Autobiography

Of

Phoenix
Vasantham

(Poorv Bhaag)
Dedicated to

The Holy Feet of Bhagawan

“My Lord in Heaven and in my Heart…

I would pester thee for more, if I had the sky with all its stars and the
earth in all its grandeur; but I shall lie in great solace and gratitude with
the tiniest corner of land if only she were mine….”

Albeit the letters on the paper had slightly effaced over years, the twinge of pain that
seized my heart while I penned them was still tangible to me. That piece of paper, I found
somewhere in a diary among the litter while browsing through my old briefcase.
Sudha, my wife had gone to her mother’s house and I was desolated. I couldn’t
help it. Her sister had landed from the States a week before and Sudha wanted to re-enact
her long cherished happy-go-lucky moments with her sister. I pleaded her to leave Ram
or Radha with me at the least. Ram is my ten-year-old son and Radha is my six-year-old
daughter. She readily defied my proposal, rather asked me to come over there whenever I
had a holiday and left along with the children for as long as a month. With no grudging, I
would concede that Sudha well nigh rules the roost in all matters at home. In fact I love
that. I abhor wrangles and altercations over daft things. Of course there would be tongue-
in-cheek Punch-and-Judy shows staged with express intention of beguiling away our time
amidst the gurgles of Ram and Radha in jolly nights.
I thought a month’s partition would be intolerable but it was justified for a sibling
who was so dear for two decades and suddenly abandoned to the far-off lands because of
marriage.
And then I turned a pseudo-bachelor. I had to cook, serve, eat and sleep all alone.
It was a Sunday and I was just browsing through my old books in the storeroom.
Suddenly the L.I.C Diary of 1990 caught my attention. And yes…. that memoir was
enough to throw me back into my very fond nostalgia. Yes…that was enough to deluge
me with the sweetest memories of my first and only love…Prema….
I picked up the diary and comforted myself in an easy chair in the balcony. The
weather was dramatically hazy as if to fuel my moods. I made some tea for myself. Oh….
that goddamned tea reminded me of Sudha again. How would I relish a cup of tea on a
pleasant evening without Sudha to share it? Tea and coffee are the things, which I
believe, should be had while singing the praises of the one who made it. If it’s made by
yourself then you should have someone sipping it before you, adulating your
consummate ness.
I pushed one of those IllaiyaRaaja’s experimental classics “ How to name it? “
into the player. Whenever I love to contemplate or hark back, I would necessarily plead
Raja. The latent tinge of poignancy that figures in the veteran’s music, which is probably
redolent of his spiritual quest, has always enticed me. After all I owe most of the
fledgling fantasias I composed to the maestro.
The tranquil evening though a little murky beseemed the moment. The breeze that
sojourned among the flowers in the garden for quite a bit of time had reached me carrying
their entire fragrance. I sensed an ambience perfectly conducive to retrospection.
As the raga emanating from the lento violin wafted around and began plucking at
my heartstrings, I opened the diary in a sublime languor that was magically conferred on
me by the profound theme playing.
SAITEJA ---- My name engraved in beautiful letters…. The fact that it was written by
Prema pleased me more. I leaned back and set forth on a frenzied cruise into my juvenile
love, the glimpses of which had already began fleeting through my mind…

**************************

Prema…. How would I describe her…?

The words in my repertoire would stand mute if asked to delineate her.
Because a pen and paper cannot synthesize the elegance of her presence.
Shall I attempt to enumerate the myriad changes her advent had brought in my life?
I shall concede that it would be in vain and for that matter a fundamental blunder.
Because she did not make a difference to me, she recreated me. Elementarily I can tell
you she resurrected the dead resistance in me. She just showed me what I was.
She taught me how to look at things.

An excerpt from my diary in her birthday’s date, the 23rd of November 1990.

“ If at all you would ask me to unbosom in a tranquil night under the infinite sky with
umpteen tiny stars, I shall flow this way….
I was unconscious of my purpose, afflicted by the little pleasures around, what you
call, groping in the vague penumbra of flesh.
And when the time was ripe, I could not bear the world’s tremendous touch and
suddenly became cognizant of the pain and anguish.
My lady, you were the hammer to break the dormant resistance in my mortal body, to
dispel the dirges I sang to myself like a living corpse.
You were my usher, the one to show me the high and grand vistas around and those
eternal truths shut off in my own cells.
You set me adrift…you must embark on my human play…you must…you
must…………..And then I trail off….”

************************************************

Let me tell you, nobody who saw her or spoke to her had ever called her a stunning
beauty. Again nobody who saw her or spoke to her could ever desist from admiring the
mystic zest that beamed out of her looks and words. All those faces that frown, the minds
that fret and the souls that lament are bound to delight in her appearance. Believe me,
every time I met her I felt I had discovered the joie de vivre.

The first time I saw her…no…. I heard her first…

… The melody of her ghungroo (ankle bells) mingled in her giggles reverberates in
my heart even now.
I was in Kaikalur, my grandma’s village. It was a Friday and I went to a recently
constructed temple very near to grandma’s house. I went inside and stood gazing at the
moorthi for so long as I loved. The sculptor was blessed; he could imbibe the incredible
radiance of Sai’s eyes that captivated me. I just waxed lyrical about their glow. Then I
came out and sat in the corridor. After spending some serene minutes contemplating over
the magnificence of His creation, I was walking out. It seemed Sai was not content with
my eulogies admiring his grand architecture. Perhaps he wanted me to sing in an eternal
ecstasy glorifying his ingenuity…. He decided to show her to me….
And then I heard her for the first time…
The melody of her paayal mingled with her giggles…I wanted to find out whose
gala was that…. no…. I craved to find out who was that. I was almost running along the
corridor and it was around the corner that the most gorgeous curio I ever saw flashed
before me.
She was running to catch her little brother (I thought so) giggling in a frolic. I was
not in a state to realize that I was standing in her way. For the next two seconds, which
my heart reckoned, she espied into my eyes. That was an ample span for me to record the
audio and video sequence of the most enthralling rendezvous of my life on the inner
cores of my heart. Then she went her way leaving me spell-bound.
The day was 10th of August 1990. It is dearer to me in two ways.
The day I met her. The day I wrote a poem for the first time.

“Today I happened to see a girl. I happened to think of a girl. I happened to remember

nothing else about today. And I happened to question myself constantly who she is. And
finally I happened to express my languish in the following form:

WHAT A FERVOUR!!!

Is she the reflection that waved my mind in every sublime dawn and dusk?
Is she the Aphrodite that gleamed in my thoughts day and night?
Is she the bliss that embraced me in every drowse?
Is she the melody that accompanied the rhythm of my heart beat?
Is she the jubilance that glistened in my eyes when I sang His hymns?
Is she the zenith I tussled to attain, the dream I dreamed to realize?

My heart sings a thousand ballads,

My body feels like flowing unboundedly
No spring has ever been so enchanting
No thought has ever been so pure
No dream has ever been so tantalizing
If you call this love,
Then, dear, I’m in love for all eternity

.
*****************************************************

I was never appreciative of the so-called “love-at-first-sight”. I never believed in those

tales of lovelorn people who yap about the tornadoes that storm your heart when you
meet the special “somebody” made exclusively for you by the Godhead. Those songs and
stories of anguish really seemed damn hilarious….
Isn’t it daft that some person whom you have seen once and exactly once has made a
permanent abode for herself in your heart? The possibility of sustaining a single thought
for hours long, days long seemed quite surreal to me. This was all till I met her.
Why should I think of her? Why not somebody else? Did her beauty entrap me? If it was
true it should mean I had never seen a more beautiful person earlier. A more impeccable
assertion would be that she is beautiful to my eyes. Why should she be?
No…I cannot reason this. In fact I do not try to reason my love as I dread that I would
lose my reason.
My dear friends, the best thing that I learnt having fallen in love is that you cannot
reason all things in this world. And as far as human behavior is concerned nothing is
concrete and deterministic. The golden rule is that there are no golden rules. You cannot
say why a person had carved a niche for him/herself in your heart. And I shall
simultaneously caution you that all these grandiose ideas of mine are not reserved for just
a few romantic fools.
Love is universal. It is a basic instinct. Bring all those faceless amorphous men
and women to me. Rugged, dispassionate, apathetic, machine-minded or rock-hearted, I
bet I would show a soft corner in each of their hearts for some esoteric person whom they
worship mutely. They may be dissembling. You should just have the key to make them
unbosom.
Brethren, there must be somebody in this world who alone can make you feel
vehemently elated, as if you have won this world, simply by their presence and cheers.
There must be a day when you would find the elixir for all your banes, your own instant-
energizer.
And then you would be a living exponent of all the paradoxical vagaries. You would live
to savor a sour delight, a sugared grief, a living death, and an ever-dying life. The
aftermath is not all significant when compared to the ineffable delight of being in love.
Lord Tennyson is the truest man who declared

“IT IS BETTER TO HAVE LOVED AND LOST,

THAN NEVER TO HAVE LOVED AT ALL”

**************************************************

It was 3:30 in the afternoon. I had just finished L.Subramaniam’s “Euphony” and was
about to take a short nap when I overheard somebody calling my grandma aloud. I
peeped through the window. An old lady of about 45 years of age was standing beside the
famous “round-table” rock. That was the rock on which my grandma and her pals meet
for analyzing the daily chronicle of the village.
Granny came out of the kitchen. “Sundharamma? Where are you coming from? “
“What would I tell? Manu had got into a squabble with that insane boy roaming down the
lane and he hit Manu with a stone,” Sundharamma sighed.
Granny asked anxiously, “ I saw you warning Manu so many times not to play with that
rogue. How is Manu now?”
“He is alright now. We took him to the doctor down the lane and Manu had got a
bandage round his head.”
“When did these yobs defer to us?” Granny put forth her angst.
I felt I heard the name “ Manu” somewhere. After short forage, I recollected that it was
the name I heard my lovey calling out, the girl I saw the day before evening. Yes, it was
her little brother’s name. So, I thought that the woman Sundharamma must be a neighbor
or relation sort of a thing to my dream girl. As soon as I realized that I shifted my
position nearest to the window and brought myself to concert pitch. I hoped to hear “her”
name somewhere in their chitchat. I thought her name must have been daintier than
herself.
As I anticipated granny asked about “her”. “What about the marriage of Manu’s
sister? What are they thinking of it?”
I don’t understand why the hell these old people keep agonizing unnecessarily over the
marriages of children.
Sundharamma again sighed, “ Not now. Manu’s sister has just returned from
Madras. She finished her intermediate there and now she wants to go for degree.”
I could not understand why they should keep repeating “Manu’s sister” Doesn’t she have
a name? Anyway, I wasn’t disheartened and kept glued to the window.
Sundharamma continued, “ Her father wants to get her married as soon as
possible. But SHE is very adamant about her studies. I know SHE is a very obedient girl.
At the same time SHE is very cogent too. SHE would not acquiesce but softly cajole her
father and get things done her way.”
I muttered helplessly to myself,” My dear Sundharamma, why are you so fond of
pronouns?”
And the gaggle of “veeranaaris” that gathered over there along with a grand
gamut of sarees within the next few minutes drove the last nail into my hopes of finding
“HER” name. The topic was diverted. For the next half-an-hour they analyzed the sarees
they brought. After that each one of them gave a detailed account of what they
accomplished at their houses right form the morning, the purpose of which remained
unknown to me. Then one of them began enumerating what dishes her husband relished.
This ignited two others and they started enumerating the dishes and dress their children
loved. Initially there were 3 speakers and 4 listeners in the group. The number of
speakers slowly increased while the latter slowly diminished. Finally at a mystic moment,
the number of listeners was zero. Each one of them was lecturing blissfully without
caring if anybody was listening to her. I did not understand why such things happen.
Suddenly I realized I was the real fool there to hark at them. I shut off the window
mourning over my own pathetic condition and slid into forty winks.

