I have forged many friendships since, both within and without me. These have been friendships I have held dear and still do. I have known many heroes too, from the Phantom to Beethoven. I have seen and known the tree leaves when they are green and when they are brown. I have known an earth mottled with sun and shadow. I have always loved this piebald earth as it is beneath a tree on a sunny day.
As one winter followed another I grew from a child to a lad. Some of the gods faded and some others were exiled. The world lost a little of its eloquence and became a little more gross matter. But, fortunately, it did not cease to speak to me entirely. Nor were all my gods banished. I still occasionally felt them about. As the first faint traces of down appeared on my upper lip, I still felt and awaited the fragrance of spring. But now the hills seemed a little less lofty, the forest a little less forbidding. The river which flowed outside the town seemed a little less far away. I could reach out to them on my own. I was fifteen now and I was a tramp. I worried my parents often. My school lessons did not command as much of my attention as they thought they ought to.
They could not have commanded all my attention. Too many things laid claim to it. My child’s pantheism was being replaced by a new layer of thoughts. The first pimples had marked my cheeks and the first dent had appeared on my heart. I had also taken to trekking to the river on my own.
Deo could be benign and playful. Deo could be mighty and cruel when fed by the rains or the melting snows. Almost every year they will lay a bridge spanning him and he will sweep it away with unconcern. I was told that he sprang down the hills at a place called Itha Popu. The earth there was sacred and blessed by the gods. They still descended there sometimes, though they had long given up consorting with men. They found us unworthy. One had to be a doughty warrior to make this pilgrimage. The walk was long and took one across hills, vales and thick palls of mist. I have always sought the gods and wished I could make the pilgrimage. I never could. Those are treacherous hills, my tribal friends will tell me. Unless your hand bore a sword or a gun with skill you could end up being the prey of a wolf. I knew that they stalked the hills. In the night one could hear them crying out to the moon.
The moon will rise as a giant silver orb. It will be long in rising behind the hills. The moon will light up their crests with its gentle shimmer. It will spring up the sky in a sudden instant. I will look out of the window to witness this instant. It never got old. Some stars will now be dimmed and some others will be put out. And somewhere, very far away, the wolves will cry out. Their cry will beat against the hills and spread far. The moonshine will noiselessly slide down the tree leaves. It will noiselessly crawl upon the earth, suffuse the earth. Sometimes, a lone cloud will bathe in its cascade and look unreal. Moonshine cast shadows too. But they were delicate shadows of a leaf or a cloud. They will be erased by the slightest touch of any other light. If we switched off the lights sheaves of moonshine will pour into the house. I felt them against the back of my hand. They felt cold to touch. Or so I thought.
Sanu was my constant companion in tramping. We were fast friends. On the play ground I was often baffled by his off breaks delivered with an action that defies description. His flight had a knack of landing inches short of your toes and getting you stumped or clean bowled. He was not as good a batsman. But he was a mean hand at carom and beat me at it often. Sanu had an obsession with heroes, from the Superman to the Phantom. So did I. So, it was natural of us to try creating a hero of our own. Thus, at the age of fifteen, I got into my first creative collaboration. He did the drawings and I wrote the story. It was about a noble intentioned mummy from four thousand B.C. coming back to life in our times. Appalled, Taraka takes to some Batman like vigilantism. Curiously, Sanu drew our hero with a bald head. When I asked him the reason, he said it is easier to draw a bald headed man. The strip was never completed. I have published a strip since. But it was a different joy altogether creating my own hero at the age of fifteen. Perhaps, someday I will revive you Taraka. I let you go as a lad. But, maybe, as a wizened man I will find you again.
A little hillock lay behind our school. A temple stood upon it. Cheta flowed down the hillock into the woods that lay on the southern edge of our town. At the hour of the quiet and still dawn we could hear the hushed murmur of this stream from our house. Inside the woods, upon level earth, Cheta broadened out and became even quieter. Sanu and I will go to these woods often. Ten years ago they still seemed untouched by man. There were giant trees. One had to crane one’s neck to see their crown. Nameless creepers clung onto them. There was a tree which had been struck by lightning and charred. It was an almost sixty feet giant and looked like a sovereign, proud and lonesome.
