PARIJAT-19

The size of the land was insignificant by village standard. It was hardly some 400 and odd square feet of trapezoidal land. In ordinary days nobody will care to look that insignificant piece in squint eyes. But the egos of village have made it certainly significant. It is clash of egos. When that ego surfaces everything takes a back seat. No knowledge, no understanding and no rationality work. Somebody has rubbed the salts in the old wound. Let me perish or you perish or both. That is the conclusion. See the odd against winning. One fourth quarter against three fourth quarters. But let me fight. The land was located where two egos perpendicularly meet. Corner point. Meeting point. Joint point. Fighting point. Ego looks to ego in side eyes, yet to be head on, yet to be clashed. But see who the loser, an innocent is! An innocent who has no roll to play. But it shall be victim for its presence. Odd presence. Sound of illogic. Sound of anguish. Sound of injustice. But that remains fact. Children of lesser God are always the victim. Take any continental and monumental clash or to any street clash. You see the cry of innocent. You see the blood of innocent. Insignificantly insignificant, you lesser mortal!

This village clash had surfaced between so called giants of village Nayak’s family and Samal’s family. Nobody knows the reason of clash. That is not important for you to know. You are too insignificant to know that. It is important to know, realize and recognize that there is a clash. Choose your ally and make propaganda with a heavy and pulled face. No, no, that is not fare. The other family should have not done that. We are not going to let it lie like that. They have badly hurt our ego. See the “we” and “they”. You have chosen your ally. But what is that unfairness you are talking of? What should not have been done? No, I do not know. That is not important for me to know. That is for the so called to giant to know. Let me play my role. Role play? Ah!you lesser mortal. How insignificant you are ? I feel pity! Your head is going to roll in that role play when giants smile. Do not blame this obscure village of eastern India. Do not blame the development there. It only reflects the trend and development of world at large. Death of lesser mortal. Flow of insignificant and inconsequential light red blood of lesser mortal. Certainly it is a blood of different form!

The clash has encircled RajaniMa and her insignificant piece of land. A widow for a significantly long period. John has seen her like that from the day he has started recognizing the sun and the moon. RajaniMa, a village style of calling somebody by his/her child name. RajaniMa, mother of Rajani, a girl child. Nobody has seen Rajani. May be very few octogenarian might have. Rajani had flown away like a seasonal bird. She had followed her Papa. The daughter, Papa’s favorite. She had flown to the unknown darkness of no return. But till today in that odd moment of night when drowning moon resembles like a dead eye, the soft feathers of that seasonal bird flutters around RajaniMa, sits on her left shoulder and flies across closely kissing her face and sits on right shoulder. RajaniMa looks to her in eye of satisfaction. She is mother, mother of that bird. She mutters Rajani, you are so tiny, my love. You are not growing. Memory grows. Memory floats. Memory flies. Memory kisses with love of a child. But memory remains as a memory. A sacred and loveable piece of mental agony. Difficult to erase but hard to see. We wish it should quit but we cling to it inside a clinched fist ,never, ever willing to release it.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The development of that village road in the back side of her one roomed house located in that insignificant piece of land has made her certainly significant. The land of Samal’s family and that of Nayak’s family running perpendicular to each other end in RajaniMa’s land. Beyond that is the newly developed road. Who-so-ever, either Nayaks or Samals occupy RajaniMa’s land shall block the access for other family to the newly developed back side road. Territorial gain. Sign of supremacy. Who will lose this opportunity? But she has refused to yield to pressure. She can not sell her Rajani’s memory. Persuasion has not worked. Offer of moon has not worked. Threat has also not worked. She can not do that. She has seen enough defeats in her life. She knows the agony of defeat. She knows the pain of slow fire of that defeat. Nothing is seen from outside. It burns you from inside like the slowly burnt charcoal under the ashes. She does not want to see that on others’ face. She does not want others to bear that.

