ENCOUNTER

It was a very fine morning. Though I woke up late, the loud devotional songs from my friend's room came as a sudden reminder of a holiday which compelled me to shrink into the bed’s embrace once again. But like all delights those the world offers this too did not last long. The most disliking ring of the calling bell prompted me to depend on the legs and spine once again, after a total dismissal of them for more than six hours.
A man in torn cloths and with worn out face was waiting outside. My opening the door and his hasty retreat happened simultaneously. Not realizing what exactly was happening between two beggars [one, of course a privileged one],I followed him with irregular steps.
He stopped at the gates and I too. He sat there on the bare sand and i stood. With a sudden flash of realisation i returned to my room and got hold of a packet of bread and one of my old shirts. He wore the new shirt and I offered him the bread. Holding the bread packet tightly to his chest he remained silent for a while. I whispered, "Please have your food." He looked at me and smiled, stood in firm foots, and tore open the packet. Suddenly i noticed his dirty hands with long nails, each with its own fund of dirt in it. He broke the bread and with trembling hands offered me my share and told in an antique voice, "take it, and please have your food."
Tearfully i went back. Tears almost blinded my eyes and I forgot the many a time trodden path.
That was my last encounter with my Master... and that was before i murdered the child in me and hurled it into the sea.
It is years since i met him, and every morning i expect the ringing of the calling bell in vain…

ജ്യോതിര്‍ഗമയ

നാലുച്ചുറ്റിനും കാണുന്ന കാഴ്ചകള്‍ ജീവിക്കാനുള്ള ആസക്തിയെ കെടുത്തിക്കളയുന്നു എന്നെഴുതിയാല്‍ ഒരായിരം സംവത്സരങ്ങള്‍ ഞാന്‍ ഈ ഭൂമിയില്‍ ഉണ്ടാവണമേ എന്ന് ഹൃദയ വിളക്കില്‍ എഴുതിരി നാളം തെളിച്ചു ജപിക്കുന്ന നിന്‍റെ മിഴികള്‍ തുളുംബുമെന്ന് അറിഞ്ഞുകൊണ്ട് തന്നെയാണ് ഈ വരികള്‍....

ഇന്നലെ രാത്രിയില്‍ നിലവിളികളോടെ ഒരമ്മ വിളിച്ചിരുന്നു.
"എല്ലാ തിന്മകളിലും ജീവിക്കുന്ന ഒരു ഭര്‍ത്താവിന്‍റെ കൂടെ ഞാന്‍ എങ്ങനെ ജീവിക്കും" എന്ന് നൊന്തു പറഞ്ഞുകൊണ്ട്.
നിദ്രാ വിവശമായ ഒരു പാതിരാവിനെയും പിന്നിട്ടു പകല്‍ വെളിച്ചത്തിലേയ്ക്കു മിഴി തുറന്ന എന്നെ കാത്തിരുന്നത്എന്തൊക്കെ ആയിരുന്നു! . അന്‍പതിനായിരത്തില്‍ കൂടുതല്‍ മാസ ശമ്പളം വാങ്ങുന്ന ഒരാള്‍. സന്തോഷങ്ങള്‍ മാത്രം വിളംബിക്കിട്ടിയ വാഴ്വിന്റെ ഊട്ടുമേശ. മനസ്സ് കൊതിക്കുന്നതൊക്കെ വിരല്‍ തുമ്പിലും വിളിപ്പാടകളെയും. എന്നിട്ടും ഈ മനുഷ്യരൊക്കെ ഇങ്ങനെ ഹൃദയത്തിന്‍റെ നനുത്ത തൂവലുകള്‍ക്കടിയില്‍ ക്രൌര്യ നഖങ്ങള്‍ ഒളിപ്പിച്ചുവക്കുന്നത് എന്തുകൊണ്ട്?

