Walking towards Parijat

Amateur's Anecdotes Ch 3

Left. Right. Left. Right.

The left foot lifts off the ground and lands just a step ahead of the right foot, followed by the right foot which surpasses where the left one is. Two complete steps ahead. The soles of my feet are pricked by the rough bumps of my sandals everytime they land back on the ground from their flight. With my head bent over to look at my own steps, my spine concaved outwards, my legs moving ahead, I must look like a walking question mark to anyone who would look at me from a distance. The dust beneath my sandals blows up a tornado each time my leg takes a step and I, I feel hypnotized by the chaos underneath me. The chaos that fills my heart are similar to the dust, blowing up a tornado, settling, resettling, dancing, standing still, slipping through my fingers just as I am about to grasp them in my hands to arrange them in recurring patterns. I am walking. I don’t know where I am going. I don’t even know what lies ahead of me. But, I am walking. The white petals of the Parijat is pulling me forward and I am walking.

I lift my head up, the road ahead is painted in my eyes. A long narrow path, stretching far to reach the horizon where it grabs the bright blues of the sky in a passionate embrace. The greens of the fields on the side sway with the rhythm of the wind, like puppets held up by invisible strings keeping them moving. I can feel my hair coming loose around my face as if in protest for having them encased within a rubber band, instead of letting them join the puppets too. The rays of the afternoon sun glitter through my lashes as I squint my eyes, in search of Parijat. They must lie beyond the horizon. The little white starlets with a bright orange heart, the galaxy of peace, of tranquility, of joy. My Parijat waits for me at the end of my journey. So, I continue walking.

As I walk on the uneven gravel of the road, my breath gets stuck in my throat. The rise and fall of my breast, the drumming of my heartbeat in my ears, the damp coldness under my armpits, hint at the impending weariness. I don’t really know how long I have walked so far. I don’t know how far I have yet to go. In my solitary rhythm of my sandals, the occasional cheers of the black birds flying by and the whistles eve teased out of the ruffling leaves, are my company. And the bright yellow ball sits at the pharmakon of the sky, the sun, the chronicler of my journey. I want to pause for a few minutes. But the magnetic pull attracts even stronger as I get closer. So, I keep walking.

Suddenly, the thump-thump of my steps reverberate through another pair of similar thump-thump. I turn my head towards my right and I see a silhouette of a woman, matching my steps, one arm distance away from me. I have never seen her before. Her thin hair sheltering her scalp from the scorching sun is neatly tied into a low bun, the shadow of the profile of her nose curved in an arrow pointed downwards. She is much, much older than me. But she resonates me in the parallel recognition that a butterfly has with a growing caterpillar. She turns towards me and smiles. There’s an uncanny ease in her steps, that of a veteran who takes joy in the process, rather than the outcome. I want to hold her hand and let her guide me forward, I want to sit down somewhere and rest my head on her lap so that she can run her calloused fingers through the knots of my hair, but I don’t. I take comfort in matching my left foot to her left and my right foot to her right as we keep walking.

As her gaze leaves my face and lands on something behind me, her eyes widen in surprise and her smile reaches her ears. She looks back at me and raises her chin to point towards whatever she was looking at, urging me too. I cautiously turn my face towards my left, my heartbeat quickens in anticipation of the threat or trouble that might be, but instead, my eyes land on the warm joy radiating from the eyes of a man, already looking at me. He, too, was matching my steps. He softly chuckles and shakes his head, reading the surprise off my face. The thick rimmed glasses do not fortify his smiling eyes, only enhances the joy, the walking stick held firmly in his right hand does not make his steps tremble, only supports the weak knees. He is older than the woman on my right, if only by a few years. The wrinkles decorating the corners of his eyes are deeper, more pronounced, than her. If the rings on a tree trunk tell us the number of years the tree stood witness to the world, so does every crease of the human skin. I feel safe positioned in parentheses between the numerous wrinkles and creases on my either sides. I look forward at the road and I realise that between the three of us, we have crossed far greater distances than what I, alone, would have done in such short time. My little thump-thumps now has echoes that makes the birds, the leaves and the sun to listen as we continue ceaselessly walking.

I wonder what lies ahead that is fueling our legs to keep this dance onwards and onwards. Is it victory? Or conquest? Or perhaps, peace and joy? How ridiculous is it that we are walking, exhausted, towards nowhere in particular, in search of flowers that we may not find there? I should slow down, I should sit down with my companions and have a conversation with them, I should turn back around and return to wherever I came from. But I can’t stop. In this absurd walk, my legs do not comply to my desire to stop. I have to keep walking.

