The Magician and a Wanderer
The road unrolled like a black ribbon in front of me, spanning the entire extent of infinity. Then, at the farthest point on my line of sight, it turned into a haze and disappeared. It seemed as if it had melted in the waiting embrace of the horizon. Whether it emerged from the horizon or merged back into it remains a moot point. It had been like that ever since I saw it first and, in all probabilities, will continue to do so even beyond the limits of anyone’s imagination. Dotted with milestones at regular intervals, caressing the paddy fields, it was in a tearing hurry to rush past the ubiquitous scarecrows. So, where was it off to? What was it like here before the road arrived?
Having left the city limits way behind, I had pulled up by the curbside to shake off the fatigue, dreariness and monotony of the urban drive. But for one of the numerous milestones sharing space with me, it was a relatively isolated stretch of the road that passed through the countryside. My solitude was steeped in an all-encompassing and soothing silence. But it was not to last for long. A little later, I noticed a mystifying restlessness building up somewhere within me. Trying to decipher the dialogue between distance and destination, had I missed the eloquent message masquerading as the silence of the trees?
In front of me, the clear blue sky hung like a vast backdrop on an endless stage where shadows danced like puppets suspended from golden threads. They danced to the music wafting out somewhere from a nearby grove. Who was playing the music and making the shadows dance? The master of this orchestra must have been somewhere there, conducting his symphony. Was he alone, or to keep his company, there was a master puppeteer, manipulating the golden threads with unparalleled dexterity to make the puppets dance to his will and narrative? Yet, the most intense gaze into the surrounding nothingness and beyond failed to yield any clue about their whereabouts. So, where were the musician and the puppeteer hiding and why? Were they hiding, or was it that I was unable to locate them? Were the two of them separate entities, or just one exceptionally gifted artisan playing both roles simultaneously?
I wondered at so many companions who had made their presence felt all around me suddenly out of nowhere. Was there a magician too in that area of the stage? They were all there, yet my solitude remained unaffected. I was alone but not lonely. They were neither disturbing nor demanding. A swallow and then another one playfully darted out of the confines of that grove. Had they also come from the same concrete and glass jungle as me and found a patch of sky to play around here? I wondered that they must be having their nest in a tree somewhere nearby. I looked around and found that it was a peepal not far away from the spot where I had sought succour and refuge. How lonely was the tree! It reminded me of the peepal in my village, which used to have many sacred threads wrapped around its enormous trunk. Its weather-beaten bark resembled the wizened countenance of grand old ladies from the village visiting it to offer prayers. The platform around it used to host a large number of tiny earthen lamps.
Some extinguished and some still lit; all the lamps used to share the same space. Soaked in mustard oil and sometimes in ghee, their wicks would host flames of different sizes and shapes, executing delicate dancing steps in the embrace of the evening breeze. Each of these flames used to be accompanied by a shadow. However, their companionship lasted till the effulgence in the lamp, which in turn depended upon oil and wind. What had gone wrong with this peepal? There were no threads and not even the platform around that peepal tree. Although its vicinity had developed considerably yet, it was pretty evident that no one was visiting the peepal anymore. The village had receded into oblivion. And the road, too, had skirted deftly around it, leaving the tree immersed in its trance.
Mercifully the magician, the puppeteer, and the musician still frequented that abode of the birds and the shadows and played to the clouds, the breeze, wandering caravans and also to one odd wayfarer like me. That brought me to the original issue of their identity and being? Was it just that one exceptionally dextrous artist enacting all the drama, or there were the three of them? The brightness around me started getting dim, and the chirpy and buoyant notes started striking a more sombre chord; shadows began creeping and nestling up to the trees in the grove as if they had gotten tired and needed some rest till the next act of their performance.
I stood in silence, paying obeisance to those days when the grannies from nearby villages must have frequented this peepal to offer their lamps and prayers, tied red threads seeking some blessings or in gratitude for some benediction received. After a while, smoke started curling up from the smokestacks in the faraway village. Was it time for me to leave?
Would I have to leave with my questions unanswered? Who would give me the answers to my questions?
All this while, the magic of this place had kept me spellbound. Little did I realize that someone had snuggled beside me and almost surreptitiously added some more questions to my baggage. Who had come there? Having folded their act, did the same magician, the puppeteer, and the master of the orchestra visit me one by one? Or, was it the one whose singularity had contained all the faculties of the trinity?
The distinction between the black ribbon and dancing shadows had begun to dissolve into the slowly maturing dusk. The entire scene on the stage had transformed itself. Musical notes were still wafting across the sky, but now it was the cicadas who had taken over from the chirping minstrels. Clouds, whirling like a group of dervishes around the moon, replaced dancing shadows and the puppets. But the sky and the road had remained still, unchanged and continued to support and witness the new actors and their performance. Soon it was pitch dark, and everything around me had imperceptibly and effortlessly blended into a cryptic, melancholy uniformity. It was murky but not scary. The ambience of my shelter exuded an ethereal charm. It was a bridge stretching from the stories of yesterday to the promises of tomorrow. It beckoned me to take the trail leading up to it and then traverse it to the realms beyond it. Although it was dark, it was an invitation and not a challenge; a persuasion, cajoling and a nudging; not a compulsion or a push.
That was the time for me to get started again. Besides some unanswered questions, I had echoes of the music and the memories of the dancing shadows to share my solitude. Wanderings have no destinations. Blessed by such questions as these, they get metamorphosed into pilgrimages.
And the pilgrimage had to continue!
