Yes by Santosh Jha (the read aloud family txt) 📕

not as personal or individualistic as is for most men. It should not be, but as is the contemporary stupidities of human world, it tragically is. Moreover, she is no more that young to venture into an enterprise, which uproots her from her settled milieu and suddenly lands her into a space, she has never known. She is 38; she may look 28 but deep within, her rootedness with mid-life stability and settlement makes her scared of the very thought of leaving it for something, which may be far more fruitful.

However, it is the mature woman in her, which is presenting the advocacy in favor of his words. A woman has instinctive design to feel for the real and veraciousness of a situation and person. Instantly, almost; she could feel he was something unusually genuine and sparkling. For a woman, especially a confident and mature woman, the most valuable asset in a man is his strength of conviction and power to overwhelm others with his impeccable logicality. She accepts, he is meant to be a huge asset, as a person but his proposal is equally scary.

The worst part of all is the speed at which everything has happened. She has almost been flooded with so many things at such short time, since he entered her life. She is at her wits ends to put them all together and have some sense out of them. Sometimes, she feels, is she dreaming it all? Can all these be real?

**

Three days back, he had shifted to the apartment flat just in front of her. That day, he had knocked her door, greeted her, introduced himself and had expressed apologies for the inconvenience to her owing to movement of his belongings. Two days later, they met in the parking area. He asked her if she could spare a few minutes of her free time as he had something to talk about some common matter. They agreed to meet after an hour. He offered her coffee at his flat.

She thought he would probably talk something about the common area of their flats as there were only two flats in one floor, with small common area approaching the lift. The last tenant had also sought her consent to put some plant pots and a decorative piece. However, she could not say why but there sure was some strange feeling in her that he had something mysterious to say. The few minutes, she was together with him; from the parking area to the lift they were in for a few second, made it feel to her that she probably knew him before. He too looked amply comfortable with her, behaving as if she was a relative he met often!

Every communication at some stage has a progression to it. Those, who are aware and well conversant with the causalities of communication, can easily guess what next is likely to come up and what might be the intent of the content of communication. Two people, who have met only for few minutes, especially a man and woman, do not converse the way they did. Rather, he did and she felt it. His choice of words and the body language, which backed his expressions made her feel, she was not someone he had barely known. Strangely, subconsciously; she too responded him in the matching familiarity and acceptance. Only later she realized this all.

Familiarity, connect, with a person or thing are always accosted with dualism of mind consciousness. The five senses shall automatically send information about the details of tangible matter; the body basics and the subconscious mind, innately aligned to optimize survival, shall declare the person or thing as stranger or unknown. The conscious mind layers; the cognitive brain with experiences and long-term memories, however can see through the matter and body. It filters out those elements of continuity, connect and familiarity, which are tangibles. True familiarity is always about those elements, which are fragrances of matter; the radiance of body basics.

He had the elements, which a woman naturally finds familiarity and acquaintances with. A woman is deeply familiar with eyes that express affinity; deep but slow voice that reflects care and concern; gestures that speak of respectfulness and above all; words that communicate comfort of continuity and not abruptness of initiation. Connect happens; familiarity is installed, almost instantly, if conscious elements align. If not, then, we know how families, couples and friends remain strangers, despite years of journey of companionship.

She found her familiar as he had the elements of connect. Evolved, empowered and consciously compassionate women and men are never strangers to anyone. Elements had already exchanged association. Both had it, what it takes.

As she had entered his flat, at the appointed time; she immediately realized, she had left something behind her. The first feel of his home, the visuals and the preparedness he had made to receive her, engendered this disconnect she felt. It happens to most people but is registered only by those, who have the aware and receptive consciousness to experience even a minor shade of elements in a milieu. She had entered his flat with an imagery of milieu in her mind and as she arrived, she could feel the disconnect. Everything inside was completely beyond her imagination and imagery.

Inside, the entire drawing-dining hall was empty, barring a large chair with multiple cushions on it. A thick mat, over a sprawling carpet spread out from the chair. The only undulations, which stood out in the unfilled landscape were so many colorful cushions on the large chair as well as around the mat. A small table was placed near the chair. A large tray with two cups and coffee in the flask were already adorning the mat near the chair. She felt, it was like a stage of a theatre and she would be expected to perform a role; a character. This sense of she; being in the mould of a character, made her feel, she had left the person and entered the character, she was about to essay. She however had no inkling of the script that was about to be unraveled.

