Monday 11 March 2013

Thoughts in times of silence

There are times when one finds time standing still.

I have been experiencing it off and on these past few days.
For more than a month now, I am at home with my right leg in plaster cast from toe to knee.
I will be in this condition till the first week of May.
Three months of forced sitting.

The mind is quiet.
I am not under the shadow of work worries.
I don't have to buy vegetables and drive around the city keeping appointments.
I can't go to the Cellar, where we friends nightly unwind over a few drinks.

I am free from my all my routines. There is no running around to keep time. I am just sitting.

I look out of the window.
In this silence, there is no observer, only the observed, when the seeing takes place.
I vanish. Only the sparkling rectangle of the view through the window is there.
There are tall coconut trees lit by the sun and two goats grazing in the small green valley there.
Only the sparkling rectangle is there and everything in the rectangle is breathing.

I mull over the question 'what is Mu' and finally find it a squeaking object, like a clammy wet frog suddenly in my pocket.

I start hearing the squeaking sound of Mu in the cawing of the crows, the bleating of the goats and the whisper of the wind. I smell it in an orange my wife had left by my bedside before leaving for her work. I eat it at 11 a.m., as she had advised.

I think of my face before either my father or mother was born.
My face looks exactly as it looks in the mirror, but neither me nor the mirror was there when my father and mother were born. There is no need to check the dates of manufacture.
I am up against a clueless mystery...

Who am I, anyway?
Who is typing all these things on the blog?
Whose thoughts are they exactly?
Who is this chap here before the computer thinking about a way to end this piece, his right foot in plaster cast, from toe to knee, taking three months' rest?

******

(P.S.: Thinking over the question through lunch and sleep,
with the answer one wakes up in the evening:
WACKO! I AM HIM!)

*****

10 comments:

Arun Meethale Chirakkal said...

The Solitary Reaper!

P. Venugopal said...

ha ha ha!!! arun! so fast? feeling so light.

Balachandran V said...

Hmmmm!! Aren't you itching inside the plaster cast? Feeling like inserting a twig and drawing it back and forth? Just imagine the bliss! Then, in that moment, nothing of you will be left, neither the observer nor the observed; No thoughts, no silence, just bliss.

P. Venugopal said...

ha ha ha!!! the itching has not yet started, Bals. that is anothing thing to look forward to!!!

james said...

Goats? I bet there are none around where you stay!

Anonymous said...

@Balachandran V

As a wise man once said,"Both Heaven and Hell are to be experienced right here on Earth!"

Scratching an itch after much effort .....Heavenly Bliss!!!

That darn itchy spot just out of reach by a millimeter....Hell hath no fury than an itch unscratched!!!!

Great analogy!

Arun Meethale Chirakkal said...

@ Anonymous: “Hell hath no fury than an itch unscratched!!!!” Haaa superb, romba pramadam, gmabheeram…

Anonymous said...

@AMC
Thank you! Experience doth maketh a philosopher!

P. Venugopal said...

@Jimmans: How much do you bet?

Come in under the shadow of this rock,
I will show you something different for either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you...
(In fact, I will show you Nilgiri langurs...)
@Annonymous, Bals, Arun:
Hell hath no fury than an itch unscratched! But reach it with a twig and the doors of the heaven open up. Its just a matter of millimetres!

nsg said...

was nice. the free time has been used to vent your thoughts and imagination. you have changed the meaning of the proverb "idle
brain is the devil's workshop".

all the best. let more and more like this comes in print.

best wishes.