(Story Told by Sufi, Retold….)
When I was a Kid I never liked Railway Stations. I always felt as if the trains going around my head like a whirlpool. I hated that feeling. Time changes everything, when I started going to collage 3500Kms away from my home I had no choice but to be in the train for 3 long days. A decade before flight tickets were not so cheep. Instead of being jealous of my brother, when he fly back home, I feel sorry for him. He doesn’t know what he is missing. There was a famous dialogue from an old Hindi movie which says "To know India (Clours and its Diversity) you should travel by the second class compartment of Indian Railway". I’ve experienced it to its fullest.
Time has flown like anything, today when I stand in the Calicut Railway station I still get that old feeling. I’ve been flying for last couple of years, but I still love Indian Railway. Janshatabdi to Trivandrum was in the platform 1. When I got in to the A/c compartment I felt uneasy as usual. Those people in A/compartment never talk to anyone; they just take up a bulky English novel and look into to the same page till they get down. The first thing I asked the TT was who is my co-passenger and from where he/she is boarding the train. M 38 from Ernakulam that was his reply. That was a relief that next 5 hrs I can occupy both the seats in the chair car. I opened my laptop and started listening to some old Malayalam Songs. As they say if you are in Rome do as Romans do, I took out a Malayalam Novel titled “Sufi Paranja Kada” (The Story told by Sufi). Author K P Ramanunni had written in such a fashion that I was almost lost in the book. It was a story of a very special Hindu girl who loved a Muslim trader in the backdrop of British East India Company rule. Author successfully managed to depict the cultural change she undergoes when she changes her religion to Muslim to marry the protagonist. I could really visualize the beauty of the Karthiyani Alias Zuhara. Did I sleep when I was reading the page where Zuhara in her Muslim outfit standing outside a temple, or was I dreaming about it? But anyway when I opened my eyes I could see Zuhara. She was standing in front of me.
What just happened? From the Past (East India Company era) how could Zuhara get into my era? that too into a moving Super fast Train? She was as beautiful as the author had explained. Almost for next 15-20 seconds I was just staring at her beautiful blue eyes. She was saying something but I couldn’t hear a thing. I was mesmerised by the beauty of her lips. Some how I pulled my earphone out of ears, and asked her how I can help her? She told the TT has allocated the seat for her till Ernakulam. I offered her the seat. She sat next to me; I could smell very strong Arabian perfume from her. She might have been a masterpiece by God. I just tried not to look at her and started looking outside the window. Her eyes had a wonderful attraction and I couldn’t resist myself from staring at her. Was she aware of the fact that I was not convinced by the fact that she is just a Passenger and not Zuhara. Well I need to distract myself so I opened some work related material and tried to be busy with it even though her perfume was pulling my attention towards her. She had different plans! Are you a Student?? Her question was enough for me to build up a conversation from there.
I closed the monitor of my laptop and started talking to her. We started speaking like anything. Nobody would have believed we just met, if they had listened to our conversation. We talked about micro biology to Joint family system; Feminism to carbon credit. Were these topics to be talked to a young attractive lady sitting next to you? I have no idea. Most of the talking was done by her and I was just listening. Now our chit chat moved to altogether another level. May be because she saw a novel with me, she asked whether I’ve read any Muslim Literature? Thanks to my friend who has once given me the pdf copy of Quran. I started talking about the limited knowledge I had about Quran. The English translation I’ve read has not given too much insight into Muslim religion. But still I knew the basic concept in which this religion was build up. We talked about the similar concepts and history shared by Christianity and Muslim. We discussed about the family tree of Prophet Ibrahim.
She told me she was a Mujahidin and was not against Christianity and she told that she could not digest the basic concept of Christianity as she believes in a single God (a supreme Power who has no beginning and end). Christ being son of the God is the concept she couldn’t digest. She says he was the 2nd last Prophet and Mohammad the last. God is God and he cannot have any children. Nobody is special to him.She was telling a story, I just listened to her like a small kid. I was lost in her beautiful eyes. She started explaining the scientific concepts in Quran and suggested me some books for reading.
What is this beautiful soul trying to do to me? Is she trying to brain wash me? Will I be converted and be in the same dilemma as Zuhera was in? Suddenly lot of questions came to my mind. Why am I thinking all these, she is well educated and have read many books, may be she was really a genius. While she was talking to me she was also scribbling something in a piece of paper. May be she was also interested in fashion designing. We still talked about the religious books and many more. Some how I didn’t know we have already reached Ernakulam as I was lost in the smart way of her talk and her beauty. I was not ready to believe she was trying to convert me. I just didn’t recognize that we have been talking continuously for last 4 hrs. When she asked my email id I didn’t know why I was so reluctant, I took out my visiting card then decided not to give her. She could have sensed that, she shared her email id with me and said to be in touch. She stood up and walked towards the door as the train was approaching station, and then suddenly she came back and gave me a sweet which I have never tasted before. Her eyes said goodbye and walked away from me.
As she stepped out of the train I noticed the paper she was scribbling. What a strange design. The design was a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point. Each gate is in the shape of a ‘T’. It looked familiar, but complicated. I liked the sketch and kept the same with me. After few days when I was reading some Buddhist literature, I came across a similar painting. I got up and looked all pockets of my unwashed jeans. I got that piece of paper and I couldn’t believe myself, it was not similar, but same. How could she just make this 1000 year old Buddhist religious painting with out any reference and not getting distracted while talking to me? I searched in the net to get as much data of the same painting and I came to know what I was looking was called “Maṇḍala”. This is a pictorial representation of Universe.
Now I’m not only astonished but scared too. Who was she, what was she? Was she a human? If yes then definitely a genius. Was she from some different time? May be from future? Was she an Alian? I wanted to talk to her. I searched for the chit she handed to me with her phone number and email id. Where did I loose it? How could I miss place contact details of a beautiful lady? Will I ever meet her? Oh God why didn’t I give my contact details to her. I missed her beauty when she walked out of the train. But now I miss a wonderful person, a genius, someone from diff times (Future or Past) or may be an alien.
Thangka painting of Vajradhatu Mandala
The Hindu mandala, or mandala, in various languages has different terms: Sanskrit, "circle"; Chinese, man-ta-tao; Japanese and Korean, mandara; and Tibetan, dkyil 'khor. The mandala is a symbolic pictorial representation of the universe, originating in India but is prominent in Tibetan Buddhism (Buddhism), and which is visualized in context of the Tantric ritual (Tantrism). Although mandalas are commonly founds on scrolls as water paintings, for important rituals the practice is to trace the mandala onto consecrated ground using water colors that can be erased upon the termination of the ritual. In meditation, they can be visualized without physical representation.
