C K Meena was my teacher in journalism school. How hard can it be to review? See here. ‘He doubted if he would encounter someone as interesting as her in all his life. And he hadn’t really met her. That was the problem with his job. Intriguing people, by the time he met them, were likely to be dead.’

What do you do when your partner has a double life? And is now dead?

In these chilly Delhi winters my sleep is erratic. Some days I wake up at 6.30 AM, on other at 7.30 AM, and yet sometimes at 8.30 AM or even 9 AM. I know I am being a bad boy, but what can I do? It is just so cold. I suspect much worse than previous year. I can’t go out evenings because it is cold. I can’t work because it is cold. Damn cold! Chills us, breaks us, makes us lazy, and inhibits works.

Every morning when I wake up the first thing I do is put grains for birds who come to my terrace. These days I wake up erratically and put the grains at all hours 6.30, 7.30, 8.30, 9, different each day. Yet, within five minutes of my putting the grains the pigeons are there, so are the parakeets, bulbuls, crows, sparrows, mynahs, and some time doves.

Does the cold not inhibit them? Okay, they have feathers, they have fluff, they snuggle up, and they are endotherms. So are we humans. We are so evolved that we have clothes, houses, organised food, and brains to help us find our way through nature. Why then do we get so affected by the cold while the simple birds who have none of our advantages manage just fine, with perhaps no complaints?

Their flights don’t get delayed. Their roads don’t get blocked. I wonder if development through the centuries has made us less capable to being at peace with nature. We are not talking Antarctica, just a slightly more than regular Delhi cold. Have we humans forgotten something?

Dear readers and visitors, my friends, may New Year’s be a beginning to peace in your life. Wherever you are, feel for the place and its people, it will take you a long way. Happy New Year.

Sometimes work just flows in like rain. Thanks to Businessworld for bringing out two reviews close to each other. Click here to read about an action drama.

Once upon a time, in this country we had a literary magazine that celebrated new writing in Engish. It died, or, I hope, is just in coma. I recently reviewed an anthology based on the magazine for Businessworld. Click here to read more.

Peak hour traffic on Nizammudin Bridge. Vehicles backed up. We inched closer. Cursing, honking, braking, guarding our priceless cars from the car, bike, cycle, tractor, auto-rickshaw next to us. I saw my watch: a one minute drive had taken twenty. I was in no mood to reconcile. Get to Ashram lights and speed out on the Ring Road. Gosh! I came to Delhi to escape Bangalore traffic. This is worse.

As I neared the point of the snarl I saw a battered, huge, old Delhi Water Board tanker in the middle of the road. The rest of the traffic was going around it. Behind the tanker were at least fifteen school kids, huffing and pushing. I saw it for a few good minutes. The cars around it were making a beeline to squeeze between the road divider and the tanker.

Suddenly, the tanker spurted to life, groaned. It moved a bit on its own engine. The delicate hands started leaving the tanker’s back. Its wheels started acquiring a life. Out, from the driver’s side, jumped a Sardarji. He had a maroon turban, was in a cream shirt and brown trousers. He was wearing sun glasses and had tied up his beard with a strip of cloth, to set its hair. I could hardly see his face, but his cheeks were shining, turning red in the sun. His lips were turned into a broad smile. His arms were raised above his head, his hands were folded in a Namaste. That is all he did, stand on the road, give thanks, while the tanker engine warmed up.

The children cheered and moved away; the tanker started and the Sardarji vanished into it. They moved away. The warmth of the gesture purged my frustration at being held up on the road.

A few days back a journalist asked me my opinion on God and sent a few questions. I am pasting the answer here because I am not sure how the newspaper will carry the information. I like it that at this point in life I could answer this much. For a long time I have been trying to answer these questions to myself.

Q1.) How do you connect with God?
God connects with me. The fact that I can breathe is God’s connect with me. What I do with my breath, my life, is my responsibility towards God. Over the last few years, after some immense loses, I feel God holds me by the scruff of my neck and pushes me towards things that are good for me. Even if they are tough, I learn from them and that I experience as God’s blessings.

