Amrita

It was a bright sunny morning I remember. I'd woken up early and decided to go for a walk. With no prescience of what was to follow I stepped out. There was the early morning chill in the air, but the sun was making it pleasant. As I was walking across the neighboring park, a girl sitting on one of the park bench caught my eye. She had a face so pretty that I haven’t seen before; I kept walking and kept stealing glances making sure she doesn't catch me staring at her. Her hands were folded down resting on her lap, her untied hair flowing with the breeze and she seemed to be staring at the trees in one of the corner of the park, she looked so engrossed in those trees that she didn't seem to notice anything else. I had passed the bench and left her behind when I decided to turn back and get a final glance. She was still looking at those trees; she looked on without blinking an eyelid. I looked at her, then at the trees. My failure to find anything interesting in the trees made me curious. I wanted to talk to this strange girl. I made sure that that my footsteps don't make any sound, I went near her and was taken aback when she said hi."Hhh How did you know I was here", I stammered, partly surprised, partly ashamed of being caught staring. "It’s okay, sit down". Still concentrating on her trees, she continued, "you know, there is a fabric in the nature, it’s over our heads covering all of us. When you were looking at me, I felt someone pulling it away from me. I felt it slipping off my head and that's how I knew somebody was here". I sat down on the bench beside her, still figuring out what she had just said.

"I am sorry I've been watching you for some time and I can't help but ask why, you are staring at those trees"."Which trees?" "Those” "Ah, those trees. How do you know I am looking at the trees"? "I just figured that because there is nothing else to look at there.” A slight wind was blowing and one of the strands of her untied hair had landed on her right eye, without bothering to remove it she continued "What if I say there are no trees at all there?"

I sensed the conversation was leading up to something, "I walk past those trees every day, I know they are there" I answered. "Then, close your eyes, thinking that the trees are not there". I don't know why I was following her, but I was, I closed my eyes. A few moments later she said, "Now forget that you ever saw those trees, unbelieve your eyes". I did what she said, I was curious like a small child, in the anticipation of learning a secret. I erased the memory of the trees completely from my mind. "Now can you find out if there are trees there?" Here I was completely lost, and as soon as I started with "What are you ..." in a very calm voice she said "You can".

The calmness of her voice settled me down a bit, and I started with the exercise, how could I know the trees were there or not. I couldn't see anything and I was finding it hard to concentrate because of all the noise around me. There was the sound of a school bus as it went past, a little child was crying at some distance, footsteps as somebody just jogged by, more footsteps, they sounded of school kids in a hurry, some children were on a swing, which was making a squeaking sound, a vendor seemingly very proud of his vegetables was shouting at the top of his vocal chords, finally some hustling of dry leaves, but they were of somebody sweeping them, no signs of a tree. I tried to listen everything again, concentrating hard. A slight wind was blowing, starting and stopping intermittently, every time it blew it would make a hissing sound in my ears, but there was another sound which I had missed earlier, every time the wind blew, there would be a sound of leaves, and this seemed to come from a distance, this certainly was from the trees. My eyes still closed, a slight smile spread across my face, not from the fact that I had found out the answer, instead I had found the question out. Things don't stop existing when we close our eyes, but with our eyes closed we need a different way to find them. Sometimes there are things, situations, feelings which don't present them to us in an obvious way, but that does not mean they are not there, they are there, we just need to find them out."Amrita Let's go", a little boy's voice, brought me back to earth. The little boy helped the girl stand up, held her hand and led her away. I watched them go, and drifted into the thoughts of this strange episode again, when an annoyance on my ear disturbed me. It was her strand of hair, which had broken off. I picked it up, blew it in the air and walked away.