On Earth the heaven!
| Date :02-Jul-2019 |
By Vijay Phanshikar
Rains beckon
Drop by drop
Drip by drip
On Earth the heaven!
- Self
HEAVEN on Earth! -- after summer’s scorch ... Much before the rains come, the signals do. Very inviting. Very alluring. Very hospitable. They -- the rains -- come to you, as guests, so to say, but not as the outsiders! They are very much the insiders! For, much before they herald their coming, the rains are inside you -- in expectation, in hope, in assiduous longing of the endearing wetness, in the wait of the earthy scent in paradoxical heavenliness! The rains come, thus, first in the mind and then in the bind of the surrounding. They fill the mind and then fill everything. They leave nothing.
They live in everything. They percolate not just the soil but also penetrate the soul -- deep and still delving within ...! Drop by drop, the rains come. We notice the first drops, dripping from the roof and the leaf and the drooping branch of the tamarind tree peeping through the window. There is a music in the drip-drip-drip ...! There are scattered notes that connote symphony, an endearing paradox, an ever-enlarging and heightening -- and deepening -- crescendo whose music first embraces you and then engulfs the spirit. You lose yourself to the sounds of the rain when you stop noticing the drops as drops. For, now the drops crash down menacingly, drowning not just the surroundings but also your being, erasing your sense of presence. Then strange things start happening.
As you stare into nothingness out of the window, when an undefined emptiness invades you from within, you start realising that you have a presence that nothing can erase, not even the rains. For, even in that all-pervading wetness, you emerge from that drowning feeling. You raise the head. You stare at the rains, spread your mind’s arms and embrace the haven from the emptying clouds. In that very moment, you become an inseparable part of the wet bliss, of the gift from the heavens. That’s when the parch your soul has suffered vanishes. The summer is way behind, way out of memory, as if it never existed -- even though it demonised you until a moment ago. ...On Earth the heaven! ...!