The Boy on the Ancient Route

I was on my way to Ajanta.


It was a cloudy morning with hints of rain. Though sometime the sun breaking away within the flocks of clouds.

Seated inside the Maharastra Tourism AC bus and a comfortable push back seat our journey started well.

And soon I was in my wanderlust mood.

As the bus went through the green hills brown road and scattered jungles and dispersed villages allong the roadway..a sense of lonely romanticism gripped me.

The village people who look at our bus in amazement and some smiled..the children who ran along the road with torn clothes..the numerous frquent fruit sellers who lined by with heaps of green fruits locally called as'Aata'..and they are tasty indeed!

The bus went on along the old route through which the traders went on trading with their commodities thousand of years ago.

And I felt a strange happiness when I stepped in this road.



The bus stopped near a remote village for a tea break.

Our bus which is almost full of foreigners and they started clicking their handycam.

And there I found a boy sitting in the red soil with heaps of pictures.

Along with the tourists I went towards him.

Oh! What brilliant pictures they are!

They resemble the pictures of walls of Ajanta no doubt but they look like so real.

And the colours are so lively too.

The foreigners went towards him and ask the price of the paintings.

But a strange answer came.

'No Memsahib! These are not for sale!'

I got amazed too.

'Then?'

I asked the question.

'For my own enjoyment I draw Sahib!'

And the boy hardly twelve years took out the brush and started painting again.



It was time.

The bus sounded horn.

We went off.



Next was the surrender to the caves of Ajanta.

Where the experience was almost an obsession..where the heads bow down in respect of those great artists..those genius of forgotten days..those souls who once gathered here and left their marks in curves and drawings of immortal eternity.

As we witness a creation which in all sense greater than life.

And we all like speechless wanderers realized the level of art which ancient India..these artists once reached would never be able to reach again!

Such was the class.

Such was the work that we saw in Ajanta and the last day in Ellora.

It was our surrender of our everything and for a moment being free from all our desires and comforts to feel that this is what ancient India is and this is where the lost civilisation still bear its magnificience and granduer.

And we all kept silent.

And seeing the beauty my eyes almost came full of tears!



And I silently pay my homage to those souls and that Prince who became a greatest monk and achieved all and changed the world in thoughts in ideas and attainment and sole meaning of life.



It was around four o clock our bus started again for the return journey.



I still in that mood of submission to timeless creation kept quite.

And as the bus went on I closed my eyes.



Suddenly I saw within my closed eyes a painting.



Lord Buddha in Padmapani position while preaching.



And beside that I saw a painting which look like a continuation of that frescoes.

Which according to history of Ajanta long got eroded from the walls of the caves.

And which no books can capture and which Nandalal Basu a pioneer of Indian art along with Abanindranath Tagore cannot capture.



Then how that painting can?

I opened my eyes.



I remember three paintings which are nothing but continuation of the frescoes.



I ran to the driver.

And asked him to stop at the same place where the bus halted for in the morning..for tea break.

'But why?'

'Please..I beg to the driver..'For five minutes.'

The driver agreed.

The place was almost twenty kilometres from Ajanta.

And after almost half n hour we reached there.

I jumped off from the bus and ran towards the tea stall.

But there was no boy sitting on the red soil now.

I went to the tea stall.

'Where was that boy?'

'Which boy?' The shopkeeper said in local hindi.

'The boy who was painting here.'

'No idea Sir. He for the last one week came here. I do not said anything as tourists got attracted towards him. And my business increased too.'

'Do you know where he stays?'

'No Sir!'

'Do any more village here?'

'There are many..but all scattered Sir..and no body knew that boy Sir!'

I have no more questiones.

Or I have too many to ask.



But the bus driver gave horn.

And the tourists looking towards me in a strange way as if I am gone off my head.

I walked and got in the bus.

And the bus started.



I came back to my hotel in Aurangabad.

But went on thinking about those paintings.

How can a village boy draw such paintings the continuation of the frescoes which itself got eroded by time?

How?

And where from that boy got so lively colours?

And why he did not sale any of his paintings?



Questiones came. No answers.



Next morning I again made a trip to Ajanta.

This time also the boy was not found.

Though one guide of Archaeological Survey of India said he saw the boy moving towards the hills in Ajanta.

But I do not found him,

Not within any cave too.

Next day I went again.

The result was same.

And one security guard of Cave 1 said me..'He can be a village boy..many are there who do such paintings in order to sale them to tourists..to earn dollars!'

