June 1, 2011...
Creativity flows, emotion flows, knowledge and information flows- our journey in time and history has embedded water in civilizations, in languages and cultures.
A, hopefully, end summer morning: the clouds have been floating towards South east for the last couple of days; monsoon is eagerly awaited. The nights are becoming motionless and sultry. Yet the Sun is blazing through the day and the first touch of water on my face was no less than heavenly bliss. Just a couple of weeks back, around this time in the morning, we would hurriedly complete our morning wash in freezing cold water of the Tirthan river. Away from the city comforts, surrounded by snow peaks and the moderately dense forest of Great Himalayan National Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Himalayan_National_Park), the touch of cold water felt like blessings.
Water is not just our existence, a resource to be utilized for our gain, comfort and advance in time; but it is our collective conscience, collective memory. The characters that swirl in the numerous eddy of a river tower above the history of kings; Gautam Buddha, Mozes, Rabindranath and Baba Amte. Each one of them has been conceived by a river, in their journey seeking truth and communique to society. Beauty of a river has carved their personalities, their inner and outer features, standing out tall.
River triggers an imagination that stretches across mountains and continents, across political and communal boundaries. The beauty flows from description to imagination and beyond; assumes the form of the supreme, guiding us through the universe. Our culture emerges out of water glistening in the light of evening Aaratis, in the ghats and pukurs dotting our world, connected with flow above our heads, and beneath the ground.
An old farmer's eyes scan the limitlessness of merciless sun, across the sky, seeking and longing for any sign of the first drops- to recreate the life that paused by the absence of it.
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