Multiple Intelligences

 When one treks a difficult route even in the outer Himalayas whose peaks seem to literally scratch the skies, one knows the importance of spatial intelligence. The unpaved road is very narrow, extremely slippery, what with the heavy rains the day before and the horse dung. One false step, and finding the dead body, too, would be impossible. The ravines are craggy, unbelievably deep, and there are wild animals. 

Forget the devotees who have to manage themselves. Look at the kandi-wallahs and/or pittu-wallahs. They carry heavy luggage,  human beings in a cane basket. It has a thick strap made of rayon and cloth. So they are managing their own, the kandi's and the sawari's weight on such a trek. These Nepali Gorakha guys are mostly uneducated. I met one in Mana village who was a B.Sc., had worked in Dubai, too. That is rare. Given the high rate of unemployment in Nepal, they take up this difficult job, unfortunately one of the best examples of spatial intelligence.

Here, safe in Pune, we might associate it with dance. Either way, spatial intelligence proves that there are very many types of intelligences.  Basically, 'intelligence' etymologically is made of the Greek roots  'inter' and 'legere', and the concept means 'to understand', 'to perceive.'

There are very many ways of this understanding, not merely rational, as is accepted these days. There can be emotional, visual, auditory, tactile intelligences, for example, and these can help in various professions.  Auditory intelligence may help a singer and an artist who plays a musical instrument, be it guitar or santoor. Visual intelligence may help a graphic designer, for instance.

Emotional intelligence, the ability to empathise with others, may help in every field, right? If you are a doctor, your patients would love you as is the case of Dr.Imran Patel of Ahmedabad, a paediatrician, whose youtube videos prove amply and most amiably how to vaccinate babies without making them cry a single tear! Simple sweet and adorable are his videos of the cute vaccination.

May be, developing as many varied intelligences would be the best way to overcome the threat posed by the AI! What say?

Pratima@ The shrewd and the manipulative may use emotional sharpness, like they can the body language, too, to beguile others. One must hence learn all such techniques to guard oneself against subtle harassment, right? 

Reg the weird call

 I tried reporting the weird call by the so-called, obviously fake, TRAI to 1930 as it was clear it was a hoax call. 

The response was very patronising. So I have reported the matter to higher authorities, with a willingness to share the recording of the hoax call. 

I am trying to report it to the gov.in@ chakshu.

Better to take immediate action so that the mobile number 91-8292589607 does not bother others, right?

Weird call

 Just now I got a weird call which I immediately recorded (the person was confused when I told her that I am recording it) that there are illegal activities from my phone call (now on the Kesari yatra, God alone knows who would have shared my number, right?) , and within two hours, my phone would be switched off. 

Well, is it due to my status today? It must have rattled some?!? Oh, yes, I kept the door closed till 10.30 a m. because it was cold. There were voices worrying if I was awake/what! Poor souls! 

She was asking me my name which would be obvious to TRAI, right? I am immediately forwarding the recording to the Departments concerned. 

So, you all know what to expect if my phone closed within two hours! 

Well, actually, there is an online seminar from a well-known platform this evening. I AM trying to get back to the pre-Yatra life ASAP! Well, the two hours threat!🤣

Pratima@Threats cannot terrorise the clean and the innocent. The crooked should know!

Stampedes

 The road to Kedarnath at Gaurikund, before the actual trek begins, is unbelievably narrow.  Three people cannot really walk side by side. On both the sides are small to big shops and hotels.  The horse-wallahs, one per horse, the doli-wallhs,  four per doli, the pittu-wallas, one per pittu are pushing/squashing their respective clientele on to and/or in to the concerned vehicle. As the clients are mostly unused to such vehicles, their awkwardness adds to the chaos. 

All along a stream of devotees is walking, their backpacks, et al, adding to the congestion! On the way up to Kedarnath, the lead doli-wallah, a young man in his very early twenties told me that this was NOTHING. When the "kapat" opened, he said, the crowd was such that everybody's feet was literally interlocked with someone else's.  Wonder of wonders, stampedes have not so far ruined the dignity of the place. 

When it comes to the 'VIP' Pooja at either Kedarnath or Badrinath, there is terrible pull-n-push by the poojari who are simultaneously invoking the Lord through shlokas and his devotees through angry commands to move on. Some of them refuse to, then literally the army men pull them away by the scruff! Imagine what the scenario must be when it comes to the non-VIP darshan.

The scenario is no different in the Pandharpur Vitthal Gabhara or the entry in to the Tirupati temple in the sanctum sanctorum. There is terrible spatial congestion, each devotee wishing to spend at least a minute there, the administration cruelly pushing them past. Fights, falls, full blast (in)human drama!

Why are there always stampede tragedies? Who is to blame? The excited but unruly hoards and hoards of devotees? The poojari's? The temple administration? The fame and name of a place? The last one I would not agree with because every local Mahadev temple, for example, follows the same pattern of near-stampede on every Shravan Somwar.  

