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

them. People may be unkind and bad to you or in general, as they are just common people. But, you are an empress. In grief and joy, you have to be always above them, showing only forgiveness and compassion. An empress is an empress because she receives her sustenance for goodness not from people; rather it is within her soul. Always keep your soul in a special way, making it a mark for the people to follow. Never allow it to do what people do as an empress is always special and rules over people by being naturally above them.”

She kept looking at his face for a while, without blinking her eyelids, even while her mother waiting for her in the car honked. She moved her right arm gradually, tapped her dad’s left shoulder gently and turned to walk towards the waiting car. After a few steps, she came back to him and gently wrapped him with her white shawl. She pushed his chin up with her tender hands and then finally walked away from him. He attempted in vain to hold back his tears of deep assurance that his daughter shall always remain an empress, he wished her to be. Melissa showed no tears. She gently waived at him as the car moved away.

The next 16 years, Melissa’s dad could know little about her. Her mother ensured that she grew up totally away from his influence. In the last three years however, he could know lot more about her from the gossip magazines and tabloids.

Melissa’s mother had never liked her dad pampering her like an empress. She made Melissa live a common girl’s life in USA and pushed her in to everything, which the popular culture lined up for every teenager her age. Melissa never complained nor did she ever resist anything. However, she could never be part of anything around her in the milieu. Melissa’s mother would receive complaints from her teachers about her exclusivity and non-assimilative behavior and attitude. As she grew, she was labeled more as a maverick than a stupid dumb. She never was an iconoclast but kept her exclusivity very much afloat in all aspects and areas of her life.

As Melissa’s mother got fed up with her ways and gradually got busy in her career, Melissa and her mother developed an easy relationship of peaceful non-interference in each other’s life. Later, when Melissa moved to another city for her studies in acting and movie making, both shared their lives through sms and e-mails. Melissa made it a point to tell her if there was something wrong with her. This was just out of her notion that she must be informed about her troubles as it might have repercussions on her, she being her mother. Like an empress, she kept most things to her. Deep inside her subconscious, her dad survived like a royal guard, who always reminded her, “An empress is an empress because she receives her sustenance for goodness not from people; rather it is within her soul”.

Probably, in the last three years, when she landed herself in the mainstream of celebrity business, she lost touch with her original skin. The sudden spate of name, fame and huge money as well as her self-worth in the mass-driven populist world of glitter and glamour probably made her drift away from her instinctive fortress of exclusivity. It was in such state of indecisiveness that she allowed a rush of people in her life and one of them was this billionaire young man. It was he who sneaked into her life and in her drift, may be, she allowed him access to her house and later in her life.

Melissa was always a slow person and as her dad had instilled in her a consciousness of an empress; she excelled when she took things in a highly selective way and dealt it with royal details of attention and purpose. However, after her second movie fetched her Oscars and she hit the mega celebrity status overnight, it was surely far too much, she was prepared to handle in a possible royal way. She gave in to this swarm of unsettling populism and for over a year, she could feel, first time in her life, things happened to her and not the usual way, when she consciously chose things and made them happen in her own royal ways.

She drifted and gradually, her royal guard inside her; her dad’s consciousness, started to take a backseat. Success made her mother come close to her and as her mother was a true icon of populism, Melissa too started to get in touch with a culture of following all those benchmarks, which populism lines up for every mega successful person. Thankfully, the billionaire man in her life, on whom she had started to rely, chose to dump her and first time in her life, she did something, which her dad had foreseen way back and had warned her against. She ceased to be an empress on that fateful night when she took overdose of sleeping pills and behaved like a populist icon. This did not kill her but her dad was happy to notice that the accident surely ended a journey, which Melissa had dangerously embarked on, much against her character and consciousness. Melissa was equally agitated over her act and had realized that she needed to redeem herself and relocate her life to the road she had always taken in her life. She was quickly back to her consciousness as an empress but her empire was still in trouble. She wanted a break from everything that surrounded her and as her dad proposed a stay at a Yoga Ashram in India, she liked the idea. She also knew, she needed to trust her dad more now. She had found her again.

