Swift as the Wind

When Pavanajava’s owner had led her out the gate and slapped her hind end to get her moving along the path, she thought perhaps again she would be going to a neighbors home to be bathed in lavender scented soap, her white coat, mane and tail would be brushed to a smooth shine with oils. Then they would place the jeweled manda headband with a plume of peacock feathers on her forehead. The anklets and bells on her legs would jingle delicately. When they finished dressing her in silk and satin fabrics stitched with sequins and gold thread, the wedding band would play and all the guests would dance around her. Remembering the beautiful rituals, she nearly pranced like a young filly as she left the gate, her recent illness forgotten.

But when she turned her head back to her owner, she realized he had not come with her. She found herself alone for the first time in her life. She walked back to the only home she'd known and gave a mournful whinny. But her owner stood at the locked gate and shouted for her to go away. When the stick came down on her back her heart broke.

Her head hung low, her legs wobbled in grief. She walked on and on, through the village past the homes she had visited over the years as an honored guest. She stumbled and nearly dropped onto her right foreleg, but the slight incline of the stone path stalled the momentum of the near fall. Her thoughts too, grew heavier with every step. But everywhere she stopped to rest, a crowd would form, shouting and waving brooms and branches to urge her onward. Within a few days her life narrowed to an agonizing resistance to the growing force of gravity.

She thought of the first time she had carried a groom to meet his bride. Oh how they all praised her and the children giggled when her skin rippled in delight at the tickle of their tiny hands on her neck. She stopped to gaze hopefully at the courtyards, thinking maybe they would remember her, and give her food and shelter. But the children and grooms that once had loved her now greeted her with angry shouts, not treats. Her legs twitched with fatigue and every step was so very hard.

At night, she slept lightly, standing up, hungry and frightened of the dogs that woke in the dark. They circled her and nipped at her legs and she kicked them to keep them away. One early dawn, she laid down exhausted. She was woken in the morning, by the villagers shouting and beating and poking her flanks. Still she could not rise, they used ropes to pull her up onto her tired legs. They cheered their success, clapping each others backs and raising their arms shouting, “Har Har Mahadev.” She recognized many of the men, but her master was not there. One young man she had carried to his bride a mere 3 years before. These men had danced then too, clapping each other’s backs, their eyes shining with desi jhol. Both then and now she was the center of their joy, but this time she did not feel their love, they made fun of her, changing her name from Pavanajava, ‘swift as the wind’, to Stavita, ‘slow old hag’. They went back to their homes to drink chai and exaggerate the story to their wives and children, and she walked on dragging her toes in a choppy, shuffling stride.

She left the village and crossed a narrow bridge over a river and walked by a small Himalayan ashram. A young man with an orange cloth wrapped around his waist stood at the gate and offered his opened hand filled with black gram mixed with jaggery. He gently stroked her neck with one hand as she pressed her muzzle into his offered palm. He spoke soothing sounds as they walked slowly together past the ashram to a grassy ground by the river. He guided her to lie down on her side and sat next to her, singing his quiet songs, and the birds and river seemed to sing with him.

Her eyes closed as she listened, and her body grew heavier as if she were melting into the earth. She sighed and let all her tensions fall away, her ears opened to the world around her. In a continuous game of water and stone, the river giggled like a merry child. Her senses merged with the musical sound. Somewhere from deep within her a playful snicker escaped her nose and startled her back into herself.

She became aware of the sun warming her flank, and her body relaxed more deeply. She remembered the firm calloused hands of her master as he brushed her and cleaned burs from her tail and mane. Love welled up in her as she recalled those hands of kindness. The grief and wounds of recent days, forgotten. The wind stirred, becoming those loving hands that never stayed long enough on her skin. She yearned to join those airy hands on their journey onward, not caring where or how long that journey might be. Oh to be so free.

For the first time, she noticed how the wind entered her nose and came out again, and the same wind entered the man who sat here on the earth next to her and left his mouth in soft murmuring sounds. She understood, we are all, every moment, connected, joined together by the air all around us. How big and wonderfully small at the same time. Nothing and no one left out.

A gentle wind entered her nose, full of the scent of earth, green grass and the gram jaggery treat that lingered on her tongue. She followed the wind as it became breath expanding her lungs and filling her body with joy. Pavanajava could not separate the winds from the unfettered love arising within her. When released it would nourish everything, everywhere, always. How wonderful it would be. She gazed into the bright mid-morning sky, knowing it had always been calling her home. As the wind rose upward to leave her body, she rode her breath and became the sky.