She was reluctant but he insisted she took the chair and he sat on the mat facing her at a reasonable distance. She kept repeating she was comfortable but he lined up many soft cushions all around her to make her feel relaxed and perfectly supported. The chair was big enough and the cushions made her feel good. She however felt odd that he was sitting on the floor. She asked him to take a chair, which she could not see anywhere but he politely refused and made himself comfortable sitting on the mat, facing her.

The present, the time, the moment that is; it is essentially this fleeting one second. The past, the future seems to have time as big canvas, which can be good enough for painting a meaningful communication. The present however, is a hugely constricted time-scale. The expressions have so many words and infinite content of intents, all competing to simultaneously arrive and land at this singular moment of one-second scale of present-ness. This is the artistry. This is the genius of a person. Brevity is only one aspect of the artistry; the magic is in something, only handful has. This one second decides much of the future. This one-second must either be invested with best possible content of intent, or the one-second itself may well be stretched to look like a series of present-ness. He attempts the latter option; hoping, the first set of words also fetches optimum utility.

‘Sometimes, you need magic. Being a human does not work. I genuinely seek to move you to a time, few days or a week from now, so that this awkwardness of you having to listen to a complete stranger could not be there. But then, I am human; no magician. And, the trouble is; I am to say things that cannot happen between strangers.’

She was not expecting such a start. She could not fully comprehend what he was leading her to. She probably could not have responded. Thankfully, he continued with his talk. She just bent forward to be more attentive so that she could have a better grip of what he would say next.

‘Essentially, everything is about its situation and positioning in the scale of time. You see an apple tree laden with fruits and you need no words to convince you that this tree is good. However, it takes years for this tree to grow up from the stage of sowing the seed or the sapling. If you are standing at the seed level, you cannot see the fruit-laden apple tree and you shall naturally be unsure of the future worthiness of the tree. But, if you are with a fully grown tree, you do not even need and care to visualize what it could have been at the seed level. With people, it is the same situation.’

She still could not be sure what he intends to convey but she managed a smile.

‘In my case, there is the possibility of a magic and it is at your end. I request you to move yourself from the current seed-level situation, vis-à-vis me, to the tree-level. If you could consciously shift yourself to this imagined acceptance that we are not just beginning; rather, been there, I shall have great facility in expressing myself. Anyway, I know almost everything about you, which I could in years. I am already at tree-level vis-à-vis you. You, however, need to arrive.’

‘You just said you know everything about me but I am very sure we have never met before!’

‘That is why I request you to skip the seed-level cognition and consciously arrive at tree-level. What you asked is part of the usual progression of journey from a seed to a tree. There are seed-level questions and issues, which lose their utility and significance as time progresses and arrives at the tree-level. Inquisitions of who, what, why, how, where, when, et al, are only early elements of progression of situations on the timeline. What I humbly appeal to you is to move beyond these questions and issues and consciously put yourself at next level, as it shall be hugely helpful for both you and me to arrive at, where I intend to. I am not saying your questions are not valid. I am also not asking you to dump them. I shall answer all your questions and provide you all relevant information you need or shall call for, to the best of your satisfaction; if you shall ever need them. I just seek that you keep them aside for now and arrive at later time-scale of progression for a specific end, which I intend.’

It was too much and too unexpected for her. She was trying her best to assimilate what he was saying. It was tough for her to be at par with his expectations but she had probably begun to take delight in his expressions. She definitely could not get over the amazement that he knew ‘everything’ about her. However, the overlying sense of deep mysticism about whatever he was saying had made her feel good about herself as she had clearly felt that she sure was at the center of the situation. It was about her, her discretion, her enterprise and her consciousness. She was already beginning to feel the character building up inside her as he outlined the situation he wanted her to be in.

He poured the coffee into the cups; asked her to stretch her legs and sit in relaxed posture, placing a big bolster pillow under them. He even told her to feel that she owned everything, including the house, to make her feel relaxed.

As she was not very sure of what he intended her to be, as part of her readiness to be, what he termed as being at ‘tree-level’ she had asked, ‘I accept what you say but can you tell me what I have to