A moment of darkness

There has been a power cut. It is entirely dark all around. This is the sort of time when my mind is filled with foreboding, especially when I am alone in the entire house. Even the tiniest sounds make me jump. The flapping of a bird's wings makes me imagine about a dark and looming creature. My eyes play tricks with me. I wonder, 'was that a shadow that passed by my side? Did someone move in my room?'

I say to myself that it is only the result of fear of darkness mingled with irrational paranoia. But this moment, this long stretch of darkness is true.

I steal a glance at the locked door, hoping that I won't see it ajar. My heart palpitates slightly. I know that when the light comes back, all this would seem like a stupid joke. But in this moment, dense darkness surrounds me like a choking cloud of dust.

It takes a while before my eyes get adjusted to the dark. It is then that I realize that it was not dark here. I was too blind to see the light.

A strange peace

The day is ending. The air has cooled down. It feels soothing after the burning heat of the afternoon. The Sun has gone below the horizon, yet it has left its lingering presence... the hour of twilight. The cool breeze gently flows over me, taking the tiredness off my body, leaving me embalmed and at peace. It is easy to clear your mind when you are surrounded by green and crickets and an occasional soft hum of a bird. Somewhere in the distance a vehicle starts... A momentary sound before it fades away.

There are some blurred sounds of human voices... a happy group of people... a laughter, a boisterous voice. We are unique, yet we appear the same. Perhaps it is the minute differences that define us, that separate us from each other. Like a small choice. Not so easily visible, yet present, nonetheless.

When I look to the west, I see a deep shade of orange mingled with a dirty shade of blue. Some ants catch my attention, as I stare at the west, scampering up and down the trunk of a rather thin tree. How busy life they must have, always running around. I ready my camera for a shot but the light is too low for any decent shot. After a few trials, aiming from a few directions I give up. 'Let those ants be', Nature says.

A temple has started its sandhya arati (the evening prayer). I'm not a religious person. So I do not attend many prayers. But at times like this, the haunting sound of bells feel strangely spiritual.

The light of the west has almost vanished. The street lights are slowly coming to life. The stars are becoming visible. This is one of the perks of living in the outskirts. The night sky is pure black instead of being dull red.

How tragic is it that we are losing touch with our origin! Will I be here tomorrow? Of course I will. Will I be here in this state, reaching back to what has been ours and can become ours again? I don't know. Probably not. A day, a month, few years. It reminds me of the nights sitting on the roof, marvelling at the wonders of the universe.

Where has the child vanished? What has it grown to become? Wrapped up in its own problems... Shutting down from within... Changing to mould into a shape that fits in the jigsaw of the society. And in the process, losing its individuality, its creativity, its innocence...

It is dark now. It is calm. It is quiet. There is no body near. The kalpurush is visible. The saptarshi mandal appearing in the corner of my eyes. All is at peace.

Letting go...

As I stand on the embankment, my hands raised above my head, the blue water below me glistening in the warm sunshine, time slows down. Breaths of wind lumber past my fingertips, brushing over my wet body, creating a hint of shiver. My mouth slightly parts as I breathe in air. I close my eyes. I feel my body and the control I have over it. My muscles become tense, my lungs fill with air, my brain runs on overdose, preparing my limbs, my chest, my mouth, my lungs...and I revel at the control I have over it. My heart beats with anticipation, fear, thrill... A hurricane is raging around me and I am standing at the eye of the storm, in the region of peace.

I begin to fall in slow motion. I am in a state of weightlessness—easing my way into acceptance, moving along an irrevocable way. The wind lingers on my face. All other thoughts are wiped out of my mind and the only thing that remains is this moment and the destiny ahead. There is no control, no defining rule, no will power. There is only a trajectory to follow. All that is left is the wait and the preparation for embracing the inevitability.

And at such a moment, these thoughts do cross my mind—what did I leave behind? What did I lose? The solid ground, the air that brings life, the warmth of the sun, the voices of people. I realize now that they were all illusions, a fault of perception. There is only the great void and me to fill it up.

My hands break the surface as my body plunges into water. A cold feeling engulfs me; I choke and splutter. My hands fight for control, my lungs fight for oxygen, my legs fight to find ground. I am dying, water threatening to pour into my lungs. I fight for control that shall never be mine, I fight for air that shall never be breathed, I fight for land that shall never be touched. My vision is blurred and all noise has been silenced. I feel fear as I struggle to find balance.

