WALKING ON THE CLOUDS





My colony friend, Vijay, had migrated to Bangaluru to take up a new job assignment starting from 1st of this month. Since his four-year-old son Shiva’s academic year is yet to end, Vijay’s wife and son would be joining him after the completion of this school-year.

While leaving for my Tai Chi class, this morning, I was delighted to see Vijay on his motor bike, with Shiva proudly sitting in front of his dad. It was Vijay’s first home-coming since his migration to Bangaluru…

“So Shiva, daddy has come… You are happy?” I ran my hand over little-fellow’s head.

The little head nodded with a huge blush on the face…

The daddy and the son were on their way for a hair-cut… I placed myself behind Vijay on the motor bike…

When I reached Tai Chi class, I was happy to see Kannan almost after 2-3 weeks. I knew that he was busy with his son’s migration to Australia to do Masters. Thus, I asked, “Kannan sir, son has gone?”

“Yes, he has gone,” Kannan replied.

“Missing him?”

Little Shiva is his parents’ only son… and Kannan’s young son, too, is the only son of his parents. In parting, if our hearts don’t feel the sorrow, I think, we are not being honest. “Goodnight, goodnight parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be tomorrow,” I was a 17-year-old boy when our English teacher was dramatizing this Romeo and Juliet lesson in our class…

Yes, paring is such sweet sorrow… If it is not, we are stones, not humans!

“When your son is old enough to wear your shoes,” Kannan reminded me, “he is your friend. I have been cool about his activities… The young kids, these days, are smart enough to find their way out in distant lands… We did not have to do much about our son’s migration except for arranging funds… He had done everything.”

Kannan’s son was confident about his parents. But, not his friend’s… “Appa, please talk to my friend’s  parents… They are still not able to overcome the (sweet) sorrow.”

“We cling on to our children and children cling on to us in return,” Kannan explained to me the phenomenon of finding peace in letting go, “I told my son’s parents, ‘Look, our sons have just gone to Melbourne to study and not to Kargil to fight a war… Relax.”

I remembered our Tai Chi teacher’s statement on the camp night at Lonavala, three weeks ago. “Relax… drop your shoulders… feel the freedom… feel the lightness… as if you are walking on the clouds!”

I remember pausing for a brief moment to allow that statement to soak well in my heart, that night!

“Too much of head-work keeps us heavy and imprisoned… Trusting our intuitive powers and trusting the all-merciful Universe alone can bring us that lightness of freedom from our concerns in life… We should trust more in our hearts and less in our heads…”

Kannan was telling me this story, once again, today…
“In his Theology exam, this little boy was asked to write an essay on ‘The Miracle at Cana’*. While the entire class could write long essays and complete the paper in time, this boy was found ‘lost’ in his thoughts with a blank paper before him. Just before the time had ended, he wrote this seven-word essay: ‘The water met its Master and blushed’!

The boy, who later became the famous Poet**, had won the first prize for his one-of-a-kind essay!

The boy just had to walk on the clouds for turning his seven words into a masterpiece of an essay… just as the Master had to for turning jars of water into fine wine… All that Life needs for miracles to happen is: the ‘element’ to meet its ‘Master’…

It was little Shiva’s blush, this morning… and, it was the Kannan’s enchanting story in our Tai Chi class  that have made me, too, ‘blush’… yes, here in this Post!

* There are many versions about the identity of this poet… Lord Byron, Alexander Pope, Milton, Richard Crashaw and so on.
** It was the first miracle Jesus had performed after He had started His active spiritual journey… At a wedding in the village of Cana, when the hosts were tensed as wine had gone out of stock, Jesus had converted huge jars of water into delicious wine.

GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic.: Dr. Odd/Internet



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