01 May, 2014

The Deafening Silence -

During 1964-65, Ellora was a tiny, sleepy but happy village just a mile away from the now-famous Ellora-caves in Maharashtra, India. I had stayed in the village over a period of three months to work with the village folks to start a souvenir manufacturing unit. As a result, I had developed friendship in the village with an official Tourist Guide who was resident in the village. He had narrated to me the magnificence of the majestic artwork chiseled out of a mountain range from top down. I was in awe because I could not even begin to fathom the perspective and skills of the artisans that had chiseled the mountain range with such beauty over a period of a few centuries.

Every evening around dusk time, I took a solitary walk up to the entrance of the Ellora caves. I was afraid of entering the caves lest I shatter its deafening silence. But, I always paused at the cave, a bit afraid of darkness and the silence of all those majestically carved human figures and the hallways within the caves. There were no lamps of any kind around.

The utter silence of the caves in the evening, without a single tourist or human hanging around, seemed to audibly communicate the dedication and devotion of thousands of artisans.

Hanging around the caves in the darkness of its deafening silence, I was not a tourist; just an observer and listener with an awe of all that I was experiencing.