August Moon

The moon has always held mankind in its thrall with a magical quality and otherworldly charm, and I remember my mother telling us tales of the old hag up there, spinning on her wheel, looking up to a full moon. Sitting on a charpoy under the night sky, with nothing between us and the brilliant tapestry of the stars above.

Some say the moon rules over emotions. And the August Moon has also been named the Corn Moon, a time to lay to rest old hurts and emotional pain that might be weighing one down. A time to move on as one must, willy nilly. So therefore, a time for acceptance in the cool glow of the August Moon!

August Moon, Faridabad 29th August

So that's the moon as it was in early rising tonight. The faint reddish tinge of the early moon has been compared with freshly baked bread by a Bengali poet, writing in times of hunger and widespread famine. 

"Kshudhar rajye prithibi gadyamoy, purnima chand jano jholsano ruti!"  "The world is prosaic in the times of hunger, the full moon as if a freshly baked  pancake"  -  that would be the rough translation.

That would also be an extreme, of sorts. For the reddish moon, just over the horizon has forever been symbolic of magic beyond our mundane lives.

Early Moon, oil on board by Granville Redmond (1871 - 1935)

Unsaid

Wonder what your tears would taste
like. Sea green perhaps,
with a hint of cinnamon

And how your eyes would look at me.
Like deep pools of want, perhaps,
clothed in the blue of the midnight
moon

Wonder what I would say to you!
All that remains to be said, 
in all the three worlds,
words yet unborn

The Green Bee eater again!

Been an exceptionally sunny and bright day, such that the moment you step out of your house for work, you feel the wings in your shoes for the sky is the bluest of blue and fluffy cotton ball clouds float languidly around. 

And then, I caught sight of the bee eater for the first time properly this season, having heard its trill trill for quite sometime now. It did look at me for a brief moment, as you can see in the third picture, and am kinda grateful to it for letting me take these pics

Green Bee Eater at Faridabad, August 2015

Amazing, how beautiful these birds are, even though the thought that probably consumes them entirely is all about big, fat insects and I wonder why their eyes should be red, like the eyes of raptor birds. Once again, probably an adaptation to scare the insects into frozen submission. Notice the extended tail feathers from mid section. Must give them lift for those scoops and dives!

Brahm Sarovar and Jyotisar in Kurukshetra

I have gone past the little town of Kurukshetra so many times, but could not find time to go, see the place which every Indian knows to be the battleground of the Mahabharata war and the place where Krishna is said to have discoursed the warrior Arjuna in what is known as one of profoundest philosophies of all times, the Bhagavat Geeta. So this time, I was quite determined to explore and was pleasantly surprised to find even more places worth a look see in this charming town!

To begin with, I should say that Kurukshetra is not very far from the fields of Panipat, which witnessed three very important battles, the last battle of Panipat in January 1761 being exceptionally bloodletting for a hundred thousand perished in a single day. The epic story of the Mahabharata also has it that the war of Kurukshetra was exceptionally devastating in its effects. Even before, myth has it that the warrior sage Parashuram carried out his annihilation of the Kshatriya clans in and around this very place. So when I came to Brahm Sarovar, the sacred lake dating from thousands of years ago as the sage Prajapati Brahma is known to have done his penances here and a signboard stated local tradition of the lake being dug for the first time by the king Kuru, the ancestor of the warring parties of the Kurukshetra battle, I could not but wonder at how this place could have been a battleground in hoary time as well as the medieval times! History does repeat itself, doesn't it? Unless we take lessons from it ...

The lake is big, and this is the view from the middle, where there is an abutment that houses a Shiva temple. There is a gallery that runs all around and separate bathing areas have been built for the ladies. Another inroad leads to an ancient well and a huge bronze sculpture of Parthasarathi, Krishna as the charioteer of Arjuna in the Kurukshetra war. Legend has it that a dip in these waters during a full solar eclipse rids a person of all his sins (or hers) and such occasions witness a huge throng, eager to wash away their sins and as I suspect, all the bad karma that they may have accumulated. Can't fault an honest effort, can we!

This place finds a mention in the writings of Al Berouni, Arab traveller and scholar in the 11th century as well as in the writings of Abul Fazal, courtier of the Emperor Akbar in the 16th century.

Brahm Sarovar

You can see the dedicated bathing areas and those railings prevent you from venturing deep inside. Fish abound, fed by the devout masses and that is really an excellent way of keeping the pond clean. The govt has ensured a steady supply of water from  a branch of the Sutlej canal, so let us hope the place continues to inspire and attract the pious and the not so pious in equal measure, including an occasional gawker, now and then ..

 

A few kilometers away, Jyotisar. Temple precincts have grown around the place, under a banyan tree, where Krishna spoke for the first time about non attachment to action and the need for action at the same time. 

Entry to Jyotisar

 An ancient  shrine just inside the gates that is now deep within a banyan tree 

 

 And the exact spot as they say, where the first discourse was given by Krishna, aboard the war chariot of Arjuna. The place where he revealed himself to be the supreme consciousness where all action is fated to be, all beings fated to arise and sink into. Myself included, hopefully!

No idea what that box contains, apart from a couple of clay figures. Incidentally, this banyan tree is also known as Akshay Bat, or the Indestructible Banyan. One finds such ancient banyans in almost all places of reverence, including the Jagannath temple at Puri and the Buddha is also known to have given his first sermon from under the benevolent shade of another banyan tree. Anyway, the place is remarkably laid back and peaceful. One is allowed to sit down anywhere and wonder about the verses in the Bhagavad Geeta, or about the endless mystery in our lives.
 

As I found this person, going about his reading in right earnest, quite oblivious to the passing crowd

klaibyaḿ mā sma gamaḥ pārtha ...  this is the verse that comes to mind. Roughly translated, "Do not you tread this path of degrading impotence, son of  Prtha" ...

One gets strange vibes sometimes as I have noticed during these forays and in this place, it really felt like fulfillment. Peace and closure. It is difficult to explain but I sure wish you were here with me, for I would have liked to share the feeling with you in real time, 

Did not have time to visit Harsh Ka Tila, an archaeological site or Sheikh Chilli's tomb. Some other time, surely!

Neverland

This madness
Feral madness,
seeping out of the earth
defying reason, a red
pinpoint inside the
circle of pristine
white, otherwise

This madness
of walking in the rain,
of falling,

falling headlong 
into neverland

Blue Moon

It's been raining ever so lightly, a soft, powdery drizzle. Elsewhere in the country, heavy rains have been lashing the sodden earth. Thousands rendered homeless with all the dreadful miseries that come with flash floods and forced displacements. And yet, there is a blue moon up in the sky, one that has perhaps remained the same for a much longer period of time than us human beings have been in this planet.

26th July at Faridabad

30th July at Faridabad

The next blue moon would not be any sooner than January 2018. By that time, I would have had a move on and many other things would not have remained the same. Some things, maybe!

Of the many artists and painters who have depicted moonlit scenes, John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836 - 1893) stands out for his urban night scenes and his skill in the vivid detail, especially the fog and mist. It has also been said that his work is the only visual equivalent of the great epics of industrial change in the novels of Charles Dickens and Gaskell. His "Moonlight" is of course, simply enchanting!

Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 - 1900) was a Russian artist of Armenian extraction. He is known as one of the greatest seascape painters of all time. Here is his "Stormy Sea at Night" -