A date with 'Her' in the wee hours

My eyes open at 3 in the morning today. There is something special, my gut feeling appears to intimate. I go outside. A mammoth wave of pleasant surprise shakes up the last traces of sleep from my body. Is it 28th of March or some frigid January night? Time seems to have drawn back by at least a couple of months. There is dense fog and and chill in the air. It makes you feel as if spring is still out there in the other hemisphere.

At the start of this night on other the other side of the zero hour, a terrible rainstorm lashed once again, like it has been doing all through the winters. It’s very, very unlikely to have such wet conditions during winters and spring in this part of the world. The wheat, mustard, peas and tomatoes have been decimated. Mother Nature appears to be on an all out war against the humans. This particular rainstorm is supposed to further dent the wheat crops, leaving only just sufficient to feed the farmers, forget about selling anything for commercial gain.

Well, to the poet in me the sight of such a wet, cold foggy night, when there is supposed to be warm gusts of air from the western side, appears as a gift from Mother Nature. I take long draughts of fresh cold air and allow my eyes to literally melt in the night stage set up around the fog. Tiny hazy stages set up by the smatterings of electric bulbs here and there leave me dazzled. I come back to the house and lay on my cot and chant Mahamritnjya Mantra for individual and collective salvation against the Corona virus. Even in the desolate cold and foggy wetness, the world of humans seems terribly dented. I keep chanting for almost an hour and involuntarily find myself getting ready for a long walk in the silvery darkness. It’s very exciting as I lace up my shoes.

I decide against carrying umbrella, feeling it would be like trying to play too safe. This is the night to open up; to be alone in the fog-augmented and well-bathed darkness. Cold air hits my face as my shoes create squelching sound in the empty village streets. Even the dogs have taken a clue from the dispirited world of their masters. I don’t hear any growls as I move on. The darkness is dazzled with silvery crown of fog. I see the tell tale signs of the night rainstorm. Trees stand mute, bow headed in reverence to Mother Nature. They still play naughty as big drops of water still soaked in their canopy sprinkle over me and I look upward to see if it has started to rain again.

With open-armed teasing, winking and seductive invitation, the countryside opens her uninhibited charms in the vaporous darkness as I emerge out of the village. It’s a silent world more than ever I remember in the recent years. All the noise has got sucked indoors, leaving the countryside maiden to come out in its naked beauty, her wild tresses open and tossed by the rainstorm. Her lithe body washed by the holy waters. Her curves hidden in the silvery veil of the cloth that hangs loosely around her majestic body. She has a seductive smile on her lips and eggs me on. ‘Come, come o thou solitary journeyman, enjoy my unrestricted charms!’ I almost gallop to grab all of her to my own individual self. We have been branded and customized to be greedy. Even aesthetically we turn greedy. I walk on to lay my hands upon as much as I can receive from her willingly inviting persona.

The little countryside path serpenting across the farmed fields, linking the neighboring hamlets, has its chessboard set up in the dark. I have my mobile with me but decide against using its torch. I don’t want her to be discomforted by the glare of the molester of the darkness. I want her to be totally at ease and completely happy. Only then she will open her secrets to me. I am her lover. I have to get involved as per her terms and conditions. The weather-stomped little sinewy path has its own set of puzzle games to play with me. The places where I presume it to be smooth walkable earth turn out to be puddles of water; the assumed water puddles come out to be smooth solid earth. We deceive only ourselves with our assumptions and presumptions and then blame the path. I start doing the opposite of my assumptions and quite surprisingly I am able to walk decently. My shoes are wet. My trackpants below the shins are completely wet, but this is between me and my lovely night, so no blame game and grudges.

At places the path is under water, so I have to get onto the narrowest of embankment to move ahead. It’s like walking on a tightrope. Muddy water on the one side and rain decimated wheat crop a few feet down the other side. The rope is actually Marijuana rope! The embankment is thickly overgrown with wild Marijuana plants. This season there is an abundance of Marijuana plants in and around the village. With things going wrong for the Homo-sapiens, Mother Nature probably wants to provide a rotund stock of artificial stimulation to get Samadhi and forgetfulness. We need to eat less and forget more. That is why She has destroyed the crops and blossomed Marijuana. A confession here. As I walk on the Marijuana tightrope in the silver-laced darkness, I feel like committing a little scandal by chewing a few Marijuana leaves. But then I decide against it. I don’t want to be an intoxicated lover. I have to be fully alert to enjoy her charms. Moreover, those who have tasted the meditative forgetfulness will find any substance funny like kid’s game. So I allay the funny thought and move on to meet the lovely maiden hidden still deeper into the broader horizons. As I jump onto the path again, my shoes squelch with water and my pants are all wet. I feel cold now, so stop for a moment to take stock of my situation.

