The Discipleship of Ajay : The Osprey
Even as a fledgling, while his brothers and sisters were still flopping about in an ungainly and ludicrous fashion, Ajay was discovering the delights of soaring, of spreading his half grown wings as far out as he could and letting warm up drafts lift him round and round. He could not, of course. maintain the soaring position for long, nor could he tilt properly or rise to any considerable height; yet at his tender age his performance was so unusual that his parents watched with a kind of awe, knowing they had hatched a wonder child.
As Ajay grew and his wing muscles became strong, he flew off alone more and more often, loving the solitude of the sky, where he could think about the sky itself and its endless endlessness. He thought about Infinity and the thought made him restless to know what it could be. One day he rose higher and yet higher on a strong thermal. The trees below became like shrubs and then like grass and then like dots of dark. green. He seemed to himself to be on a level with the highest snow peaks, of which his parents had told him, and in that rarefied air his lungs felt as though they might burst. He knew his mother would be frantic if she guessed where he was, but in the exhilaration of flight in the crystal beauty of the empty sky, in the light filled silence and total solitude all that took place at a lower altitude was as nothing to him, without meaning. There was only himself and the shining sky. And then suddenly he slipped through a crack, and there was only an infinite, living Joy; he was a vast Being, an endless Bliss, without boundary,. How long he remained in that state there was no telling, but when he again became aware of being centred in his body he knew that he had touched the Infinite. He continued to soar for a while, suffused with bliss, as the sky is suffused with colour after the sun has set. Then he folded his wings and plummeted back to earth in a long free fall, expertly pulling out of it just in time to prevent his death. Fortunately, his parents had not guessed where he was and were not looking.
All the osprey, as well as the kite, hawk, and falcon fledglings of the vicinity attended the local flying pathasala, where they were taught different techniques according to their particular aptitudes and natures. But the teachers despaired of classifying Ajay. In every category he showed tremendous skill: he could soar, fast fly, dive, hit a target in the water or in mid air with an ease that ordinarily belonged only to adult specialists in those fields. It soon became clear that this remarkable child, this prodigy, required special attention; and therefore, his parents, heeding the advice of his tutors, applied for his admission to the Himalayan College of Falconiforme Flight and Fishing, which accepted only exceptionally gifted students. They began to build a large trophy nest on their tree that was already crowded with family nests.
Ajay passed the entrance examinations easily, and with a guide sent to fetch him, flew off to the College in the northwest with confidence and mounting excitement. He had not forgotten his Experience in the high and empty sky; he often longed for it and had tried again and again to find the crack, but it was not there, and as his classes at school had grown increasingly absorbing, and as his joy of flying had become more and more keen, the memory of that Joy beyond the sky had grown dim though never lost.
Ajay was not large for his age, nor was his wing spread unusually broad; but his proportions were excellent; he combined the softness of the dove with the strength of the hawk; his bullet shaped body was slightly rounded, but his wings, broad at the shoulder and sweeping out and back at an angle when spread, were like artfully shaped blades that could slice cleanly through the air without tearing it. His primary feathers extended at his wing tips like small sensitive fingers, by Moving which, ever so slightly, he could make the Most subtle of adjustments in his flight. His under body and crest were snowy white, which made him look indeed like a dove on the wing, but his back was a rich and lustrous brown. His feet were yellow with shiny black talons, and his keen, far sighted eyes a bright orange, which would later turn to a rich and mature gold. By the time he flew off to the Himalayan School he had entirely lost his childhood fuzz, but he was not yet full grown; he was still a boy, graceful, slender, vulnerable.
Ajay and his guide, an angry mountain hawk, flew all day and a part of the night with strong, even strokes. When they set out at dawn the following day he could discern in the north the sun blushed snow peaks, and high in the sky, silhouetted against them, a number of black specks, which he at first took to be pariah vultures on the watch for carrion. But the specks seemed to dive and to loop, to spiral and somersault, and as he grew closer, he beheld a spectacle such as he had never before seen. Falconiforme birds of all kinds and sizes were performing incredible acrobatic feats, turning and twisting in the air at breakneck speed. As the sun glinted on their wings, they looked like frenzied fire sparks, rising and falling on gusts of hot air erupting from some hidden volcano. Amazed, he looked at his guide. Morning classes, the hawk said without interest. And Ajay's heart sank. They had reached the College; these insanely gyrating aerialists were to be his fellow students.
