[Draft] It, then, All Turned Laal (Red)!
She looked at the source of the voice. What she found was a mass of red (laal). She stared at him in stunned silence and blurted out, “I don’t need to look to find you.”
Ever since his dad made that statement about the color red, he fell in love with it. Red (Laal).
For years, he carried within him the message, a simple utterance from his father that had embedded itself deep within his being. The words about "laal" had long since faded from his memory, but their essence had merged seamlessly with his soul. The color red had woven itself into the very fabric of his consciousness, becoming an inseparable part of who he was.
As time passed, he found himself drawn to the vibrant hue in all aspects of his life. From the clothes he wore to the decorations in his home, red became his signature. It wasn't a conscious decision; rather, it was as though his affinity for the color was innate, an integral part of his identity.
Others may have questioned his choice, puzzled by his unwavering devotion to one particular shade. But to him, it was more than just a color—it was a reflection of his deepest emotions, a symbol of passion and vitality.
In a world of ever-changing trends and fleeting fashions, he remained steadfast in his love for red. It was a constant amidst the chaos, a source of comfort and strength.
And so, he continued to adorn himself in shades of red, each garment a testament to the message his father had once spoken. Though the words themselves had long been forgotten, their impact endured, shaping his life in ways he could never have imagined. For him, laal (red) wasn't just a color—it was a reminder of who he was, and who he would always be.
That morning he was laal both outside as well as inside. Someone that he had fallen in love with had manifested herself in a number. And what a number that she had veiled herself in! A big big number—a sibling of Googol. A number with intersecting loops of integers, primes, evens, odds, and any variety of numbers one could think of. A number ready to break-free from representing others and on the verge of becoming conscious.
Autobiography of a Book
At first, she had left a loopy book in the dining hall, an autobiography of a book after an intense session of platonic interpenetration. She had brought the book with her to read in the glorious soft sun during the morning hours of Shivratri, and after transceding all maryadas, using words as a ladder, she had moved beyond words while reading the book.
When she came with her sister to the campus for a visit, she had no idea what was going to unfold there. Nothing in her was ready for it. All was lost and all was gained when she uttered that sentence.
“I don’t need to look to find you.”
She had uttered that sentence in jest. But the words once out of her body turned alive—the words unmoored from the ahamkara of a being.
That sentence pierced his being and ripped him apart. He didn’t know what struck him like a bolt of Zeus!
She had never met him before. Her sister had never talked about anyone like him with her. Had anyone talked about a Man-in-Red (MiR) like him, her mind would have noticed. Her mind was like a blank slate when she entered in the dining hall feeling thirsty while climbing a long ladder of words.
After sitting in the soft sun the whole morning, her tummy had turned volubale, the garbles was fast turning comprehensible. But she had promised herself that she would take only water the whole day and the whole night. And she was out of the water while reading the loopy book like Escher’s hands drawing each other erasing any sense of boundary—uncanny loopiness pushing minds beyond itself.
Stumbling into the Man-in-Red (MiR)
Only a handful of students were in the dining hall. When she passed a couple of rows of tables, she heard someone say, “Are you looking for me?.”
She looked at the source of the voice. What she found was a mass of red. She stared at him in stunned silence and blurted out, “I don’t need to look to find you.”
“You mean to say I am you.”
The MiR continued to surprise her. Again, at a loss, she said, “No, I don’t mean that.” The MiR seemed oblivious to how others were perceiving him.
With now a smile on his face, he came across as someone unable to prevent himself from speaking.
“Did you mean to say I am everywhere? Only then one doesn’t need to look to find, is that not right?”
She started to sense the depth in his utterances and decided to indulge him, “Aren’t we all?”
“It depends,” the MiR said while scanning her body. She was now emboldened.
“But, doesn’t such pervasiveness depend on nothing?”
“Yes, and only nothing remains,” the MiR coquettishly responded.
Herself now unstoppable, she responded, “And in that nothingness, you have decided to pour the color red on yourself. Haven’t you?”
She realized that the conversation had turned both philosophical and funny. She invited him to step outside in the glorious sun. It was an early afternoon, and she had to fast for the whole day and all night.
“Not me. