The Niagara Experience

Straddling international borders between USA and Canada is a body of water well known all over as one of the natural wonders of the world. I am talking about Niagara Falls of course and the collective waters flowing down the Niagara River actually form the highest flow rate of any other such waterfall around the world. The stupendous sight with its rhythmic resonance comes in the wake of a sheer vertical drop of over 165 feet!

It is the upkeep of these renowned waterfalls that also drew my attention. Decidedly the beauty of the vertical waterscape attracts tourists by the hoards iand it is the challenge of engaging the recreational crowd to remain disciplined to the surroundings that leaves me nonplussed. While maintaining the pristine sanctity of the place, it is the stark cleanliness all around that leaves me overwhelmed.

One cannot but find it equally appealing to see the spotless surroundings clear of ravages of time. Actually it was after the 18th century when tourism began gaining popularity that the Falls became the area’s main industry. And to have maintained the pristine immaculate naturalness of the surroundings is nothing short of a miracle. The New World discovered not quite far back in time had the original inhabitants also respecting nature in all its form.

As a tourist from India it all appears to be a gigantic achievement for my senses. The onus of responsibility I believe has been as much by careful stewardship of the authorities as by the public helping maintain the aquatic environment to be clean and uncontaminated. It is unbelievable that nearly 12 million annual visitors arrive here. The Maid of the Mist that was launched in 1846 first as an actual ferry service has since 1854 operated as a tourist attraction.  

We in India might gloat about our six thousand year history but when it comes to conserving our natural resources we have a lesson or two to learn. When I look back at our attempts at saving the Ganges River from contamination I am at a loss, for all our fervor. Not for them the religiosity hype that we associate with our ancient rivers. It is hands on action and discipline that has the River distinctively clean despite the huge tourist influx. Preservation efforts take care of the natural beauty and despite the regular tourist accoutrements the River and the Falls remain clean and pristine to this day. 

Energy Suckers

Being rubbed off the wrong way on a daily basis is not the best of situations. You come across bright, intelligent people allowing themselves to be demeaned all the time. Being subject to insensitivity and deprecation may soon start to touch one with the self-same dark negativity. Drained of all emotional energy the mind stops smiling.

Negative behavior is a learned attribute and starts reflecting when one is subject to it. Just as positive people rub off their affirmative energy so do negative people alter your psyche if you are not too careful. They are the kinds who can drill you down with their trickery and antagonism. More often than not they are your own kith and kin! 

There are layers and layers to the personality of seemingly normal people indulging in such offensive interactions. Coming across superficially as nice people to others, they reserve their insidious tactics to attempt to bring you down. Never realizing that you may be too strong for them. Of course this kind of envious breed may eventually prove to be destructive and hard to deal with.

Also, they can have an extremely negative effect on your thinking and behavior. They actually cause such intense stress that life appears out of sync. Such situations can last a lifetime if you do not gain the awareness that you need to mend the situation. And worse, such psychological victimization is often compounded by their attempts to make it appear to be the other parties fault. It’s not! Find your own spaces – internally and spatially.

Ensuing feelings often cause misery and disgust. The energy suckers of course do not see anything wrong.  For them it simply means you're wrong and they are right. Often such people do not respect other people's boundaries. It then becomes essential to defend yourself from this type of person or the situation will get much worse with you being harmed even more. And bear this out – they tend to show different sides of their behavior to different people.

Yes, such people are deceptive and manipulative all the time. A characteristic trait they have is that they tend to project their own wrong doings on to someone else. They create a wall between other people as well. Coping mechanisms are therefore essential to be able to develop survival skills as you may be constantly subject to more harassment.

It's a powerful moment when your perspective suddenly changes and you realize just how you have been cheated. You were actually manipulated and conned by such people. You do need to learn to take effective action for your own well being and sanity. Your own native intelligence will come up with plentiful tips to help you deal with them. But impacting them upfront is the best way forward.

Honing An Intuitive Mind

I wish I’d been more heedful of my dreams and stood my ground for believing in them. I am actually talking of visions that we experience while sleeping at night. Looking back I realize my dreams have always been key communications from the sub-consciousness throughout my life. And that intuitive insight has been coming like revelations, as I remember them now.

