He was exhausted, He sneezed again, strained forward, as if trying to live with his last strength, but he let out his breath and died.
Inga, taking a deep breath, squatted down in front of the motorcycle and howled in despair.:
- Well, my dear, well, it’s a little bit left to get home, well, just a little bit. Well, you should have died right here in the mountains, in this terrible place.
She collapsed onto the side of the road, put her head in her hands, and began to carefully inspect the surroundings.
The surroundings really did not inspire much confidence, neither by the presence of any housing nearby, nor by any help in solving vehicle problems. It’s just that the road that Inga chose ran in the mountainous region of Kangra, and as a result of repeated mountain collapses, it had not been popular with the local population for many years. It can even be said that many Hindus who have been born in recent decades did not know her at all. And in vain… a person of an artistic nature would undoubtedly have discovered something picturesque and fascinating in this place: a mountain dusty road curved like an ominous snake over a precipice that gaped as if expecting something, and rocks hung overhead, interspersed with stones that were ready to fall on any minute. a stupid head and smash it to smithereens.
Kangra is a sacred place. Inga had heard from her Teacher that Mahatmas and Mahasidhs used to stay here in meditation concentration in ancient times. She didn’t know who they were for sure, but it still inspired her with a certain awe and reverence. Somewhere in the depths of her soul, she hoped even now to meet one of them, at least in an astral body and ask for blessings on her sinful soul. But, alas, no matter how much she asked the locals about them, she hardly found one Mahatma in the city temple, but access to it was completely forbidden. Therefore, what can we say about the mountains? They probably haven’t served as a refuge for souls who want to know the truth for a long time, so Inga, being old enough, no longer harbored any illusions about this. She knew that these mountains were now just mountains, where the setting sun and the approaching dusk did not bode well.
The girl tried to start the motorcycle again, using all her secret tricks, but when she found an almost completely empty tank where the gasoline should have been, she calmed down. Although she filled it up to capacity before setting off, but probably at one of the parking lots, some cheerful Indian woman needed her gas. There was no choice. Carefully parking the motorcycle on the side of the road, Inga went to investigate.
She was slightly reassured by the examination. Not far from the stop, behind large bushes of flowering shrubs, white marble steps leading up the slope were discovered. From the Sanskrit characters and style, it was clear that they could belong to a Hindu temple. Inga breathed a sigh of relief, for some reason she loved Hindu temples very much. Of course, this caused ridicule from her Buddhist Dharma friends, but there was nothing she could do about it, as soon as she entered an Indian temple, some kind of bliss penetrated her brain and body, and her soul felt light. The experience became especially unforgettable when the parishioners sang Bhajan, Sacred chants, together with Swamiji. It seemed that even the heart was pounding to the beat of the drums, and the Gods were actually descending into the temple.
The girl walked slowly forward, and the road, consisting of white marble steps, rose higher and higher, and there was no end to it. Only now did Inga discover that it was located along a ridge, and on both sides, just two steps away, there were bottomless abysses.
Some explanation is needed here. The Himalayan mountains were not like the mountains of Altai or the Urals, because the Himalayan mountains are very high, sometimes with completely steep slopes, as they say, if you fall, there is nothing to catch on to. It was not uncommon for people to die here simply because they accidentally stumbled, or after heavy rains the paths were washed away, and then practically, smooth vertical slopes with loose stones that became rollers under their feet, left no hope of survival. Sometimes monuments were left in such places, and at first it slightly upset the newcomers, but then people got used to it and got used to it, and became more careful. So Inga got used to it a little, but all the same, when the rational mind took over the body, the body seemed very vulnerable and fragile.
His jeans stuck to his heaving legs, his back began to ache, and his breathing panted.
The steps were endless, they went somewhere higher and higher, but there was no sign of the temple. Inga chuckled, once she heard the song “Ledzepelen”, a song called “Stairway to Heaven”, then she did not understand what she was talking about, but she was fascinated by this name, and she often mechanically repeated it, even tried to draw this staircase over her bed, but the stairs rested on the ceiling … That was the end of it.
It was still hot and she was unbearably thirsty, thank God, on the way she discovered something similar to a concrete well, and no longer thinking about the fact that drinking raw water is not recommended, especially in India, greedily fell into the warm stream from under the rusty faucet. And then, for a moment, my back went numb.…
Either it seemed to her, or it really was as if a distant roar cut through the sunset silence… her eyes slowly turned and slid along the adjacent slopes … but, alas, … it wasn’t on the nearest slopes, it was right on the white marble steps! Below, five hundred meters from the concrete well, the beast was rising slowly and confidently.
