Social Story – WHAT THE WANDERING MONK SAID…
Photo credit: carunan from morguefile.com
The night lay dark and stretched outside long like a vine……tempting to gulp you at any moment. The total darkness helped to create plot of terror, not with the characters of some ghost stories…not with the demons and vamps…..But with the human who was changing into demon…more horrible..more creepy and more desperate creature……
I looked outside my sleep deprived eyes could hardly differentiate between moonlight and fluorescent street light….I laughed at my foolishness and sense lessness. There was a time when I used to wait for this moon to come at my window. Its calm light would sing me a lullaby, every time it touched my skin…and my eyes would start weaving dreams in a world made completely of my imagination…..The moon was still the same…and here I was not able to recognize it……It must have come to my window every night..only to return back after watching my closed window……..
My mind strolled back to few hours ago of the day…The heated argument with my wife..had literary made me to run out of the scene….It was not the argument that mattered…it was something that I dint know…… a reason that hollowed me and my soul from inside….….The chaos of the city had drugged me and dragged me out of myself….So,I ran a run , with no aim, with no destination…I only knew at that time that I had to run…. Digging my head inside the pillow I had tried to sleep.,but no use…There was no mother’s hand to hold my head in her lap…nor the moon was helping me…Like a wanderer who had lost his road…
I suddenly walked out of my room….I didn’t know where I was heading to and for what….I didn’t know what I was searching for….I didnt know what I had lost….I only knew I was following my heart……” The wandering monk” I had never belief on hypnotism, and yet I was behaving like a complete hypnotic…my body fully tamed by my heart…..I started the car and…..ran….from the building I had lived for 22 years,from the lane I had traveled everyday…from the light pole at the corner, from the shops…from the malls who had helped me showing my sophistication, from the people with whom I partied, from the city that I was proud of to live, from the chaos of the city that was running in my blood, from the trees I had never cared to look ,from the sky that had always waited for me to adore it……and from the air that I had breathed and polluted constantly……I ran….
The magic mantra spelt on was taking me to a place far unknown and still very known….My car stopped in front of my village…..I had traveled for almost 4 hours and I felt as if it was just two minutes ago…..strange for a person like me who had considered a foreign journey less time taking. Today without senses I was here….Why was I here? why did the wandering monk bring me here .It was after all a place, I had left far back because of its incapability to provide me everything and something that it gave was not sufficient for me…..what can it give me now?
I stepped out of the car…and as if sensing my presence at the door….the village like a mother sent the cool breeze of village lane to welcome me. It ran its fingers on my face. After so many days I could feel one of my sense organ working again. Blocked by dust, closed by dose, my nose I had lost its power of lust. And in a single moment like a magic drop, the clayey breeze had cleared it all. I accepted the invitation, spoken by the breeze and it was the wandering monk that had taken my body in lease.
The village was calm,clothed by the winter night. The road was colored not with pitch, but soil of earth. The lanes covered with bushes of wild flowers untamed and uncared and yet beautiful like a village girl. My hand touched the velvety grass that lay around the big pond. It was still staring at the sky above, pleading to fill it with rain that pass by. It was not just a pond that had cared and nurtured its being forever, but a place that has chested the memories of our like a hidden treasure.
I remembered the summer afternoon, when I used to swim and explore its beauty with my friends. Unlike the entertainment pool today…that born and die on our instruction, this pond had lived with us, grew with us and changed its role in our life…. In every moment. Sometimes soothing us with water….and sometimes it acted like a perfect friend and accepted stones and queries of a adolescent heart very patiently..The wandering monk moved me to the chest of the village. A small gesture called smile had crossed from my one corner of lips to reach other.I was indeed smiling.
The place was showing signs of change. Thatched houses being replaced cemented one, cycle by bikes, lamps with yellow bulbs and well with taps. If the place and people had guts to move into developing world…they had still the heart to keep the old monuments safe and secure…..The well was just standing as it was…..i dint find any idea of demolishment. I wandered we are from such place…we one of this people…..but the winds of city had made us selfish…..I came across the stone pile covered with sindoor under the banyan tree. The red sacred cloth tied to its branches, were swinging in air… as if spreading the glory of the deity, they had and are serving. Nurtured in the open, by the sun and rain, the deity stood as the divine mother loving and protecting her children and the villages anytime and every time them come to her.
There was a time when I was scared of her interim presence as a child…..and as adult I never believed her….But today my hands were folded ,I was standing in front of her…but seeking nothing…just nothing. I felt my vision blocked by tears for a moment. I didn’t know why they come…and from where…mind or heart or body….i only felt myself bathing from tip to toe with a divine and invisible bliss. This was the feeling I had searched in every temple, every pilgrim I had gone. The thing I searched in far world was hidden somewhere in my own ground. I didn’t question…and I prayed…I prayed for the first time without fear, without demand, without aspects, conclusions.
Outcomes greed and here I prayed and learnt to pray. It didn’t take me much time to search for the source of the powerful light falling on me…..The orange ball raising slowly from the horizon..My body freed, had suddenly found its long lost pace. I ran to the field …The king was on its way, how could be the bard far away…..The trees were dancing like dancer on the tune played by the breeze….The birds singling the welcome note. The rice field like a ardent servant acted like fan …colored in yellow green. And in the middle of this phenomenal event..I stood like a motionless and speechless statue.
The Mother nature was serving me with its best delicacy…and I like a hungry customer was feasting it with my eyes. I was starved for years..The morning alarm had no comparison with the notes that was revolving around me,grasping me tightly sometime…and loosening me from inside. I was moving on land, I was drinking the water,I was breathing the air again. I was human again……………..
Here I was born one day, here I m born again…. I understood the question, I got the answers…but I was not bothered about both of it.I was in peace today. The rust of ignorance was cleared with pious light of knowledge, gifting me with the piece of peace long lost and long longed. My ear heard my cry,followed by a huge laugh. A laugh I had never laughed for decades… The wandering monk spoke now…you are a free traveler and I THE WANDERING MONK…..
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