And then the answer finds me—I realize that there is no balance to be found for there is nothing unbalanced. There is only a moment of stillness in which I can live forever. I stop fighting for breath, I stop fighting for light, I stop fighting for land and most importantly I stop fighting for control. I let go of everything that I clung to. And in that moment of freedom, I curl my legs up, wrap my arms around them and hold them close to my chest.

I am floating in emptiness—a strange singular object dissolving into space. I am calm, I feel no fear, I am at peace. I find acceptance—true acceptance—in me. I look up. The light of the sun is splattered on the surface, shifting and changing shape—just as we are—mirrored in transformation.

Walk down the memory lane

[Here's some more rambling from old days. The journey down the memory lane is proving to be quite revealing. Here's a diary entry I made long back. Hope my Blog Readers will enjoy this short trip...]

Wednesday, 05 November 2008, 2:53:30 AM:

This is the first time this is happening. I am typing without any goal. I am typing just because I feel like typing. I feel like feeling my fingers on the keys of my laptop. I love it. Every keystroke reminds me of something. I don’t understand what it reminds me of—perhaps the old days when I used to write with vigour, when all I thought about was writing, when stories flooded my brain just waiting to be written down. Perhaps it reminds me of the days and nights that I spent in front of my old computer (my beloved one) typing and just typing—program codes, stories... Ah! Such good old days!

Where have they gone? Time flies so swiftly. I wish I could stop the flow of time and turn it back. I wish I could go back to the moment when I had raised my hand and said ‘Stop’ to a bus coming to a bus stop, with a girl beside me, hoping that time would freeze and I would be there with her forever. How soon time passed by us! How quickly have three years passed! I have barely breathed and ages have passed before my eyes. It scares me. The speed at which time gallops scares me. What if tomorrow I wake up and find out that I am an old man with a life of no significance behind me? How would I feel when I know that I have wasted my entire life, doing nothing noteworthy, nothing that would be remembered by anyone? What if I wake up old and regret that I have never lived?

When was the last time I had written something that had truly pleased me? That was a long time back, in January. That was when I had finished ‘The Teacher’. That was the last time when I had bore the fruit of my imagination. I have wasted a year doing nothing, thinking nothing, writing nothing. I have given sanctuary to a deadly sin—the sloth. And it has been feeding on me since then—ensnaring me with its ancient roots. When I look back now I see the plans and resolutions I had made before the start of this semester—about how I would write new stories, about how I would write program codes, about how I would solve the problem about prime numbers, about how I would learn more about Artificial Intelligence, about how I would study cryptography...the list goes on. So many resolutions and promises that transpired into nothing! Such pity!

And now I am reduced to writing down the very first thing that comes to my mind. Forcing myself to keep typing even though I have no idea where I am headed. I have no idea what my next line would be. I am typing the words as they are coming to me. I am totally lost.

Perhaps that is good—this getting lost business. May be I’ll find a way hidden in the murkiness that is off the forest road. May be that is why getting lost is so important—to find a way that would not be found otherwise. But how do I recognise the path when I get there. May be I will have to rely on my instincts. May be this is the best way to find it. I just need to keep walking through the woods, blindly if necessary, hoping I would stumble upon a new road that would lead me Shangri-La. Till then I must keep walking. I must not retire.

So what should I write? The first thing that comes to my mind is examinations. The end of semester examinations are closing in. They are barely a month away. I had better begin to take things seriously before they get out of hands. I have to complete and revise so much that I barely see any breathing space. But I know I will make through. I always do. No matter how dire the situation seems to appear, I have always found my way out. I will survive this storm too.

Speaking of storms, I remember my walk two days back. I was returning home after not making it to the finals of a writing competition. On my way I thought about the possible reasons for my failure. The only thing that stood out among all the reasons was that I did not deserve to go into the finals. I did not write any more as if it were a part of my life. In fact, I barely write these days. But that was not just restricted to this writing business only. I was not doing all those things that I was supposed to do. Instead, I was just wasting my time lying on the bed with an empty mind and an empty soul. I searched for answers to questions I did not understand. I asked to empty space why I felt miserable without the faintest desire to make myself feel any better. And during my way back home, I realized that I had to change my life for good before it was too late. I decided to go for a walk to set my life back on course.

