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I first encountered the Buddha in my school textbooks, as the Shakya prince Siddhartha Gautama, from one the few republics in ancient India, who renounced royal life in search of Nirvana. His teaching of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path had led to far reaching changes in the historical, political, social, religious, and even literary landscape of his time and thereafter. His teachings, committed to memory so long ago, still reverberate in my mind even today, as I practice mindfulness in daily living.

My next encounter with the Buddha came while studying the Gandhara and Kushana styles of art as examples of Buddhist art and architecture in India. His serene smile, the haloed curls, the meditative mudras, and the lotus, all became etched in my mind forever. I then drew the Buddha for the school’s annual art exhibition.

A few years later I visited the Karla caves in Maharashtra, an important Buddhist site that has the biggest Chaitya (a prayer hall with a Stupa, usually for assemblies) in India. These caves once marked an important trade route between the Arabian Sea and the Deccan. They were big, dark, and isolated, far from habitation and surrounded only by hills and forests, but there was a strange sense of peace there, that had the smell of centuries.

Much later, I visited the Buddhist monasteries in Dharamshala, Coorg, and Leh, symbols of Tibetan Buddhism (Mahayana of 8 CE) that had percolated back to India over centuries. Thus far, my view was merely touristy. The Buddha remained distant, to be encountered only in far off places.

But, since the past few years, living in South East Asia has brought the Buddha closer.

Visiting the Buddha temples here, as well as in neighbouring countries in South East Asia, and even Japan, and witnessing and partaking in the local Buddhist practices has left a unique impression on my mind. I am amazed at the vastness of the spread of Buddhism, and its practice by so many different people, so far away from India.

Though the form of the religion here appears to be vastly different from what it was when it started between the 6^th to 4^th century BCE, it continues to remain faithful to the core teachings of the Buddha. Here it is very dynamic indeed, a very living and evolving entity, well-assimilated in the daily lives of the people. I feel closer to it than ever before.

Everywhere I see the Buddha, I am fascinated with the many forms I encounter. The myriad cultural variations and embellishments that adorn him are not just strikingly beautiful, but also symbolise the intense personalisation of the Buddha. In each country’s artistic representation, the Buddha’s postures and meditative mudras and moods remain the same. Yet, there are culture-specific differences in his physical features and attributes, in the materials (ranging from stone, metal, wood, lacquer, or concrete) used in the making of the statues, in the temples that house him, and the rituals that surround him. I find this beautiful amalgam of cultures in the Buddha very interesting. He seems to me to be the very embodiment of the universal values of kindness, compassion, love, peace, respect, and humility, so well-regarded and respected by so many.    

Encountering the Buddha again and again in the region has kindled a desire to learn more. I try to expand my understanding through books, exhibitions, and documentaries, on the Buddha, Buddhism, regional history, and the Silk Road. Ongoing exhibitions at local museums, the immense resources at the public libraries, the Soka Association’s extraordinary exhibition on The Lotus Sutra, the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery’s exhibition ‘Where Asia meets America’ in Washington DC, and even Emperor Asoka’s edicts that I have seen and read about long ago in books and museums in India, have opened my mind to a vast treasure trove on the Buddha and Buddhism. An online course on Buddhist Philosophy during the pandemic, has helped me understand, in greater depth, the core principles of Buddhism.

My interest in the Buddha, at present, is more esoteric, personal, and academic, rather than institutional. I hope to continue learning more and more through books, in the here and now, and through my travels abroad, as and when they happen in the future.

‘My heart is a shadow, a light and a guide. Closed or open… I get to decide.’

The beautiful lyrical picture book ‘My Heart’, by Corinna Luyken (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbMadfnFeTA), just melted my heart.

My heart is a window,
My heart is a slide.
My heart can be closed
or opened up wide.

Some days it’s a puddle.
Some days it’s a stain.
Some days it is cloudy
and heavy with rain.

Some days it is tiny,
but tiny can grow…
and grow…
and grow.

There are days it’s a fence
between me and the world,
days it’s a whisper
that can barely be heard.