Q2.) What does spirituality mean to you?
Spirituality to me means to connect with the spirit of the world. To find and practice a way of life that keeps the spirit alive in me and prompts me towards consciousness, thoughts, feelings, actions that bring in me an understanding of how to live in such a way that my time on Earth is worthwhile and engaging.

Q3.) What does God mean to you? Tell us about your beliefs and rituals you follow to stay connected with the supreme power?
I can not define God. In fact, God is indefinable. I have come to this understanding from my readings and livings that it is our attempt to define God that leads to our myopia about God. God is an abstract, a truth that plays out in our lives in physical ways. But the force, the power can not and need not be defined.

I practise no rituals except trying to meditate. I love going to places of worship because I love experiencing the faith that people bring to those places. I access God by being mindful of the purpose of life. I have finite years to experience the beauty and wonder of life. I hope to utilise that time well. Writing is my way of doing that, understanding myself, and I engage in writing every single day. Those are my prayers.

Okay, okay, been long. Sorry! I have been writing but I know I did not update these pages soon enough. I will try to be more regular … Here is a review of mine on a book from Bangladesh that appeared recently in Businessworld. Click here for story.

Khusro darya prem ka, ulti wa ki dhaar,
Jo utra so doob gaya, jo dooba so paar

The river of love, flows in reverse,
he who enters drowns, who drowns goes across

Richa told me about the Amir Khusro’s Urs at Khwaja Nizammudin Dargah. I reached and, as is the custom, I went into the sanctum sanctorum. When I was coming out a lady handed me some rose flowers to place on the holy shrine of Nizammudin Auliya. I placed them and picked up a few petals to give to the lady but she had vanished. I took them to Amir Khusro’s mazhar and thought of it as pollination.

The quawalli singing was not too great.

‘After all,’ said Manas, ‘we have now heard Nusret.’

I befriended Rahim the bearer of the fan. Rahim’s body is wasted but his smile and eyes shine. He fans people and begs for their grace, in the form of money. When he came to me, I refused to pay. ‘You get food at the Dargah kitchen. Why do you need money? To inject yourself?’

He smiled mischievously. When I was leaving to take an office conference call he gave me a full hug.

I anyway wanted to leave. The eyes I had seen all evening were getting to me. They were so familiar. They reminded me of the two pairs of eyes I had seen until a few years back. One full of search, other full of mistrust. Both looking for acceptance, the kind the quawalli listeners perhaps find at the Dargah of Nizammudin Chisti. Ulti is ki dhaar. The river of love flows in reverse.

I took the call from my car. Behind it were a couple of transgendered people arguing about something. I could not go and tell them to stop chattering. That I was taking part in an important meeting. During the call a group of drunken men came and parked their wobbly car with a screech. I thanked my stars my phone was on mute.

When I was finishing I saw two men approach a group of people sleeping on the roadside and search for money on them. My call was more important than the robbery. I stayed put in my safe car.

When I finished the call I again went in to listen to more singing. A big, burly man was being teased by small children. He obviously could not afford to chase them away and was shouting loudly. When I neared him he put out his hand in front of me. I held it and gave it a gentle squeeze. He smiled and patted my shoulder.

Chhaap tilak sab chin re mose naina milaike
Prem bhati ka madva pilaike
Gori gori baiyan, hari hari churiyan
baiyan pakar dhar linhi re mose naina milaike
Bal bal joon main tore rang rajva
Apni si kar linhi re mose naina milaike
Khusro Nijam ke bal bal jaiye
Mohe suhagan kinhi re mose naina milaike
Bat atham keh dini re mose naina milaike

You’ve taken away my looks, my identity, by just a glance.
You’ve intoxicated me by just a glance;
My fair, delicate wrists with green bangles in them,
Have been held tightly by you with just a glance.
I give my life to you, Oh my cloth-dyer,
You’ve dyed me in yourself, by just a glance.
I give my whole life to you Oh, Nijam,
You’ve made me your bride, by just a glance.

I left the Dargah past midnight, full of those eyes I had seen all evening: searching for forgiveness, for kindness, for being able to rise above their mistrust, for love. I hope I can go to the Urs again next year.