The Crescent Moon 🌙 chapter 30

One day, the wind blew fiercely. I was no longer able to meet Shrum. We three sat in our room, the wind and rain lashing the balcony, waters weeping through the closed door.

“This chance we should pass.” Lizzy wanted to, so did I.

Meanwhile, my sister’s boss send her on a three month holiday so that I could arrange an exit. A woman, neglected for her mental prowess, sat in a dingy office, working through human egos splattering on table tops, vanishing into crooked canoodling gases and laughter with loads of so many took us to the brink of a splat, that was who I was right then. Far away from my dreams to be a woman.

“Why can’t we take a trip? We must meet someone who can bring peace.”

“Let’s listen to the Dalai Lama, McLeodgunj.”

We packed our bags and left for a week, a month later.

“What about Shrum?” Lizzy was busy scratching the pizza bread crumbs from her shirt.

“I am thinking of tapping Durjoy John.”

“What? Director?”

“Yup, in fact I did. A psychiatric doctor but equally feisty. I tapped him one day. I think I know how this has to be tackled and what must be going on.”

“You are telling me, you have a resolution.” Peg stated. Peg was her pet name, as Lizzy sat staring blank.

“Yes.” I nodded.

“Just follow his plan. Each day, we have to let Shrum know the plan. We have to make her act exactly as they anticipate she might. At the same time, she has to keep crevices through which she can escape when time comes. She has to think answers to all those questions that they plan to put forth on the table.” I continued.

“Do you think it will work?” Lizzy’s eyes sparkled.

“It will buy her time, till she leaves.” I scratched the cheese from the plywood top of the table.

“Great, let’s do it.”

One day, Durjoy John came forth, asking her that he knew the woman she had pasted on her desktop. It was her principal who actually, truly gave her a chance.

He would take a place beside her for photos clicked in cafeteria, she noted twice.

He would look at her in a way we did not appreciate. They were not dry looks, nor compassionate ones, nor understanding ones.

He would locate the way she placed the black stoll on her head, protecting herself from the cold. He would note her when she would be lost in corridors, initially we thought it was genuine humanity but then we noted it did not seem so. We were not interested in him in any which ways except that his plans were to be followed wholly. We had to get out of it, mild human trafficking or mental trafficking as helps millions form armies they believe would save the world.

We ignored his personal calls, we were not interested in his love life, his family life, his business, family, friends, this business, this trade and we blocked such calls. We had found timings and people who spoke when and how, and avoided conversations which were not our purpose. Shrum hasn’t still heard him at all, we did not want to entangle her. We can vanish in thin air, she prefers not to, actually.

Over a period of time, we now knew the whole game, we were close to one of the key players and he was hitched by many glamorous objects in life. His catholic mindset came in between often, he was using his intellect in traversing the thin crevices himself protecting himself from the karma by hiding in shadows where karma could not see him. He was not a rebel, he was neither a fighter, he was never a devout, he was a creator of all these, as per needs and requirements.

Well, we asked Shrum to follow the trap, yet not be trapped.

During this time, we came across a very important point. They were placing hoardings, sayings and thoughts behind autos, tutuks, buses, and bikes. Wherever they found some space. Shrum was fond of reading even scraps and they tried it to see if she read them.

“No one is born for you, but you can make someone your own.”

“If you are bad, then I am your dad.”

“We are killers.”

“Death.”

“Next is your turn.”

“Who’s next?” With a hulk stamping the ground, a green hulk.

So on, and on. We asked her to keep reading whatever she found could indicate her.

They had said, “If she likes reading let her read our minds.” Howling laughters broke out over the phone, not to mention who spoke to whom about it.

Well, it was a chakra, a means of transport in Gujarat where no one knows who’s driving the vehicle unless each jumps out of it.

A serpent with thousand faces, a scorpion with many limbs.

We went off, the lama has been hurt so much over the years, and his Well was still not dry. Compassion oozed out everywhere, people took it, did not take it, did not matter. Such aloofness, I could marvel it. No I could not perhaps. It was not soothing in the beginning, but as we listened to his preachings, his calmness overpowered my disorderliness inside. No longer I ran to my own entropy. No longer I felt disordered. My face seemed youthful in these seven days.

The power of peace and compassion or agape was so huge, yet why was so much disorderliness still existing? I looked at others, mostly Buddhists, some foreign nationalities peeped in the crowd. I felt so relaxed I felt I could stay here forever.

“Could it be a lie?” Peg whispered through the cold breeze which blew into the room.

“Nope, this was not a lie. It’s tangible.” I told her.

“Is there no resentment, no ego in between these men, in this place?” Lizzy was tapping her lips.

“It can’t be. But there is something which controls it well within these men or probably tells them which attack will not bring disorder in such an extent that we often see around us.”

But, we had to come back. Our disorderliness was adding to our woes. We began to look forward to restore order. How we did it would count though. Dharamsala is a beauty and if you can really acknowledge beauty you can spend ages looking at those emailed mountains like the cats do to spend time in this region.