I can see the face of my soul if I close my eyes. I can see it whirring, dancing like a dervish within the tiny, conical chambers of my spine. We are sitting under a large Banyan tree, ancient, wise, mystical, venerated. The earth is bare around the radius of its trunk, as if it cannot sustain any other life form apart from this enormous tree. She is at least three hundred years old; I am twenty three. Her branches have descended to become roots, and have started to become trees again in their own right. We can walk in, to the core of the tree, through the gaps in the roots and the branches, and within is a small stone-god, dusted yellow and red with turmeric and vermillion. There is an old lady in a brown cotton sari – the borders gold - circumambulating the tree, and her hands hold the coconut and flowers that she has brought for the tree in such a way that they form both a container and a salutation. Her efficiency is graceful. She has white flowers in her grey hair. It is clear she does this every day. The tree whispers to her.
We rode our motorcycles here, and have parked them behind the tree. They add a disturbing dash of color to the bare earth and the brown tree – a mix of steel and dark blue and KTM's orange and white. The Sun does not filter down to the earth, except here and there and barely, where the incessant limbs of the tree permit it. It’s just the three of us, and the old lady - Moham, 3 and I.
Blue skies today – the color of washed jeans. This bright, sunlit tree stands out darkly against the faded blue. The hill behind the tree itself lacks the clarity of contrast, blurred as it is by a thin veil of mist. Starchy sunlight, thin traffic, noises that echo off the face of the hill and a general air of afternoon melancholy lends to the atmosphere a lonely, subdued mood.
A photon sparked noisily away from the burning sun and sped towards my cornea. I follow its path, staring at its brilliant tail that trails behind like the tail of a comet.
Two hours later it is ten minutes.
As if we understand time anymore. As if we subscribe to that concept anymore. Everything is now. Here. Second-less. The future is the past and the present. I can feel the burn of neurons connecting in my brain. Each action of my every cell causes a ripple that moves ever so delicately every hair on my body. Now I feel the chill in the air. For the first time in a lifetime I sense everything. I am aware. I am aware of the sounds and the noise and the lights and the air, the sense of the exchange of breath in the disappearing dark of tree-shade. Immortals we are in this threatening moment. It seems we have pulled the understanding of all knowledge to our subconscious mind and have gained from an unlimited ken the understanding of the relationship of everything. Life is then clearly divided into moments of epic, cathedral-vast Zen, and moments of the mere, sheen-less life. Read my words twice, traveler, and savor the secrets of each word. There are two meanings to the lights and sounds and words of this universe.
Read my words twice.
*
Leh at Last
Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.
Anatole France
Day 7
Elevation: 11,562 ft.
Distance from Leh: 0 km.
The Anatomy of Journey Page 23