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ALCHEMIST
by
Durlabh Singh
The night has been oppressive and Sharat has been dreaming- feverish dreams. He
has been dreaming
of alchemical ingredients. Mercury has been taking horrendous shapes and these
shapes have been
attacking him fiercely but whenever he took courage and tried to grab these
shapes as a matter of defiance,
they just melted into his hands & then took even fiercer shapes.
Mercury became a shining naked sword which plunged through the air , aiming
straight at his heart. He woke up in a scream, the perspiration bathing his
whole body in hot sweat.
Pale morning light was peeping through the chinks of his door & trying to dispel
the darkness within
the room. He wanted to find some relief from his ordeals of night and decided to
get up.
He went out. Against the soft blue skies , tufts of cotton wool clouds were
chasing each other in a
playful mood. Skylarks were doing an energetic morning dance with zigzagging
movements.
A cool breeze touched his feverish face & Sharat let out a sigh.
Since long his ambition has been to become an alchemist. This weird ambition
could not be traced
back to the reveries of his childhood as no one in his family was ever familiar
with the notion of alchemy.
He went from village trying to find a teacher . It was not easy an easy matter
as the science of alchemy was vouched in a secret language of Sandhya Bhasya or
the twilight language. A teacher will not disclose his
knowledge until he tested the pupil to the limits of his suitability , through
hard & degrading trials. He spent considerable amount of time, travel and money
to search for such a teacher.
In the end , with someone's help he found such a teacher and for number of years
carried out laborious learning exercises as the first steps in the acquiring the
secret knowledge of the coded language.
Suddenly a wave of despair came over him and the universe dissolved into a fog .
A coldness entered his soul and slowly crept into all the corners of his brain.
A suffocating breath began to choke him turning him
into a sort of a standing stone amidst an indifferent landscape. Slowly this
rock began to enlarge till it filled the whole universe. A huge rock- uniform ,
dark without an edge and he realized that there was no escape. The whole
universe became a massive stone which aimed to crush his mind and body.
He felt dizzy and fell to the ground but slowly picked himself up and took the
road to the river which flowed outside the boundaries of his village. He was
unconscious of his surroundings. He paid no attention to the cows grazing in the
fields or to the chattering monkeys jumping overhead in the canopies of trees.
Eventually he reached the river and stood on its banks. The muddy river invited
him to come in. Vapours of
moisture arose , hit his face , hit the rock within his brain. He just wanted to
remove that crushing burden.. He will end his existence and may be the existence
of the damned rock within his brain. He stepped into the river.
The water came over his feet , to his knees , to his neck. His eyes could see
the murky darkness within the river. Water forced its way into his nostrils and
bubbles of his breath escaped drawing out his life force. The water entered his
brain crushing the rock into dark coolness. It was soothing , a nice oblivion to
die.
Through misty eyes he saw that he was lying on the bank of the river with wet
sand plastered all over his
face. A strong hand was pressing his back and then there were few loud thumps
and he vomited a lot of water. 'Spit it out you foolish man' - a strong female
voice instructed him. He tried to turn up but the hand
was too strong for him and he surrendered to its force.
He vomited again. The sun was strong and he felt empty. He turned on his back
and looked up. A tall woman in green sari was bending over him and cursing him
for his foolish ways of trying to kill himself.
He felt like a stupid infant being instructed by teacher in classroom. He was
just a coward to end his
life in such a way.
The woman picked him up and put him over her shoulders, with his head dangling
over her back. All the time he was coughing and spitting water and phlegm. After
about ten minutes walk , she entered a small
cottage and then a room which was in total darkness. He was dumped on a cot.
Exhausted he fell asleep.
It was evening when he awoke. The last rays of the sun were trying to paint the
room with orange red colours. The sky was ablaze with the rage of the dying day.
Through the corner of his eyes he saw the woman cooking something. A copper
vessel was gargling above
the fire and she was dropping some herbs into it .A pleasant smell arose. His
encroaching loneliness was pushed back momentary by the presence of another
human being . He began to shiver in his wet clothes.
The woman noticed his shivering and began to take off his wet clothes. He
protested but to no avail. She
wiped his body with a piece of rough cloth and then vigorously messaged his feet
, his palm and then his whole body. A little warmth began to run through his
body. She covered him with a blanket.
Warm herbal broth was brought to him with few pieces of bread which he ate and
enjoyed. All that kindness was new to him and so overwhelming and he began to
cry. He extended his arm to touch the woman and pulled her gently towards him.
The woman lay beside him and enclosed him within her warm strong arms. He felt a
hunger for even a closer contact and began to kiss her hands , her face and then
his legs entwined her. He felt at peace and surrendered himself to sleep and
warmth.
Another morning arrived. He looked around and there was no sign of the woman. He
conjectured she must have gone to work. He had noticed her tools of trade. She
was a stone breaker doing a hard dusty job. Suddenly he wanted to escape as he
felt disgusted with himself . He has slept with a woman below his caste.
But that was ridiculous , she was the only person that has shown any kind of
concern for him, perhaps closer to love .She had saved a total stranger from
jaws of death. Anyway who was he to judge people like that? He was a man who
could not even manage his own life.
Suddenly he felt that he did not belonged to any caste or creed anymore. He was
just an outsider. A wretched man without a name , without a caste ; rejected by
the world , and even by death. He felt that has lost an infinite world. He will
go out and loose himself into the vastness of India , Unnamed and unknown.
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