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 Mystic And The Blossoms
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Ashok Malhotra
"I am reminded of the time I was with my teacher in the Himalayas - A Precious soul by the name of Silver Baba. He was a famous man and for a few months every summer when the melting snows would unblock the pathways to his abode he received visitors that arrived from all across the globe. One day, an attractive and beautiful lady arrived from a place called New York in America. She was from another town, yes, it was Boston but maintained an apartment in the heart of the capital of the modern world - New York. She had a woeful tale of her own. She had a desperate need - love. She explained to Silver Baba that she would willingly trade much of her abundant wealth if she could but find true love. It was something that had evaded her all her life. She had worked hard to find it. What lengths she had gone to - she even had the skin on her face stretched twice and her chest pumped up with sand plastics so that it was twice the size nature intended it to be and so tight it hurt. She starved herself twice a year so that she was just as slim as she was when she was sixteen and with a carefully designed regimen of exercise had rounded other parts so that they were as round as the watermelons one finds in the early summers of Baghdad.
"She had seven different conditioners for her hair one for every day of the week, four different facial creams and several more for the rest of her body. Her eyebrows had been pinched and pulled at so that they were like the finest of lines on an artist’s canvas and all her teeth were capped so that they shone like the pearls of Arabia.
"She had every little bauble, trinket and accessory that a lovely lady finds necessary to have, some of it just as fine as those possessed by Queens Cleopatra and Neferetiti. She possessed an assortment of perfumes, paints and powders. She had even attended numerous courses in manners and charm so that her voice was now as sweet as that of a sparrow and her walk more elegant than a field of tulips that ever swayed in the spring breeze of Holland.
"Yet for all this, all she could ensure was that she could merely have the intimate company of any man of her choosing that ever graced the cab crossed streets of Manhattan or cheered and tended the soap-operatic bars of Boston. But, this thing called love it still eluded her. Whereupon she made this long and difficult journey, on the recommendations of a friend, to the very ends of this earth. She had come all this way so that Silver Baba might supply her with a magic charm, formula or device so that she may attain what she sought for and needed so desperately.
"Whereupon, Silver Baba took a ring off his finger, a most beautiful ring studded with moonstones, emeralds and rubies and blew upon it thrice so that it might be charged with the power of love saying with a gentle smile and a twinkle in his eyes, "take this my dear, it shall help you attain what you seek but I must warn you its magical charge tends to dissipate rather quickly and there is but one way to keep it charged. As you wear it and make the rounds of the clubs and charities that you are a member of, find people to shower your love upon - your care, attention and consideration - so that the magic ring may ever throb with its magical charge.
"You mean if I have to be loved I must learn to love others first?" she enquired.
"Yes, that is exactly what I mean."
"Then I suppose this ring is not quite necessary."
"Keep it, my dear, as a token of my affection. It shall remind you that you must do for others as you would have them do for you," he said."
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December
2004
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ashok Malhotra has been a Professor of Engineering. He holds a doctoral degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada. This is an excerpt from his first Novella. Presently he lives in
Jaipur, India
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