It had never before occurred to Ajay that he was not the best in the whole world, but the Himalayan College of Falconiforme Flight and Fishing was a far cry from his home pathasala. To the College came birds from all over northern India, as well as from Nepal, from Afghanistan, from Kashmir, from Burma, from Tibet, and even from China. Most were champions in their homelands, and they all displayed a dazzling virtuosity such as Ajay had never dreamed o He wanted to return home before he was sent home in shame.
Ajay spent the first days at the College in exhaustion from the long flight, and in deep despair. He found a large uninhabited deodar and roosted in it, his head turned back and buried in the hollow between his shoulders. It was not until the second morning after his arrival that a novice master discovered him in the heart of the tree.
Hello there, the young instructor said cheerily. Would you happen to be Ajay of Bengal?
Innate good manners forced Ajay to bring his head around. Facing him on the branch stood a handsome osprey not much older than himself, but infinitely more self assured, more masterful.
Yes, he said. I am Ajay.
Good! My name is Sanyal. You are one of my charges. Come along, your class doesn't roost in this tree. We were looking for you.
Sir, Ajay said, gazing over Sanyal's head into the sky, where a young falcon was performing spectacular pinwheels, I do not belong here; I am going home. If you will excuse me, it is better that I leave at once.
Going home! Sanyal exclaimed. What is the matter? Do you think that show off Afghanistani falcon you are looking at came here doing those fancy gyrations? He beamed. You will learn, too and better. He put his wing on Ajay's shoulder. Come along now. Cheer up! You need to eat something.
From the first, it seemed quite natural to Ajay that Sanyal could read his thoughts. There was an immediate empathy and trust between them. Without further argument, he flew behind the novice master to a tree at the border of the forest, where a number of young birds were roosting. He was introduced all around, and he could tell by the diffident manner of his new classmates that they were in the same predicament as himself. He was perhaps no better skilled than they, but he was surely not worse. After eating, he felt immeasurably better. He determined not only to stay on but to learn whatever he was taught. He could do it. He knew he could do it. He caught Sanyal's eye, and the young instructor threw back his head and laughed. Ajay laughed too, ruffling his neck and head feathers.
Sanyal turned out to be a hard taskmaster, and the discipline at the College was rigorous. From dawn - after ablutions, preening, and prayers until noon it was one class after another; then a good lunch and a brief rest, and then practice, practice, practice, until the sun set. After a light supper the students, too tired for merriment, flew back to their hostelries, and once settled, each in his assigned spot, fell instantly to sleep.
After that first day, Sanyal seemed to take no special interest in Ajay, yet from time to time Ajay felt the novice-master closely watching him, and as the months went by, Sanyal's promise to him became a reality: he was learning to do easily what had seemed impossible; he was becoming expert, and soon he was promoted from freshman to sophomore. This meant that Sanyal was no longer his housemaster; but it also meant that they could now treat each other as friends, and whenever there was a holiday, the two young ospreys flew off together, wheeling and looping, sliding down the wind, and chasing one another in the brilliant air. At such times, free from the daily routine, Ajay keenly remembered his glimpse of the Infinite, and a great longing for It seized him; nothing else seemed to have the least significance.
At the end of Ajay's junior year at the Himalayan College he had an experience of quite a different kind. He had become as adept in aerial acrobatics as any student and, for that matter, any instructor barring Sanyal, whose flying skills were unsurpassed and seemingly unsurpassable. To the intense displeasure of the seniors, Ajay was judged fit to graduate with them, skipping his final year. It was obligatory, of course, that he take the display examinations with the graduating class. Sanyal urged him to do so, and Ajay himself, eager to start his career in the world as an accredited performer, felt elated by the chance, but he was nervous as well, for the older birds, against whom he would compete, still dazzled him with their own growing expertise particularly the falcons, and among the falcons, particularly the one that Sanyal three years earlier had called that show off. His name was Ahmad.
