Let your shadow guide you

For a few minutes, we kept looking at each other silently. Anyone looking at me would have seen a blank face with expressionless dead eyes. A man with such eyes can believe anything he sees or hears. A man with such a state of mind doesnt analyze anything; he accepts anything that is told to him. Maybe that is why the words spoken to me didnt appear to be strange.

"Shadow, shadow. From shadow we come, to shadow we leave and we carry it along with us all our lives. Why be afraid of shadow then? Find it, find the treasure within, accept it and delve in it to find the light ahead. Trust your instinct and let your shadow guide you.

The words came at me like a sigh in the night air, rustling the leaves on the trees above. The calm eyes were still staring at me. To me, it seemed that they grew sad in the moonlight. Slowly, a thin trickle of water issued from them, shining brightly on the pale cheeks. The thin lips quivered and the right hand rose in a gesture of prayer or farewell I couldnt understand. Slowly, the shadow backed out of the clearing and after a few seconds I found myself again in the company of soft murmurings of the breeze and the moon high up in the sky.

Long, long after that I forced myself to get up and get inside the hut and head straight for the straw bed I had occupied in my earlier visits when the occupant of the hut was still present. As I closed my eyes, I imagined Eina lying opposite to me, propped up on one elbow, looking at me with her brilliant hazel eyes, a small smile of pity at the clumsy ways of the city people playing on her pink, dry lips.

And thus I fell asleep on that straw bed alone in a dark hut in the middle of a dark, dense unknown jungle with the imagined feel of Einas lips on my lips.

I woke up as the morning sun hit my face; I felt a little groggy and went outside to feel the cool morning air on my heated face. I stood out in the clearing for a while with my eyes closed, breathing in deeply the scented air of the early morning jungle. While I stood there in the calm and quiet, my mind as if suddenly switched on showing me the path I must take now.

I opened my eyes and looked around. The courtyard was silent and lit with the first rays of the sun. Birds were chirping all around on the trees above. It felt unreal to think of yesterdays happenings in the light of the morning. The firewood was still there, the ground damp with morning dew.

I took a last sweeping look at the entire scene. The hut, the clearing, the trees hugging the edge and finally at the firewood blackened with soot and the place where I had last seen the old man vanishing. And then I turned my back towards it all and headed towards the river. I knew I had to come back. This I knew with a certainty.

By 10 AM I reached my hostel. I bathed, I ate and then I left for college. Not to attend classes but to inform my professor about my intended leave. On my way back, I replenished my first aid kit and bought a stack of batteries for my flash light and as an afterthought, bought a shining dagger from a Nepali store. I felt like laughing when I imagined myself using it on the goons. It seemed hilarious to me too. Apart from some childish fights in school, I havent ever lifted my hands on anyone, or even thought of ever. And look at me now, buying a dagger and imagining myself to be a knight in shining armor for a damsel in distress.

I returned to my hostel, dumped my purchases on the bed and went straight out again. I went and knocked at Rob, our seniors door. I could hear voices of many people from inside. Seemed like a party was going on. There was no response for about half a minute. I knocked again. This time, the door opened and Robs head appeared through a crack in the door