Spread the Love NOW!

The Three Monks – Wade of The Middle Way, Kenton of kentonwhitman.com, and Albert of Urban Monk.Net announced a group writing project called 'Spread the love NOW', where they invited readers to send them stories about compassion, kindness, & love.

It all amounts to spending life in the NOW living every moment to the fullest.

Further details can be found at either of the three links below:

http://kentonwhitman.com/blog/2007/12/21/spread-the-love-now-group-writing-project/
http://www.urbanmonk.net/233/spread-the-love-now-group-writing-project/
http://themiddleway.net/2007/12/21/spread-the-love-now-group-writing-project/


The following submission is my 2 cents.

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A Sense of Equinity
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Animal Cops Houston, a reality show on Animal Planet, showed a story about 3 neglected and deprived horses being rescued.

Prologue:
One morning the Houston SPCA gets a call about a few mistreated horses in a stable. When they go to check, they see a terrible sight. Three extremely weak horses were found barely standing in the stables. They didn't have food, nor water. And they were almost skeletal. The experts on that show said that it takes about 6 months of food deprivation for a horse to get in that state.

One horse, Playboy 2000, in particular was in an alarming state. He was the weakest of the lot. One could see almost every bone in his body. He had scars all over his body, which was evidence that he was beaten and tortured. His name was branded on his body, by using the most rudimentary methods. He seemed like he was on the verge of collapsing. The worst thing that the SPCA saw over there was, a barn full of hay, in sight of the horses. The horses could see the hay, but they couldn't reach it. This was the worst form of torture a hungry being can be subjected to. Imagine being hungry and tied up for weeks, and you can see plenty of food nearby, but you cannot reach it.

The horses, in their quest for nourishment, had gnawed off the wooden railings of their stables. It was pitiful to watch, and understandably, the SPCA people were furious. When they questioned the owner, he mentioned he owned one horse, while his father owned the other two. They were apparently training the horses for rodeo championships. It took all of the chief officers resolve not to smack that owner right there.

Fortunately the horses were confiscated and taking to the SPCA clinic for immediate treatment. The doctor, a lady, was shocked to see the horses in such a state. She was particularly worried about Playboy 2000, for he looked the worst. They immediately started the treatment, and provided food for the horses, but it seemed Playboy was giving up the battle. He collapsed in the stable, while still chewing the hay. A fully grown horse, collapsing down, holding onto the hay in its mouth for fear of letting go, and trying to chew as much as he could to survive. Talk about the effects of cruelty to animals.

It took almost all of the crew to lift the poor horse up and put him in slings, so his body weight could be supported by the harness. His legs were too weak to support him, and lying down would damage his vital organs. Some of the staff volunteered to stay back, and see the horses through the night. It was important that Playboy survived the night.

Miraculously he did. As did the other two horses. Due to the constant treatment by the dedicated SPCA staff, all 3 horses regained their strength, and health. The owners were arrested on charges of cruelty to animals. They were fined, the horses taken away from them, and they were ordered community service.
Playboy steadily regained his health, and was later adopted by a lady.

After a few months, the SPCA doctor went to check his progress, and was astounded to see the complete recovery of a horse who everyone thought would die. He was up to his prime health, well muscled, well fed. All his wounds had healed. The scars were just a reminder of the terrible ordeal he had gone through for many months. But he wasn't complaining. His new owner was treating him well, she loved him a lot, and he loved her in return.

To show the doctor, she saddled him up, and took him riding. It was tearful to watch him fully fit, doing the rounds, working his muscles, and listening to every word his new owner was telling him, trying to heed to every command.
He was a beautiful horse, and the owner mentioned that there was no regret, anger, or sadness in him regarding his ordeal. He had a big heart, he was very loving, and keen to please his new owner.

This story is not about the cruelty that human beings can inflict on creatures they deem lesser than themselves.
It is also not about the compassion, and kindness shown by SPCA to rescue the ill treated, and bringing them back to health.
This story is also not about the generous new owner, who adopted a tortured animal and treated him as her own, giving him a new lease of life.

This story is about the horse, Playboy 2000, so you better hear it from the horse's mouth.