There is enough space available around her one room house. She can give access to both the families coming from perpendicular directions to that newly laid road. But wiser counsel has never prevailed amongst the giants; she too has never yielded to the threats or temptations.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is raining insistently. The sky above might have cracked several places. It is unusual in month of October. But this unfortunate part of eastern India is infamous for unusual. It is always unusal, extreme and abnormal. Extreme heat. Unusual rain. Devastating flood, cyclone and draught. It is also land of plenty. But nature has never been kind. Perhaps it is nature’s experimental field of destruction amongst the plenty. RajaniMa looked to the sky. It looks heavy as if it is about to crumble. She extended her look beyond. Beyond those cultivable lands. She does not see the brown color of earth. It is water, everywhere water. RajaniMa had a strange feeling. The sight of bushes of screw pine beyond horizon looked menacing. The long narrowed upward looking leaves of screw pine with those white tiny thorns resemble like a crocodile’s tail overeager to hit the prey. Is it her imagination? No, it is so apparent. It looks so real. It must be late into the day. The sun has not shown its face. What she hears? The yelps of jackals beyond the bushes of screw pine. It is strange. Is it night? The speed of wind is increasing. it has already crossed the limit the stream line flow. Rains with wind have taken almost horizontal trajectory defying the gravity. The strange feeling is slowly overpowering her, it is turning into fear. The fear she had seen in her husband’s eyes when the village doctor had pronounced the inevitable and impending ultimate. The flash of lightening followed by the deafening sound of thunderstruck forced her closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened her eyes she could not see anything. It is dark, defeaning, mencing dark with burst and sneer of wind. The branch of a tree might have fallen on that high tension electric wires. She moved up in the darkness to close the door. She was about the do that. The wind came with ferocity and speed of the water of an untamed wild hilly river. It banged the door with wildness of a drunkard. The door recoiled and hit the face of RajaniMa. It was a knock out punch of the devil. She fell backward twisted. Her frail, weak, porous and aged femur cracked like the branch of a tree twisted by the heavy gale.

The wind and rain have stopped by time she regained her sense. Perhaps it is the loll before the ultimate. Nature is perhaps regrouping all its ferocities to unleash that terror. RajaniMa felt a tingling sensation on her face, as if somebody carefully caressing that bloody nose. It is soothing like sandal of summer. She had not felt that pleasure for an age. The heaviness from her head is moving away fast. Who is that? She slowly opened her eyes ,still engrossed in that delirium of pleasure. It is short smooth strokes on her face.

Can the kiss of impending death be so pleasurable? She had not seen that in her husband’s eyes in that last moment. She had seen eyes full of pain of agony when he departed. But what she sees now? What are those two small glows of brightness moving near her face? Jackals certainly do not eat the live. But rule and law of nature is changing fast. It is a new taste. The taste of hunger. The taste of raw blood. The tongue is moving fast in her face. It is kiss of death. It is kiss of ultimate. Breathing choked in fear RajaniMa waited for that ultimate truth. The truth of ultimate call. It is time to depart. It is time to bid an adieu. For the last time she saw and felt those soft feathers of that fluttering bird jumping from her left shoulder to right shoulder. She felts her body getting lighter and lighter. Soon she will join the cloud. Peace. Death, you can not be more pleasing!----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John looked to that one roomed house of the past. It bears a new look. It has been extended to the boundaries of two adjacent sides of the plot. It is no longer one roomed. In its front, two roads flow in two perpendicular direction before merging into one and joining the common road. Some where from the branches of the tree a humming bird echoing the wish of RajaniMa. Two roads have met. The house has become library of the village. The old memory again resurfaced when John flipped through an old magazine of the library. It reads:

OCTOBER 29, 1999.

DESTRUCTIVE NATURAL CALAMITY IN EASTERN COAST OF INDIA.

48 HOURS OF CONTINIOUS RAINS .

WIND SPEED 300K.M. PER HOUR.

DOWNPOUR 995MM.