As the day of the exams approached, Ajay practised harder than ever before, rising long before the sun and doing his triple rolls and back flips over and over in the predawn light, making sure his slightest movement was flawless, exactly timed, and in consonance with the fickle air currents. His techniques had become instinctive with him; he played with the winds as with close but mischievous friends, anticipating their tricks and vagaries, laughing with them when he outwitted them. At times he screamed with the sheer joy of the game, not thinking that this might alert his fellow birds to his early practice in the empty sky. Sometimes he flew so high that the sun, still below the horizon at the College dorms, flashed on his wings. From beneath he looked, then, like a small erratic comet. This, too, was observed. But there was no sense of secrecy in Ajay's heart; in his rapture all thought of competition was erased. When he was not concentrating on some exceptionally intricate maneuver, he felt only elation at the rhythm and freedom of his flight. This was his element, his God-given way of living. He was flight, wedded body, mind, and soul to the art.
Then it happened. One early morning, as he was resting on the wind, after practicing quadruple twists followed by a pinwheel, something slammed into him from above, striking him with the force of a hurled missile. He felt bladelike talons rip his back. Instinctively he faced whatever it was and saw Ahmad flying rapidly upward in preparation for another plummeting attack. He turned over, his legs extended skyward, and as Ahmad struck him, screaming, he raked the falcon's belly. An anger ignited him with total violence. The two birds flung themselves at one another in a fight to the death, feathers flying. He was aware that Ahmad was trying to strike at his eyes, but retreat did not occur to him; he struck back with all the strength he had. Not wounded as badly as Ahmad, quicker in his rapier like slashes and dodges, he was winning.
Then suddenly there was a angry, commanding scream, and another body hurtled between them. Break it up! It was Sanyal. He struck at the falcon, driving him off with the sheer power of his authority.
Back in the rookery, Ajay shook uncontrollably. He bled profusely from his wounds, and the pain, blocked out during the battle, was now acute. There was no more practice for him that day, or the next. His classmates nursed him, and Sanyal looked in on him from time to time and sat by him at night.
Why? Ajay asked. Why?
He has been jealous of you from the start, Sanyal replied. Now you are a real threat to him.
Jealous of me?
Look, Sanyal said evenly, you have had a taste of how it will be out in the world. It is a lesson you had to learn. Consider it as a part of your training the final exercise. You have to be prepared for that kind of attack always alert. If you are going to compete, you'll have to expect jealousy and trickery. Anyhow, you have proved yourself to be a good fighter.
The ugliness of competition, the sudden vision of a lifetime of guarding against vicious attacks out of the blue struck Ajay with a stab sharper than any physical pain from his wounds. He felt his heart break. He knew he could never again know the wild, abandoned joy of free flying. Always alert! And worse, there was the uncovered well of his own violence.
I can't live that kind of life, he said. I won't.
It is the life you came here for, Sanyal replied. The life you have spent three years training for.
I came here to learn to fly. Not to fight!
Well, are you going to settle down, then, and raise a family?
Never! he exclaimed.
The householder's life can be a good life, Sanyal went on. There can be greatness in it. A devout and selfless householder can realize the Infinite.
Ajay looked at him sharply. He had never told his friend of his youthful Experience or of the deepest longing of his heart; nor had Sanyal ever mentioned such matters before.
I could never be a householder, he said more calmly. The very idea suffocates me. Tied wing and foot to a nest. Hatching eggs, feeding babies who will hatch eggs and feed babies who will hatch eggs and feed babies who will ... It's been going on for millions and millions of years and will go on for millions and millions more. No!
Well, you don't have to decide this moment, Sanyal said. You can't take the exams in this conditions anyhow. Neither can Ahmad, if that is any comfort to you.
That he had badly wounded Ahmad was no comfort to Ajay. He loathed himself, not for having fought, but for the blind rage that had possessed him during the battle. It was something he never wanted to experience again.
I will become a monk, he said with decision.
So? Well, I can't advise you about that. But I know someone who can an old eagle owl, the Abbot of the Himalayan Monastery. He lives far in the north. I'll take you to him, if you like.
Oh, please!
The next morning they set out, flying together for a long part of the journey. After a time, as the sun was setting, Sanyal pointed out the eagle owl's aerie. Tell him I sent you.