*******************************************

It was a Sunday evening. Almost a week had gone by after the college started again. The
second year of M.A in English in Chennai. Life was trudging in weary bovines. I thought
her memories would keep haunting me. But, somehow, I was able to work with the same
concentration despite of her quiescent thoughts lingering at a corner of my mind.
I sat beside the window staring out like a drifter. Raghu, my roommate came in
putting an end to my desultory thoughts.
“ Raghu, what a life? Insipid, tedious, prosaic…. I badly need some rejuvenation.” I cried
out rather meekly.
Raghu never replied in the same mood of my question. “He, I’m going to Vinayaka
temple. Some of our juniors are giving a concert there, probably a ballet in
BharathaNatyam. Would you like to accompany me?”
“In Besant Nagar?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Five minutes. I shall change my dress and come.”

*********************************************

Watching Bharathanatyam in a temple is really a great experience. I thought the open-

sided mantap could make for poor acoustics. But the shortcoming was more than
redeemed by the aesthetic, a wee bit divine ambience of the temple. Children playing in
the street, who had come in and were squatting in the front rows looked at the stage
unblinkingly. The audience also encompassed worshippers and stray visitors.
Firstly, the guru of the dancers about to come, gave a brief foreword about the
themes they were going to present.” Daughters of the ocean” was the take-off point.
Alekhya, the artiste was very graceful while portraying the goddesses Lakshmi, Durga
and Saraswati highlighting the celestial qualities of power and resistance that are present
in every woman. Finally there was a background voice saying” She is Shakti, the capacity
to do…she is the beauty of dawn for every night of your life…. she is the other half of
you.”
Then it was the turn of Anita whose ballet was totally indistinct to me. The finale
was “Woman Thy Myriad Moods”. The title seemed so compelling to me. And when the
danseuse came on, I was nonplussed.
It was none other than the one I saw in the temple that day in grandma’s village.
I quickly recalled the name I heard before she came in. “Prema”…what a beautiful
name!!
Eyes painted in the contours of a fish, adorned with antique jewellery and clad in
a specially designed costume, reminiscent of a yesteryear temple dancer or a classical
sculpture, she entered. Her saree swayed wave-like, as she whirled across the stage,
performing a ‘vandhana’, invoking the divine and the presiding deities of the stage. And
true…there was a grace, a rhythm in her every movement. A gentle pace and poise
enriched her appearance. And again every movement of hers seemed to be very much
known to me.
I could hear the temple bells ringing out for the evening pooja. I could look
straight into the shrine and see Deeparadhana being performed. These were not intrusions
but, rather, part of an appropriate backdrop for the dance of the angel over there.
Her theme was celebration of womanhood. Who else could have been more
apposite for that? She was Rukmini for sometime, Radha for sometime and then she was
Satyabhama. It was charming to watch her sportively spurning her lover (Krsna) for not
granting her the promised gifts. I could never forget what her eyes spoke to the imaginary
Krishna over the stage in each of those portrayals. She was deftly pouring out the essence
of the poems sung behind through her sparkling eyes. I was simply enthralled by the
spontaneity and lucidity in her.
And then she was the vengeful Droupadhi. From a tranquil self, she breezed to
express gushing emotions and then back to the original calm. Prema then turned lively
depicting Yashoda showering maternal love over her kannayya. More interesting was the
way she winded up each dramatic strip with clearly cut stances and gestures.
Finally, she personified Shakti, dancing intensely as the unshackled power who
multiplies herself endlessly when evil befalls. It ended there.
As you may presume, I was blissfully deprived of sleep that night. Because I was
granted what I wished. The sight of Prema refreshed me again. It was as if life flowed
into me in all its glorious hues. It was as if I was a witness to the unfathomable beauty
stretching itself all over the earth. Each and every nerve in my body shook in an ineffable
verve and the best thing about it was that it was undying and heralded the signs of ever
lasting nature.
I closed my eyes. I could see myself talking to her the next morning before the
same Vinayaka temple while she stood with a basket of flowers in her hand and the
solemn rays of sun shone in her glistening eyes.

*************************************************

I woke up with Sun. The auspicious day had finally dawned. The morning raga had
vitalized all the drowsy cells in my body and mind. I finished the quotidian paraphernalia
and started for the temple. The trees on the way seemed to wish me with all benedictions
swaying in the fresh breeze.
I prayed for a minute and then looked aside. She was standing there, her eyes
closed. Her face was clear like a crystal, lips curved in a naïve smile, all the features
regally imposing. An image of the face of a divinely innocent child sunk in a blissful
doze waved past my inner eye. I stood staring at her not caring for what anybody else
around might think of me. I gazed at her just the way I would have gazed at the Moorthi
inside the shrine.
She opened her eyes, gently pushed aside the drifting hair that adorned her
pristine semblance and looked at me. My eyes were still fixed on her. She greeted me
with a pleasant smile as I anticipated, turned around and began walking out.
I reached her from behind and offered her the paayasam, I made in the morning as
prasaadham, uttering “SAIRAM”. She took it with a gentle smile replying “SAIRAM”.
“I am SaiTeja, your senior at college. I was privileged to see your performance
yesterday here. That was simply exquisite.” I said.
“Thank you.” she smiled, “ I am Prema doing my I Year B.A in Philosophy.”
There was nothing else I could speak in the next few minutes as we walked out together.
She smiled again as an adieu and went her way. In fact I did not feel the necessity of any
more words to be exchanged. Silence conveyed lot more things.

*****************************************************

This was not the first time I met her. She saw me in the temple in my grandmother’s
village. I remember the way she glanced into my eyes when I stood in her way. But she
didn’t remember me. Probably she was engrossed in frisking with her brother.
The next day I alighted on her in the college library. She was searching for some book
and probably could not find it.
“Hai!” I said.
She turned around and looked at me in delight. “Hello”
“It seems you were hunting some golden deer. May I help you?”
“Not exactly. I am looking for Savitri of Sri Aurobindo”, she said smiling.
“Oh…Savitri? You would never find it here. Somebody had stolen it long ago. I have it
with me; I mean…. not the stolen one. My own copy…I can bring it for you tomorrow.”
“Thank you” she said laughing a little louder.
We slowly walked out of the library as I gave a brief introduction to Savitri to her.
“Shall we have a cup of coffee?” I said rather hesitantly. I thought I made a hasty
advance. But when she nodded in affirmation, I felt relieved.
“Thank God!!” I said to myself. I actually intended to perform the thanksgiving
internally. Somehow, quite inadvertently, I spoke it out aloud.
She turned to me swiftly and looked at me sharply. “ Why did you thank God?”
I just yapped something tongue-in-cheek that came to my mind at the moment.” I do it
every two minutes. My grandmother used to tell me in my childhood that God had
created these beautiful trees (I pointed to the trees beside), this beautiful sky (pointing
upwards), those beautiful books (pointing to the library) and more beautiful persons
(looking at her). “
I could not trace any feedback for my thaareef.
I continued, “ So she taught me to thank God every two minutes. Thank God” I said
looking into my watch.
“ Really? “ she said laughing.
“ Very much real. Please sit”, I said pointing to the chair beside.“ What would you like to
have?”
“ I think we came here for coffee,” she said raising her eyebrows strangely.
“ Of course. We can always have it. But before that, shall we….”
She broke into my words, “ We shall have this water” Saying so, she poured some water
in the adjacent jug into a glass.
“Two cups of special coffee as hot as iron” I grumbled to the bearer.
“Why so hot?’ Prema asked.
“ More the temperature of coffee, more the time you need to complete it”, again I let slip.
Consequently a frown rose up on her face “Why should you take more time?”
“Again grandmother comes into picture. She used to tell me that tea, coffee and
God’s prasadham are the three things you should relish as slowly as possible. Thank
God” I said again looking into my watch. I was at my concoctive best that day.
She laughed and placed one of the cups brought by the bearer before me.
“When did you start dancing?” I asked sipping the coffee.
“From five years of my age. My mother was a very good artiste. We have a dance
school in our hometown. That is my Alma Mater.”
“So you began amusing people 13 years ago”, I wondered.
She did not pay attention to my blandishment as she reminisced,” In those days, my
mother would wake me up at 3.a.m., wipe my eyes with water and then make me
practice. I danced up to 5 a.m., took a short break and then practiced again from 8 a.m.”
I stopped blabbering and hung on her silently.
“You know, one hour of morning practice is equal to two hours of slogging at any
other time of the day. Practicing in two kalams is of supreme importance is my mother’s
constant refrain………” And she went on into more technical details, which were a bit
indistinct to me. We came out of the canteen and started walking home.
Finally she ended up saying, “ Teja, did I bore you? “
“Certainly not. Of course, I could not quite get along with a bit of jargon, but I
could comprehend the thing as a whole. It was really great to hear of your dance.”
“Thanks. I shall go this way, see you,” she said with her usual smile,” Thank God. Do not
forget your granny’s precepts.”
“ That’s O.K. I would not forget my granny. What about Manu? Is he alright
now?” I asked her feigning a bit of casualty. I thought this one was going to astound her
perfectly.
Because, as far as she spoke to me, it was all about dance. Not a word about her
family. She would never expect me to utter her brother’s name, which is not known to me
according to her, all of a sudden. This would work now forasmuch, as she doesn’t
remember our very short meeting in Kaikalur temple
I was bang on it. She was simply astonished to hear the name from me.
“What…. what did you say?” she said looking into my eyes unbelievably.
“Manu…How is he now? That gash on his forehead, is that healed now?”, I said more
casually shrugging my shoulders.
“Manu…do you know him? How do you know? First…. first tell me who are
you? Do you know me already? Tell me…” she was just gasping in amaze and bewilder.
“Cool…. Prema…Keep your cool…why are you so baffled?” I kept on my
relaxed looks, “Who doesn’t know of this great dancer who had taken everybody by
storm with her enchanting dance. You know, Kaikalur from where you hailed has
become the talk of the nation after you entered the arena. It has won a place in the map of
India also because of you. If you don’t trust me, I shall bring Atlas along with Savitri
tomorrow. ”
“Hey Teja, enough…. enough of your help. Please…please tell me…Are you from
Kaikalur?” she almost beat me.
“No, Prema…I live in Chennai. I shall introduce my father to you tomorrow, if you don’t
believe me. Should I belong to Kaikalur to know about you? I just know as much as any
average Indian knows of you.”
“Teja…Teja…Teja…it’s the height. It’s the height. Now stop puffing and please
tell me the real thing? Who are you?” I simply loved the way she shook her head while
saying these words.
“Prema, why don’t you try to understand me? I am not from Kaikalur. Anyway, it
seems you were a bit puzzled today. I shall talk to you tomorrow.” I said picking up my
bike
She was trying to hold me back. I escaped and started off on my bike. I turned
back and jabbered quickly “Prema, go home, have a fresh bath, eat good food and relax. I
shall meet you tomorrow. If you ring up home to night, convey my best wishes to Manu,
Sundharamma and your father.”
I paused for a moment and added a quick and grand final touch “ Be a bit wary
while speaking to your father. Or else he might fix your marriage very soon”

