The Seeker of Shankar

Shankar still had not found

His share of peace;

He had heard

Immense penance led to Mahadev

His namesake god -

Now his only purpose

 

One day, in a spark of divinity

Shankar realised this purpose

Ordained decades back;

Why else would

He be named thus

If not to set him on this pilgrimage?

 

Shankar started with the mystics

At the Jyotirlinga neath the hills,

But they had already seen Him

He shared no purpose -

And went higher up

To the Dham of the Blue-necked one

 

Alas, it was for religious zealots

Who were happy

With his version in stones of black;

The pilgrim turned to trek

Even higher on the hills

Until he came to green meadows

 

For days, Shankar meditated

All alone in the Bugyals

With tahrs for company

Then he realised

Neelkantha chose not abundance

But the austerity of emptiness

 

And Shankar climbed even higher

To desiccated lands of yellowed grey

Devoid of life

Only a steep, towering peak

Looming in front

As if Kailash itself woke up here

 

And Shankar prayed

Day after alpine day

As flakes of snow gathered

On the resolve of his will

And icy winter winds froze

The light of his plainsman life

 

His penance went on

He could now see the swirls

Of the Milky Way revolve

Around the summit of his false Kailash

As other worldly lights of fire

Blessed in rainbows of the night

 

The sliver of every day’s moon

Always remained a Crescent

Dangling onto the peak

Of the mountain that had become

His Dham, Shankar’s Dham

But the Mahadev never came

Shankar was now a shrivelled man

Fanatic in his quest.

Until one day, a yak-herd came

And found him in repose.

What was he doing here? He asked

And Shankar found his voice after months

 

The yak-herd laughed

Why, his pilgrimage was already over

The peak in front – It was called Shankar’s peak!

Look carefully, he said

Can you spot his jata cradling the moon

There at the very top?

 

And further down, there his face

Then his hands, folded

His body, his legs

In the perfect asana

Merging with the might of the mountain

Shankar alive in his peak!

 

Tears flowed through Shankar’s eyes

As the yak-herd left

And Shankar saw his tamed yaks

Following him downhill;

The last one looked back,

Slowly limping on three broken legs

 

But his peace, was short lived

The Babas at the dham

Had never heard of Shankar’s Peak

It was a ploy, they laughed

That the yak-herd used

To save Shankar from an insane frozen death

 

They dragged him to the Shrine

The one true Mahadev

As the priests sang his songs

And drank Bhang

But Shankar stood a broken man

His penance broken in waste

 

He heard, in melancholy, their tales

Of Gangadhar, Gauri Shankar,

And Nandi - Shiva’s champion,

Sometimes hobbling on one foot

The other three folded from

The dents in Dharma in the last three yugas…

 

20^th July, 2024