Now where does the storm fit in. It is of no literal significance. But thinking of it abstractly, I have spun my fingers to create a whirlwind in my life. I hope that it would shake me out of this doldrums. But that is not all about the storm. During my walk, I saw a writing on the side of an over-bridge—‘Homes made beautiful’. Just a few steps from the writing, few people were huddling under the bridge, trying to make themselves comfortable in their homes. Homes indeed made beautiful! What do I know about storms and hardships! What right do I have to complain about my life? What right do I have to ask the question—why am I not better off? These people, living on the edge of life in the middle of a city that is supposed to be the reason of pride for many! It makes me wonder...

Where do I get from here? What am I to do with the life that has been given to me. When I was younger my goals were clearer and I was certain about what I was supposed to do. But now, just after a year or two, everything appears so uncertain. The more I seek out for my dreams the more I am faced by my limitations. The more I try to find out what I can do the more I discover the things that I cannot do. And yet I have this spark left inside me—very dim it has become. This dying flame has stirred up something inside me today that has pushed me into writing something—no matter what. All the same, this flame is dying. What is worse—only I can save it from dying. Nobody else can do that for me. And I know what I must do. The problem is that I am not too sure any more that I can do it.

All my life I have waited for someone to come and show me the way. I have always hoped that somebody else would show me what to do and where to go. I had wanted to be free, and yet at the same time I had wanted to be a slave. I had wanted someone to set me free. And even after all these years I am waiting to be set free and not be free. The funny bit is that I know what is wrong. It is just that I cannot fix the wrong. Or maybe I do not believe that I can right the wrong. Maybe that is why I fail.

So, if I believe that I can overcome any hurdle, I can actually overcome that hurdle! That sounds amazing. But, I don’t believe that entirely yet. I can only hope that I will be able to believe, and in good time.

That is another mystery—this hope thing. I have thought about it a lot of times and I have come to many conclusions about it. Sometimes it feels like a great source of strength. Sometimes it appears to be foolishness. Sometimes I don’t believe that there is anything that is called hope. And sometimes I hope that hope will keep me alive. Ah! Such mysteries! And how little I understand them!

There is no pain

[I wrote this piece a while ago, a year ago actually. I accidentally found it while browsing through old files. So here's to my blog reader...]

There is no emotion, there is peace.


Pain is what we fear. But more than pain, it is the fear of pain that we fear. I was having trouble with Vajrasana today. That was not unusual. I have to fight through it every day. I had given in to the belief that I was not built for that. My legs are too ill positioned for any kind of asana. Every joint in my legs was aching after two rounds of Vajrasana. Like every day, I was thinking of skipping the last round (I had actually gone through the last round last time; still, one time hardly counts). But today was different. Today, I was beginning to understand the meaning of meditation. I believe that meditation is a journey in the sea of turmoil for the answer, the truth... And today, I was meditating on the singular thought—‘There is no emotion, there is peace’.


And I thought—


The human civilization is the epicentre of an emotional storm. Conflict—inside and outside the soul. There is no end to the sufferings of mankind. The free-bird suffers because her feet are tied with a chain. She is passionate and regrets being so, for she always feels let down by the world which doesn’t function as she would have it. She feels rage against those who oppose her. She is angry, frustrated by the cage-life which lacks meaning and purpose. She wants to fly away—to be free but she doesn’t have the key. Only a few of us have it. And it reflects the wisdom of centuries.


I have often wondered what it would feel like to map the emotional state of the entire world. Brilliant flashes of colours everywhere—some bright, some dimmed, some ominously flashing whilst some peacefully resting. Countless thoughts and emotions flow through our minds every day, every moment. And at the end of it, if there’s any, we are left to wonder—where does it end, where does all this lead to? And if we are lucky, we ask ourselves, to the open air, the universe—shall I ever find peace?


The world has plunged itself into negativity and the only thing that can change the world is changing ourselves. A thousand people rush to places, every day, walking briskly, almost running. The key is to slow down. As I walk slowly in the middle of a pacing crowd I find that I have more time to think about where I am going and if I really want to go there. Most of us just do things, never actually thinking about why we are doing it. When asked, we only find ourselves spluttering that we are doing so because someone, presumably wiser, has told us that that is the only way to succeed. Speaking of which, it is important to reflect on the word—success; but more on that later. How often have we decided for ourselves that what we are doing is the right thing to do, even if it turns out to be wrong? More importantly, how often have we thought—what shall we achieve at the end of it? Money, fame...is that what we really want?


