It was alternate fade in, fade out at the urge of environment! A dark white chicken membrane of misleading fog was waiting for him at the crossroads of morning walk. It was too distant to trace the culmination of illusionary miracle of winter dawn of chilling yet politically hotbed of New Delhi. He was taking quiet steps eyeing the eastern gate of Jawaharlal Nehru University in patriotically submerged January 08.
Being a sunday was no dam excuse for the diversion in the regular ritual of meeting the dew and the half awaken peacocks settled in the campus. Half awaken because; they too, were too reluctant to sing a welcome song to spring without the company of a boy who has pledged to write all his lifetime for the virtue of companionship.
He entered. He recalled his love at every step. He uttered her name at every step. He appealed to all--the shy bushes, self-righteous tall trees, humble tropical plants, pleasant grass and polychromatic aromatic flowers-- to reveal the secrets of her whereabouts! He whispered in ears of every flora and fauna his telepathic messages to be channeled to her. He still continued. He was not crying to flood away in sorrow. He was not in shock of loosing her. He was immensely happy to be in association of the memories of her uttered words making the rounds in his ears every moment.
He returned to boarding room after failing to trap the loss of her memory in the impulsive caricature of the cool breeze. He opened weekly edition of all the newspapers he was regularly subscribing. All the copies were flashing the unanimous obituary to the landmark of service towards humanity, Baba Amte. He had read few weeks ago about the gradually crashing metabolic of Baba due to ascending Leukemia. Still then, he was confident about the man to breath more as his whole profile was full of adventures, bravery and epics of the conquest over every impeding crisis.
Resurgence of her memory was nothing less than a prayer for him. A prayer, full of sacred fragrance and pure longing having no expectations! How can he express expectations when his bud of extreme innocent, delicate emotions were insulted just like a premature abortion? How can he claim about being a body of honest integrity when he was blamed for the immature acceleration to embrace the so called uncivilized step he had chosen to execute? How can he justify his affection as a true symbol of platonic surrender towards the lady he had idolized in the snapshots of recent cache of cerebral footprints?
Baba`s death made those questions more bold. Baba`s departure made his inferiority complex more evident. Baba`s forthcoming farewell made him sorrowful and forced to think about his every action since the last meeting with her. He was trying to drop tears but to his misfortune they were proved traitors now. He tried to speak something to pay a sincere homage to the great icon of selfless striving and erosion. Homage; as a necessary recall of the scarifies that man had made by going through giant humiliation all of his half life period! But he was unable to melt his frozen gratitude. He seemed collapsing just like orbiting electrons in an absence of centripetal force would do into the nucleus.
Raja overwhelmed with the adolescent delight by having an possible imagery of a stay in Anandvan for the coming ten days in the sublimating summer of 06 in Chandrapur district of Vidarbha. He always believed in no nonsense approach towards the social cause. Making a trip to enjoy the holidays under the guise of an assignment of Journalism course he was pursuing was just a matter of sweet meeting of diagonals. Diagonals of professional assignment and the burning consciousness he was developing towards the goal for which Anandvan and other organizations were established and continued to work for!
He, along with his other four casually relaxed class-mates was very crazy about their adventure when they left Pune railway station. Adventure? At least they all thought so. The name of the train itself signified and indicated the agenda of the trip they were embarking upon; Azad Hind Express. “Kadam Kadam badhaye ja, Khushi ke geet gaye ja; Ye zindagi hai quam ki, tu quam pe lutaye ja!” But Raja knew that his colleagues` forthcoming crumbling enthusiasm about service will be soon amorphous in the form of Hindi film songs which will then script their journey towards “paradise of devotion”--Anandvan. He was silent all along the path of dry yet intense area of trees. He knew , he is going to witness an unparalleled example of palace of humanistic altruism across the square miles of the approaching jungles of the district. With a seeking of a concrete character, he initiated a calm self check.
In the mean path they came across the annual pilgrims of Anandvan. Quest of every major nodal bus station they reached after long rail itinerary ended in joining of the crew of the district wise volunteers headed by NGO ignited stream of “Sathi Hath Badhana! ” The humble and kind outburst of “Bharat Jodo” was the constant rejoinder to the every meeting point of the two groups of volunteers. The outburst -- an appeal of the heart by the inclusive spirit all encompassed in the continuous struggle they were involved in.
They reached the training camp well one day before the fire in the kitchen was yet to lit up but at the time of hunger burning their belly. All they did, encroached upon the reserved quota of the food stock they had transported with them to fight for emergency provisions.
Raja was mute spectator to the planning in process at the site of the camp. He was just watching, thinking without bold approach to participate. He stood for nothing. He was neither good orator, writer, poet nor leader or any other virtue you could imagine for. His only strength was tremendous curiosity and capacity to observe, a keen ear and eye to be precise!
