The Sunflower Field

The train stopped with a metallic screech.

It was a hot sweltering afternoon of mid march; the sky was clear blue, fields of yellow sunflower stretched as far as eyes could see from the train window. Jas sat up wriggling his eyes and blinking at the field of sparkling yellow sunflower. Afternoon stupor has set in and his fellow passengers were asleep.

Jas got up, stretching his arms and legs. Might as well take a breath of fresh air outside he thought. Jas climbed down from the train. The train has stopped in the middle of nowhere. Most of the people are asleep , their windows shut to keep out the afternoon sun. Jas had a strange feeling of being alone in this train, even though it was full of people. Suddenly the world seemed to be devoid of sound or movement. There is no wind, Jas thought, that is why this eerie silence.

He waved irritably at the dragon fly which had come from nowhere, flying in front of his face.

Jas looked at the sunflower field that lay before him, the flowers in full bloom facing up at the sun, all in a row. He stared at them. Suddenly he noticed a movement in the field. The plants in the first row in front of him began to move. Jas blinked. Maybe he was daydreaming. But surely, the plants could not have moved. But there it was, the plants had moved to create a small path through the field. Jas tapped his forehead, he was dreaming to be sure. Maybe the path was already there and he did not see it the first time. Curious, he walked towards the fields. There it was, a neat way amidst the sunflower field. He was tempted to go further into the fields.

But then he must be careful. He did not know how long the train will stop. Jas turned to looked at the train, it didn’t look like the train will start any time soon. May be he could take a short walk down the field, Jas thought. He started walking. The sunflower trees were quite tall, reaching 2 or 3 inches above his head. He kept on walking down the field pushing away the branches and stems with his hands. He began to sweat from the heat. Jas halted and looked behind. He had walked a good 15 mins. The train was still there. But, the path behind him was gone. Jas looked again carefully. The path through which he walked was not there anymore, but he could still see the path in front of him. But surely the plants couldn’t have moved. But where did the path go? Then how could it have disappeared.

Jas stood thinking. Suddenly, without warning, the train pulled forward. He started to panic. Then the train began to move slowly. Noooo, he said. He ran forward, waving his hands in the air. Stop. Stop.

But the wheels of the train has already started moving. He broke into a run now. But the sunflower stems were thick and strong. He began to use both his arms to push the stem and branches away. But it was difficult to run through the plants. Was the field so densely planted before? He thought suddenly. Were the trees so closely placed? The train had already started moving away. He began to push the trees wildly in all directions. But they were like a fortress of green. He began to move his arms wildly. The train quickly picked up speed and disappeared in the horizon. Jas stopped, panting with exhaustion and fatigue. Suddenly he realized that he was very tired.

Jas sat down to catch his breath. His heart was racing wildly. The trees began to loom over him, sunflowers looking down at him. Yes, looking down, he realized with horror, the sunflowers were looking down at him. Or maybe he was hallucinating. He rubbed his eyes. No, still the flowers were drooping down from the step facing him. He looked around him. There was an absolute silence. Not even a single fly buzzing in the air.

He moved to the right of were he was sitting. The flowers turned right, facing him. Suddenly he wanted to get out of the fields immediately.

Jas began to crouch on all fours trying to squeeze through the plants. But the foliage was denser below, leaves and thick hairy stem stalks grazed against him. No, it was impossible to get through the plants. He looked up again. The flowers were still looking down at him. The plants seem to crowd around him. He could hardly see the sky. His heart raced. He tried to stand up. But his legs began to shake with fear.

The heat was terrible. He began to wipe sweat off his face and brows. Jas had a sudden urge to lie down and close his eyes. Maybe this was all a bad dream. Maybe this was his imagination. Maybe he didn’t miss the train. Maybe he wasn’t there at all. He closed his eyes and opened it; he was still there. He pinched himself, no he was not dreaming. Or maybe that was also in the dream. His began to feel tired like he had never felt before. It was the heat, he thought, he was silly. He leaned against the plants and began to rest. Rest is what he needed now he thought to himself. His eyelids began to feel heavy. He tried to keep them open. The plants seem to come still closer. The flowers seem to grow bigger. He did not care anymore. He tried to push the foliage away, but his arms wouldn’t move. Something began sapping all his energy and his desire to move. Deep down, a voice within him was telling him to close his eyes and not to worry.