I was in pain. But more than that I was afraid of the pain I would experience if I tried Vajrasana once again. Truly, fear is the biggest illness. We are always afraid of something or the other—the boss, examinations, failure, losing what we hold dear...Where is the source of this fear, I wonder. Maybe it is in fear itself—the fear of losing something. Fear is an emotion that feeds on itself, until there’s nothing left but an empty body and a soul lost in chaos.


Here I would like to quote master Yoda—‘Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.’ But then the question arises, how can a person train himself, or herself, to overcome the fear of fear? Maybe the answer lies in meditation, through yoga, submitting oneself to the will of the universe and accept the flow of destiny. I am not wise enough to answer such question. I am only ignorant enough to raise them. Maybe my questions will be answered one day. Maybe someday I will find true peace and not merely the glimpse of it.


Universe, you are the living force. You are the cosmos, the network of energy, the laws of physics, the intricacy of logic, the divinity of mathematics, the philosophy of the Upanishads, the wisdom of the Vedas, the gods of mythologies, the One, the Force, the Allah, the Brahma...you are the Brahmin, the beginning and the end, the need and the means, the necessity and invention, the life and death...you are everything and you are nothing—you are the solid earth and you are the never ending space, the eons and the nebula...you are time and space, the never ending flow of energy...through life and death, from master to pupil, from plants to animals...


And when I realize this to be the truth, I also realize that I am not without you and you are not without me. Without me, you are incomplete and without you, I do not exist.

The Kids

Incident 1:
The yellow ambassador was cruising peacefully through the newly reconstructed road, from Mejia to Durgapur. I was sitting in the back seat with a co-passenger. The passenger in the front seat was chatting animatedly with the driver. I was comfortably daydreaming. The day was unusually hot, aiding my daydreaming, even though the occasional jerks woke me up to the present circumstances.

As the car was passing through the village of Maliara, several kids blocked us. They gathered around the car and asked for donations of Saraswati Puja. Our driver did not relent. After much haggling, the kids demanded ten rupees. Mr. Driver said that he went through the village now and then and he would give them the money some other time. But the kids were adamant about their demands. From the back seat of the car I could see the face of the driver in the rear view mirror. It was getting darker every second. He handed out a five rupee coin and said that they would get the rest later.

Now the atmosphere was really heating up. But remember my reader, we are talking about kids. Nothing to fear from them! Or so I thought until something very unexpected happened.
The group was steadily becoming loud-mouthed. One of them laid flat on the hood of the car, with his legs firmly planted on the road. He called out loud, ‘We won’t let you go until you give us the money...’ Our driver roared the engine to intimidate the little hero. But he was far from being intimidated. He shouted back, ‘Go on! Run the car over me! I won’t budge! (it stands like this after translating his strong accent)’

He looked at us with threatening eyes. The other kids were also looking at us with eyes of contempt, anger and challenge. Their mute eyesight screamed out, ‘Don’t try to over smart us. We won’t let you pass as long as we have life in our bodies...’
It was a curious little moment. I could not decipher my own feelings towards the children, hardly any older than twelve years. Was I angry at them? Or was I admiring their audacious display? Or was I worried about the future they would land up in if they did not change their attitude towards life—to take everything by force? Perhaps, I was feeling all three emotions.
Before the tension blew out of proportions, our driver relented sensibly. He handed out a ten rupee note and we drove on.

Intermission:
On our rest of the way to Durgapur, I thought about this little incident and a lot of older memories came back. But before I go into my memories, let us ponder on the incident 1. Why did it happen? Was it poverty? Was it neglect? Was it the frustration from being pushed around for too long? A bunch of ten years old kids acting like a martyr for so trifle a reason. It thoroughly reminded me of a picture of a young Chinese standing in front of a tank in protests for democratic reforms! The re-enacting of the gigantic scene took place right in front of my eyes, for the sake of five rupees. And the look of anger! They shouted back at us making angry gestures and they are just kids...that is the most troubling bit. They are kids and they are acting in a wrong fashion with no one to check them or correct them. Several grownups, probably who knew them, watched the show, not saying a single word...not asking them to behave in a proper fashion, not telling them that it is not wise to settle everything by violence. They are a bunch of misguided little kids and they are walking the wrong path in the wrong time. Not that there is any right time for walking the wrong path. But this is the time when the clay is soft and it can be moulded into any fashion. A crooked shape is the least wanted.

I remember that I had seen an episode in a television series by the name of Ehsaas. It was about a middleclass man stuck in a bus-depot for a night, along with few other people. All night long they talked about the cancer of poverty that was holding our country back. They offered many solutions for the problem (I don’t remember the details). A group of coolies were sitting in the far corner of the bus-depot, surrounding a merrily crackling fire. The protagonist of the episode left the company of the fellow strangled passengers, probably bored by their conversations and went over to the fire to warm his hands.

