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

It is nature’s design of selection of inevitable. A woman teases a man if she finds him worthy of her selection for proximity, affection and intimacy. It seems like an instinctive mechanism, which unconsciously a woman does to ensure the suitability and utility of a man as her possible selection. This mechanism seems to test the selection in twin ways. First, it works on a supposition that a man, who is reciprocally interested in the woman, alone can match symbiotic and symmetrical emotions to the teases of the woman. Secondly, it tests the essential and ingrained character of the man as a reliable selection. If he has the patience, sincerity and personality resources to emerge winner from the tests of teases from the woman, she shall sense it like a powerful aroma. It is very usual for a woman stretching her mannerisms and action-behavior to unbelievable limits of extreme teases to test the finality of selection.

Shiv is concerned because Melissa had initiated this instinctive mechanism towards him and she was so innocently oblivious of it. As Shiv reciprocated to her teases and pranks, she unconsciously upgraded the scale of her innate mechanism. Shiv understands that he is happiest making her happy and smile but he was doing it for something, which he cannot tell it to her. He could never think of doing anything, which could make Melissa feel bad and unsettled. He is working towards making Melissa a person, which could land herself in real joys and real happiness of life. However, what Melissa is leading to, is not what he has the brief for.

Shiv goes to his room and makes the important call. He speaks on the phone in calm but in a serious tone. Something the person from other side of the phone tells him and he smiles and looks relaxed. He makes another call and asks for something. He waits for ten minutes for the return call. The phone call makes him laugh and he thanks the person from other side of the phone profusely. He looks at the wall clock and it is three o’ clock. He takes out his small mat and sits in meditation. In two hours, he will have to move out and prepare for day’s journey with Melissa. He must see and brief Acharya about the developments before he starts his routine of meditation and prayers at five.

**

CHAPTER 8

Melissa instantly falls in love with the new place. The place is too good to be real. As it is in a painting, every element of the landscape looks markedly accentuated. Melissa has never been such close to raw and wild nature at its sharpest and best. She jokes to Shiv that it seems she has died and come to heaven with him. Shiv has been a regular here. He belongs to this place.

The village, situated on a small stretch of almost flat land, where around 25 small wood and stone houses stood, is a narrow valley. All houses are lined up laterally, close along the steeply rising mountain, which protects them against chilly winds in winters, when snow covers the village. All houses face downwards, where a spiral of cultivated land descends down. The villagers do the terrace farming in these lands. On the right end of village, jungles start and inside the jungle, a river stream descends down with huge force from mountaintop. Melissa can easily listen to the musical sound of waterfall nearby. The sky above looks like a small blue umbrella as grey mountains surrounded the horizon from all sides. After somehow warm and slightly humid climes of Rishikesh, Melissa particularly likes the dry and pleasantly cold milieu of the village. The traditional welcome rituals of the villagers thrill Melissa.

She however is slightly irritated as since she arrived here, Shiv seems to have left her and is busy mingling with villagers. He disappears for good two hours and Melissa is anxiously waiting for him in her room. Finally, he arrives after it is dark.

“Melissa, I must say sorry to you. I should have been with you but I could not avoid the villagers. I know you must be angry with me and you should be. You know Melissa, I was born here; these people know me since my childhood. My parents died in cloud burst, when I was just four years old. I too was washed away in flash floods and Acharya saved my life. Since then, he has taken care of me as his own child. These villagers are always thrilled beyond expectation when I visit them once a year with Acharya. As I have come here way ahead of my regular scheduled visit, they are all so excited and I cannot avoid them. They all are like my big family. They are so loving and as nobody is alive in my family; they all accept me as their own family member. And all of them have so many questions to ask.

“Oh God, Shiv, it is your village? You were born here. That is why you are so beautiful and so amazing like the place. You are so lucky. And where is your house where your parents lived? I want to see the place.”

