WANDERERS – XVIII

For the next few days, it never stopped from pouring and the remote place had no form of communication or commutation to even the other end of the lake leaving the only 3 people stuck like it was an unknown island! Outside, where the trees covered the whole campus like a fort was wet and muddy and got anyone sucked in it. He made several attempts of venturing out but got deeply sucked by the muddy lake shores and had to be pulled out by the old man and his daughter. They warned him not to try anymore as it could be fatal but he had not given up!

The tomb-hall looked darker even during the day and all the constant resonance of rain outside couldn’t make it in. Once again he was finding peace each time he walked into the hall. None disturbed him inside… It was like some ancient King’s durbar with elegant paintings and exquisite furnishing. In the darkness of the hall, he found voices from the painted characters come alive, haunting to say that they existed sometime in the history and they are all still around.

‘Talk to us, talk to our leader!’

The main portrait that stood life-size long to the end was that of the leader, reformer and the lord of their times said the old man once. There was charisma and elegance in the picture. The wanderer wondered how the man himself would have been if his picture could be so powerful. He never invaded countries, nor won wars but had all hearts of his people with him. He was the one to be trusted, one who was looked up to, who could solve any problem that only gods would! He was worshipped.

The wanderer tried to understand the stories that the paintings depicted from the old man. He accompanied him through the garden and other monuments under an umbrella telling him stories that were real or mythological. It was some kind of a heavenly place the wanderer started to believe to which the old man said,

‘Yes may be it is, you see there’s no human here anymore… as he creeps in, heaven gets replaced’

The wanderer just smiled at the old man's words of wisdom. 

There were variety of fruits and vegetables that flourished everywhere around the tomb-hall needing no nourishment or cultivation of any sorts. Without accessibility to the outside world, the old man and his daughter and now the wanderer could have survived for months or years.

‘I need to get her married soon and then I can rest in peace’ he said.

‘Are you not in peace now?’ questioned the wanderer, loud enough to reach the oldie's deafened ears.

‘Which father can be when his daughter is at home in her youth?’

‘Is her marriage the only route to your peacefulness? Is it the ultimate goal of your life? What if she’s not happy later? Would you still be peaceful just because you got her married?’ he asked enraged.

‘Whatever happens after that is her fate, son. That’s beyond my control. As a father my duty ends there. Now I don't have any whereabouts of my other daughters, all the 6 of them!’ said the old man and walked off.

But he continued thinking sitting at the veranda watching the droplets from far above the skies how much misunderstanding a man has about his own life even after spending so many years… inside the body, the soul was just not ripe only the body was! 


Something crossed his thoughts and he realized it wasn't just the 3 of them there...

Continues…