Light, Shadow, and Darkness....

Ever been to a graveyard?

o.k..o.k...Know all of you have been...
let me modify the question with a hint of light..

Ever been to a graveyard at night?
contemplating the darkness..the cold breeze, smelling incense..shadows of fear, mingled with a presence of something supernatural...?

Last few days I was thinking and planning to make a post..but it never came..leaving me frustrated and angry to myself..There was subjects..of love, of friendship and so on..but when the time came to pour it down, everything evaded me in a fraction of time, molding me as an abandoned soul, wandering through the blogs..

Today, the desperation was overwhelming, and nothing was there in my mind.Surfed as usual, in between I had glimpses of fleeting images through my mind..but still nothing specific to hold on..
Went to the porch with a cigarette and lay on the bike, staring at the sky..slowly a sober mood was descending over me.. a feeling of loneliness in the vast space that surrounds me ..
The first image came to my mind, when back in front of the computer, was of a night I spent in a graveyard last year..

Don't ever think I was alone..Am I that daring? ..:) It was along with a friend with whom I had this habit of fooling around in the evening, when am at home on leave.Am leaving out the circumstances and the conversation details which made us end up in a cemetery.It's the parish cemetery in my village.We reached there by 10.30 in the night, and took our 'respective thrones' over two tombs.

Hmmm.....Before you proceed further, let me remind you that this is neither a horror story nor an adventure..It's a contemplative recollection of a particular mood and feeling,where you have this presence of a Being, along with a void in your ego. hope you got what I mean...

We had a little chat for few minutes over the swirling smoke of our cigarettes.Slowly, we descended in to the shell of silence, as the cigarette's burned out. I looked around and saw different kinds of tombs(It was a well moon lit night)....ordinary common tombs with plain concrete, expensive and decorated ones, and barrows in a corner....!To proclaim the economical status of each on the doom day...and I wondered how my grave or barrow would look like..and where exactly it will be..it has to be in this same cemetery..( If only my mischievous mind didn't play on me still time:) I laughed at the image of the judgment day, where everybody carrying their own tombs on their shoulder..inevitably, who ever carrying less weight will be upfront for the selection... !

I remembered an incident..I was walking towards my office in the morning at Chennai..I saw two school girls,around 14-15 years of age, away in front of me, and a very poor elderly woman asked them what the time is. Man, I don't remember anywhere I had seen the contempt as bare as I saw on those girls faces..It was unthinkable for them to speak to that woman..'cause she looked pathetic, poor and old.So is our budding generation..!The most devastating aspect of this is that we can't even blame them..For, We all must be blamed...! I was , say, amused to see how the social hierarchy behaves..and how it reaches the graveyard...I wish, for these to be the exceptional cases...

Paulo Coelho, the Brazilian writer describes a 'Buried Alive Exercise' in his novel "Pilgrimage".It's a meditation of being buried when you are alive in the coffin. The emotional spectrum of such a moment...!It's amazing..!It's the moment of Truth..and I tried to evoke that meditative mood..The fear, the drumming sound of your own heart in your ear..and finally the dawn of the darkness..!
When I opened my eyes, I felt an extreme calmness around me..the breeze flows like a soothing lullaby..I felt as I was laying in my mothers lap...the drops may not had been of sorrow..right..?

Really, the time was heartening..Could feel my ego melts..and the helplessness told me what actually am..

We had a light talk again..shared few jokes between us and with the souls around...We started back around 2 a.m... Collecting all the pebbles of silence in our swollen heart...

So, there ends the tale of 'grave wines' and am off to the bed for a beautiful tomorrow....
have a good day...

S.J
Debitum Naturae.