CASUALITIES-20,000

John could not read further. The memory of RajaniMa blinded him. In the corner of library two girls started giggling. In swift and deft hands of promising artists they have drawn some hopes of future:

GREEN FAIRY OF HOPE.

WARM HEARTED GREEN EYE.

PUSSY THE STAR GASER

BUN CHECK, PETER.

John smiled. So must be Parijats!

PARIJAT-18

Death in that sallow and solitude afternoon had come like an unwarranted, uninvited and unsolicited guest. It had come in most unlikely period and age. It was not a die-able age. No explanations, but it had come. It is a guest. No denial, no refusal. Accept it for it is your guest.

Sofi had no idea of that incoming guest. In that cloudy afternoon of village, when every leaves of the trees have dozed off, the temptation of childhood had dragged her to the river. She wanted to have a swim, her childhood passion. She has not done that for an age. She has grown up. She can not swim in an open river like a child. It is forbidden for a nubile.

Yes, the jump from that tip of spur to the whirlpool of water carries some challenge and thrill. Down stream of the spur, water moves in a circle with big and small whirlpools. It is a child play for Sofi to break the shackle of that big whirlpool with the powerful strokes of her legs. Those are lithe and graceful, moving with fluid efficiency. Let it turn me round and round with that downward suction. Let me enjoy the feeling of a revolving wheel. Sky looks beautiful though it is dark and gloomy with low-level pregnant clouds. Lost is the brightness of afternoon. Whirl pool is rotating her. Clouds in the sky are changing position fast with the increasing rotations of Sofi in the mid of the giant whirl pool. It is perfect, Sofi smiles. Where are you, John? She smiles again.

Sofi pounds her legs in water to keep her afloat and counter the downward suction. Sound of water echoes the sound of a drum. The drummer is in frenzy, the sound is falling out of rhythm. It is unsynchronized striking of water. The unimaginable has crept in. Sofi could feel slowly and surely the right leg is appearing heavy. It is tingling. Oh, God is it there! Right leg! Sensation is departing like a chased dog, running for life. It is fast. Disappearing fast. It spits up an instantaneous spike of panic. Move, the inner self urged and pleaded. No it is not moving. The right leg is drowning like a heavy log of foldable wood. It started hanging and drowning from knee joint. Slowly the incapacity and numbness moved up, now it hangs in water vertical from the waist’s hinge. The fear came like a tempest. The undercurrent of whirlpool is dragging her down inside the water, the movement left leg is hardly sufficient to counter that.

Jo----hhhhh—n, Sofi cried. Is that death! Where are you John? My winner! I can not leave you like that. I want to see you as a winner. My happiness ends there. I will bear the garland of defeat with your win, as I depart. My desires end there. Please answer me. Answer to that word play of last week.

HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS.

WHAT IS THE NEXT BIGGEST WORD OF ENGLISH LITERATURE?

Please answer me, my winner! She cried and screamed. Jooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhn, she gasped. But she could not manage enough air to emit out a whimper. She felt like a punctured balloon, wind bubbling out of her lungs as she goes down. Cries are barely audible. Lungs are shrinking. She felt a vice like grips squeezing out every bubble of air inside her. Her screams are in her mind. Dark. Pitch dark. Sky above her. Sofi sees that for the last time as her head sprang up above the water in her last ditch of effort. After a moment, it is smooth glide inside the water balancing the buoyancy. It is dark. Pitch dark here too. Deep inside the water. A sudden twinkling of light flashes before her eyes. It is perhaps the most beautiful light she has ever seen in her life. Peace! The unsolicited, the uninvited, the unwarranted guest has left along with her!!

