Story of an empty soul

It was a happy hour for the ageing artiste scholar. The country's administration decided to honour him with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Listening to long talks in praise of his service to the country's cultural scene, the scholar slowly fell into a reverie.

Suddenly a sound made him wake up. The usual surrounding has changed, and the sound was a voice, he guessed. He heard it again: 'hello there, you empty scholar...' Is the voice meant for me, the scholar thought. Yes I'm calling you, the voice said once again.

It was a young robust man approaching him. The figure looked familiar. It took some while for the scholar to recognise his own younger self. The younger self was donned in a beautiful dress. The scholar could see himself in ragged clothes and half shaven beard, which he willingly chose as it portrayed the artistic wisdom he had been storing up.

"Who are you?" The scholar asked.

"Isn't it better to ask it yourself?"

"Me?"

"I can't see anyone else here. So yes, it's you, the empty scholar."

The scholar began to think. He has written a number of books on social and literary criticism. He has devoted whole his life to analyse the literary techniques - that ism, this ism, Foucault, Derrida and so on. As a result, he has written many literary works as well. So no one can dare call him an empty. That's hypocrisy.

May be it's jealousy, who knows?

"I know what you think," the younger man spoke up, "you think you have done such a lot of extensive research. But you got annoyed, or at least irritated, when I said you are empty."

The scholar fell into thought for a few seconds.

"Yes, kind of. I was irritated a little."

"There you are," the younger man laughed out aloud, "you saw your emptiness."

"And I can't understand why you call me empty."

"It's a simple thing. For that you have to read. You have not done enough reading."

"I do read. Without reading, how can I research? At least for writing, you have to read a lot. You know I have conducted a number of reading-awareness programmes too."

"You have been struggling with words. But that's not reading."

"Then what's reading?"

It was freezing cold. The scholar could see his younger counterpart was so hot-blooded hence hardly noticed the cold.

"I'm talking about reading the mind. When you are used to read the mind, you hardly have anything else to do. How many times of depression have you had?"

"Quite a lot. In fact my whole life is quite depressing. Only reading or writing brings some happiness. But that too didn't seem to last long."

"Okay, you know why that was? That's precisely because you were looking for peace outside. Why do we read? To get entertainment from the outside. But do you know when you get used to reading the mind, that's entertainment hardly anything else can interrupt."

The scholar was listening, trying to fathom the words.

"When you succeed in reading your mind, you are no longer interested in listening to music. Because the music is within you. You are no longer interested in reading creative works. The creativity is within you."

"How do you do that? Well, there are times I think silently."

"Thinking silently is a good thing, but that alone is not enough. That is not the correct option either."

"Yes I felt that. Even though it's silent, when I think mind is becoming noisy."

"Exactly, you got the point. Thinking makes the mind noisy. But you cannot stop it straight away. You have to watch it. When anger comes, you know it's anger. When fondness comes, you know what it is."

"That's reading the mind?"

"Not yet. You know it's anger and let it go. You know it's fondness and let it go. And gradually you realize you are slowly stilling the thoughts. Your mind becomes serene. As that serenity grows, you don't feel like getting out of it and watching a movie. You need to stay with it."

"I have done some research about how creativity makes way to a serene mind."

"But you have not experienced it. You were fighting with words, and you were looking for it outside."

And suddenly the artiste scholar woke up to the feel of his wife's nudge.

"They called you twice. You are wanted there, up on the stage. To deliver the literary speech."

"Oh I really forgot that." The artiste scholar said.

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