Raja was not so poor by condition but highly strong by ambition. From his childhood, he was reading about the legendary work of the various social reformers, freedom fighters like D.K. Karve, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Gopal Ganesh Agarkar, Mahatma Phule, Shahu Maharaj, Ravindra Tagore. Once he entered in catchment area of camp, he found himself among the irrigated audience of the great debating whirlwind in the voluntary camp of “Somnath” hailing from Anandvan community under the umbrella of Maharogi Seva Samiti, Varora.
She was fully bloomed in bright white Punjabi when Raja saw her reading the biography of Sadhana Amte, life partner of Baba. She seemed both very exquisite and inquisitive simultaneously while reading the lines from the struggle of Sadhanatai. The noble charm emitted by her was innocent and the reflections she showed after instantaneous realization about Sadhanatai`s life were maturely aggregated. Raja could not resist to welcome waves of novel calmness. He could not stop himself to focus at the freshness of her concentration of scanning biography and the passion in her eyes towards the feminist icon of Sadhanatai. In a sudden hunch of getting introduced to her he forwarded his hesitant but impatient step directed at the pandal where she had sat for last half an hour.
The moment Raja, in a cute leap of determination huddled to unlock her attention, she left the pandal in a momentary reflex and the first formal face-off between them was prevented. Since he had landed in a land of hard-work-round-the-clock this was his first encounter with the spontaneous flow of beauty and calm resolve which he observed in Sharada. At the same time all the compatriots engaged since morning in a session of farm work were gathering in a creeping fashion for the lunch.
The first day of the camp was in the motion at six a.m. with the prayer, national songs and the brief exercises of Yoga. This initial physical warm up was followed by a prolonged and captivating meditation session. Very few among the delegates present there were having first hand flavor of the yoga and meditation. These subsequent sessions were truly electrifying. It made the solid foundation for the upcoming ten days which were truly going to extract the sweat and energy from the carbohydrates of children, youth and senior citizens. They already had shown great courage earlier to travel from hundreds of kilometers to reach there.
All got aligned in a traditional seating arrangement for the great summer lunch attack decorated with natural cold drinks! Surprisingly, the first platoon to serve was from Amravati, a district famous for tiger and tribals in a wild forest of Melghat. He was unaware of this development and was already feeling his stomach alighted due to the hard dig in the farms he had in early incremental warm morning. He was busy with his classmates in figuring out the count down for the hot food to be served.
All the comrades at lunch time were busy introducing each other. Raja, still thinking about the morning incidence when he failed to talk to Sharada was nervous with himself. When he was galvanizing his appetite by the buttermilk which was so much adorable to him especially in sunny days, a childish pleading made him look upwards from his down-to-earth approach of swallowing. “Salad...do you want it…salad?” asked the humble voice. Raja replied in affirmative. Salad was served by hand in the dish of Raja.
Raja objected in mild tone. “Madam, don`t you have a spoon with yourself? An able server always comes with the spoon to make the things easy and manageable.” She smiled in a way to admit her folly and in a sluggish, staring look moved ahead. She was none but Sharada.
After many months, delegates were able to pray in front of orange meditation of the sun going to rest in the evening composed by chirping of sparrows and parrots. The evening time was reserved to do justice with the skills, the ever present vigour and the oscillating verve in the youth. Songs, dance, poetry, mimicry and many versatile aptitudes were at display during the post dinner session. Raja was famous for running away from performances. He was still at unease due to the lack of opportunity to leak his growing database of analysis of diverse opinions he was well aware of during his lifetime achievement!
He got acquainted to Pratap, a die hard Student Federation of India activist from Amravati. He was now well versed with Abhijeet hailing from Jalgaon, who was years old loyal to ABVP. There were quite a few members of Yuvak Kranti Dal from Satara who came in touch with Raja in recent four days of the camp. Thus he was getting multidimensional viewpoint at the same place. He was in melting pot. Melting of prejudices in the pot of transformation by having a reconciliation with the misunderstood fundamentals of rational movement which he only knew in the history and philosophy monographs.
Raja was continuously looking for a break in a visual chase of Sharada`s face by a word or two in a conversation with her. He thought to congratulate her after her successful recital of a patriotic song she presented during one of the performance shows. But he could not. He was not afraid of anyone. He simply was taken aback by the thrill of attraction he was experiencing.
He could not discharge his introvert heart before her. He was unable to do because he had no excuse to do so! He was helpless. He could not explain to anybody the gravity of ripples of soft quake he was feeling in his mental horizon. He was just frozen in a way to resist any communication with anyone. Moreover he became calm and quiet throughout the remaining days of the camp.
When all were realizing the imminent concluding ceremony of the camp coming to the forth, everyone started to update their individual correspondence record fields. The special classic attraction of the camp was the Orchestra program performed by blind and disabled students of the school run by trustees. Literally, it opened the eyes and ears of the audience! The exemplary coordination and the professional symphony they displayed was much more the effect of lovely bond they shared with their mentor Vikas. He was older son of Baba and he himself lead by example by electrifying the atmosphere by a scintillating performance of singing famous gazals of Jagjit Singh.
