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Augustings

 August has a peculiar feel about it for me. Perhaps not every August but this one did feel like a descent from high, down. Like a Ferris lifts you up to its extreme vertical point above, the tipping point, and then the descent begins. At this juncture there is a perverse sensation of a jumble of feelings ––of thrill, fear, excitement and what not! This feeling is both the cause of attraction and a dread of the ferris wheel. It is so undescribable that till today I am unable to say whether I am attracted to the wheel or repulsed by it. 

Well, this August was like a jumble before a descent. 

August 15th is a reverent date for me. India, my country, finally could determine the course of Her destiny having shaken off the Yoke of the British administered mis-rule. 15.08.1947. I believe that the phenomenon of freedom of India from the colonial clutches is one of the best things to have happened, not just to the people of India but the world. There are two conditions which need to be fulfilled before India takes the rightful lead in the comity of free nations. Democracy has come to stay. It is not going anywhere but I think some sifting needs to happen so that much of the bizarre chaff from our values, inherited from the glorious & noble past are rejected in the light of reason & not excitement of gung ho-ism. Sanatana is a profound cental Truth but its interpretations based on narrow and purblind religiosity is a bar, a hurdle. 

August fifteenth also marks the birthday of Sri Aurobindo Ghose whose thought has helped in shaping segments of my own world-view. 

So, after the swelter of the preceding months, August is welcome as the air ushers in a more clement weather. It rains and soon we have cooler moods. 

While these conditions are encouraging, there are challenges I face. Just yesterday someone asked "why does it hurt"! In response I wrote, 

"Why & what hurts? Where? 

Let's see, p'haps it is, & everywhere. 

"Okay, First things first:

I was born. No one 

asked for permission. 

Looking back, that hurts! 


"Bobo has Sarcoma;

the vets charge me 

a bomb just to SUCK!

at the vet. science ;

they should have learned

how to think out of the box! 

That's still ok, but

I give my Bo hope

when there is none. 

That fucking hurts bad! 


Then, the mauve which I had

spread on my pallette

waited and waited for me

to come then waited some more, 

then died. Dried...whatever! 


Fuck all that, The snaps, 

thousands of them: Bobo

when he was small, 

when he ate the wall

corner, Bobo and I, 

On our walk, Bobo bathing, 

Bobo being groomed, 

Bobo sniffing a cat, 

a piece of wood, even

Bobo shitting for God's sake! 

All those images

will rip my heart because 

photos are not the loved ones, 

they are memories of absences 

of the once loved ones. 

And, You ask, why it hurts? 

Because , now or later, we die! 

We all die.

💜


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