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The sudden sound of thunderstorm jolted, John. He does not know for how long he is looking that whirlpool in the tip of spur. The sky is wailing. It has become long. Pretty long. Thirty years. Thirty years of loneliness and solitude. Love never dies. It defies all. Before his eyes floats the silent smile of Sofi. The smile that flowers when John comes out winner. Be it a test in the class, a game of chess or a word play with Sofi. John, you are a winner, you are my winner. He had seen that smile whispering him in the thin air when fisher man’s net dragged her body from the water. The revolving water in the downstream of spur has not allowed the body rolled down far.

John could not look to that body for long. Small fishes have eaten away her eyes. But the smile in the lips is unmistakable.

Love! You are unique. You only come once in a life like birth and death. Nothing before you. Nothing after you. You have no comparison. You have no degree. There is nothing called good love, better love or best love. It is only love. There is nothing called first love or last love. It is only love. You have no adverb, no adjective before you. Nothing qualifies you. You encompass all. You are mixtures all emotions. Rests, in isolation, are mere physical and mental satisfaction. They do not have your vastness. They do not have your forgiveness. They do not have your sacrifice. It is enough to live with your memory for you come only once. You are never lost like lust. You live for ever for you are love. Only love can recognize you, love.

The sky is wailing aloud. The emotion of downpour is destroying that whirlpool. John sees smiling Sofi resurfacing and singing. John you are winner! My winner!! My love!!!

Unknowingly John mutters:

ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM.

FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION.

PSEUDOPSEUDOHYPOPARATHYROIDISM.

PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS.

Parijats, who knows better than you, the sacrifices of love!!!

PARIJAT-17

Walking under the hot sun of the village drains you out. But it is amazing to see how the villagers work. It is out and out in that hot sun beginning before the day wakes up and ending after the day sleeps. It is a daily routine. It is a habit. It is a companion. It is long since John had a taste of that walk. But still it appears not that far and lost. It was hovering only a few steps back.

It was school days. Summer school starts early but ends up awkwardly in noon, right in the noon when the sun is overhead. it was long walk from the school in that hot sun when everything dazzles ,blinds you in that dazzling while mirages dance the dance of false hope and illusion. It looks cool in that scorching hot. Hand stretches to touch that coolness. Mind moves to kiss that magnificence. But it moves and moves as you move. It is separated by a distance. The distance never closes on. But the life moves on. Strange mind! Strange hope! Strange life! Strange feeling! Everything looks alluring. Every thing looks captivating. But does it exist. Imagination is a strange artist. It dwarfs the reality. Running after that mirage, running after that imagination, we stumble upon the reality of life to realize that we have not gone far. But we have not run a futile race. It has its pleasure. It has its charm. Neglect not! Omit not! Ignore not! Experience it! But never get lost. Walk with the imagination while talking to the reality. Dichotomy? May be!

The sun is pouring heat. Thin lines of hairs on John’s head are no protection. Sweat is oozing out in tiny drops. Slowly those tiny drops are reassembling and gaining volume. The potential of position is dragging it down. It rolls through the temple before dropping down from the chin. John moved his fingers trough the hairs. Movements of fingers smashed those tiny droplets of sweat. He could feel cool, pleasantly cool. He hurried his steps towards his house. Mango grove surrounding his house is nearing fast. Soon he is there, under the soothing comforts of shade of trees. Slow breeze is playing hide and seek amongst the bunches of tiny mango flowers, bloomed, half bloomed and yet to be bloomed. The low level horizontal branches of mango tree form natural swings. He halted for a moment and stood leaning his back and transferring his weight to a low level horizontal branch of a mango tree. He pushed his feet against the ground. The branch started reciprocating in short and horizontal oscillating motion. The golden oriole sitting some where flapped its wings and started cooing. It jumped around spreading those golden wings.

From a distance suddenly the synergic and auspicious sound of bugle and sehnai combined with intermittent blow of conch started conveying a moment of happiness. Yes, happiness, that eternal happiness for which the every heart longs and waits. It is marriage, a happy union announcing the beginning of a new beginning.

