WANDERERS – V

The town looked different the next day and may be it started seeming like home very quickly, he thought. There was no boy when he woke up and his mother was probably busy in one of the rooms which were not important to him. Inside the cave he heard a few voices conversing and didn’t feel apt to interrupt and left for exploration after a quick bath somewhere outside the broken compound.

Last night’s meal made him lot heavier to have even walked the entire town. Various people walked by but preferred not to talk to the stranger in him. If farm fields stretched to his left, rock structures and ancient monuments decorated his right. ‘How can such a beautiful place be so unknown’ he questioned. A single long road took him through the interiors up to a small market place where people bought all stuffs that were ever sold locally. A restaurant caught his attention as he ventured in. He was warmly greeted but was not offered any food since the only cook was off. He was shown a small house nearby where he could’ve gone for some food.

He was hesitant but knocked at the opened door. A brawny man emerged out of the house and showed an unfriendly face as he directed him in. He thanked the man and got no response. He was treated like someone who’d come purely in search of food and a lady who appeared to be the brawny man’s wife came out with a big plate with lot of dishes. Any attempt to converse was put off and the stranger didn’t feel comfortable at all. However he ate all he got and left quietly promising himself not to visit this house-restaurant again!

The breakfast made him feel much heavier than last night’s dinner. ‘When you’re given something without heart in it, it’s very difficult to gulp let alone digest’ he thought and continued walking along the streets. Like any other place, the town had a mixture of young and old, strong n disabled, but what made him ponder was there was none who appeared friendly! ‘May be I’m too strange for them, like an alien’ and there was not much of an interest left in him as the Sun rose further making the roads hotter than ever. He decided to get back to the cave-house hoping to play with the boy or talk to his mother. There was no public transport and the only carter who was free appeared too old to drive, and so he walked back.

A middle-aged lady walked out of the broken compounds as he was entering in. He observed that she had a few tears un-wiped and looked scared of being noticed. He walked in and saw the sanyasin seated at the entrance of the cave. He went and sat near her and said nothing as he was composing his thoughts. She looked at him and knew what he thought. Thus, she said –

‘You must be back from the market, did you see the places you wanted?’

‘I didn’t. I felt a sense of discomfort and hostility in your people and also tired of walking further.’

‘What else did you feel about this place?’

‘The place is good, beautiful, but the people are not!’

‘Don’t you think the entire world is like that? Do you find people in your city godly?’

‘No, but never did I feel this bad in a new place in just few hours!’

‘Yes, I told you yesterday that you won’t get any benefit here. If you’ve to come to give, you stay. If you’ve come to receive, you leave’ she said and their conversation paused.

He heard her carefully and wrote those words in air trying to read between the lines. She meant great meaning in what she said and let it sink in him as she waited…

Continues…