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I would have loved to call myself Bucephalus, because I am fond of Greek history, and have always wanted to be the horse no one could ride, except Alexander the Great himself. Or I could call myself Nelson, after my ancestor, on whose back George Washington rode in most of his famous battles. But you can call me Playboy 2000, because my dear master, may God bless his soul, named me that. It's a modern sounding name isn't it? I like it.

You know, I find those ink markings that you humans apply on yourselves, very fascinating. I think you call them tattoos. My master must have heard my thoughts, for one day he gave me my very own tattoo. It was painful at first, but I loved it. It showed that my master loved, and cared for me enough, to name me himself. I was his horse now, and I wanted to prove my loyalty to him.

Our breed has been on this earth for hundreds of thousands of years. And for thousands of years we have worked with humans, helping them get along their busy lives. Humans progressed a lot because of us horses. If there were no horses, our best friends the humans, would still be walking on foot. :)

My mother use to say that horses and humans have shared a great relationship. She always told me to help & care for humans in every way possible. She also said that horses have evolved in the best possible manner. In the wild, only the fittest and strongest horse is allowed to mate with the mare, thus making sure that our gene pool evolves progressively, and gets better with each generation. My mother said I was the best of the lot, and I am proud of that.

I remember when I was bought by my master, a year and half ago, and was taken to his farm. I was sad at leaving my mother behind, but also excited at the prospect of a wonderful new life. I was bred to be a champion and I was going to be that. At the farm, I met my two new friends. Pegasus, who thought he was a flying horse and wanted to fly around racecourses all over the world, and Mr Ed, the Hollywood buff, who wanted to be on television, and movies.

I just wanted to be what my master wanted me to be. He was a very nice man. His name was Joshua, but Mr Ed used to call him Mr T after the famous boxer that he watched in one of the Rocky movies. I think Ed would have called everyone Mr Something, given half the chance. Pegasus meanwhile always day dreamed about flying and winning races. He was the quieter of us. I think he was fed up with Mr Ed's stories of movies and television, and was happy to see me arrive.

We were of the same age, all strong, happy, young horses raring to take on the world. And Joshua or Mr T's farm was our training ground. He told us that he intended to make us rodeo champions. Pegasus wasn't particularly happy with the idea of bouncing around, but Mr Ed was excited because he had seen television cameras at the rodeo meets. And his dream was to be on TV. I was just focused on being strong, and healthy, and do whatever my master commanded. I wanted to make him proud.

The training was rigorous, and it was uncomfortable, because I had led a very sheltered life till then. I never had lack of food, while growing up. My mother always fed me, and there was also the fresh juicy hay at the farm. But at Joshua's training camp, it was different. I think our master was not as rich as others, because our stables were not well built. He must have also worked a lot because he didn't come to see us regularly. But we loved him, and wanted to see him happy. I must have had grown fat during my childhood, not the ideal shape one would want champions to be in. So master put us on a strict diet. We were only to get a little water. No hay, or other food for us until we shed off all the unnecessary fat. But we knew he cared about us, because he had a barn full of the juiciest hay just 2 stables away. That was our prize for working hard.

Our master also beat us with sticks and rods, to make us strong. All of us had wounds because of that. Mr Ed liked it because he thought he looked like his favourite actor in one of his famous movies. I think it was called Rambo or something, where the hero is wounded, and sews himself up. The ultimate act of heroism.
I knew all along that all the beatings were just a test to see how mentally and physically strong we were. No pain, no gain, my mother used to say.

We were growing leaner by the day. Pegasus was depressed due to the weakness and lack of food. We tried cheering him up. Mr Ed even called him a fashion model. I think that didn't help, for he just grew quieter and quieter, until he would no longer talk with us. We also hadn't seen Joshua for many weeks now. He must have been really busy with his new job. I was proud that he thought we were responsible enough to carry on our own, without his interference.

The water had got less and less. And it was also getting dirtier. Mr Ed said something about TV shows of surviving in the wild, where he had seen humans trying to survive in extreme wilderness, getting by on whatever they got, trying to reach their destination. That's when it hit me.

