In Limbo 2

" It's a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;"                                                 John Masefield The butterfly stained with velvety purple and flaunting circular blotches of gold, two on each set of the wings, had graced our porch that evening. A butterfly or a moth? Someone's curiosity needed an answer. Its slim, smooth and longish body with antennae  concluding in bulbs presented themselves as ample proof leaning in favor of the former.  The butterfly with its dazzling wings, flapped and fluttered, paused awhile on the blank wall, casting a restless shadow. An efflorescence of alienation and anxiety emitting from this winged critter held the dull evening in thrall of its stroboscopic rhythms. A fat gecko, stilled by its own innate huntsmanship eyed it intently. Someone played god and shooed the gecko away.  The cashew tree swayed vigorously responding to the sudden gust of wind, and a cool waft overthrew the oppressiveness weighing upon th

The meandering road I have traveled so far, in and out of so many worlds, both physical and esoteric is behind me, slowly receding, fading, disappearing. And lo, just a dot now,  packed with infinity; a blackhole of possibilities bracketed within innumerable ifs and thens.  The path ahead goes through dappled woods. Tangled with birdsongs and fallen leaves, an earthy whiff  of simultaneous dying and rejuvenation pervades the air. Intoxicating is this intermingling of organic decay and invincible  life sources. I stop and inhale the sudden flight of a purple sunbird: its young  shadow toppling through the shivering branches of naked trees, laughing.  There is no defeat here, nor victory. Only a sense of being, going, of breathing and listening to the footfalls of a soul paused ever so sweetly in this moment. The television nextdoor spitting out the results of  U.S. mid-term elections which swallowed up 17 billion dollars have no reality here, nor relevance...this is priceless and eterna

 Our family time often consists of the three of us sitting in the living room in the thrall of cyber silence, bent over our smartphones. One can't help but wonder where this 'e-trend' is leading us to. A few months ago, the tragedy that  met a seven-year-old aspiring chess champion hit the headlines across the world, on account of his finger getting chopped by the robot he was playing against. "It has never happened before," the administrative body overseeing the tournament argued in futile self-defense. For, the murder of an employee by a robot-gone-rogue at a VW manufacturing plant in Germany had not yet been jettisoned out of the human psyche, even after a decade. Yet, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here to stay, as every individual's personal secretary. And it comes in the form of Alexa. Since several years now, the senior citizens in the western world have found in Alexa an affordable means to secure  loyal companionship  and dispel  loneliness. What'