TIMELESS

“Some journeys are worth the ‘time’.”

FIRST DAY OF THE AUTUMN, 

YEAR 2550.

“Are you sure about this?”
“No!”
“Then let’s stop this madness. I know that your body would stand this, but I don’t think your mind will take it.”
“Why?”
“You have been gone to the past 20 times now and this is your last chance. Once you travel through time now, this vortex will be unbounded from your soul, once and for all. You know you are immortal and I don’t think you can withstand the mental abyss of saying the final good bye and then living a lonely life, forever.”
“Do you expect me to stay back, after all these years?”
“No, but as the gatekeeper of the vortex and your protector, I am obliged to warn you of the consequences.”
“Neghas, you are not my protector. You are my friend!”
“Then why are you leaving me?”
“You know that I will be nothing but a bird with broken wings if I do not go on this journey!”
“You are not a bird, you are an angel. And it is difficult to imagine an angel without wings! I will open the vortex for you. But before leaving me, I want to give you a gift. Ask me anything.”
“Anything! Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I am. I promise.

“Actually, you are right, I may not stand the thought of final goodbye for long. When my soul is completely broken, I want you to break my body too. I know you have the power to drain the immortality of Traths.”
“But…”
“You gave your word! Promise me that when I am completely broke and hopeless, you will release me of that pain.”
“I promise” were the last words of the protector before releasing the door of the vortex and Resyah was sucked into it.

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Far beyond the worlds, or above, as you see it, there was a kingdom called Trath. Time was born there and the Universes were created and protected by its kings. Royals of the Trath were immortal. They grow into their youth and then they stay the same forever. As a result, an oath was taken that whenever the next of kin come of age, the present king would pass his crown and responsibilities to their heir and take the permanent responsibilities of guarding any seven Universes of their choice. The first king, Shyaka, was elected as the punisher of the kings, to ensure that nothing goes wrong and the second king, Neghas was elected as a master of time and protector of the vortex to guide the royals regarding time travel. Soul of every king and queen is bonded to the vortex and they can travel through time for 21 times after which the bond would be broken. After a thousand kings ruled the kingdom, came the era of Resyah, the first woman to rule the Trath.

Resyah, the next to be queen, was the princess of Trath, the most beautiful woman that universe had ever seen. With a sensuous smile and piercing eyes, she was the heart throb of the seven worlds and beyond. Every time she rode a horse, her hair flew like a lion’s mane and her grace stole the dreams of many. Her fieriness was a strong competitor to her beauty. But the clear winner was her kind hearted nature. She used to dine with the peasants and play with the orphan children. In the times when untouchability was growing into a monster, she used to hug the grieving homeless to comfort them. This made her a very popular figure among the poor but the committee of thousand, especially Shyaka, gradually grew hatred towards her for spoiling the royal traditions. They were waiting for the right opportunity to strike and a great opportunity knocked their door.

Into the first year of her rule, an epidemic broke in the eastern part of the kingdom and within no time, people were dying everywhere. A remedy was found by the royal doctor to stop the disease from spreading further but no one were ready to go to the diseased place as they knew that the medicine would not work on the unique body structure of westerners. There was no other choice, but to send the army of westerners because the remedy needs to be spread as quickly as possible to avoid the genocide and only capable people left to do it were westerners. The thousand kings refused to step into the land of the poor and Resyah had no other choice, but to send in the army. She led the army into doom, but she survived as she was immortal. Thousands of soldiers were dead, but saved an entire race of millions. But the wives of soldiers were unhappy. They pleaded Shyaka to give them justice by cursing her with pain and tragedy. Shayaka was more than happy to give them ‘justice’. He banished Resyah and cursed her,

 “You have taken away the love of so many women. You shall experience the pain which is infinite times to this. In a faraway universe, there is a place which is so rotten that people living there are filled with nothing but jealousy, apathy and carelessness. You shall be reborn into this most dreadful place, called Earth and live a normal life. You shall fall in love with someone and love him more than your life. After he dies, you shall regain your powers and memories of your present life and stay at the gates of the vortex forever, with those thoughts causing you pain of hell!”

….and that ended the shortest era of the history of Trath!

____________________________________________________________________

Commence of the Spring,
Year 2011.

Results were out and Reah was disappointed by her result as she couldn’t make it count. Her best friend, Pradyu made it through and she was happy for him. She decided to give it another try and he was with her. Despite the new busy life, he made her goals as his dreams and her dreams as his realities. They had many memories, some sweet, some silly, but they cherished each one of them. She cleared the exam in the next chance and rather than being grateful, she felt something else. He too felt something more than just being responsible. In every single thing, they trusted each other more than themselves. There was no particular starting point, but they eventually were spell bounded by inseparable love. There never is a starting point for true love. Things just go on. It may have been the power of their love or cruelty of hatred of Shyaka, they have never been separated from each other for the rest of their lives, until he passed away at the age of 105. As soon as he left that world, Reah

once again regained her memories and immortality and was taken back to the gates of the vortex as Resyah!

