The Discovery

“Kya lik rahi ho?? Koi kahaani ??”

“Hmm”

“Kya kahaani??”

“Bas kahaani hai”

“Ladka hai kahaani mein??”

“Hmm”

“Aur ek ladki?”

“Hmm”

“Dono pyaar karte hai ek doosre se??”

“Nahi”

“Dono pyaar mein padne waalein hai??”

“Pata Nahi”

***

I was shivering as I waited, staring at the mountain at a distance. I was up early and the sun was making a grand entry. I didn’t know whether people had noticed this, was I the first one to be seeing it? It was so beautiful, but no one was present to savour the moment. I wasn’t waiting for this picturesque occasion myself, I just happen to be up early and glance at the mountains. As the red hot ball spread its colors onto the sky by making it more and more visible to my eyes, the birds began chirping and there was a spread of excitement in the nature. Maybe I was on the verge of making a discovery, the perfect place to observe the perfect sunrise. I made a note of it in my journal.

I was in Darjeeling to attend a wedding, a colleague’s wedding. I wasn’t pretty sure about attending until I came to know it was being held in Darjeeling. The only way to travel to Darjeeling was to take a horse carriage from Kalikata, where I was working. The journey wasn’t a pleasant one travelling up the hills, but the scenery definitely is. The scenic tea gardens on either side, the decrease in temperature as we travelled up to Darjeeling were the highlights of the journey.

***

It was the day of the wedding, a function I never understood and made me question it many a times. It wasn’t a necessity. In a world where people weren’t allowed to converse with the opposite sex until marriage and suddenly after approval of their family made to spend their lives together. What goes on into a wedding? What happens after the wedding between the strangers? Was it the ultimate necessity of a man? Questions were creeping into my mind, but with no answers. I always kept looking for answers, but got none from the people I know.

The wedding was held in an open ground. Bengalis had a long wedding and I hadn’t attended most of it. There were a lot of people assembled in one place and I wasn’t the one that was up for a conversation. I sat there and observed the procedure that made them live together for a lifetime. Silk dhoti, silk cloth and paper cap topor were the groom’s attire and the bride in a red sari and mukut. Her brothers lifted her as the ceremony went on; they went around a groom seven times meant to wind them up securely. They exchanged garlands and as they did, my eyes happened to discover something unusual. I looked at her. It had never happened to me before. I never spoke to any girls or never saw someone so attractive. I wanted to go and talk to her, but I refrained; worried about her response and the people gathered there. I never wanted to talk to any girl but today I wanted to. She must have been the bride’s sister; she was standing on the mantap as the ceremonies went on. I was just staring at her face and was lost in it. I was feeling good and I just wanted to look at her, as she went around smiling, laughing and talking to people. I felt weird while thinking about my actions, but it was a different fondness. I had lunch and left but I was thinking about her which made me feel uncanny about myself. I hadn’t made the journey to Darjeeling to attend the wedding but did so to explore the hills. Now I had a distraction in my head and maybe that’s why men don’t talk to women in this world until marriage. What if marriage was designed as a distraction? A distraction from the inexhaustible variety?

I stayed in a dharamshala close to the center of the city. There was a circle and a temple was being constructed. It was almost complete and I went to visit. The sun was all set to take a nap and make an early appearance tomorrow just like it happened, this morning. It was a Shiva Temple and was going to be named the Dhirdham temple. It was inspired from Hindu and Nepali Architecture like a pagoda. At a distance I could observe an old man lost in thoughts looking at the temple. He had a long beard, hair curled up and just kept looking at the temple making some hand gestures and writing them down in parchment. I walked towards him, curious to ask a lot of question because I had no answers until. 

“Namaste”

He lifted his hand and shook his head.

“When will it open?” I asked nervously.

“It’s open, my son”, he said.

“It’s open the day I started building it”, he continued. “It was my dream. Let me tell you a story son, a story of the forest king-Once there lived a king in the forest. He was very strong and powerful and ruled in harmony. But eventually he developed enemies and they made attempts to kill him. But they all failed. The reason for their failure was the fact that the king had placed his life in a parrot. His enemies became aware of it and sent a spy. He fell for the beauty and the charm of the spy and he displayed the parrot to her. As soon as the parrot was in her site, she didn’t waste any time in taking its life. This temple is my parrot”

“So till the temple remains, you’ll be alive. I think it makes you immortal then”

“No son, this temple was my dream. Now that it’s almost completed, I know it’s going to be there forever. The fact that it’ll stay forever gives me assurance and I can leave the world in peace. The fact that time parrot is safe and can never die gives you peace. That’s why this temple is my parrot”

I smiled. The way the old man places his life on a dream, a dream that has nothing to do with his personal gain filled me with awe.

“Why are you here son? What do you do?” he asked me.

“I’m here for a wedding. I work in the Kalikata High Court”

“But you have other intentions, other reasons for making this journey”

“Yes. I want to make a discovery. Something that’ll be remembered till time comes to an end. I need not be remembered, but my discovery should be passed on to the coming generations”

“I can sense that and I have a feeling you’re on the right path”

***

The sun was deep in its sleep as darkness had spread above the mountains. I was walking to the groom’s house for dinner. I meet my colleague, speak to him a bit and sit in a corner. When my eyes got attracted to her again, she was with her sister and both of them were laughing out loud. When a man comes and snaps me out of my gaze, “Aatmanand, how come you’re here?”