Everything suddenly stopped: the sun, which was already orange, the smoky Indian sky, as if covered with a transparent cape of an Indian girl, her life, which did not give the world any benefit, and the air that hung and turned out to be inhaled.…
There was an animal walking along the road, and it was called the Himalayan Tiger, and it was three Inches in size together, and this tiger was following her trail, and the distance between them was not so much to have time to think about everything. There were still bottomless chasms along the edges of the road, framed by sparse thorny chiara bushes.…
“Oh, my God!”- there is no way back, there is no way around, there is only an endless “Stairway to Heaven” ahead…
Inga has already seen her beautiful chiseled hips and knees disappear into a toothy meat grinder. “After all, the damn idiot won’t even look at what he eats, the question is, why did I spend so much money and torture myself in fitness clubs? Oh, my God!” She moved her numb legs, pulled her shoulders into her head, probably thinking that she was less visible that way, and crawled like a panther quickly upward, no matter what force she was lifted by.
“There must be people there, they just have to be there, because someone made these steps and even scratched Sanskrit hieroglyphs on them!..” She didn’t want to think that these steps had been laid centuries ago. Catching on a snag, she stumbled and sprawled to her full height, but quickly got up and raced up without looking back.
“Oh, God, forgive me for everything, I will definitely write a letter to my mother, and tell her that she is very good, and that I love her very much, but God save me, otherwise, how is it?.. It’s kind of ridiculous, because I’ve never told her that, and if I die, she’ll never know about it…” Inga kept running up, and the wind was painfully blowing her lungs.
“Lord, why would I do that? If this is my karma, then maybe it’s a mistake, how will a tiger eat me if I don’t eat anyone even boiled?”
The mind completely refused to believe what was happening, and the body moved as if by itself, completely unaware of the dynamics of the movement of the legs and arms. Probably, the instinctive program for self-preservation was working, otherwise if her head had been working, Inga would not have moved from her place. One could only hope that soon this stairway to heaven would end, even if it was a ceiling. But it was absolutely not possible to withstand the road to infinity, and even at such a speed. Inga has already seen how these beautiful white marble steps are flooded with fresh, warm blood, and baked in the sun, flowing into scratched Sanskrit hieroglyphs.
The road curved sharply and headed for the last peak.
His throat hurt, and his lungs could no longer take in the necessary amount of air. The Bodhi tree appeared around the bend. “Oh, that’s something!” Usually such sprawling trees were found not far from residential settlements, they were specially planted as a kind of Russian gazebos, under the shade of which residents often gathered to discuss gossip and news. Inga pushed back the matted strands of hair and crouched down on the steps, as if stealthily looking back, as if afraid that sensing her gaze, the beast would rush off.
Yes, he saw her, and his gaze was completely unfeeling and incorruptible, and it seemed that nothing could stop him. The tiger, as before, climbed the steps confidently and calmly, probably thinking that the victim would not get away from him.
The sky was dotted with vultures and small crows, and that didn’t bode well either.
“Kitty, don’t come here, please don’t.” Inga began to cry and stumbled again, hitting her knee hard. Her strength was failing her. The air swam before my eyes like a red haze. She remembered that when she was a child, she broke her knees, nose, or just hurt herself, she said to herself: ” Inga, you’re strong, you’re resilient, you can do anything, you have to get up and go!” And she stood up. And now, no matter how funny it was, she said to herself: “You’re strong!” And pulling her bruised knee under her, she stood up.
The tiger, as if sensing the finish, visibly perked up and began to move faster, he was almost running up. There were only a hundred meters between them, and it seemed that if he wanted to push harder, everything could end very quickly.
There were indeed some dilapidated buildings behind the Bodhi tree. Inga pulled with all her strength and screamed in a hoarse voice: “Please, help me! Please, helpme!” But no one came out to meet her. She ran to the nearest house, where the monks were supposed to live, but there was a lock on the door. It felt like no one had looked in here for a long time, but Inga refused to believe it. He shouted in A hoarse Voice, “Please help me! Please, help me!”… And tears were pouring into her mouth, and dirty, oily hands were wiping her eyes, which could no longer see anything ahead, because everything was like a blur, everything was not real, as if in some kind of nightmare, and in general, it was not with her, but with some other girl.
“Help…” wheezed Inga, rushing from side to side, not feeling her legs and running through some antediluvian ruins. But no one heard her.