She was so deep in love with the human that she opted to travel back in time to live her life with him again. Each time she travelled through time, it would take 540 years for the vortex to bind with the same person again and every time, she waited all the 540 years, with his memories. And after that, she did the same over and over again until there was only one chance left and she embarked on the journey, one final time.

There was an unbearable pain. Around 10,000 years of waiting and 2000 years of love, came to an end. She was dragged back to the vortex and this time she couldn’t see anything or anyone except infinite darkness. Memories of their incredible love rolled over and over again until she almost lost her hope. But every time she was on the verge of losing her hope, the fragile memories made her stick along for a little more. Centuries passed by and on the other side of the door, Neghas was waiting for her to lose her last ray of hope so that he could relieve her from the pain but she didn’t lose hope for several millennia. Those fragile memories were faded out and suddenly, at the corner of her eye, she saw a ray of light. She remembered the promise Neghas made to her and was ready to accept her end. She closed her eyes with a smile to embrace her death but also wondered whether there was any chance of that light, to be coming from the opening of vortex!

SERENDIPITY

21^st September 2011:

One year into my useless engineering life and two days into my disappointing birthday celebrations, the only reason I agreed to go along with my friends, to an event which I had no interest in, is the love I had towards the society IBS. I did not even know the names of the hosts and hoped for the event to end as quickly as possible. As the tradition goes, hosts were late by fifteen minutes and the audience, by forty! Inside the venue room, noise was more irritating than the logics in Fast n Furious and the chaos was more overwhelming than the mindless Transformers action sequences. Amidst the chaos, something struck my eye, something prettier than beautiful, something more magical than enchantment, something more divine than heaven. My stupid mind did not exactly capture the unknown before it got lost amidst the confusion. Slowly, people began to turn the chaos into personal conversations and I was busy in discussing my situation with my friends. Suddenly, a girl shouted at the top of her voice, asking everyone to be quiet. Struck by surprise, I turned towards the dais and that was the moment when my heart skipped a beat, or two! The alluring stature of the angel in front of my eyes, made everything flash in my mind, about the incident which happened a few seconds ago. It was her smile! A gracious smile, which then turned into the flames of anger. No one dared to speak after that. By the expressions of the people around me, I guessed that the event must have been going well. I could not judge it myself as I was completely in another world. It seemed like my broken life had been put on a ventilator of love and it was breathing again! Just as you go into a state of limbo when put on ventilators, my mind too was chasing the never ending horizon. Before I knew, the event was over and I was snapped back to reality. I congratulated her for the success of the event, in facebook. After a painful year, my heart smiled together with my lips, for the first time. I opened the diary, blew off the dust and here I am! By the way, I got to know from my friends, her name was Lekhya.

October 22, 2011:

I was almost sure that she was never going to talk to me after what I did today! It has been almost a month since I saw her for the first time and it has been exactly one year since the girl I loved in my high school rejected me and abandoned me. Pain was fighting hard with the bliss and that war grounded my self-confidence. Because of that, I did not talk to Lekhya even once! It took me 28 days and the occasion of her birthday to gain enough confidence to talk to her and once I decided to wish her, I wanted to be the first one to do so. I felt that it was a big mistake, because manipulating situation to get a girl’s number is one thing, but calling her at the stroke of midnight and freaking her out is just crossing the line. I got her number after going through various college databases and called her exactly at 00:00.

“Hey, this is Abhi.”

“Umm, who?”

“We met at your event. We chatted that day in fb, remember?”

“Yeah, of course! How did you get my number?”

“Not important! Happy birthday.”

“Thank you” she giggled.

“Hope you are not angry with me.”

“No, it’s okay. Thank you for wishing me and listen, I got to go. My friends planned a party.”

First, I was surprised by her cool reaction. And also, that was the moment I realized that I did not know anything about the girl, except that she has the most glorious eyes and she has got divine aura surrounding her! My first love, Maya was my best friend. I fell in love with Maya after I loved every single detail about her- both her perfections and imperfections. But this time, I fell in love without knowing anything about Lekhya. I thought that it was destined to happen so. Second, I felt that she did cut the phone intentionally and would avoid me from then on. Is it going to be an eternal love or dumb infatuation? Only the future could decide how the life unfolds for me.

October 22,2014:

It is really funny how life decides what’s right for you. Having said that, it is amazingly right every time, besides being funny! Life is a survivor- a really good one. It does whatever it can to optimize its happiness. It has been three years since I first talked to her and now, things wouldn’t have more perfect than it is today! These three years have been a roller coaster ride. There were ups, there were downs, but at every single turn, it was fun! After that day, she behaved normally and I was surprised by her selfless and down to earth attitude. My feelings towards her stayed for some more days, but with time, I realized that those feelings were because of the rebound phase I was going through. Once I came out of it, I realized that it was all a mistake, but not a bad time. I earned a friend in the process. It was serendipity. In the due course of time, we became best of friends and no matter the huge number of miles between us, it feels special to have someone who is your friend for selfless reasons and you are there for each other when needed!

THE SALSA ~ FOREVER

FOR THE FIRST PART, CLICK HERE – SALSA: DIVINE RHYTHM

“When you have someone who walks with you through all the phases of life, even the slight stumble in your walk resembles a great dance of love.” ~Sitaramasastri

“You have to let go of her. You barely have any money left and you heard what the doctor said! There’s less than 10% probability for the operation to be a success and even if it does, it would recur in less than an year.”