I think, we MUST teach ourselves discipline and civic sense. There should be a proper row, no VIP darshan, one person at a time for a second, all that is to be offered to the Lord directly either at the platform by the administration or in the hands of the poojari, both of whom do the needful in the most disciplined way, and then hopefully the near-stampede possibility would be avoided.

Our temples are great. We Must avoid unruly and unclean behaviour. Neither stampedes nor dirty filth, absolutely the human contribution, and clearly the sore spots in a pilgrimage, can ruin their grandeur or holiness!

Pratima@Civic sense, discipline, cleanliness are the plinth of piety.

How to understand?

 Why do people behave the weird way they do? However much, and quite in depth,  psychology/philosophy/sociology you may study, however many great literary texts one may analyse, it is impossible to understand the crooked mindset of weird people.

No, no, I am not talking of Sonam (about the entire case, I have my own doubts though) or Poonam, hellbent on killing husbands for an absolute third-rate "lover" and/or "boy", though these days, it APPEARS absolutely difficult to decide in whom one such character is hiding! 

I mean the "malignancy" of the Iago-like viciousness of the equally straightfaced people. Let me give you a few concrete examples.

When Aai was really ill, literally in the throes of her last days (I remember it was a Mahashivratri, a holiday, so it has to be mid-March. She passed away on March 26.) two of Aai's relatives came to 'see' her. For whatever was the reason which I do not remember, Aai's Mavashi did not choose to come on that day. I had completed all of Aai's bodily cleaning up, etc. Those days, she had to be tube-fed. Thrice I had managed that as well.

Our comparatively small little living room had to be completely re-organised those days so that the 'typical patient bed' can be adjusted. Accordingly, the furniture was re-organised. In addition to the inexplicably 'joke-y' behaviour, the ladies were insistent, almost pushing me aside in a c(h)atty way, so that they could go to our kitchen. 

Well, I do keep my house in order. Even if, let us imagine, I do not, that surely was not the time to check up on my housekeeping skills, right? I have never ever done so for either of them, or anybody for that matter. I found the subtle crassness of that despicable insistence inexplicable! Incidentally, did they even once, at least offer to, forget actually, help me in any small/big way? Nope! Never ever at all, not even once!

I have another so-called close (the behaviour is always to make me feel as distant as is possible!) relative. Though i cannot even dare to think of going to their house, expect for a few hours, that, too, on designated occasions, SHE ALWAYS comes unannounced as if to tap/trap something. I always lock the main gate from inside, and keep the key at times in the kitchen. This lady would walk in, and directly go to the back door! One wondered what she would be checking/inspecting on. At times, one feels like telling such people not to judge other innocent people according to their own dishy/dicey behaviour patterns!

 Once I was returning from college. As I travel on buses, I always keep the mobile in the inner pocket of my purse. So I had no way of knowing that she was at the gate. She stays some twelve kilometres away from our place. But, it seems, she always (till that day I did not even know it!) buys her grocery from a Marwari shop near our place.

 She snapped at me that twice she came to the gate which was locked. She knew my college timings. She could have come later, right, to buy her groceries from that very particular shop? Or if she had informed me at least once in the morning, I would have come home in an auto!

When the Dandekar Bridge deluge happened, this curious person repeatedly phoned (in detail) the Mavashi (Mavashi herself told me so repeatedly! I refused to respond!) all the washing away of houses there, knowing fully well that the Mavashi stays in that area. Not even once was there a call or message to me! Luckily for me, that Mavashi's house was nowhere in the vicinity. So she did not choose to go back. I got to know at about 2.30 p.m. I rushed back in an auto. So Aai was luckily not left all alone. I have never understood the weird behaviour though.

Countless, literally countless, examples of such ridiculous meanness, but with a poker face, can be narrated. Each time, one tries to justify it according to some higher principle, though in one's soul, one knows very well the ugliness of it all. Once I cut my finger, and there was some blood. While chit-chatting on the phone, Aai told this lady so. She was expecting, God alone knows what. When she rushed in an auto, quivering with expectations, I was quietly cleaning flower beds in our small garden. I can never forget her fallen face. 

What could be the problem of such people? Why do they behave so? I always choose to keep quiet because any other alternative behaviour is not worth it. But sure does it bother a little! Anyways, I always wapp-message both my brothers about every activity, movement, departure/return of mine (even in the city if it is beyond 7 p.m.) in detail, and in advance. Moreover, wherever I go, there are always many, many people, and much worse for such cheapies, countless cameras.

Indeed why do these strange people behave in such ugly ways? For one thing, they must think that everybody else is like them, duplicitous, dicey. It would not hence occur to them that there can be clean, straightforward people who, having once known/recognised/understood them, would rather maintain a distance so as not to descend down to their level!  