Maybe he should sleep. It was becoming hard to keep his eyes open. His vision was blurring. He thought he saw stems twine around his feet, his hands and his neck. But he did not feel anything so he just laid there. Then he gave up and closed his eyes. The last thing he saw was the trees moving closer, so close that he could see sunflower right in front of his eyes. He could smell them now the flowers were so close, he could see the brown whorls, the yellow petals. Strangely as they drew closer the flower petals appeared dark red. Everything was blurring out-of-focus fast.

He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Carcinogenic

A spoon full of sugar went inside my coffee.
And a generous helping of hazelnut flavored whole milk.

You picked up the sweetener
carefully stirring the spoon with your long finger, manicured nails gleaming.

"Did you know that is carcinogenic?" I said.
"Well, my dear," you said, giving me your Greek Goddess look and pointing at my coffee cup,
"Did you know that is full of fat?"

Fate Monkey

I always thought that Fate was a funny guy.
It turns out that Fate is not even a human. Its a funky monkey with wicked brain. Even as I am writing this post, the Fate monkey is jumping from trees and making funny faces at me. It has been throwing twigs, stones and mud at me for quite some time and it has even snatched my food from my hand.
Not to forget the slap in the face. (ouchh!)
And now, again, it is planning some sadist plot , a joke, all at my expense.
(sob, sob)

So, fate monkey, what does your dark and twisted sense of humor have in store for me now?

Riddles, conundrums, illusions and projected self-reflections, etc.

The above painting is by M.C. Escher, a Dutch painter, famous for creating visual riddles, playing with pictorially logical but visually impossible. He called them the “impossible structures” such as the one above where featureless pod-people traverse staircases that seem to go two directions simultaneously. Eyes see illusions, but the mind perceives them as real. Slowly, as science discovers new frontiers, we come to think of our universe as one with 11 dimensions of which we can only see three (four, if we consider time). All the other dimensions are hidden from us, and just like a fish views the world through a cone we see the world in 3 dimensions.As was written by Edwin Abbott, the Shakespearean scholar, we are all flat-landers. We see the world as we want it to be, as a reflection of our own selves. When we are happy, the day is bright and sunny, people we meet are balmy, but when we are sad and morose, we curse the day, the weather, suspect a sinister plot being hatched against us. We are, in a way, trapped in our mind. We also perceive people we meet as how we want them to be and not what they really are. We superimpose our views on the image of the world we live in. Infact, the blue of the sky , the green of the grass is how our eyes mix colors. A simple optical illusion is that of the mirage, or the motion picture. Every movie that we see, gives an illusion of a continuous flow, when it is a conglomeration of images that our brain cannot register.Some say that the universe is a hologram and our existence itself is an illusion. Our notion of time and space is an illusion of our senses. The atom, itself gives the illusion of being sometimes a particle and sometimes a wave. As Heisenberg states, we can never determine the position and velocity of an object at the same time and everything has an inherent quality of uncertainty to it. We look at the railway tracks and in the horizon the two parallel lines seems to meet or even the horizon itself is a line that recedes when approached. Mirrors and glass project the illusion or distortions, the best example of which are kaleidoscope (creating multiple reflections) and the pseudoscope , stereoscope (reversing the depth perception). We experience the natural world through our five senses. And yet everything that we see, that we can feel, that we can taste, that we can hear, that we can perceive with the eyes, everything is temporal.

"Everything in the picture seems to be in place, yet we seem to be in a strange universe where water flows uphill. What is wrong with it? Well, nothing is wrong with it. It is just our minds trying to equate the lines Escher drew with what our senses perceive of the real world."

Would St. Valentine bless us all?

(Photocourtesy : somewhere from the net)

For those who believe in it, for those who don't,
For those who want to believe, for those who won't.............
.........whatever be the reasoning, celebrate, we must!!