Joshua in his kindness, had deliberately kept the hay out of our reach, to see if we made the effort to get it. We had to free ourselves to get to it, and that was our true test. I excitedly told the others, and all of us tried to free ourselves to get to the barn. We first chewed through our ropes. That was the first hurdle. I was frustrated that we hadn't caught on to Joshua's plan earlier. He must have been disappointed at our lack of intelligence. But he was still giving us a chance to prove ourselves. That was a good sign. I'm sure he was watching us from far, to see our progress.

After the ropes were cut off, we tried jumping over the high walls of our stables. But it didn't work. We had wasted too much time, and in the process got weak. Jumping walls was out of the question, and I'm sure Joshua would be disappointed that we couldn't jump high. After all he was training us for the rodeo, wasn't he? We started chewing through the wood, to see if we could break it. Our master was so thoughtful that he made the railings with wood, instead of concrete or metal. He was still giving us a chance, and I was determined to prove myself worthy of his attention.

Pegasus and Mr Ed had long given up, they said they were saving their energy. Even Mr Ed was quieter now. He said he didn't see the point in the test. But I was determined to prove my master right. I tried cheering them up by showing my progress, but they hardly even looked my way. The wood was hard, but I was still gnawing it patiently. I was getting weaker and weaker, but I knew I couldn't stop and lose the competition. I am a champion remember?

One day, I was still persistently chewing on the wood, but my legs felt weak. I was stumbling around. My eyesight was dimmer than usual, and my body was getting numb. I was extremely exhausted, but I also knew that my master would never leave us like this. After all, humans are a horse's best friends. I kept telling my friends that our master had not given up on us, but they wouldn't listen. They had resigned themselves to die. But I wasn't going to let my master down.

Suddenly we heard cars & vans stopping by, and people coming in. They looked like official people, with their uniforms et al. I knew that the test was over, and the judges were here to see our progress. There were also TV cameras taking pictures of us. I was sure Eddie must be very happy. He was on TV. The judges came inside our stables and started inspecting us. I was so happy to show them my progress, that in my excitement I stumbled around. They patted me kindly and went to check on Pegasus and Mr Ed. I also saw my master at the gate speaking with one of the main judges. They must have been checking with him about the competition rules, and to see if he cheated. But he was an honest man, he never cheated on the rules once. Our progress was testament to that.

We were then loaded in big trucks and taken to the inspection centre for a thorough examination. This was a big competition, and they were taking no chances at all. They wanted to make sure that we had worked really hard. There was a nice lady doctor who checked us, and led us to another stable. There we saw our prize. Juicy hay & fresh water was there waiting for us. I started drinking happily, and chewing on the hay. It had been so long since I had last eaten. I couldn't contain my happiness, and I fell down while still chewing on the yummy hay. I was crying tears of joy because I knew that I had never given up, even though my friends had, and I had been very sincere, and worked really hard. I felt like a true champion that day.

The judges came back in, and lifted me up. They knew I had worked the hardest, so as an extra prize, they strapped me in those slings so I could rest my tired feet. Peg and Eddie never got the harness. "See, I told you to work hard, didn't I? But you never listened." Some of the kind judges stayed with us that night, checking us, patting us, congratulating us on the good work we had done. A few days later we heard that our master had been asked to appear before a big judge, who gave him a "sentence". I think, we finally had won that prize for our master. We were so happy and proud. And we were sure our master was proud of us.

After a few months of resting, we were getting healthier again. My bones were not visible anymore. Even Peg had started talking again. Mr Ed was back to his happy self, because he had fulfilled his dream of being on TV. One day, the doctor judge brought a kind faced lady to my stable. She was very happy to see me, and took me home with her. Peg and Eddie told me that she was my new master. Joshua was just the trainer, trying to make me strong, so that this kind lady could take me. I was in seventh heaven.

I now live with the nice lady, she loves me a lot. I get brushed everyday. Good food, fresh water. Daily exercise. A loving home. What more can I ask for? Even Peg and Eddie were adopted by other kind people. I'm sure they are happy too, and I hope that Pegasus flies someday.
Meanwhile I'm having the time of my life. Just the other day, the kind doctor judge arrived, with the TV cameras. My new master saddled me up, and showed me off to the doctor. She rode me around the field, and I was happily trotting along, eager to please her and the judge. She was whispering commands in my ear, and I was doing whatever she asked of me. The judge was also enjoying it, and both were very proud of me.

