishing line to behold my post 21.1 kms sprint with eyes opened wide with awe and surprise. However, there was a little problem with that prospect. I didn't want to wake her up. And she had no means to know when she should reach there, unless she was called up and told. But I was determined not to stop for any call, any reason, any excuse, any temptation. "Keep Running", her sms had said.

Unlike last year, there were no rock bands flanking the track, and drumming and singing to boost our morale. But it was still a special event. The policemen were everywhere and the traffic was made to wait for us. On both sides of the road, as I passed the HiTech City, I saw people watching us with amused eyes, unless they got something to ogle at. And there was something to ogle at. I heard that people from many places, especially Bangalore and Bombay, had come only to take part in this event. There were vans and wagons passing by, carrying banners and cheering the runners. There was never so much fun in the run. I was delighted to get so much matter for my next post. Little did I know then that matter was no less tyrannical and no less rapacious than man. It could eat a man alive. I was running dangerously.

"Marathoning is like cutting yourself unexpectedly. You dip into the pain so gradually that the damage is done before you are aware of it. Unfortunately, when awareness comes, it is excruciating." - John Farrington

I wish I knew that earlier. But life is not known to offer any crash couse. In fact, it has a reputation of a strict teacher who tests first and teaches later. After 12+ kms of test, by the time I neared Novotel, I was able to listen to the cries of my knees despite the music plugged into my ears. I chastised myself for the hectic yesterday followed by the half-slept yesternight. To buoy up my spirit, I suspected that it was the crape-bandage that needed to be redone. I slowed but that didn't help me much. I had to stop. The pain was unbearable. I couldn't ignore it, and I couldn't respond to it in any other way. As I sat down to untie my bandage, my oath was broken.

Relax, every rule has its exception, I tried to rationalize. I untied the crape and tied it again, hoping change would make things better. But things were to be worsened further. My private prosecutor was hostile and his arguments were cogent. I could not refute my 5 years old ligament tear, which had returned to implicate me right in the middle of my half-marathon. My knees had kneeled me down.

I obeyed Khalil Gibran, rested a while in reason, and after having the situation reassessed, I was ready to compromise. I was anxious to negotiate a deal, but nobody answered the door when I knocked. My body denied ears to my cries. I could hardly walk, and I could not walk without a limp. The finishing line seemed too far to beckon me anymore. In 10-20 minutes, my case was lost.

Thankfully, though I had lost it, I was not looking like a loser to others. I was one of them, dawdling along with pedestrian expectations. However, when I looked into the mirror of my mind, I saw a miles long walk towards the pavilion. The tail-ender had failed again. The hero was spanked, lined up, and was made to wear his underwear over his trousers. It was humiliating. And it was surreal - neither tired, nor bored, and still not running. The despair, weighing heavy on my mind, demanded its logical conclusion; and the wise idea of giving it up crossed my mind. I called her up and confessed - I am walking.

Disappointed with the mirror, I looked elsewhere. And as it happens, the indiscriminate fell on the immediate - a woman who looked in her late thirties. With thick glasses over her eyes and a water-bottle in her right hand, she was a spectacle struggling her way despite all problems possible. "Only for ladies and handicapped", I reflected with a bitter cynicism. Real men were nowhere to be seen. Even the unreal ones had moved on. Only housewives and handicapped men like me were hanging around. I wasn't proud of my company anymore.

As I passed close to Whitefields, my home, I saw the marathon staff and policemen standing there and giving direction to the johnny walkers. I half wanted to leave, but couldn't gather enough shamelessness to break the line, run away and go home. Had I turned anywhere, I would have turned traitor. I had to walk straight. I could not fail my fellow sufferers. I had lost my pride, but I had to save my dignity, and others' too. The lady reminded me - the marathon was still on, and I couldn't fail its spirit. Even in my crippled capacity, I still had to do my best. There was no other choice. This was life. "Life is a Marathon" - I was beginning to understand it.