3
We stopped here. We call the place Darry Corner (Dairy corner).
A brooklet babbles past a hillock, just one in the valley. Dense foliage leaves have covered the heads of the trees on the other side of the brooklet.
We climbed up the hillock. As we climbed, slightly strong air descended. It caught us in the current. We became slower at pace, but soon overcame the air and set ourselves standing on top of the hillock.
It was so beautiful to look down from here. Every object was moving like a roll of shades before my eyes. The sky overhead is bigger than my imagination. An open canopy on to which play many different lights and glow.
I felt l was going to touch the broken pieces of cloud, floating like many white pieces of ice blocks in the faintly clear blue sea.
My driver drifted off, he sat there as I wanted to walk over to the other side of the brooklet.
I came down furtively and made my way towards the babbling water. Getting at the other bank was not difficult as I had seen a narrow handmade bridge of bamboo sticks hanging between the banks of the brook.
The bridge made little creaks at the rope joints as I walked on.
Now I am walking through the bower of all mediocre size trees. Some of them burst with clusters of red flowers. The continuous thick sheets of leaves were trying to block off the first daylight. Sound of hundreds of crickets at a stretch was quite heady. Apparently the sound was giving creeps to my lonely presence. A façade of night-time staging.
A very gentle breeze was caressing my thinner leftover hair.
I moved on slowly. I shall be mingling with the silence. I did not want to break it.
I was stepping on the carpet of fallen brown leaves and red, yellow flowers.
After some walking, I was able to listen to the lovely sweetest tweet of hundreds of birds here. It was the first sound of the daybreak. It was beautiful, I could not remember when I heard them last.
I took off my slippers and folded up the ends of my trousers. My first footing on the long green strip of grasses gave me the pleasure I had forgotten for all these long years of job. The little moist grasses started to tickle my soles. The feeling is so good to hide, so bad to tell.
There, after some staying, I turned to the bank of the brooklet.
I had to pull back my bodyweight as I walked down the slope to the brink of water.
Its middle of May, but when I put my toes into water I was thrilled. It’s winter cold. Even my toes flinched.
‘Sir’, my driver called aloud.
I saw a diminutive figure up there.
Without a word, I was just looking at him.
Then he said, ‘come here sir’.
His words resounded. It broke the peaceful silence a bit and that bothered me. Because, I tried to be an intruder without a murmur. Nothing should be declaring human presence.
My aimless wanderings took me half an hour.
I quickly washed my heels in the flowing water by rubbing my heels against a rock.
Then I went uphill and saw my driver. He was bemused at the sunrise over the other bank of the meandering rivulet a little distance ahead.
I flattered myself to be a part of this beautiful sunrise. I never thought I would be witness to this kind. The tip of the rising sun, its orange glow and hue had madly flooded the sky screen. The halo was interrupted by so many random trespassing of mad-mixed colors. It was like a color bomb went off to unleash its huge potential.
The water of the rivulet had formed an exact replica of the sunrise. Moreover, the little ripples generating in the flow of the river had been gently imparting motion to it.
Not a single word moved across my lips.
My driver went back to the car, but I sat back.
The taste of nature had given me a lot that morning. It aroused my wishes to be with nature again and again. This meeting with nature did not allow those whishes of mine to undergo perpetual dormancy. For the first time I realized that talking is not always as important as to remain silent. For the first time I learnt silence talks more than the words talk. Being silent beholder does not mean it does not convey anything. On the contrary, sometimes, being silent conveys much more than being really talkative. My communing with nature did make my silence wordy, no doubt about that. Had I had more time to spend for this beautiful morning, I would not have wasted my breath doing something else.
But, one thing is assured that this single opportunity to be with nature has opened up many avenues in my mind to become a selfless wanderer in the beautiful natural world just around me.
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