The Elements of the Universe at their Best!

My day began on 21st floor above the ground level with a glass of water and a view of the horizon where the sky and the earth met each other with some grudges of waviness... probably the fight from the previous night is not over yet...

And soon I found out that they have chosen me today to judge who among them is the most "eye-catching"! Earth and sky were the prime contestants for the race... Sky took the lead straight away with a perfect mixture of blue, purple, yellow and orange... a very pleasant way to say Good morning!


Earth of-course is not the one to seat back and let the game slip away... it bounced back by the afternoon with some great shades of brown, black and red... showing how herculean it is... years of wind and sun and water haven't been able to clear the disciplinary lines between the browns blacks and reds rather embossing the lines of difference more clearly.


























Water came from up and down and right and left and north and south and east and west, playing with some of the browns from the Earth, catching some of the blues from the Sky, transferring some of them into green...


























with this Water and Earth came face to face to bring the battle to a new level... more fierce... more severe... more wild... creating bays and creeks at some places and headlands and peninsulas at some other...


Earth opened its core and show what it has got there... the red, green, brown and gray with the blackened sunlight created a series of views which were so alluring not to flicker the eyes for a brief moment even...



























In response to these scenes Water showed its magic... and with that highlighted that the mind blowing views created in the valley is the effect of its power to eat up the Earth with every stream.







































hmmm.... Impressive stuff, isn't it? Great colors... great shades... great combinations... great views... a real treat for the eyes...

But the elements weren't in a mood to consider my experience! they were rather interested in my judgement.

And this is what I found later in the day to say...

The most powerful... innovative... creative... "eye-catching" element that I found was none amongst the basic elements... but the one who identified the five basic ones... human!

why? and how? coz human have not only identified the beauty in the basic elements but also have succeeded in improving their eye catching ability... even in the dark hour when the eyes loose its capability of catching...

see it for yourself, how human has colored the blackened Earth with reds and whites and greens and yellows and pinks and oranges...


and how he has managed to have the beautiful Blue 'Paris' Sky in the Vibrant Nights of Las Vegas!


and how he makes Water dance with the synchronization of perfection on the beats he has derived to please his ears...


and how he has bridged the gulf between Sky and Earth with a light ray while balancing the Moon over the tip of a pyramid...


and how he has conserved the years old harmony between the Elements of the Universe... spreading the true spirit of its Existence and his Aliveness....

The Faces of Hand \m/

Knowingly or unknowingly we speak a lot of languages with our hands. Languages, sometimes alien to us! I was thinking how we do such things...? How we use our hands for expressing feelings and explaining thoughts and convincing unpersuasive and achieve unattainable! How we smile or cry or wink or motivate or sympathize with the hand movement! What do our hands do to make 2+2=4? ...and how sometime they can make 2+2=5 look correct? and how different faces of the hands come out for all these miracles or magics??

Well, I think we call these faces hand postures. Lets talk about some different situations in which different hand postures are used for different purposes.

Numbering...

How would you pass your mobile number to a friend who is on the other side of the train window? We use finger counts to display number or to calculate certain things.

Try the number 28347815 if you want...








Spelling...

Like numbers you can pass names or words with your hand as well.






Symboling...

There are many things for which we don't use words. There may be some for which, I suspect, word may not exist at all.

Few examples...give me a call... you rock... 'pluck yew'... Shhhh....hh... stop!... thumbs up... unity...

Pointing...

of course, we use hands and fingers extensively for it.

Expressing...

emotions like happiness... joy... pride... love... anger... frustration... sadness... sympathy... and expression like hooray!... yes!... you did it!... love ya.. with you always... go get it... I care... better luck next time... things would be fine... go to hell... shit!... boo.... hey buddy!... and so on......... your hands say it all... all the time before even you think!



Communicating Language...

Deaf and blind people use hand language as to communicate...




Playing Sports..