**************************************************
 I thought my performance was fairly satisfactory and prolific on the first two days
of meeting her. Thanks to the quirk of fate, had I not seen her in the temple in grandma’s
village that day, my task wouldn’t have been that simple. The paraphernalia of
introduction saw a happy Indian summer. The next day I met Prema sitting in the library.
“Hi”
She lifted her head and smiled, “Hi”
“Here’s your…. I mean…. my Savitri” I pushed the book I brought towards her.
“Oh, Thank you very much.” She took the book into her hands in glee.
“Mention not….” I said. Her indifference vis-à-vis the eagerness she showed the
day before, to find out how I knew about her, really bewildered me.
Prema’s next words pushed me into wonderment from bewilder.
“I love your Athamma’s choice. This is the best gift for the birthday of a solon,”
she said looking into the book.
There was nothing written on the book. How did Prema come to know that Athamma
presented it to me?
“ How do you know my Athamma?” I couldn’t hide my avidity.
“ Just as you know Manu…” she shrugged her shoulders just the way I did the day
before. After all she is an actor who personifies myriad moods on stage.
“Oh…. that’s good” There was nothing else I could say.
“I rang home yesterday night. Manu asked you to send your new poems and
Sundharamma warned you to be regular to college.” She pretended the same casualty I
did the day before.
“Oh…. I see,” I could not make out how she knew about all those things I did, the poems
and the indolence. But I could figure out one thing. Tit for Tat!! She was playing the
same game I did the day before!!
“What else, Sai?” She raised her eyebrows ambiguously.
“Mmmm…nothing,” I mumbled.
“ You brought me this precious book and made me happy. Why shouldn’t I ravish you?”
she said foraging into her handbag.
Finally she took out a cassette.
I quickly read it’s wrapper “Meenakshi Sthothram……….Written by Shri Adi Sankara,
the great monk philosopher of South…. blah…. blah…. blah…. Composed by
Illaiyaraaja.”
I was just flabbergasted. This was the album I was searching from many days and could
not find.
“Thank you, Thank you so much.” I whispered.
“It’s O.K. Do you like that?” she asked.
“Like it? It’s stupendous,” I exclaimed and turned aside.
Suddenly I noticed Megha goggling intently at us. As soon as she saw me looking at her,
she quickly turned her looks aside and shoved her head hastily into the book before her.
Megha was Raghu’s close pal. Even I knew her well.
I started thinking fast. Why should Megha scrutinize us? Why should she get
flurried on seeing me? It suddenly dawned on me that Megha could be the occult mentor
for Prema. She might be the oracle who tutored and groomed Prema for this melodrama.
But I should be meticulous while ascertaining the truth. I decided to try Prema first.
“ When did you see Megha last?” I asked her rather abruptly.
“Who is Megha?” bang came her agile retort. I observed her face. The countenance was
perfectly natural. I immediately realized there was no use arching a professional artiste.
The next target was Megha. I knew she would not be as formidable as Prema.
I stood up” O.K. Prema, I have a class now. I shall meet you after that.”
“O.K. Bye” she said. But I could see she was dubious of my words.
I slowly dropped my pen into the chair beside me, which would serve a precept to come
back, in case my plan was foiled.
I stepped out of the library, walked a short distance, turned back and quickly tottered into
the library. I was absolutely right!! Megha was walking eagerly towards Prema, her face
glowing like Sun. As I anticipated, Prema was gesturing to her not to come. But Megha
was out of control. “What happened? How did he react?” she asked Prema excitedly.
By that time I was standing behind Megha, which she did not notice.
“He came back,” Prema sighed looking at me. Megha turned back and was nonplussed to
see me.
The next few minutes passed merrily in Megha’s confessions about their conspiracy after
which she left for a class.
As soon as she left, Prema began screaming “Sai…I cannot withstand it anymore. You
will sleep complacently since you could unravel my plan. But how shall I? I am not going
to condone you if you don’t tell me how you know Manu et al now. Can’t you understand
my anguish? You love to see me in malaise with this tension? I’m not going to….” So
saying she raised her hand and gave a rap on my head gently. It was like casting a spell. I
lost myself looking into her widened eyes. I could see her still admonishing me but hear
nothing.
The possessiveness and command in her words…. Oh…I never dreamt this much
intimacy would crop up in such a short span.
“Speak out, Sai…. What the hell do you think of me? Am I a stupid to yell like this
here?”
I felt rather reticent. I just wanted to stay quiet savoring her intriguing countenance. But
she would not bear my silence. It rather turned her more vociferous. Finally I was
compelled to open my mouth. “Shhhh!! Shhh!!” I said waving my hand down indicating
her to be silent, “ O.K…. O.K…I shall concoct some story to gratify you. But can you be
hundred percent sure that it’s not an archetype of my craft? You had been with me quite a
bit of time….”An air of solemnity crept into my words without my knowledge.
“No…” she replied rather meekly this time.
“Do you know why you cannot be?” I asked.
She simply moved her head sideways. She was not even blinking. There was none else
milling in the library except we two.
I continued,” Because I am talking to you with my tongue and you are receiving it with
your ear. Both of which are sense organs. There are six ways in human body through
which “Jnana” enters. The first five are senses, all of which are imperfect. This quality of
tainted ness deters them from transmitting the truth. Finally the absolute and immaculate
source of knowledge is “Atman”, the inner soul. This is the true teacher. So do not ask
me to tell stories. Question your soul.”
I moved a little closer and looked straight into her eyes. “ Now look into my eyes. If at all
these eyes had encountered yours any time and if at all they made the slightest difference
to you, they would surely have a niche in your soul. Search your soul…
Just look into my eyes…. No more words…. Start the search…” I trailed off slowly.
In her tranquil eyes, I could see my own image rippling. Again in the eyes of my
image in her eyes, there would be her image. And again I would be there in the eyes of
that image. Then she would be there in the eyes of that image of mine whose eyes would
be filled with my image………………
This is an infinite loop. An infinite and inextricably intertwined bond between our
images floating in the eyes of the Creator. I lost myself among those images for sometime
after which I could see nothing. I could only hear her breathing and then my breathing
initially anachronized. After a minute or two the time lag between the breaths waned up
and the two distinctly heard sounds of breath became one. I lost track of even that sound
after sometime. Then I could hear a heartbeat. I could not figure out whose heartbeat was
that as there was only a single beat tangible to me. So there must be three possibilities.
Either my heart or hers should have ceased beating which are obviously the extraneous
solutions. The only plausibility was that they were innately synchronized.
I never knew what happened after that till I was dragged out of abstraction by
“Byaroo ke pad”, the evening song sung in Krishna’s temple present beside the library. I
looked at her. She did not move. I slowly rose up and started walking out of the library.
The verses sung while serving the evening meal to Krishna wafted around. The archak
would be offering warm milk to Krishna in a golden cup.

*****************************************************

The next morning I went to the library as usual. Not to meet Prema, it was for getting the
Good Book. I was so confiscatory that I exploited it for my prayers also. I got the book
and sat going through it.
“Sai!!” I heard a voice from my back. I turned back. It was Prema, standing with a
pleasing countenance.
“Can you spend a few minutes with me in the garden?” she asked rolling her eyes
daintily.
“What else would I seek on earth?” That was just soliloquy.
“With pleasure,” I spoke out and followed her. I could see she was more Junoesque that
morning.
There was more poise in her movements and a bizarre cadence in her words. A more
sprightly Prema….
We reached a tranquil part of the garden, which I could not recall having seen earlier,
though I had spent many a pensive hour in the garden. The flowers, the plants seemed to
be disposed in a comely array with the clouds congruently sketched just above them. The
mild Sun supplemented to the aesthetics of the scenario. On the whole, the milieu
resembled a painting of a serene evening. Then I appended Prema to the vistas. It looked
like an antique setting fabricated for shooting a duet between a fairy hailing from the
abode of clouds and her Don Juan.
I was about to ask her something when she gestured to me that she was not going
to speak. She further conveyed that she was going to mime an event, which I was to
translate into words.
“That’s quite racy!!” I exclaimed.
She espied into my eyes for a moment and waved her hand from East to West along the
skyline. “ A day “ I said.
She looked at me disagreeably.
“ Are you going to show the day of the event?”
Then there was a smile of appreciation.
She posed like a person lying in sleep with his head resting on his palm. I could not
conceive her idea. She gestured to me to observe her eyes. I looked at them carefully. It
was like a person feigning sleep, not really sleeping.
“MahaVishnu?” I guessed.
I was absolutely right. Then she showed me the person massaging his legs.
“Lakshmi, of course” I said.
She wanted me to consummate the whole thing.
“It was a Friday?” I said. She confirmed it nodding.
It was a bit circumlocutory but intelligent.
She rotated her forefinger showing the surroundings.
“Going to show the place of the event?”
She confirmed it and raised her hands joining them over her head.
“A temple…who is the deity?” I asked.
She shook her hands furiously from head going downwards.
“Fire?”
She nodded and waved her hand as if she was piling up something from the fire and then
poured the piled-up material into the hands of a fictitious somebody standing beside and
blessed him.
I thought it must be Sai bestowing the holy Vibhoothi extracted from Dhuni to people. By
Jove, I was right!! So, it was a Sai temple.
I could then conceive what she intended to mime. She was showing the day I met her
first, in my grandma’s village.
She then came running in a frolic and looked into my eyes exactly the way she did at our
first rendezvous. She did not stop there, but moved off and started dancing in jubilance.
The pace and the timing in her movements were quite apposite. I don’t know how I
ventured to sing out of a paroxysm.

“O Chandramukhi…. How come you are here in this tranquil Sandhya dancing before
me? Do you wish to unbosom in the language of your ankle-bells? “

She suddenly stopped and looked at me in astoundment. I looked solemnly but benignly.
She smiled away and continued her dance.
From then there was no stopping…the dialogue of operetta ran grandly. I would put forth
my anguish in singing and she would reply to it dancing. Now it was her turn to answer
my question.