പ്രസവിച്ചവര്‍ക്കെല്ലാം അമ്മയുടെ മുഖമില്ലാത്തത് എന്തേയെന്ന പൊള്ളിക്കുന്ന ചിന്ത അമ്മയുടെ കണ്ണീര്‍ ചരടുകളെ ഭേദിച്ച് പൊരി വെയിലത്തേക്ക് നടന്നകന്ന ഒരാളുടെ അനാഥ സായാഹ്നങ്ങളെ ചുടു കാറ്റായി വന്നു പോതിഞ്ഞിട്ടുണ്ട്. ദൈവത്തിനു ഒരേ സമയം എല്ലായിടത്തും എത്താന്‍ ആവാത്തത് കൊണ്ട് അവന്‍ ഭൂമിയില്‍ അമ്മമാരെ ജനിപ്പിച്ചു എന്ന് വര്‍ണ അക്ഷരങ്ങളില്‍ ചുവരില്‍ എഴുതി വച്ചിരുന്നത് ഇന്നയാള്‍ കീറിക്കളയും. രാക്ഷസ ജന്മങ്ങളെ കൊണ്ട് നിറയുകയാണ് ദൈവരാജ്യത്തിന്റെ ബീജങ്ങളെ ഗര്‍ഭം ധരിച്ച ഭൂമി. Yeats ന്‍റെ കവിത പോലെ, "the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of intense passions". ക്രിസ്തുവിന്‍റെ രണ്ടാം വരവ് എന്തായാലും വൈകും അച്ചാ എന്ന്, അലഞ്ഞു നടക്കുന്ന ജോസഫ്‌ ചേട്ടന്‍ ഇന്നലെയും സങ്കടപ്പെട്ടു. പിറവിയെടുക്കാന്‍ രാക്ഷസ രൂപികള്‍ നിഴലുകളായി ബെതല്‍ഹെമിലേക്ക് ഇഴഞ്ഞു തുടങ്ങിയിട്ടുണ്ടെന്ന് കവി പറഞ്ഞത് വെറുതെയല്ല.
സ്നേഹം അറ്റുപോയ ഇടങ്ങള്‍ എങ്ങനെ അനന്തര തലമുറകള്‍ക്ക് സംസ്കാരം പകര്‍ന്നു നല്‍കും? മനസ്സില്‍ ഇരുട്ട് നിറഞ്ഞവര്‍ എങ്ങനെ അനാദിയായ ഗുരു പരമ്പരകളിലെ കണ്ണികള്‍ ആയി മാറും?

സുകൃതം നിറഞ്ഞൊഴുകുന്ന ആയിരം സൂര്യതേജസ്സുള്ള എന്‍റെ ഗുരുക്കളുടെ പാദാരവിന്ദങ്ങളില്‍ മുഖം ചേര്‍ത്ത് ഞാനൊന്ന് ഉറക്കെ കരഞ്ഞോട്ടെ.........

I LIKE A TEACHER WHO

I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework", said Edith Ann. Modern education has reached a stage where to be educated more means to be savages. The over concentration on head undermining the heart has brought the educationalists to stage of disproportioned growth where man almost looks like a beast and confirms it by his acts. To me a way out seems to be really difficult.

The question that haunts me over and over is this; “Is teaching only an intellectual exercise? You say not to use the term teacher because we are only facilitators. True! But what do you facilitate? Is it only the paralysed lessons from your worn out syllabus which lie waiting the last trumpets of the angels of death?

The basic requirement of a teacher is not the degrees but the ability to be human and considerate in this valueless world. One who is not able to impress, how can he impart? Otherwise the age old proverb will come true….. “A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.”

LAMENT

At the age of fifteen I was snatched away from the breasts of my home.

Home like mother, from that on, always expected the footsteps of someone coming back. Home is the place where you find yourself in your ingenuity. True, home is not a structure but a situation.I know that was the only place where I could cry without any inhibitions. That is the only place where your feelings understood in letter and spirit. You are accepted as the way you are.

