Australia has been in lockdown for over a month now, as the most of the world. The novelty of working from home, posting isolation memes has started to wear off and people are getting into trouble with police flaunting the rules of social distancing and isolation. Isolation..think about it, in a developed nation, this is straight out of a zombie movie without people ever realising what they are going through. With economy surely heading to recession, people not sure if they will still have their jobs standing after the crisis is over and simply the fear of uncertainty is slowly dawning in for a lot of us. Is this the time for everyone to rethink how they will live the rest of their lives? Are you forced to think of prioritising and basically recalibrate your career and life as you know of? Well if you have been procrastinating and using lack of time as an excuse, that does not hold water anymore. There are surely opportunities simmering in all industries, areas with everyone staying home and pattern potentially settling in as our habits. As an example, I hear things like if you are looking for a change in IT Online Home schooling is one hot topic that seems to be rising above in discussions. May be it is time to bring out that idea you had to quit your job and start something out of the back burners.

God made heaven and earth, everything else was Made in China, that surely cannot be the case now, for many reasons as demonstrated by recent events. One huge basket holding all your eggs is definitely something you need to think about and resolve. And did the virus actually avert the third world war? Or is it laying seeds for one? Looking at the clearing of pollution, better air quality and cleaner planet, its not all doom and gloom then? Also hasn’t it brought us together, for most of us anyway? Unless unfortunately for those who are stuck with their abusive family, husbands, partners, employers. Or what about God’s cat and mouse game with most intelligent of his creations, game of life and death, I will create new ways to kill you, and see how you dodge the bullet on this one.

What about the macro economy of the world? How will it change the way we do trades, live our lives, consumption, and most importantly heath systems? As we saw clearly what profession is key to our survival. Boris Johnson said he owed his life to the doctors and nurses who looked after him during his ICU stay due to the virus.

We are still going through the tunnel and many say it is just the beginning, we are still navigating the turbulent waters, with virus floating underneath and hiding in the corners, ready to pounce on us or our loved ones, a dooms day, end of the tunnel scenario, but scarily not far fetched anymore given the number of skyrocketing deaths. Governments are trying not to alarm and rock the boat, and have kept the music playing so that no one panics. And we can speculate but may be still too early to know what is going to hit us next at national level, virus mutations or jobs, our mortgages, finances, personal lives and family. As the virus ravages and mutates race is on to find the vaccine, cure. Until then so called quarantine and isolation is just a waiting game, a wave of deaths up and down based on our common sense, to follow rules, to not infect others. We don’t know yet if there is light at the end of the tunnel, there probably is, there has to be, no tunnel can be an eternal horizontal hole, but just in case, yeah, we don’t know what’s waiting at that end, or in the next corner for that matter.

For a split second, a thought crossed my mind, like a sudden brush of cold breeze, could ‘God’ be a brand exploited since ancient times, a psychological exploitation? Thinking about it made me really look into the underbelly of all our belief systems. So let us imagine for a moment a full fledged God industry, totally congruent with what we know as commercialism, marketing, capitalism, socialism, complete with different key players selling their own products, brands, merchandise, offers. Come to Jesus, he is the only one who can rescue you. No, its Shiva and Rama who can do that for you. so follow us! No, it is Allah or Buddha or Mary and so forth.  They all said that, and the humanity is spoilt for choice. They all have their products and offers lined up, well packaged and ready for distribution. They they have their ambassadors, their models, resellers, vendors, debt collectors, promotional events, all carrots and sticks in place better than any company or industry ever known to men. Honesty is taboo, boring and joke as in any commodity line. All of them claim to have same basic elements – humanity, kindness, honesty, truthfulness and so forth. But all the products have the key ingredients highly processed, adulterated, diluted and as a result, very little of that remains in the final version. Instead of shopping malls they have churches, temples, mosques and monasteries. All beautifully built and crafted with very high ceilings, artwork, paintings to attract the devotees, complete with a beautiful model in long white or yellow or vibrantly coloured robes, long beard, beautiful face to draw in the awed and believers. Who thought trade and commercialism are product of recent and modern capitalism? We had it embedded, alive and kicking into our societies from long time ago, an awakening. Not only they take care of your needs in this life, even the post mortem is planned and insured, you will go to the gates of hell or into the arms of your long bearded handsome saviour based on their own criteria. What could be more advanced? The only requirement is you have to close your eyes of wisdom, you have to ‘trust’ and ‘believe’ them. Its like buying from a high end supermarket, the product is so candidly presented, wrapped up in such unescapable attraction, you close down your eyes of common sense, you basically lose yourself, give in, surrender. You don’t want to open your eyes, they would forbid it! They will tell you you need to have a total and unquestioned belief, in other words, be dumb, can not question anything they preach. And you oblige, because you don’t have to think, you don’t have to lead. You only have to be a part of the herd and follow,  easy and delivered to you on a platter. No need to open your eyes and try to make your own path.

