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

“Shiv, stop calling me an empress! I do not want to be one. I want to be like common people, with their little pains and little joys. I am more than willing to exchange the empire of the empress with the joys of the jalebee girl. As you said, even when I am doing a silly thing like making a jalebee, I am a celebrity. Better it is that I stay as your stupid jalebee girl than a Hollywood celebrity.

“But Melissa, you made such a terrible jalebee, you shall have to toil hard to learn the art”, Shiv teases her.

“Mr. Yogi, I did not get the Oscars for my first movie. This time, you bet I can hit it right. You do not know my potential. I shall learn it here and then shall open a jalebee shop in busy New York streets. I am bound to be a mega hit as a jalebee girl!”

Late till mid-night, Melissa talks with Shiv, even when he keeps asking her to go to sleep. She is not tired, rather feeling so much energy within, in company of Shiv. A little girl in her has found her pampering and very compassionate father in Shiv, after a long gap. She talked like a little girl, revealing to Shiv all her deep feelings about everything she faced in her life and how she always battled with loneliness all her life. She asks many questions to Shiv and like a patient father, he calmly and elaborately answered her. Shiv finally convinces her that they shall talk every night after dark, as there shall not be anything else they could do after sun sets. In daytime, he promises her that he would take her to places and show her the world he grew up in. She is happy, as she trusts; Shiv always does what he says. She sleeps like a small kid.

In the next seven days, she spends in the village; Shiv ensures that she is taken to all such locations, where nature stands in such colossal form and disposition that it completely engulfs the sense of existence of a person. He takes her to jungle where the waterfall descended on ground with immense force. He makes her sit on a large stone facing the mighty waterfall and asks her to close her eyes in meditation. Melissa is reluctant as fatal fear grips her. He grabs Shiv like a baby and does not want to let him leave her in meditation. Shiv patiently assures her and slowly, she starts to sit in meditation. Shiv sits just behind her and keeps assuring in sedate voice that she should keep telling her deep consciousness, while her eyes are closed that she cannot be intimidated by anything. He makes her resist her fears. He keeps his hands on her head, gently tapping her hair to assure her of his presence. She gradually starts the process Shiv wants her to go deep into.

After continuous practice, she shall feel the poise within. The fear shall dissipate and she will lose her talks with her conscious self. The roar of the waterfall shall turn into a soothing music and she will begin to feel a void inside, which is the vacuum, where consciousness leaves the body-mind observance and assimilates with the cosmic vacuum. It is the moment, all layers of consciousnesses fall in linearity and the unity of self readies the being to take the journey to a stage which in Yogic philosophy refers to as ‘kaivalya (absolute only-ness)’, where a person is with one ultimate consciousness and in perfect aloneness with it – the higher consciousness.

Melissa also feels the change in her every day. She has almost perfected her timing to be in perfect synchrony with changing roles of Shiv vis-à-vis her in a single day. Her day starts with Shiv being in her teachers role, making her bear pain to stretch her for the yoga asanas, Shiv makes her do. When he is the teacher, he is insistent and unwavering. Melissa has learnt to respect his roles. She stretches her efforts to perfect the yogasnas. Later in the day, when Shiv takes her to places and tells her about different aspects of life and other learning, he is very friendly and she knows, she can take liberty with him. And after the Sun sets and they talk in her room, she is the pampered kid and Shiv has to run for cover like an exhausted father.

Within a week, Melissa discovers two very distinct developments in her personality and she writes about them in her dairy. Usually, whatever she feels, she tells it to Shiv but this she chooses not to tell him and instead, write in her diary.

She writes:

Every day, there are so many new things I am seeing, observing, experiencing and learning that I am really not sure, which one feeling I can say I like best. Today, as Shiv has gone to town to fetch things for tomorrow’s feast, he has planned for the villagers, I have the time and I thought about it for hours. Definitely, I can say that two things, which I have learnt here, are amazing and I am truly happy that it came my way. Surely, I need to master them.