Epilogue:
I love my life. I love everyone who has been part of it. My mother, Peg, Mr Ed, Joshua (I hope he won the much needed competition money, so he wouldn't have to work so hard again, and gets to build a better stable for his new horses), the kind judges from the competition who judged us the winners, and of course my new master who treats me like her child. I have become a better horse by the day, and it wouldn't have been possible without the humans. I know my mother would be extremely happy and proud to hear that her son is living a champions life now.

I remember Mr Ed telling us about an Italian movie he had seen, where the protagonist takes part in a very difficult competition. He is very grateful for being part of it, and passes all the tests with a smile. He takes each test as a simple game, and is always kind & loving to everyone. In the end, he wins the competition, and his son gets the big prize. I don't remember the name of the movie, but I have always tried to live my life to the fullest, in the same way, with kindness, compassion, love, and gratitude. And I know it works. Because I know that life is beautiful.

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Sketches

For a change, this post is not about my narcissistic attempt at being a writer. Here, I'm posting some of the sketches that I did in one of my previous lifetimes.

Being an only sheltered child, left me being at home most of my childhood. So I sought refuge in books, indoor games, and drawings. I was never good at drawing, and still am not, but boarding school gave me an opportunity to hone my sketching skills. I passed the Elementary and Intermediate Grade drawing exams conducted by the JJ School of Arts,Mumbai.

Though I could never get along with colours, (so painting was out of scope) I realised that I can use the pencil to good use, beside scratching my back, & cleaning my nose & ears. :)

I don't have any drawings made during my school days, but these sketches were completed sometime between the years 1990 & 1999.

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1) Diva (1990 or 91): This is perhaps the only sketch I have from my boarding school days. I must have been in Std 8th or 9th at SSPMS, Pune. A classmate showed me a newspaper cutting of a lady singer and I decided to sketch it. You can see the sketch, and the original to its right. Yes, I still have that old cutting. :)
It's a pity that my sketch shows the singer to be slightly healthier than the original. But hey, I was just 13 or 14yrs old then. I didn't know women gave so much importance to their midriff.

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2) Ash (1994): A then angelic, innocent looking Aishwarya Rai was just making her presence felt on celluloid, and I was turning 18. Nice motivation for a teenaged imagination? :)

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3) Rembrandt - Self Portrait (07 XII 94): I was in the first year of IHM, Ahmedabad, sharing an apartment with 4 guys, who would later become my best friends. (We even named our group from the first letters of everyones first names. Vivek, Rahul, Jitin, Mohit, Ashwin, vis a vis V R JAM. Cheesy, I know. But it worked, and yes, this was before the days of 'Dil Chahta Hai'.)
I remember bringing home art magazines from the British Library, and there I saw the dutch master, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn's self portrait. It still is my most difficult, and most favourite sketch. Sadly I can't find the original for comparison, and I'm sure this one is not a match on the maestros’, but it is my tribute to the great man.

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4) Elephant (04 I 95): Another sketch from one of the art magazines that I used to bring from the library. I don’t know whether it is an african or an indian elephant, though I would put my money on it being african, considering the size of its ears. Because of the dense population in India, and there hardly being any place for humans to walk, Indian elephants have adapted themselves by decreasing, both in size and population. The tigers and lions are also making way for the humans. I always knew animals were more generous than humans.

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5) Age (05 I 95): A wise old man. I was always fascinated by old men with long beards. There is something nice and wise in a lond bearded grandpa compared to a clean shaven one. :) No offence to the clean shaven ones though.

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6) Survive (11 III 95): This originally was a sketch of a black man (I can’t call him african american, because I dont know whether he was from america or africa). He was leaning next to a pole. Since I’m not good with faces, I had to erase his head, and add a macabre touch to the sketch. If I get hold of a coloured scanner, you’ll be able to see the red pool of blood.

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7) My Room (1996-97): This was my hostel room, during the final year of IHM. I used to share it with Ashwin. One can the see the bare existence that we guys used to live during college. The broom, the bags, the torn curtains, the broken mirror on the table. It all makes it seem just like yesterday, even though it was a decade ago. And the book I was reading was “The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Astronomy”.