(Every word of mine below was what I sang and the dialogue after her name is her dance
verbalized….)

Prema: “O my beau…. I cannot withstand your looks exploring the depths of my eyes.
You are the prince of my dreams who arrived on a snow-white horse. It is not fair on
your part to leave the path I decorated for you untrodden.”

Me: “My Venus…. I came here in the hope of savoring your untainted beauty amidst
these singing flowers in a beseeming moonlite-nite”

Prema: “My lover…please do not woo me any more with your amorous song”

“O Mohini…How come a hue of flurry glitters in your eye?”

“It was the frenzy of my heart when I saw you out of the blue”

“O Raagini…. The spring has dawned everywhere…on the earth and in our hearts…
Every moment, a strain of sensuous raga springs out”

“True, my knight…and when the odor of chandhnam emanating from my body fills your
breath
Let me see my dreams fulfilled as you rest on my bosom”

I thought I would repeat my initial phrases…a sort of refrain….

“O Chandramukhi…. How come you are here in this tranquil Sandhya dancing before
me? Do you wish to unbosom in the language of your ankle-bells? “

She comprehended my idea and responded…

“O my beau…. I cannot withstand your looks exploring the depths of my eyes.
You are the prince of my dreams who arrived on a snow-white horse. It is not fair on
your part to leave the path I decorated for you untreaded.”

“My Venus…. I came here in the hope of savoring your untainted beauty amidst these
singing flowers in a beseeming moonlite-nite”

“My lover…please do not woo me any more with your amorous song”

I thought the milieu was apposite for a duet but never dreamt that it would take a
semblance. I never dreamt that this finesse would deluge me….

She continued…” How come I fail my restrain over you, my Sakhaa? ”

“That is my question, my Aphrodite…. how did you happen to me…?

How did this quirk of love happen to me…?”

“It is all the conspiracy of the bewitching spring, my knight…

That cajoled the flowers to unbosom and peacocks to dance…”

“And you appear like a rainy night of elixir to me,

What is the need of this distance between us?”
She picked up the refrain finally…

“My lover…please do not woo me any more with your amorous song
O my beau…. I cannot withstand your looks exploring the depths of my eyes.
You are the prince of my dreams who arrived on a snow-white horse. It is not fair on
your part to leave the path I decorated for you untrodden”

“O Chandramukhi…. How come you are here in this tranquil Sandhya dancing before
me? Do you wish to unbosom in the language of your ankle-bells?
My Venus…. I came here in the hope of savoring your untainted beauty amidst these
singing flowers in a beseeming moonlite-nite
Do you wish to unbosom in the language of your ankle-bells?
Do you wish to unbosom in the language of your ankle-bells? “

I trailed off and she sat gasping in all smiles.

“Simply stupendous….” She said.
“What?” I asked.
“Your poesy, your song. ” she replied.
Then she got up and walked away. When she was about to get out of my sight, I shouted,
“ So, you remember everything…?”

She turned back and stood still for a moment.

“No…you made me remember”

***************************************************

For the next two days I did not chance on Prema. After all I was not too intimate to ask
her for a tryst. Finally it was the weekend, a Sabbath.
I got up early and went to the temple. To my despair, she wasn’t there. I waited for ten
minutes and finally started wading back like a zombie. Then I saw her climbing the steps
into the temple.
Immediately, I stuffed the prasaadh, I was holding in my hand into mouth and started
afresh into the temple I was walking slowly allowing enough time for her to synchronize
with me.
“Sai!!” she called out from behind. I turned back and pretended a short forage.
She stood there smiling gaily as if she had given me a surprise.
“Prema…when did you come?” I said.
“Two days ago….I was staying under the steps” she said with a frown.
“Hey…that’s just colloquial. I didn’t mean it.” I replied laughing.
We went into the temple, had darshan and came back.
I felt the span of time was too short, that too, seeing her after two days.
I thought I should make the holiday with her. But I didn’t how.
“What else?” I mumbled.
“Nothing”
“What are you going to do today?” I asked.
“Nothing in special. I will sit reading something or dance for sometime. And then I’ll go
to church in the evening. That’s all.” She replied.
“Which church?”
“St. John’s cathedral. It’s really magnificent. Have you been there anytime?” she asked.
“I will, today. In fact I love churches. When I was a child my grandma took me to all
kinds of churches. Big and magnificent churches, small and dainty churches, medium-
sized churches…….I really love them….. There would be benches to sit unlike in
temples…Isn’t it? And there would be a father to preach a choir to sing, a Jesus to pray
to….” I smiled rather sheepishly, “ And………..are you planning to go anywhere in the
afternoon?”
She looked at me dubiously “ I told you that I have no plans. I will just sit reading.”
“No….I am generally asking. You may not be planning right now. But when you go
home some of your friends may ring to you and ask you for a lunch outside…somewhere
…in their home …or any other restaurant like Taj or Kandhari or…..” I again smiled.
I could realize I was being more than garrulous. But I just couldn’t help it.
“I don’t understand what you are trying to make out, “ she said laughing.
“In fact ….me too” I replied.
“What?” she couldn’t stop her laughter.
“ I mean………it’s not always possible to make out something of whatever you speak.
And in some express situations you inadvertently fall into such a dilemma that you really
don’t know what you are speaking, partially or totally” I was simply yapping.
“Enough, I think you should turn yonder way, ” she said.
“Oh….Thaanks…Bye…” I said and turned back.

**************************************************

I came home maledicting myself. But I did not want to waste the day. After three hours
of profound thought, I finally picked up the phone. That was the first time I ever rang her.
I recited the sloka “Suklambaradharam” and then the first two lines of “Hanuman
Chalisa” and rang her number.
“Hello…” The voice was that of Prema.
“……….”
“Hello…who is that?” she asked again.
“Me…it’s me…” I somehow opened my mouth.
“Hello me…. Hai me…how are you?”
“Me means…it’s me…Sai…Saiteja…” I said.
“Hai Sai! How would I know if you say it’s me? Anyway what’s the matter?” she said.
I thought she was a bit too direct.
“Nothing….I mean…I generally rang. You might be feeling bored…No?” I said.
“No….. really no…I am totally engrossed in “vetta velythanil koti kidakkuthu” “
“Hello…hello…Is it Prema?….” I said in a bewilder.
“Sai…it’s me…Prema…Why are you confused?” she said casually.
“No…sorry…...it might have been a crisscross of line. I heard something like Konkani or
Sinhalese” I said.
“No……it’s Tamil,” she said laughing, “ vetta velythanil koti kidakkuthu…it means My
Spiritual Experiences. Written by IllaiyaRaaja.” She said.
“Oh…Good……Tamil….It’s a very good habit to read Tamil books also in between
English and Telugu. It’s in fact my ardent persuasion that Tamil should be introduced as
fourth language in the schools of Andhra. That’s why I distribute Tamil cassettes to all
my relatives whenever I go home.” I said.
“I don’t think it’s necessary or useful.” She said firmly.
“……….”
“It’s O.K What else? What are you doing?” she asked.
“Me….I am generally….There is a Tamil family residing in front of my room. I spend
every Sunday at their home. I’m just coming from there. You know their son is very
cute…newly born…just 9 months. His name is Subbaraayan. It’s me who had suggested
the name. In fact I suggested the name “Yaagnavalkya” at first. They said it was a bit
tongue twisting. Finally they agreed upon this “Subbaraayan”. It’s the name of the boy’s
grandfather.” I said. I thought I was talking a bit of rubbish.
“You said you suggested the name?” she asked.
:”Yeah………It’s me who suggested to name the boy after their grandfather.” I said
proudly.
“Oh….”
“And presently I am washing my shirt. Can you guess why?” I asked.
“No…Why?”
“Because Subbaraayan has spoilt my shirt. Can you guess how?” I asked again
“No…How?”
“That’s trivial. Subbaraayan is just 9 months old no? So he spoilt my shirt when I was
holding him. Spoilt means…” I said laughing.
“It’s O.K…I got it.” She replied quickly.
“You got it? How?” I said. I could realize I was being totally senseless.
“Are you free now?” she said rather seriously.
“Yeah…I’m superfree…..I’m….”
She broke into my words, “ I shall be at Taj exactly after half-an-hour. See you there.”
She didn’t wait for my reply and disconnected.

**********************************************

I don’t know how solemnity pervades my mind the moment I see Prema. She was clad in
a white dress that day. As white as her smiles.
We sat for lunch at Taj. She was quite sunny and rosy.
“You never told me about your family…” She said.
I began my story.
“My family? It’s in fact a very small story. The important characters are only three. My
father, My Athamma, I mean my father’s sister and myself. My mother died while giving
birth to me. According to my Athamma, my father had become totally disinterested after
her death. He keeps himself aloof from the titillations of life and spends almost all of his
time in solitude. He speaks very little and prays often. He has a library, the books he
procured when he was young. He reads them till the Sun sets and then retires to bed.
That’s all about him.
And my Athamma, there is a lot that can be told about her. She is my matriarch or
matron, whatever you call. And her home is my Alma Mater. I am today, what she made.
She had seen all the facets of life and tasted all its vagaries to their extremity. She had a
glorious childhood, her father being an affluent farmer, ultimately degenerated to an
extreme poverty after his death. Again her life was revived when my mama entered into
her life. Their love story still remains my favorite. When full moon days sent her into
retrospection, she would share her juvenile memories with me. One night, she would sing
a poem she wrote delineating the imposing eyes of her prince in regalia. The other night
she would sing a rhyme of her scintillating childhood frolics. But her spring was again
short-lived. Hardly five years did her husband live after their marriage and they didn’t
bear a child. Thus she was abandoned to solitude.
My father told she was a great virtuoso at Bharathanatyam. But she never danced
after my Mama’s death. But, the best thing about her is she took whatever the fate offered
in her stride. She smiled away all those hardships and whiled away those troubling times
convivially. And now she is a stoical and jaunty woman. Recently, she took to painting.
There’s a short story about her tryst with the art.” I paused and looked at Prema.
“Please don’t stop,” Prema said disgustingly. She was too much engrossed.
I continued,” Once Swami created a portrait of my Athamma and gave it to her on her
birthday. That day she picked up the paintbrush. She would have drawn at least a hundred
paintings of Swami till today and a lot many other paintings. All those she drew she
would go and offer at His feet.
Whenever I feel frustrated, I would go to her for cure. The scintillating lady
would fix things within seconds and makes me laugh to the brim of my heart. Her story
would itself make an epic. It’s better to see her than listening to my versions…”
“Fix the date right now…” she quickly said.
“Next Sunday?” I asked.
“Done”
We finished the lunch and came out.
While coming out, she said to me,” Shall we sit in the temple there? “
“Sure”
We sat in a corner. “I would like to hear of your first darshan of Swami” I said.
“That’s the best thing ever occurred to me.” A sudden profundity crept into her voice.
“Like everybody else, I didn’t trust him at first,” she continued,” But the very first time I
saw him, I surrendered. I just couldn’t evade his love. He is simply irresistible.”
“I would be pleased to hear of your rendezvous.” I said.
“Don’t call it rendezvous. Call it Renaissance. You know, I was bestowed with the
fortune of being baptized by him. But somehow I was not able to see him again before
my 12th class finished. It was my grandfather who was Swami’s devotee and the one
responsible for the auspicious ceremony of baptism. And again, he persuaded me to go to
Parthi after my 12th; it wasn’t out of my volition. I thought a month long stay would make
me jaded.
I couldn’t anticipate that I would lament my return.
I would narrate to you what exactly I felt throughout the stay, a bit impartially.
This description obviously doesn’t reflect my present mindset or persuasions.” She said
and paused.
 “That’s a very good idea. It’s only from initial ignorance that the absolute truth
emerges. Night precedes day.” I said. I could see the ecstasy that adorned her face while
speaking of Swami. After all it is the bliss oozing out of His anecdotes that manifested in
her face!!
“Exactly!!” she said and started narrating. I recorded it in my diary word-to-word
after I went home. The following is the exact replica of that.