**

CHAPTER 5

Melissa sleeps till late in the morning. She is expected to be with Shiv for her daily sessions at six in the morning but it is already seven when she wakes up by knock at her cottage doors. It is Shiv asking whether she is fine. She looks at the watch, extends her apology to Shiv and asks him to come in. He asks her to take her time to get fresh and ready, as he would wait outside. She comes out of her bed and opens the doors for him. She insists Shiv to come in.

“Shiv, I am terribly sorry for being late. I slept late at night and forgot to put alarm on the clock.”

“I know. I understand. You do not need to be sorry. Your father had called me last night. I anyway was going to tell you that you do need to take it easy. I believe, you should relax and not trouble yourself with issues, which can be happily postponed. Important it is that you feel well and in complete harmony with your consciousness. We can start when you are ready.”

“Thanks Shiv, I appreciate your patience with me. Are you busy? Can you sit with me for a while?”

“Sure. I need to tell you that you are special for us here in this Ashram and you should always keep it in your mind that if I and facilities here could be of any help to you, we all shall be too happy.”

Melissa sits on her bed assessing what Shiv said, as he moves out and calls someone to bring the morning tea for her. She asks herself, is he being especially kind and good to her or he is the way he is? She finds no reason to distrust him and as her father wished her to trust him, she thinks, she can take some initiatives with him.

“Shiv, can I ask you something personal”, Melissa asks him looking at the cup of tea, which he offers her.

“Questions are always good if answers are accepted with innocence of mind consciousness”, Shiv replies with a smile, which makes her relaxed.

“Are you what you are with me or are you being something out of your way to me just because you said, I am a special guest here because of my dad?”

“I shall give you the honest answer but I request you that whatever shall come to your mind after listening my answer, you shall tell me”.

Melissa nodded in affirmative.

“Most people are usually two persons within one body. They move between consciousnesses as per their elements of nature and nurture. You can call these elements as instincts and culture. Most of their lives, people behave and act in a way, which at one point of time is available for decision to their minds – an autonomous mix of their nature and nurture. I have been very lucky that I have been trained to be largely independent of both these elements. This enables me to have a facility where neither instinct, nor my cultural elements decide my long-term conscious behavior and acts. Rather, in my deep consciousness, I myself decide, what should ideally present the decision-matrix for my mind. This enables me to have infinite shades of personalities. Usually, I am a reclusive person but it has been my practice to be a mirror personality to the person I interact with. That helps me reach the person and be of help and utility to him or her. This neutrality, objectivity and plasticity of consciousness is a position of compassion, from where one becomes a catalyst for wellness to others, even while retaining his or her own true self deep inside.

“Shiv, If I ask you, can you be with me what you are in your usual way, I mean what is your true nature and personality, is it wrong to ask?”

“No, it is not wrong. I told you, it is your choice, which matters to us. However, the issue at hand is your benefit and utility. What I am is what suits me in my own worldview. It however may not be what may benefit you. You are here for a short time and your father told us that you wish to have a quiet and leisurely time here. It is therefore important that you decide what we can do or what we should not, which could make your stay here more meaningful and beneficial for you.”

“Shiv, you say you are with me to help me get the most out of my stay here. You also said that any question I ask would be right if I accept their answers with innocence. Well then, I assure you that I shall accept all your answers with innocence and now I ask you to be with me what you are in your true and natural consciousness.”

“Okay, I accept.”

“Well, now that you have accepted it I ask again, tell me how you attained this facility of being the conscious decider of what should ideally present yourself with your decision-matrix at any point of time in your life.”

Shiv smiles at her question. He could not see it coming this soon. He is rather happy that Melissa picked that up so smartly. He however wishes to be sure.

“Melissa, are you sure you wish to ask this question because the answer cannot be simple and short. You shall have to go into so many details about related issues then only you can reach to the right answers. And, all throughout, you shall have to keep your innocence as well as faith intact that you are heading to the right answers.”

“This is rather good for me. My dad thinks, there are so many things that I can learn here and he believes you have loads of them. It is always good that one question can lead me to a wider field of details and possible learning. I think, once you introduce me to different ideas, I shall have the ease in picking up what you say shall be of utility for me. I really think, I have chosen the right question”.

“It is good that you are confident of your question. However, this is only one