There are days it is broken,
but broken can mend,
and a heart that is closed
can still open again.

My heart is a shadow,
a light and a guide.
Closed or open…
I get to decide.

In its inimitable way, it tells young [and even older] readers about love and our unlimited capacity to love. Its tender illustrations in bleak grey and a blooming yellow of various sizes conveys so easily how natural it is to feel everything we do—joy, sorrow, melancholy, confusion, hope and even a sense of control over our emotions that we all can have. It is something we all feel, something which helps us live and grow.

It is heartwarming to see the whole range of emotions being described so gently, almost as if their simultaneous coexistence were not even a matter for thought, but simply a part of everyday existence. Especially, as we experience the whole gamut in varying degrees during the ongoing pandemic, when the heart is stretched to its limits with worry and fear as we struggle to hold ourselves together. The lonely heart misses loved ones, rejoicing momentarily in the well-being of its dear ones.

Fear and hope alternate as we wait for uncertainties to pass, hoping with each moment for this ordeal to end. Constant refrains of ‘stay safe’, stay positive’, ‘learn something new’, ‘think of good times’, ‘keep fit’, ‘meditate’, or ‘this too shall pass’, echo all around, but we know too well that these are not enough. Our fears are born of love, of a heart that loves too much. Yes, it is true—the heart is a puddle, it is often cloudy and heavy, tiny, yet hopeful. It wants to hide itself, lest it show its weakness. Yet it knows the worries will be naught as things will brighten.

It is up to us to take of the situation in any eventuality.

But is it all so simple?

Amid insurmountable physical distances, and unfathomable mental, emotional, and psychological chasms that deepen every moment we are forced to stay apart, our heart struggles, filled with longing, loss or grief. Despite everything, love remains the only primal emotion, abundant in its capacity to miss, yet short in supply through [human] touch.

The tall trees that lost their lives
During pruning season in the park
Are rooted once again in the soil
In effervescent everyday memories
Of our ignorant footsteps that bound
Even, as in repugnance, they recoil!

As a cloud watcher, my gaze automatically saunters the skies. A passing cloud is a hook to look up, and, as often as I can, take a picture. Everyone knows by now that I live with my head up!! It’s a reflex action, of course, but it wasn’t so to begin with….

The dominating blue of the skies of my homeland, was once disturbed only by flocks of birds and occasional aircrafts. But now, its dull smoggy grey reverberates with the sonic boom of an unending stream of aircrafts that hover incessantly, waiting their turn to land. The birds seem to have disappeared.

Now, throughout the year, the blue resists, even as the grey persists, emerging briefly when thunderous monsoon showers clear the skies—a momentary triumphal declaration of its past glory. The arrival of the monsoon is always heralded with delight and wonder. Songs, swings, dances, and festivities sway the mood even as the cool eastern wind, the Purva, sways the leaves that dangle for dear life on sun-scorched trees. The cool winds and cooler showers instantly erase all memory of the blistering summer heat, and the earth turns shades of green under the auspicious dark grey.

Long ago I had an inexplicably close encounter with a monsoon cloud. No, no, not the kind which drenches the mind, body, and spirit with its first showers at the beginning of the season! That one one merely looks at in anticipation as it readies itself to pour down its all to alleviate the parched earth. This one, though thick, black, and ominous like any other monsoon cloud, bellowed and thundered as it loomed above the darkened hill, as I drove up the winding road to Sindhugarh Durg in the Deccan. It seemed to be waiting for me, there, on the hilltop, still and serene!

In all mindfulness, it looked quite like a 3D diagram of the water-cycle in my geography textbook, looming live in front of my eyes. The world was not digital yet and the scene mesmerized me. Yet, I was also disappointed, woefully anticipating the unceremonious end of my excursion! The long drive from Pune was about to be literally dampened.

But the cloud had plans of its own. Instead of offloading itself, as it was prone to do as per my textbook, the cloud chose to merely sit on top of the hill. But when I reached there, it seemed to have vanished! Instead, a mist had taken its place. What emerged through it was incredible! Below lay beautiful emerald and ruby fields, patched together like a vibrant quilt, nestled in a valley of faraway ghats. The majestic view was centuries old, and the mist that enveloped me even older, having been born and reborn endlessly over eons!

