A slow-paced day

 

Life is happy and good because I receive a big carton of pears as gift. Juicy pears enter even the most desolate parts and fill life with joy. But during the transport many big juicy ones have turned pulpy. Joy is never complete; it comes with conditions attached. Here the condition is that I have to ignore the loss. But there is an option to use these partially spoilt ones—instead of throwing them, I use them as ceasefire table items.

It’s Tuesday and the head monkey is visiting the locality with his family. His clan is bigger than the last time I remember. There is new addition to his harem. He is watchful as his clan eats pulpy pears. One little one is trying to catch butterflies around the peregrina flowers.

Fed with pears and the ceasefire still more reinvigorated I am going on my bike. I advise against being too bothered about the side happenings on the road. One has to be very focused on the job. One has to save one’s bones amidst the thundering prancing of the travelling bravehearts. But some things will always fall in your zone of vision. You can’t avoid them even with your brain all occupied in reaching safe amidst all the roaring runnels and gurgling gullies of driving passion on the road.

A massively fat policeman taking a lift on a slender splendor bike. The slim bike grumbles, the thin boy mumbles. I can’t see the boy at all as I catch up with them from behind.

Shri Bansidham Gaushala Society (Reg.) written on a gau seva banner at the back of an e-rickshaw. The narrow and longish vehicle purring to the destination with chapattis, grass and donated food.

A lone quail trying to run and cross the road, making several failed attempts as the vehicles keep rushing past. Mr. Quail, why don’t you fly a little and use your wings for a short flight? You will get trampled or get a two-wheeler guy tumbling on the road.

The infant lying on a cloth on the grass by the road under a forlorn acacia tree, and his/her three years old brother tending, keeping a watch over the baby. Already into the household duties! Their parents, the migrant Bihari couple, working on a construction site nearby.

A lapwing crushed on the road. The feathery carcass. I stop and as I pick it up to give it some dignity of a humble burial nearby, I hear the pittering, warning notes, maybe from its partner. A bird has little blood; it’s more of flying spirit, airiness.

I reach my destination, the place of enlightenment of a local saint. I disturb the watery meditation of a fish as I step into the pond to take a bath. It springs up in surprise and panic, missing my nose by a whisker, going several feet high in the air and lands at a safe place. I nearly fall down.

The saint’s soul reimburses me for the little shock as I, by chance, happen to enter his another ashram on my way back. The cook-cum-caretaker is a kindly man. He shows me the place—the guru’s resting place, meditation rooms, and serves hot milk and sweet petha. He seems a lovely human being doing tapasya through seva. Seva is a very noble form of tapasya. We hold a very nice discussion about the life and times of the saint who shed his body about two and half decades back. His fragrance still lingers and many take solace from it.