Samprati Hum

I was scared to death. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief but it disappeared in a blink of an eye. Gathering myself, I grabbed Karan out of fright. “Tell me you saw that!” Karan trembled, “I did. I unfortunately and absolutely did!”
“Now do you believe me that I keep seeing things when I come up here and that it’s not just a tall tale!” I hissed.
“Hang on a second. Do you hear that?” asked Karan.
I edged closer to the greenery.

Faint whispers. Or was it chants? Karan was quite as surprised. Animal howls and the rustle of leaves were an essential part of dark forests I had assumed but mystique chants ringing out of man-forsaken lands were an anomaly. “Something out of a Victorian gothic!” Karan whispered in my ear quite befuddled. I took a step forward, parting the long bushes with my hand to uncover the mysteries that lay hidden in the inner parts of the green foliage. Karan held my shirt, pulling me back and whispering to me against acting on my curiosity. Evident that no amount of insisting would cut it Karan squealed,
“You are all on your own pal! I am not stepping foot beyond these shrubs!”
“Aren’t I always? You lack curiosity!” I shushed him.

I kept penetrating the forest, the mystical chants drawing me in with addictive fervour. After a few minutes, I saw someone floating against the bare sky, in a seated position of a saint but with no chair to support his folded legs. He just floated above the ground with his eyes closed and vermilion adorning his forehead and his lips creating the saintly chants, enough to shake a maniac in his ungodly bed and draw him towards the chants like the Piper of Hamelin!
I was swaying to his chants which seemed Sanskritan. Suddenly the chants stopped and my entire body trembled when I noticed his ashy eyes staring directly at me. His entire body still hovering ten feet off the ground he thundered, evidently dismayed on noticing my presence. “What brings you to these parts?”
I stuttered, “Ah. um. yes uh…”
“Speak or forever be silent. What do you seek?”
“I seek my own true self that is restricted by my cloud of uncertainty.”
“Is that why you have come here?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“I stumbled across by accident. Yet I have been searching for solace in these dark parts of the forest. My friends think I come here for quaint adventures but instead, I come here to escape my own self. My own…terrible reality!”
He descended to the ground and walked up to me with his flaring eyes and quietly whispered in my ear
“Samprati Hum” and disappeared into thin air.
Karan walked up to me and exclaimed. “Why on earth were you rambling to yourself?” I stumbled from my reverie and said,” What are you tttalking about? Didn’t you notice the man in holy apparel?”
“Stop freaking me out! I got so worried when you didn’t return and dashed in to see you talking to empty air.”
I didn’t utter a single word thereafter and headed for home and googled, ‘Translation of Samprati Hum’.
I read out the search result on my computer screen, “The present moment is my true self”
I looked out of the window and smiled, ” Message received. I will try to live in my present from now.”

-Rounak Barman