Four Little Paws

I am writing after a nearly four-month long hiatus. I was having one of those angry conversations with God once again. Certain events in these months had made me feel extremely restless. Living in this city had started to choke my innards as violently as the exhibition of violence outside—extreme levels of cruelty, silent suffering and pain!! I was feeling very, very angry and helpless.

Angry, because I couldn’t turn a blind eye to the brutality all around (I often asked, are all planets equally violent.... If not, WHY AM I HERE?). And helpless that I couldn’t do anything to make a perceptible difference. Even the choices that I had made in my life seemed so meaningless before the mounting violent choices of others!! I tried to write but no words would come out except for an overpowering sense of felt bitterness. “I can’t take it anymore!!!!” My innards screamed. All I could see around me was an overwhelming lump of mass made of material that looked just like humans but with brains that can think of nothing but “I”, “me”, and “mine”! Compassion, love, and empathy sadly limited within “I”, “me”, and “mine”!

More than three months passed, and in this time I went on a road trip to Coorg and another to Shirdi, watched Harry Potter, few other movies—old and new, the reality shows on television, wondered about different things but didn’t write about any! The trip to Shirdi was significant. Sai Baba of Shirdi holds an extremely special place in my existence. He is my guardian angel, and someone who shows me the path from the other side. I was in Shirdi for the first time for a long awaited darshan. “Why is the earth so cruel?” I asked Him too. “And if I have to feel sad every day witnessing the cruel acts of my fellow humans, how do I live....”

A few weeks back I received a mail from someone called Achala Pani and the contents were such that I went to meet her immediately. Very soon I was introduced to her world of street pups, street dogs, and abandoned breed dogs. I learnt how she along with some volunteers work on a project called Let’s Live Together, how they pick up abandoned pups and injured pups and foster them till they find the pups a loving adopted home. I learnt of stories with happy endings, of how little pups found loving human homes. I felt answers to my angry questions beginning to come....

Then I met Four Little Paws. I met her at Achala’s. She was squatting at the far corner of the room, a little hesitant and looking steadily at me with her little black-pearl like eyes. All of a few inches high and with specks of white and rust in her otherwise black body, she made a perfect case to fall in love with her. She had been found a week back in a gutter all alone—no mother—no body to look after her—thin, weary, and sick. A volunteer had brought her to Achala’s home. Little Paws was initially terrified of human touch but very soon her flawless little soul recognized a “secure” touch.

I met Little Paws when she was already seven days in a secure healing environment. She was only 1.5 months old and I was deeply touched by the innocence in her that had seemingly made her put behind the traumatic first few weeks of her life. She enjoyed chewing my fingers with her pointed little teeth and it was a blessed sight to see her hold a biscuit between her two front paws and munch on it like a squirrel.

I was sad to leave the company of Little Paws when it was time to say goodbye. Within a week I was informed that she had been adopted. Another message from God. “Now calm down,” God said. Hmmmmm.... “But I want more. I want more!” I said.

“You will have more.” God said.

I dedicate this post to Four Little Paws and Achala. They got me to create something out of the felt bitterness. They showed me the face of goodness from the highest echelons of the spirit. I wonder what Little Paws is called in her new home. I will hold her close in my memory as those four little paws that chewed my fingers and while at it, made me despair less.

Photographs: Courtesy Achala Pani

The healing touch of yellow

Before summer sets in, I want to post these pictures I clicked at a city park recently. Spring time yellow. I found myself gazing at the yellow all around me for a long time. The eyes felt warmed, the heart too. I was thinking how sometime back I had got interested in color therapy and had dabbled in it for a while before mundane concerns in life took over.

Saints and spiritually evolved souls have been depicted in print with a halo around their heads and bodies since as long as we can go back in time. Have you wondered what this halo, or glow, or light is all about.... this is the aura.... and, all of us have an aura which is nothing but the energy field around us or our own unique resonance. Sometimes we "catch" the resonance of others and experience telepathy with the person. But most of our eyes are not trained to "see" the aura, yet a lot of us can feel it. This is why sometimes we say we “feel” at ease being around with some people and at other times we are not able to trust some, despite the absense of tangible reason! Therefore, the energy field or aura is an informer of our internal states. The spiritually evolved souls with hours of meditation, have mastered the technique to read and interpret the energy fields of others.

I started with spring time yellow and digressed to the aura, you may be thinking. Not quite, because sitting at the city park with yellow all around me and thinking of color therapy and especially the therapeutic/healing powers of the yellow color, I was also thinking about the significance of the color yellow in our auras. Here I must mention that our auras are made up of the seven rainbow colors and their different hues. The colors change hues depending on our internal states. Now, I am no expert at interpreting auras or anywhere near to it, but I can try. Color yellow in the aura signifies spiritual energy and awakening in the person – its various hues signify various stages of awakening and inspiration. Spiritual people are fundamentally warm, genuinely friendly, non-materialistic, happy and content, compassionate, generous, wisdom seeking types, peace seeking types, and intuitive. If the color yellow signifies spiritual awakening and inner peace, it is no wonder then why we feel our spirits soar on a warm, sunny-yellow day and perhaps this is the same reason that the yellow all around me in the park made me feel so much at peace.

While aura readers assess the aura to diagnose a physical or psychological condition, color therapists provide guidance on how various colors in different ways can cure the cause of the condition. For example, the color yellow is used to treat chronic depression. A color therapist/healer will counsel the person with depression on how to use yellow in his/her life to full advantage in order to increase self-esteem, courage, and optimism. The person may be advised to go on a yellow diet or drink water in which the energies of yellow have been tapped. This is very easy and can be done at home by covering a glass bottle filled with water with orange cellophane paper and leaving it in under the sun. The therapist may advice using more of the color on one’s person as in apparels and accessories. The therapy may also include transferring the goodness of yellow crystals. Sometimes it is advised to have one part of an entire room painted yellow. Last here but this is not the end, a person with chronic depression may be guided to meditate on the color yellow. As in, the healer may ask the person to close the eyes and imagine being enveloped in yellow light. This is called visualization or channeling which is done to tap and source the universal energies within oneself.

Ordinarily, yellow can be worn in apparels and accessories when you want to feel bright and cheery. I have worn yellow to uplift my mood at times, and I wonder whether you have, too :-)

The Tomato Smiled

This morning as I was slicing up a tomato to place inside my sandwich, it smiled. “It” means the Tomato. You don’t believe? I too did not, but see below, it did smile. Please focus on the center.

At first, I did not believe the Tomato smiled at me. I checked the slice I had cut out before, I cut another to check – but neither had the same smile! This miracle has left me feeling good. Last night I remember feeling very agitated about the issue of “moral policing” threatening the freedom of the Indian women. This is no ordinary smile: I feel Tomato wants to tell me to take it easy, breathe deeply, and focus on the positive – focus on what we have, focus on our collective strengths, and never say die. I get the message dear little red wonder!