John does not understand that. He has never tried to. It is relatively late for him. He has never counted and tried to remember. But he vaguely guesses that earth has already made forty five full motions around the sun since he has seen the light of the day. A strange inquisitiveness is floating up. He wishes to witness that process. The most sacred process on the earth rationalized by human being. He has attended many. He has swung and danced amongst the gangs accompanying bride groom on his journey to the house of bride to tie that sacred knot. He has laughed, joked and chided the bride along with other friends of bridegroom before the start of the marriage. All these he had done mechanically out of shear joy associated with a friend’s marriage. But he has never been to intricacies associated with the steps of marriage which spans an entire night. But he appreciates that greatest institution and greatest invention of mankind though he never intends to associate and involve himself in that. A confirmed bachelorhood is his way of life, he has decided. No he has not decided. Over a period of time it has happened to him. Time has gushed by. John has not realized that. That is life! Many things happen before we realize that. Flow of events, known and unknown, sweet and shour, agony and ecstasy, ugly and beautiful, laughter and cry, gloom and smile, all flow by and we flow with that knowingly and yet unknowingly.

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Village roads are lost in the darkness of night. John is used to it. Moving along with the sheer darkness of night is not new to him. It is darkness and confusion. Where is the light? Where is the pleasure and shear joy of pure knowledge? Knowledge that is humane, encompassing and uplifting. Knowledge that lifts human souls out of ordinary, out of all confusion and narrowness. Every body is talking of its superiority over others. Everybody talks they are ultimate. Follow me or you are lost. No, it is not knowledge. It is not unifying, rather it is dividing. Where is that unifying knowledge? Where it is? The quest is on. Where shall it end? Whether it will end in that destination or will be lost in that oblivion?

John has reached near that marriage mandap-canopy decorated with flowers and with a fire as witness. It is Hindu marriage with every step rooted in Vedic tradition. The process is about to be over. The bride and bridegroom are taking seven steps together around the nuptial fire with the seven promises singing in unison.

With God as our guide, let us take:

the first step to nourish each other,

the second step to grow together in strength,

the third step to preserve our wealth,

the fourth step to share our joy and sorrows,

the fifth step to care for our children,

the sixth step to be together for ever,

the seventh step to remain lifelong friends,

the perfects halves to make a perfect whole.

“With seven steps we become friends. Let me reach your friendship. Let me not be severed from your friendship. Let your friendship not be severed from me.”

The bridegroom came over bride’s shoulder and touched her heart and started saying:

“I hold your heart in serving fellowship; your mind follows my mind. In my word you rejoice with all your heart. You are joined to me by the Lord of all creatures.”

The groom then tied the Mangal suthra(sacred chain) in the neck of the bride’s and put sindhoor(vermilion powder) in her parted hair just above the forehead symbolizing her as married woman.

The sound of conch turned into crescendo as John along with those assembled showered flowers on newly wedded couple and blessed them.

John does not remember how many times he has done this in the past. But for the first time he has become spell bound at the sacred sight of unison. It exists everywhere. It exists in every religion. Irrespective of ethinicity, religion and culture, it is prevalent everywhere. But who created that? Certainly not so called messiahs of God who have divided this human being in name of religion. It exists before them. It is the greatest unifying philosophy and institution of world. Is it not irony we do not know who created that and united us, but we know all messiahs who divided us?

Parijats, is it not paining HIM when HE sees HIS children are divided by HIS name? Alas!

PARIJAT-16

The vast garden tells its own story. Definitely it is groomed with care and love. The church leans and overlooks to the garden in blissful eyes. Flowers in the garden are swinging in divine praise under the morning sky. The cool breeze carries the aroma of fresh soil. It is soil of village; innocent, energetic and aromatic. It narrates truth and emits simplicity. It speaks of virtues and values which are almost in extinct. But those values live here, dwell here and flourish here. Untouched by complexity, unpolluted and uncompromised.

