Month: May 2007
Post lunch first day
After the game on the mouse pads and the lunch it was time to commune with sloth with some humor thrown in. As I was reconciling myself to close the day by mid afternoon expecting to cool the heels off, the whistle blower announced the first activity. “Gorge walking” he murmured softly. I some how got the feeling that we are taking a stroll around the nature park hoping to walk peacefully – vendorless time.
I decided to feel the earth with my bare feet and deny my new adidas the pleasure of walking with me. The walk down the park was an experience by itself that it needed some special treatment. May be my next post will address it
Is this all you can do?
Day 1 Lunch time
Strange but simple. Nobody likes to be talked to. Now if I want to talk to my son about raising the bar, I don’t sit across in a chair and talk about that. It doesn’t work. It did not work for me am sure it will never work for him. It just passes off with those millions of phonemes he hears day in and day out.
We squiggled our hands, played fire, water and earthquake in order to limber up then got on to the walking on mouse pads. From the beginning it look simply menacing for me. To many it looked like a cake walk. The purpose on the outset was to drive home the point about working as a team, planning and so on. But the actual reason was to put those challenging words – IS THAT ALL YOU CAN DO?
The game really worked and these words do reverberates in my ears – to remind me of challenge in simplicity. IS THIS ALL I CAN DO? Pumps my desire to push and never to stay in comfort.
Humbled but Hopeful
The creation with all its magnificience was made to be under the subjection of man. The fact that these look so menacingly big and awesome with all its risks and consuming power shows that somewhere down the line man has lost his authority and dominion.
These massive trees may succeed in humbling our stature but in our spirit we believe, and are hopeful of the fact, that these are just cheerleaders meant to clap their hands and bow down before us as we walk by.
The first morning food @ avalanche
Time is of no meaning to a prisoner serving his life sentence in a dark dungeon. Its this meaninglessness of time which is the greatest comfort to the convict. Why should I hang the burden of time on my wrist and measure my freedom and happiness to a limit? A better choice would be to track it from meal to meal. In other sense operate from the gut.
The bumpy ride is behind now; travails of the three tier sleeping system with almost transparent restrooms and the snoring from unexpected throats seem to hog the headlines of conversation. The whistle blower announces the meat on the table. Like monks we all troop in with plates in our hand. The taste of food leaps on to the lips and sends warmth all over. The smiles appear and the hot cuppa unties the chords of solemnity and its all normal like office time.
the first day
braying of an ass did chase that ‘stallion reason’ away…………………………
I woke of that biting chill on my bones, with a thick blanket that captured a slice of chennai heat. Adventure beckons, the hills look inviting, the trees seemed to clap the hands, and the streams were giggling, the lake remained placid. The reality of hot coffee was more tempting that the feet gravitated to the kettle.
Someone had to remind me of what humans do in the morning – rubbing plastic hairs on the teeth with some gooey substance in between.
Unreason riding an ass
The agenda was to set order out chaos, performance from motionlessness : the thought of hitting a chaotic setting in search of order seemed inappropriate. I had to express my thought to Roshan and after a talk with Prehalath, I realized it was too late to call it off. (thanks to Tatkal).
The bumpy road in the army truck seemed to turn my thoughts around, an occasional bump on the head seemed to knock some sense into my cortex and disturb all existing cortical maps. The journey seemed to end, actually begin, another journey. The accommodation shook out the comfort that the concept of hitting the bed can give. These enthusiastic young uns were singing and dancing around the fire more to reconcile with the tribal lifestyle.
Did I land up all the way to this place to seek solutions to issues that beset a city life? Can nature address my search convincingly? Commonsense seemed to gallop on a white horse to say that I have made a mistake, but the braying of the ass of unreason seemed louder and surer. …..
Pale Horse
The trumpet of ashen and death
Writ large on the face of fear
Will this be an invasion on my body
Or the castration of my love?
The engine does chug invitingly
Distance short with the fuel of fun
The soul is wakened in the unknown
And the spirit flows meekly
When will the ordeal end
To deliver me from the Pale Horse of fear?
Mason of walled minds
Time rejuvenates unkindly thoughts
Moron of past, scaling the future
Unable to rebel for fear of warts
Hair falling off, soaped off with dirt
Unkindly matron, nay mother
The mason of walled minds
At the pass way of decision
Her leg like marshmallows quibble
The caged python of flesh tremble
Heart of cold melts to mumble
Unkindly matron, nay mother
The mason of walled minds
Sinews of the flesh demonstrates
Eyes of pain wells of gooey wealth
Sleepy memories parachutes within
Word autistic chained firm
Unkindly matron, nay mother
The mason of walled minds
Tilted Plus 