The Awakening
By Rita Chhablani
Proclaimed as a child prodigy at the age of ten, Kumudini stood at the podium after
having received the highest national award for the unusual ballet, a dance drama, she had produced and choreographed single-handedly. After years of sheer hard work, she stood now at the acme of success with camera bulbs flashing away continuously in her eyes.
Ministers, top government officials, businessmen, journalists from leading national
newspapers--all her loyal patrons and faithful fans were present.
Brought up in an orphanage and now look where she was. Pride filled her heart.
It happened while she was coming down with the award in her hand. She stumbled,
and would have fallen if a hand had not reached out and steadied her. Kumuduni detested the idea of someone helping her. She considered herself at the peak of good health maintained by a daily regimen of tough yoga postures and a proper diet managed by world renowned dieticians,
“I am a retired doctor. If I were you, I would go see a doctor, dear daughter,” she
heard a weak and feeble voice say.
Kumudini felt submerged by humiliation when she saw it was an old bent woman
with kind concern on her face.
The other woman said gushingly, “I have been a great fan of yours…have seen all
your performances. My granddaughter, Alka learns from you and praises you a lot.”
Kumudini felt like screaming, “Stop talking!” snatch her hand away and rush out to
the cool confines of her luxurious Mercedes waiting outside in the porch. But she knew there were a hundred eyes watching her. She felt faint once again. Maybe she should go see her doctor, as suggested by the old lady, she thought reluctantly.
Next evening, she reached the doctor’s clinic. Cheerfully, she greeted, “Good
evening.” She was confident he would give her a clean bill of health.
She was shocked when the doctor insisted, she undergo a battery of tests. Reluctantly,
she went through it all.
The very next day, she was back in his clinic. “I have made an appointment with a specialist,” announced the doctor on seeing her. “Must go right away.”
She felt her heart flutter with an unknown fear for his face looked rather grim.
Minutes later, she heard her death sentence. “Kumudini, you have a rare form of brain
tumour. It’s incurable. You have to stop dancing.”
Speechless, she sat listening to the salt and pepper haired sadist’s words hitting her
like blows to her solar plexus. She visualized the world, she had built with such effort,
crumbling around her like a pack of cards. Not to be able to dance? She’d rather die. She put her head down on the table and started weeping like a child. She had thought she was invincible.
Pushing her chair back she rushed out as a ball of tears choked her throat. Numb, she
drove around aimlessly till she felt another of ‘those’ dizzy spells return. She headed back home and went straight to her dance studio. Absentmindedly, her hand reached out for her favourite, Pandit Jasraj’s chant Om Namo Bhagwate Vasudevaya. The divine words never failed to provide her solace. Today there was no comfort in those strains. An impending doom pervaded her being.
Hours crept by. It grew dark. She didn’t know how she found herself crawling
towards the statues. Clutching the feet of the God with the flute, she burst into tears. “Me, your ardent bhakta, devotee and this is what you give me in return,” she complained, like a child to its mother. “I am scared.”.
That night she had a dream in which she saw a retreat, an ashram perched high up in
the Himalayas. It seemed to be beckoning her. Her eyes opened at that moment. An unknown power seemed to be pushing her, propelling her to leave.
She jumped out of bed. Quickly, she changed into one of the simplest saris in her
extensive wardrobe, a white Bengali silk with a bright red border. She selected a small car, the grey Fiat from her garage. Then the same force took charge of her hands and the steering wheel and veered the vehicle in the direction of the hills. She drove for three hours continuously through small towns till she reached the holy town of Hardwar.
After an hour or so, she noticed something blue glimmering in the distance. Mystified
she went closer. It was a mountain spring, its bubbling sky-blue waters reflecting the glory of the overhead sun. She alighted from the car and walked downhill when her eyes fell on a structure nestled far away in one of the distant mountains. It was the place of her dreams! The same white structure with the red roof!
She rushed back to her car accelerating it up the slopes and through a narrow-pebbled
path, landing right into a small pond with sharp stones in it. Her car refused to budge. Out of nowhere a saffron robed man appeared and a gentle push it was out of the water and on the dry road again.