But how will I make him understand that boy did not agreed to sale his painting too!

And his painting was not of ordinary type!



I never found that boy.

I still think about him. His paintings.

May be he is a special talent.

May be he is a village boy who came here while roaming and may be once saw the paintings and then drew from his imagination.

May be within the colours he has used some special leaf juice which once those old artists used thousand years ago.

I often think to visit again Ajanta.

As I still believe that boy still roaming somewhere along the caves and the unforgettable frescoes.

And sometime again I think..

in silent midnight that..

May be it is all dream..

Or may be..may be..

And in shiver I think..

That may be by some blessings of those great artists and the Wanderlust Prince..

I am able to see..

The lost part of the frecoes..

Through the paintings of that boy..



I also think and believe..

Let there be something which remains unknown to human beings..

We have learnt may be too much..

Let there be some more questiones..

Let there be some more unsolved answers..

Let there be some more mysteries..

Remain..to make mankind inquisitive....



I know I will never be able to forget and would love to remember..

Those paintings of frecoes..

Which were made..

By a boy on the ancient route!

The Song and the Souls

I saw her standing beside the river.


Again. And at the same moment of midnight.

The earth seem to be shimmering with moonlight.

The wind in a bit of rush.

Clouds in a mood of roaming.

And the whole city asleep.

City? Must be an exhaggeration.

It was once upon a time a city.

Now a fragments of broken dreams.

But seeing the lady tonight I cannot help to proceed towards her.

I have to know the reason.

Why a lady would stand by the riverside at this hour of night?

And for three consecutive days?

Why?



And just as I removed my shoes and stepped in the brown sand I found a sharp sound.

The sound from the passing wind.

The clouds moving fast.

Stars twinkling as if in rising hope.

Hope of what?

The lady answering?

I slowly came and stood beside her.



And before I open my lips the lady turned towards me.

And kept her finger over her lips.

A sign.

Of keeping silent.

I would anyway be silent.

Seeing her.

She is beautiful.

And much more than her.. Her beauty is innocent.

I cannot remember when last I have seen such a beauty.

A sacred beauty.



At that moment as I looked towards the river a pecuiliar thing happened.

The wind picked up.

And a strange noise started floating in the air.

A noise which resembles the sound of whistle.

A noise which also reminds one of a tune.

A tune in a flute.

But from where?

That sound originated?



As if it is the only begining of obsessed amazement the lady standing beside me opened her lips.



'Can you hear it?'

I nodded. 'Yes but where from it can come?'



The lady kept silent.

Between two of us as if linking the missing words the wind flow again.

With that sound of flute.

I stared at the river.

The river in moonlight looking like a gorgeous lady.

As if in her gentle waves she is writing on her own the curve and designs of the wind.

The transperent water droplets and broken waves carrying shadows.

Shadows of far across the lonely topography.

Far across the shades of the mountains.

The pictures of the sleeping city.

The images of the long time forgotten city.

I am about to get lost in an invitation of a different world and its different preoccupations and vanities with cherished acceptance of eternity when I came to conciousness.

As the lady beside me speak out.



'It is for three days I landed in this remarkable land in this part of South India and as I stay in a camp resort across the river I came for a stroll..across the river.

And that very first day..I found within the scattered ruins and the rocky terrain the river singing for me..this lovely song..a song which can be of no one but the river.

'The river?'

I asked in surprise.

'What else?'

I could not answer. Then said,

'I am searching.'

'I already searched and now got confirm.It is the offerings of the river herself.'

'But how is it possible?'

I asked.



The lady now looked at me with her bright big eyes. And in those eyes I found something more than obsession..may be within shining the joy of finding the answer..the joy of seeing her own perception..in the light of truth.'

'This is your first day..right.She said.'But I for the last three days came and stood for two hours. And I can found the river whispering in my ears..those untold stories..those unshared moments..those forgotten days..those betrayals..those signs of life which all..one day thrived..with all their dreams..smiles happiness and pains..and then one day at their one destined moment everything got extinct..all came to an end..a chapter of history came to be created and the present moments got framed into pages of past..this is life..isn't it?'



I forgot to answer.

As the lady before me said not only the truth but exactly those words by which I describe life..those belief..by which I trust life..those images by which I portray life.

I accepted.

'You are right.'

The lady again kept her eyes on me.

'You are right too. As in the world of reason this sound of flute..can not be possible.'