One of the coolies said to him, ‘Babu, I have heard everything you fine people were saying over there. Honestly tell me, do any of you people intend to make the conditions of the poor people better? Will that man give his warm shawl to any of us? No. The answer is no. You need people like us to stay poor so that the society remains balanced. If we become rich, who will carry your bags?’

Saying this, he laughed.

Perhaps he is true. With all our talks about making this world a better place to live in, we never really mean them. Deep inside we never want the downtrodden to come up.
I will give you another anecdote. I was a kid back then. I used to play a lot of cricket back then. For some days, a lot of our team members were not coming to the ground because of some reasons and the remaining few of us teamed up with some the boys of from the servant’s quarter and continued our games. It was fun. They were fine players.

Two or three days after, the father of one of our team mates caught up with me and asked me why we were playing with them (meaning our new team members). I could not think of anything to say. ‘Because they are good players’, I said to him.

He told me that his son was not going to play with us as long as we associated ourselves with the likes of them. I did not see the boy in the fields for a long time after that.
I was too young back then to call him sick. But his behaviour did appear weird to me.
Now there is another event like this, but from the other side.
I was not a kid back then. I was a teenager. Every day, while coming back from tuitions, I used to have fuchka at a roadside portable-store. The man who sold the fuchka was old and always grumpy. One day, the man got into an argument with another man with the amount that man owed him, for the fuchka. The customer appeared to be a well to do man, from his attire. After settling the argument, and paying the money, as the customer was going away, the fuchka-seller shouted to his back, ‘Yes, yes I know. You are a gentleman and we are ____man (the word he used is too inappropriate to put into writing)’.

And there was this same anger in his voice, which I noticed in the eyes of the rebellious kids.
Days come, days go and we never think about what is going on around us. We lie cosily in our rooms, shutting the door. But this overwhelming disorder, all this wrong and violent eruptions prevail.

But often a cool breeze brings peace after a very hot day.

Incident 2:
I was sitting in the bus for Kolkata, mulling over all these things when a sharply sweet smell found its way into my nose. And a sweet voice found its way into my ears.
A small girl was selling incense sticks.

‘Dada, dhupkathi neben? Aek packet dosh taka. Du packet kuri taka. Tin packet tirish taka. Char packet chollis taka. Dada neben? Ami school dress kinbo ei takate. Dada nin na...khub sundor gondho. Agun lagalei dhore jay ar onekkhon teke. Dada didi neben?’

‘Brother, will you please buy incense sticks? One packet-ten rupees, two packets-twenty rupees, three packets-thirty rupees, four packets-forty rupees. Will you please buy it from me? I want to buy my school dress with the money. Please buy it, sirs, it has a beautiful fragrance. It lights immediately and stays for a long time. Will you buy one from me?’

She was speaking in such a sweet voice that it made me forget what I was thinking a few moments ago. Normally, I would have paid no attention to the seller, but this girl was different.

She was a kid and a sweet kid.

I beckoned her.

‘I will buy one’, I said to her, even though I did not need it and never intended to burn it. And so did some people in the bus. They bought the packets of incense sticks from her.

She thanked everybody in her low and childish voice and got off the bus. I looked at her for a long time and smiled. She went to a hawker, probably her father, and both of them left.

A Walk To Remember

My mind was filled with melancholy. I was too distraught to sleep. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I felt the burden of loneliness crushing upon me, for the first time in my life. It was a strange night. The night spoke in my ears about how I have chosen to lose all that was special to me, all that I held dear.

I sat up on my bed, frustrated. And then it occurred to me, like a blissful breeze. I have to do this today. If not today, then when? And if I don’t do this today, I will never be able to do it.

It was nearly four in the morning. But outside, it was hardly any better than the night. I dressed up and packed my bag and was ready to leave. I woke up my mother and told her that I will be gone for some time but I would return by afternoon. I told her not to worry about me.

But as I stepped outside the door, my heart was filled with uncertainty. So, I thought that I should sit by the lake for some time. And so I did. I sat on the cold bank and prayed for strength for the journey that lay ahead of me.

At thirty minutes past four, I started walking.

