Part 2 - Chapter 2

The waves were silent with the occasional attempt that they made to reach out to the huge rocks that were on the shore. It seemed as if the rocks were unhappy princesses who did not anymore want to talk to the wave princes because of unknown reasons. The wave princes in spite of their loved ones anger were continuously making their attempt to reconcile them.
A cold and heavily windy day it was at chirpakalanji and the air was so chill that fishermen stayed inside their huts , some to the amusement of their wives and some to the opposite. A few happy families sat together singing songs in praise of the lord and the king , a few other just married couples were thanking the winds that kept them together and singing to each other only with their eyes and a few more older natives were praying in quiet for the wind to calm down and the rain gods to stay away.
Any visitor to Chirpakalanji on this particular day would not have found the village particularly impressive after all.
The wind and the approaching rains which the dark gathering clouds were hinting had driven everybody into their huts and what one could witness outside was nothing but the wave princes and the rock princesses. There was of course the occasional mischievous lad who would escape the clutches of his mother and rush to the sea , but when did mothers lose to mischievous kids? They had their own tricks to bring their children back home into safety.
In spite of the seeming deserted feeling one got on seeing the shores of chirpakalanji,a closer look however revealed something interesting. Was there absolutely no one outside the huts? Well there was indeed a secret rock princess hiding behind tall tree soldiers so that she was out of sight for the normal viewer. The wave princes probably feared of such a beauty and did not even dare to come near her. Surprisingly,the rock princess was not alone though. There was a strong human figure that was sitting alongside. We are not sure if the rock princess had an eye open for the male figure that was sitting beside, but what we are sure is that the male figure itself was deeply immersed in thought of a princess - not the rock princess but yet another young and beautiful princess.

A cold breeze hit Singarakannan's face and his wavy hair jumped up for a second and settled down back to where it was. He seemed lost in thought staring at the blue sea forever for hours now. The continuous buzz noise that the waves were making sounded like music that some magical flutes were playing into his ears. They seemed to be rhyming of a name to him.. the name that gave him strange sensations and stranger feelings about himself. How could one unknown woman turn a man's life upside down? Why was all this not happening to him so far? yes, there were beautiful women in chirpakalanji too.. but noone had made him feel like this before.The feeling he got when he saw the princess a week before was different. The similies that he had laughed at all these years were beginning to ring bells now. A huge splash of an unknown form of energy could be felt inside him. Rocks, trees, waves, birds - almost everything that he saw made him remember her for some reason or the other. Some times the reasons were natural. Sometimes they were so unnatural that the only way they could remind him of her was because he wanted it to be that way.

'No, this can't be coincidence, there must be something more about Maithreyey that has attracted me other than her divine beauty. Was it her eyes? Aah, the eyes. they are the most powerful weapons that a women can possess. The eyes. No doubt, every poet uses it to give an extra grip to this work. The eyes. What about them? How can a look, something that does not have a form or shape be responsible for driving men to such an extent so that they will do anything? Aah the eyes. There is absolutely nothing wrong in getting lost to them. In fact, it is something every man must experience in his life time. Fools are the saints who can't appreciate the beauty of these beauty, even more foolish are their attempts to find out the divine .. what else could the word divine possibly mean ?.. it is nothing but what the look that spread from Maithreyey's eyes onto mine. It is more powerful than the sword, than the the dagger, it is the eyes , the eyes, only the eyes'

"Singa" a polite voice broke his chain of thoughts and he looked up to see who it was.

"Aah, Oli .. good that you are here... who else can save a man's life but his best friend"
Oli was a weak looking young man with a long beard and longer hair that fell over his shoulders from the back and over his eyes on the front. He now politely smiled at singa and sat beside him.

"Singa, no-one can save a man's life .. moreover the danger here does not seem to be so dangerous after all"
"What do you mean Oli? i don't seem to understand"
"Before i tell you what i mean, you should tell me what you meant when you said your life was in danger"
Singarakannan spoke in a surprised tone.

"When did i say that my life was in danger?"

"From your looks , atleast it seems so to me. If not in danger, you are probably in confusion. But my dear friend, confusion is more dangerous that danger itself. It more often than not succeeds in making a person indecisive and doing nothing while danger on the other hand makes men react faster and quicker"

"Aah, oli please don't start your philosophical talks.. i neither understand them nor do i wish to"

"Singa, philosophy is a totally misused word in the world we live today my friend. Philosophy according to me is nothing but the keen observation of human life and trying to understand its beautiful intricacies. Anyone who wishes to practice the art , the best place is to start exploring his own inner self"

A cold breeze blew over the friends faces. After a few seconds of silence, Singarakannan replied

"Oli, what do you think about being in love?"