Kumudini looked around to thank the man but he seemed to have vanished into thin
air. Very carefully as she went around one of the circuitous bends there appeared a black iron gate right out of the dense clouds that had suddenly appeared. A smiling young ascetic came running to open the gate. As though he had been expecting her.! He was the same person who had helped her earlier. He guided her to a space under the shade of a banyan tree. She parked her car and quietly followed him as he led her to one of the rooms. It was small and clean. Not a word did the man speak. Neither did she. She instantly felt at home.
After he left, she lay down on the bed in deep thought and fell asleep. It was dark
when she woke up with a start. Stifling a yawn, she opened the door and peeped out to see a face peering at her. It was the same ascetic with the glowing face.
“You have been asleep for two days,” he said to her. “I will get you some milk and
some breakfast,” and vanished.
In an instant he was back with some food that looked quite bland. Kumudini almost
asked him to take it away. But she heard her stomach growl.
“You can keep the empty plates outside the room,” he said, and was gone.
After she was done eating this simply delicious meal, she walked around the ashram.
There was total silence around her in the large place. She settled down on the parapet and watched the twinkling lights of what must be similar ashrams in the distance. Away from the arc lights, the cameras, the press hounding her. But didn’t she love all that? Did she?
The sound of bells aroused her from her reverie. It seemed to be emanating from a
small temple at the far end. She stepped over some boulders to reach it. Her feet touched icy water and she realized they were right on the river bank.
When she reached her destination, it was packed with young and old saffron clothed
men clapping and singing in unison the evening devotions in praise of the Goddess Ganga,
the deity whose statue was housed within.
Her feet started shaking and she collapsed on one of the steps. The energy in the place
was too much to bear -yet such peace. What had she been chasing all these years? Shadows, an empty...
“Mirage?” said a deep voice, filling the word she had been searching for.
Dumbfounded, she looked up. It was an old saffron robed man with a flowing white
beard. She stared into his eyes, mesmerised. They were twinkling and were pools of such
depths, like the river on whose banks she sat.
“You have been chasing shadows all your life, my daughter,” continued the man and
she listened, hanging to each precious word. She had found her guru. She felt secure,
cocooned.
“We know deep in our hearts that everything is fleeting, goes away and when malaise
or ill fortune strikes you, who is there for you? No friends, no money no power can help you. Go, help the world for that is the purpose of our lives. One becomes eternal when one sees oneself in every human being. Nothing ends for it always leads to a new beginning.”
Saying which he turned and walked away leaving a lingering fragrance behind. After
imparting the lesson, she had needed to learn, she thought.
She looked out for him the next few days but caught only brief glimpses. He never
spoke to her again, merely acknowledged her presence when she sometimes went for an
evening walk. One thing she knew, he had touched her and had changed her into a person she liked and felt happy to be with.
She cheerfully mingled with everybody. The rest of the time she meditated. Thereby
she felt healed.
There came the day when she, instinctively knew it was time to leave. She took leave
of her guru brothers, said goodbye to the young ascetic who had greeted her so lovingly when she had arrived here. She thought she caught a brief glimpse of him on the upper floor of his hut, his hand raised in blessing.
That filled her heart with ecstasy. Next morning, she was waiting in her studio when
Alka, her most conscientious student arrived on the dot. Little did the young girl know it was her grandmother who had been the first link in the chain of her transformation! For that Kumudini would remain eternally grateful to her.
There was joie de vivre about her when she taught her students that day, holding back
nothing, fearing nothing. This was her final gift to them.
And in return they poured their love on her so gushingly that she felt she was once
again plunging into the icy cold waters of the holy river Ganges.
The fundraiser that evening was a stupendous success. It was sheer magic, the like of
which people had not seen before.
At the end of the show, she requested Alka to accompany her grandmother to the
podium. “I want you to do me the honour of presenting the entire proceeds to the President of the Cancer Foundation urging her devote it to the research of children afflicted with this dreaded disease, “she said to the baffled lady.
The auditorium resounded with unending claps. Quietly, Kumudini walked away from
a scenario she had once revelled in, got into her car and asked the driver to take her home. She was done with accolades, recognition. Through her disciples her dance would continue.
By handing over the baton, she had vanquished her ego. Her purpose in life was served. She took a deep breath. Now she was not afraid of death.
Nothing ends for it always leads to a new beginning.
