Rubaiyats of Lote-Tree

Do you like the countryside?

I love the countryside. And I am fortunate that I now work a in a place where the countryside is not very far off. Well in fact it is built in the countryside after all! And I am also fortunate that there is a canal nearby that we can go for walks at lunch. And during summer it’s a double blessing. It’s not very far to the canal either. A few minutes walk and you are standing right by the wooden fence from which you can see the occasional barges on the canal, slowly drifting along the valley below. You can also see occasional joggers and cyclists too. In summer the sloping hills are covered with yellow flowers and fresh green wavy grass that bends gently against the breeze. And then along the edges of the fence there are purple thistles and white flowers of the blackberry shrubs. And in the far hillsides, red bricked houses surrounded by greenery. On the right, far in the distant, the dull white of the cooling stations with white smoke from their tops and stretching from the power station are the electricity pylons. From this distance they appear like tall giants linking hands to form a long chain across the landscape.

From the gate you walk along a tree lined path down the hill to the waterway. But before you go down the path you can stop and taken in the panorama of the whole countryside - the lush greenness of it all - and to me the whole "joyfulness" of it all! Yes joyfulness! The quiet beauty of the trees, the sounds of birds on the branches, the gentle breeze against my skin, the scent of the wild flowers and the blue sky above and the sunshine! There is something magical about nature and it always makes me happy inside; makes me feel very tranquil and peaceful. A walk in the countryside to me is soothing and relaxing as a meditation session. It makes me feel very alive. Even when I am feeling down when I walk in the countryside I feel re-energized, focused and somehow “re-connected” to the “centre” of my being, regaining that inner balance within myself.

As a child I used to explore the woodland behind my grandmothers house on my own and with my cousins with a mixture of fear and excitement. We used to go there to gather berries and fruits from the varieties of plants that grew there. I still remember clearly the first time my grandmother taking me through this small “jungle” to river that flowed beside it, to catch fishes with hooks. We ploughed through a wall of tall elephant grass on to the river bank and then - and this particular memory is still vivid - my grandmother pushed away the last of the elephant grass in front of me and I had my first view of the world that lay beyond. It was a bright clear morning and the colours of the landscape were vibrant. My eyes lapped up the scenery with joy. The wide expanses of the monsoon flooded river and the distant villages appearing like floating islands in the rippling waters. It was then that my small world became extremely large. It was then that my small world became even fuller of joy and excitement! It was also that day that my grandmother taught me how to catch silvery fishes with hooks and on that day we did catch quite a few!

The writer Arundhati Roy (of "God of Small Things" fame) once wrote that it takes an intelligent person to live in the city. I don't know whether she was being humble of her own intelligence or she was implying that village types were not that intelligent! But I am a nature loving person and I don't care whether I am intelligent or not! The beauty of the countryside will do me fine! And just like Wordsworth found the "spirit" in the landscape of Lake District - a "spirit" that is not of this world and yet it “lives” in the mind of all thinking things and the nature itself, the spirit that flows through us and inspire us - I too felt an affinity to this "spirit" from top of my grandmothers favorite mango tree in the woodland behind her house...