“An year? I would spend everything even if gives me just one one more day with her. You are talking about a whole year!”

“Dad! Trust me. I love her more than you do and I would miss her more than you ever did. But there’s a limit to everything. You have already put all your savings into the medical expenses and now you want to auction your awards and mementos? Isn’t that stepping over the line?”

After struggling a bit with my half working left hand, I finally wheeled my wheelchair towards the wall where all the photo frames were hung.

“You think you love her more than I do?” I asked with a smile, “Then you have no idea of what she means to me and of the extent I would go to save her.”

“Whatever! If you don’t value your memories and are determined to sell your mementos, I have got nothing more to say to you. You just are out of your mind. Mom would hate you for this. She would’ve wanted you to keep the mementos.”

My Shalini! Hating me! How silly does it sound. Our beautiful memories are our shadows, preserved safely in the depths of mementos. But Shalini is my soul. I don’t mind losing my shadow to breathe life into my soul. I knew that Shalini would understand me.

“Son, I have made my decision. Your arguments would only prolong the waiting time but definitely would not affect my decisions.”

“Then you are for yourself dad. Don’t expect me to take this insane step with you. Good bye.”

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I appreciated the really good work my old heart did in holding strong in the moments of high stress and tension. I had sold all my mementos and got just enough money to pay for the surgery. Those 4 hours of the surgery were the most painful and heartbreaking moments for me. After almost two hours, I saw someone standing at the corner down the hallway and tried to figure out who it was and started moving towards that direction.

“Abhi?” I was shocked to see him standing there and watching the doors of operation theatre like some stalker.

“I’m sorry dad. I behaved too rudely with you. You know me, I can’t control my emotions!”

“It’s okay Abhi.”

“If you don’t want me here, I understand. I can leave.”

“I dont know what I want Abhi. But, I need you! I can’t handle this alone.”

“You don’t have to, dad. I’m here with you. I won’t leave you ever.”

Abhi helped me shift to the chair in front of operation theatre and he took a seat beside me. There was an awkward silence between us for five whole minutes and then he spoke, “Dad, please tell me your love story.”

“Mom had told you that, at least a hundred times.”

“And I want to listen to it one more time. It’s just the best! And this time, for a change, you would be telling the story. So, it is special.”

“I’m not in a mood Abhi. I can’t” I said sternly.

“Hmm, do you think that I love mom more than you do?”

“Not a chance!”

“How can you be so confident. You don’t know how much I love her”

“And you know how much I love her!”

“But you proposed within one month of meeting her! How did you decide that she’s your soul mate, after such a short time!”

“And I love you from the moment I first took you into my hands. How is that not a surprise? Besides, I did not decide that she’s my soul-mate. I felt it. Same with your case”

“Felt it? That happens only in fairy tales. I believe our life is built up on the decisions we make, not the feelings we trust.”

“You’ll not understand now Abhi. It might take you years to understand it. Actually, it might have taken years for me to understand my feelings towards her. But I was lucky! Actually, you don’t need years of trust to love someone. All you need is one single moment where you close your eyes, look into your soul and feel the need to mark your life with the footprints of her thoughts!”

“Hold on dad! This talk is getting too filmy for me to handle. When mom wakes up and gives you a good scolding for selling her favorite mementos, you’ll understand.”

That was the moment we realized that we forgot about Shalini’s operation. Snapping out from the conversation mode, Abhi raced towards the door to ask the doctor about the proceedings. He came back and hugged me with tears of happiness flowing through his eyes.

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FEW DAYS LATER:

It was fifth stroll in four days. She was assisting the wheelchair and was helping me to help her take a stroll as the doctor suggested. We almost completed three fourths of the walk when the dark clouds started conquering the otherwise pleasant skies. Soon, it started raining heavily and we took cover under an abandoned bus shelter. Three hours passed by and still there were no signs of a clear sky.

“So, you would still not talk to me?” I finally broke the silence for the day.

She looked away, uninterested in my words.

I couldn’t hold it any longer. “Do you hate me?” I said as my voice trembled and tears filled my eyes.

She held my hand, wiped my tears and finally said, “I didn’t ever want to see tears in your eyes. Every day in the hospital, I dreamt of you being happy looking at the mementos we earned. You lost your leg in the path of earning those. How could you sell those?”

“Because if I hadn’t, I knew I would lose my soul. Losing my leg has caused me enough pain and I couldn’t afford losing my soul! It would have shattered me.”

“But what about the promise you made? You said you would always keep the memories of our last dance with you! How could you break that promise?”

“I remember the promise Shalini. And I did not break it.”

She looked at me, confused.

“How would I break my promise if there is no last dance?”

“What, no!” she exclaimed, reading my intentions.

I tightened my grip on her hands and dragged her into the rain. She knew there’s no stopping me. For the people looking at us, we were just some insane old couple, holding hands and swaying around in rain. But for us, it was the salsa! Once again, we danced. This time, to the music of nature.