I am the crow.

Once I was walking in the park nearby. The crows - the infamous, politically-opinionated, self-absorbed Karachi ravens - had arranged a cacophonous opera. As I walked under a particularly noisy assembly of these black artists perched on a naked tree, I realized: for all the sound that they are creating, it is only because I have ears that I can hear.

No ears. No sound.

All that we see, hear, sense depends upon our own faculty of reception. All that we absorb from the environment depends upon us. That means at least two things: first, what we are largely depends upon us, since we chose our learning by letting certain things in, and blocking other things out. The second thing is that, in a way, the sound of the crow is in us.

No ears, no sound. My ears are therefore part of the whole orchestration. No audience, no opera. This is what I learnt in theater studies: the audience is as much a part of the play as the actors and directors. If the audience refuse to suspend their disbelief (and instead enter the story, the act, the play), you have no play. For the play to be successful, the actors and the audience both have to enter the make-belief world together.

And this means so, so many things. Any mindful awareness, any moment of truth, any reality - means so many things. It's like getting to know Oxygen and all that it means...