The majestic copper pod
tree, with its golden yellow and amber tinted flowers, framed by the windows, formed
a living tapestry on my bedroom wall. The ground around the tree would almost always
be carpeted with fallen yellow flowers; like a pool of liquid sunshine.
At times, as I go about my day, putting away
freshly laundered clothes, burying my face in it for a moment and taking in the
scent of old sunshine and starch, I catch a glimpse of the tree, now shorn of
all its adornment, gently reminding me that winter is on its way. At other times
as I steal some moments, to tryst with my thoughts, curled up on the couch next
to the window, the tree quivers in a gentle breeze and I see tiny buds sprouting
up in preparation for spring. To me, the tree is a silent reminder of the seasons
slipping off like pearls, from the thread of time.
So it seems to me a cruel
twist of irony, that this tree with the brilliant yellow flowers which had so
firmly planted itself as part of my daily life, should meet its end at the
hands of another flower.
‘Vardah*‘ or the red rose,
that wrecked havoc over Tamilnadu and gave us a whiff of what terror feels
like, plucked off my copper pod tree like a jasmine bud from
a bower. My eyes still keep returning
to that spot where the tree stood, muddled
for a moment to see the vacant space, before the painful prick of
reality sinks in, much like a person who has shaved her long locks off keeps reaching for the hairbrush, to brush
the nonexistent locks. Impermanence seems to me, a grey hooded sorcerer, who
can change the world as we know it, with a wave of his mystical wand.
I have often found that most
of the unresolved questions in our lives, which often hover on self pity (why
did this happen to me?) tend to be like, being spoken to in a foreign tongue. You
can only respond after you have mastered /translated the language; the same way
the answers will appear before you, when you are ready to see them in the light
of your age earned wisdom.
‘Wabi-sabi’,the beautiful
Japanese concept of finding beauty in imperfection and accepting impermanence, seems
to me deceptively simple yet extremely difficult to follow in our daily lives.
The
act of being fully present in the moment and living it for what it is and not
how we wish it would be, seems to me a lofty task. The opposite of inattention seems to be love,
for I find that I can easily pay attention to something/ someone if love is
involved. It does not require much effort from my part to be fully present, to
be mindful.
So then, this
is it. This moment is all that we have. Everything else, the flowers and trees,
our feelings and priorities, our grudges
and agonies, the look in our child’s eye, even life as we know it today, are temporary.
This new year, let us get lost in little moments of mindfulness,
pay close attention to our loved ones and keep an open heart; who knows, we
may even find ourselves and each other in the process.
Happy New Year!
*Vardah: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/11/asia/tropical-cyclone-vardah/