'Yes now I added. This sound can be the work of many things..the friction of wind..the flow of the river..the depth of the rocky valley..the sounds of the sleeping city and it all combines to present this sound.'



'Exactly.But it is needed for both of us to look at life at reality from the other side..in different eyes with a open heart and belief. Thus I can come here at this point of midnight.

At this place beside the river.

And can hear the song.'



'I have seen you for the last three nights here. Today I decided to ask you the reason.'

I said.

'So you found it?'

'Yes. And along with that I found something special.A gift of life. Which I would never had found sitting in the hotel. As if listening the song I went through the lost pages of time.I have only two words to say you.'

The lady looked at me.

'Thank You!'



And then after we kept silent.

Any other night any other place sitting beside a beautiful lady in a moonlit night riverside..our conversation would continue.

But not tonight.

We kept seated there for a long time.

No one calculated time.

No one counted moments.

No one felt embarassed.

No one felt insecured.

And noone asked each other their names..their identity.

Two stangers kept on seating side by side.

Unmoved.

Without words.

And between them continued the song of the river.

As if the most natural sound in the city of forgotten souls.

And at one moment the lady touched my hand.

I shivered.

I trembled.

Within a mystical night and a mysterious tune in an abandoned city of dreams in rocks..suddenly I felt that the earth ..the very old earth has got back to her primitive days..

Her ancient moments..

And we..sitting like two souls..

And between us the wheels of eternity rolled on..

And in this moonlit night..

Cool wave of wind..

Dwindling lights across the thatched huts..

And a strange smell of the river soil..

A man and woman seated with hands touched..

Or are we the shadows of the first men and women born in this earth?

Along the ancient bed of a fertile river?

And is it we are on the forgotten city of lost dreams..

Or is it we are on the..

Brink of a new civilisation to begin!

The Note of a Whimsical Poet

Poetry..I gave you my dreams of closed eyes..




Poetry..I gave you the distance of the night..



Poetry..I gave you the tired walk of the lost traveller..



Poetry..I gave you the silence of the forgotten days..



Poetry..I gave you the sleepless nights..



Poetry I gave you the whistle of the last train..



Poetry..I gave you the sudden wind of a golden afternoon..



Poetry..I gave you..the first storm..



Poetry..I gave you the virgin smell of the young river..



Poetry..I gave you the litted fire..of the funeral pyres..



Poetry ..I gave you..the dwindling boat on a wrteched port..



Poetry..I gave you..the alone walk through the lost city..



Poetry..I gave you..the smile of that roadside beggar..



Poetry..I gave you..those evenings in moonlit Taj..



Poetry..I gave you..those forbidden frescoes of a lonely Prince..



Poetry..I gave you the glamour of a bloodless sword..



Poetry..I gave you kiss of the waves along the thatched huts..



Poetry..I gave you..the song of the Bhopas along the corridors of palaces..



Poetry..I gave you..the scenes of ecstatic city..



Poetry..I gave you..my own moments..of different shades..



Poetry..I gave you the the signs of a lost river..



Poetry..I gave you..my walk along the foggy station..



Poetry..I gave you..my surrender to Rabi Thakur..



Poetry..I gave you..my all evils and angry moments..



Poetry..I gave you all..



Poetry..I gave you all..



Poetry..I gave you my all births within that one death..



Poetry.. I gave you..my all deaths..within the shadow of my first birth!



.

My Shades My City

It is a city which is different..


A City which first broke its barriers..

When I hold father's hand n got the first view of the Victoria Memorial..

It is a city which saw my shades of adoloscence..my obsessions..my submissions..

It is a city which silently made me adult..and taught the bitter lies and ..the pure truth..

It adored me with a different fragrance of her beauty..

Sometime..in the early mornings..

Sometime..in the cozy afternoon..

Sometime in the bride kiss light of twilight..

Sometime in an open spirit of a windy evening..

Sometime..in silence of the moonlit night..

It is a city which also gave me the first glimpse of death..

I lost my father..

And then again..

The very city broke my shades..

I became more adult..

Simple faces became masked ones..

Unknown faces..became known..

And then..at one gorgeous afternoon..

I saw trembling of eyelids..

Movement of rosy lips..

I saw her..

I found..I knew..I became the King..

As the city gave me my love..



....It is a city also where I found myself..

Lost myself..

Again found myself..

Like the wings of Phoenix..



And gradually one day I found the youth within me..

Has slowly turned in the whiskers of the city into a man..



And a game of hate and love still continues..

As each day..each moment..

I miss the city..

Where I laughed..

