Part – II

Ire of gods and sorrow of souls

Section 3: Sorrowful souls

Moan under a lid

Parting gift

Sunglow met me in Ankara during 1996; she was a young widow in grief   with a child of five. He was Augandh, as I called him, meaning fragrance of Aum. She had sent me a little earthen pot with a lid when we parted away in summer ’98.   Her little earthen pot with a lid is in the showcase of my drawing room since 1999.

Beautiful Sunglow did not disappear from my thoughts to let my mind have peace after forgetting a sobbing lady in the grief of a past life. It was due to her parting gift of pot with a message –‘search my pain and give me peace if you can.’ It pricked into my eye once or twice in a week, and reminded me that I could not decipher her pathetic message as yet. It is there since July ’99, and the years passed one after the other till 2007 was also almost over with only a few more days to go. A painful self of mine with an aching heart and depressed mind was essential to read her message of suffering preserved in her psyche of Egypt for 3300 years.

A scene of required pathos was before me when I was entering Main Street from a side lane on December 22 ‘07. An elderly lady in sixties was standing with her spastic son in thirties waiting for a conveyance to go somewhere. I stopped my car and picked them up for their destination. The old lady was moved when the two were out of my vehicle. Before me was a future tragedy. A struggling mother was to die soon; and, her son too was to meet the same fate when none was to attend him after mother. Pain of drama in real life entered my heart without barriers. I was stirred and in grief, recounting the wording of a Hindi film song of fifties “Borrow pain from some one if you can”. Words of the song were stubborn; they kept echoing in my head whole day and were not ready to leave me when I stretched myself on the bed late at night on December 22, ‘07.

On the bed, the song drove me to a far off destination – Dubai airport. I was sitting at the airport morose, hit by the present life disaster of Sunglow at Ankara, but also after soaking   more intense agony of the female from a similar tragedy in my own association with her in an unknown past.

Unfinished chapter of Sunglow opened up once again on the near full moon and longest night of the year – December 22, 2007, 11 years after my short transit at Dubai.

 I was trying to fit in the jigsaw puzzle, the events and pain in the life of Nefertiti – queen of Pharaoh Akhenaton, 3300 years ago. That Nefertiti and Sunglow are the same soul, I knew since 1997; and, I had a hunch: the spherical earthen pot with a covered lid and never ending radiation of pain is from Nefertiti, gifted to me by the hand of Sunglow in the present life. It was only to convey the pain of the queen of Pharaoh with a message. I was ignorant about some thing while neglecting one time beloved queen dying sobbing “But I love you.”

 Unless I tear out the dark in the pot after lifting the lid, I will never know the pain of beloved queen of Akhenaton. She remains buried in the darkness of earth, unable to communicate her real agonizing condition at death.  Her painful thoughts are half dead by now; and, they are her dear companion under the lonesome wrapping of her earthly darkness.

I felt like going to the roof-top and lifting the lid of the little earthen pot under full moon of the longest night of 2007 to see  in the flooding dense white light of moon the tragedy behind the death of a moaning Nefertiti sobbing “But I love you.”

 Psyche of Nefertiti has remained lying in dark with groan of her spirit charging it with melancholic verses to be told to none and to be shared by none. A moaning queen has remained like this for 3300 years with a message flowing out of the earthen pot ‘search my pain and give me peace if you can.’

 There was no need to go on the roof in the coldest night of the year, however. My heart was aching and mind visualizing what went wrong with the queen. I have been a sculptor myself in past lives, and understanding about the tragedy of Devashramana was quite fresh in my mind. By now it was also clear that the fair lady was and continues to remain a victim of the dark goddess Swati who played a leading role in the death of most beautiful queen crying in silence without voice.

Message of the earthen pot relating to problems of the past life of Sunglow and their solution in the present were available in a heart filled with sorrow.