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8) Scenery (1999): This was at the back of a Readers Digest. Probably a sketch of Venice. I’ve always wanted to visit that city. I am amazed with the idea of cities being built on water, and people using boats to travel. Come to think of it, Mumbai/Bombay also becomes the same, during monsoon.

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9) Skull’O Spider (16 XII 99): A colleague from IHM had once made a similar sketch, and I had to redraw it. So I did. Again, a coloured scanner is required for the correct impact of the sketch.

Recently we had a ceramic painting thing at work, and I drew the same from memory. Needless to say, my sketching skills have gone amateur.

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The End of the Earth?

17 XII 07 16:30

Recently I saw an interesting program on the history channel. It was called “The End of the Earth”. In it, various scientists were playing out, and describing different scenarios for the end of the Earth. Pretty scary and apocalyptic stuff if you ask me.

The different scenarios were as follows:

1) Asteroid / Comet hit:

Do you remember the movies “Armageddon” or “Deep Impact”? Just like in those movies, a rogue asteroid or comet will come hurtling our way, and crash into earth before we even know it. The crash will trigger off explosions of the Hiroshima kind, thousand of kilometres where it hits. Most people will get killed by the atomic blasts.

Those that don’t, needn’t feel left out, for the amount of dust that is raised by the massive explosion/s, will cloud up our atmosphere. The thick cloud of dust will kill most species by suffocation. Those that still don’t die, wait, more is coming. The lucky survivors will then face months of darkness, because the thick dust cloud won’t let any sunlight through. As most of everything on earth depends on the sunlight for sustenance, we are in for a raw deal. Months of sunlight deprivation, will set off cold waves. Plants will perish, water turns to ice, and animals die. And humans? Well, our tinned food won’t help us much here, will it? Welcome to Apocalypse.

There have been many instances in the past where asteroids or comets have come pretty close to hitting earth. Or in fact have hit earth. A similar scenario caused the extinction of dinosaurs millions of years ago. In 1908, a comet or asteroid, half the size of a football field, burst 5 miles in the sky above northern Siberia, in the region of Tunguska, and destroyed everything for hundreds of kilometres. (If you thought football hooligans were bad, imagine what a football field can do.) Luckily, no one lived there, and only the trees and animals were flattened out by the blast.

Had our celestial visitor been late by a few hours, it would have hit Europe or even America. Think about it.

2) Gamma Ray bursts:

Our Sun (or Sol as it’s called) is a yellow dwarf star in one spiral arm of the Milky Way. And Milky Way, our galaxy is but a small galaxy in the entire universe. The Universe has millions of bigger galaxies, consisting of billions of stars. And many stars are much, much bigger than our sun. Doesn’t help our ego, does it? :-) Anyone who claims, “My daddy is bigger than yours” will be disheartened.

Anyway, so as I was saying. There are many stars out there, which are millions of times larger than our poor old yellow Sol. These gargantuan supergiants are so huge that, our entire solar system could be swallowed in their surface area. And when these supergiants use up their fuel, they save the best for last. Scientists have proved that when a supergiant runs out of fuel, it collapses onto itself. This means, all the mass of the huge star will collapse into itself, causing so much density to concentrate onto one small spot, that it creates a black hole.

A black hole is that greedy glutton that keeps everything to itself. It swallows everything, including light. (And until now, I thought a black hole was that fat kid in my school, who ate everything that passed his way, and he was dark to boot. I thought the word ‘ass’ was silent, in the term black hole, and it applied to him.)

But the black hole can’t swallow the entire star. If you try squeezing a lemon tightly into a small ball at a high speed, you’ll find that some juice and matter will squirt out. Similarly, when the star collapses, some energy will shoot out in the form of gamma rays, before most of the star bursts out into a supernova, and later collapses to a black hole.

These gamma rays are like those laser beams that George Lucas used in the Star Wars movies, only much much much brighter, and lethal.

The flash travels at the speed of light, and it will hit earth if we happen to be in its straight path. The flash is billions and trillions of times brighter than the sun. The energy and radiation emitted by the flash will cook up and destroy our Ozone layer. It will then come inside the atmosphere and burn everything in its path. Those who survive will face acid rains, and harmful radiation from the sun, due to the hole left in our atmospherical armour, namely the ozone layer.