John has strolled inside the garden surrounding the church. In front of the church, two artificial hummocks have been created by locally available granite boulders. Each hummock is again encompassed by oval shape crazy flooring made out of flat stone pieces brought from different part of India. It has yellow lime stone from Gujurat, Hassan green granite from Orissa, Paradise waves from Tamil nadu and Quartzite from north eastern Indian border state of Arunachal Pradesh. The list is exhaustive. The flooring resembles the diversity and multiplicity of India. Individually brilliant and collectively better. Reciprocating and complementing.

Divine image of the Lord Jesus stands in front of left hummock and on right side stands Mother Mary with infant Lord on her chest. The Lord has stretched his arms apart as if to embrace all, to encompass all, to liberate all from sorrows and grieves while Mother Mary looks from other side with that smiling charm of mother, with that reassuring look of forgiveness, after all we all are ignorant infants, yet to understand right and wrong, yet to differentiate between evil and angle.

Come forward my child and surrender yourself! Come and confess! Come and embrace! Forget! Your worries are mine! Your sorrows are mine! Your pains are mine! Your losses are mine! Those setbacks are temporary! Those shall vanish! You will win! You will flourish! You will prosper! But do not deviate from the path of righteousness.

It is crowded inside the church. The attendance is certainly impressive. All eyes are glued to the Holy cross symbolizing the sign of supreme sacrifice. A holy feeling of beatitude is slowly emerging inside John. He looked to the small board announcing the agenda:

GENESIS 1:1-5, 26-31

REVELATION 21:1-7

JOHN 1:1-13

PSALM 29

The priest is certainly in the fag end of the agenda. He reads PSALM-29:11

“THE LORD WILL GIVE STRENGTH UNTO HIS PEOPLE; THE LORD WILL BLESS HIS PEOPLE WITH PEACE.”

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John does not know how many times he has recited that in his mind. Eye half closed in that mesmerizing, captivating and transcendental sight of that Holy cross, he has almost gone into a trance. It is peace. It is tranquility. It is euphony. It is psalm of life. John did not wish to come back from that trance. Let it flow. Let it sing. Let it hum. The truth. The sacrifice. Oh Lord, help me. Help this mundane soul. Let it be useful. Useful for others. Let it ignite a smile. Let it inspire a smile. Even I become a drop in the ocean, give me the feeling of ocean. Give me the feeling of vastness. Give me the soul to cry for others, smile for others and live for others.

In the closed eyes of divinity John saw that tall figure of Mustafa talking of amalgamation and collectiveness. Amalgamation of lands. The narration of Mustafa continues. He has convinced others the value and effectiveness of sharing. It is not my land for cultivation. It is not your land for cultivation. It is our lands for cultivation. Everything is shared according to strength and convenience. Somebody will contribute physically. Somebody will contribute monetarily. Somebody will help technically. Duty and responsibility are defined and distributed. The harvest is shared accordingly in a pre-defined a manner. The production has gone up in this collective farming. The village has become a family for a while. It is amalgamation of lands that has lead to amalgamation of minds. Everything is shared. Shared minds. Shared grieves. Shared happiness.

Where do I fit in? John started wondering eyes still closed. He slowly opened his eyes. He looked the Holy Cross. His mind is rushing. He knelt before the Cross in deep reverence and remained in that position for a moment. -------------------------------------------------------------------------

He was the last person to leave the church. He stepped out lazily towards his house. He did not wish to cross those cultivable lands on his way back to the house. Rather he moved on the ring road. Both sides of the ring road have geared up. Everything looks busy and purposeful. It does not bear a holiday look. The village maintains a consistency. Everyday is a day of enjoyment here. Everyday is a busy day here. Everyday is purposeful and at the same time enjoyable. Agony or ecstasy, defeat or success, birth or death, nothing matters much. Life moves on. Life needs to move on. Nothing is forever. Nothing is permanent. It is only role play in a defined moment, about a defined theme and for a defined span. That is the philosophy. That moves in soothing breeze, that swings with blooming flowers and that resounds in cuckoos’ coo.