I remember a rain-soaked peacock, with Kilos of water in its long plume. The gallant then shakes it off with a vigorous shaking and continues to dance. So like a half-drenched peacock having accomplished a Marijuana rope walk, I jump, hop and shake the moisture. It warms up my body.

Utter peace and silence pervades each and every particle of the fog floating around. A lapwing titters in its usual accusative voice against the intruder. It lays its eggs on the ground and keeps a watch like an unsparing watchman. The moment it sees anyone near around, it raises a screeching ruckus. Her protests shake the sleepy silver-veiled darkness out of its slumberous state.

Plants, trees, bushes and thickets by the path stand frozen in time. On both sides, wheat crop lies decimated. Still Mother Nature will give enough for the stomach, if not more for the purse in addition. And countless are her ways to distribute what it takes from the humans to other species. So trillions and trillions and still more insects, rodents and birds will feast upon the fallen crop. Plunder in one corner comes as a perk in some other corner. It’s never a total loss.

In the distances I hear dogs barking in the thatched mushroom dorms. Business and economies have fallen flat and become redundant as of now. The Corona threat. It feels so safe here in this silver-laced silence. Faint silhouettes of threes on the silvery dark canvas make it feel as if time itself has stopped and suspended from its round the clock service. With each step away from the scared den of the humans, I feel sinking into the surrendered charms of the welcoming hostess. I touch my overgrown hair. Fog has settled down in dew drops on my head. I walk like a proud owner prince of this silence and peace. But then I have some dew mascara on my eyelashes also. What a makeup she has given me. I almost giggle.

In the rain-beaten foggy stillness and silence crickets sing their morning hymns. Their cricketing notes sound like very ample marching notes for the gallant me. I am on the way to shake hands with peace and silence without the risk of catching Corona. There is hardly any chance to come across any human being and I can spread my wings like a majestic eagle in the open skies. I reach a small bridge over an irrigation canal. The waters are holy. The canal carries Yamuna waters. It flows like an unassuming mystical flute. The ripples sound like honey drops fall from the cosmic comb into the waters. It’s so sweet. I can taste the sweetness of this sound. I am supposed to hear the sweetness, but it sweetens my tongue also.

As I walk, I feel the tingling sensation of the bioelectrical energy through my body as if I have been aroused by her soft touch. Beyond the world of bodily ejaculations, it is about the arousal of the entire self to take one to the stage of holistic orgasm, of mixing Yin and Yang within. Call it Chi energy or Prana, it’s the same thing and all of us have it. Just that we try to look out and exist on the surface and become insensitive to feel it. Go within and you will feel its orgasmic sensation! I am not into the business of spirituality. They have made it sound like an exotic art and craft to set up institutions and incubate immense followership. They make it sound like the toughest job where only the choicest few can succeed. Frankly speaking, if we overcome this urge to be a guru who possesses mystical powers, and guide all and sundry about the most evident secret without beating around the bush, each and everyone of us can feel this cosmic gingham. The neurons of my brain dance to the particles of cosmos. It itself creates an orgasmic buzzing and humming, which tries to set up a duet with the crickets around.

I come across at a farm side square. Another path cuts my path perpendicularly. I know the geometrical importance of this symmetry; of humans setting up an energy flow with their guided walk for the routine farming chores. There is an extra coagulation of energy there. It shoves at the apron of my bioelectric energy rushing to meet the hitherto untouched maiden of silence and peace. I respond to its pull. Stand there on the square and my Chi, or Prana responds to the lump of energy around. My hands and body move in symmetry, a kind of Tai Chi movements—I have never learnt, read or watched videos of these movements by the way—to align my meridians with the energy piece put on a platter for the guest by the teasing beauty. I feast upon it. It’s immensely energizing and reinvigorating.

With gentle fluidity, the day is holding the hand of the silvery darkness. The fog is lit up with grey traces of light. Indian rockchat, the expert early morning chatterer, starts chitchatting from the trees around. The deeply resonant coo…ooop cooo…oopp of the Cocucal reminds her that she has to go to the swathes of slumberous folds now. And there she takes hurried steps, with a mischievous smile on her lips, and love in her eyes, and moves further ahead before I can touch her fingers. I can see the hand still open and fingers moving in a smiling, coquettish bye. ‘Some other day!’ she says. The fog is dazzling now with the first signs of the twilight. Across the clouded panorama, I see her escaping to her royal bedchamber to sleep. She is looking back with a smile now and then. I take a turn and start back to the world of Corona scared humans.