The Inverted Crock

The crock resting on my neck is the root of most of my problems. Its inverted mouth remains sealed, nothing can escape from it, except blood, and that will be my end. So, no worries there.

The real problem is the literal mouth and the uncontrollable blabbering it does. My racing thoughts reverberate inside the crock, causing me immense pain, but they lose their energy if I keep mum long enough. 

That’s why I shall not speak much until this damned spring lasts. Otherwise, they will lock me again and put me on pills. 

I hate it when I drool as a rabid dog does, and I sure will do that with a dose of lithium and valproate inside my body and brain. 

The king of seasons is making everyone extra energetic. The trees are sending off new offshoots in every direction. Most are flowering, ready to convert the nutrients absorbed over the year into tiny packets of energy—a perfect bait to help spread their progeny far and wide. 

Even the animals are being extra chatty. Elephants are drooling, resembling me on medication, and langurs are jumping from one branch to another, the same way my thoughts jump from one avenue to another. The macaques are gritting their teeth, induced by a spurt of serotonin in their brains. My forefathers are horny always, but my foremothers take the pink pill in this season only. 

People are singing, dancing, blowing trumpets and beating drums to celebrate the season, most of them harvesting new crops, a lot of them welcoming the New Year, and a few of them remembering their Gods, and their foster children—the Saints. 

Painters are sharpening their pencils and readying their colour-trays, and bards are filling inks in their pens and wiping dust off their keyboards to eulogize the season, most of them quoting and drawing inspirations from the dead among their tribe, a lot of them tweaking the old pieces, and a few of them composing unheard and unseen pieces. 

And, I am expected to stay mum. People tolerate my company when I am in between, but I speak many uncomfortable truths in spring and then people hate me and then I come to places such as these. 

My emotions are powerful and deep in both the stages but they don’t last for long, same as this Kunthi River which covers a scant distance to reach the sea,never to come back. It will ride the water cycle and may fall on Nilgiris again but the hills will not recognize it. The only difference between me and Kunthi is that it never gets muddy and muddled and my thoughts always do. 

Shall I dwell on Nilgiris more, since it reminds me of the Nilkanth? The Blue Mountains. Blue neck of Shiva. The neck sealed shut with the inverted crock with a glue of poison extracted along with elixir. No, I shall not. There is still time for that, otherwise, I may become God too early. How relieved I am that I am an atheist. 

What a fool I was, when, like Nehru, I believed the monks lived in a delirium, worshipping their deities of choice, following elaborate rituals, meditating under the influence of marijuana, and eating and wearing whatever the devotees brought them. It’s not my fault when one of them, when pressed hard, said that deep within he knows that death is the full stop; not the semicolon—to body, mind and soul. Nor am I at fault when I felt an enormous surge through my body upon hearing this proclamation. I stripped every piece of clothing from my body and broke into a dance, in a complete trance, oblivious of everyone around me. 

Validation is the same as broken pieces of a mirror when it was a rare commodity. You couldn’t throw the mirror away and it slashed through a part of you, the first opportunity it got.

How much distance have I covered? Twelve kilometres is it? The fit-bit shows eleven kilometres and eight hundred metres. Accuracy, agility, and reading other’s emotions are side-effects of my condition. Add to that, the all-knowing smile, and my big brown eyes and they evoke fear in others, lest I see through them.

How do I remember names and faces always, is beyond my comprehension. What should I do with this much information when I cannot even process most of it in my tiny brain? 

The silent valley does not live up to its name since it’s a hotspot of activities, the biological hotspot. I have not seen such natural beauty packed into so small a place. 

Wait! Silent valley resembles my mind right now. I cannot fathom all the offerings of the valley in their entirety, the same as I cannot peruse or pursue all of my thoughts, but there are glimpses of beauty which I can savour. Can I present my thoughts too, like this valley is doing in spring, for people to glance once and then enjoy what catches their attention the most?

Yes! I can and wouldn’t it be a delight to follow a train of thoughts, ignoring every other route it can take. That yogi told me, it’s possible to concentrate on just one thought till you reach the end, from where it can go no further. You either find the root or that’s the end, of either the thought or your capability. I will break down an interesting perspective and keep following that until it gives me a choice to stop there itself or to follow another one. From there I will go to another and then another, jumping but not jumping. 

Oh, Yogis! Sringeri is not far away from here where I ought to go tomorrow, which reminds me of Adi Shankar. He may have been in a depressive phase when he reached Srisailam. When spring came, he composed Soundrya Lehri—the wave of beauty. After that came Shivananda Lehri—the wave of Shiva, the book of Nilkanth, the book of the pure and it changed the Hindu world. 

Sun is setting in the Arabian Sea, taking with it the whole imagery of the valley and closing its doors to the human world, for dreaded creatures roam during the night across it, till the sun rises from behind the Nilgiris once again and walkers like me return. A new sun will illuminate my inverted crock too, or so I hope. An illuminated crock doesn't need the facade of greatness to show the light inside but wouldn't it be a delight to have all of it filled with light, making my existence light enough to carry on without a care in the world?