It's a overcast day, the sky uniformly dull with pending rain. It's still hot though, and the slight breeze is refreshingly cool against your skin. The plants and reeds on the shore of the Ganges river are lush, thick, and vibrantly green. The warm smell of the mud is cloying at first, and slowly becomes comfortable. Lap of water and sound of frogs. A cobra slips through the reeds, not less than a meter away from your bare toes. And yet you feel no fear.
The Blessed River is wide here, and the hazy far shore is hundreds of meters away. The water is cloudy with silt. Blooming pink and white lotuses hug the muddy odoriferous shore; the lily pads are the size and thickness of dinner plates. A heron skims over the water, touching its wings to the surface. Buzz of insects.
The Buddha is sitting upon a rock several meters from the shore. The rock is spear-head shaped, and quite large and flat; it is not much higher than the water's surface, and one imagines that is probably underwater in the rainy season. It is surrounded by the lotus flowers on all sides, yet you have a clear view though them to the Buddha.
He is younger than you thought he would be. His face is thin and delicately boned. A slight scuff of black beard covers his lower face. His eyes are downward cast, as if he were looking at the bottom of the river, and half closed. His hair is long and gathered together in a ponytail, tied with a long strip of frayed orange cloth, and the ends are dancing in the breeze. As you had heard, his earlobes are long and bear the marks of piercing.
He is thin with his ribs showing, the Buddha, yet something more than skeletal; there is a solidity to him that belies his seeming fragility. He is sitting in lotus position, his hands folded together and placed in a loose knot in his lap. There is a smear of dried mud on his left bicep, and the upturned bottoms of his feet are brown with old, ingrained dirt.
You step forward for a better view, and a twig under your foot shifts and then snaps. The Buddha raises his head and opens his eyes. They are unsettling, those eyes, but you're not sure what it is that makes them so. They're just eyes... and then again, they're not.
The Buddha smiles at you, and puts his palms together and bows namaste-fashion. He beckons to you, still smiling, and indicates the space to his right.
You step into the blood-warm water that laps at your ankles and you sink a bit in the mud. You step forward into the lotuses, and their heady scent fills your nostrils. The water creeps up your legs, and the head-sized lotuses block your view of the Buddha, and you must push them aside gently. You lose sight of him completely, and with lotuses on all sides, you wonder if you're going the right way; you pull your feet from the thick mud with difficulty. The muddy water is up to mid-thigh now, and something living slides along your bare leg. And then, through the blossoms, his open hand is held out to you. You take it and are pulled gently upwards. The blossoms part, and there he is, smiling.
Nice imagery. I like it. :)
ReplyDelete