As one winter followed another I grew from a child to a lad. Some of the gods faded and some others were exiled. The world lost a little of its eloquence and became a little more gross matter. But, fortunately, it did not cease to speak to me entirely. Nor were all my gods banished. I still occasionally felt them about. As the first faint traces of down appeared on my upper lip, I still felt and awaited the fragrance of spring. But now the hills seemed a little less lofty, the forest a little less forbidding. The river which flowed outside the town seemed a little less far away. I could reach out to them on my own. I was fifteen now and I was a tramp. I worried my parents often. My school lessons did not command as much of my attention as they thought they ought to.
They could not have commanded all my attention. Too many things laid claim to it. My child’s pantheism was being replaced by a new layer of thoughts. The first pimples had marked my cheeks and the first dent had appeared on my heart. I had also taken to trekking to the river on my own.
Deo could be benign and playful. Deo could be mighty and cruel when fed by the rains or the melting snows. Almost every year they will lay a bridge spanning him and he will sweep it away with unconcern. I was told that he sprang down the hills at a place called Itha Popu. The earth there was sacred and blessed by the gods. They still descended there sometimes, though they had long given up consorting with men. They found us unworthy. One had to be a doughty warrior to make this pilgrimage. The walk was long and took one across hills, vales and thick palls of mist. I have always sought the gods and wished I could make the pilgrimage. I never could. Those are treacherous hills, my tribal friends will tell me. Unless your hand bore a sword or a gun with skill you could end up being the prey of a wolf. I knew that they stalked the hills. In the night one could hear them crying out to the moon.
The moon will rise as a giant silver orb. It will be long in rising behind the hills. The moon will light up their crests with its gentle shimmer. It will spring up the sky in a sudden instant. I will look out of the window to witness this instant. It never got old. Some stars will now be dimmed and some others will be put out. And somewhere, very far away, the wolves will cry out. Their cry will beat against the hills and spread far. The moonshine will noiselessly slide down the tree leaves. It will noiselessly crawl upon the earth, suffuse the earth. Sometimes, a lone cloud will bathe in its cascade and look unreal. Moonshine cast shadows too. But they were delicate shadows of a leaf or a cloud. They will be erased by the slightest touch of any other light. If we switched off the lights sheaves of moonshine will pour into the house. I felt them against the back of my hand. They felt cold to touch. Or so I thought.
Sanu was my constant companion in tramping. We were fast friends. On the play ground I was often baffled by his off breaks delivered with an action that defies description. His flight had a knack of landing inches short of your toes and getting you stumped or clean bowled. He was not as good a batsman. But he was a mean hand at carom and beat me at it often. Sanu had an obsession with heroes, from the Superman to the Phantom. So did I. So, it was natural of us to try creating a hero of our own. Thus, at the age of fifteen, I got into my first creative collaboration. He did the drawings and I wrote the story. It was about a noble intentioned mummy from four thousand B.C. coming back to life in our times. Appalled, Taraka takes to some Batman like vigilantism. Curiously, Sanu drew our hero with a bald head. When I asked him the reason, he said it is easier to draw a bald headed man. The strip was never completed. I have published a strip since. But it was a different joy altogether creating my own hero at the age of fifteen. Perhaps, someday I will revive you Taraka. I let you go as a lad. But, maybe, as a wizened man I will find you again.
A little hillock lay behind our school. A temple stood upon it. Cheta flowed down the hillock into the woods that lay on the southern edge of our town. At the hour of the quiet and still dawn we could hear the hushed murmur of this stream from our house. Inside the woods, upon level earth, Cheta broadened out and became even quieter. Sanu and I will go to these woods often. Ten years ago they still seemed untouched by man. There were giant trees. One had to crane one’s neck to see their crown. Nameless creepers clung onto them. There was a tree which had been struck by lightning and charred. It was an almost sixty feet giant and looked like a sovereign, proud and lonesome.
1 comment:
Eminently readable. Eagerly wait for the next installment. In the genre where people don't forget to remind you how they got burdened with their overflowing intellect at an early age this is very refreshing.
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