Episode 1/Chapter 6: What, If Our Dreams Come True!

Chapter 6

The break-thru came during the seventh month. I seemed to be having some visceral connection with the number seven in my life.

One day, when it was about to get dark, I followed the sadhu like a shadow into the hills. Now, I was also more familiar with his usual route and the following him was less arduous. After some distance into the hills, I saw something very strange.  There was a massive tall rock and the sadhu suddenly climbed the near- vertical rock with ease like a lizard, only to disappear from the top. I couldn’t clone his performance; the rock was vertical, slippery and there was hardly anything to hold on to. ‘But, how could he do it?’

I looked around for a solution. I found some thick roots of trees hanging loose from above in another corner of the rock. Holding those roots and hoping that it wouldn’t come off the ground, I slowly climbed step by step between smaller rocks. In some places I slipped, but I managed to hold on. My feet and hands ached. I scratched my skin all over and bruised myself. After some strenuous climbing, I managed to reach a plateau where I rested for a while before I continued my climb. The route was circuitous, but I reached the top of the steep rock. The sadhu was nowhere in sight.

I was crestfallen at not being able to catch the sadhu. I was equally horrified being left alone in the darkness of such a wild place. Darkness and silence frightened me. The humming sound coming from insects was the only noise I heard and even this noise was frightening. Some insects crawled over me. I jumped screaming and shook violently to shrug them off. In the small shimmering light from the sky, I saw a snake disappearing into a small hole. My heart pounded heavily and I started shivering and perspiring.

When I steadied myself after some time, I looked through the darkness to find out where the sadhu could have disappeared. He was nowhere.

It was cold on top of the rock. Some animal, could be a wolf, howled and it terrified me. I blamed myself for coming here. I sat on a small rock trying to recoup some energy. Sudden unsettling sounds from the different corners of the darkness froze my blood repeatedly. I trembled violently. My breathing became quite hard. My knees turned weak and starting caving in. Quite suddenly, I felt like throwing up.

Then, all of a sudden, I saw the sadhu, moving swiftly between a few bushes. There was a sudden rush of blood all over me and I felt excited. I jumped from my seat, quick on my feet and rushed behind him, only to bang my head against another rock in the darkness. I yelled in excruciating pain. Rubbing vigorously my forehead with one hand, I made quick strides to follow the sadhu.

‘It is either now or never.’ I decided. The sadhu was moving with lightning speed and again, I was no match for him. Then he disappeared again behind another rock.

When I reached that spot, I saw nothing – there was no place to disappear.

‘Is he a magician or a witch?’

I had heard stories of some mysterious people practicing witchcraft luring and trapping children from decent families only to be given away as ‘bali’ (sacrifice) at the altar of the fearful Kali (a feminine form of God). These human sacrifices were invariably done during midnight only, I had been told. Some mysterious ‘raappaadi’s (night singers) visited residential areas, only at midnight, singing queer verses in frightening voices. I recalled the story of one young boy from my village, who was lured behind a ‘raappaadi’ after being mesmerized, during odd hours at midnight. The boy was in shambles when he was rescued after several days. Some fearful tales had been told to me that a few kids never returned back to the village as they were given away as human sacrifice at the cremation grounds. The people who practiced witchcraft, I was told, prepared some black paste from the remains of the skulls of those sacrificed bodies to perform black magic and lure more kids. Some people used these black magicians and witchcraft to take revenge on others. To what extent these stories were true, I never knew.

The thought about black magic and witchcraft, once again chilled my spine. ‘Is the sadhu one such wicked magician?’

Then I reasoned to myself  that  if the sadhu ever wanted to exploit me for any of his wicked intentions, he had plenty of opportunities during the last six months, but he never harmed me in any way.

‘May be, he is preparing me for a grand sacrifice, yet to be made!’ I once again shuddered at the thought.

I stared at the rock as though I had the power to pierce through it. It pained my eyes.

But what a surprise! I was dumfounded to notice a small slit under the huge rock. What lay beyond I couldn’t guess. I dared not to find. I vacillated. My heart pumped faster, hands and feet trembled, stomach churned, and, deep inside, something told me to run away as fast as I could.

But I didn’t.

I approached the slit and narrowing my eyes, stealthily peeped through the slit focusing on what was on the other side. After some painful moments I could notice a small descent behind the slit. Kneeling down, I squeezed myself in through the narrow slit, moved down crawling, twisting my body at a few places and soon I found myself on a flight of stairs going down. It looked like a cave and now I had sufficient space to sit inside. With great alacrity, I slowly descended, taking every step with trepidation. After a few steps, I was on a small level ground from where I could see some small light in one corner. It looked like an entrance to another cave.

I slowly crawled towards the second cave. The entrance was narrow. Carefully, I stepped inside. What I saw therein was hair-raising and spine chilling and I stood there in great bewilderment! How would I describe it!

There, in front of a small lamp, I saw the sadhu sitting on a stone, like Lord Siva sitting in tapas posture, in very deep meditation. I thought I saw Lord Siva himself – Lord Siva with a high rising jada mudi (matted hair), his legs in Padmasan, the right hand in ‘abhaya mudra’ (indicating his readiness to protect those who take refuge in Him) and the left hand holding the thrishul. I felt a powerful radiation around the sadhu. A circle of glowing light above his head illuminated the roof of the cave. I felt a million lightning all at once landing on me. I trembled violently and fell to the ground. I didn’t know what happened after that.

