Lip-kissed Lies and Soul-kissed Love

 It is springtime in ancient India. Contended air goes swirling and sniffing around fresh blossoms. Snow is melting in the mountains. Flowers smile and let out perfume that is picked up by the cool air to be scattered around in love drops. This town in the Gangetic plains is awash with fresh hopes. The butterflies dart around in gay, colourful abandon. The air is full of love and procreation.

The breeze is blowing with a seductive message. A young, handsome monk is moving through the streets. His steps are slow and face has a faint smile. He has a begging bowl in his right hand. A cloth bag hangs from his left shoulder. The spring air is redolent with both giving and receiving. This saffron clad man but has just the goal of having one time’s meal.

He is passing in front of a luxurious small palace. It’s decorated for love, luxury and enjoyment. It seems like a place where one can just surrender the self to quench all possible thirsts for a human being. He is but moving completely unconcerned and detached from all worldly splendour.

A pair of beautiful eyes looks at him from the ornate balcony. Her heart stops for a moment. If she is the ever restless river, he appears like the calmest sea having the immensity to swallow her thirst, her restlessness, her quest for destination, her final fulfilment. She realises her hunger. It is plain desire. He is so handsome and so aloof from all worldly charms.

She has the world at her feet. But the innards of a woman’s well of secrecy are beyond any attempt at measurement. The most beautiful and coveted woman of the state, she holds the title of nagar vadhu. Her life stands for love, opulence and luxury. Wealthiest traders, strongest noblemen and most creative artists kiss her feet to appease her and take a sip from the fountain of her beauty. Any man feels lucky if she holds her look on his face for more than a second.

The young monk with the begging bowl moves with perfect ease. Spools of meditative chants permeate his being. All restfulness. It’s a calm, unperturbed lake. It doesn’t happen that she is still holding her look on a man’s face and the man’s eyes move on. Her charms are so spell-binding. She is proud of this power, this feminine avatar of the instrument of control over others. With a faint smile, he just moves on. There is not the slightest change in his demeanour.

The hard shell of her ego cracks. It disturbs her. She even gets angry. With a frown on her luscious lips, she stares at his back. Her eyes glitter with a sparkling vivacity. He is now moving slowly down the street. The buds of anger inside her again blossom to plain desire.

Till now men have desired her, and confessed it as loudly and extravagantly as possible. This has been the norm with as much routine normalcy as you have a morning after the night. This loveful spring morning has but turned the tables. She desires this calm sea. She needs some rest. The spiteful torrents of her youth want to submerge and take shelter in his silent depths. It just attracts her senses like anything. She feels helpless.

She sends her maid to call the monk. Her heart is pounding against her breast. She is gasping for breath and at loss of words. Her hold over masculinity is giving in. She feels like a helpless, fragile woman. And finds it such a jolting emotion, a rare occasion when she is in the pursuit instead of being chased.

Her reverie is broken. The monk is standing in front of her door again.

“What do you want?” she asks, shyly, dropping her gaze around his feet.

She appears melted by some opulently warm emotion.

Where is that domination of men? Her servant girl wonders.

“Gracious lady, I just want one time’s meal,” the monk tells her in a pious tone.

He is as calm as ever, like a pond whose waters have stayed unperturbed for years. He has crossed over the storms. It offends her; after all, she is the thunderbolt which shakes up males without fail.  

She laughs in a mocking way. “You should ask as per the status of the person. Even a farmer can give you that much,” she is hurt that he isn’t taking notice of her beauty, as if she is just like any other woman around.

The monk smiles. Vibrating, invigorating sunrays light up his aura and present him as some mythologized persona from still ancient India. 

“Well young lady, this is all I need. It doesn’t change with people,” very softly his words pass out without any disturbance of any sort.

But his softness has disturbed her deeply in her heart. His unseeking, peaceful demeanour is pelting the waters of her desire-swaddled lake with stones of stoicism.

“You can have me, my palace and my luxury if you stay with me,” she sounds desperate.

She doesn’t remember the last time she had to pamper a man to get his favours. It is just a one-sided game, all high and mighty literally cringe before her to kiss her feet. 

