Meeting Miss Maya

For a long time I thought that it was just Wordsworth’s “The Immortality Ode” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode:_Intimations_of_Immortality) and songs of Enigma did that to me. But I was wrong – there are specific words, phases, sights and sounds that make me shiver on the hottest of the days.

Like the phase “distant woods”, like the smell of melting ice, like the distant sound of drums, like the sight of moonlight touching the craggy rock mountains. The effect is not the same if “distant forest” replaces distant woods, if the smell is of the running water, if the sound of the drums is an octave louder or if the moon lights up the forest trail. After all one may argue as to what is the difference between the smell of melting ice and of a clear running stream. If you ask the real me, my answer is I have no clue – I might even laugh away the question or say that there is no difference. But if you ask the other me, she wills say that the 2 smells are as different as that of over wet leaves and the parched earth that is receiving water after a long time.

I often ask “who is the other me?” Is she just a flight of fancy of an over imaginative mind or is she for real. I fail miserably to answer that as well but for all I can tell she is very much real if not tangible. So I ask her who is she? At times she tells me that she is the snake that slithers on the dark forest floor and at other times she is the wolf that walks in the jungles of the night. Those answers look funny and scary at the same point in time so I probe her further but she does not answer. So I ask her if she is a tree…she says no. A lion (ess) – no. A dog (which is a distant cousin of the wolf) – no. A river? – No. A bird? She pauses and then says maybe an eagle. I get scared. Why is “she” choosing out some of the most dangerous species? To this she answers – because I am wild – not someone whom everyone can tame.

Who-so-ever she is, I must say it’s a pleasure to meet her, to be with her and to be her. Those moments come suddenly once in a while all of a sudden. They come without notice and without a care of my location. The sights sounds and words mentioned above are the aphrodisiacs that fuel this journey to her but I can meet her even without those. At such moments my senses are sharpened intensely for a few million seconds. I begin to see the shapes and colors around – as if I have just been born from a blind, deaf and dumb world. Symmetry reveals itself and I am lost in the beauty of the objects of daily use – a pen, a toothbrush, the suitcase. If I try I can hear no less than 4 -5 different sounds. Atleast 3-4 of them are from nearby – of the traffic, of people talking at a distance and that of the radio being played but then there is another subtle distant note. That which is not of this world. The sound of the universe- the sound of silence. There are no sounds or word to explain that one. But this orgasmic feeling slips away so lightly and quickly as if it wasn’t there at all. I look at the water jug, the pen and the toothbrush but don’t see a thing – attempts to see them as they were a few seconds ago make me feel like a fool. But “she” leaves her testimony behind – for I feel immensely drained out and more often than not I have the strong urge to fill up pages. Real pages with real ink…the laptop and typing simply doesn’t fit in the scenario.

And then I stop wondering who she is. Because she is my life force –who is wild and uninhabitable beneath the fake and earthly human skin. The Aphrodite’s Echo. Maya. So infinite that when I don’t see her I assume her to be nothingness.