Onlyness by Santosh Jha (red white and royal blue hardcover .txt) 📕

By Santosh Jha

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Copyright 2014 Santosh Jha

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License Note

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Thanks for your support.

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Disclaimer: This work is an absolute fiction, an outcome of pure imagination of perceived situations, with the clean purpose of the navigation of a set of life ideas. All characters and their portrayal are fictitious, with no intentional resemblance to anyone dead or alive. Any semblance must be accepted as pure coincidence and inadvertent.

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CHAPTER 1

The singularities of life have elemental eccentricities of happening and un-happening; almost as weird and randomized as love. The elements of one’s own life and that of the equally precarious milieus are both patterned as well as un-patterned. The juxtaposition of symmetrical possibilities amid the larger probabilistic asymmetry of arbitrary milieus engender such beautiful marvels of life-living experiences, which people can accept only in one way – the destiny.

A resplendently beautiful woman, the empress of eclectic endowments of extremities of name, fame and flair, the reigning royalty of Hollywood’s dream factory, the Oscar winner and highest paid actor is currently the subject of destiny. Like in love, she is unaware of the cryptic conspiracies of cosmic causalities, which has landed her in a sleepy small town of Rishikesh in India, the Yoga capital of the world; thousands of miles away from the colossal clutters of the Los Angeles, California in United States of America, where she belongs.

Destiny is much like love. Both happen and un-happen and neither way, one is sure whether it is good or bad. People always search for their destinies as well as love. Both are wired and wielded within as randomized probabilities. The co-incidence and favorability of elements, somehow present themselves as pretext for something, which is not an external situation, rather an internal positioning. The moment, one accepts, love happens and destiny is signed in. Until then, possibilities hang in balance as un-happening.

Melissa Knowles is also out on a journey, unconsciously in search of her destiny. She and her resolve has already energized a patterning of causality, which she is innocently unaware of. However, what destiny has in store for her shall be decided not by factors outside in her near and far milieus, rather by what she finally accepts as something, which is her own internal positioning of consciousness.

An empress itself is neither a title nor a person. It is a positioning of consciousness, which is so much overwhelmed by endowments, both within and outside, that it invariably lands at the eye of the storm of life probabilities. Most women are born empress. It is an archetypal conspiracy of cosmic causalities to put women in a conscious positioning of empress. It is only natural that all elemental probabilities shall look up to the empress for taking commands from her. The empress therefore is always in tumult. All empires are in turmoil, so is the empress.

It is only a yogi, who can see the patterns, which destinies unravel in the storm as, he is standing far away from it and happily detached to the cyclicality of cosmic conspiracies of elements. An empress and yogi together create a brilliant singularity, which holds the potential of unleashing beautiful probabilities of destinies. The cosmic conspiracy has almost taken a pattern. The empress has arrived and, the yogi is about to enter the scenario.

The time, space and circumstances have presented a bizarre coincidence. There however is no element of favorability, which people usually associate coincidence with, for beneficial destiny. As it is the rule; destinies are situationed one way and an empress has her own elements positioned the other way. The third dimension of the yogi can add its own causality.

In ancient Indian traditions of Hindu religion, there is said to be a general prohibition of any good work in a time-space situation, which is referred as ‘sandhi-kaal’. It is a time and space where one is about to end and other is yet to start. This period of transition is considered inauspicious and unproductive, as all elements of nature are weak and bendable. The weaknesses of elements aggravate the randomization of probabilities and it is believed, anything getting a start during the ‘sandhi kaal’ shall have calamitous future.

Melissa is innocently unaware that she is starting a new phase of her life in the ‘sandhi kaal’. The wall clock shows 5.30 pm as she waits in an old wooden chair in the corner of a large hall of the yoga ashram (hermitage) for the Acharya (chief teacher) to arrive. The day has heralded its departure and night has not yet arrived. There is still enough humidity in the air as it is September. Rainy season is retreating but the winter has not yet showed up its pink comfort. The place itself is a junctional situation, as Rishikesh town is situated on the foothills of Himalayan mountain ranges. The Gangetic plains vanish here but the mountains start beyond the township.

Melissa too is in ‘sandhi kaal’ of her life. She left her home in USA after a favorable phase of life seemed to have ended for her but even in India, she is not yet sure, what new turn she wants in her life. Sometimes back, she had read about yoga meditation and India seemed not so unfamiliar to her as once, while she was only six, her father had taken her to Rishikesh and beyond. She had been fascinated by Himalayas and as her now estranged father, suggested that she visited Rishikesh and lived in a yoga ashram for some time, she accepted it.