But, at times, one does wonder if such horrendous, especially because subtle, but crass, loud and rude meanness is to harass you consciously/knowingly, to spread ugly rumours through half truths, to crush you so that such characters alone appear great! Well, who stands in their way? Surely not me! My path is never so narrow nor vicious!

Pratima@So disturbed I feel that I cannot even eat a morsel. I do not think God should be invoked for such people. But if he exists at all, he, too, sure would find such knowing cruelties, well, un-godly. Oh, yes, why give a bad name to the poor Devil, right?

P.S. When a patient can not hear well nor read often, the caretaker is in tough trouble about how to communicate. Curious Peeping Toms of all genders are, of course, free to imagine whatever their weird, ugly, cheap imaginations fancy!

On the "trip", there were two ladies who were so badly screaming, screeching, shouting, mockingly, ill-treating their very old, ill parents! Some blessings indeed! 

Ignoring crookedness completely is the best solution in my opinion. But for how long? Does one's tolerance get interpreted as stupid submissiveness by the shrewd and the manipulative?

In our lane, there are always these goonda types making loud comments about what God alone knows, because who cares to listen to such creeps? They do, however, appear to be paid to create that ruckus day in and day out. How one wishes one knew some really top brass in the police to round up such disturbing riff-raff.

Ill

 Why does one always fall ill after every major event? Well, look at me. I was absolutely okay during that arduous journey. Now, back in Pune, with brothers within a "call" distance, why am I down? 

Yes, I have got a slight fever, a rather bad cough-n-cold, and the tummy is growling a bit, too. Was I up to any excesses during the yatra? None, whatsoever. Unlike others who were literally wolfing down stuff, I ate minimally which anyways I always do. 

May be, it is the very cold wind on the banks of Alaknanda during the  "tarpan vidhi" at Badrinath.  After a head bath with boiling hot waters from the hot springs followed by the splashing of the gushing Alaknanda in full swing, may be, all the phlegm hiding in every possible alveoli chooses to come out, I suppose.

Well, that is the logical, the rational explanation.  Personally I think/feel that the phenomenon is more psychological. Let me see if I can explain myself. Well, for one thing, while busy with the 'act', be it a difficult travel, a ceremony at home, a prep for a decisive exam, one is on the alert mode. Everything is ordered, structured, in THE perfect mode. Post completion, there is chaos as the need for that perfect control is temporarily suspended. Right now, around me, for example, is a clutter of clothes, knick-knacks taken out of the travel bag, and yet to reach their usual destined place. May be, that lull after all that commotion is the switch on for all the tensions, hidden even from one's own self, reflected the (psycho)somatic way.

Yet another possible reason could be that the completion creates a vaccum. Till that point, one was preoccupied with the minutest detail, and in an almost obsessive way so that nothing should, as far as is possible, go wrong. Now, suddenly, there is NOTHING to care for, to worry over/about. Hence the illness? Remember, the day the exam got over, what with a week of the last minute check-up for writing two papers per day, one just could not sleep a wink, though throughout the week, you had been telling yourself that you would sleep endlessly after the exam?

I think, the body, the mind, the soul need a much deserved rest after the hectic activity. Rather like the restful death after life's long  journey is done!

So, bye for the time being! I think, I shall rest awhile.

Pratima@Every end is a new beginning.

The First Day

 Yes, it is the first day, finally back at home! After a rather tiring journey during which every possibility of each danger lurks at every corner, and surely at the back of your mind. In a way, everything that can possibly go wrong happened during the 'yatra'. Thankfully though, all that is good in this universe made it happen just a little later. 

My 'eventful' Yamunotri trek ended, and it started to start rain very, very, truly heavily. I felt immense pity for all the families with kids whom I had seen going up while I was trekking down. Well, the Himalayan rains are unbelievably heavy, much worse than the cloudburst that happened in Pune in the evening of June 12. Luckily, that day, too, the taps in the sky chose to stop/close at 11 p.m.ish. 

I had hence no trouble reaching the airport where I had to wait which was okay. Yet again was I saved from the terrific rain. After trekking down from Kedarnath, I reached the hotel, and the rains began. The thunderstorm was so bad that the next morning there were reports about a huge landslide at Gaurikund, the very first gateway to the Kedarnath temple. 

Well, the authorities would have managed to clear it up, but it must have been difficult for the next batch ready to leave the hotel. Similarly, the only traffic jam, not a very bad one either, too, happened while returning from Badrinath. 

All this luck, I believe, is proof that one is saved, supported, succoured by all that is good, just, noble in this universe if one is absolutely pure, clean, innocent in every which way.

With that faith and the lovely memories of the grand Himalayas, life begins anew!

Pratima@Given the first day of the Ashadh, inevitable is the remembrance of the great poet and dramatist, Kalidasa, whose works, too, have lovely descriptions of the "Nagadhiraj", that is, the "emperor of mountains", the Himalaya.