He is as cool as before, as if nothing has happened. “This world is my house. I take the minimum as charity to survive, just one time’s meal. I am looking out over the path to take me further. I am searching for the destination where each particle of my being will be ready to give selflessly.”

He closes his eyes. A smile surfaces on his shapely lips. He is mumbling a prayer.

“I am also ready to give all I have, including myself and my palace and wealth. Isn’t it the same?” she stoops a bit towards him, straightens her bejewelled hands, presses her slanderous fingers into her palms, like she is holding herself back from some unseemly outpour.

“But you want to give only with the ambition of getting something back for your ego. You want the price of a monk abandoning his path for your beauty. There cannot be a bigger ambition, a bigger tool to pacify the ego,” his soft words hit her hard.

Truth, even in its delicate most avatar, becomes more effective than a rant, barrage and fusillade of hypocrisy. 

The monk is an unchanging picture of calmness. She is shaking with rage over the denial and feels worthless as if she doesn’t carry any price now for the males’ part of the world.

“At least stay with me for a night!” she is helpless and looks almost pleading.

“Do you really need my help? I can see the wealthiest to the strongest ready to help your needs,” he gives her a kind look.

“Please, please…” she is imploring. “I really, really need you. If you spend the night with me, I will forsake all men. Believe me!” she is folding her hands in agony.

She has forgotten what it means to be defeated and overlooked by a man’s passion. And she is searching for the traces of passion where it’s all compassion; looking for physical cravings where there is just kindness; looking for a stormy rendezvous where all we have is the calm, unruffled sea of being one with the self.

The young man gives a pitying smile. He can feel her agony. “I will come and stay when you really need me.”

She is tearful over the denial of her boundless desire. The monk takes onto his path. She watches him till the far end of the street. It is like a spiteful mountain river is looking for some rest in the cool embrace of a lake. Well, maybe there are longer journeys to reach such rest and redemption.   

Life then moves on, like it was before. She gets more wealth, more men falling at her feet, while the young monk is moving slowly on his path of selfless realisation.

It has been two decades since that spring morning in front of her palace. The same monk is walking towards the city, the very same city. Years of penance has taken him miles up his path of selfless seeking. He is greying but looks wiser, calmer and even stronger. It’s dark and he can see the lights of the city from a distance. It’s just nearby.

He stops to hear pitiable moans by the dusty road. He walks to the bushy ditch by the path. A woman is crying in pain and agony. He sits by the bundle of misery. She is in terrible suffering. Wasted by leprosy, her open sores are oozing with stanching fluid. It’s as bad as it can be. So much of pain. He isn’t repulsed by the stench. He gets tears of sympathy. The calm surface of his being is jolted by emotions.  

He lifts her in his hands and carries her to a nearby inn. They refuse to let him in with the foul-smelling creature. He decides to set up a hut outside the city to look after her. The rest of the night he spends under a tree, she lying by his side, moaning less now after the touch of affection and care. The human touch is a remedy in itself after all.

The spring sun rises in all freshness. The nature is abloom with sparkling green and laden with colourful, surprising nuances. He has been sleeping for the last couple of hours. The woman is also asleep. He opens his eyes and looks at her face. The evil-work of the disease has failed to completely destroy the vestiges of her former beauty. He recognises her. From there to here! What a chasm! What a trail of misery! More tears drip down his cheeks. He meets the destination of his selfless giving. She was lying there in the dark night to test the validity of his selfless love. And he has passed.

She opens her eyes and is surprised to find somebody crying for her.

“You said you needed me and I said I will come when you will really need me. See I have come. And you are the destination of my penance. Of selfless giving. Of loving from the core of my selfless being. I was not sure of myself till I found you. Now I realise it has been worth it. All this search,” tears are dropping in a blizzard of compassion and sympathy.

So the monk takes care of her. Helps her in easing all her miseries. Stays with her when no other man would even come near her.

She needs him now. And he is there at a stage in his monkhood when he is all there to give. Just give. Without taking or expecting anything in return.