And they can be proper tools to advance other causes, increase your influence, territory, impose your culture onto others, ensalve entire countries and civilizations, like East India company did to Indian subcontinent, like the mercenaries did to Indonesia and other parts of South East Asia, Africa, South America, North America. It was never only the product that could satisfy masses’ search for belonging, fear and obsession, it was a crusade, a religious duty to spread words of your God and in the process trample whoever comes in the way, colonise and brutalize, all valid, in the names of heaven.Yet the brand is so attractive and the beauty of the God figure is so hypnotising, the same enslaved ones do not have any problem joining the fan club, and become fanatical supporters. In short, brainwashed with brand loyalty to the point they are oblivious to their brand ambassadors and promoters committing most heinous of crimes like child sexual abuse, promote killing of women for perceived minor of offences, or crushing of your own culture and language, roots. Who cares where the iPhone is made or who made it as long as I can have it!

Lungs of the planet are burning, in Amazon forests. Some bloody loggers set fire to it. World leaders are paying attention, Brazil is on focus again, for wrong reasons. Luckily, Sydney is a city full of trees. The street I live in, is lined with trees and has greenery all around. I am eternally grateful.

But I love trees for different reason, and it has always been this way. I love trees, because they give us books. I mean apart from breathing the planet, catching pollution and making rain, they give us paper, which makes books.

From childwood, being a bookworm, I felt closer to books than to any human being. Well, being a loner helps in that regard. Books were the vehicles that took me far away, around the world, in the worlds of characters I could only dream of. They gave me eyes that allowed me to peer into the worlds of ancient societies from England to Tibet, modern lives of Tokyo to New York. I lived through the stories, the characters, journeys, treks, pain and horror. Who invented this miracle? Trees connect to soil, to other plants, animals, humans. They gave humans the vehicle to start what we know as the knowledge, wisdom, on whose foundations our understanding of everything grew, as we became the most powerful dwellers of this planet. From the trees, to paper, to knowledge and power, I am now able to connect the dots.

And I love trees because they give libraries, which are full of books. There was certain joy and pride carrying books from and to International libraries in Kathmandu when I was still in high school. The insatiable hunger of my teenage curiosity was only just satisfied by reading everything I could find in those libraries – literature, travel, sports, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, the story of The face on the wall in a short story from English writer E V Lucas, Rose from Tibet, Seven years in Tibet, and probably the most memorable were Tin Tin and Asterix and Oblix comic books. The British library in Kantipath moved to Maharajgunj. There used to be a Russian library in Putalisadak, a small Chinese one at Basantapur near the end of Jhochhen. The American library used to be at the heart of New Road, later moved to Naxal. All these libraries were where I used to spend most of my waking hours apart from schools, and shaped up my young mind, filling it with thrills, joy, sadness, happiness and just pure anticipation of what more is there! I was following top european soccer leagues – English, German, Spanish, French when I was barely twelve; in sync with the celebrities in tinsel towns in the US and Europe, the Rolling stones magazine used to be big back then too.

