Desert Roses

I have been arrested. I have been regularly irregular to the blog. It’s even more scandalous that I have not been penning any of my thoughts in here – which, by the way, has been the prime provocation of transforming myself to a blogger. Well, let the time take me there (That’s the usual escapade – Time and Fate ). Till then let me ramble into unfamiliar trails.

I don’t know if this happens to everyone – Something that you might have read long time back abruptly creates lot of clamor in your psyche as if it’s a bhoot trapped in an ancient vessel. Abusing your seclusion, it breaks the fetters, pokes the intellect and directly cancers your brain. Without any provocation, in one of my journeys back home in the company bus, an article I read in a Malayalam magazine unexpectedly popped out and lay bare in front of me, as if questioning my ignorance that stayed afloat till then. Anyway, holding further crap-talk about how I (selfish me :) ) am involved in this, let me dive into the matter.

The piece was about the large populace who leave our ‘Mera Bharat Mahan’ in search of a career at the abode of ‘revelation to wealth’ – named Gulf. In the text that elucidated an assortment of faces and facades involved in the posh life of Middle East, the part that jammed my attention was a mention about shepherds in the desert. Lets take a peep into their career: Every shepherd would be given a herd of sheep that he needs to take around the desert to stumble on pastures where they can feed. The sponsors would arrive once in a week at some pre-decided meeting point to endow the shepherds with food and some very vital necessities. The shepherds would be taken once in 3-6 months to the settlement, for a haircut/shave. I remember that this segment about shepherds had caught my eye, and I might have pondered a minute or two thinking about them. Yes I confirm!!– They were the culprits. It’s those shepherds who had jumped right in front of me, at 10 o’clock in the night while I was traveling through the dusty Hosur Road. And well, I had not choice but to become a shepherd - not that I wanted to. But they begged, coaxed and threatened me to it. Yes I became a shepherd. One among them. Teleported from Hosur Road to a desert in Middle East , with the only similarity being the dust.

Here I am, in the middle of a desert under baking sun, with no one for company other than 40 sheep who are as famished as I am. It’s been a long walk, and at times, I feel that my sense of direction in this unbounded ocean of sand is deceitful to me. It’s only one more day to reach the base camp, and my sponsor would have come with new stock of ‘Kubboos’ which would let me survive for yet another week. Yes….it’s been a long, dusty and daunting walk, just as it has been for the past 8 years. But the sandstorm that hit me a couple of days back was certainly having a distinct identity. As always, I was leaping down and hiding the face with the blanket and moving the body between the herd, to keep myself in the team. It’s never a nice feeling to have sand trickling down to the lungs, but after 2 hours of duel I managed to escape the blizzard with a loss of 2 sheeps. Sandstorm came swirling in to shake my mind, but also took the price of two sheeps from my hard earned income – as loss of sheep is accounted on inefficiency of the shepherd. There are many more shepherds like me who would be nomadic in the desert with herds. Only God knows, how many would have survived the storm. In this desolate tract extending to perpetuity, we live alone, fearing the wolves and desert cats that come to hunt sheep, vigilant for the noxious snakes that can appear at any time, we find our life being hotter than this desert. It’s not these external menaces that devour me; it’s rather the loneliness that I face. Sometimes I cast myself into a sheep and talk with my herd. The hope of finding another shepherd is very remote in such a big haystack of sand. You might as well say "Hey - it was your choice to end up there". But you need to understand, none of us landed up here for adventure or amusement. We do not cherish the heat and moonlight that’s extended on our body and mind; we suppurate seeing our lives fried in this scorching heat. It’s this heat that is getting converted to the fire in the stoves of our families back at home. It’s our existence that is being smoldered to get our children educated and to allow them grow up with a decorum that we never had. And it’s those smiles that we see in our families, that make us strive deeper into the deserts – it’s those little moments of bliss which transforms into a mirage in our desert. No.....Don't change it with your sympathy. Let it remain so. Let me linger through this solitude of heat till I may be given gratis.

I don’t know if people who stay in cities in Gulf would know about these poor mortals, but these realities of life did spur some waves in me. For a moment, I learned not to crib about anything around me, I thanked Him for holding me here and prayed that He will learn to balance the world and turn it to Utopia – The land in Marx’s dreams, and a land in the dreams of all these ‘Roses of Desert’ who would still be wandering incessantly in the deserts. World is never fair, is it? Now, don't start to be optimistic. Life is also not fair. Let’s hope it will be – but when? After we become a part of this desert?