Mind Tales

Explore the philosophy of waiting, a quiet transition often considered unproductive and futile.     I'm sitting here, Wondering what I can pen down today. And, as I continue to wait, I realise something. The art of waiting. Simply beautiful. It encapsulates   the soft undercurrent  of anticipatory patience like no other. There's a tinge of restlessness, Precisely, contained restlessness. A hopeful expectation. Like, counting each second until your dear one arrives. The mind wanders. It drifts into divergence, Into exploratory possibility. What may happen? And what may not? But, it all the more tracks the same path. It runs on the same chain in a patiently restless wait. Each second is felt passing by. The rhythmic tick of the wristwatch is not unheard. It seems like  time doesn't want to go by. But in the enigma of time, We seldom understand but feel it quietly dissolve. Hours fly by but I can't claim that they run. And, as I wait in patient expectatio...

A short story. There was a diary before me. I heard a voice. It said, "Sadhan, write." But I could not. I picked up my favourite pen and flipped open the first page in the diary. It smelled freshly untouched by a writer's hands. The writer's creative instinct in me grew excited at the ancient smell that escaped the diary's pages and travelled to my nose, enlivening me. But there was a mellowed, in-the-background, melancholic nostalgia that hummed in the vastness of my mental space.  But I could not write. I was not exhausted. I had become weary of putting my thoughts down on paper.  Another voice spoke, "How ironic Sadhan! On the one hand, what you call the 'creative instinct', blooms life and meaning into you. And on the other hand, you feel weary of writing itself." I agreed to the voice. Living in ambiguous irony and mental uncertainty was usual for Sadhan. Remember, not a lack of clarity or ficklemindedness. Just something subtler and more an...

A reverie. It was a tree before me. Silent and watching. The trunk was thick and knots of bark twirled around it. It looked like it had been held captive for years. Its long, spooky branches extended far and wide. They seemed to be contorting in the air, trying to catch something but weren’t able to. They were trying to hold something that escaped from their gnawing clutches before they could even feel it completely. It, or the mysterious ‘they’ slipped out of reach too quick. A lost opportunity. I felt soft grass underneath. But it occasionally irritated me because I could feel it move. The grass, the saplings of life underneath danced to the wind. But without it too. And their harmless tickles felt dangerous. Like an attack. I could feel ants dot over the skin of my feet. It was uncomfortable and scary. But the feeling of life twirl to its breathing rhythms. I walked toward the tree that stood still. Almost lifeless but not fully without life. Perhaps, it had been full of life once. ...

A prose that clarifies clarity in a society used to the muddle.  Someone said the other day, “How does he have an explanation for everything?” He smiled and kept quiet. The truth is known by everyone, at least partially, if not a nuanced understanding. But some push matters under the carpet and pretend nonchalance. Nothing happened worthy of attention. But that doesn’t make the truth any less true. It is hushed over for some time. Until the day it catches fire, and leaves pretense and falsity ablaze.  Someone said the other day, “Why is she so argumentative? Why do her words cut sharp like scissors do?” She stopped midway, while cutting through an untested but all-accepted aphoristic claim. She spoke no further. Not because her arguments were personal, emotional, constructed to win, or because she had no more to say, but because it would add no value. One can chop fruits to make them bite-sized and easy to eat. But one cannot cut boulders with scissors the same way. Those boul...

A short story. Soch sat smugly on her cabin's special grey cushioned chair. A gush of wind shivered through a partially open window. "I'm freezing in this cold that only seeks to strangle. I freeze and my world freezes too." She paced quickly - pulling on her closed fists out from her sweater's pocket - and reached out to the window. As she shut the windows close, she fashioned a deliberate pause to observe the world outside her own. The forest. Quite a few silver oaks outside bowed, not to, but against the wind. "It isn't difficult to imagine spirits not just gliding around but also moving about the flora around them as they groove to their own whims." This instant her cat meowed. It had to - not just wanted - to say something in a language that communicated - at least with humans - through unspoken inference and sentiment. Soch turned around. A surreal entry into her cat's eyes made it known. Or, at least vaguely inferred from. But truly felt. ...

 Mind the silence. Live the silence. See for yourself the wonder unfold. The thoughtful pause between words of exchange, A lot is said with words unsaid. The soft rhythm of breath, A mindful inhalation, Or, even a rushed exhalation. A room of repetitive almost, compulsive chatter, And suddenly, it all goes mute. From reckless sometimes, indulgent participation, Programmed-to-talk bots suddenly turn observers. Awareness recenters. All pay attention to the undecided unanimous verdict of silence. But a few hold on to it, The quickly passing-by bank, While the others flow down with the river and drown  into erasure. At the midnight hour - Awake. Those who fall asleep now, Fall into the bottomless hole of noise. Noise - that stages pretense of substance, Of meaning, But lacks any. At the midnight hour - Awake. Listen to the Earth sing when humans have stopped shouting. Listen to the Sound of Silence. Gaurav Chandra Tuli

 A short story. Soham stood there in the darkness. It was bright enough only to see and feel the darkness clearly. He could see rusted bars in front of him. It was a dungeon. As he tracked a rat's scuttle inside the breath-scarce chamber, Soham embraced the melancholia of his captivity. As his arms hurt from the pain of stagnation, he looked at the chains that had imprisoned freedom. But who had really done so? He shivered at the stench of sweat, of dampness, of corroded metal, of leftover rotten food. But he only smiled at the smell of lost life around him. Why? Throughout the painful timeline of his capture there, he had grown accustomed to not seeing light outside. For it had begun to shine within him, like a minuscule bud that had been eager to open and bathe in the warmth of the Sun and gracefully groove to the midnight chills - under the Moon's soul nourishing presence.  A lonely child walked with self-garnered solemnity. It was a sandy path. On it Wind had sprinkled a f...

A short story. The sky darkens. I see flashes of lightning from my cracked window. The door rumbles as the winds try to overpower it. I can hear the familiar ripples of water. I know it's my stone bowl. I run to it.  My Eternal self smiles in it; smiles at me. It's gentle yet uncanny. His arms gently appear on the rhythmic surface and his fingers point toward the door. "Go." The doors seem to be trying to open, not because of the wind but because they want to. Oh, they want me to step out. "I am ready." I pulled out a knife I had kept inside the water bowl. My Eternal self that I could see on the surface did not disappear. It looked at me with a calming intensity. As the doors gently swing open against the shock thrusting of the raging wind, I can hear something. It wants me to, listen, instead. Not simply hear. It's a soft play of the piano. It's preparing me not for action but for the right inner containment I must invoke. And hold throughout. It f...

  A nostalgic homecoming. A dissolution of identity. The sea's windy rhythms pull me ashore, Echoes emote the home's felt lore. His breeze carries a quaint salt breath, The Sun dips 'neath the vast to death. The sand beneath the feet slips soft, His waves surprise the soles aloft. Into the sea a glee to stroll, Into Divine's abode - his call. I flow through the timeless waters, I feel silence, floating saunters! To the not known I move further, Ego falls to cosmic shelter. A note for literature and poetry enthusiasts for further reading: The first stanza is a loose composition of lines alternating between Iambic Pentameter and Iambic Tetrameter. The second stanza is a loose composition of lines in Iambic Tetrameter only. The third stanza is a loose composition of lines in Trochaic Tetrameter.  Gaurav Chandra Tuli