Understand

We were among a spiritual crowd who had assembled to witness a discourse by an eminent Vaishnavite personality. I have listened to him several times before. His voice is mystical. One tends to surrender all the senses when he starts speaking about God. This time he was discussing about devout disciples of Vaishnavism. My friend - an extremely spiritual guy and I, did not get a place to sit as we were late to the discourse. Somehow we could make it up to the passage and held the bars on the gate and got a view of the speaker in the temple hall. As usual I was flounced by his flooding speech. But hanging on the bars tested our physical ability and was making it uncomfortable to stay on. So I decided to move my body once in a while to get adjusted and made sure I do not show the discomfort on my face. While turning my head I spotted a tiny girl sitting next to an old lady. It was very brief and I could only register the color of her dress in my mind, shades of green and red. The next time I turned towards her was not my effort. This time I fixed my eyes on her. I did not bother about people observing me looking at her. Even if they did, I was sure that they would have seen my struggle to listen to the discourse and thought they would spare me, irrespective of where I was looking at. All the more I thought they were amidst the storm of the discourse and could not have noticed me doing this.
Her eyes, if I describe in my tattered words, would not be reasonable. Half open and outlined in black. May be she was also a victim of Krishna Kama (immersed in love with God), the flow of the discourse suggested. Only my ears were lent to the discourse and my eyes and thoughts fixed at her. Like a spiritual cherub, she had a straight long teeka on her forehead, neatly divided hairstyle, her slender neck, pink lips and as an obedient kid sitting next to her grandma. My mind’s eye went beyond this. I imagined her to be the Krishna with peacock feathers on her head. Whenever she smiled she looked like the actress Sridevi of the movie Krishna Leela. Her eyes I imagined to be that of Meera, as depicted on the posters. I felt like splitting the crowd to reach her and sit next to her and enjoy the discourse, for this I thought I had to impress her grandma first. I also waited for her to look at me once and understand that I was ogling at her. An hour passed by, I could not do anything beyond being in awe. Everything there was still and so were my eyes and ears.
The discourse was over and the crowed disbursed. She also disappeared without leaving any trace behind.
Her eyes and smile constantly reminded me of her and I was feeling restless. I was also feeling the guilt of emancipating my senses to samanya Kama (unwarranted lust). I felt the very purpose of attending the discourse was to elevate ourselves, to control our senses that disturb us, but in vain. I felt ashamed of myself. I recalled, when we started for the discourse, I shared my thoughts with my friend about the greatness of the speaker. I had then told him how his discourses cease our senses to spirituality and doesn’t let it go beyond God. Now my mind started asking questions. What will my friend think of me if I talk to him about this girl? He would be thinking so shoddy of my self-control. He is so spiritual. All said and done my mind could not forget that beautiful sight. I made up my mind to tell him. In a very low voice I uttered, ‘did u see,mmmm…..there was a girl sitting there among the crowd’, he without more ado said ‘ya, the girl in green skirt and red half sari?’

And that’s the world for you folks