The cacophony of shrill and raucous tones protesting against the novelty of life, and among them, one was particularly uncooperative. Outside the shelter set up by the midwives to protect the mothers and the ones soon to be, from the hostile skies launching dagger-like rain droplets with the punctuating roars of thunder and ephemeral flashes of lightning, Tara Paalika listened keenly for the cry of that one babe, whose discomfort in being sent down to Earth was more evident than the rest. Paalika sighed heavily with the weight of the uncomfortable revelation in the child’s wailing. She called the oldest midwife and instructed her to bring all the babies to her. Once assembled in a bawling community of infants, Paalika-the tribe’s guardian went and picked up the one who disturbed her. She felt the baby’s chest, and measured the intensity of its grief, just to make sure. Putting the baby back in the motherly embrace of the midwife, she whispered the instructions of getting the child examined by the Vaidyah, the healer; her lowered decibels indicative of her sympathy to the ears of the babe’s mother.
The Vaidyah came soon, and made his verdict, unfortunately corresponding with Paalika’s conjecture. The baby was cursed with the disease, the most feared one. The mother screamed, and wailed, her desperation dimming the voices of the new and tender vocal cords.
The tribe’s learned assembled in the Paalika gruha, the home of the tribe guardian, the next day, to discuss what is to be done regarding the unfortunate infant. The meeting will end just like the others did, with a pitiful few raising their cries to abdicate the customs and to follow a new path of acceptance, and the many obstinate figures adamant in their allegiance to the law of the land. The only silent ones in the group were the parents and Tara Paalika, the former helpless in their fate and thus voiceless in the discussion and the latter in deep introspection. Her wise mind following various traverses her intuition led her, she finally chose the one in which the voice of her Guru, her teacher, and the previous Paalak, would resonate with her.
“Cursed are the ones who know,
Worse are the ones who don’t”
She exhaled deeply, and that was enough for the attentive ears of the committee to end their squabble and pay attention to their Guardian’s judgement.
“The child shall be surrendered to the will of God; may his suffering end and Nature’s laws be restored.”
The parents were the ones to hand over the baby, the law of the tribe was that cruel. Rooted in the ancient idea of Daiva neethi, or God’s justice, the parents could love the diseased child for one last time in their embrace, when the soul was least affected by the monstrosity, where innocence still prevailed over the budding insanity.
The parents did not protest, their silent submission spoke volumes about their wisdom. They knew it was for the best, for they were well-educated about the dark past of the disease.
The child passed from the parents to Paalika. The people of the assembly witnessed mournfully, disappointed at fate for having inflicted its morbid curse on yet another soul. Nevertheless, the best of their knowledge knew no other solution; even the ones who had protested were incapable of offering a better alternative.
Tara Paalika held the child in her arms close to her chest. The infant was peaceful now, its curious eyes, the most horrific symptom of his flagitious ailment, darted about, in an unholy pursuit to get to know his new world better. The assembled ones started to depart, the shallow breathings of the infant against the warm chest of the Paalika still ringing in their superior auditory senses, reminding them of the fearful past and ominous future.
Tara Paalika, now alone with the ill-fated infant, closed her eyes and allowed her memories to take over.
The Shraavana kula lived in the most secluded areas of the forest and in the negligence of the rest of the world. They themselves were unaware of a civilization beyond the scope of their verdant abode. The name Shraavana had been designated by the first Paalak of the tribe. Shraavana meaning “hearing”, refers to the remarkable sensory perception of the ears that all the people of the tribe possessed. The people themselves failed to understand excellence in their hearing sense, maybe because there was no scope for comparison to establish superiority. Nonetheless, they accepted the name out of reverence of their pioneer Paalak and stayed unwaveringly loyal to it.
Paalak, their guardian and guide, led the tribe. Each Paalak would choose his or her successor, and they would be revealed to the tribe during the last minutes of the existing Paalak’s life. Only the Paalaks/ Paalikas, believed by the people to possess divine senses knew the formula for the criteria of selecting the next leader.
The disease, though rare, had been revealing itself in abominable recurrences since the beginning. At first, the people couldn’t understand the nefariousness of the condition, until they became cognizant of the pattern. The same strange people caught up in similar lives of insanity. Most of them became harmful, introducing atrocities of crimes to the uncorrupted society of the tribe; like rape, theft, knavish practices, and more. The rest were disturbed, profusely suffering from something that wasn’t affecting the rest of the kula.
The first person to identify the disease and its correlation to the mendacity that plagued the tribe became the first Paalak. Varna Paalak guided the tribe to knowledge, helped them in the identification of the diseased ones and his judgements scripted the long-standing law of their extermination from the society.
Hence, the Shraavana kula found a way to preserve the uncontaminated black blanket of security. The days of living in fear were ended, now they could propagate in the peaceful dark; for concealment is the fuel for faith, and faith the fuel for joy. The Shraavana kula finally found a way to protect themselves from the thing they feared the most: “light”, as the insane children of the disease called it. What that demonic thing was, they did not know; all they knew was the ones who heard it were the ones whom the ravaging fires of hell licked. It was light that enabled them to hear things the normal ones couldn’t, it was light whose diabolic voice encouraged their consciousness to surrender to the sinful temptations or give away to the horrific misery that plagued their peace.
Many decades later, Surya Paalak, Tara’s guru conveyed to her what every Paalak had to their successors.
“Blindness is the God of the people of Shraavana kula, Blindness is their protection shielding them from criminal temptations and gory truths. Yet, it is blindness that lets them prosper in blissful ignorance, blindness that betrays them into the most convincing yet most petrifying lie: the “limit” of knowledge.
When your time comes, you must remember,
Cursed are the ones who know,
Worse are the ones who don’t.”
Tara Paalika opened her eyes, and looked at the baby in her arms. His eyes were exceptionally beautiful, an iridescence of dark blue, brown, and hazel. Looking at the mirage of colors held within that little eyeball, Tara Paalika leaned towards the baby and whispered in his ears
“Indradhanush”, meaning rainbow, giving the infant an appropriate name, just like how her Paalak, Surya named her Tara, referring to the twinkle in her eye like a star in the sky; just like how the first Paalak, Varna meaning color, got his name. All Paalaks and Paalikas receive their names that only they could understand, the rest of the tribe oblivious to their meanings and their origins.
Tara took the child and walked, towards the uncrossable boundaries of the Shraavana jungle, and eventually crossing them, and moving towards the world that she and her predecessors grew up in, where their “disease” of sight wasn’t a cause of ostracization. She would let Indradhanush grow up there, and once old enough she would return, for him and the other babies from Shraavana kula. There, she would decide who among them was the most untainted by the enticements of vision, and the chosen one would return, to guide the Shraavana kula in their unilluminated journey, holding up the light of guidance that only the Guardian could see.
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