The yoga ashram and the ambience are much beyond the description and pictures her father had sent her. The serpentine narrow road, which leads to the ashram, has bushes and trees laden with flowers on both sides, which she does not recognize. The fragrance of the wild flowers and rain-soaked soil has mixed to give a very earthy aroma, which feels like musk but is more pungent. The road opens into a slight slope, leading to an undulating valley like terrain, in the middle of which the ashram is situated.

From three sides of the ashram, the first series of Himalayan mountains rise like ramparts of a castle. The mountains are not very high and steep and are heavily clad with green trees and shrubs. Few scattered houses on them look like flags hanging on the trees. There are few openings between the mountains, making the air gush in. Melissa feels, the wind was not whispering, rather saying something loudly but amiably. The fourth side of the ashram opens on the southern side of the Himalayan mountain, where the mighty river Ganges flows with great force, as it readies itself to touch the plains. The sounds of gushing Ganges waters and mountain winds create a mesmerizing symphony.

Melissa instantly likes the milieu and settings. For the first time in so many days, she feels calm and light. Nature’s own structural symmetry is so full of elemental bounties and multidimensionality that it offers refuge and reassurance to all emotions and consciousnesses of all lives. The wide and open vista of landscape, which further extends the limits of horizon, engenders a feeling of instant wellness to Melissa. The constricted consciousness of Melissa desperately needs larger and wider space for her emotions to get a free flight of escape. The synchronous sounds of wind and water penetrate her heart, where silence has started to suffocate her. She feels filled and free. Something touches her and she just responds by allowing her smile to get unburdened by her conscious resolve. Destinies do not barge in. They pass by and touch you by their soft elemental scent. As you do not resist and simply remain positively neutral, destinies start to unleash their causalities. Melissa has stopped resisting.

As she is received at the ashram gate, ushered in to the main hall and asked to wait for a while as Acharya was in puja (prayers), Melissa is beginning to feel slightly thrilled with expectations of something good finally coming her way. Elements of destinies weave a wanton web of probabilistic causalities. What ends the web connects and what pattern it engenders may be precarious, however, the subject of destiny always provides the first will, consciously or unconsciously. Melissa is not only not resisting, she is now expecting!

The local police officer and one staff from the American Embassy, who accompanies Melissa from Delhi, are busy talking something. The police official is trying to assure the Embassy man that everything is fine here and there is nothing to worry. He is not even listening and moving swiftly to assess everything here. He makes some notes on his iPad and then turns to the police officer making queries. Melissa watches them arguing for a while and then turns her attention to better things.

She walks up to the other side of the hall, where a large window offers a spectacular view of the entire ashram few steps below and the mountains beyond. There are several small huts, some slightly bigger. All of them made of mud and wood, having thatched roofs. There is a small pond on one side of the huts, in which some ducks are swimming. Many rabbits of different colors are freely jumping all around. What amazes Melissa is the variety of birds everywhere in the ashram. There are many pitchers placed on trees beyond the pond and every now and then, some pigeons either enter them or leave out of the large hole of the pitchers. On all the walls of every hut, there are many small wooden boxes with small holes on the front side. As Melissa wonders about what they are, a sparrow comes flying, sits on the box and swiftly sneaks into the hole. Seconds later, another sparrow follows suit. Melissa thinks, the second one must have been the husband sparrow, who joined his wife as evening was approaching. She feels something tweaking in her heart and she begins to look away. A boy enters the hall with three small earthen pots. The police officer requests her to come and have tea. The embassy man takes two pots and moves towards Melissa, waiving his hand, gesturing her to stay there. The police officer understood the situation and moved out of the hall, taking his pot of tea. Melissa has no choice. She cannot avoid the man as her mother insisted that she would follow the instructions on her safety, as prescribed by the American Embassy officials.

Her mother calls her up often, even when she is busy campaigning for her election to Governorship. Her Senator friend, who is rumored to be more than just a good friend, has ensured that Melissa is under constant security cover of Embassy people. Melissa dislikes him and would have refused all this but she knows, her mother would do what the Senator would say. He moved all his official advantages to woo Melissa. The Senator had offered his pad in Paris for Melissa as alternative to India but she had refused. Melissa has been away from her father, a university Professor, who lives in London but she knows, she would never wish to have the senator step in.

In the adjacent room, a 75-year old man is sitting on an elevated platform in dhyanashna (meditative posture), his eyes closed. He looks very thin and frail but his face radiates calmness and childlike innocence. The thick and completely white hair and beard too cannot eclipse his smiling wheatish face. The Acharya rarely meets anyone from outside his ashram but he agrees to meet Melissa, as she is