She ran to the topmost landing and tore open the door of a small temple. The door wouldn’t budge, she yanked once more, the door stood firmly. A growl sounded very close,… my back turned cold, and my hands felt like cotton wool. She collapsed against the door, and it creaked inward. Inga did not remember how she got inside, she only saw the door closing in front of the monster’s nose and the latch, which she could not put on the rusted hinge. But with difficulty, she still did it! She did it, and it was a victory! Inga went limp and fell right on the threshold.
It took a long time for his breathing to recover, and his eyes, still unaccustomed to the darkness, could not make out anything.
She heard something very heavy fall on the door, and oh, my God, the door creaked. She was probably wrong, it was still far from a victory, because the door was very old, the latch was barely holding on a rusted hinge, and the worst thing was that the door opened not outside, but inside, which was enough of a big push and …
“I have to crawl away, the smell of my body will annoy him even more… yes, but who will hold the door? No, we need to lock the door.” She frantically began to feel the cold floor, but there was nothing like a prop. The tiger was growling in displeasure, and the girl even seemed to smell its cloying scent. She didn’t dare leave the door, and pressed herself even tighter, propping it up with her body.
“The manifest is my mind!” – I remembered a Buddhist saying. “And what do you think is my mind? If it’s my mind, then why does it want to eat me? In my opinion, this is my nonsense, not a tiger, of course, but what I’m thinking right now. Inga rearranged her cramped legs, awkwardly hitting her bruised knee. Blood seeped through torn, dirty jeans. “What a fool I am, he can smell blood, and this will further whet his appetite, we must definitely crawl away. Or maybe it’s nonsense, he’s not a shark, and he felt everything he needed to feel a long time ago.”
The tiger stopped growling, as if something else had caught its attention.…Inga was afraid to even let out an extra sigh, but a minute later he leaned on the door again and scratched his claws on the old, insect-eaten wood.
“Kitty, please don’t come here,” she cried again, “You’re so beautiful, so fluffy, so kind…”
The beast seemed to sense her thoughts and stopped, Inga froze too… “Maybe I’ll stop him with a mental message? “But as if hearing her insolence, the beast growled again. The head really was extremely stupid.
“Yes, obviously I’m delirious. “The manifest is my mind.” Aggression, cruelty, pain-how much of it have I thrown out in my life?”
“If it doesn’t hurt you when you hurt someone else, it doesn’t mean at all that the pain won’t come back to you,” said her best friend, from whom she easily stole a pimply red-haired guy. And her tears stood before her eyes for a long time.
Inga remembered the puppy, whom she mercilessly beat with an iron rod, and only because he playfully pulled the laundry from the rope. She remembered how she snapped at her mom when she tried to reprimand her. She remembered how she calmly threw a trapped little mouse from the tenth floor and cheerfully watched it fly to the ground. Oh my God, how much more could she remember…
“Karma is like a lump of snow, it can accumulate and accumulate from completely small things, and then a big misfortune can suddenly fall on your head,” the Teacher told her,
“In our age, all people have very bad karma,” he continued, “but many people don’t even know about it. But one way or another, in this life or in the next, fate will take its toll, and then it will be too late to do anything. You are a happy Inga, because you have met with a Teaching that can change everything in your life, purify bad karma and accumulate good karma, and you can become truly happy, but you are lazy and do not use all that your luck has given you.”
There was nothing left to cry about, the cold floor stung her body, her swollen legs began to ache, and big karma was puffing under the door and she couldn’t do anything about it. Sooner or later, this karma would really finish her off, because she would not be able to prop up the door with her body all the time, and people were unlikely to appear here, since she no longer doubted that the temple had been abandoned for a long time, and it was useless to deceive herself.
Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and thanks to the small window that was directly under the ceiling, she could already clearly see the slightly dirty walls with crumbled plaster in places, the bizarre patterns on the tiled floor, the wrought-iron latticed ceilings and a small altar covered with some kind of shiny cloth in the depths of the room with bowls for incense and offerings.
“It’s probably not such a bad death to be eaten in an ancient temple,” Inga thought, “something like a sacrifice.” She knew perfectly well that in ancient times, and in places to this day, sacrifice was far from uncommon in Indian temples, especially if it was a temple of the Goddess Kali. Completely black, with red bulging eyes, protruding tongue and splattered with the blood of victims, she even terrified and revered foreigners. Kali was the most formidable Goddess of the Hindu Pantheon. Durga’s face, blackened with anger, was called Durga, and it was believed that none of the sinners could escape her retribution. The only question was, “Who is without sin?”