"Well, i assume you are talking about the love towards a woman and not towards nature or art or anything else"

Singarakannan smiled gently.
"Atleast for the moment, please do assume that"

Oli adjusted his position. His voice was gentler than before.

"Love is a beautiful opportunity to explore yourself. You get to know more and more about yourself once you are in it. The intelligent man grabs the opportunity and becomes a philosopher, the ordinary man succumbs to the beauty of love and falls into it"

"Hah, Oli...you speak as though love is a trap"

"Life itself is a trap, Singa...let alone love"

"I never have and never shall agree to what you say...Romance is the essence of life.. the attachment and bonding that love can create, nothing else can... the object of attachment might differ at various points in time of a man's life..right from childhood till his death.. but there is a continuous and involuntary attachment to something or the other always..and this i shall call as love.. and this alone keeps life rolling ... it is certainly not a trap as you crudely put it oli... life is a gift from the god, not a trap"

"A lot of these gifts that the so called gods that you mention comes along with something called pain..."

"Pain..hmm...Oli, if you won't mistake me, i shall speak my heart out here... I hate philosophy because i feel it is nothing but an escape route to avoid pain... Getting away from everything just because you can avoid pain...is that a brave thing to do? never... the joy is to go through the pain and come out successful... isn't that more interesting and more romantic? isn't that the way one should live rather than hiding from pain? "

"Pain and pleasure are superficial my friend... the eternal does not have any of these... if you say you will endure pain just to enjoy a future pleasure, it means you have neither understood pain nor understood pleasure in the real sense"

"Well, i can certainly try to understand if you can enlighten me on it... though i won't guarantee you that i will accept what you will say"

Oli smiled. He adjusted his position again. This time it felt to singarakannan that he is going to listen to a long explanation.

"Imagine there is something called eternity... the horizon that you see far away there...assume that is eternity... the place where nothing is everything and everything is nothing... the purpose of human life is to reach there... i don't believe in what our scriptures and temples teach and i have been abandoned by our temples for this... but i don't care much... all our temples teach us the following: they make us believe that there is a god sitting in that horizon and governing our lives... even worse that they make us think that these gods have shapes and forms and names and families and what not... these were careful aids that some saints chose to help men reach the eternity that i told you before.. but they have been carelessly understood and practiced. God has over time has become nothing but a go-to man for two things... to get a wish fulfilled and to get you out of a bad situation... think about it carefully for a minute and you will realise that those are the only two reasons when you sincerely worshiped...well, these two things are nothing but the pleasure and pain that you talked about. So any discussion to understand pleasure and pain in the right sense, needs a discussion of the so called gods"

Oli stopped for a second.. it started to mildly drizzle.

"please do continue"

"The purpose as i said before is to reach a state where you will understand that everything and nothing are one and the same... that is the state of 'perinba'. The pleasure, the pain and the associated god with these two are the states of 'sitrinba'. It is unimaginably difficult to reach perinba in the world we live today... contamination in hundreds of walks of life including religion have made us not even realize why we all are here for... but there are few who really want to get there, to fight the way through the waves and reach the horizon... and for that we need to be out of all these contaminations... pleasure, pain, god, love , money all of these. But from outside you feel it is an escape route... well when everybody is in the wrong way, the right way does seem to be wrong"

Singarakanna sighed. The drizzle was becoming heavier by the second.

"Oli, i accept that i understand only a part of whatever you said.. and i apologize for critisizing your choice of lifestyle. But i personally don't think i can ever live a life that you lead...i shall continue to be god fearing and i shall continue to be a romantic... in fact, after all this that you have told me, i am going to tell you that i am in love and i am not going to be surprised at all if you will laugh at me for that"

Oli shook his head.
"certainly not Singa, why would i laugh at you... realization is like casting sozhis on sand.. The exact time when you get everything on the same side is not in your control... but keeping on attempting by throwing the sozhis is the best you can do... now that you have said you are in love, i will hug you for that and ask you the name of your unexpected lover".

Oli opened his arms and hugged singarakannan for a moment.
Singarakanna spoke.
"I am certainly going to tell you who she is, but why do you think she is someone unexpected?"
Oli smiled gently.
"Well, why else would you start a conversation in a shivering weather by asking me to save your life"

"ha ha, you caught me there... you are right oli, as always... the lady i fell in love with is not an ordinary woman... she is the princess of the kingdom- Maithreyey"

A huge thunder broke down from the skies as if it signaled something to Singarakannan.

"I am really happy for you Singa,but at the same time i am also concerned. Have you expressed your interest to the princess? i believe she was here a week back along with the queen for the meenavar festival.. did you talk to her then?"