Often uncanny dreams have given me glimpses of my own future. As also the futures of people close to me. I have had vivid dreams of incidents that actually occurred later.  Not that I did not pay attention to my dreams as a child for I remember narrating them accurately each morning to an amused family. However I went remiss in disregarding these nightly nudges for my own good.

While seeing deceased family members in dreams offers a strange kind of joy and comfort, I can be sure of gaining some intuitive guidance. I have learnt to trust their presence in my dreams over the years. They often provide a preview of things to come by enlightening me of upcoming events. At best they are a source of distinctive guidance, to wait and watch.

While I am often imperceptive to clairvoyance during daytime, it is the stillness of night hours perhaps that makes me receptive to another world out there. My predictive dreams are certainly more than I can fathom. To my mind these intuitive visualizations allow me to acquire inferences that offer clarity for the way ahead and are therefore a psychic means for my soul.

My submerged consciousness has enabled me to move on from one point in life to another. An intuitive voice speaks to me through dreams providing direction, guidance and even warnings. These dreams let me get directly in touch with subliminal sources to unravel perceptions beyond my comprehension. Strangely I remember a good many of such extraordinary dreams to this day.

With a large body of dream-experiences, many of them haunt me for their seemingly prophetic nature. I wonder if it is really God who delivers them as postulated by Aristotle in his On Divination in Sleep, where he mentions "the fact that those to whom he sends them are not the best and wisest, but merely commonplace persons."

Research in this area has Freud too recognizing the seriousness of parapsychology to such phenomena. I will just go with Einstein in this when he says “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift” and continue to dream with belief and regard. My intuitive mind will then continue to trust the vibes and discover meanings in order to act on messages that teach me to transform my life.

Time Warped Dreams

It happens very rarely to me. Waking up at unearthly early morning hours. This dawn had a calming hush despite the hum of usually inaudible rumblings of gadgetry reverberating with their distinct resonance. Yet I lay enveloped in a warm kind of lull around me. A faint footfall upstairs or rustling out the window informed me of morning creatures up and about.

What really woke me up was this dream of wandering around the huge inner courtyard of my grandfather’s house that has long since been pulled down. I could see the white columns; the smooth  steps on two sides leading up to covered verandahs as also brick-lined pathways on the sides. Through the tall grill doorway I was seeing the checkered floor of the gallery beyond.

The square green courtyard with the tulsi planter at the center and the clothes line to one side. I could almost smell the cow-pen too! The three mango trees at the far end stood tall as did the bael, kathal and amla. The grape vines clung on to terrace walls atop. Walking towards the sizable pooja room I saw people chanting an aarti.

Joining in with the group of whom I only recognize my father, I simply stared ahead at the white, floor-to-ceiling carved niches where familiar deities stood in their usual spots on the wider middle alcove. The side recesses held Godly pictures along with copies of brown hard-back scriptures and even a bunch of Kalyan magazines!

It appears as if I have been in a time warp. As if a sliver of a childhood just flashed back to flood my memories awash.  I woke instantly and lay awake wrapped in the backtracking of the mind in sleep. I smile as this flashback trance allowed me to live in a time gone by. The best thing was I was revisiting a real past that is but a remembrance now. Oddly this was a fun dream that had me quizzing myself – why do we have to live so many worlds altogether.   

Leaves are FALLing

It’s that off-beat time of the year when you are neither here nor there. Right out of summers shadow the autumnal atmosphere forebodes the onset of winters ahead. But for now the sun shines even though right under the orbs glare the air is nippy with a nice bite that has you reaching out for the woollies.  

The rustling leaves all around draw your attention as they gladly disrupt the quietude of the afternoons that all too soon will languish into frosty hazes. Once in a while the gray chilling skies cast their foreboding shadows and the heart freezes with the thought of winter blues. But for now crumbling leaves everywhere cover the ground in a maze of reds and browns.

The trees are changing hues. See a yellow there, a brown here or a red too. Soon they will flare up in unison in a riot of shades from limey green, yellow, ochre, orange, red to brown. This annual high drama has your senses reeling and I for one await it with trepidation. I say trepidation because following nature’s bizarre performance the scene will be pretty desolate.