Earth is not considered a happy world, and when we are born here, we already have a load of negative karma, which means that Kali must punish everyone. I wonder what can give mercy?
Inga knew this sinister sepulchral energy of the temples of Kali, she often tried to enter them, but she never did, leaving offerings at the threshold, she left, hoping that the Goddess would not be offended. This temple did not look like Kali’s place of residence, because it was not completely black, and this calmed her down a little. At least, it was possible not to think that the Gods had driven her here for sacrifice, as an incorrigible sinner, but, nevertheless, the girl knew that nothing in life is an accident, and everything that happens in this world undoubtedly has a deep meaning. Once? What do you want to teach me, what should I understand?”
She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, she had to think. The icy floor burned his feet mercilessly and it seemed that a little more and the whole body would become a frozen wax exhibit and cold blue blood would flow through his veins. The Himalayan nights were extremely cold, and even if the sun was scorching during the day, at night it was easy to freeze off everything that made up our mortal body, including our teeth. And if we also assume that it was a deep Indian autumn, then we could assume that even if she was not eaten by a tiger, she could still freeze or starve to death. There wasn’t much choice.
So our body is created by our actions. That is, everything that is going to happen, like a computer, is programmed into our energy channels. And who is programming? We program ourselves, with our own thoughts and actions. “What’s inside is outside” – this Eastern wisdom has intrigued Inga since childhood, and it’s probably time to understand it once and for all. Maybe this is the key, no matter how funny it may seem.
Well, let’s say it’s programmed… so whether she sits here or goes outside, it doesn’t matter, what is predetermined cannot be avoided? But what about yoga? Didn’t the Teacher say that we are able to cleanse our sins by cleansing the energy channels from negative energy? Yes, but in the current situation, it was too late to practice yoga.
Inga carefully changed her cramped legs, and as if sensing movement outside the door, a tiger growled softly. The “manifest” has not disappeared.
The karma of pain is concentrated in the energy channels of the legs, if she sits down in Padmasana now and endures with all her might, maybe this will clear some of her karma and the tiger will leave? Indeed, this is a kind of purification of negative karma, but isn’t it a drop in the ocean now, compared to what she can experience being torn apart and eaten by a tiger? “Nonsense,” Inga diagnosed herself once again.
Meanwhile, it had become completely dark in the temple, and if it hadn’t been for the small window located just under the ceiling, it would have been impossible to distinguish even their outstretched arms for a long time.
I had to get some light. Inga listened to the steady breathing that could be heard outside the door. Probably, tigers also sleep sometimes, and this could give some respite in propping up the door with their own body. She was already tired of being afraid, and her completely frozen body and cramped legs demanded that she do something to find a chance to escape. After all, there may be another door in the temple, or you can somehow get food and fire. She peered intently into the darkness, in the direction where the altar was located, there were clearly bowls for offerings, and if incense had once been lit there, there might have been matches, but now it was impossible to see anything.
Inga listened once more to the measured breathing outside the door, touched the iron latch, and after making sure that she was somehow holding the door with the last of her senile strength, she almost crawled to the altar.
“If there was an altar, then there was incense. If there was incense, then there were matches,” she reassured herself, frantically touching some ritual objects scattered here and there in front of the altar. The main thing is not to run into a scorpion or a snake, which at this time of the year were often found in various shelters. Inga grinned: “It would have been a double death, but it doesn’t happen that way.”
I felt a box under my hands, it was really matches, but they didn’t light up.
She sat down on the floor and thought, even if she lit something, she wouldn’t have anything to keep the fire going, she needed a candle or a bonfire… oh, my God, a tiger might be afraid of fire, she’d read about it once. She began to think hard. Yes, out of old habit, she wiped her makeup in front of her eyes with matches wrapped in cotton wool, of course! And she always had makeup with her, thank God, she didn’t take it into her head to throw a small backpack, which, as always, dangled half-empty on her back. Well, we have matches and even dry ones, now we are building a bonfire. Inga pulled herself up on tiptoe and carefully pulled off a large heavy canvas covering the altar itself. “Gods forgive me, but I have no choice,” she babbled, building a kind of bonfire on the flagstones.
The match was lit, but the canvas, heavy with moisture and smelling of mold, was not going to catch fire. The contents of her backpack were used, some scraps of old Indian newspapers, a pile of dry twigs that someone had carefully stacked in a corner for a long time, old boxes of incense and the remains of these incense, and some garbage that she collected around the temple, almost crawling… after a while, the canvas smouldered.