“Melissa, this place is very symbolic of life, as it unravels for all of us. This place looks so beautiful, like life seems to us initially. However, this place has a history of untold miseries and mishaps. Almost every family here has lost one or two members the way I lost my parents. It is a hard life for all of them here. The soil is poor and wild animals often destroy their meager crops. They survive on herbs they all collect from the jungle and sell it to a cooperative in the district town. It is risky when they venture deep into the forests for herbs, as wild animals in jungle often attack them. The winters are very harsh and they remain cut off from rest of the world almost eight months of the year. Their best friends are the cattle and sheep but it is tough to keep them in good health. Still, they survive and remain happier than most in the world because they are all one big family, always united and supportive to each other. They sing and dance; and show it to the harshness of life that men and women can be happy, if there is love and compassion in their lives. I come here every year just to learn from them and life here. I am truly indebted that I belong to them.”

“Shiv, you are right. I am also like this village and everyone else, who accept me as a celebrity, are like occasional visitors, rank outsiders like me. They do not know the miseries and troubles of the girl who lives in the garb of the celebrity. Shiv, the only difference is, this village still dances and sings, braves it all and lives happily. I also sing and dance but I am mot as brave as these people are. I am not happy the way they are. Probably, I am not as simple, beautiful and full of vitality like them. But Shiv, I know, you can and you do see a stupid girl in me. I want to be like you, like your people. I want to be brave and beautiful like them. I know, you understand what it takes to be like that. You have gone through the life. And I also know, you are now my beautiful friend. You shall make me like you. You can lead me to the knowledge and experiences, which shall enable me to imbibe all this. May be, it will be tough for me. May be I am not good enough to be like you and your people but I know Shiv; you have the patience and compassion to stay with me as my teacher and friend.”

“Melissa, never ever repeat what you have said now. You are many times more able, endowed and empowered than me and we all here. As I told you earlier, you have your diamonds within you and they truly belong to you. You just have to dig them out. The people here look happier, simple and more beautiful but it is what they have to be in their natural disposition. They have no option. They are lucky not to be exposed to the evils and distractions of life. You are far superior to all of us as you have braved the most complicated and conflicted social and economic environments on the planet and still retain the innocence. You think I am better than you but put me to the rigors of celebrity life for a day and I shall definitely lose my wellness and goodness within a day. You have been into it for years and still you have the innocence and simplicity to appreciate the pains of others and value of alternative worldviews. It is very tough. I know, it is what only a woman can do, as she is the empress of the elements, which make this cosmos. The beauty, you see in these people are situational and not cultivated in adverse situations and milieus. You are far more beautiful as yours is painfully cultivated and meticulously persevered even in the worst of milieus. Melissa, the credit must go to your dad as he sowed in you the seeds of an empress. You are truly a magnanimous and brilliant empress, who has the affection and compassion for people, even when they have not been particularly kind to you.”

“Shiv, don’t pamper me like dad. I know I am a stupid but now I am better off as I have a friend in you who shall take me where I must belong. I do not belong where I am. I need to learn from you what is this place in life I must belong.”

“Madam Celebrity, this small place called Hollywood is not where you belong and it surely has not made you a celebrity. You are a real celebrity beyond these petty limits. You just being a simple, innocent and stupidly beautiful girl, land yourself to be the ultimate celebrity of the universe. The trouble is, you just do not know your true potential. You know, what made you come here. It is not your Hollywood celebrity status but your stupid innocence. When you were making this amazing jalebee in front of the shop, a stringer photojournalist of an international new agency was passing by. He did not even recognize you, as he has never seen a Hollywood movie in his life. He took the snap as he thought a beautiful and innocent girl, who looked like an empress, was making this silly jalebee in a small dingy sweet shop. He simply sent the pictures to his bosses at New Delhi office with a caption – a beautiful foreigner learning artistry of Indian sweet making. The bosses at Delhi headquarters recognized you and flashed it globally, within seconds. So, little empress, you are a born celebrity. Whatever you do, it will become a celebration for all lesser mortals like me; even when you make the most terrible jalebee in the world. Do you understand, what your stupid friend is telling you?”

“Shiv! How could you know that? Oh my God, I am such a huge trouble for myself! You see Shiv, how stupid I am; I always create trouble for myself and then run away from it like a kid. But be sure, I am not running away from this place. But Shiv, this jalebee, I want to have more. I promise, I won’t make them before I learn to make them well.”

“Melissa, have you ever heard a story of an empress or princess, who has not landed herself