THE BAGMATI MOMENT

They looked into each other’s eyes and saw eternity, bliss and peace that the soul feels even after it is out of the body. A kind of spiritual orgasm. On these steps of Bagmati, mortals arrive to appease the departed and the river has been a witness to the rites, the old woman lighting the lamp and praying in the twilight, the chant of those mantras to pacify the troubled souls. Life is a river and on its banks of time, people meet.

They too had met for no other reason. A meeting of souls is a culmination of many tiny longings. She was in her fifties and he in his thirties and nowhere else could numbers be so deceptive!! She was so tender with love and charming in her dense curls. There was something about her that was soul like, untouched by the stains of the mundane, a freshness that remained in its purest sanctity. He was grace embodied and they stood on the steps of the river holding hands wondering in immense joy at the bliss of coincidence. They were beyond the body like their ancestors whose fond memories seeped through their hair and they all were present on the banks sharing the delightful mystery of life and death. Life is no less a mystery than death. There was nothing ritualistic but more "spi"ritualistic!!The dead ones could feel their moment on the bank as intensely as both of them in their bodies!! Meeting is as mysterious as parting. We meet once in the infinite expanse of time and what brings two together in time is as inexplicable as what happens to those who depart!! 

All through the chants and the tolls of the huge bells at the temple, the sound of the river continued like eternity. Moments of life are like those tolls and the eternal music of life goes on like the river. She had the sensitivity beyond the physical and morning in her balcony was the bedlam of crows and sparrows that she fed. They knew her language and she knew their mute messages. The dogs in the lane would throb with ecstasy at the sight of her. They felt thankful to her for looking into their eyes and sharing the primitive bond forgotten by many in their discriminative knowledge. The departed, the bodily present and the mute fellow souls, all came together. This is the bliss of a moment. This is the soul nourishing moment of a current of life that flows for no other reason.