So then frustrated by the stubborn intractability of the Gods,
Aritra got up from the pyre he had kept burning for these eleven
months, and turned back towards the city; the city nestled, far below
him, at the foot of the mountains; the city he had left behind almost
a year ago; the city sparkling naively superficially; the city
blissfully ignorant of higher purposes, sacrifices and life
transcending aims. He looked at all the glitter which he had been so
proud and excited to leave behind. He thought of the colors, the
people, the spider web of human love and hate, the tastes, the joys,
the music, and Rashi, the the beautiful.
She was spectacular. But he has walked away from her. It was not that
her magic had left him unmoved. But he had been drunk on a greater
“high”. His mission, his questions, his hunger to know what he had
wanted to know, the knowledge of the Gods, the meaning of life, The
Secret. But then, was that really what he had been drunk on? Or was it
the “high” of “thinking” he was resisting and the power that wrapped
around his self image at the thought?
So in the dark of the night, he climbed down the side of the mountain,
slipping the last few steps of the way, and quietly re-entered the
town he had left once just before the sun had slipped into the sky.
All the while, he cradled his failure in his heart like a treasured
first born. Thoughtlessly, he let his feet drift. Just like he had
that long ago morning, when he had entered the land at the top of the
mountain with the dawn. And thus it was that he found himself facing
Rashi’s door, one hand raised to knock. Then suddenly hesitating, he
was about to turn away, when the door opened and she stood there, not
saying anything, not smiling, not giving any clues away, but not
turning away … just standing there with the door open.
After that time fell away like a scrap of paper flies out of your hand
in an unguarded moment. And when he came to his senses again, he felt
like he had been under a spell cast by something outside of him.
Whereas, everything else that had ever come over him, had been born
inside him, in the heart of his mind. And now, in the middle of
merging again into her, and back into humanity, he awoke. It was as if
his consciousness was reawakening refreshed from slumber. And suddenly
it was gnawing at him again. His itching annoying hunger for the hills
outside the limits of the town. And the fire of the Gods.
At the foot of the hills, he paused one last time and turned back to
look at the city. This he had not dared to do the first time he had
left it (Though he had told himself he had not cared). Through the
darkness he could feel the guilt of desertion trailing his path from
Urvashi’s house – slowly fading ink. And even now, she had said
nothing. A new sorrow, more sublime, but more lasting, rose in and
filled his heart, and he felt this sorrow that he felt for her was
like a invisible thread of silver that stretched out in the darkness
and tied him to her, a bond stronger than any earthly ‘love’, whatever
that might be. He sighed one last time, and then picked up his burdens
and started to climb back up hill.
The dying embers, that he had kicked at in a rage of frustration
earlier, looked ghostly in the fake lightening of the sky that comes
even before the sun. His heart jumped and wrenched at the sight of it,
he didnt know why. All his hunger, did not come rushing back at once,
but ran to the gates of his heart, and stopped there, shy, awaiting
his permission to take the last step in. Once more, he felt that
whatever his doubts, however high the tuition, and however heavy the
burden of the shame of failure, he would never feel this way for
anything in The City. He did not yet know the nature of the feeling,
but he knew that the intensity of this feeling, would never rival that
other, and that he could never turn his face from it again, and live
in peace
Chocolate Amer 