Howzthat... Cricket would be .... don't know what without swings and spins! And what would umpires do without the hand signs :|! ? And how would a pitcher know where to bowl if he has no sign from the catcher! and grip in tennis or for that matter any game... I guess football has less to do as far as hands are concern...





Playing a Musical Instrument...

Basically, thats where I got the thought of what different things we do with our hands...and what strange shapes we make using a palm four fingers and a thumb! I was fingering on my guitar and F major really made me pulling my hair with paining hand.. :(

Not only Guitar, many instruments use extensive service of the hands.. may it be piano or flute or tabla or saxophone...




Dancing!

Hand position and hand movement play an important part in dancing... especially in Indian classical dances... different gestures are made using hands in different 'Natya Mudra' to express specific meaning...


Shadowing...

Light can generate a lot of characters thru bare hands!!


Saluteing..

Salute in different institutions (Military services) are different and they are very specific about the hand posture and position...



Praying...












The religions, all that I know, use hands in one way or the other for the purpose of praying. So, hands do built steps to reach the God...


There would be many more places and situations where we use hands in different postures to create various gestures... but I will stop here. If there is something that I have missed and you can hit... go ahead and post it in the comments...

જાણે...

જાણે એ આવે ને શ્વાસ ખૂટી પડે...
જાણે આંખો ખૂલે ને પ્રકાશ ભાગી છુટે...
જાણે લંબાયેલા એ હાથનો પનો ટુંકો પડે...
જાણે સવાર પડે ને તારલા તૂટી પડે...
જાણે વાદળ આવે ને છત ભાંગી પડે...
જાણે દાવાનળ બુઝે ને મેઘનાદ ગરજી પડે...
જાણે અંતરે આવીને શબ્દ ખૂટી પડે...
જાણે કાચની કિનારે થીજેલું બુંદ સરી પડે...
જાણે મંડપ સમીપ ભાળી ઘોડો હઠે ચડે...
જાણે મીચાયેલી આંખો સામે તેજ ઝાંખુ પડે...
જાણે લક્ષ્યગામી 'પૃથક્' અધુરે અટકી પડે...

An Eye Opening Process…

Again a new experience… again something that has something to do with eyes and cars!

A honey-bee bit me just above my right eye a day before yesterday. It is a painful event but let’s put pain aside as ir has no role to play in this article. The honey-bee bite caused a lot of swelling. The result was that the next morning my face was one and a half tomes its original size and my right eye was totally shut. My left eye has some problem with vision so let me nit go deep into that rather concentrate more on my right eye as it plays the lead role here.

I consulted a doctor and he right away started the treatment. So, by the evening next day I was able to open my eye slightly. I was able to see a slit of light. Now here is my first experience… it is like what I saw and what came to my mind with it…

My mom was standing in front of me when I was trying to open my eye. As I could open it slightly, I saw her eyes thru the thin opening slit and darkness surrounding it from every direction. A sight of hope… but this is what struck me….

A scene from a movie called Mission Kashmir came to my mind. It is a bollywood movie. In this movie a cop kills innocent parents of a kid during a antiterrorist operation. Now, he wore a black monkey cap during this operation and the boy saw his eyes thru that cap. So, that the boy saw only two eyes in black background and that murderous eyes haunted him for many years…

What I saw were the eyes of my mom…loving, eager to see my eye opening…

The second thought that came to me was of a view in the mirror of the car in front of you. When you see in the rear view glass of the car ahead of yours, you could only see the eye of the driver… with black background.

The next day morning I was able to open it slightly more. So that was like a view from the windscreen. It was better than before…still there was an upper limit and a lower limit! But a lot of water was running down from my eyes so the vision was a little hazy…

It took a couple of days more before I recovered fully. It was a nice experience I would say. I got complement that was looking like a guy being punched by someone and I wondered from where Mohammad Ali got his punch line…

Float like a Butterfly… sting like a Bee!

9^th Jan, 2008.