Silence of the Crows

Like children in school disciplined by the strict rules, we went through the many decades old Aurobindo Ashram’s main entrance ducking our heads, finger on our lips. There was a winding path dotted with meticulously arranged flower pots and a 20 feet cactus which somehow managed to still have most of its limbs or thorns was it? withstanding the recent storm that blew over the city leaving a mark on virtually every tree and billboard in the city. The cactus seemed like an unlikely victor.

Unlikely was the stalk silence as we went deeper and deeper into the winding path. There were cranky old but alert men at every turn, guiding the line firmly but silently almost like those line men in a tennis match, waiting to raise their hand at the slightest hint of the ball skipping the line. There was no scope for a John McEnro here.  

As we walked further to the tomb at the center of the portico, I saw a giggle, almost a muffled laughter desperately held on by the lips pressing each other as if in disagreement with the smiling cheeks which tried to stretch and pull them apart. The boy moving the flower pots was amused and looked like someone playing a prank on all of us.

But what prank could this be?

The tomb was big enough to fit in at least 4 burials of mortals … but these were no mortals … they were the Aurobindos. Few had the unique technique to pray on the tomb … kneel down, arms stretched and head down. Should I do the same or just stand and fold arms? I glanced at the line men, they didn’t seem concerned. I folded my arms and moved on. As we looked for a place under the tentacles of the old tree covering the entire portico, its branches held on by cement columns, visibly losing out to the sturdy cactus in the recent storm contest, we waded through the not so silent gaze of the devotees and tourists alike who had already taken up their spot in the shade.

Unlike the silence when you dip your head in water, this was more like an absence of just one particular kind of sound … that was that of the human voice. The crow’s ka ka, the old man’s slippers rubbing against the floor while walking, the sound of a utensil tumble and a distant horn of a car were all but saturating the air to make it interesting enough and to not miss the human voice.

There is something with silence that makes us want to relax or be suddenly willing to close our eyes and try not to think. We did just that. Tracked our breath to the last muscle movement in our abdomen and chest cavity to squinting our closed eyes as if to see something sitting on our noses, all the while listening to the silence around us.

A few moments past, the thoughts returned asking if it was long enough of squinting? Are others sitting next to you still relaxing? Is the crow above me trying to relieve itself? Relenting to these thoughts, I opened my eyes.

The tall lanky European girl sitting in front of me, had tucked under her, a semi circular black air pillow like thing which made her tall frame even taller while sitting. Is this her way of reaching higher consciousness?  The pillow had written on it “Mobile Meditator”.

I concurred, the body and mind relax in many surprising ways.