Where I smiled..

Where I cried..

Where I kissed..

Where I danced..

And where I wrote..



And found words..

In all moments of existence..struggles and despair and ecstacy..

Thus I often see now quite far away..

Images of the city and myself..

Running within the rain..

Standing beneath a moonlit sky..

The whistle of a nightbird..

My silent whispers with my creation..

Often alone in a bustop..

The last Rickshaw on the shadowed road..

The first bell of a morning Tram..

The football playing boys in mud..

The first Norwester..

The 25th Day of Baisakh..

The trip to Jorasanko..



And the days of inner struggles..

And those days..









When I feel those daily afternoons when I in a joy filled heart returned everyday from Sunilda's house..

With a feeling which I only can feel and yet can never be described..



I saw all..

I faced all..



And yet I miss that city..

The very special city..



A city of Rabindranath..

A city of Satyajit Ray..

A city of Bibhutibhusan..

A city of Nillohit..



And my city..

Named Kolkata..



which I really miss

But still each moment feels..



As the city turned myself into what I am..

And gave me..

My love..

My words

And my different shades!

.

The Letter To Noone

Sometime I think about the Postman.


Who goes on searching letters stamping them and then looking for unknown houses at distant zones and posting them often in the post box or by getting an welcome smile from the host himself.

From very childhood I am fascinated by the person who bring me letters and as then our boundary seem to be a very narrow one..he appeared to me in those days of less globalised world..a person who by walking or through his cycle had seen enough part of the world and can go to those parts where I can never imagine also.

Well..it's a child's fascination..

As the life of a real postman seems boring and hazzled one..but somehow as I grew old the basic spirit for which I like postman..crept in me.

As I have a great thirst too to explore the world.

Meet different people.

And step in different places.



And as I got stationed to far off places due to my work demands..I sometime feel..that somewhere in an invisible postbox..I am also collecting mementos of different addresses..unknown letters..people of various shades..and some traces of lost homes and new spirits..

And obviously I remember about Rabindranath Tagore's 'Postmaster'..when I am too sent off to unknown places..



There are many dissimilarities but somewhere there is an internal similarity..



And it is by these my different strata of thoughts and whims that I started now loving the place where I am.

..This became more true in that night..

It was a night after a couple of days after Holi.

The air still smells gullal or abir..and the spring in all its signs making it's arrival.



And there was suddenly power off.

It seems a long one.

I after my dinner went out for a walk.

The street quite empty.

The shops getting closed.

A very faint moonlight trying to adore the night but soon it lost all its glow..as flocks of clouds came swarming in from no where.

I was still walking.

Some bikes some cycles passed.

And then I stopped before the level crossing.

The crossing is closed as a train must be coming.

Within the total black topography of a power off area only the red signal can be seen like an unperturbed invitation.



At that moment the wind arose..

A fierce wind..

A swarm of dust swept the earth..

Almost making my eyelids closed..

And then a striking blue lightning in the sky..

And within my trembling eyes I saw the red signal now turned yellow..

The train coming..

And then as if by a magic of a great magician..

I found the rain drops..

And the train..

Running in..from distance..

Throught the white light of the train..the rain drops look like silver droplets..

Which were pouring in..

In strings of happiness..



The train came..

Along the rain..

And from somehow in the background..

Someomeoned laughed loud..

Like a cry..

of a Forgotten soul..

Or the sound of an ecstacy..

And then the train passed..

Then sounds came to halt..

Then silence..

Except the soothing drops of rain..which now not in a mood of plunder but of tender touch..

Far across the the shaking leaves..the glowing dimmy candle and hurricane lights in the roadside houses can be seen..

Like trembling lamps..



And what remaining at last..

The fading away light of the gone train..

The soaked wind..

And the whistle of a night bird..



I stood alone there..

Completely wet..

After a while I started walking..within the rain..beneath the cloudy sky..

And as I walked in the rain towards my temporary home..

I realised one truth..

There are two shades of life..

One the real life..

One..the fantasy life..



And somehow the line between the two strata got crossed a moment ago..

And in those fraction of seconds..

I witness..

A moment of creation..

Creativity..in the mood of nature..

and thus I shivered..I trembled..

And as I opened the door of the house..

I found..

Some invisible Postman..

Has kept..an invisible letter..

In my mailbox..



Seated beside the window..as the rain kissed me all over..

I wrote in my diary..



'I am born within the midnight rain..cloud soaked winds..and the fragrance of soil..'!



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