I was desperate to reveal myself. The massive hurricane residing within my empty soul was hungry. I had acid in my stomach which was burning me from inside. The acid was secreted from the gland of expression. I vomited words, though. I was hungry. I was hungry for an applauding audience. They said I am a poet searching for words, just as a person who searches for a temple where he can preach. But I was neither. I was a man looking for God. I was finding a way to poetry.
Some appropriate questions, rather than appropriate answers took me to divine confluence, the Sangam. Somehow, I had the appropriate questions and I felt strongly, the city had appropriate answers for me. This was the city of Allahabad, as you’d like to call it or Illahabad as Emperor Akbar would like to call or maybe Prayag, as I’d love to say. The city had some strange divinity. It was mysterious and simple at the same time. All that was complex was this irony and the political situation.
It was in the city of Prayag where I met her, she was unknown to me. She had all the appropriate answers to my appropriate questions. And somehow, the majestic communication was not facilitated in the language of words. Our conversation was in the language of this world. The language of sunlight and wind, the language of the desert and sea, the language of nature. The conversation was not from one tongue to another, it was purely soul to soul. I felt like she had the soul of the city. The soul of Prayag, not Allahabad.
I met her, she was unknown to me. But she seemed familiar. Her eyes reflected my face and her tongue spoke my words. The comfort of her body language was even more accurate than the precision of my expression. Her laugh though, it was different than mine. It was cheerful. It was lovable and real. I felt as if my quest to God is complete and my lips let out a similar laugh. Her laugh turned into a subtle smile, confirming the completion of my journey. Just then I knew, I am poetry and its words. I am the preacher and I am even the temple I preach in. I am the journey and I am the destination.
I met her, she was unknown to me. But she knew me like her own child.
– Shantam Sahai