O.K…. let me begin from the beginning. After my 12th exams, my grandfather
called me one day and told me that I was to spend the next month in Parthi. I did not
mince matters. I told him that I did not believe in his miracles. I remember what he
replied exactly.
“Do you find it that hard to believe in miracles? May be it’s difficult for you, I
find it very simple. Very natural. This gigantic universe, the titanic ecosystem, the natural
tendencies of all the biological beings, the spanking novelty exhibited by nature……
Are all these not miracles? How much of them of them did you comprehend to
believe them?” He asked me looking straight into my eyes.
I couldn’t speak out. I was just staring at him in awe. He smiled loftily, took me
closer and caressed my head.
“My child, Remember one thing, Truth is self-luminous. No evidence is required to prove
it.”
After a week I was in Parthi. My sister was along with me. But she was
not feeling well and so could not accompany me for the first Darshan. A woman called
Nirmalananda, an ardent friend of my grandfather was our guide there. She took me to
the Bhawan where Swami resides. There were a number of people, men on one side and
women on the other squatting on the floor eagerly waiting for Swami’s darshan.
She looked around and said to me,” Wait here, I suppose the morning interviews
are over. I’ll just go and find out.”
After a few minutes she came and took me into a small room. I sat there while
Nirmalananda went out on some work. There were two other boys waiting beside me.
Ten minutes later, the inner door opened. That was the first time I saw Sathya Sai Baba.
He came out. He is short and lean, wearing a saffron colored gown, which extended right
from his shoulders to feet. He had a curly shining hair, black, luxuriant and lively. He had
a blue complexion. Eyes were black and gleaming with benignity. His face was glowing
with a mystic innate zest. There was an ineffable radiance diverging out of his semblance.
I was impressed on the spur of the moment.
He came towards me with a regal gait and smiled amicably.
“ Baagunnaavaa bangaaroo ” Saying so he touched my head with his palm. I lost my
sense. I felt a stream of energy flowing into me. I saw all my illusions and doubts
dispelled like the shades of darkness being blown off by the rays of sun. I felt an ethereal
paroxysm shaking me all through. It was as if I had been condoned for all my egregious
sins and cleansed of all my iniquities by Christ Jesus.
“ Mallee 17 yellaku gurthochaanaa bangaaroo? Innaallo gurthukuraani swaami
ippudu Yesayya laagaa kanapaduthunnaadaa? “
These words obviated the need of speaking out anything to Swami. The day
before was my 18th birthday and I was baptized by Swami on my first birthday.
“Nee hridhayame naa nivaasam. Ika nee manasulo maata vere cheppaalaa?”
 Uttering these words, he slowly moved towards the other two boys. I was just
looking at him in awe, while tears flowed inadvertently out of my eyes. One of the boys
fell on his feet weeping aloud.
“Swaami, my sister….my sister” I heard him stammering. He was trying to hand over a
white cover to Swami.
“Repu udhyam aamenu theesukuraa ” Swami said and walked out of the room.
The cover remained in the hand of the boy. He was still weeping.
“What happened to your sister?” I asked. He silently handed over the cover to me.
I opened it and took out the paper in it.

“Bhagawaan,
My sister cannot speak, walk or sit. Please treat her and give her a new life.
This is the one and only wish in my life.”
Sairam

A sharp pain pierced my heart. “Why should there be this much suffering in the empire of
God, who is so benevolent?” I asked myself.
While I was returning the cover to the boy, he burst out, “ You know, she is just
11 years old…..Kethu…my sister. We wake up at home with her prayer song. My father
is the head of Seva samithi in our town. Not even he attends to the Samithi’s activities so
vigilantly. Kethu looks after everything. The one who gave her such a great devotion at
this small age has maledicted her.
Every evening she sang Baba’s Bhajans and danced in ecstasy. Till a dreadful
morning a car hit her. She never spoke after that. And now, when my father plays a
cassette of Bhajan, she drags herself to sit against the wall and claps her hands,
stammering incoherently, her face glowing vehemently. She has no complaints. It is only
her God who is ungrateful….relentless….”

***************************************

The next day, I sat in the same room with my sister. She was whispering something in my
ear, that Baba hid the vibhoothi, he is supposed to create, under his full-hand sleeve and
all that sundry. I couldn’t do anything except pitying her. Just before Baba arrived the
boy I saw the day before came there. A wheeled chair followed him in which a girl was
sitting. I could see her face gleaming with joy.
The boy came towards me, “My sister, Kethu..” he said turning towards the girl.
The girl smiled and joined her hands in the form of a Namasthe. I did the same.
The boy was trying hard to arrest his tears in his eyes, while his sister was smiling
jubilantly. If only men could be as pure as her smiles, the earth would have turned
paradise long ago, I thought.
“This is the first time she is going to see Baba” the boy said looking at his sister
affectionately and pushing the hair that drifted across her face aside. She was looking
around to see the people who were going to share the grand moments of seeing Swami
with her.
 Five minutes later, the inner door opened. Swami came out and pranced up to the
girl. Her joy knew no bounds. Tears rolled down her eyes when Swami touched her head.
“Bangaaru, naa kosam oka paata paadavoo” Swami said looking into her eyes. The Lord
whose hymns she sang every morning and evening, was now standing before her, asking
her to sing for him. Long ago, Lord Venkateswara has asked Annamayya to sing for him.
I was then witnessing such an event.
The girl began stumbling incoherently, trying to utter His name. There was no stopping
for her tears. She was helplessly clapping her hands as if to redeem her failure to speak
out.
“Thallee paadavoo, nee paata vindhaamani vachaanu, nannu niraasa paruchakammaa” so
saying Swami lifted his hand and rotated it in air. When he opened it there was Vibhoothi
in it. He poured it into the hands of the girl saying, “Idhi notilo vesuko” She devoured the
Vibhoothi looking into Swami’s eyes and began stumbling again.
“Sare nuvvu paadakapothe nenu vellipothunnanu.” Swami turned back. The girl was
rubbing her hands against her face, and quivering all over. Her brother was weeping
aloud.
She was trying to speak, at least to yell out and call Swami back. Swami walked towards
the door without looking back. The girl was vehemently gasping and puffing. When
Swami was about to step out. We heard her cry out. “Sairaam….”
Swami suddenly turned back. “ Naaku thelusu bangaaroo, nuvvu naa maata
kaadhanavani,” The girl was shouting “Sairam, Sairam , Sairam….”
“Paadu thallee, paadu, gonthu vippi paadu” Swami said caressing her cheek like a
mother.
Sai amma, the mother of mothers has come down to save her child. The
incarnation of the entire pantheon has proved the power of His Nama himself.
The girl began singing in ecstasy while Swami sat beside in a chair closing his eyes in
bliss…………

adharam madhuram vadhanam madhuram

nayanam madhuram hasitham madhuram
hridhayam madhuram gamanam madhuram
madhuraadhipatherakhilam madhuram

adharam madhuram vadhanam madhuram

nayanam madhuram hasitham madhuram
adharam madhuram vadhanam madhuram
nayanam madhuram hasitham madhuram

hridhayam madhuram gamanam madhuram

madhuraadhipatherakhilam madhuram

vachanam madhuram charitham madhuram

vasanam madhuram valitham madhuram
vachanam madhuram charitham madhuram
vasanam madhuram valitham madhuram
chalitham madhuram bhramitham madhuram
madhuraadhipatherakhilam madhuram

renoormadhuro renoormadhuraha
paaneermadhuraha paadham madhuram
renoormadhuro renoormadhuraha
paaneermadhuraha paadham madhuram

hrithyam madhuram sakhyam madhuram

madhuraadhipatherakhilam madhuram

geetham madhuram peetham madhuram

bhukhtham madhuram suktham madhuram
geetham madhuram peetham madhuram
bhukhtham madhuram suktham madhuram

roopam madhuram thilakam madhuram

madhuraadhipatherakhilam madhuram

karanam madhuram tharanam madhuram

haranam madhuram smaranam madhuram
karanam madhuram tharanam madhuram
haranam madhuram smaranam madhuram

vamitham madhuram shamitham madhuram

madhuraadhipatherakhilam madhuram

kunjaa madhuraa maalaa madhuraa

yamunaa madhuraa veechee madhuraa
kunjaa madhuraa maalaa madhuraa
yamunaa madhuraa veechee madhuraa

salilam madhuram kamalam madhuram

madhuraadhipatherakhilam madhuram

gopee madhuraa leelaa madhuraa

yuktham madhuram muktham madhuram
gopee madhuraa leelaa madhuraa
yuktham madhuram muktham madhuram

dhrishtam madhuram srishtam madhuram

madhuraadhipatherakhilam madhuram

gopaa madhuraa gaavo madhuraa

vyashtir madhuraa srishtir madhuraa
gopaa madhuraa gaavo madhuraa
 vyashtir madhuraa srishtir madhuraa

dhalitham madhuram phalitham madhuram

madhuraadhipatherakhilam madhuram
madhuraadhipatherakhilam madhuram
madhuraadhipatherakhilam madhuram

That was the sweetest song I ever heard. Swami opened his eyes and blessed the girl who
was brought to his feet by her exalted brother. Then He lifted her up and said, “ Vache
dhasaraa panduga vedukallo nuvvu mahishaasura mardhinilaa aadaali bangaaroo”
Then Swami turned towards us and said, “ Idhe raamanaamaaniki unna sakthi.
Chinnariki maata yelaa vachindho thelusaa? “
None of us spoke out.
“Yendhukante chinaari thana kosam maata raavaalani korukoledhu. Naa kosam,
kevalam nannu aanandhaparachadaanikai maata thirigi raavaalani aathrutha
padindhi. Nannu santhosha pettadaaniki paadaalanukundhi. Mare prayojanam
aasinchi kaadhu. Aaa niswaardha preme, aaa viswaasme maata raani chinnari
chetha paata paadinchindhi. Kaabatti meeru chese prathi panee bhagavanthuniki
arpithamgaa cheyyandi. Mare swaardha prayojanam aasinchakandi. Mee
baagogulu nenu choosukuntaanu.”
So saying he stood up. And when he stood up, a cool breeze swept into the room, in hope
of touching the Lotus feet of Jagadhaanandhakaaraka. While his eyes shone with
ineffable radiance of love, Saijanani ambled out of the room.