The last session of the camp was only for the doctors. Even if he was not the eligible member of the meeting, Raja keenly attended meet chaired by Dr. Ashok Bhende from Nanded where he was busy working in backward areas. Raja was paying heed to Sharada who was also present there. Many interns of medical faculty were exchanging their doubts and viewpoints so as to enable them to have the dream of working with these stalwarts a substantial possibility.
After the camp was formally declared over, few of the students at camp rushed to Gadchiroli district to visit SEARCH project run by Dr. Abhay Bang who was instrumental in guiding government by his painstaking account on growing deaths of children due to malnutrition. Further they were supposed to go to Hemalkasa and Bhamragad, a tribal belt bordering Andhra where Prakash, a younger son of Baba was at the helm for last thirty five years curing Madiya advivasis. Raja, along with his friends went to Anandvan to meet Baba and to have a glimpse of the various projects, initiatives implemented there by the management for the sake of poor farmers and disabled. At the gates of Anandvan, Raja came across Sharada and this time he broke his mould of dumbness to have a landline number of her. In the end stage for coming conversation was set, rather unexpectedly!
Raja was missing Vipashyana more in contrast to Sharada. Since he came to Delhi he was searching for a viable space to reinvent his passion for Vipashyana. JNU rewarded to fulfil his dire need of deep and remote terrain peace he was searching for. He was unable to practice Vipashyana since he left Pune where for the first time in rainy season of 06 he had underwent intense training after going through ten days of speechless and partly hungry meditations.
Vipashyana metamorphosised his keen attraction towards Sharada in the form of ‘distant longing’ in letter and spirit. This was no coincidence; on the contrary it was beautiful sequence of solicitous churning of Sharada`s images when he was meditating for ten days. He was witnessing constant recall of her face with the equanimous mind simultaneously and sincerely learning the methods to control the impatient mind.
He was involved in relentless investigation of reasons of painless, griefless life throughout those ten days. As per Buddhist verses, thoughts are obstacles to self criticism, introspection. To attain a stand alone focus of concentration you must become thoughtless first. Physical pain is unavoidable reality of the life. Witnessing to pain with patient observation of the changes body undergoing under the periodic guidance of breaths is the brief method of Buddhist meditation. Hence witnessing organ echo due to sufferings helps us to understand that how the grief and pleasure both are momentary and thus forces us to realize futileness of our worries due to selfishness and ego.
More he became thoughtless, more he became avid about the idea of searching for Sharada in his own consciousness. He knew about the three stages of mind which were Id, Ego and Superego as per psychology. Where was she? She was nowhere except in his precipitate of meditation, in the bottom of all three constituents of Id, Ego and Superego. She was resting in the bottom because she had just landed directly from the recent memory to the pit of mind and her arrival had no informal expression due to his silence; day and night.
When he came out of virtual Pagoda of atheist Vipashyana course, he was steady, straight and very-very composed. He was more contentful than ever before, more motivated, more eager-curious about the micro-macro threads of life. He learned to relish every moment and object of life coming across. He ‘started’ once again.
Zen philosophy was the sibling of this century old Buddhist meditation. The word ‘Dhyan’ became Zen in a mutation during the travel to China. The moment Raja told about the Vipashyana and Dharmshala—a high altitude citadel of His Holiness Dalai Lama; Sharda was desperate to attain tranquility of mind by any possible means.
The laughing Buddha was always attributed to Zen philosophy and sometimes to Feng-Shui also. How to come out of this grey cave where every day crime of hate was yielding the punishment of venomous blessings! The need of the crisis hour was—a smiling submission to the relinquishing ideology like Zen.
Head butting protest by Zinedine Zidane to injure Italian player in football world cup final last year was still in randomly accessible memory of Raja. Yes, randomly! He was zealous addict of gentlemen`s game of cricket though he always craved for Soccer since his childhood. He oscillated his addiction between two sports when he was watching World Cup matches since Brazil`s triumph over Italy in 94 and Cricket World Cup 96 held in India. The pace and floating mobility with which players used their heads to strike a goal on corners had made Raja to think about a parallel resemblance to sensual use of individual brains in a breathless and thus thoughtless chase of football.
A football as a synonymous to Vipashyana. Day by day, Raja discovered this meditation in every walk of life. In the green landscapes, in congregation of sparrows at early dawn, in full moon night, in lingering hunger, in uninterrupted classical music, in zest of work, in isolation, in crowd, in walking with periodic zing, in alert sleep, in zeal of scripting poems…..
Finally, Raja wrote letter to Sharda where he expressed his heart in these words:
I was silent, you too. I was walking, you too!
I said, “We will reach.” You said, “We will not!”
I kept walking… you also!
I asked, “Will we reach?” You asked, “Why not?”
We kept walking…
Then we both said, “We can reach.” Both replied, “Certainly!”
One storm came; we kept walking.
Thousands storms came; we refused to stop.
Seconds and steps determined our journey, not years and vehicle!
Patience and perseverance sealed our fate, not power and property!
Finally, we were at where our dream was daring to go!
Do not hesitate to take first step; you will be frontrunner one day!!!
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