Daddu slowly pushed his aching back further into his favourite chair, a cane chair padded with thick cushions, set close the balcony overlooking the seven floors below his son’s flat. The sun was not very bright, and the afternoon breeze that blew through the city before rain carried his favourite fragrances: jacaranda, jasmine and roses, with a hint of rain. He gently closed the book he was reading – the last lectures delivered by his guru – and kept it on the balcony for the moment as he made himself comfortable. A child cried out in pain, probably having fallen down playing cricket in the playground, and continued to cry with great heaving sobs that left him breathless. The sunlight reflected off the windows in front of the balcony caught his eyes, momentarily blinding him. He shifted his chair a little, so that the light now fell just short of his eyes and only on his cheeks, leaving him comfortably warm. Exhausted by the effort, he thought he would close his eyes for a bit. “I grow frail, Baba. You are my only refuge – save me,” he repeated the prayer his guru had taught him when he was a child of six. How often he dreamed of the afternoon when it had been raining for a week, and the Tansa river was in full spate: his father had left him at the ashram as he had been called by the British Sahib. As any child of six would have, he had grown tired of sitting in the ashram and went around, getting unexpectedly stranded in the weaving, treacherous bank of the river. He stood there crying, repeating the simple Marathi prayer. It was indeed a miracle for the boy when his guru seemed to be passing by, and rescued him. He had immediately and irrevocably fallen in love. …he could still recall that scene if only he closed his eyes. The smell of rain, the wind blowing, the sound of himself as a child crying, and the way his guru appeared to him, dressed as usual in his loincloth. “Don’t cry, beta – it’s just a small river. I’ll take care of you. Remember what we always say? “I grow frail, I grow frail, Baba. You are my only refuge – save me, save me”. He remembered his immense relief as his feet left the sticky mud of the bank, and he was held aloft on the shoulders of his tall guru. He remembered the exhilaration of suddenly being able to see everything from such a long, safe distance away. ~~~ A sudden, sharp gust caught the pages of the book and they fluttered open. The photograph of his guru that he had kept him for more than nine decades pressed carefully into the yellowing, frayed pages of his beloved book seemed to take flight, finally free of its last responsibilities. ~~~ The next morning, Daddu’s son took his father’s ashes to the Tansa river to be scattered into it. The river was once again flooding. His son slipped on the bridge and was about to fall into the river when an elderly gentleman caught him by the waist. Too shaken to articulate his gratitude, he tried to spot his nameless benefactor, but he was speeding away in the crowd gathered by the bank. In the distance, despite the rain and the flood, the loud clang of bells indicated that the evening aarati had begun, exactly as it had been happening for countless years.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Apr 2014 17:30:00 +0000
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