The traffic starts diminishing as i start walking away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Gradually shops and homes start looking less lavish and i see more children playing in the streets.
Then the mesh of roads and streets vanishes and i find myself walking beside the weather beaten rail-track that reminds me of the British rule in the subcontinent. This track was laid by the British to connect far flung parts of “The Golden Sparrow” to ensure constant supply of food in the times of peace and the soldiers to fight for the crown in the times of war.
The decades old track swirls around the rocks and hills – bridges upon the chasms and tunnels through the mountains where the options to route it through an alternate path are limited or don’t exist altogether.
I try to walk upon this track like an acrobat with my arms wide open and my legs trying to balance my wait on the narrow carbon steel until the track takes me to the other side of a small river and from here i take a right turn to loose myself in the wilderness.
The yellow blossoms on the acacias, the white blooms on the shrubs and wild flowers welcome me here.
The wild red berries have started to ripen – i collect some of the fruit and fill it in my side pockets to eat them after giving them a cold water wash at the nearby stream. As i move ahead i see a proud dandelion – with its bright yellow petals – all set to say hello in an awesome demeanor. A worthwhile prize for anyone who leaves back a soft couch or a bed to visit him in the wild.
I go near him and bow my head down to pay homage to the little beauty. I am glad that the meeting with him was so deep that i didn’t even think of taking his picture. I was lost in his charms.
After that encounter I walk forth and come across some more plants and flowers that are still nameless in the book of my vocabulary. Still, i feel a connection with them. Being unfamiliar with their worldly names don’t disconnect me from them. For somehow i have got a connection with all the particles and atoms of this universe.
As bedil says,
na ba sahra sarey daaram, na ba gulzaar sodaye
be her ja mee ravam, az khesh me balid tamashaye
Neither i seek the solitude of deserts nor i am greedy for the colors of the world – however when i go to wilderness or visit a garden i see my reflection in the things that comprise that place.
I come across the doves which make a whistling sound when they suddenly flap their wings against their bodies to fly away. Every now and then they do so to perch upon another tree which appears relatively safer to them. The little bees are busy in collecting nectar and the beautiful butterflies are kind to the visitors for letting them look at their colorful wings from as near as any one can get to them.
These are a few things that i see and there are many things that i think about and feel while across this stretch of land. Sometimes when i get heavy with the loads of thoughts, i want to be a buffalo with a calm mind, walking behind the others of my kind with very few things to worry or care about.
I’ll conclude with a verse where Rumi writes a beautiful wish in one of his ghazals:
dar do chashme man nasheen – Ae Aan ke az man mantari
Come and stay in my eyes – You! who are more me than myself
Nature soothes and cures me. I feel myself ready to visit any place where i can have a profound conversation with the nature. As for some of us nature is the remedy for all our pains and problems.
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