Soon enough the foliage will be bleak and scary. Leafless limbs of dark shadowy trees in austere climes will cast a spooky effect on the landscape. With Halloween round the corner it will be time for ghoulish games to begin. Already pumpkin lantern faces stare menacingly from windows. Stiff autumn bouquets in brighter hues offer solace. Fall leaves continue to be perfect motifs for this wacky season. 

Going With The Flow

"Memories don't leave like people do, they always stay with you"...this song of yesteryear's has been playing non-stop on my mind for more than a few days now. Even in the middle of the cold night when I have to get up to go to the bathroom, it gets unstuck from some place and starts grooving off mechanically in my mind - and I 'm back to the gyrating rhythmic tones of this, aah now I do remember -- Tom Jones is the legendary singer who sung this in his unmistakable style.

My fellow contemporaries may well remember other of his songs like Delilah, She's a Lady, Say You'll Stay Until Tomorrow and of course Green Green Grass of Home. This Welsh Singer who immigrated to America quite ruled the roost on the music world with his wonderful performances and one-of-a-kind voice. Well almost. There was Engelbert Humperdinck who truly sounded like a twin soul. Well there actually were some songs that the both of them did together.

What had me wondering was that how come I, in the mid sixty's, in a staid little town like Nagpur - came to learn about these songs and singers. It wasn't the time of  television or 24X7 music channels as yet. My mind goes back to the wooden radio on the corner table of our drawing room. I think it was called Saba. And I recall mention of it being a German radio. I can't be sure. But this wonderful contraption had me tuning on to Radio Ceylon every morning to listen to delightful instrumental music followed by melodious olden songs in the backdrop of a constant crackle and static.

Not that the continuous noise in the background made any difference to the keenly developed ear for catching the real music. This radio - for all the crackle and static, was a real learning house that taught all of those beautiful songs rendered by dozens of mellifluous singers of my childhood. From 'Those were the days...' to "Che Sera Sera..." - a lifetime appears to have been sated by these early year's grooming of pop music of the times. And now as the years go on they seem to have the Daffodils effect on my mind. When all at once a strain of a long lost melody will take me down memory lane and I am left to wallow in the music of days gone by. And I am still loving it.                

Morning Mantra

It's a kicky kind of thing to listen to early morning walkers, catching snippets of conversation as you stride past them. Some walk in twos and some even in groups - guffawing raucously impervious to the bird sounds and the ethereal atmosphere. I for one walk alone - I change pace ever so often. And this is truly mine own time. Just love the lonely roads at this hour as you walk past people intent on redefining their sense of self worth.

One day it could be the GPO road , another time the road down Ladies Club - yet sometimes the uppsy-down Mount Road. I do change routes ever so often. Not for me the regular same old well-trodden paths. These are the roads of my childhood - walking, cycling about the high court circuits lush with tamarind and berry bushes and other foliage, that's all disappeared.. Yet there is good enough greenery here attracting morning walkers from all parts of my town. I am comfortable doing the rounds all over the place and even now I surprise my self with random routes that have me coming upfront with all kinds of people.

The pious bearded seventy plus man in his long gray shirt has been a constant for many years and whenever we cross paths he has started to nod now, as he goes by. Another aging elderly woman is now on smiling terms whenever we happen to chance on each other. There are few who carry religious music on their mobiles that perhaps helps them on. Fat young girls look the other way as if ashamed of doing what they are doing. Then there are those who are oh-so properly attired with the right accouterments as if on a mission. Well I'm on a mission too. I am planning a trek around the Mansarovar Lake in Tibet next year. And so I tread on.

It's the twosomes that are interesting by far. A mother and daughter duo walking on silently. A husband wife team  discussing banalities early in the morning. Two balding friends engaged in what else - political gambits.. But these two teenage boys had me smiling this morning as I heard one of them say "Racket change karne se game nahin change ho jata" meaning the game does not change if you change your racket. Whatever that meant, their serious disposition coupled with this early morning mantra got me grinning.

I could almost pitch this as some kind of a philosophy. Perhaps they were badminton or tennis fans and had watched a game the previous night. Its such bits of exchanges that have me contentedly thinking all's right with the world. They think therefore they are. As I walk on past Freemason's Hall, Japanese Garden at the foot of Seminary Hills or along the wondrously smooth clean road down the Chief Minister's bunglaw -- it all comes clear. Yes the game doesn't change even if you change the racket.