A walking sojourn

Every day as a religious routine, I walk past on a preset route for an evening stroll. For about an hour I am as one with the vista surrounding me as perhaps are the trees that line the path or the street lights that loom menacingly in between. One of my friends had quite judiciously observed... ‘I’ve stopped going for walks...it’s scary how people seem to be running...either from themselves or in a competition to outdo the others’ ...thankfully I seem to be doing none of these...alright you can resolve that at the end of this...

But this for me is an hour of acute observation, critical and earnest self assessment and a bizarre kind of meditation with eyes wide open. It uplifts me in body, mind and spirit, well sometimes literally and at other times in my imagination.

I begin at a slow pace like a dead beat engine, gearing and groaning before the start...often the joints of my limbs protest- aching and creaking almost declining to lift even onto the next step. But within minutes of going past this resistance phase, an uproar of recharge in done... the feet become light and no longer is there an effort to pull them onwards. With quicker steps I tread the cemented path that I have walked over repeatedly for many a well spent years.

The cool breeze rushes past me, trying to erode my surface. The occasional honk of a speeding car makes me digress and a recurrent stone on the way rises threateningly to attempt to topple me over. Sometimes even the street dogs raise their heads and voices in greetings, for they try to defend their territory from my everyday presence. But I do not stop, moving on with eyes ahead like an insatiated traveller...

Besides these tumbling blocks there are also motivational egg ons. Familiar smiling faces, the reddish glow over the horizon as the sun goes down to rest, the melodious chirping or sometimes the wailing of the flight of birds returning after a long day or just the fairly round yet romantic orange glow on the edifice of the full moon. Also my musical gadget with its earphones plugged in to my system, must be given credit for this ethereal experience.

Oh yes! I am transported in this while, to an unknown void, where the outer world ceases to exist. As my body sweats and each pore opens, it is time to let go as well as ooze things in. It is time to be one with myself before I return to the madness called life...