Transcendence
History vouches for its
sanctity, myths glorify it the supernatural wings of
divinity are attached to it since the childhood of my
great-great grandfather, even beyond that.
My father once told me of a man who
sits outside the verandah of this place, synonymous to the
'spiritual' and has seen innumerous onslaughts of
brutality, of profanity. My father was told about the man by
his father, who knew it from his own. None is sure about his age,
or motive. Everyone alive who has visited the place vows that
this face is familiar.
I take my daughter, now six,
holding her finger cross the verandah, heart pumping. Sight
falls at him, eyes meet eyes, he smiles and says, "Here you
come, after thirty years!" Bewildered, I rush to him, touch his
feet. I ask so many questions, people gather and tell me Baba
doesn't ever speak.
I cannot distrust my ears but
leave the place to finish the rest of my pilgrimage.
***
I was eight then, but can
recall the glimmer of the eyes, it's the same.
It's
rare that you witness the lines blurring between the temporal,
the spatial, the physical and the metaphysical.
The
poem was originally published in Spark the Magazine in its August
2016 issue.
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