This wasn’t the mist I had known, that descended from the Himalayas to the plains in the winter months. This was wet, cold, bitterly cold, in fact, freezing. Within minutes its icy droplets surrounded me, condensing on my warm breath and skin. I was drenched through and through, shivering helplessly. The ramshackle stony ramparts of the long-destroyed fortress of Shivaji offered no protection from the intensity of the cold mist. On the contrary, it seemed to revel as the mist melted and soaked its dark volcanic stones. Their camaraderie was an old one, and the song, their own! I was the intruder, caught in a cloud.

Ever since I inhaled that eternal cloud, and let my skin soak in its wonder, it has been a part of me. Years later, when another cloud, a white fluffy one this time, gulped me on top of the Table Mountain in the Cape in South Africa, it seemed to whisper the same song in a different language. It came from the same ocean that had engendered the monsoon cloud, but rode on the memories of different people in different lands.    

Now I live by the seaside, and clouds are on my cornea, I can say. The rising steam from the sea roots in the umbilicus of my mind which snaps instapoems every day….  

The cat I was so devoted to
And thought of as only mine,
Turned out to be the heartthrob
Of a distant neighbour of mine!

He escaped to her every day
And returned to me at night,
It never once occurred to me
That my cat had taken flight!

Till, one night he came, battered
And bandaged by the vet,
It suddenly dawned on me
All along, I’d loved another’s pet!

And sure enough, at the doctor’s
His other owner and I met,
Unwitting glances we nicked—
Our cat had both of us kept!

He lived in our two homes
Under two different names,
And prowling in the park, had
Conned us with a double game!

What choice have we now
But to be friends forever,
He will come and go at will
And change his ways never!

I am the image
Not a replica.
Fonts of time
In my rings,
Can’t be found
In Helvetica.
I am this.
I am that.
The lure of
The exotica…

When you stand at almost the southernmost tip of a vast continent that straddles the planet’s two hemispheres, what do you really think? It is a moment rife with unparalleled elation and stupendous wonder, of course, as you stand at the edge of land. An unending expanse of water lies in front of you, stretching far beyond your eye can behold. Of course you know you will meet land somewhere if you plunged down into it, and managed to stay afloat and alive, but disbelief steps in for that moment when you think that the vastness is endless. It is a place where oceans meet. You are speechless, muted by the sheer magnificence and magical miracle of the moment.

And how different is the confluence of the oceans from that of the rivers you have seen before! You cannot really distinguish the breaking waves of the different waters that beat against the cliffed coastline. Yet, it is the place where the waters of two ocean currents meet, whispering without sound, and mingling even as they turn away from each other. Was the southernmost tip of the African peninsula shaped and held in their hands over millions of years by their sheer unmitigated force? Or has the massive land mass kept them in abeyance, holding them on either side as a giant might hold opposing forces that seek to destroy it.

You suddenly want to share the elation, transfixed as you are in that momentous moment. But you also want to keep it just to yourself, to savour it long after it has disappeared. It is just so so special! Deep down it occurs to you, that you are lucky. You are the chosen one. It wasn’t something you had ever thought you would know or do. And least in the way it happened. But life is full of surprises, isn’t it? Cocooned in your own world, you had been busy with the ordinariness of life, content in the maneuverings of each passing day and night. Yet, when it did happen, the feeling surpassed all expectations.

Then, when you step out of that moment, you think, this is it! Nothing can be better. You have been there, done that. Never mind that you hadn’t planned for it, hadn’t expected it. It did happen, nonetheless. The mundaneness of the world around you once again grabs you by your feet, and plants you firmly on the ground, and you get busier than ever with this thing called life. You carry on living, forgetting that life can be magical beyond its humdrum madness.

