The Beauty Of Acceptance

On the fuzzy, confused, dizzy and noisy Delhi roads, like puppets ,we walk, drive and live. We don’t know if we are following a routine or is it just what we are. Nah ! Neither of them is the answer. Hunger. Hunger,being the only rich factor treats us like puppets. We all run to achieve something, doesn’t matter if we really want to. I, being one of us, am the same. I am also in the race of filling out my hunger. For that I too travel in this city, sometimes comfortably and sometimes in the metros. But I am never satisfied with what I have. I had never accepted the reality until I had observed this  and when I did, I changed. Yes.

One day, on the busy roads sitting comfortably, a jerk suddenly wakes me up. Dad had  suddenly stopped the car. Anyway, I woke up and to know the reason of this unmeant disruption I looked around. It was a traffic light. . The traffic lights that stopped us were under the flyover bridge, whose pillars were huge. Unlike other days, this day was different. On one of the pillars, I saw a man. He was dressed in a saffron cloth had a dark long beard. He was very skinny and sat in a meditating posture. He did not move at all, just stared at the road’s horizon. At first, I wondered what he was looking at but then it was clear that he was in deep trance and the loud unnecessary honking did not affect him at all. Before I could draw more conjectures just by looking at him, the lights turned green and we were in the race of hunger again ! I almost forgot him.

The next week again, when me and my Dad went on the same route, I eagerly waited to see him and how he was. To my surprise  he wasn’t a usual beggar or a homeless freak ! He was in the same yoga posture  in deep trance meditating to find answers of his existence. Maybe. He looked calm and composed. The usual beggars would knock at the car’s windows or few salesmen would do the same at every traffic light but this man was different. I was intrigued but scared.

Thoughts did not stop. They kept coming maybe because I was clueless of his identity. Days and weeks passed and I continued to notice him. The only thing that changed was his physique, he grew thinner and thinner. Possible conclusion : He wasn’t eating. The next time, I was determined to talk to this person to know how he was so calm even at the crucial stoppage between the hunger race ? Who was he ? Why was he there dressed like a sage ? Did he actually meditate? What was his purpose ?

But, that day, The honking was the same, the knock on the window was the same , the pillars were strong but those mysterious lost eyes were missing. The man wasn’t there anymore. I tried to look around. Although the shining sun kept my eyes busy fighting it but the curiousness drove me to look around again and again. All I found were endless rows of cars and people  !

I waited till the next week but he wasn’t there. Since then weeks and months have passed but that man is never seen there. Just as he had accepted the hunger race around him and still stayed calm, I accepted his absence. He was a stranger, a mystery for me but he taught me “acceptance”. Something that we don’t have. That is what I call “The Beauty Of Acceptance.”

Till the next time, Keep Observing because India is full of people and you have eyes to notice them.

Medhavi.