I can’t return to my home; where I am now has not become my home and that is my tragedy.

PRESENT IS THE GIFT

      Jesus used to say that it was futile for man to worry about what tomorrow has in store for him. Do not worry about the future, He said. Zen philosophy augments it with the words "live in the present". The most important fact regarding the present is that it does not have time. When you live in the present you are in eternity. In other words when you live in the present eternity stoops and merges into temporality. To live the present moment fruitfully is to set foot on the misty soils of heaven.  

      The past is gone and the future is yet to come and what you have at hand is the wonderful present. "With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future.  I live now", said Ralph Waldo Emerson. If watering the last year’s crops would in no way aid you to alleviate your present day famine, let us better enjoy the dearth!  As an old proverb teaches, past is a wonderful place to visit, but don't stay there."Yesterday is history.  Tomorrow is a mystery.  Today is a gift.  That's why we call it the present" goes an old saying.  

      I always regret the fact that by looking back on my bygone days I always fail to admire the beauties that God sends me every moment… Failed in letter and spirit , to sense  the fragrance of the  smiling flower, the  melodious rhythm of the  singing bird, the caressing fingers of the moonlight, the heartbreaking lamentations that arise  from the riversides of Babylon by the uprooted men and women of my century, the hungry babies snatched away from their mother's breasts, the forsaken, the downtrodden........... 

      I have memories which will never change my fate and hopes which are uncertain of being realized.  Poor man.... without looking at the pearls at hand cries out for help which would come from the mountains.....

BID NOT FAREWELL

      TODAY, after the farewell ceremony to our senior batch of MA literature students was tearfully over, my friend in a melancholic temperament observed;"father, we will be in the same boat by this time next year". He was in his poetic exuberance when he remarked that every meeting is pregnant with the agony of parting. Someone was repeatedly quoting the Lebanon poet-mystic Khalil Gibran that it is in the agony of parting that we really realize the depth of love. But I was carried away by the lines scribbled in my friendship diary by one whom i keep close to my heart for more than a decade,

"സൗഹൃദത്തിനു ഒരു കുമിളയുടെ ആയുസ്സേ ഉള്ളെങ്കിലും അതില്‍ വിരിയുന്ന

സപ്തവര്‍ണങ്ങളുടെ ചാരുതയാണ് അതിന്‍റെ കരുത്തും സുകൃതവും..."

Now i know the worth of every relationship i have. From the Book of Tobit angel Raphael reminds that your soul mates are specially designed to fit your dreams from time immemorial. Jesus before his departure from this planet earth prayed for his friends saying that the twelve disciples who shared his mission are the people "whom the father gave" him. Thus there is always a heavenly value attached to your relations.

 But i don't subscribe to the view that the absence of physical proximity would tear away your bonds. I am skeptical to this notion simply because adhering to such a view would completely question the depth of your relations. You can be thousand miles away and still be in love as love crosses all barriers. Physical absence only means one is only taking a leave or one goes for a journey. I cant imagine a mother forgetting her beloved son just because he is not at home. Friend, yes, we part, but with the hope of meeting again soon. Compel me not to bid farewell,because wherever we go we bring ourselves too.

  Its drizzling in the valley of friendship, welcome my bosom friend...
we shall walk into this heavenly shower so that no one one will see our tears.....

GOD COUNTED YOU WORTHY

While meditating on the question why God denied certain things to some a flash of insight enlightened me. The fact that God did not give you something simply means that He takes you seriously, that He knows that you can manage without it.Thus you are devoid of something means you are mature enough in the eyes of the Almighty, and the heavens valued you more than it did others. Consequently to lack something does not mean that you are insufficient but rather you are efficient. Its never a fact to be ashamed of but something to be proud of.
Self content is never a product of the market, it is something to be found amidst the multi-layered innermost being,after a lifelong, tiresome search in the outside world.