The Tales of Kashua
Episode 3 : Sage’s Poem & the Storm Ahead!
(Image Credit: Mooky-BD)
Sai and his grandfather have now reached the top of the Baruni Fort. It was a windy day, and dark clouds were lurching forward. Probably it would rain today or maybe it won’t. Rain or not, both the old man and Sai have reached the summit of the mountain. They are going to wait here, hoping Ali would make this trek, safely and in one piece.
Sai : Dada, I wonder if it is a good idea to let Ali do this trek all on his own. I mean, he is too young to do to climb this mountain without any guidance!
Old Man : Don’t worry Sai, it is the brother in you that is so concerned. Don’t forget, he is my grandson as well, and I know he will be fine.
Sai (still unconvinced) : Well, in my opinion, he could have done this trek with us. We would have warned him of the possible mistakes that rookies do while trekking for the first time. I bet that he would be probably doing some of them right now.
Old man (smiling) : Sai, tell me one thing. Why do you think I have planned this trek for such a little boy ?
Sai (sarcastically): Because of those strange philosophies and rituals you keep on telling me, Dada.
Old man (laughing): That is an amusing answer Sai. However, I intend to drag him out of the safety of the walls of our house and throw him in the wilderness of this mountain.
Today, I want him to make some stupid mistakes , fall on his knees and taste failure. You see Sai, he has become good at handling the ball through his home-training but won’t go out to play on the ground because he wants it all perfect on his debut match. He wants it all to be perfect, and on the inside, he is scared of being not good enough.
What he doesn’t understand is the fact that there is no such day as the perfect day and no such thing as the perfect debut. This trek will be his first encounter with hopelessness and there would be no running away once he is deep in this mountain. I want to see if he could emerge stronger.
Sai : Still Dada, Mount. Baruni would be too much for him . Even kids much older than him don’t dare to climb this mountain on their own .
Moreover, I can sense that a storm is approaching this mountain.Its only afternoon and is getting dark already.I have a bad feeling about all this
Dada (glancing at the creeping clouds ,he started humming the Sage’s Poem) :
Only those who rose after falling flat, know what real darkness is
And only they would know the value of the light within
They smile and rise in the face of storms, for now, they too know the secret
That it’s in the nature of a storm to fade eventually, however strong
And it’s in the nature of a mountain to stand tall forever, however small.
Don’t worry my boy, I have one of my old disciple stationed along the way who will be following him and take care if anything gets wrong.
All I want to see today is if he has the Will of Kashua in his blood.
[A Marine officer was listening to this conversation. There was no doubt in his mind, it was his former master’s voice! He smiled and stealthily climbed down the main path of the mountain without attracting the old man’s attention. He knew that the ritual of Mount Baruni has been started today and he didn’t want to miss the fun.
“It would be a good idea to be around the master’s young boy, just in case the weather gets worse. Also, I have this gut feeling that I might be running into my old friend today “, the officer told himself]
To be Continued…
