Beneath the Aravalli..

I am standing all alone.


I do not know at present what date is today.

What time. What part of world I am.

Though in my conscious part of the mind I knew all these.

But sometimes..moments touches you with a different attitude. Sensation.

When the winds slowly touches you.

Your feet start moving.

Your eyes full of amazement.

Your mood in a complete mood of submission.

And like this with different segregated versions of myself within me..I started walking.

And then again stopped at the next moment .

I saw that I am standing just beneath the Aravalli.

And just over there, over the range of Aravalli is the moon.

The Full moon.

The earth around me is totally a canvas of blue and white.

Little crispy sounds of tottering leaves from the trees.

A hush sound of a truck passing through the highway.

A faint sound of a Dholak being played somewhere.

Where it is being played?

Is it coming from that distant house up the hills?

Or is it coming from some straw-thatched huts much much below down?

A night bird went flying with a shriek yet soft clattering noise.

A distant..very distant whistle of a train which may have come from the way of Ajmer..in this highway to Udaipur.

I walked towards a half-closed road side Dhaba.

Where most of the people are slept.

Some over Khatiya.

With Blanlkets.

Or local rajjais.

Only one burner is burning and over it hot smoke of tea is rising.

A pleasant warmth of tea in this freezing cold.

I took a cup of tea.

And then sipped.

Ah! It’s Heaven!

And then again I saw the moonlit Aravalli.

Except this road side shop nothing is there.

I remember the view I saw from the window.

The scenes of wild nature. As the bus came crisscrossed through the rugged hilly roads.

I took a deep breath.

A fresh air welcomed me.

An air of pure nature.

A bushy smell of the leaves of the trees.

A strange smell of the surrounding hills.

A an unknown experience of an unknown life.

Which I always wanted to live. But how much can I?

I started again walking.

Can not I go a bit near to the hills. Is it not possible to touch the silky light of the moon with my all hands open beneath the hills?

Can I go and stay here in any one house here, for one night..for this night..will I not get any shelter?

And as my feet moved on..

I heard..

“Bus chod raha hai sahib!”(Sahib, the bus is about to depart!)

I stopped.

I again looked at the midnight moon and the bluish white Aravalli.

For a fraction of moment I resigned completely from the present world..I felt the silence the nature offered..I saw around me pictures of a remote place..scattered canvas of life sketches of people of whom I never saw..of nature..the sublime moonlit midnight nature at its real beauty..and for a moment ..flashed in my mind scenes from Bibhutibhusan’s Aranyak..as if I am not below the Aravalli but I am wandering in the outskirts of Labatuliya..how far is Labatuliya from this particular place of Jaipur-Udaipur highway I do not know but now in this mid night it seems that must be all milestones..all kilometers..all state boundaries..all human made borders has vanished..and may if I go walking up the hills I can distinctly found some men who like Labatuliyas’s farmer have never known what mirror is..and never have seen his facein life .. may be there outside some straw thatched hut some Rajput woman is waiting for collecting the bare minimum food from the leftover..may be up the hills in around the summit..there.. remains..still a lost kingdom and a lost king like Dobru Panna..and much within the language of the winds legends go on speaking the arrival of some fantasies..some angels..some..lost forgotten men ..warriors from the gone days..may be I have managed to come here this particular night by some magic..by the gifts of my fortunes..may be each day the bus stops here..each night different men and women drop here..and get astonished like me..or today..this particular night is very special..this night..these moments are created only for me..

I uttered silently..

I uttered silently a wish as the shadow of the Aravalli fall over the sleeping village across the highways..

A wish.

A promise.

I would come back here once again.

I have to go on travel this astounding world as much as I can.

I do not know I can ever do that or not.

But I promised myself.

I would travel.

I would roam.

I would see as much the world I can.

And more than anything..

I should live a different life.

A Silent wish made from a pure heart just beneath the full moonlit Aravalli will not come true?

Is it too much to want?

Or is it too less?

I slowly walked on.

And smiled.

And then jumped on to the bus.

My journey is on again.

And I am again..

A different man on a different road of a different world.

Rendezvous in Rajputana

Moment 1It was around 4.a.m. in the morning when our train like a tired and lost wanderer entered the Jaipur Station. the weather was chilled, the air have all the bites, the sky a landscape of stars and fog. The train was neatly 3 hrs late and it was enough to turn some calculations down. The most important thing was that will the Hotel be open or we have to go and wait till the morning check in time? however that worry was a later episode. First we have to go out of the station and catch an auto or a cab.
And at that moment I saw her.
Her face.
Her eyes twinkling in excitement.
Her scattered hairs are roaming over her forehead like the first flight of pigeons.
Her eyelids trembling. Her lips with faint brown lipstick colour waiting for some words..
And she asked “ Is there any Coolie?”
Indeed that was the question of all of us.
But alas! There was none.
Instead a big iron cart came and we all as have no alternative gathered our luggage on that and tied up in strings and then walked on.
One of our traveller Mr. Rawat asked her to take stairs and meet us outside the station.
But she shook her head. And she accompanied us.
We started walking.
We walked through the ripe midnight of a sleepy silent Jaipur station..we walked through frequent whistles of a distant train..we walked through loud whistles of an engine steaming in..some undeciphered shouts in local language(which I presume hardcore Jat)..through some sleeping dogs with wagging tails..over the platform..the blinking of the signals in different tracks..once red..once yellow..the fragrance of some unknown bush flower..far across the platform shades of the dark highrises and old houses of Rajput structure looms high..a notion that Jaipur is now a capital and a busy and rich metropolitan..as we slowly came down from one platform with tottering luggages in the iron cart..we crossed in feet the rail tracks and took way of another platform..the dimmy yellowish light of the platform looking foggy..we walked through the deeply slept coolies and the number of homeless who managed shelter with a rugged dirty blanket on the station..we walked as the first ray of dawn slowly kissed the passing night and with the birds flying with their clattering of their wings..and then again at that moment..
I saw her.
She was calm . Composed. But excited.
Her footsteps showed that.
With a hint of jump in them.
Her eyes bright in this foggy whitish night. Her movements sharp in this chilled winter. And her face lit up as if some magic lantern is shining on her.
I looked. And looked.
I laid my every steps along with her every footsteps.
I realized that this was what I always want.
An adventurous life!
To walk like this in some unknown station of an unknown new place in midnight.
And as came near the auto stand she looked at me and said softly, “Thanks.”
And the fresh morning air at that moment brought aroma of her.
The scent of a woman.
I smiled too.
And then once again looked at her.
The most beautiful face of the world whose beauty remains sublime even with all the claws of struggle..
Standing in the gateway of Rajasthan from where history greets you at every steps..where lost glory and existing pride declares itself in fusion..where epics of local allegories and myths flows in air..and where Kings and Queens are still the ultimate feelings of passion and gratitude..
I should have arrive like this only..not in any other way..
But like this..In the right tune of footprints..
Along with Her..My Love.
And this is undoubtedly the first Rendezvous Moments for me in my own tales of
Rendezvous in Rajputana!