“Sir, I work with the groom in the court”

“Oh, it’s my daughter’s wedding”, he said. He was my ethics professor back in Kalikata University.

Somebody calls him and he gets up to check on them. “Have dinner”, he says and leaves.

***

I was walking in the lane leading to the dharamshala. There was only one light in the street and I kept walking. “There’s always light and darkness in your life. It’s left to you where you want to stay”, I thought to myself as I walked towards the light on the street. I had too many thoughts in my mind and sleep had taken a vacation just like I had.

***

Next day I went to a nearby lake, the lake was barely visible covered by fog. I sat there and thought about my sir’s daughter. My discussion with the old man and my walk last night; I kept writing them down. My questions were still unanswered. But I was in solitude and I was lost in it. As I closed my eyes, I had pictures of yesterday flashing one by one. It featured the girl too. It was disturbing me, the fact that she kept appearing again and again in my thoughts. I had learnt that the only way to solve something was to face it. So I decide to write her a letter through my sir’s address.

***

“I am Aatmanad Tripathy. You might be wondering who am I and why am I writing this letter? I am one of your father’s students. I had attended your sister’s wedding. I saw you there and my mind keeps flashing images of you now and then. I’m on a journey of a discovery and I don’t want any distractions. Men and women don’t converse in our world until marriage. Hence I’m writing you a letter. I don’t know what is happening? I have too many thoughts in my mind and I’m facing one of them by writing to you. I’m not expecting any reply from you, but I’ll keep writing to you till the images are wiped clean”

***

Was I rude to her? Was I being a bit too straight forward? What was happening to me? It was weird, the whole letter scenario when I thought about it. So I wrote another one hoping the images would go.

***

“It’s Tripathy. Sorry if I was a bit rude to you. I’m a bit disturbed because of all these thoughts. I’m writing from the place where I made my first discovery after being in Darjeeling. The best place to see the sunrise and the beautiful hills. You must check it out. I don’t know why I’m thinking so much, that too about another person. I feel conversations should happen between a man and a woman before marriage. They might start talking about the things I’m writing. I don’t understand why people get married to strangers. Live the rest of their lives with them! What cause does it satisfy? Sometimes I feel the whole concept is a distraction. Anyways I don’t know what your thoughts on this are. You might be offended by the way I’m speaking. Again I’m sorry. I don’t know why I am talking about  all this to you. Maybe I’m hoping that I  make  a discovery. Until then…”

***

I kept writing to her. The daily experiences I had, the ideas that kept coming in my mind and how the flashes of images didn’t bother him that much than it did in the beginning. Along the course I realized, I had made my discovery.

“Now I know why people get married. But the way they do it is questionable, that is the way they choose a person they’ve barely spoken to. I’ve been speaking a lot to you now. Why? It all began from the day of your sister’s wedding. I didn’t know who you were. Why I was looking at your face? Why was I feeling weird? Why was I attracted to you? These are the changes that happen in a individual once he gets married, because he started spending time with another individual. Unlike before that where he is all about himself. But the questionable barrier is where we have broken through. It’s not marriage that is important but it’s something more than that. It’s the feeling that makes you feel sure to go into a marriage. Marriage stands as an example to the world by showing two individuals with their own differences get over them and live for a lifetime. That’s just a part of it, there must be a driving force leading to a marriage. It may or may not develop after marriage between two strangers. But I know there is a driving force in me that have developed by writing these letters. I don’t know what I’m talking to you as of now. But this is my discovery, a discovery that’s going to explored more and more. The driving force has to be found out, but until then I have to deal with it by asking your hand in marriage from your dad”

***

I had found my driving force, I had made my discovery. I had discovered something people knew  was present but were unaware of it and as a result they couldn’t explore it. They couldn’t use it to their advantage. They didn’t have any choices. It was more like gravity, it was there. But Newton showed it to us. Kids what I have discovered is being generalized as a feeling between not just a husband and a wife but between me and you, or me and your sister, between friends, cousins etc., it’s a major topic of discussion and is being dug deep and further research is going on. Einstein’s formulating General Theory of Relativity and here people might discover that this feeling might exist between other permutation and combinations. But what has this discovery finally led me into? It led me to finding my parrot. Was it the feeling? The feeling was my discovery, my dream but it’s going to stay forever but will that give me an assurance to live this world-No. The parrot is my wife, your mother. She was the reason for my discovery, she stands as my driving force and she’s my parrot. The parrot will always be alive as long as people believe in this feeling, the driving force known today as ‘love’. But did I know I was falling in love then? No. Did your mom know then? No, but she did write reply to my letters which she showed me after our marriage.

***

“I am Raima De. I agree with your thoughts. Men and women should be allowed to talk rather than chosen at random for marriage. I don’t know about seeing sunrises, but If we get married take me there. You’ll never see these letters but I just want to write down that thank you for writing to me. I know you won’t get the message unless I post it, but I can’t do it. I believe that whenever we say something or write something, it’s out in the world. It travels in one way or the other to its destination. That’s why I write these letters because once put an idea out to this world, it’s out there and can be accessed. I hope you make your discovery and be remembered for it.”

***