PARIJAT-33

Greenish and fresh patches of ferns on the wall of temple were slippery. But he tried to climb over that, panting and slipping with desperation and agility. Grips were loosening and sliding fast, one grip should hold before the other slips, no pattern, no synchronization but one grip must hold. His knees and elbows bruised by now, ebbed out a whimper of pain slow and low, but that did not hold him back. Blinded by arrows of opal Sun of afternoon his eyes squeezed in avoidance, but soon the tear of efforts and hopes formed a filter and barrier to show him the vision of the crawls ahead of him. A few more grunting efforts will take him to that cantilever of the temple where he can sit and pant and look desperately to the rasping water below to rush and gush with admonition and desperation.

Green ferns over the tapered walls of temple were like green spinach, thick, viscous and slippery. Each efforts of him on thick ferns make those to bleed green and thick and that mixes with his blood, thin and red oozing out of his bruised skins. The bruised skins burns and itches but the paste of green fluid at least closes the tiny pours of bruised skin. The bleeding stops but burning continues. A coordinated and labored efforts ultimately brought him to that horizontal cantilever from the inclined and tapered walls of the temple. The horizontal cantilever, big enough a person to sit and relax, was new to him. He does not understand the intricacy of temple architecture nor does he understand the intricacy of the life. All he wanted to live the life straight only to discover and explore that it is not so simple as he thinks and imagines, but is full of bends,bumps,humps ,ruts and buts, all connected yet disconnected ,all relevant yet irrelevant ,apparent yet mysterious like the divide lines amongst approaching waves.

A few moments of rest on that cantilever brought down his panting and grasping. He looked down. Riot of water. Flood of water. Dance of water devastating and naked. Whim of water ghostly rustling and rattling. It swelled and expanded. There was never silence but always roar and shriek of water. The shriek became louder as it entered inside the temple through narrow entrance to the temple and came out of the entrance in the opposite side. It first took away the flowers kept on the feet of the black granite image of the LORD. Then those burnt earthen lamps. Flowers from Lord's head followed.

The sacred metallic ghee lamp on the pedestal also floated away before colliding twice in the trunk of the coconut tree. It is that lamp which flickers and bumpers in the slow swing of the air but lasts up to midnight. Many insects die by jumping to that light. No fault of those ignorant and tiny creatures but blame the temptation. Some get drowned in the viscous ghee the aroma of which dragged them. Again do not blame them. It is temptation too. The lamp too is not at fault. It emits light. It removes darkness of the dark surrounding. It too burns. It does not keep count how many get burned out of temptation but it must burns itself slow with all pain and agony so that the spectre of darkness and ignorance do not hunt in pair. The metallic lamp again bumped to the huge trunk of that old mango tree. This time collision made it unbalanced, water gushed in and it met with a watery grave. Again it did not scream. May be the scream was not audible for that scream was never audible too when it holds that burning light and absorbs that blistering heat.

Ripples of water, big and small, depending on the size of obstacles. Obstacles are uprooted or broken and washed away ruthlessly. Sitting there he looked helplessly to that temple cow "Moti". Before he climbed up for safety he had brought Moti to the pandal of the temple to a place where the water current will be the least. He had tied Moti with a rope and other end to a hook on the temple wall. He had hoped and prayed that the flood water would not rise to that level to drown and kill Moti. Water rose and flowed, first thin and then dense, first slow then fast, first whispering and then drumming and gushing. The drumming and gushing is now mixed with the moan of the mango trees in the grove below, tattered billows, the clatter of coconut leaves.

The water rose further and now it touches the belly of the Moti, it sensed danger and tried to free itself from the rope. Water is growing wilder and so is Moti. The ghost of destruction loomed so large that the creative and godly quality of water grew so thin, so hazy and undefinable that gazing at it, he seemed to see it vanish altogether. Restlessness with Moti is growing. He must do something. He must hold Moti near to the temple wall. But how? He looked the bruises in his body. Those are continuously making some noises over his skin, noise of capillary flow, noise of shimmering pain, but those are not loud enough, those are not appealing enough and those are not alarming enough. Those sounds of bruises got overshadowed by the mooing of Moti. Is it mooing or calling? Is it mooing or crying? The naked and ugly dance of death like the ugly dance of water.The hiccup of death like the strident, shrill and sulky yowling of rasping water. His sacred thread supported on left shoulder and wrapped around his body hung in front of his eyes as he bent forward to see Moti. The sacred thread that he has assumed after his seventh birthday as per Hindu tradition and declared him as twice born with knowledge of waking,dreaming,dreamless sleeping and knowledge of absolute. It is that sacred thread which teaches him with purity of thought, word and deed. What is more sacred and more pure now other than listening and responding to Moti's mooing?

Patches of ferns on the wall of temple is still green. But it was no longer slippery as he climbed down near to the hook where the rope of Moti was tied. He pulled that rope hard till Moti came near to wall, standing parallel clinging to the wall. The current of water looked defeated for time being. He looked to the phosphorescence eyes of Moti gleaming in setting Sun. He saw his reflection in those gleaming eyes. Moti too must have seen its reflection on his eyes. They must have seen hope. A hope of tomorrow, a better tomorrow.