Then, several years later, you are again in the midst of another miraculous moment, at another point in another place. This time you are in the ocean, venturing out even further than you did the last time. In a southernmost fjordland, among broken pieces of an ancient landmass that seems to have been born of the bowels of the earth, the magic comes to you again. This time, it is even more exhilarating. The previous experience becomes all too real once again, and grows manifold, merging with the joyfulness of the present moment. This time you think you already know it. Yet, when you actually meet the actual moment, it surpasses your expectations. It once again lifts you beyond the veils of imagination and carries you beyond time. It is a world unknown, but not fearful, and the strangeness is delicious. You soak in it, devour it, licking your lips and savouring the taste long after it becomes a distant dream again.   

Years later, yet again at another point in another place, you feel on top of the world. This time the farthest you can go is in the opposite direction, as close to the Arctic Circle as you can get at the start of summer, just falling short of it because you hadn’t planned for it yet again! Life’s unexpected pleasures come, well, unexpectedly! And you feel blessed. An overbearing sense of immanence engulfs you and you soak in the joy and live the dream. The moment is all there is. You leave behind everything else and just be there, all of yourself, there, and only there.

“To live in a city is to live the life that it was built for, to adapt to its schedule and rhythms, to move within the transit layout made for you during the morning and evening rush, winding through the crowds of fellow commuters. To live in a city is to consume its offerings. To eat at its restaurants. To drink at its bars. To shop at its stores. To pay its sales taxes. To give a dollar to its homeless. To live in a city is to take part in and to propagate its impossible systems. To wake up. To go to work in the morning. It is also to take pleasure in those systems because, otherwise, who could repeat the same routines, year in, year out?”

These words from Severance by Ling Ma may ring somewhat true for some of the modern ‘planned’ cities that are designed to consume people. After all, what else are they built for? But they cannot be applied to everyone and everything in every place and every time! Growing up in Delhi, I might never have thought much of them, leave alone subscribed to them. But then, these words didn’t exist then! They are a mere juxtaposition on an age when life and the city I was born in was not what it is now. But then I was young too. And just growing up, gathering the tidbits of life amidst everything around me. At that time, I did not think of Delhi as I do now, having lived in it and away from it over the years.  

Delhi, in the last quarter of the twentieth century, was as different as it would have been at any other point in time, even as it is today for that matter, almost at the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century! And yet, it can never be anything else, except itself. It has existed for centuries. The certainty of that fact not only makes it immortal, but also invincible and invulnerable. It stands solid on its own, unalterable and unaffected by the comings and goings of the millions, nay trillions, who have passed by. They have merely been a part of the inexorable rhythms that pulsate the city, its bosom heaving with eternal lifegiving breath.

Whether I live in accordance with its patterns and rhythms or not was and continues to be irrelevant. As an individual I take from it only what I desire, what I need, and what I find worthwhile. The rest remains for others to take. But I am not selfish. I am just myself. It was, and still is, home. And it has made me what I am. Just like itself. An amalgam. A cross-cultural cauldron of historicity, of beliefs, of faiths, of ethnicities, of imagination, of dreams, of ambiguity and individuality. Just like it, I cannot be anything but myself.

The city is so unlike any other that even the passage of time cannot alter it. It lives, breathes, grows on its own, shaped by everything that happens in it and to it, a quintessential sponge that absorbs it all. Its modern façade merely a superficial makeover. Every now and then it is layered with something new. Yet, the heart of the city remains intact. Its character inherent in its people, its language, its food, its mannerisms and everything else that constitutes it. All that it has imbibed from the civilizations and cultures that have traversed through it over centuries.

Whenever I move away, it continues to live in me. And like a magnet, pulls me back. I may extraneously adapt to and adopt the rhythms of every other city I live in, or visit, but within, deep down, I remain where I was born, one with the eternal city. Nothing alters that because it is unalterable. Its centuries old life has seeped into me, just like it has permeated everything else in the city itself.

What makes Delhi what it is? The credit for it cannot merely go to the city it is today. Its life is in its location in time, in its history, its soil, its character, its culture, its soul, and the fact that it defies design, patterns and systems. Delhi is not to be found in its monuments or museums or memorabilia. It is visible in every timeless particle that floats in its air, that has dissolved in its soil and become one with everything in it.