The Return Journey...2

Revisiting my hometown

'Aimless' is the right word to describe my wanderings one fine morning about a week ago. I had kept this word ready to answer a likely albeit imagined query about the purpose of my roaming around the city that day. I had reached my hometown the previous night and slipped out of my dwelling unannounced and undetected early the following morning. It was a little less than two hours since sunrise, and the road was abuzz with all kinds of people busy with various activities. The kerbside was already populated with some vegetable sellers, newspaper and magazine vendors, and a couple of mobile kitchens on hand carts selling hot steaming tea, bread-pakoras and cookies. Selling their ware, they solicited more customers by trumpeting their merchandise and announcing the tariff at the top of their voices. Strangely enough, though the resultant jarring cacophony gradually gained in decibels, it seemed to provide protective insulation for my serene inner quiet.

Returning to my solitude, nearly a week after that incident, I reflect on that morning. I ponder how none of those worldly noises dared to breach my sanctuary. “While you wandered, you were neither a buyer nor did you have any interest in the ware on display. Nothing could attract or distract you. Don't you know that despite the noises around it, your inner quiet can survive unharmed, unbreached because it is just a matter of receiving and reacting to the inputs? It is merely the attitude of being a dispassionate witness that fortifies the inviolability of your most treasured possession.”Whose voice was this? Had someone guessed my thoughts? Was it the same old constant companion of my solitude? I could recall the much-acclaimed couplet by the renowned Urdu poet Akbar Allahabadi (1846-1921),'  “दुनिया में हूँ दुनिया का तलबग़ार नहीं हूँ, बाज़ार से निकला हूँ ख़रीदार नहीं हूँ”(Just like being in a market without being a buyer, I am much in this world but not interested in it.)”

Moving away from the scene, I could discern the echoes of temple bells, conches, and familiar chants wafting across the street. Although the prayers and temple music didn't sound jarring, I could recall that nestled within the physical, ethereal and spiritual coverings deep inside my being, the same unmoved, undeterred quiet and stillness continued to reign supreme. A group of pigeons would encircle the temple spires now and then. Did they chase the pealing of the bells or carry the prayers to be passed on to the horizon and beyond? They must have been the earliest of the devotees to be followed by some ladies and a few gentlemen. They were slowly making their way to the temple. Was it the weight of their years or that of the baskets full of offerings that slowed down their pace? They would pause to catch their breath or look at their companions lagging. A few of them mumbled some prayers while the others seemed outwardly silent. I tried moving closer to them to find the stories hidden behind their wrinkled countenance but soon retracted my steps lest my thoughts should start interfering with theirs. Or was it that I had grown so used to my inner quiet by that time that I had started zealously guarding it? Where was I in this play getting staged all around me? Including me, the play had many actors cast in myriads of roles. This play was being staged on a nearly endless stage where all actors were busy entering, performing, exiting and entering again from some other corner. But where were the spectators, and who were they? I had to pause and view myself away from my wandering, which, though not an arduous task as I realised a little later, formed a part of the encrypted and enigmatic script of that ongoing play only. For making me conscious of why, how, and where of myself, I marvelled at the playwright and bowed in gratitude for bestowing understanding of this acquaintance with myself.

As the Sun rose higher in the sky, the scene started to reveal a change. The kerbside vegetable sellers and other petty traders started collecting their earnings and the unsold merchandise. They knew that it was time for them to vacate the scene. Bowing reverentially to touch their thresholds, they would say some prayer, unlock the doors and step inside their shops. Had the beginning of yet another day in their businesses struck roots in the concluding minutes of the professional day of the vegetable sellers and the tea vendors? Some alms seekers started trooping to occupy what must have been their routine seats on the stairs leading to the temple. Some more devotees arrived in singles and groups. They appeared as if in a rush for an apparent want of time. Seeing them scramble up and down the temple stairs made me wonder at the possibly perfunctory nature of their act inside the temple. Did they seek some more favours from the deity?

A consistent flux of change had started inundating the scene, making me move away from the crowds. Ripples became waves and rolled on to partake of the stillness of sandy shores. All that action and resultant commotion were enough to turn the spotlight on the realisation that despite all the pandemonium, a still and tranquil refuge had existed all through and that I needed to guard its pristine sacrosanctity with utmost zeal. Returning to those shrine-like precincts of my inner being, I became aware of the unchanging stage hosting and facilitating the continuum, which was the flavour of the play being enacted all around and within my being. Did you also realise that being a witnessing participant was the only means to enjoy the play and simultaneously relish the script being churned out by the playwright?

I continued reminiscing as I resumed my aimless wandering.