******************************************

Both of our eyes turned misty by the time Prema consummated her narration.
We stood up and started walking back slowly. She was about to bid adieu, when she said,
“ I forgot to tell you one thing, after our stay in Prasanthi Nilayam ended, we vacated the
room and were walking back. A girl came running from behind and handed over the bag
we forgot before the room. It was none other than Kethu, the girl I saw that day in
wheelchair. She told me she was able to walk from the next day Swami blessed her. She
also told me she stays in Chennai. And we are now thick friends.
You know something….it was me who choreographed Kethu’s dance for
Dussehra’s “Mahishaasura Mardhini” Prema smiled proudly, “ And after her dance,
Swami praised her and gave her Paadhanamaskaarabhagyam. Then he looked straight
towards me. I was sitting at a corner among the audience. Is it difficult for a mother to
spot her child? Swami approached the mike and said, “aata aadina vaaritho paatu
aadinchina vaaru koodaa raavachu.” I cantered up the stage in elation and touched His
feet. When Swami touched my head, I said to myself “ Andharini aadinchedhi nuvve
kadhyyaa ?” and looked at him for reply.
“ Gadusudhaanive bangaaroo” Swami said smiling.

.
*****************************************
The next morning, the phone rang when I was sleeping. I turned my head and looked at
the clock. It was 11:00. Somehow I waded through the bed towards the phone and lifted
it.
“Hello…. who is it?” My voice was obviously somnolent.
“Prema…….”
“Hai, Prema Good morning. How are you?” My voice was obviously rejuvenated.
“So, you are still slogging on the bed.”
“Yeah….actually, last night I slept late studying that…..”
“A fortiori you can do it early in the morning….” She made a snide remark.
“Of course….but…”
“But you didn’t know that I would be coming to Vinayaka temple today morning. Isn’t
it? “
“…………”
“ I like people who get up early in the morning. And I would like the people whom I like
to get up early in the morning. ”
“………….”
“O.k.….……. I now rang you for a small help.”
“Aap ki hukm” I replied merrily.
“You might be knowing Saadhanaalaya?”
“Yeah….The dance institute at Kalabharathi?”
“Exactly. They are going to organize a carnival on the occasion of their Silver Jubilee.
The festival starts next Monday. And they want me perform on the take-off day….…….”
“But your finals start form Tuesday…..” I said immediately.
“How do you know?”
“General Knowledge……”
“O.K….I tried to convince them and wriggle out. But they are too swinish. Can you
please parley with them on my behalf and help me out………”
“Now forget about it and talk something pleasant………..” I said in an assuring tone.
“I am coming to your room for inspection in the evening, sharp 5’o clock.”

*************************************

.That was the first time Prema was coming to my room. I thought I would turn my
room spic and span. I called Raghu and alerted him over the impending Baptism of fire.
He promised to help me. I relaxed till 3:00 when I suddenly remembered the
Sadhanaalaya affair. I pleaded Raghu to clean the room and ran to Kalabharathi.
After successfully consummating the matters, I came back to my room at 6:00.
The compound was spanking clean. I thanked Raghu in mind and stepped inside. I could
hear “ Manavinaalakincha raadhate” wafting around. I never knew Raghu was so
sensuous. And when I reached the inner room, I saw Prema sitting in the chair.
I quickly glanced at the room. It was white and bright. I thanked Raghu once again and
whizzed in.
“Prema….Welcome to my empire….when did you come?”
“Exactly by the time I gave you on phone.” She said.
“Oh…I’m sorry, I’m really very sorry…………I was out to Kalabharathi. That fellow is
a real wretch. After a lot of song and dance, I could finally get rid of him”
“Thank you. Thank you very much.” She said happily.
“Mention not. First tell me how is my room……….”
“Now or when I entered the room?” she asked.
I was bewildered by her question.
“Now…” I mumbled.
“Now it’s like this.” She said looking around.
“And when you came?”
“Hold on. I would describe,” she said and paused.
I kept silent.
“It’s almost the same except a few variations. Instead of being in the washtub, all those
clothes were evenly distributed across the floor of the room while the washtub played the
centerpiece along with its venerable counterpart, the dustbin. The reading table was
orchestrated quite painstakingly with all the books wide open, while some of them bathed
in the coffee flowing from the cup placed beside them. There were two withering
garlands of roses adorning the portraits of Krishna and Saibaba. And the artistic thick
layer of dust that sprawled over the floor needs a special mention.” She said sneering at
me.
“Where is Raghu….I mean my room-mate?” I asked in a low voice.
“He gave the keys of your beautiful empire to me in the above mentioned grandeur and
went out.” She replied haughtily.
I remained mum. I was simply looking at the portrait of Krishna, which was adorned with
a fresh garland of Mandhaara. I never saw the floor of my room shining so brightly. The
books near the table were categorized as in a library. There was a sensuous order
pervading the entire room. And there was an divine aroma that I usually sensed in a
temple. It took me no time to realize it was the consummate ness of none other than
Prema. I looked thankfully at her.
“I hope you would soon get out of this maladroit ness. Your artistic thoughts should
manifest in your milieu.” She said coming near me, “ Sai, do I look something like a
martinet or a virago?”
:”No, instead like an oracle, a redeemer.” I almost whispered.
“If that is really so, listen. I do not want to see you remain a dilettante. Try to be more
meticulous. More solemn in your efforts. Remember, it will hurt me if you do not purge
out this frivolousness.”
She came still nearer to me.
“It’s alright even if you leave this room untidy when I come to your room. I would just
admonish and preach in anguish for sometime and go back. But remember, when you
sing out in ecstasy, when you pray your heart out, He will come. Sai will come to listen
your song. Would you like to welcome Him into this den?”
“No….certainly, no” I spoke in a very low tone, “ But, Prema, it is only after I met you I
became cognizant of what I missed in my life. Only then an urge to better myself has
born. Let me convalesce. “
“I like that, Sai. I like that. I know you would soon heed to your Athma. That is Swami’s
constant refrain. That one should frequently cleanse one’s mind of the dust that smears it.
One thing never returns if it leaves you. That is illusion. The second one doesn’t leave
you if it enters. That is wisdom. The third one doesn’t come or leave. That is ‘Athma-
thathva’ ” Saying so she moved towards her chair.
There was a deft change in the mood of her voice. “Now that your room as well as your
mind is revitalized, you are going to sing a marvelous song and regale us.”
“Us?” I said.
“Yeah……….me and Sai…” she smiled.
“Good………..the choice is left to the audience. Which song would you like to relish?”
She pondered a bit and started humming “Bhaavayaami Gopaalabaalam,
manasevitham….”
“Thathpadham chinthayeyeam sadhaa…” I picked it up.

*************************************

You were fretting and frustrated. You badly need some serenity and solitude.
Then, all of a sudden, the sky turns cloudy and pleasant. It starts drizzling and from a
distant connoisseur’s place, you hear a strain of a ballad resonating. How do you like
that?
The advent of Prema created such an aura in my life.
THE AURA

With your advent, there was light and aroma on my path,

With your advent, there was a spell cast on my heart,
My tale took a new twist; my life saw a new dawn.
A new allegro shook my heart and home.

You stepped into my home and smiled,

You didn’t know the color it added to my den,
You came and whispered in my ear,
You didn’t know the odes that I heard.
How would I convey you?
That you were my muse
In those songs that bloomed in my heart,
In those flowers that blossomed in my garden.

You raised your wrist and jingled your bangles,

You didn’t know the symphonies I conceived,
You raised your leg and twinkled your anklets,
You didn’t know the ballets I composed.
How would I convey you?
That you were my muse
In those dreams that haunted in every night,
In those auras that jaunted in every breath.
That was the last morning; I woke up after five’o clock. That was the last time my room
suffered my maladroit ness and carefree ness. I prayed for a day my vigor would be
restored. At last, they were answered, Prema’s entry heralded the new chapter in my life.
Whenever, a Bhajan or a shrine threw me into contemplation there was a
temporary rectification of my indolence. But only she bore the panacea. I always had a
feeling that Prema is nothing but a physical reflection or embodiment of my own
conscience. So, I could never do any work that was against my conscience. Earlier I used
to offer prayers sometimes, without a whole-heart. But now I couldn’t do anything of that
sort, because I felt her watching me from the “inside” of my heart. So, there is no other
go for me except being true to myself in whatever I did.
I came to know how would it be to live and work for a single non-egoistic
purpose. And the thing to be adduced is the spirit of that work. I knew how would it be to
work with ardor and finesse, simply not caring for what else anybody else may think of it
or say of it. The judiciary in the government of universe is a one-man body, consisting of
my conscience alone. I would be answerable to my conscience alone, none else on earth.
Every sublime morning, every pleasant evening I thought of her. Every ethereal
breeze carried her fragrance, every blossoming flower was redolent of her smiles, and
those gurgles of purling waters bore her voice. Whenever the sky was azure and calm, I
saw a life-size image of her embedded in it drifting benignly.
A single thought of her would regenerate interest in me, by interest, I mean the
enthusiasm that bubbled in every tiny work I did. And her concern for me showed me
how my mother would have been. She condoned every fault of mine, while admonishing
me deftly. She made me pursue my singing back by joining me at Semmangudi School
again. She delighted at every betterment of my attitude.
One day, I held my promise by taking her to Athamma. The absolute absence of
the initial thaw between them, as anticipated obviated the needless significance of my
character in between them. They spoke like age-old acquaintances, exactly the way I
related with Prema in the beginning. Prema fixed up all appointments with Athamma to
learn painting and cooking. For more than an hour Prema sat marveling at Athamma’s
paintings. Only one painting was left undone.
“This one seemed quite formidable. I wanted to portray the fervor in Swami’s
face when he extracts the Hiranyagarbhalingam on Sivaraathri. I had been a spectator of
the holy event for as many as five times on account of some merit I had accumulated
earlier. But whenever I sit struggling to conceive Swami’s anguish at that moment, I
simply end up bursting into tears. But I have no plans give up. I would go to Him again,
pray Him, request Him, beg Him to bestow the ability and bless me with the dexterity and
I would complete it.” Athamma said fervently.
There was a statue of Nataraja in the garden behind Athamma’s house. That was
the only memoir remaining of Athamma’s past glory now in abeyance. Prema was totally
taken away by it’s splendor. She began dancing before it in vehemence. Athamma
appreciated her dance. But the astoundment came when Athamma pinpointed a few
subtle defects in her dance explaining the nuances meticulously. That was when I realized
she was in fact a veteran in the art. According to Prema, her knowledge of such intricate
nuances is generally a possession of only those who reached the pinnacle, those who
devoted their lives to the art, neither just dabblers nor even experts.
 It began that day. And then, whenever she felt like dancing, whenever her mind
was deluged with a paroxysm that needed to be satiated by dancing, she would
come to me. I had to take her to the Nataraja statue. She had developed an
obsessive love for the place. She says the place had a certain mystic spell that
galvanized her into action. And that whenever I sat in front of her watching her
dance, she felt herself “volving”, more vivacious. I was her impetus, she was my
muse.
Sometimes she would ask me to sing while she danced rather than dancing to a
recorded song. A live voice would beget a lively dance. I saw my dreams dwelling in her
expressive eyes. Which feature of Prema was less articulate? Her eyes, her eyebrows, her
lips were all imposing. Her glowing face, those dainty palms and the rhythmic gait, all
were equally vivid. Her appearance would itself generate an aalaapana.
I could see her dancing stances animating in my dreams. The melody of the sound
of her steps while she danced reverberated in my ears in serene hours. It happens
sometimes that she would join me in singing. I can never define the verve that the
superimposition begets. Even the nature rejoiced the communion by turning more
soothing. Every second of our meeting had to be savored painstakingly not to lose its
mellifluence.
And all our trysts were scheduled when the day met with night. When she was up
with her dance, we would sit silently gazing at the drooping Sun, as if to find out where
the earth met the infinite sky. In those tranquil moments I saw a temple where she was
the deity and I was the archak. Our breaths that resonated in the silence, I conceived as
the dhoopa being offered and the sunrays that glittered in her eyes as Dheepam.
She would whisper whatever she felt into my ears. She says she was feeling as if
she were a fledgling and she got her new wings. That she were a damsel flower
experiencing the blossoming. And when the light faded we would silently tread our ways
back to home. She would arrive like a vivid gale and return in ethereal languor.