Ajay reached the snowy crag where the Abbot stood, a huge, awesome Presence, feathered in gerua and brown and beautiful in grandeur. Standing before him, Ajay felt tiny, foolish; yet the Abbot's round eyes, both of which looked straight at him, were not merciless like the eyes of a raptor. They sought no prey; they needed nothing to feast on; with profound, unquestioning calm they contemplated the young osprey who had suddenly appeared. Ajay bowed his head and touched a black talon with his beak.
Sanyal sent me, sir, he said.
The Abbot nodded. Your dinner is waiting for you over there. Go and eat, wash, and then come back.
Ajay did as he was told. After eating a delicious, freshly caught mountain trout, which had been nicely laid out for him on an overhanging rock, and then dipping his feet and beak in an icy stream to cleanse them, he returned to the aerie and again bowed and touched a talon.
Once was enough, the Abbot said. So you want to join the Monastery.
Yes, sir.
Are you ready to have your wings clipped? Ajay gasped.
Figuratively, of course, the Abbot said in his deep voice; but it amounts to the same thing. He went on in a severe tone. A monk doesn't fly for pleasure or for exhibition. He doesn't waste time soaring on thermals. He is not encouraged to develop his individual talents. In fact, he has no time to do so. Individual needs are subordinated to the needs of the group. He must be obedient to the flick of a feather. There is no place in a monastery for a virtuoso flyer.
Ajay was silent.
Well? the Abbot said after some time had passed.
I don't have to be a virtuoso flyer, Ajay said.
Yes, my boy, you do; you will always have to be a virtuoso flyer, whether you compete or not. You were born one.
Sir, I want I want to know the Infinite. There was another long silence. Then the Abbot, looking intently at Ajay, said, You needn't join a monastery for that. There are other ways.
But, sir...
The Abbot closed his eyes, and Ajay knew he had been dismissed. He flew back to the College disconsolately.
He told Sanyal of his rejection.
But you yourself decided against joining, Sanyal said.
I decided? He turned me down!
Would you really give up flying? Sanyal asked.
And Ajay knew in his heart that the Abbot had been right. Virtuoso flying was as much a part of him as breathing.
I guess not, he said miserably
Well, like he said, there are other ways. You'll somehow find yours. Go home now for the vacation; come back in the fall.
Early the following morning, after bidding Sanyal goodbye, Ajay set out on the long flight to Bengal. He flew without joy, pushing straight on across Uttar Pradesh, stopping only to fish for his lunch. At dusk he came to roost in a small grove on the outskirts of Lucknow, but sleep did not come to him. What had the Abbot and Sanyal meant? What other ways? How could he ever attain to the real joy of his heart? How could he ever again know, the Infinite and remain in that state of bliss? The fact was, he belonged nowhere; his life had become unthinkable. The trophies he would inevitably win and that his parents would inevitably arrange in the huge stomach of the trophy nest, the fame that would come to him, the ugly battles he would have to fight all that seemed like lead in his heart, weighing tons and closing in on him. On the other hand, he could be neither householder nor monk; both paths were barred to him by his own nature. here was no way for him. The life that stretched ahead was worse than meaningless, and sitting there in the dark on a strange tree, he knew what he must do: He would go home to see his parents; then he would soar as high as the sun, and then he would close his wings and dive straight down. He hoped his parents would not be watching, because this time he would not pull out of the dive. Finally, he fell into a dull sleep.
In the morning he was awakened by a loud commotion nearby. Five or six crows were noisily attacking a pariah kite, who held in his beak a morsel of fish, snatched no doubt from some garbage heap. Wherever the kite flew, the crows followed, swooping down upon him, striking him in mid-air, allowing him no possibility of peacefully enjoying his prize. The crows grew in number, and suddenly the kite dropped the fish. Immediately, the crows dove after it, fighting fiercely among themselves. The kite flew to Ajay's tree and perched next to him, unconcerned.
You dropped it! Ajay exclaimed.
Right.
You just dropped it!
You said that. Of course I dropped it. It's only a scrap of fish. It's not me.