Needless to say, not many will survive, and those who do, will be toast, the moment they step out in open air.

3) Demise of the Sun:

Our friendly, life-sustaining Sun uses up hydrogen to create helium, thus giving out energy and heat. It does have a limited supply of hydrogen fuel though, so when it closes in to the final supplies of hydrogen, it will blow out to keep up to the mass that it has lost. And when it does, it will become a giant red star, swallowing the inner orbit planets, namely, Mercury, and/or Venus. It’ll come pretty close to the Earth, and when it does, any guesses what will happen? Microwave time.

The oceans will evaporate; the earth’s crust will cook, and melt. Humans, and anything living, don’t stand a chance, I’m sorry to say. You can run, but you can’t hide. The earth will be a glowing ball of lava. The sun eventually burns out and cools off to become a white dwarf star. The earth will remain behind, but it will be like a burnt out piece of charcoal.

4) The Big Rip:

Many people have heard of this phenomenon, called as “The Big Bang”. Then there was LIGHT. Our entire universe started from one speck, which burst out creating time, space, and everything in it. Scientists have proved that what grew out from one tiny atom has turned to be the universe, the space, the galaxies, stars and everything in it. And it is expanding.

A common analogy would be to consider a balloon. If you imagine the balloon as the universe, the spots on the surface of the balloon would be galaxies. Now if you blow the balloon, it expands, and similarly, the universe is blowing up like the balloon, and the spots on the surface (galaxies) are moving further and further apart from each other. Sounds fascinating, doesn’t it? If you wanna invade a distant galaxy, do it now. For tomorrow it will be further away.

Now back to the balloon. Ask any kid what happens, when you blow a balloon too much. IT BURSTS. The big rip theory claims that our universe will one day expand and burst. And when that happens, a dark energy comes in and disintegrates everything. And I mean everything. All the planets, stars, galaxies, everything will be shattered. All molecules get destroyed. All atoms split up and disintegrate. No more space, no more time. In other words, nothing remains.

Well what remains will be NOTHING.

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The whole point of the program was to tell us of the inevitability of our destruction. The message here is, we are going to die. No matter what.

If you were noticed earlier, the big capital letters at the start of every scenario above, spell into a single word. DOOM. Pretty good touch hey? :-)

My question is, if everything is going to be destroyed, if everything is going to vanish into nothing, then what is the whole point of us being here? Why are we born in this planet? Why have we been given a mind to think? Why all this competition, wars, progress, scientific endeavours, sporting achievements, business hunger? What is the point of all of this, when all we are going to do is die, and nothing will amount to anything. No matter what we do, no matter what we achieve, no matter how much money we earn. All our achievements, families, businesses, houses, toys, everything will be dust. And no one would remember either. Because there would be no one left to remember.

So is this some kind of a celestial joke?

Is there someone out there looking at us going about our fickle lives, hankering after things, and material objects, killing our neighbours for land, food, & oil, creating a dog-eat-dog world here. Is there someone out there watching us and marvelling at our stupidity, ala “The Truman Show”? Is this the real world, or is there something else out there, like the world in “The Matrix” or “The Island”?

Are we really supposed to be serious about life? Because I don’t really see the point in any of this.

What will I achieve if say:

• I climb Mount Everest.
• I become the richest person in the world.
• I become the president of a country.
• I wage wars and kill thousands of people all over something like oil, or land, or a bruised ego.
• I get various educational degrees, and land up in a multinational company, earning lots of money, and a prestigious position.
• I marry someone and raise a family, who in turn will raise a family, and the cycle continues.
• I work my butt off to make sure the family I raise is well sustained.
• I save, and earn more money so I can bling myself up, and keep buying more toys, like, bigger houses, better cars, holiday vacations, jewellery, gadgets, so on and so forth.
• I keep myself under a blanket of debt, (which I created to sustain my black-holey attitude about life) like credit cards, loans, mortgages, and everything else.
  

What is the point of anything here?

Why? Why? Why?
All that I know is I am going to die.
And so will YOU.
Do YOU have the answer?

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