THE DIFFERENCE YOU MADE

Your smiles bore my identity

Your eyes expounded my life’s obscurity

Your parting reminded my dreary yesterday

Your gazing heralded my hilarious tomorrow

Your hands shared my life’s burden

Your legs treaded my path woe-laden.

Your dark eyes portrayed the dawns

Your quivering lips revealed the bliss’ mysteries
I’m true…. you made a difference to me.

SAVE MY SOUL

Come, my lady
The auspicious hour has come to embark upon my day
Come, my lady
Dance in the ecstasy of our love
Sing of the affinity of our bond

Come, my lady, my love

Or else bear to hear my requiems….

Dance in the ecstasy of our love

Sing of the affinity of our bond

Let me see my love manifest

In your looks, in your eyes
In your tresses, in your locks
Only the love, only the fire…
Let me see my love manifest
In the beat of your heart
In the heat of your thought
Only the love, only the fire….

Dance in the ecstasy of our love

Sing of the affinity of our bond
Come, my lady, my love
Or else bear to hear my requiems….

********************************
 I did not see Prema that evening. In fact I did not feel like going to meet her.
Probably because I was feeling her presence somewhere around me all the time. The
classes ended and I reached my room.
Raghu wasn’t there. I took a warm bath and sat beside the window as usual. That
had been my favorite place since I took the room. I could see the sun setting straight
before me and the light fading slowly. “Nothing But Wind” was playing behind.
For sometime I stared at the children playing outside the compound wall. As the
light failed, they moved off. The playback also stopped. There was nothing but silence.
Suddenly I felt a tinge of pain somewhere around my heart. I cannot exactly put my
languish in words. It had a strange hue of glee too. As the night’s darkness slowly
swallowed the sky, I felt the pain piercing me more. But I stuck myself there.
After an hour, it started raining. Clouds were roaring like infuriated lions. I could
see nothing, as it was absolutely dark. I felt some specters drifting around me. Suddenly
Prema flashed in my mind. I don’t mean I didn’t think of her till that moment. She was a
latent feature of my every thought. But the express moment and the thoughts suggested a
jinx. I felt I would lose Prema……. lose her forever.
A weird force dragged me towards the phone. I rang her and it was lifted. I simply
stuck to the phone to my ear without speaking. In fact I could not speak out.
“Hello….” It was Prema.
I tried to open my mouth. I could not.
“Hello…” she repeated.
“……….”
“Hello…who is that?”
“………..”
“Hello…”
“………..”
“Hello Teja….”
My silence was the giveaway.
“Teja….speak out, Teja…Are you fine?”
I felt like I had won the world. I felt like….I felt like…..No I just cannot tell that…
“O.K..Teja….don’t go away. If you don’t feel like speaking, just hold on. I shall speak…
O.K…?”
“…………”
“Cool…………You might be feeling lonely. Isn’t it? I thought so because I was feeling
the same. I knew you would ring me tonite, but I thought you would ring me sooner. “
“You knew…?” Somehow I opened my mouth.
“Mmmm…I knew. Don’t know why, I was feeling like every move you make and every
word you spoke were known to me already!!” she giggled.
“I didn’t get you, please be clear…” I said.
In fact I got her entirely. The sentence was perfectly laconic. I just wanted to hear more
from her.
“ I know you understood me totally and I also knew you would ask me to elaborate
this…” she said and paused.
I used up the interval to get over the jolt.
She continued, “I hope the interlude was sufficient for your convalescence. What I am
going to tell you would be pretty well known to you. But still……Are you holding…?”
“Please continue….” I gasped.
She went on “ This is not a new thing. I was feeling it from that evening you asked me to
search my soul. You went off leaving me there. I sat there till 9’o clock. I was in a trance-
like condition. Every word you spoke, I could guess it before you uttered it. And what all
you sang everyday………. there was a hunch drifting in my mind prognostic of your
imagination. I think you might be feeling the same. This is the all thing I would like to
tell you, which you knew already. And would you like to tell me something that I know
already?”
“Yes….” I said.
“I would love to hear that” she replied.
“………….”
“ Teja……don’t feel tensed. Just do remember, whatever you are going to tell me is
already known to me. I am feeling it in my heart …..” she cajoled.
“ I was feeling this from the moment I saw you in the temple that day…..” I said and
paused.
“ I might also be feeling, but latently, that took time to emerge………” she said.
Her voice was composed and equitable, quite unlike mine.
I continued, “ And right from the moment I see you till you leave me and sometimes even
after that, I hear a strain of raga wafting around suitably backed by a percussion
resembling the heartbeat. Please don’t laugh…I am quite solemn….” I said.
“I do nothing except marveling at your finesse at articulation. Please continue….” She
said.
I continued, “ And the sequence of every meeting with you, I feel like it had already
happened between us so many times in past. Even now…this murky night…. this roaring
rain and this talk with you, these words…I am feeling like I had been a witness of the
exact sequence so many times in some distant past…..” I paused for a feedback though I
was not too keen to know that.
She spoke,” I was constantly asking myself, who were you to affect me so much…?”
“I already told you…. every secret is stored in your soul. Ask it. I assure you an
overwhelming response,” I said.
“………..”
I continued,” Ask the dreams that pervade your eyes, let the lilt of your heartbeat answer
your queries….”
She began, “ True, Meeting you…. it was like waking from a slumber to witness an
auspicious dawn. It was like meeting an old pal with whom I shared many a gleeful
moments in a distant past. “
“On the spur…?” I asked.
“No…This…I wrote in a poem….I’m just recalling….” She replied.
“Then,,,,…?” I said.
“Then….…….Good Night….” She did not wait for my response and disconnected.
Of course I was expecting an abrupt close but not exactly at that moment. I replaced the
receiver and lied back.

*************************************
I could not sleep well that night. I just wanted to see Prema, I just wanted to see her. I
woke up and went straightaway to the Nataraja statue in Athamma’s house and sat
beneath it waiting for her to arrive. That day was her birthday.
She came and stood before me. I lifted my head and looked into her eyes. There was a
weird apathy in her looks. According to my plans, I was to propose to marry her on the
auspicious occasion of her birthday. I thought that day would embark on a new wave in
my life and hers.
But the ambience was quite contradictory. Somehow I forcibly opened my mouth
and jabbered, “ Prema! I had been planning to give you a great present for your birthday
from the past nine months. After continuous thought, I finally decided to give you
something perfectly original of me. What could such a thing be? This body is not mine
because it would leave me when I die. What remained is my spirit. My soul. I want to
offer that to you. I just want to give away myself to you. I love you and I want to be with
you forever.”
She sighed and kept quite for a moment. Then she turned back, walked a bit away from
me and started talking. Every word she spoke to me, she uttered looking into my eyes.
That was the first time she was talking to me with her back facing me.
I didn’t know that the worst of my dreams is going to present itself before me.

“Sai, this world is a big illusion. The people who live here are illusory. Their minds are
illusory and the thoughts that originate from them are illusory. All the vistas around is
false, deceptive. What I would like to say is that the love you felt for me and the love I
felt for you is all ephemeral. The people that we meet in the sojourn of our life are just
temporary acquaintances and so are our relations with them. There’s no use and
sometimes fatal to attach an emotional fervor to such daft things.
My father has decided to marry me to someone else, whom I do not know. But I
won’t deny him for anything on earth. May be I know you, I have shared some delightful
moments with you. But that is all. I can’t be yours forever………I can’t be. So it’s better
to forget me forever. Erase all those memories of our friendship from your mind or heart
wherever you have stored them. Forgive me if I had been a bit harsh or rude.”

**************************************
 ONLY YOU
The requiem….

A faint strain was emanating from the den of the Goddess of death
Yet I dare sing….

Only you…….
Only you are every hue of my life….
Only you….
Only you are every due of my triumph….
My alter ego dwelling in the shades of my heart….

Are you La Belle Dame?

If not, why do you play this game?
Only if you are contiguous
My senses are conscious
Are you a dream?
If not, why do stay in the extreme?
Tell me, when would this tornado beam?

I know I haven’t brought anything to this land,

And nothing would I take with me
But your love remains my only hope and reverie….

Because………
Those eyes have touched me,
And slowly bewitched me,
Igniting the fire
Of your desire

Only you
Only you are my life’s aroma…
Only you
Only you are my life’s panorama…
And Manorama

Because……..
Those hands have embraced me,
And slowly absorbed me,
Igniting the pain
In this mortal body long ago slain

Only you
Only you are my life’s aroma…
Only you
Only you are my life’s panorama…
And Manorama

Because…..
Those airs of your breath
Smeared me like a relentless wreath
Igniting the passion
Culminating in the self’s annihilation

Only you…….
Only you are every hue of my life….
Only you….
Only you are every due of my triumph….
My alter ego dwelling in the shades of my heart….

Are you La Belle Dame?

If not, why do you play this game?
Only if you are contiguous
My senses are conscious
Are you a dream?
If not, why do stay in the extreme?
Tell me, when would this tornado beam?

I can move no farther

For I was imprisoned in your fist,
In your cist,
In the mist of your lust
In an ineffable zest.
I can seek none further,
For I already reached the crest
And found nothing best in the rest.
Except dust
Believe me, you are my life’s gist.