This was something new for me, something out of my imaginations. For days I had hoped for this. For days I had planned about setting off so suddenly and without any destination. But for days I had only planned and never dared to actually set off. And here I was, walking alone in the darkness of the early morning of winter, my fists clasped between my armpits to keep them warm.

There was something magical about the road that lay ahead of me. The fog of night allowed me to see only a few metres ahead of me. The rest was shrouded in its thick envelope.

I have to remain vigilant, I kept saying to myself; for the trucks ran like hell on these roads and they, too, must be suffering from visibility problem. At any sign of distant headlight or rumble of engine, I stepped down from the road and walked on the sidewalk till the monstrous vehicle passed by me.

After half an hour of walk, I was going through a village. It was so dark that I could not even see myself properly. I heightened my auditory senses. And as I did so, even the most ordinary sounds seemed to become extraordinary. The chattering of crickets rose like a din. And even the faintest rustling sound made me start. I stepped up my pace. The ghostly atmosphere was getting on my nerves. But at the same time, at some level, it was bringing peace to my mind. I can say so because the overwhelming melancholy of my mind was slowly ebbing out, making way for a profound sense of purpose.

A series of high tension wires stretched along the side of the road. The darkness, the fog and the crackling sound of the HT wires... oh what a symphony they created together...as if the night was waving its wand like the conductor and all its elements were obeying its every motion, thus creating a harmony of musical fusion.

The road that I have travelled for years appeared unfamiliar. It was out of a dream world. And it reminded me of a dream I used to have when I was younger—I was walking alone on a straight road for eternity.

The emptiness around me was obvious. As far as my eyes could see, there were no settlements...only fields with dried crops. I crossed a mustard field. Its yellow colour flashed even in the darkness.

I varied my pace from time to time. For some time I walked briskly to cover the maximum ground and then for another interval, I walked slowly to give my legs some rest. The road seemed never ending.

In an hour and half, I had covered eight kilometres. The day was becoming clearer, even though, the sun was not visible yet. I stopped in a village, by the name of Maliara. I had bread and a rest period of about fifteen minutes and then I began my walk once again.

One-third of my journey was over, for by that time, I had fixed my mind on the destination. It was Durgapur. From Maliara, I stepped off the main road and moved into a bypass road through the village. The milestone by the road showed me that Metali, another village, was seven kilometres from here. The Durgapur Barrage was another five kilometres from Metali.

The sun had come out and the magical aura was disappearing. But the sense of purpose was not lost. When I had set off, I did not know my destination, but now it was different. But there was a little problem. My legs were wearing out and I did not know how long it would take before they succumbed to the pressure. I am no hiker. And the longest I have walked at a stretch, willingly, was for an hour or two. But this journey seemed never ending.

After I crossed the eleven kilometre milestone, the first signs of real fatigue began to appear. It was becoming really difficult to walk. So I decided to have a rest period. I sat beside an irrigational canal and tried to find a small amount of peace in the kol kol sound of the flowing stream. I stretched my legs, feeling the warm gush of blood through my veins, bringing relief to the wearied muscles.

The journey became difficult from then. I had not slept at night. As a result, my head was dizzy. To top it, my legs were aching and my back was hurting. I felt pity for myself...at my weakness. But I kept walking, at the same time. I kept saying to myself—at the end of the journey there is peace, but to find that peace, I must reach the end of the journey. I have to walk.

When I reached Metali, my legs were screaming and all I wished for was a soft bed to lie on. I kept repeating to myself...only five kilometres...four kilometres...three...

Oh! Why doesn’t this road end? The closer I came to my destination, the harder everything became. I tried to keep a normal face, biting back the pain that was searing through my limbs. The journey seemed no longer magical to me. All the charms and heavenly beauty were gone. All that remained was numbers—the distance that separated me from the barrage.

And at last, after walking for almost four and a half hours, with two very short breaks in between, I was there. I slumped onto a bench and could not move for the next twenty minutes. I sat there, wondering what the purpose of all this was. I was tired to the bone but at the same time I felt cleansed from the inside. My mind was at peace. Maybe this is why people go on pilgrimage...to cleanse their inner dirt by the pain of their limbs.

The water of the Damodar river appeared peaceful, but a thousand ripples glided through the surface. And the ripples brought with them masses of floating water vegetation, like entire continents. They merged together and dispersed, took new form every now and then...so magical and yet so neglected... They all speak out to us, asking us to follow them. And if we listen to their call, everything falls into place, every last piece of the gigantic jigsaw puzzle. And we hear the eternal words—peace...peace...peace...