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 in trouble. It is only natural for an empress to be in perpetual trouble. A lesser mortal like me has to handle his ten cents but an empress has to handle her huge empire. It is only natural that your troubles shall be bigger.”
“Shiv, stop calling me an empress! I do not want to be one. I want to be like common people, with their lit
tle 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 not acting or reacting to milieus and elements around you but simply imbibes them. I sit on the top layer of the deep terrace farms, for hours all alone and I truly enjoy my peace and leisure.
Shiv taught me a very interesting idea. He is a great cook and every day, he makes something for his people in the large kitchen of the house I stay. He always takes me along and I am so thrilled learning all these lovely local dishes. I asked him once, didn’t he feel bored and tired of cooking, which most men and even women consider drudgery. He revealed to me a great truth. He said, when you did something all alone, you felt bored and accepted it as drudgery. If you have a company, the same work becomes a festival and joy. Shiv told me, he was never alone as he always had the intangible company of affection and compassion for the people and of the people he cooked for. He cooks for all his people and they eat it together. Every day, it is a party going in the village and they all bless him. Shiv told me, before he entered the kitchen, even when he was alone; he was joined by the joys and blessings of his people, for whom he wants to cook. He said, when he cooked only for himself, he felt being lonely and the cooking became boring; a definite drudgery. This is the lovely idea of emotional and ideational company, which one always can have, even while physically one is alone, is something I really appreciate. I was so thrilled the day I finally made jalebees for the whole of village, which Shiv arrangement for. Everyone was so happy and they all blessed me. I worked for hours in the kitchen but never felt bored and toiled. I now understand, one can never be lonely when the heart and mind is populated with affection and compassion for everyone. People become lonely because they keep beautiful emotions of mind away.
I know, I have to grow into this art. This artistry of joy of loneliness has to be perfected. I admit, I am never actually lonely. Shiv always encourages me to go for a walk all alone and consciously feel being all alone in the entire cosmos but I have not done it yet. This place is so open that anywhere I go, I can see Shiv around, even some distance away; still so near me. In fact, Shiv is so caring; he never leaves me completely alone. I think, I am happy being all alone but just Shiv being around me. As he is around, I feel focused to my new learning and feel the sense of perfection in my endeavors. After all, he is my teacher of life. His presence is catalytic, never a distraction. In fact, I feel very secure with Shiv’s fragrance muffling me when I am journeying into the new experiences.
**