Other reason I love trees is because they give shade. Imagine sitting under the shadow of a tree on a hot day, with a cool breeze up in the hill looking down the fields in a remote village. The peace and tranquality they bring is something that cleanses your soul, the soothing breeze that seems to exist only under them is something I crave for everyday. Even one fully grown tree can turn your backyard from hot oven to a soothing cool sanctuary.

And of course there are forests. I remember walking inside the dense lushness at Cumberland forest in the NorthWest of Sydney while working for IBM is something I will always miss. Tall trees giving way to a lush walkways, hiding little ponds and bushes, it was a place for Nirvana.

Thank God for trees, the source of books.

Spending last few hours of the weekend before dragging your sorry ass off to work on Monday morning is a de facto modern life for the most living in the city. Today while flicking through Netflix, I ran into a doco about making of space ships and all the technical marvels involved. The narrator was unblemishingly showcasing how complicated it is to maintain the living condition inside the ship for astronauts once it is in the space, hanging hundreds of kilometres above Earth. All the air that has to be manufactured there, the water systems, the plumbing, the air pressure and communicaitons, protection from the heat and cold, harmful rays, travelling space debris and meteorites. It sounded quite a miracle such a thing could be made by humans, quite and achivement!

Then something hit me, forcing me to look up and stare at the ceiling. The earth has been providing this, almost effortlessly, for billions of years, for billions and trillions of creatures who come and go. Enough said, mother nature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trying to sell an old car could be this much trouble, I never imagined. Dodgy scammers, criminals, tools who never turn up for appointments or fools who can’t find their way out of the car park, they are all part of the journey. My weekend was done when this fool of a woman called me Saturday morning to meet at a local shopping mall so that she could look at the car. She turned up half an hour later, on my phone, completely losing it as she was unable to get out of the car park! All grumpy and pissed off, I had to cut short the meeting and walk away before I lost my sanity.

Then Sunday morning an old Middle eastern sounding gentleman called from Parramatta saying he could be there at 1 pm. The meeting was set and off I went waiting for him. I arrived early thinking of grabbing my favorite takeway coffee, I had some time to sit down in a local food court. I sat by the window pane overlooking the ice rink sipping my coffee working on my Mac checking some other potential car buyers’ messages. The seat in front of me was changing bums, from a Russian couple and their daughter to an Indian family  and some teenagers, in quick succession. The last character to sit in front of me was an unkempt dirty looking mid forties man. He politely asked if the seat was taken, I just gestured back its not. He immediately started a conversation with comments about the cold. I shot few words back saying yeah, the polar blast has been quite bad. He did not want to end it there and asked if I lived around the place. I said yes, and told him why I was there, I was waiting for someone to look at my car. To my surprise, he started to unravel his life story in front of me. He said that he is actually homeless, and once had a car, a house and job. He took me through his mental alley. He was apparently an artist and worked with quite a few indegenous artists, took on jobs painting street signs and art work. But due to poor health he could not continue and fell out, instead working odd jobs as construction worker. There he did well and actually became a low level manager. But his health deterioriated further and he could not work at all. And just like that one night, he found himself on the street, nowhere to go. He became homeless overnight! Since then he has been moving from one government housing to another, and currently in one where he could be evicted soon due to complaints he has made about the place – it is full or rats and cockroaches. The reason he has been given apparently have been his aggressive behaviour, unable to comply with housing regulations and threats towards the housing commission workers. He denied ever committing any of those felony.

In the midle of the conversation with the homeless man, I realised it was already 1 pm, the car buyer was supposed to be there. I had to call him back instead, just for him to tell me that he is still in Parramatta, his brother turne up late! No fu***ing message no apologies nothing! I lost track of the homeless guy dealing with this a-hole on the phone and before late, realized I was already on my car driving way back home fuming. Once my fumes subsided and mind cooled off, I suddenly remembered him and thought where would the guy be going if he was really evicted tonight! My weekend was screwed totally, but things were put in perspective. Life sure has a funny way of sneaking up on you.