I remember the first time my father took me to the High Mountain. It was an overcast day, with the grey clouds threatening rain. We lived at that time on the outskirts of the city. It was the third day of a new year and the city was in mourning, for the old King’s health was failing him, fast. The whole of humanity lay before us in a dead stupor. The sadness was catching. It stretched out its inky fingers towards us, commanding us to bow down before the King’s ailment. My mother was already beginning to sniffle when my father awoke from a trance and told me to get my cloak on. Outside, it was dead still, even the birds were not twittering. My father took me through the tall slender paper trees, and their oddly shaped leaves whispered to us, in ancient tongues, tales long forgotten. I remember him saying to me in his harsh accented voice, “I don’t know what the fuss is all about. He is old, he has to die someday. Today is as good a day as any other.” And, I remember quivering in fear, because Swahana had told me that the King had spies in the likeness of trees; the ancient paper trees. “How old are you?” he asked me as we wove our way through the trees and noticed that we were climbing steadily. “Seventeen. Eighteen next year, father.” He looked at me proudly. “Then you are old enough to see what I’m about to show you.” He motioned before us with a grand gesture. The entire hill was pockmarked with stones, some carved, some simple. The carved stones lay higher up on the mountain, while the simple ones were scattered like shells at our feet. “The High Mountain.” I whispered.
The High Mountain is Holy Ground. A person is allowed to come here only thrice in his lifetime. Once when his father shows him their Legacy carved in stones for the rich, and just marked by unadorned stones for the poor. It is then that the Divine Revelation takes place, and a person learns where they truly stand in this world. The second time to show his children the Legacy, and the third time to bury his father, and make him a part of the Legacy. A person visits the High Mountain a fourth time too. But that is in death when he comes to take his own place in the Legacy. My father showed us our stone. It had some carvings on it, but not as heavily carved as some other stones and of course, the Royal Boulder. “This is our place in the world, my child. It is the most important position of them all. We, the middle class, hold the world together. Do what I had done, and my father before me, and make us all proud.” We sat there a long time, listening to the rustle of the grass and the whisper of the trees. We sat among the dead in silent reverence until my father spoke. “I am old you know, and one day I must die and when I do, I don’t want you to be sad because I will be going to meet my father and ancestors and will be truly happy there for all of eternity.” We returned to the sound of joy and merriment. The King had passed away and a new King had come to power. People rejoiced in the new rule. I grew up and a few years later, I married and had children. I moved to the city but I would often go and visit my parents along with my children; a boy and a girl, just like us. On some occasions my father would tell me how much he missed my brother who had died young, and the three of us would revisit the pain of it. On a quiet, sun drenched day, news came to me that my father had passed on. I ran to see him. I climbed the hill carrying my father wrapped in a silken cloth, and he was surprisingly light. There, I placed him alongside his ancestors and that was the last time I ever saw him; his face calm and brave, even in death. Then, the earth swallowed him, and I knew he was where he had always dreamt of being, with his father and son. A single tear escaped my eye, and I placed my hand on the ground and spoke to him for he had told me that the dead can really hear you if you want them to. And I told him to wait for me. It was not an empty promise because one day I too will join him in eternal slumber and we will dream together. In the seventeenth year of their lives I too took my children to the High Mountain and told them exactly what my father had told me. I told them of the fleeting nature of life. I told them that they too one day must die, for our world is alive on this cycle of birth and death. We are allowed only to live so long and then we must go back to the earth, where we came from. Only the paper trees remain, standing guard over all of humanity, remembering the times long gone.
- Saguna Siddheshwari
(History Hons., 2nd year)
(Edited by Bhoomi and Pallavi
Art curated by Ritika Mittal)
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