Topographical truths

“Just because I stand here

Don’t mean I want to”

 

On my visit to Pakistan, my host had taken me close to Afghan border. From where I stood, I could see vast stretches of a barren, rugged, unforgiving terrain. The kind I had never seen before. My host told me that Bamiyan was not far from where we stood. My heart sank seeing a cluster of weathered, eroded, chipped, edgy, unhappy mountains with meandering passes fading at distance.  Thereafter, whenever I heard of terrorists, some how the terrain came to my mind. My mind had forged a strange association.

Bamiyan is left with a gaping hollow, a vacuum, from where Buddha was removed. Its removal carries great symbolic significance. The region lost peace forever.

On my visit to Taxila, I wondered, if the physical presence of Buddha there was any different from the absence of his tall figure from Bamiyan. For that matter, if Buddha was absent in his presence or was present anywhere, other than Bamiyan?

 

Osho once said that Mahabharat was never fought on the battleground of Kurukshetra, it was enacted in the mind of Arjuna, the battleground stood only as a manifestation of mind.

After the TV sets mellowed down their melodramatic, sickening coverage of  one more terror attack on Mumbai, after the public discourse turned a tragic event into a comedy show once again, I wondered whether what Osho observed was true?

 

Forget terrorists who blew away Buddha, have we allowed Buddha to survive in our hearts. Have we allowed Buddha to breathe ? After sitting through hours of non stop aggression of high decibel, razor edged reports on violence, my mind began to echo the same. It became mercenary, it lost balance. And I thought of the Afghan terrain. Do we begin to echo our terrains?

 

  Picture courtesy/ flickr.com/hutsman