“Norman here! I’m the publisher of your stories in Yorkshire. Get it?”
Martha just hung up. Did she ever
write stories? Funny! She didn’t recollect anything at all! Then she saw
her book lying open with her pen by its side. She read the words on the page. After pondering for a while, the King said
simply, “Go ahead! I want her here by tomorrow evening.” Myara immediately took
leave and went home to prepare for her long and arduous journey. She was tense
with excitement. She only hoped that the old lady hadn’t passed away!
Had she written those words?
Were they a part of a story? She was scared and utterly
confused. Who was Norman and why had he called her? Most importantly, why had
he called her Darling? She shrugged as her head started paining. She then went
into the bedroom and went off to sleep. Soundly. Until Myara woke her up. In
her dream!
As Myara rushed towards
Juan’s home, about 500 kilometers away, Norman sent a dear friend of his to
check on Martha from thousands of miles away.
When Nancy refused to have breakfast the next day, pleading nausea and
refused to talk to him properly, Norman knew that something was amiss. Not only
in her health but also in her demeanor. “What’s troubling you Nancy? Please,
could you tell me so that I can set things right? Feel free to tell me
anything!” he said bluntly.
“Norman, I know this will sound silly to you. But I just can’t bear the
thought of you being with another woman. Yes, I know that we’ve lived apart for
nearly 3 decades, but I still care for you and was hoping to have you by my
side till the very end. But now it looks like you’re missing her terribly and
I’m just an impediment to you. I feel guilty about your presence here. I can
feel that woman’s accusing eyes on me all my waking hours.”
“And last night when I heard you talking with her over the phone, I
wished that I could die at once. I think this is more agonizing than my cancer.
I, I feel that it will be the best for both of us, if you just leave me alone
henceforth. I’ll manage all right. I’ll hire round-the-clock nurses from a
bureau. Besides the fact that you care for someone else, I even feel guilty
that you are being needlessly kept away from your demanding job. Your work must
be piling. I don’t want to be so selfish. Please go away, go away,” she sobbed
into her handkerchief.
Norman knew that much
as he wanted, he couldn’t be so heartless and abandon her in such a sorry
state. He decided to stay put and continue looking after her. He didn’t say
anything to her just then and went out for a walk. He went and sat on an
outcrop at the peak of a nearby hill. He took several deep breaths of the fresh
mountain air and felt nice. He had decided to deliberately blot out all his
current life from his mind and concentrate on his heartbeats only. Meditation
came naturally to him.
Deep in meditation, Juan started jerking violently. As he opened his
eyes, he felt as if someone was trying to jolt him out of his reverie. Only, he
couldn’t see anyone who could have disturbed him. All the other seers, his
brothers, were deep in meditation, almost in a trance. Not a leaf stirred even
on the luscious trees around. The whole shrine was shrouded in pin-drop
silence. But his heart thudded wildly. He felt restless. He felt very thirsty.
He had to reach the spring or he would die! He got up from the bare floor
noiselessly and made his way like a drunkard to the eternal spring of sweet
water in that shrine. As he dipped his clay bowl in it, he felt even more
restless. As he drank non-stop from his bowl, he could feel his heartbeats
steadying. Yet his mind was restless. Something was disturbing him. He couldn’t
fathom the reason behind his unease.
He looked guiltily at the silent seers with eyes closed in meditation
and then at himself. He had broken an unspoken rule. Never leave a meditation
session midway at any cost! He had been led astray for the first time since his
earlier fumbling and bumbling years at the shrine. He who had prided himself on
his self-discipline and resolve, had been led astray today by something as
lowly and mortal as ‘thirst’. Shame on him! He hadn’t been able to overcome his
‘humanness’. How would he ever attain salvation? He should have been able to
quell his desire for water. As he had quelled all his other wants and desires!
His ears turned red as he blushed furiously. He quickly looked around. No, no
one had noticed his turmoil. He made his way sheepishly and closed his eyes and
concentrated on ‘The Master’ till his breathing turned steady. Then he felt the
word Sara drumming in his head like a staccato. Even after the meditation
session was over, that word was steadily playing over and over again in his
head till he thought he’d go crazy.
He fell down at the feet of “The Master” and begged forgiveness. “Why do
you ask for forgiveness, son?” the enlightened one asked him. “There’s nothing
to forgive!”
“I’m being plagued by the word ‘Sara’. Though I don’t know what that
means, it is making me very uneasy and restless. I can’t concentrate on
anything today. Why is it so? Who or what is ‘Sara’?”
“Sara is everything. Everything is Sara. Go to sleep. You’ll be fine.”
The master said cryptically and went back to his trance.
Sleep eluded
Juan as he kept mulling over what his Master had said. “Sara means everything” and “Everything is
Sara”. What could it mean? That Sara was the be all and end all of one’s
existence? If so, why did that word
plague only him and not the others at the shrine? Was he the chosen one, for some radical
spiritual awakening? Enlightenment? He wasn’t quite satisfied with his
reasoning. Sara had to mean something to
him personally. Maybe something from his
distant past? Why couldn’t he
remember?
To be continued....
The copyright of this novel is with Mrs. Priya Ramesh Swaminathan.
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