*****

Episode 1/Chapter 4: What, If our Dreams Come True! An Uncommon Meeting with Lord Siva

Chapter 4

One day, I finally managed to gather all my guts and began climbing the small steps from Kutralanadhar temple leading to Chithira Sabhai. I crossed the rough road leading to the Five Falls and entered the small passage that led to Chithra Sabhai. I stood at the entrance below a tall stone ceiling. I had a breathtaking view of the Courtallam hills on one side, clouds kissing the hill tops. The place was deserted. There was an elegant temple tank with steep steps leading to the pond of water in front of Chithra Sabai. A small, elegant stone mandap decorated the center of the tank. I wondered if the waterfall in the region fed the pond here too. I got down the steps until my knees were immersed in water. The water was cold and the chillness pierced all the way to my bones. A shoal of fishes immediately flocked to my feet to nibble away all the dirt. I felt very sorry that I didn’t bring any food for those fishes. Scattered lotus leaves with flowers, floating over the waters, presented a rich design to the landscape.  

I was in no mood to go into Chithra Sabhai immediately and so I just sat there, in the scintillating ambience, with my feet still dipped in the water in the pond.

Abruptly my mood changed, as though some new energy had suddenly entered me. I quickly climbed the steps and entered the front hall of Chitra Sabhai. There was a small closed mandap on one side and a few empty palanquins used to carry ‘Utsav Moorthy’s were stored on the other side. In all the temples of South India, there were two idols – one called Moolavar who sits inside the sanctum Sanctorum and never removed from his seat and the other called Utsavar who was taken out on palanquins on important occasions in a procession through the four streets, called ‘ratha veedhi’, around the temple. Two life sized wall paintings of some heavenly beings welcomed the visitors. The paintings were fading at a few places and requiring restoration. Once I crossed the hall at the entrance, I was in the next corridor. There was another small, covered hall that led to the main ‘Chithra Sabhai.’ A large open corridor surrounded the Chithra Sabhai that enabled people to circumambulate.

I crossed over the hall and entered Chithra Sabhai. The hall inside was dimly lit. There were several paintings all over the four walls, inside and outside. To my right was the painting of a magnificent picture of Lord Nataraja, that seemed to engulf the whole hall. This mural painting, I had learned, was painted more than a thousand years ago. People were not allowed to touch the painting or do pooja in front of the painting, to avoid damage to the paintings. The herbal paints that  were used to make these pictures still remain heretic and were known only to a select few. I stood oblivious to anything other than the mural painting of Lord Nataraja, which captured all my attention. It looked as though Lord Siva in the mural painting was dancing everywhere in the hall. I thanked Lord Siva for bringing me to Courtallam.

Quite abruptly, my attention turned away from Lord Nataraja and I saw the sadhu sitting and meditating in a lotus posture with closed eyes. There was no one else other than the sadhu and the place was eerily silent. Behind the sadhu, the picture of the compassionate Nataraja now appeared frightening to me. I felt an aura surrounding the sadhu drawing me closer to him and that frightened me more.

‘Shall I run from here?’ a thought flashed. But then, the sadhu briefly opened his eyes, as though he knew about my arrival, stared at me to acknowledge my presence and then closed his eyes again, never to open it for a long time. His brief look seemed to exert irresistible influence on me and I felt drawn to him, even while I was terribly scared inside. Silently I approached him, sat in front and closed my eyes. As I sat, I felt the strong vibrations all over the place and my body began to tremble. Was it fear or something else? I couldn’t be sure.

Suddenly I was restless and I opened my eyes. I felt frustrated having waited long for him to open his eyes.

‘What kind of man is he? He calls me here, knows that I am here, but refuses to open his eyes and tell me why he wanted me here.’

I rushed out of Chithra Sabhai and looked around from the small hillock. I was back on earth. The picturesque view of the far end of the village and the surroundings was before me and I marveled at the beauty of the place. The white clouds kissing the mountain tops and the rising cloud of drops of water from the splashing waterfalls lifted me to a ‘Higher World’. It was quiet everywhere. I quickly got back to whatever I was doing in the village.

Days and weeks passed by. I had nothing specific to do at Courtallam. I visited every waterfall – chitraruvi (small falls), five falls, tiger falls and the falls at Old Courtallam. I frequented nearby villages scattered across the muddy banks of paddy fields, trod on narrow raised bunds over the lakes, hitchhiked in bullock carts to Shencottai, whiled away my time in the nearby hills, visited the street side temples in a number of agraharams, joined the bhajan groups engaged in devotional singing at several places, ate delicious food from the choultries and slept most of the time under the shades of some banyan trees that were seen everywhere around the region. Survival was never an issue. Those days, many philanthropic people owned and ran small choultries, (otherwise called chattirams) and fed the poor. Annadhanam or feeding the poor was considered to be a virtuous act liberating one from the ill effects of one’s wrongful doings and thus providing a pathway to Heaven.

I couldn’t decide about moving away from Courtallam. There was a growing urge in me to meet that sadhu again. So I went back to the place where the regular congregation took place under a banyan tree. He was there and I made no specific moves to get in touch with him. I stayed there quietly as part of the larger crowd for some time and left.

Something strange and mysterious was drawing me to him. I didn’t know what it was.

I was a matriculate and one of the brightest students in the school when studying, but nothing happened within my brain to change my mundane routine. Life was smooth otherwise. Why should I attempt to do anything at all, I wondered?

*****