On The Steps To Heaven...

Engine roaring in resonance with the windy air and the thumping sound of that ranger echoed through every corner of the frequently traveled hills of the Leh.

In those low oxygen areas, the rider was following up with the speed and was challenging “those mischievous” curvatures, for the distance was too much to cover.

Through the rounds and the corners of that helical road, he was progressing towards the big destiny. As soon as the symphony of the thrill and the engine strokes had emerged, the spiral curve came as a surprise to the rider. With gearbox broken and bike parts scattered, he lay at a distance oblivious to the world, for the trip he went on was a solo one.

The rider woke up and found himself on a soft bed and a maid sitting beside. Perplexed he asked, “Where am I? What is the place? Where is The Beast?”

Maid: The Beast’s life is over, you be thankful to the villagers that they found you and brought you to this place.

Rider: Oh no!! My life was dependent on it. How come God be so cruel, everything went off in a moment!!

He quickly stood up and ran to every place of that strange city, luring himself to everyone around and asking the same question, “ Where am I? What is this city?”. Alas! No one returned even a tiny of the response.

Exhausted he lay down near a lake beneath the full moon. In a distance, some flock of girls giggled through. “Giggle”, a symbol of happiness seemed like a melancholy, however, to the Rider. Getting back to his senses, he learned that he ought to look for that single maid, who at least talked to her.

He again started his quest, back to that soft bed and the beautiful maid who sat behind. “Probably she is the only one, who has helped me get back to the senses, for how can I feel so energetic after going through such a major accident”

The roads he traveled back had changed, instead of lanes and lands there were paddy fields and small boulevards sprouted out of those large fields.

Searching for the right way through the paths of the puzzled paddy fields, he accidentally rolled over a pile of sack that lay on one of the ways on the entrance of the paddy field.

Sometime after, the pile of sack began to quiver. Panicked, Rider started to run. Had he had his beast this time, he would have rushed to Leh twice!!

“ Are you looking for the maid or the beast?”, a heavy voice unrolled from that pile of the bag. Flabbergasted, the rider froze still! For he was looking at a sack which spoke!

“Please untie me!, Some fool has tied me up in this sack and it smells like rotten eggs down here!!”

It was not late that the rider understood it was a human. He somehow opened up the sack and from it, emerged a lean and thin personality, with chillum in his hands.

“Ah! Thanks, It’s cold out here? Ain’t it?”, said the weak figure. Rider dumbstruck on finding some other person who could talk tried to come directly to the point.

“ How come you know I am looking for the maid, in fact... The Beast ?” “Haha, everyone here looks for that maid, mate! For the beauty, she possesses, Aint’it?” “Please tell me where can I find her?”

“Oh, you can never, beauty once lost never returns, because we don’t respect the beauty for the first time we see it!”

“ Then tell me how can I find my beast, I need to reach Khardung La by tonight.”

“Khardung La!!, hahaha.... Mate you have already crossed Khardung La, You are almost 10 Khardung La’s away from your Khardung La”.

“What!! This does not add up, I fell down my beast on one of the curves, and as far as I recollect the distance was still more than 500 km!!”

“Hmmm... Well, then you are really lost, mate!! I can help you, but will need some of the paddy crops from the field to lit this up( pointing towards the chillum, the man grinned)”

“You smoke Paddy!! Strange it is!”. The rider plucked out some dwarf rice crops from those flourishing paddy fields and lend it to the weak figure.

“ Okay what do you want to know?” asked the weak man, filling up the chillum and lighting it with the friction of the stone.

“ I want to know about this place!! Where am I and how would I go back to Delhi!”

“My friend, you are in one of the most awesome places one has ever seen! This is KalpaGiri”

“KalpaGiri??” asked the bewildered rider.

“Yes, KalpaGiri!! This place is far away from any place on your earth, in fact on any of the planets!”

The rider, who seldom felt cold, now felt his spine frozen with the chill. Thinking that paddy might have hit the man hard, he started running!

“Son, find your beast soon, for there are many monsters looking for it!”, said the man sniffing the paddy again!

The rider did not listen to him and continued running when he found a girl spraying the field crops. The Rider stopped and was astonished when he saw her properly. She was The Maid

Maid: Did you find the beast?

Rider: No I found a senseless man talking rubbish about the place, it might have been the sniff of the paddy that spoke, perhaps.

Maid: What paddy!! You met the man who sniffs paddy? Why did you come back again then? He was supposed to take you to the offering!

Rider: Offering, please let me know where is my beast!

Maid: It depends which beast you seek for my friend, as of now I am a beast and that old man is also a beast and the offering is also a feast of the beasts!!

Rider: I don’t understand what you speak of! I just want to go to Delhi and continue to do with my life!

“ You are still doing with your life son, just the things have changed, the places and the things you see are decided by you. When you need to talk - you find me, when you want to find the beauty you find her! And perhaps this land is your wanderlust factor!”, appeared the old man

“ Won’t you like to stay with us, and with this boundless agrarian territroy of Kalpagiri!”

“No I want to leave, I have duties to follow and a job to follow! What will happen to the dependents!”

“Oh, dependents can appear!”, “Just follow us”, said both together.

Frightened and awestruck what to do the Rider puffed all the paddy and .........

The metro stopped at Lal Quila station, with a robotic voice saying “ Qutab Minar station, please stand away from the doors!!”

The man stood up realizing his breaks of bikes had gone bad and he had to rush to the workshop to get the bike done and return back to make a powerpoint presentation for the next day at the office!! :)

As soon as he was coming out of the station, he saw an old man with chillum in his hands. As soon as he passed the old man, the old man shouted, “how do u feel now? Look for the steps son, your bones are still weak”.

Perplexed to the voice, the man stood at the balustrade of the Qutab Minar station and looked at his twisted toe!

Then he saw his bike which his own friend rode, and he received the recalled his house getting auctioned due to nonrepayment of loans.

At last the man was back to the world, where nothing was his.

Recollecting the words of the Paddy Puffing man about the monsters and his beast, he knew that the man was true and he regretted to not have seen the offering, so-called the hyped one for which two strangers were requesting him to attend !!

Twisted with one toe, he followed the old man briskly for the answers to his so many questions, and the old man said again

“Beauty knocks the door once, and it seems you missed the train!!”

Falling on the ground the man cursed himself, for he had missed a carefree life to get a stressful competitive life in which nothing returned to him!! Struggling hard with the rhetoric serenity of those lands in his mind, amidst the ruckus of Metro station, he kept on regretting. Will he be able to break the monotony and go back?

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I leave the end to the reader, Do you feel it is poetic justice to you if something similar happens to you . Will you chase for the Offering or fix your current situation? Or are both the same? :)

If not what would you chose and why?