“Maybe it’s not that scary,” Inga thought, warming her gnarled, frozen fingers and looking for something to prop up the door for safety, when her gaze stopped at the altar… the stupidly beautiful and tender eyes of the Indian Goddess looked at her.
Inga even stopped breathing. The goddess was like a living thing, no matter what you say, but sometimes Hindus are great at drawing their deities. But even this was not the case, probably the temple, which had stood for centuries, was sufficiently sacred, which could really give the image of the Deity a certain power of presence. But one way or another, Inga felt this unprecedented awe and awe that overwhelmed her soul. Pressing her dirty, soot-stained hands to her heart, she admired this image. Wearing a ruby sari embroidered with gold and a crown of precious stones, the Goddess sat proudly and fearlessly on a huge tiger. And she had eight arms, and she held a trident, a sword, a disc, a conch shell, a rod, a bow, and a flower.
“Janti Mata,” Inga’s lips whispered. She had once heard of this temple, high in the mountains, but she had never thought that fate would bring her here in this way.
It was not Kali, but it was a Goddess who combined almost all aspects of female Deities, the conqueror of the demonic forces of Durga. Shakti is the energy that permeates the entire universe, ready to purify you and save you from the quagmire of the contorted Samsara. Yes, all this was once studied by Inga from books, but how pompous and far away it was, and how trivial it was now, in this old damp temple, which became a trap and perhaps her last refuge.
“Janti Mata, who are you? Do you really exist, or are you also an illusion made up by people? If you are, then where are you? Cover me, save me, don’t you help everyone, even the most sinful?” The girl got up and came closer.
“Janti Mata, I am an unreasonable child, so who will enlighten my mind?”
Of course, Inga did not expect that the Goddess would suddenly appear from space and save her, hide her from the teeth of the Himalayan tiger. It was ridiculous to think that way. But why did she come here?
“Everything, in fact, is just a reflection of the moon in the water,” said the ancient texts. Nothing appears and nothing exists as a self-existent phenomenon, even Inga herself does not exist either…
“Oh, that’s a thought, if I don’t exist the way I think I do, then why be afraid of a tiger? ” She sat down on a bench she found in the corner and leaned against the cold wall.
“Yes, but the pain is real, and when it hurts, it really hurts. Have you ever thought about this, Teachers? What should I do with pain, even if it is empty in essence, as you claim? Maybe Llamas used to walk through walls, and someone still implements rings from space, but what should I do with this, a real enough tiger?”
Inga looked into the Goddess’s eyes and cried, “What am I going to do with this solid world if my head can’t transform it into something transparent and empty?”
“Janti Mata, I’m kind of a Buddhist, and my soul is with you. Tell me, what should I do?”
Tears blurred her eyes, and Inga was already sobbing out loud, and she was no longer afraid to break the silence. She sobbed and thought that all the Gods should see her. After all, they exist for something, because she calls them, because she has the right to at least some attention.…
She had once tried to imagine death and couldn’t. Truly, her brain couldn’t stand the idea, and then she was talking to herself.:
- How can it happen that I will suddenly be gone?
- Yes, but many people are dying, everyone is dying, no one will escape this fate.…
“But it’s unbearable not to be, not to know, not to remember.”…
- This is a state of ignorance.
- Late, when we live, it seems to us that we will live forever. We don’t want to, we can’t think about death, because it’s something beyond our control and something that can take everything away from us at once. To think about it is to go slowly crazy, which is what I am doing now, apparently.
The tiger began to growl again, and the door creaked slightly.
The girl’s body tensed: “Well, it seemed like a little more and he would become an illusion, but he doesn’t want to become one.”
She crept quietly to the door and checked the latch once more, then returned to the altar, and, wrapped in a piece of large canvas that was not completely burned, sat down at the foot of the altar.
Time was lost in the labyrinths of a tired brain. It was insanely cold, but by the faint glow of light in the small window, it was clear that dawn was beginning.
The tiger was snoring peacefully outside the door, and somewhere in the distance, birds began to wake up. It seemed that it had already happened, and it had always been there – she, this ancient temple on top of a huge mountain, and the tiger that slept so sweetly on the threshold.
The tiger carries Durga and the tiger sleeps on the threshold of her temple. Was it an accident? Big cats are not uncommon in the Himalayan Mountains. The fact that they sometimes feast on humans has been written about in local newspapers more than once, so there was hardly anything wonderful about it.