There’s a whisper of tap-tap on my left shoulder. I look at the man with my eyebrows raised. He simply nods at me and says, ‘Look around you!’. A human voice after a long walk of silent cacophony of nature feels like a return back home after a tiresome day amongst strangers. Turning my whole body around, I look at where he is pointing. A gasp of breath floods my lungs. I look back at him and notice that he had been waiting for my reaction with a knowing smile. There is a whole crowd of people walking behind me, with me. Men, women, children, young and old, all smiling, laughing, all matching their steps with me. There are so many people, I can’t even see where the last of the group ends. How did I not notice so many people behind me, I don’t know. I probably wouldn’t have noticed them, if the kind man by my side had not make me turn around and walk backwards. Someone from the back starts singing a familiar tune. Claps, clicks and footsteps from various corners of the crowd help him keep the rhythm. More and more people join in, those who know the song, sing along, others let their hands be the metronome of solidarity. And I, I only smile at the exhilarating celebration, of what, nobody knows, but festivities don’t demand reason or justification. Little children break off the steady rhyme of the steps and run ahead, dashing like arrows through my sides, chasing each other, playful, full of life. I look at the woman beside me, she was being dragged ahead by an impatient little girl with two antennae like pigtailed hair and shoes that squeak every time she takes a step. The woman takes my bony wrist in her even bonier, calloused hand and pulls me ahead as well. Three generations of womanhood propelled forward, still relying on the childlike bravery, still trusting the childlike freedom, birds of a feather. In the orchestra of claps, footsteps, clicks and that catchy chorus, I am joined by my own army of vagabond nomads. In the shapeless crowd of nameless people, I dictate a march that echoes like a war cry, towards Parijat, strong, steady, walking.

Not too far now. Our celebration overshadowed the scorching sun, that hides behind the faraway hill on my left, painting the sky with the pretty palette of pink and purple. The birds seem to have grown tired of roaming the heights and have come back to their warm beds of their nests to rest. My right hand is cocooned in warmth of love as the woman takes my hand in both of hers and holds it closer to her chest. My face is washed over by the gaze of her careful consideration and her gentle smile, as if trying pass over some crucial wisdom. She keeps looking at me for a moment longer and I feel a tug in my heart. It feels like a preamble of an event earth shattering. She then slowly releases her strong hold on my hand. Her legs stop walking, but her gaze never falters from my face. I cannot stop going forward. My hand tries to hold on to her in a desperate grip as the distance between us grows until I am clutching the empty air, my nails digging half-moons into my palm. I feel overcome with a bottomless well of sorrow, the tears breaking through the dams of my eyes onto my cheeks feel like a sweet catharsis. I keep walking, even though I want nothing but to turn back and run to her, until she disappears into the vignette of the crowd. A few moments hence, I turn towards my left only to find the spot that should have been occupied by the rugged old man stubbornly empty. I search for his face amidst the faces of the crowd that faces me. There! I find him some steps behind me. He looked strangely statue-esque looking at me with his hand raised, palms facing me, as if blessing me from a distance. He too, had stopped walking. With the dam now broken, my cheeks flood with uncontrollable tears. I notice even more people paused at various intervals while I keep moving forward. They keep singing and clapping from their designated homes, cheering me on from the sidelines while I play on. The dense forest of the evergreen crowd is thinning out with each shed of the autumnal leaves, leaving only few people, teens, accompanying me further. I don’t want to leave them behind. But I must tread on. I must endure. The sky turns few shades darker with each person that I lose. The puppets of tall paddy on the fields now seem to have wrapped up their show for the day and have settled in to watch the flickers of firefly buzzing over them. As the night falls and the stars decorate the canvas of the sky, the last steps of company I have with me are those little energetic children, now subdued. The circle of the moon lights up my path. As my youngest company leaves me, the marching army reduced to a whispering solo fugitive, yet again, I realize that it is not betrayal that I feel. It is gratitude that I had a crowd walking miles with me, I had memories of faces whose smiles are burnt into my heart, I had the echo of the song of joy that still guides my steps as I keep walking.

Left. Right. Left. Right. I walk to the rhythm of a melody still ringing in my ears. I walk carrying the blessings and the love of the old man and the matronly woman. I walk because they couldn’t. I walk with a renewed enthusiasm of someone pushing the last piece into the delicately threaded puzzle. The darkest hours of the night turns into dawn as the sun peeks out from the horizon on my right and the moon bids me adieu. In front of me lies a canopy of bougainvillea, bright, pastel, colourful. I walk through the leafy gate, setting foot on the narrow trail through a dense green jungle. The tall trees surrounding me filter the red-orange rays of the sun littering the leaf covered ground with dark and bright spots. The birds greet me ‘good morning’ and so do the pearls of morning dew hanging on the leaves of the bushes. Walking up the trail, I, finally, reach the turquoise pond in the middle of the jungle. The air here holds the stillness of baited breath. The various shades of green play tug-of-war for my attention. The spotlight of the sun rays highlight the edge of the pond on my farthest left. I saunter towards it, pulled by the unnamed magnetism, which grows stronger and stronger. Goosebumps prick upon my the skin of my back, my heartbeat a resounding boom in my ears, my rise and fall rapidly to soothe my tired lungs, as I realize that my legs have, finally, come to a standstill. For the first time, I have stopped walking.

The green canvas in front of me is covered with little white stars, countless delicate petals that encase the orange nectar of life, luminous, alive, eternal. This is it. I have found my Parijat.