“WHACKK!!! There is something inside. A piece of thick perchment was peeping out from the bitten off corner of the bread. Rahman quickly ate the bread and got the paper out. Some message was written on it.
Rahman read the message on the paper very carefully.
Now… what is that? First a weird coin then some weird people and now these puzzle parchment? What is this? Some kind of weird jewel quest, treasure hunt?After eating up the bread Rahman started thinking. “Now,” he thought, “the puzzle doesn’t seem to be that tough off hand. Especially the first two lines are rather easy. It just seems to tell to go south. But what does crude man? A crude man? Crude oil? What? And what about the hill, castle etc?... whatever, the puzzle tells to go south… if only I had the power of the coin, I could cross check.”
Unmindfully Rahman tossed the coin again. “Wow!!! This stuff works again… I’ve got a new destination I guess” and guess what… the coin pointed south.
* * *
Then Rahman started his walk again. This time towards south as dictated by the coin. He was not sure whether it was a mirage he was looking for. Yet he didn’t stop. For one simple reason, he had nothing else to do. Everything is better than going back to Sadhan Uncle. Inside the bread along with the paper there was also two five hundred rupee notes. So it was not so hard to survive. But this time Rahman spent the money very carefully. The sacred walker must reach his destination before resources run out.
But there was just void and void towards the south. Only stretches of barren land, some scattered agriculture and very few human localities. He started to get fed up mentally now. What did the puzzle say? In the south, there is crude? Did it mean this crude nature? Barren lands, and heat of June? And then there is a mention of some hill. A southern hill?
Rahman was nearing a locality. A small village with hardly ten or twelve households. Rahman noticed an elderly man walking slowly by the village road. The man was leaning forward and had a stick. Rahman called him, “Bhaisaab!”
The man stalled. Waited for a second or so. Then slowly turned his face towards Rahman. Now Rahman could see his face. Yes, the man was really very old. His face was covered with wrinkles all the way around.
Rahman asked the man, “Bhaisaab, is there any hill to the south?” The man replied in a even slower pace, “May be or may not be. Everything depends on who you are and when you see. Everything is according to the sun.”
Now that is enough. Rahman had already had enough of the strange puzzles and messed up words! It seems no one in this place talks straight. Rahman was thinking all these things when suddenly someone patted Rahman’s back and yelled, “Hey! Did you just said ’hill to the south’?
She was a teenage girl. With medium height, and curly hair. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Both of the dresses had the sign of a long journey. Her face was also dusty and hairs mingled. But the first thing you would notice on her would be her bright blue eyes.
Rahman was too astonished to speak. He just said ‘Ya!… I mean yes.’… but who are you? How do you know about the hill to the south?
“I am Ziah, a sacred walker”, said the girl after clearing her throat a bit. She spoke the words as if she was announcing that she had just won the Nobel.
“So am I. What’s the big deal?” Rahman was regaining his confidence.
“You too! Well, it doesn’t seem so. Whatever, even if you are, you are not going to find out any thing anyway. You better fuck off.”
“Find out what?”, Rahman said indifferently. He had already seen enough rudeness in life. So these things hardly had any effect on him.
“So you do not even know what you are looking for! Wow… good job done!” the girl broke into giggles. When the laughter phase was over, the girl continued, “I really can not decide why on earth you are going on! I really wonder how you became a sacred walker on the first place. I am sure you don’t even know what a sacred walker is.”
“Sacred walkers are what then?”
The girl was a bit serious now. “Are you sure that you are persuing this path? Being a sacred walker is not an easy job. There are lots of deadly dengers at the southern hill”
“You have already gone to the southern hill?”
(may be continued...)
1 comment:
amazing picture and blog visit us for disscount andaman holiday packages
Post a Comment