Meet me in the tryst

I should shed the mortal coils lest.
Meet me in the tryst
I should shed the mortal coils lest.

Only you…….
Only you are every hue of my life….
Only you….
Only you are every due of my triumph….
My alter ego dwelling in the shades of my heart….I felt the earth splitting under me. I felt
my heart ravished to pieces. I felt an acute pain piercing me relentlessly. Burning me
alive would have brought a lot more solace to me. I saw the world being relegated into a
metaphysical darkness. I felt blank for two days. I had nothing to think. After two days, I
began chronicling the events.
I saw a girl. I loved her. She walked with me, she talked with me. She smiled with
me, she wrangled with me. She sang with me, she danced with me and finally she said it
was all illusory. It was all false. It was all deceptive.
If my love was to be false, firstly I should be false, my existence and my
conscience should be false. Isn’t it true that I was reborn after her arrival?
Is it false to love somebody? Is it an egregious sin to see the dream of sharing the life
with somebody?
Kyaa Kise ke saath zindagee guzaarne ki sapna dekhnaa koyee gunaa hai?

I loved her. I placated her. May be I tried to ingratiate myself. Finally I ended up drawing
a ludicrous caricature of myself.
I saw the bliss of my life in her. I saw the God I revered in her. I saw myself in her. And
she said it was a trivial hallucination.
She didn’t stab with me with a well-honed sword. She didn’t shoot me with a revolver.
She didn’t thrash me with a rock. She simply jilted… nothing more, just a jilt.
She asked me to forget her. If I try to do that, before I accomplish it, I would forget
myself.
The vocabulary that remained in my mind consisted of a very few words….
Darkness, black, murk, gloom, nightmare, melancholy, shades and shadows.
And my repertoire consisted of only one Raag…The Raag Bhairav.

AN ELEGY

Let me proclaim that love is a will-o’-the-wisp

Let me pay this elegy to you, my love, while you merrily desolate me on a day crisp

What was my offense? Loving you…?

What was my iniquity? Adulating you?
How long should I acquiesce this pain?
How long should my eyes rain?
Your semblance pervading my heart shall fade off
For me to shed these mortal coils off….

No longer can I bear this verve

No longer can I stay with nerve
Let the darkness devour me
And demolish tomorrow’s glee
Let the providence subdue the fume
And I shall wane into vacuum
I know I have only two solutions, to dispel you from me or dismiss myself form
me………but so impuissant that I am, I slog in this jaded jeremiad………

I ran to a place where people were sparse and where the difference between the day and
night was scarce. I spent days thinking absolutely nothing. I would sit staring at the
wreaths of smog that dashed into my room nonchalantly. I would take an apple when I
felt hungry and sipped a coffee or two rarely. And lie on the floor if I feel drowsy. I do
not exactly remember how many days went in insanity.
And all of a sudden, Athamma came into my mind. It was poring heavily outside.
While I darted out, I heard somebody told it was the effect of a cyclone. I do not
remember how I traveled, after two days I found myself panting before my Athamma’s
house.
She wasn’t there. Her neighbors told me she had been to Parthi. I took the keys
from them and went into the house. I remember descending on to the divan. When I woke
up again, it was 3:30 in the morning. It was absolutely dark. Body was aching like hell.
The ordeal of one month had sapped all my strength. Taking breath seemed tough. That
heart or soul, it was not present at all.
I saw a silhouette wading in the darkness. An impulsive rapture shook me when I
thought Yama has arrived to deliver me. I popped out my hand and switched a small light
hanging over my head on. The shade moved into the light.
It was Prema.
I spoke nothing because I felt nothing.
She was choking. Her eyes were swollen and her face was enervated. She bore an
inanimate look. After two minutes of ardent exertion, she opened her mouth.
The only dull light in the room shone exactly over us. She knelt before me and spoke.

“ Sai, I don’t remember what happened in the past. Nor do I perceive what is happening
in this moment. What I comprehend is that I loved you. You were the only one whom I
loved, whom I held next to my heart. You were the one who waved in my thoughts every
second.
Now that you are aloof, my days turned prosaic.
Those moments when you held me close in soothing haunt me now.
Those moments when I sat before you, my head bent down in sublime serenity haunt me
now.
Today I stand before you, all my life squeezed out.
Whence does sleep creep, when eyes were silted up with horns?
Whence does mellow enter, when my beau dwelt in woods?
Yet I trust my love, not the destiny.
If at all destiny had a heart, it would fetch me into your arms……….
My knight, step into the Madhuban, that is my heart. I am waiting for you there in an
ornate wedding costume. If you do not, I shall surely meet you at least in my dreams.
None could stop that. May the entire pantheon militate against me, I would not leave you.
This is all pure impromptu.
I do not what my father decides. I do not know what you will do.
But I plead you to do a favor for me.
Give me the hue. Nothing else would I seek on earth…………

Give me the hue, Give me the hue

Show me the zenith that is true.

You woke me up, you gave the impetus

You roused me up, you made me curious
Now give me the hue,
Give the hue to my eye.

Let me move in the shadows of your dreams,

Let me walk in the shades of your footsteps.
Blast in like a storm of Rome
Your foot is my heaven and home.

I am a damsel longing for you

You are the knight exploring for me
I am incomplete here, you are incomplete there
Let these halves weave into a glory complete everywhere.

Give me the hue, Give me the hue

Show me the zenith that is true.

Give me the hue, Give me the hue

Show me the zenith that is true.

I didn’t know when she left. After sometime, Athamma was back home. She was not
flabbergasted to see me in such deteriorated condition. The same placidity lasted in
her eyes. She cooked some delicious food and fed me first. In the evening, when
we sat in the balcony sipping coffee, I narrated to her the whole thing.
I had only one question.
“It is He who instigated the longing for her in me. It is He who brought us to propinquity.
Now why is He separating us? If He is the form of love, why does He confer this pain on
mortals? ”
She finished the coffee and kept the cup down.

“ Pain is the His hammer to dispel the insipidity in you. And when you begin responding
slowly, He will feel accomplished. If you were not forced to long and cry you would lay
complacently forever, Never will you struggle to unravel the truth inside you. Never will
you strain your nerves to move towards Him.
No…never accuse anybody else for your grievances.
You have chosen to take birth in this world. All the external imbroglio has an innate
cause. So keep Him in your heart and stick to your credo.
Do you know who gave you the name? “ She said and paused.
“No….”
“It’s me. Do you know why?”
“No….”
“Because I wanted to see the Teja of Sai in you. What is that glow about Him? It is of
love. His prized possession is only bliss. And I do not want you act contradictory to that.
Be blissful and share your love among your fellowmen. Sai has given you this birth only
to distribute love. You have no right to fill it with melancholy.
Why do you mourn? What do you dread?
This earth is for heroes. Not for the lily-hearted.
My son, laugh. I have seen life in all it’s atrocities. Nothing could shake my ardor.
Believe in my words. These are not banal things that I read by-heart somewhere. Time
has taught me these things. You are going to win, that is for sure. But your victory would
be calm, tranquil. Remain placid. Bear things in equanimity. There is a Master with long
hands to be extended to you when time is ripe. “

I smiled. I smiled like a seer. I smiled with the relief of a person redeemed.
And when I was about to come out of her house, she beckoned me back. She handed over
a white box to me.
“Keep it with you. Do not open it till I ask you to do so.”

****************************************

A week passed by. I was working with some recording software when my father called
me on. He told me that he mailed me the manuscript of my wedding card. When did he
tell me about the wedding? It’s not necessary, he said. He told me he had seen her and
decided that she would suit me. I had no regrets.
I went through the mail.

Sairam

Dear friends,
The auspicious day has finally arrived when I am going to start a new
life with Sudha. The day is 23rd of November 1992. And I wish you would share my
happiness and solicit us by your gracious presence in the ceremony.

With love
Sai Teja.

****************************************

I mailed my father conceding to his decision. The moment I finished the mail, I heard the
phone ringing again.
“Hello….Can I talk to Teja, please?”
I could recognize her voice. It was Prema.
“It’s me Prema, how are you?”
“Fine? What about you?”
“I am pretty good…what’s up?”
“Your Athamma rang me just an hour before. She told me your marriage was fixed.” She
said.
“Yeah….I learnt about the thing just now.” I replied.
“So, you are happy?”
“Why not? I am as good as I am everyday”
“Very good. So you are going to start a new life with Sudha!!” she exclaimed.
“Yeah, I read her name in my father’s mail just now.”
“Did you see her?”
“No, I don’t think it’s necessary. My father has seen her. What about your marriage? Did
you meet your fiancée?” I asked.
“Yeah……….one week ago. He is a very nice person, quite scintillating. I am sure I
would be very happy with him. The moment I saw him, I couldn’t desist appreciating my
father’s decision. I suppose I’m very lucky.”
“Oh………well……….very well” I mumbled.
“He is coming to our house today. If you are free just drop in. I would like to introduce
you to him. I told him you were my best friend.”
“Mmmmm…I’ll see if I can come in the evening. Anyway, I’ll ring you again.” I replied.
“O.K…See you. “ she said.
“Bye” I said and was about to place the receiver back.
“One minute, Sai. Please hold on. There is a small thing I forgot to tell you. Bring the
white box your Athamma gave you, if you decide to come to our house in the evening.
And one more thing. Check your mail after I disconnect.”
She said and disconnected.
I moved towards the system and checked my mail. Prema mailed me.

“Sai,
Do you remember my narrations of my Darshans of Swami? And do you
remember that I told you its Swami who baptized me. He gave me a bigger name in fact.
But my grandfather told me, Swami always referred to me as Prema in later days. So the
same name went into official records. In fact my full name is “Prema Sudha.” Do you
like that?

With love
Prema Sudha.
I was on the way to Athamma’s house with Prema.
“So, My dear Prema Sudha you knew it was me whom your father has chosen for you.”
“No, man, No…..I didn’t know till today morning. My father is no lesser than yours. He
didn’t even tell the name of the person he chose for me. It’s your Athamma who
rang me and told me that my fiancée’s name is Teja…Sai Teja.”

When we reached her home, Athamma’s was waiting for us under the Nataraja statue.
“Come my children….come….Have you brought the white box I gave you. Please open
it.
“Why are you so excited? It is you who gave me this. You know what is there in it….” I
asked her.
“No…..I do not know what is in it. Please open it.” Athamma said.
We opened it.
A wedding ring with Swami’s photo inscribed in it.
And a small piece of paper that read………
“To Prema Sudha with love…..”

Athamma’s eyes filled with tears. “You know I had been to Parthi last week. I sat for
Darshan holding a paper in which I asked Him about your wedding, if it would happen or
not. Swami didn’t take this. Instead he created this box and gave me. He asked me to give
it to the girl whom my son-in-law would be marrying. And when He was about to go, He
looked back at me and smiled.

“Mee santhoshame Naa santhosham. Anthaa manche jaruguthundhi.”

*********************************

sairam

(Based on the life of a 29-year old dancer who passed away in December 2000)