The H-shaped single storied building is nearing to the sight. It was where his future was built. It was where the first aspiration of his life took shape. It was where the bluntness of childhood was reshaped and remolded as he grew up with the time. It was his school, the first temple of learning. The end of two long wings almost touches the ring road. Those two long wings house different classes starting from first Standard. The connecting wing in the middle accommodates the administrative block of the school. Adjacent to far of compound wall of the school, there stand a two roomed accommodation built in unburnt brick. Beyond that it is bamboo, bushes of bamboo stretching nearly few hundred of yards separating the school from the crowd and the routine of the village. It is rustling and whistling sound of bushes of bamboo calling John to that two roomed house. He is moving towards it as if to hear something new; see something new; think something new; dream something new.

Hari uncle has grown old and so is Radha aunty. They were caretakers of small children in the school. Only time has kept a count how many children have been cared and groomed by them. They were the real parent for those tiny toddlers and new comers to the school. Days after days, months after months, years after years they have heard only toddlers calling them Hari uncle and Radha aunty. They have wished and prayed. They have dreamt and pleaded. Please, someday, somebody will call them DAD and MOM. No, that has never happened. Destiny has never heard them; was never kind to them. No regret. Every new child to the school was a child to them. They submerged themselves in the love of those tiny toddlers. And in the end of day, they look to each other face and smile. Radha aunty takes out SHRIMAD BHAGAVAD-GITA, the holy scripture of Hindu and reads aloud till both of them doze off.

John is meeting them after many years. Radha aunty has brought ‘manda pitha’ for him while he gossips with Hari uncle. The typical eastern Indian home made sweet of ‘manda pitha’ is really mouth watering. A steamed sweet made out of rice dough is round in shape. The filling inside is smashed panner, grated coconut cooked in slow flame with jaggery. John wiped his lips as he had a bite of ‘manda pitha’. The sweet syrup of filling inside is flowing out.

Hari uncle continues as if for years he has not talked. He needs a listner, an ardent listener who will breathe all his narrations; who will smell all his emotion; who will draw all his imagination. Who will do that? Who has time to listen to an old? Who will bear that oft-repeated story? There is no charm, no newness. Old story of an old man. The old man is halting in his talk. He is perspiring. He has lost the habit to talk in length. He is breathing, breathing hard. John needs to stop him. It is a strange physical exhaustion laced with emotion. Hari uncle is choking and coughing. He is struggling, struggling for breathe, struggling for air. Tiny muscles of lungs are squeezing, squeezing him hard.

John got up and held the hands of Hari uncle. The old man was waiting for this moment. He was waiting for it since long. Somebody will listen to him. Somebody will hold him. Somebody will console him while he will cry the cry of his life. John did not know how long he was standing there. He still holds the hand of Hari uncle. The old man has stopped sobbing.

The rustling sound of bushes of bamboo is slowly turning into rhythmic. Somebody has added lyrics to it. John could hear Radha aunty is reading out that familiar stanza from BHAGAVAD-GITA.

“YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO PERFORM YOUR PRESCRIBED DUTY, BUT YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO THE FRUITS OF ACTION. NEVER CONSIDER YOURSELF THE CAUSE OF THE RESULTS OF YOUR ACTIVITIES, AND NEVER BE ATTACHED TO NOT DOING YOUR DUTY.”

The mundane mind of John is rushing fast. He wished to hear after that stanza. But Radha aunty is repeating that. She is not moving ahead. But thought of John is crossing all boundaries. It is flowing ahead. It is marching ahead. It is moving towards unison and amalgamation. It is feeling of that surge in that dream before he was lifted by that divine’s hand. Slowly he tried to utter with humble obeisance, still holding the hands old man.

“You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activites, and never be attached to not doing your duty. The LORD will give strength unto his people; the LORD will bless his people with peace.”

Parijats, I know, you love India, the champion of amalgamation.