"Well, yes, for a few moments"

"Good, so how does she feel about you?"

"Well, we spoke for a few moments - but only with our eyes oli, sound , i felt,was unnecessary for our communication. And from what her eyes spoke to me, i am sure she feels the same way as how i feel towards her"

Oli ran his fingers over his long hair.

"This is a dangerous world to take the language of the eyes so seriously my friend... i think you should meet her once again and use words to express your interest. eyes are a beautiful and colorful means to communicate , no doubt, but words are needed to put things in black and white"

"Oh you are absolutely right Oli, but i wonder if i can do that a all... and that was the whole point of confusion i have been in for the whole of last week"

"what is your confusion"

"how do i meet her again?"

"go to the palace"

"thats easier said than done... i can't go to the palace unless i have a reason to... our king you know is not as what they say about the king on the other side of amudhu... it is atleast thirty years since the common man was allowed to enter into the palace without any real emergency"

Oli sank in thought for a few seconds.
"you are right about that... i don't know if a person like me can help you out in this but.. especially someone abandoned by most people in the kingdom "

"i know you can't oli,.. but somehow i feel you have some magical powers that when i stay in your company, i can always find a way out... "

"well, if i can guess, you are going to say next that i am a godsend to you"

"i don't care if you don't agree oli, but that is the truth... Right from childhood, till today, i have had all my success only when i have been with you... the more it happens that way, the more i get attached to the concept of god... "

"i will only say to myself that all this is silly, my friend totally silly"

At this point, it had become dark and a huge thunder broke into their ears. Heavy rain started and the trees started to swing like mad saints singing around huge fires. Singa and oli got up from the rock they were sitting over and started to run into the meenavar-mandabam that was at a few jumps distance. Oli went in first and as Singa was about to get in, for some reason he had totally no idea of, he turned back towards to sea. What he saw took him completely by surprise. At a distance from the shore, he could see a boat jumping over the waves as if it had lost control. 'There is no single fisherman out in amudhu today. Who possibly could be in this boat?' . He could not get an answer however hard he thought. He observed the boat for a few seconds and realised that it was in a terrible danger of being thrown away by the waves and the wind as no one seemed to be rowing it.
'Is there someone in the boat or is it empty? How did i miss it all along? Where is it coming from? What if someone in danger? Let me rush'
He jumped out of the Mandaba and rushed towards the boat. Oli came out for a second and shouted at Singarakannan as to what was happening.
Singarakannan replied as he was running towards the boat
'Get in Oli, the rain is too heavy . Be inside the Mandaba, i shall check who is in the boat and come back'
The sharp rain was right on his face and he could not open his eyes completely. He slipped down at a few places but managed to get up and keep running towards the boat. He reached the sea now and had to get in and swim for a minute or two before he got to the boat. He jumped into the sea and at the same time a mammoth wave came down with a huge sound and the boat was thrown up on the air and fell upside down in the water with a huge splash. Singarakannan realized that there is no point in moving towards the boat and managed to bring his head up and see if there was anyone who was thrown out of the boat... he found nothing. Suddenly he thought he had risked unnecessarily by jumping in and felt really uneasy. A lot of water had gone into his mouth by now. He started to swim back swiftly towards the shore cursing himself for making such a stupid move by jumping into the sea when it was raining heavily.

We don't know if we should attribute it to luck or to the gods, but for some unknown reason Singarakannan, despite his uneasiness turned his head one last time to look if he could find someone at all . This time he was caught by a shock of his life. What he saw was an young woman drowning unconsciously into the deep waters of amudhu at a distance!

'Am i seeing someone i know? Am i seeing someone at all? What is this that is happening to me? Why do i feel as if i have lost balance? Am i drowning myself? Is it a woman there? Do i know her?is it...is it by any chance the ..the princess? No way, what on earth can bring the princess here at this time of the evening..that too in such a small boat? It must be someone else...but she seems to be from the kingdom... the jewellery that she seems to be wearing...who else other than someone in the kingdom could it be.... oh god, i don't know if what iam asking you is even justified... give me some luck... i shall fight into the waters and save that woman... oh god.. you have always helped especially in the magical presence of Oli ... help me one more time... give me some strength to save that lady...and if iam not asking for too much... let that lady be the one to whom i have lost my heart to....Let her be the princess herself so that i can save her and say how i feel towards to her... or atleast... if she is not the princess, let her help me reach the princess somehow... Lord Eezhendiraa....give me strength...."
A huge wave rose and covered singarakannan entirely... A similar wave drowned the unconscious woman at a distance.

At this instance, Oli jumped into the sea.

Sembaruthi had arrived at eezham in a manner she would had never ever even imagined of!