But it must have been wonderful. Inga suddenly remembered a story she had heard when she was a student. And she couldn’t remember if it was in India or another similar country. But it said that a long time ago, in ancient times, there was such a custom: little girls were brought to the temple of the Mother Goddess, and in the temple they were put in a cage with a tiger in turn. And if the girl was not scared and was not eaten by a tiger, then she became the embodiment of the living Goddess of this temple for the rest of her life.
It was a brutal story, but the fact that the beast could not touch it was similar to the truth. And Inga believed it, because one day, when she was only three years old, she came with her parents to visit relatives in the village. During a festive dinner, a little girl disappeared, they were looking for her with all the big relatives, and they found her in the neighboring yard. She was sitting in the booth of a big, vicious dog and gently patting his neck. People gasped, this dog was famous for his rabid anger and tore up many people, even the owner himself was afraid to approach him and threatened to shoot him with a hunting rifle. And then a little girl calmly climbed into his booth, and even unceremoniously dripped into his shaggy fur.
Yes, it really happened. And the dog didn’t touch her, and she wasn’t afraid of him, moreover, they even became friends for a while.
What has changed over the years? Why can’t she do that now? She wouldn’t go near that dog right now. Probably because now she knows that the dog can tear her apart, but then she just didn’t know about it. She saw only a funny furry creature without labels and names, and loved this creature. And the creature felt this love, but who will bite the one who gives you love? And now, where is this selfless love?
The mind has become rigid, it is firmly overgrown with solid concepts of this world, like a ship that has been anchored for many years, overgrown with shells and moss.
- Maybe we should take a chance, there should be a place for heroism in every life? – Inga chuckled, – in my opinion, my delirium began to progress, because talking to myself is the first sign of schizophrenia. But maybe it’s for the best, then you don’t have to think about something reasonable anymore.
- If you can’t adequately assess the situation, it’s probably worth refraining from making hasty decisions.
“When, if not now?” I can’t just sit here until I starve to death.
- Yes, but sometimes the tiger wants to eat.
“But where will he go to eat if I am his food?” – she was sitting on the floor, dirty, with disheveled hair and giggling convulsively.
Janti Mata was still staring at her with piercing, impassive eyes. Now, in the faint morning light, almost the entire altar was visible.
“I’m tired,” the girl said to the Goddess. “I’m tired of the cold, I’m tired of this cage, I’m tired of my life becoming completely ordinary and unremarkable.” she was silent for a minute, as if thinking, then, glancing at the door, she continued, “I’m tired of waiting for a miracle, because it doesn’t exist if you don’t do it yourself. I’m tired of believing in you, and most importantly, I’m tired of being afraid and…”
She stood up slowly, swaying and holding on to the wall. After waiting for the blood to sink to her numb legs, she pulled back the latch and opened the front door.…
The jubilant morning light flooded into the temple.
Inga stood on the porch, and the rising sun mercilessly blinded her eyes.
The tiger was lying by the porch and staring lazily into the distance with narrowed eyes. Huge fluffy paws with worn and roughened pillows stretched out on the white marble slabs, ragged ears trembled a little, and shaggy, slightly bleached fur was gently golden under the gentle rays of the sun.
The peaks of the mountains stretched around, and they looked like the backs of huge pink dinosaurs. And beyond the platform, lined with marble slabs and enclosed by carved balconies, the same sheer precipices stretched, but now they did not look so sinister, on the contrary, pulled up by a pink haze, like muslin, they created the impression of a completely different world, happy and serene.
The girl sat on the warm porch and tilted her head back, looking up at the sky. It was, as always, bottomless, and it seemed that if she swayed forward, she could fall into it.
She was choking on space, and there was no name for this feeling, and there was no definition. One might have thought that the chest had also opened like the doors of a cold temple, and she herself had become a jubilant light, hollow, empty, transparent.
For a moment, her thoughts disappeared, there was only a strange feeling, as if the Goddess had covered her with her red silk veil.…
And Janti Mata became space, and Inga became Janti Mata, and inside Inga-Janti Mata was this bottomless autumn sky, and this orange Indian sun, and this girl Inga, and this lazy, half-asleep tiger, and hundreds, thousands, millions of people who were now in love, giving birth, crying and dying…
And everything was an illusion.
Only Janti Mata and the tiger were real, because they were beautifully drawn by some good Indian artist.
/Elena Kshanti/ 2005/
