The Path Leading to Silence and Solitude

 

Some sweetly humid moments on a rainy day in the countryside can provide more solace than biggest joyrides in concrete jungles. Nature’s bounties guys. Accept the offer. Like I do. It enriches you with observation, understanding, realization and glimpses of the ultimate truth.

There is a mystical silence behind all this little drama. The pathway to that zone of silence is through this amazing thoroughfare. Take your journey through it. You will reach the point of your solitude. There you will see your true self, the real loving self. I for one never miss a chance to allow the sonorous cooing touch the strings of my soul and feel the mystical harmony sizzling through my heart.

Life is never greener and more colorful in my small yard than during the monsoons: luxurious green of harsingar, motia, jasmine, duranta, guava, kari patta, tulsi, murva and the ubiquitous sadabahar blooming out of proportion. Well, the rains have been good. Butterflies dart around, flirting with flowers and their mates amid airy swirls. Even the irritatingly prickly and boring keekars are luxurious green like a new bride.

There are more birds breeding in the safe and overgrown greenery. I can even see a kite hovering in silent, serene majesty, its wings spread out in embracing comfort of Mother Nature. Even in the countryside the sight has become a rarity and I cannot remember many during the past decade. So it's a positive sign for the birdie world.

There are two pairs of oriental magpie robins chhrrring around. A treepie gives its strangely sweet ululation. A pair of Asian pied starling muses from the electricity line. A white wagtail flicks its tail and gives a sharp preening shriek of ecstasy as it picks up some insect from the ground. A group of bee-eaters dart and free-dive after the flies going footloose in the open skies. A bee-eater sits silently and swoops suddenly to catch a dragonfly. It then sits on a dry mulberry branch, the prey bigger for its beak, thinking over what to do now. It then starts beating the struggling pray on the branch, striking its beak on both sides by rhythmically moving its neck sideways. It appears more like bird yoga.

The bulbul family is still around, improvising newer and newer calls. The mother bulbul is very possessive of its offspring and entails it all the time. The wire-tailed swallow family is often seen with their swift dives and faint chipping sounds. There are lots of flying insects. So the young fellows are being fed well. Tiny tailor-bird tweets with the best effect among all. A lovelorn male Indian Robin is persistently sending love notes to attract a mate. The other day, it was drizzling and the lonely bird kept sitting on a high dry branch in the rain and continued with its pining notes. Well, let's hope lady luck smiles on it soon.

The unperturbed stoicism of the dove pair is inspiring to a meditator like me. The babblers and crows are noisy though. The stern looking mynah always appears with an air of aloof, single point focus on her own affairs. Another pair of spotted munia has set up a new nest in the Parijat tree's upper branches.

So the slow pace of life unfolds in its rustic majesty in the countryside. Then to top it all, there are the love notes of the lonely oriental magpie robin. Beautiful symphony of monsoonal love notes. The long drawn love notes are flying in air to catch the attention of an interested female. The guy is so absorbed in his love search that I reach just 3 feet from it. Only then it realizes that there are more important things than love and irritatingly flows away to continue its mate-searching song from a nearby tree.

Each moment is precious. Each instant is full of endless possibilities. Come on, try to observe all that is happening in such little moments. You will soon realize the richness of time. You will learn the art of getting the maximum of each single moment without feeling hurried and burdened with the daunting task. A natural effortlessness will seep into your way of doing things. But for all this to happen, you have to open your arms to the little wonders of life. These are the atoms that constitute the bigger dreams around.