I'm Explaining a Few Things

You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
its words and drilling them full
of apertures and birds?
I'll tell you all the news.

I lived in a suburb,
a suburb of Madrid, with bells,
and clocks, and trees.

From there you could look out
over Castille's dry face:
a leather ocean.
My house was called
the house of flowers, because in every cranny
geraniums burst: it was
a good-looking house
with its dogs and children.
Remember, Raul?
Eh, Rafel? Federico, do you remember
from under the ground
my balconies on which
the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth?
Brother, my brother!
Everything
loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises,
pile-ups of palpitating bread,
the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue
like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake:
oil flowed into spoons,
a deep baying
of feet and hands swelled in the streets,
metres, litres, the sharp
measure of life,
stacked-up fish,
the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which
the weather vane falters,
the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes,
wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea.

And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings --
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.

Jackals that the jackals would despise,
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate!

Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives!

Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain :
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers,
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes,
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eye of your hearts.

And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?

Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!

Pablo Neruda

Purpose

I have been blue for a while now and that I have some time to ponder doesn’t seem to help. It actually has exacerbated it.

I asked a dear friend of mine, what he thought was the purpose of life. He looked at me like you would look at a particularly disgusting spider. Why do you wonder, he asked and I told him that since we are alive, I figured the primary question would be about its purpose. Then he told me that that was philosophy and that as engineers we need not bother about it. There are others who sit and think and write about such inane things. It was not up to us to do so.

I persisted. Being a devoutly religious person, he said that according to the scriptures, the purpose of our life is to do good, acquire ‘punya’, pray to God and hope to be liberated from the repeated cycles of birth and death.

That must be it, I thought. But then… The purpose of existence is to cease existing. We live so as to not live. Is that not a paradox?

Be that as it may, if my purpose in life is liberation, any action that takes me towards this goal is ‘good’ action and any action that isn’t, is ‘bad’. It may not necessarily take me away from the goal, but it is not taking me towards it. And these actions are to be avoided. Discouraged. Right? So how is studying engineering, or building a house or getting married helping me achieve the ‘goal’?

Obviously, I am such an idiot that simple truths skip my mind.

Duh! One needs to be at a stage of spiritual maturation where one has realized that all world is maya and then and only then would he or she renounce all worldly things and start working towards moksha. Not before that.

Oh! Spiritual maturation. That did skip my mind.

So, ok! What is our purpose now?

That’s the best part, he said. Since you and I are not in “the” spiritual zone, we don’t have to worry about purpose at all. We can do whatever we want. We’ll simply have to be good people and that’s it.

And what is being good people?

It is simple. You have to be gentle, courteous, generous, honest and just (Duh! Duh!). You should not harm others. And society has evolved some dos and don’ts and if one follows it and does whatever is acceptable to everyone, you will find yourself in the good people list.

Wokie! That was awesome man! You really opened my eyes. One last thing: What was the purpose for this birth? Don’t I have to think about it at all?

Haven’t you learnt anything? (sigh) You don’t have to think about purpose. That is the job for a later you. For now, there is no purpose. But if you insist on having one, we could say that we live this life, so we may leave a better world for the next generation.

For the next generation, uh?

Yes! One must work hard with diligence, get over 90% in the board exams, get into a good college, study well, get good grades, get placed (preferably by campus interview) and earn decent money. If you do all this well and get settled, you will get married to a good person. Then you will be happy and will have kids. And then you put those kids in reputed schools, take them to tennis and swimming, make sure they get over 90% in their boards and then get admission for them in a good university and pray for them to get placed on campus and once they are settled, find them a good husband or wife and wait for them to have children. Once you hold your grandchild in your arm once, you are so blissful that, it is as if your purpose is fulfilled. Then, you live out your life in peace and die. That is it.

That was so eloquent, I can’t help but be impressed. Of course I don’t think we are leaving a better world to our next generation. Look at the environment. We have screwed it up beyond repair and have a lifestyle that is clearly unsustainable. So I am not sure if we are leaving a better world.

Surely, that is not us. It was our forefathers. We are not responsible for what has happened to the environment. Anyway, I am sure our future generations will develop new technologies to make everything alright. It is not our problem. Why do you fret over it unnecessarily? You wanna catch a movie?

Paradox of life

A bit beyond perception's reach
I sometimes believe I see
that Life is two locked boxes, each
containing the other's key.
-- Philosophical grook