The Invisible Yogi

by Chayanika Das (India)

I didn't expect to find India

It is said that in reality, you only feel alive when you have come the closest to passing and are just a step away; the loudest sound you hear is your lone heartbeat, the brightest color you see is the red of the blood flowing in your veins. And while you are desperately trying to cling on to your mere mortal existence, your entire life flashes before your eyes in a moment of truth. I had never paid much thought to such assertions, until I found myself gasping for air and hysterically trying to clutch on to anything solid. Yes, I was drowning and I did not have even the slightest idea of how to swim. All rationale and logic had left me in a moment of sheer panic; even the fact that I was wearing a life jacket did not seem to have registered in my mind. I was flailing my arms and legs in every possible direction while searching for an outlet for my muted screams of terror. I could hear the exuberant cheers of my friends, coupled with gleeful laughter who no doubt found the scene straight out of a comic book. Their shouts of encouragement to just hoist myself on our raft seemed to be coming from a different dimension altogether; close enough to make their voices heard but fleeting out of my reach with every one of the breathes which I did not dare take. I was not just falling into the dark depths of the water, but I was fading imperceptibly until a pair of hands reached out to me and dragged me out of the most frightening scare of my life; a never-ending ordeal on my body and soul, which seemed to have lasted for an eternity. I do not know what happened between then and the moment when I was lying on the waterfront, looking up into the kind eyes of the stranger who had rescued me. I blinked several times, unable to comprehend the happenings of the past few minutes. I seemed to have lost my sense of time and direction and as I looked around and tried to gather my bearings, only then did my brain register the startling fact that my rescuer had swam across the turbulent waters without a life jacket. Clad in a blue gown and with a shaved head, she seemed to be radiating a serenity and calm of her own. And instead of expressing my gratitude to her, I gaped at her open-mouthed for my slow, dim-witted brain had finally come to the conclusion that she was one of the famed sages who were thought to have inhabited the Himalayas. I do not know how much time had passed till my friends had finally managed to manoeuvre the raft to the shore. There were cries of joy and hugs of relief that I was breathing and very much alive. But by then, my mysterious rescuer had already left, without saying even a single word and I was still reeling from shock. No one in the recent past had seen any one of those famed sages, thus relegating them to the subject of myths and fairy tales. But here I was, having been saved from drowning by one of their very own. And as much as I wanted to thank her for saving my life, I didn’t expect to find her again. After all, had the yogis wanted to be found, they wouldn’t have made themselves invisible for more than a century. Yet, I kept looking over my shoulder and peeking around corners for the rest of the trip, hoping to catch a glimpse of my guardian angel. Over the years, I kept going back to the mountains again and again even though I never saw anyone quite like the enigma that my rescuer was. So here I was, ten years after that fateful incident, still attempting to unravel the mysterious and hoping to come across her someday, somewhere on my journey. I was now a life-long wanderer and the mountains were calling out to me once again.