I wish it were that easy, he said and let his head hang. The darkness of his midnight resolve swept over him, and he pictured his body crashing into the ground, lying broken and lifeless on some empty field. So much for Ajay the Flyer, Ajay the Trophy winner, Ajay the Monk, Ajay the This, Ajay the That! he thought with sorrow. All crashed, gone As he brooded over that limp, solitary body, he saw in his mind several pariah vultures circle over it, land near it, and hop awkwardly toward it. He cried out, Keep away! And then quite suddenly the words of the kite, who still sat calmly next to him, struck through his mind like a bolt of lightning: It's not me! The scene of his imagination became for an indelible second brilliantly illuminated the pitiful white and brown rags of his body, the huge, ungainly vultures closing in on it to tear it with their beaks, and he himself looking on, sitting beside the kite, untouched. It's not me! he said aloud with something like joy.
What say? the kite asked.
I said "It's not me."
The kite cocked his head at him. Of course it's not you, silly.
I mean...
But the kite flew off without waiting to hear what Ajay meant.
He felt the joy rising within him, his depression falling away. He rose from the branch into the sky and headed northwest, forgetting that he had been going to see his parents. He flew back across the plains, crossing over village after village, and as his elation rose he now and then performed some loops and cartwheels for the sheer rapture of it. On one of these occasions, he glanced down and saw that he was over a small village of mud huts and trees, and he noticed that a number of villagers stood watching him with delight in their upturned faces. Without giving it much thought he entered into a prolonged exhibition, performing his best aerial acrobatics, losing himself in the beauty and ease of his art. And when he had finished he knew that his own joy and the joy of the villagers as they watched him was one and the same. He felt light, as though chunks of lead had dropped from his heart.
He did not linger for applause, but circled the village, resting on the air, barely moving his wings. As he glided, he saw that a small boy, standing alone in a yard, was holding out his arms to him. Ajay flew to a low branch of a mango tree and from there looked down at the little boy, whose upturned face. was beaming with affection. His eyes were huge and as lustrous as a lake in moonlight. As Ajay looked into their depths he lost out ward consciousness and once again slipped for a timeless moment through a crack into an infinite Joy. When the moment passed and he was again centred in himself, he knew that his flying had always been and would ever be a celebration of a boundless Being, of which he and everything else were somehow, in some dreamlike way, connected parts. Of course! he thought. It has always been so. An almost overwhelming love flowed between himself and the village boy, who still stood with his arms uplifted. He flew down into those arms and was held close to the boy's bare chest. For another long moment osprey and boy were one. Then the boy opened his arms and with a slight boost gave Ajay back to the sky.
He flew on, scarcely conscious that he was flying; his wings seemed to be movements of the air itself effortless, unwilled. That night he roosted in a forest of the foothills, and at the first light of dawn headed toward the College. As he approached he saw in the distance, as he had seen almost three years earlier, small shining specks whirling against the backdrop of the rosy snow peaks. He knew now what they were his fellow students performing their dazzling acrobatics in the early morning sun, catching the light on their wings.
He was struck by the beauty of those free flying forms, twisting and spinning and looping, like shards of crystal flung into the air by some ecstatic Dancer. The thought that they were better than he, or that he was better than they did not brush even the surface of his mind. He felt only awe at the wonder and beauty of the sight.
At length he reached the College itself. No one, neither instructors nor students, seemed to know that he had been gone, though to himself his two day absence seemed a lifetime. Only Sanyal knew.
Welcome back, he said. Long time no see. And when they were alone he looked deep into Ajay's eyes and announced, So you have found the other way.
Ajay was silent for a moment. Then suddenly he flew a few feet straight up into the air and re landed on the branch where they were sitting. Yes! he cried. Yes! He knew that he need say no more; Sanyal somehow understood everything that had happened.
You will graduate with your class? Sanyal asked.
Yes.
And then?
I don't know, Ajay replied lightly. Anything whatever comes.
Yes, he said, whatever. But whatever it is, let it shine; let there be no glue on it anywhere! Fly free!
It was the first time Sanyal had spoken to him with the penetrating, authoritative tone of a guru.
Whatever you call yourself, he went on flyer, house holder, monk, or anything else let go, fly free! Fly free! That's the only way there is to crack the sky.
Hearing those words from Sanyal, Ajay felt the last piece of lead drop away. A vast and weightless Joy flooded through him, and for a moment out of time he knew that Joy was himself and he It.
