This entry was never to be. I thought my blog was just a means of keeping friends in touch with the walk. It was great fun writing it and I really looked forward to the act of getting up before anyone was up, to bang away at the laptop with all the ideas accumulated during the day. When the walk ended it was meant to fold up but so many people ask me what were the lessons of the walk that I am forced to think of what the walk taught me- if anything at all.
So here I am writing a blog entry I hope no one ever reads-it’s too personal, its too complicated and there are bound to be loose ends all over- It is about where the last one ended – with me having traversed the journey to Ajmer and at the end of the post making the grand declaration that “the inner journey would now begin” .
Honestly like all others like me who are the standard of the “thinking people” in today’s world I said it for forms sake- because it sounded real nice and gave me a kind of mental edge marking me out as the thinking walker- Like all these “thinking people” I am totally comfortable with form without content and can discuss people, places and things with the right dose of humor – and deliver my punch lines in the right way, but ask me to discuss ideas - particularly ideas that require original thought and I draw a blank! Hence I am probably writing this entry more for myself than for those that may chance upon and decide to read it.
I think the major lesson of the walk was that I knew what I wanted and did all that was necessary to achieve it- and did nothing else.. Had I started out to reach Ajmer and then kept going all over the roa- stopping at Neemrana , going off to Alwar to watch the tigers or deciding not to walk further till I had eaten all the stuff on the menu at Behror- would I have made it Ajmer ? or if I had started to lay the started practicing playing the clarinet to get there ? or if I had practiced walking, packed all the right stuff , got my logistics right but yet not decided where I wanted to go ?
We could all work out the answers to this and yet this is what I have been doing – either not knowing what I wanted or playing the clarinet to learn to walk- and then ruing not reaching the places I wanted to go to.
This came to me not in an “ Ahaa “moment when I walked but it was the at the end of the thought process which started from the moment when on the way to Dudu the Captain stopped by the road to offer us butter milk-and when I cried as I walked away from him. I cried for the God in me I had forgotten all these years-I cried for all those that still believed in love, God, truth , honor, the value of the word, doing the right thing and all such nonsense.. I cried for all those simple clods the world takes for fools and tramples upon as it goes about its daily business-I cried for the simple guy who once believed that the Lion would never eat Androcles because Androcles had done the right thing by the lion- I cried for all the Androcles’ lions eat all over the world for a post breakfast snack- and I Saw myself- Androcles standing in the middle of the arena secure in the knowledge that he had done the right thing and no lion would ever dream of eating him.
I will have to believe in all the simple things that make the real me and live by them since that clod is what I was and this is what I shall forever be and being him is the only way I will ever be at peace.
It will take courage being him – it will take effort on a massive scale- there will be much pain as the pit of the stomach tells me to run every time the lion comes out – but be him I will. I owe it to the Captain and to the remains of all the Androcles’ the lions ate .
I will of course need to work out what will make me Him but then that is a mater of detail- and as the walk has taught me – it is identifying the target that is important – the rest can follow.
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We can't all be lions...but we can try to be the best of what we're meant to be. :)
ReplyDeleteI guess it's not for the other Androcles whom the lions ate,that we stand for what is right - It's always an almost alien realization that everybody has about the truth of how life was meant to be! and you can almost see God jumping like a parent at the success of his three year old kid who won a relay race , that he jumps the same way when all of us individually and therefore later collectively take a stand of - first , doing what we individually think is right for our own selves and secondly , in that individualism of doing our own thing , simultaneously , realize that all of us have taken nothing but the RIGHT decisions collectively and individually as a coherent whole! "Right" that will not be subjective , "Right" that will not need different definitions for different individuals ! "Right" that will always be complete and only felt !
ReplyDeleteA few in this world have the opportunity of learning the true/timeless/holistic definition of "Right" and that too at a young age and I am just glad that i have a around me people who have poured their knowledge into mine!This walk has been an Amazing experience for all who walked , 3 steps , four or hundred !
Thank you for making us a part of this journey ! Thank you for letting us walk side by side ! Thank you for the 10 shade tan (seriously) Thank you for the Boils on my feet ! For the lessons that these have taught - well pedicured , fair complexioned would not !
Walkerman - To the walk to Leh next time !!!
Cheers !!!
Great conclusion. I truly loved reading about your journey and now your courage in finding out what the next steps shall be.
ReplyDeleteI don't know much about the Lion and his Androcles, but the larger the gap between the real and the unreal, the tougher the road tends to be. As one bridges that gap, we tend to shed tears of "going home". Most have many moments of that this "going home" experience, but most are too afraid of what they see. That too is part of the gap, we have to bridge.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful, so the journey has really just begun.. perhaps every moment, as it gives us newer insights, becomes the take off point for the next leg of the journey!