The Looking Chink

Once: long long ago

We used to creep a lot
Belly-aching, begging for a choice
And that's the test of freedom
So would people say.

Times changed, somehow, as if on cue

 Lo, here you are

Your telly has arrived at last

Kaleidoscopic, crisp, captivating and cuddly

Every pixel to emerge from all dimensions

At your service, and go, feast your eyes on it  

It’s your choice after all, fulfilling your wish.

Past is a picture: the reel story

Present is a picture too: the real story

Future is a sketch: a picture in making

Where can you find the real world?

The shadow is now the real thing.

Look! How fast choice matures!
Into monotony, too hard a lump to melt

Despite everything

Moments merge into hours, and hours into days

Sagas unfold, endless, of quarrels and contests,

No longer relents the evil, the plot convoluted
And hanging down the cliff…what next?

Farce to follow the gossip and the point dissipates.

Know a lot, to forget what you know

No longer, it’s willing deferral of disbelief

Now, how easy it is to doubt everything!

Eyes bleary, night beckons to stay awake

There’s a picture before you to see and believe.
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By

A. N. Nanda

Shimla

25-10-2014

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Tiger and the Truth-II

Once the great Greek mathematician Euclid, as the legend goes, proffered a coin to one of his pupils and asked him to pack up. Why? It was so, because he dared to ask the teacher, ‘What’s the gain from studying geometry?’ So when I completed today’s bicycle trip into the dense forest of Shimla Catchment Sanctuary [Hasan Valley], I asked the same question to myself, ‘Now, man, what’s your gain at the end of the day?’ I should give myself the list of benefits from the whole thing.

Getting lost in the thickets of a well-preserved jungle: is it not so very pleasing? What else do you want from life? Listen to the sibilant whisper of the coniferous forest, feel its coolness, look to the distant azure horizon, smell the shrubs, feel the music of the trickling streams—what else you want from a mere Sunday?

And what about the flowers? A flower is a flower; it’s not necessary to know its name. So goes the proverb: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. How true!

 

Agreed, you don’t know its name, and it matters little, but the connoisseur knows it. The butterfly knows where beauty lies, always without doubt.

How dense a forest you want; even denser than this? Ok then, hold on, let me show you another snap, man!

Won’t you like to see the sky? Where all these cedars and oaks are trying to reach? They don’t need a sky-glider; they can reach there by themselves.

 

Even in death, the tree is beautiful; it proclaims its beauty. Only it’s waiting to meet the beholder’s eye.

 

I could not find a tiger. And how do I produce one? Here you are: this is your tiger. Manage it until you get to see a real one.

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By

A N Nanda

Shimla

12-10-2014

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