The Missing Rainbows
After nearly two months of gruelling and humid north Indian summer, the onset of monsoon is a much eagerly awaited event. Koels in mango groves and peacocks in the gardens, fields, and rooftops lend their dance and music to the distant rumbling clouds, heralding their arrival. The daytime skies often get enshrouded in a nightly dark, and after a sudden dip, the morning breeze matures into the high-speed wind. Oppressive humidity reaches its peak only to vanish with the first drizzle, which in turn gets usurped by thunder, squall, lightning, rain. This spectacle keeps on unfolding all around. It means relief for some and misery for others at the same time. Flooded rivers in the plains and avalanches in the higher reaches are also an integral part of this spectacle.
It was yet another of such days of the monsoon season. Will it matter to you if I admit that I cannot recall which year it was? Beginning with the meteorological predictions in the media till the clouds retreat, more or less, it is an annually repetitive process. What makes me recall and share this narrative from that year is beyond my comprehension as well. The drama had unfolded on a vast expanse of an endless stage that stretched as far as I could see, and I am sure, beyond that too. A mysteriously deep and equally immeasurable sky formed the perfect backdrop. It was held in place by the horizon extending all across the length and breadth of the panorama. Since early in the morning, it had been consistently changing colours, shades, and hues. As this spectacular performance progressed, the distinction between the backdrop, the stage and the performers would often get dissolved. Thunderbolts sliced through the skies, windowpanes rattled, doors swung wildly, and the entire creation shook in dread. Trees swayed as if possessed. Marauding shadows appeared from somewhere with the flashes of lightning, only to get instantaneously devoured by the dark looming large all around on that stage.
Leaving the spectators in awe of their power, spellbound by their mystique and captivated by their intimidating charisma, they wrapped up their act at their will and just vanished like djinns from some netherworld. Wrapped in their ever enigmatic loneliness, the backdrop and the stage, the Sky and the Earth, appeared quiet and still once again. Some of the remaining few raindrops were gliding down the eaves only to cause ripples in the puddles below. I saw an eagle soaring high, some butterflies flitting among the flowers and a few sparrows darting in and out of the ficus trees as the koel brought her songs back to the mango. Yet the void seems endless, and so did the interminable emptiness filling its entire expanse from here to there. Framed in my window or rolling out far into the outpost of eternity, it was, and it was not at the same time. Was it a phantasm, an illusion or reality? Staring into it, what was I searching? Was it a challenge, a provocation or an invitation that made me see myself stepping out of that frame?
How much empty can be emptiness be, or how much vacant can be the void? Can there possibly be a true emptiness or void anywhere? Be it a waveform or a particle, light passes through space, as do the sound waves. So many galaxies and planets, asteroids, stars, meteors all find places for themselves in this so-called void only. From the stillness of the deep oceans, waves travel to the shores, and then as clouds, they roam about in the sky. What is empty, and where is it? The all-pervading space cradles darkness and luminosity, stillness and movements, sound and silence, precursors of organic matter and all that we experience as existence. Within and without our physical frames, the same space supports all the biochemical processes characteristic or symbolic or synonymous with life. A minuscule version of the vast universal space permeates the blood vessels, intestines, respiratory passages etc. and between and within different cells in all living bodies. One can transcend all frames can traverse all through the space within and without. There are no boundaries to restrict, no destinations to reach, no signposts to follow. Is it scary with its mysterious loneliness and seemingly unending expanse? It could be for some of us, but it is essentially just a voyage, nothing more and nothing less, never beginning, never-ending but just continuing.
My watch told me that it was well into the early evening and the time for the Sun to start its westward journey. Some stray clouds seemed to nudge it, but they would soon give way. Was it waiting for the welcome arch to appear in the sky? But has anyone ever seen Sun take a bow under a rainbow? What was it waiting for at the other side of the threshold, hesitating like a coy bride? Is it a gateway or a bridge? Wherefrom would a rainbow appear? I cannot recall having seen a rainbow in the near past. A friend told me that they had become rare due to the pollutants in the environment; another shared some other geo-environmental facts. None would deter me from staring at the sky, the magnificent backdrop on this imposing stage. Both were the repositories of echoes of innumerable eternal songs from the countless plays staged since eternity. Did those echoes hide the words which I had been searching to complete my poem? “Yes, you will find those words in their repertoire only,” breeze, clouds, peaks, vales, and dunes had told me time and again. They told me to wait for the moment when they would guide me through the rainbow into the stillness and silence of this void. They knew my quest was for the words needed for concluding my writing would end there only and that I was not looking for the pots of gold at the two ends of the rainbow.
When and wherefrom will this rainbow appear in this limitlessness? I wondered. “Rainbows might have become uncommon and infrequent, but they do appear even now.” Who had whispered that to me?
