AUM SAINATH: ACCORD AT AN ORCHARD

In open spaces i did nothing, as it were, yet i found wondeful worlds swing open, inside. A spark was lit.One that lead me further and deeper into Nature-worship. As i communed with aleaf-tip, or listened-in to a bird sing a voice inside, re-affirmed" Cyrus, this is God.

This, is where to this moment i explore life-forms, with undiminished relish.Each, sojourn, through flower-fields, or pasture-glade brought something new. There were colours, textures and sequences that never came twice. Each became the first-time ever. This, child-like fascination i will always remember. The greater my travels, outwards, still deeper, i plumbed a parallel orchard inwards.

A strange, yet self-balancing accord.When 8-years-old, by dusk, i would head towards an other-worldly mango orchard in Mathura. There were other orchards, around. nevertheless, this one, held a special place in my heart. It had an inexplainable soul-ful-ness to it. A womb-like serenity pervades tgis orchard.'Suspension,' in a velvet limbo. Floating, in a universe so intense, it has a smell, colour and taste all its own. A secretive walk through a guava-grove, brings me, to this paradise. The trees were not tall. As marvellously, rounded.I walk waist-dep through ripening mustard. The pollen-rich flowers leave some yolk-yellow dust on my shirt. I select one tree.

The lush turquoise-green tinged mangoes dangle tantalizingly from some branches. The pervasive symphony of myriad mynas surrounds.For long i have loved, the heart-felt salutation that birds transmit as dusk descends. A sound, quite like no other. A melodious chirrup-chatter. I listen-in, rapt, as the birds commune.There is no formal prayer-book. Or, prayer-rug. Yet, all around deep-felt all-encompassing, prayer-notes. A million notes inter-mingle. Each, self-sutures into 'one' pervasive chord-strum. Innumerable song-birds must be half-hidden, within the enchanted orchard. The cherubic notes are woven-in to a sublime at-one-ness. I sense it a sacred confluence.

A re-merging of the many life-forms, around.Suddenly, from dep within those dark trees, sound-waves resonate. A soundless-sound. The grove is chanting the seed-syllable, AUM.Each, note embraces and twines around the other. They merge to settle as a single-sounding chime. One, that defies conscious discription. The supre-energy at this orchard is one i will never forget. Then before one can even know it, an unspeakable hush alights, silent, as a butterfly upon a flower. The orchard becomes, still. A force MORE alive i have seldom known. A single ;eaf-blade flutters to bring with it the scent of far-away fields.Reminding me of my own life-breath. Rejuvination, i witness unimpeded.

A deep accord bonds, mates me to the trees. Im able to sense the rise and fall of free-flowing sap in the tree-trunks.This is the only meditation that i have come to know.Throughout my school-days, during class, this orchard danced in my mind.During the ordeal of formal class i could intuit the sweet-breath of the ever-beckoning orchard. Salt-and-chilly neatly folded in my pocket. In advance. Night, suited me best. By day the orchard was well-guarded as Fort Knox. So, it seemed to me then. As i look back it was not so much to eat the mangoes, as to sense the magic that vibrated around that grove. One from asecret Never-Never land.As i lift the turquoise finely-meshed netting and enter a universe that i love.

The night pulsed its mystery. Everything shone with the bright luminous blue, of moon-light. It was as if there was fresh blue-paint on the tree-tops.In this blue-tinged landscape my soul wanders, as from another earth. And everything, seems, to fall in place. It is almost what you expected from the very beginning....

The taut darkening leaves, sough. With one eye on the farmer cob-thatched hut, i select the best mango. Under the immensity of a star-pricked sky the thrill of each bite to-die-for...THAT mango-taste re-returns with added intensity. Remains. Just as it was way back, then... A part of the orchard alive, in me. A part of me surely, hovers, there...

Cyrus Jehangir Sataravalla