TOUCHING BASE

Now and then, the tortoise needs to retreat into its shell. The word ‘retreat’ is used by human beings to describe the going home of the tortoise. Humans think that it is out of fear, but the tortoise can teach them a thing or two, or four.

Sometimes a body wants to stop running with the pack and just lay by. The traffic on the congested highway, where it was so important to stay in sync with the flow, is suddenly a distant vision of colourful cars passing by; music wafting out of some, children shrieking in others. Standing aside, even the horns blowing in the distance are not irritants. The driver who has been chasing in his car for so many miles, or the one who has not been letting him pass on ahead, no longer matters.

After some time it is a pleasure, rather than a burden, to go on.

Tortoises have shells gifted to them by The Manufacturer. They sometimes come in handy to let passing sandstorms, electric storms, heat and cold and other such things go their way. At other times, they are good to stay away from foxes, jackals, money, bosses, governments, and other predators; or even just some urchins carrying pointed sticks.

The tortoise doesn’t have too far to go, and it has all its life to get there. Unlike humans. Humans are really going! Nobody ever said anything about reaching.

There are times in childhood when a doting father picks up shells from a riverbed, splits the two halves, and places the hollows against the ears of his children. And they hear the expansive, embracing hum of the ocean to which the river stretches to reach.

The shell is where the tortoise goes to be one with the sounds of the ocean, the hum of the universe. The shell is where he catches the strains of The Flute of The Cowherd. The shell is where he treads the desert and mountain, sand and snow, in the Footsteps of The Baba - oblivious to the heat, chill, thorn, stone and snake. Sometimes he breaks into inward song, and sometimes he dances to a celestial tune.

Outside the shell, volcanoes erupt, the earth quakes, great floods cover the lands, a hundred battles rage; death, destruction and fear are sold in the name of progress.…towards what? People die and are born again, to run the gauntlet yet one more time.

Inside shell, the sun rises to his bidding, the moonlight falls gently where he wishes, rivers flow, children play, flowers bloom, birds sing. Gently floating.

Once in a while, humans need to retreat into the freedom of The Shell.