The bird caged within…

In Hindi language, the soul or the “prann” is also metaphorically called a bird, caged within the boundaries of the body, “pinjarey ka panchii”!

A caged bird is never happy. How can it be?? When it doesn’t have the freedom to soar the skies, to spread it’s wings and fly far and beyond the horizon.

It’s destiny is to be free, to touch the skies and not to be caged, to be prevented from soaring.

It’s interesting to note as to why the soul has been compared to a caged bird. Is it only because it is confined within the body?

Just yesterday, there was news of a top actor commiting suicide due to depression? He had everything going for him – looks, fame, money, flourishing career, beautiful girlfriend; everything, that a common man aspires for… Yet, it wasn’t enough. There was something still lacking, something so profound and impactful, that in the absence of which he decided to release his bird from it’s cage…to commit suicide.

What does the soul need?

What does it desperately search for?

Why this restlessness?

Why this anguish??

For centuries, man has felt lost in the ocean of desires. So many desires are fulfilled, yet something remains unquenched.

As if it’s not an ocean, but a desert with mounds of sand spread as far as the eye can see. Here desires seem like a mirage, promising to quench the burning thirst, but leaving the throat as parched as before.

The search for the ultimate “Sukh”, the ultimate pleasure;

One which doesn’t recede the moment it is attained, but keeps on spreading throughout the system as a beautiful network of vines,

One which once achieved, cannot be lost,

One which takes the consciousness upwards and not spiralling downwards,

This search has been the ultimate lookout for us humans.

The bird of our caged soul flutters and wriths, wanting to fly free and wide in search of the ultimate pleasure, but the desires and the duties of this world bind it in shackles and imprison it in the golden cage called “LIFE”.

And this is the universal truth – however beautiful or expensive the cage is, it is after all an imprisonment, a bondage.

And freedom is the first desire of the soul!

This freedom has been achieved by many. Paths have been different, yet the destination has been the same.

Buddha chose the path of balance; Mahavira chose penance, 

Kabir chose to be like a lotus in the mud; Ramkrishna became like a kid all over again,

Rajjab renounced the  pleasures of the world;

King Janak continued to be a king, a king who thought like a sage…

So the path towards freeing the fluttering soul is varied, but the end is to be free,

Free of all agony and joy, pleasure and misery, good and bad,

Free of all that constitutes the “Mann” (mind), to calm the raging waters of the conscious and to become calm and silent.

A silence so profound that it cannot cause any wave to form in the ocean of the consciousness.

That is the ultimate flight of the bird, the ultimate desire of the soul!

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Rumours and Ramblings!!

Some days back I was watching this really hilarious American sitcom, where one of the main characters is the member of a club; very, very interestingly called “Rumours and Ramblings”. When his friend asks him about the activities of this club, he simply shrugs and says, “Oh you know, it’s all just floating gossips, endless whining and some interesting tales and talks of the town”.

I found this amazingly refreshing and totally doable. But when I asked some of my friends to make such a club, they shirked away by saying, “But we never gossip or whine!”

Now this……

THIS I found the most confusing of all!

You see, I am a very straight-forward person, to the point of coming across as being blunt sometimes. For me a spade is a spade and a bitter truth is just that…a bitter truth! I can’t sugarcoat things for the benefit of someone’s ears (Here I won’t say feelings, because most people know the truth of what I’m talking about and their feelings usually don’t get challenged. It’s only the ears, which are so used to hearing just what they wish to hear and not what they should hear, that might feel hurt by my ponderings)

So, coming back to the original point of my confoundment!

Why can’t my friends form a weekly meeting club, where we all can sit and gossip about the latest love stories brewing about or the incompetency and attitude of maids or the hottest topic of all, which can make even the most silent of all women open their beaks and chatter away….”Mother in laws!!!”

Why can’t we whine about all the bad that is happening to us “abla naari” (poor, poor, defenseless women) while sitting around a round table (because we women and our “nights” aren’t any less than King Arthur and his “knights”; isn’t it so??)

Why can’t we have a catalogued gathering, without the ever annoying presence of husbands and kids and all the other chores and bothers that life brings along with it; and just sit back, bitching and bickering to our heart’s content!

Well, all the webs of my confusion got cleared the following day, when I was just strolling on the podium of our complex and came upon some lovely ladies standing around in a cluster and talking in hushed tones. I thought that some very important discussion was going on (maybe regarding the volatile situation of warring nations in Europe, or the economy of the world, or else whether Modi should reprise the role of the Prime Minister etc. etc.) When I happened to pass them by, they called me over and I too went intending to learn something important or give my two cents on some topic.

But…..

My over talkative and non-stop chattering self was actually standing there with my mouth practically zipped-up or agape (depending on where exactly the thread of discussion spun towards). 

You may ask why?

Well, I would tell you even if you are least bothered! So the important discussion that was going on when I joined was the exact amount of onions that should be mixed in potatoes to get that perfect “samosa”!

Then some lady got reminded of her pashmina poncho (maybe the triangular shape of the samosa, which is similar to that of a poncho, jiggled her memory) and how she bought it damn cheap from a flea market,

to which someone said that these days people can’t be trusted and that the diamond necklace which she bought for 25 lakhs was in fact an imitation (it’s a different story that we all know that that necklace was actually an imitation!)

The diamonds reminded someone of a new restaurant named “diamond” (why would someone name a food haven after a rock is beyond me) to which another lady chirped up that her husband loved “mere haathon se bani gobhi ki sabji” (the curry made with her very own hands! Is there actually another way to make it?) 

So now you get the gist. The “important” conversation flitted from food to kids to husbands to maids to food preference to, but of course, mum-in-laws!

And here I was standing with them and thinking about the reason as to why those ladies couldn’t find the time or the inclination to form a club for all such “ramblings” and some unfounded “rumours”. 

Then my feather-brain realised that some things are best done randomly and in an unplanned manner. That’s where the whole delight lays. Formatting them or planning them takes away all the pleasure; either by giving rise to guilt like these instances of pure, unadulterated gossip or by putting on too much pressure on the mind, as in the case of uber-planned trips and journeys. Just as an impromptu trip brings great joy to the heart, so too do these impromptu sessions of “rambling about rumours and random ruses” … isn’t it?