A few years back, I visited a popular temple of Ma Kali in north Kolkata. Thousands of devotees come here to get a glimpse of the Mother almost everyday,and this day was no different.
While strolling around the huge portico of the structure just opposite to the main temple, a rather ordinary looking man caught my eye. He was not very old, maybe in his early forties, tall, strong and most evidently, shattered. He was looking straight at Ma Kali’s idol, rather straight into her eyes. Not once did he blink, as tears trailed down his flustered face and prompted a thousand more to come running down in battered rage.
Still like a mountain, he stood there, unmoved by the jostling crowd, the loud chanting of the mantras, and the expected cacophony at such rush hours.
He was there for justice, it seemed. As if he believed, that standing face to face with the goddess will compel her to answer all his questions. There was something so magnetic about his tears, his agony, his silent hysteria … I stood there watching him from a distance. I knew he wouldn’t leave till he got his answers,and I wondered who will give him the answers he is looking for? The clay figurine of the Goddess?
His blood red eyes confirmed that every vein in his heart is wounded and his soul, brutally shaken. I dared not ask him, but wondered what sort of grief or loss,can actually make you desperate and illogical enough to stand before a statuette begging for answers?
His tears were hypnotic. His gaze, powerful and he didn’t move an inch.
As I left the temple, he was still there, standing, alone, all his emotions translated bluntly through those volatile oceans of helplessness.
Today,I so wish to meet the stranger once.
Just want to ask him, ‘Have you found your answers, dear? As for me, I am yet to frame the questions properly.'
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