I can say that first attainment for me has been that now I am far more comfortable with myself. It is Shiv’s personality, which made me understand this simple thing. He performs so many roles in a day. He is a great cook, a yoga expert, a great teacher of life, a truly beautiful friend, a hugely family man and favorite of all kids. He sings so well with village women and knows almost everything about farming. Still, in all his roles, he remains his true self, never ever drifting under the influence of the action-behavior of the role. Anything he does has a strong stamp of his core personality of detached affection and compassion. This I learnt from him and he made me decipher the whole mechanism about it. I was never the same while I multi-tasked myself. I can clearly remember and now I have no qualms in admitting that while I was a daughter, an actress, a celebrity, a friend, girl at home, etc, I was completely different persons. Honestly, at times, I overlapped it all. I got into the skin of every role I performed. This was like, I was assaying different characters in a movie, even while I was in real life. There was me in everything I did but there was not a singular and central me in anyone of them. I was in a perpetual drift of consciousness, faking my being, in all of these, without ever being sure; what of these different me was the real and true me. Now I know, this made me fear things. How stupid I feel of myself remembering how I buckled under an unknown fear and anger when my fiancé dumped me. How nervous I felt when the paparazzi were behind me. How low and frustrated I felt when all my so-called friends and well-wishers took to media to fuel horrendous gossips about my life and my personality. Now I know, I feared them all and ran away from them because I was not sure who I was. I accepted myself as people around made me label myself. And this I did against my childhood training, which my dad so carefully instilled in me. He made me the empress and made me be sure not to bow to the populism and social benchmarking of success and failures. Shiv redeemed me. He is so much like dad. With him and in this amazingly beautiful place, I have deciphered my real and true consciousness. Now, I am ready and willing to face anything in my life. I am not afraid of the paparazzi. I am not running away anymore. I am very comfortable with myself. Shiv has made me confident of my innocence and honesty. I know, I am still not as affectionate and compassionate as he is, but he tells me that my innocence and honesty shall make me arrive where he is. I trust him.

I have learnt from Shiv, how still to be you, even when you perform all possible roles and tasks of life. Everything you do, may want you to be in different moulds of your personality, still, there should always be a strong stamp of your core and singular consciousness in all of them. Shiv is gearing me towards a consciousness, detached from the elements of milieus within and outside me, but I am not at it. I feel, even deep within, where I am supposed to be in unity with my singular consciousness, I cannot feel detached to Shiv. I feel him being around me everywhere. And I want it this way. I have become so used to his fragrance around me. I am happy he is there in my consciousness. This is so catalytic for me. I have not grown in this new wisdom like Shiv. I am still a little girl and I need him around. He is such a beautiful friend. I still have to go miles in this new journey and I need a compassionate teacher like him.

The second thing I learnt from Shiv is something so amazing. I had never realized that you are the happiest when you are perfectly lonely deep within. For years, I battled with loneliness and found it a burden on my soul. Here, with Shiv, I realized why my dad always wanted me to keep away from populism and cultural benchmarks. I now realize why he called me an empress. Shiv also calls me an empress. I realized, being an empress is not about external attainments of kingdom, name, fame and moneys. It is about a consciousness position, where one is content, confident and consistently in reception of one’s treasures within. The difference is so subtle and intangible. When I was in celebrity mode, I was onto overdrive of action and reaction. There was so much of attainment to achieve and so much attainment to defend. All the time, there was an empress, who in her subconscious mind worked overtime for external attainments of kingdom, name, fame and utilities. The subconscious was busy in action-reaction overdrive. However, my conscious mind wished for peace and leisure. The conflict created split consciousnesses. That is why, whenever I was alone, I felt uneasy and unsettled. How could I enjoy peace and leisure of loneliness, when inside, the grind was on, working intangibly for the fear of the empire I was presiding over. The grind of action-reaction never left me alone and that is why, even when I should have been happy and at peace with my leisure, I felt unsettled and nervous. I can now understand why people all over the world fear loneliness most.

I am still an empress but now I am in singular consciousness of reception of self; very much happy with my attainments deep within. I know, my empire is my deep consciousness and my real attainments, my real diamonds as Shiv says, are my innocence, my simplicity and honesty, my affectionate and compassionate self. This I have to grow but whatever I have within me, it is going to remain there for good. I do not have to be in overdrive of action-reaction to defend it and sustain it. I now enjoy my loneliness. Shiv makes me sit in meditation. Or even with my eyes open at a place for hours. I have learnt to be in absolute reception of tangible and intangible elements around me. When you are in this state of consciousness, everything talks to you. The mind is