The Logic of the Illogical

What is a pond without water? A journey without a destination? Summer without mangoes? A funeral without drama? All of these may seem odd, disjointed even, but none are impossible.

One day, looking out the window of my car, I saw something just as peculiar: a door without walls. Stranger still, people were using the door, entering and exiting as though the invisible walls still stood, even though they could have simply walked around it. The journey continued, but my mind stayed behind, caught on that door. I wondered are we lock-smiths holding keys without locks, searching the world to build a lock that fits the key we already have.

Food is served before hunger arrives. Startups propose solutions to problems that don’t exist. We overlook the obvious in favor of convoluted conspiracy theories.

I once fenced off my kitchen garden. A wise langur watched and mocked me.

“Who is this fence for?” he seemed to ask.

Monkeys leap over it to play tag as they make off with the brinjals and cucumbers.

Squirrels dash across it, escaping with passion fruits.

The treepie swoops in for a maize treat.

Snakes tunnel beneath it, undeterred, reaching the eggs with ease.

The Selim Hill leopard, with its power to climb both trees and mountains, finds no obstacle in a flimsy fence.

In truth, the fence keeps out only one kind of creature: other humans.

We live surrounded by man-made boundaries, laws and norms that dictate what should be done and what must not. Some are legal. Most are societal. Yet this is the land of 'Swadharma', where each is accountable only to the self. Here, dharma shifts—shaped by person, time, and circumstance.

On my evening walk, the rustling leaves whispered a secret:

Make few rules. Most rules are made to be broken.

Nature itself defies absolutes.

Birds are supposed to build nests, but the koel lays its eggs in a crow’s nest and sings its heart out.

Only females give birth, except the seahorse, where the male gladly bears the burden.

Lights belong to the sky at night, yet fireflies carry their own.

To fly, one must be light, yet the bumblebee, seemingly too heavy, flies just fine.

Water flows downward, except when it rises as steam.

As I coax my passionflower vine to form a floral fringe along the tin roof, the honeysuckle grows unruly, defying my designs. Meanwhile, the bees follow their own rhythm, darting between the two, sipping nectar and making honey.

What, then, is freedom?

The wild, whitening pampas grass sways in the wind and offers its answer:

Freedom is the ability to think and the ability to dance to to the tune of the sun, the wind and the rain.

Most of our chains are of our own making.

I sipped on my cup of fragrant Dorje Jasmine Tea and thought it’s worth asking:

Did the wall come before the doorway—or the doorway before the wall?

Write to me at Editor@Dorjeteas.com

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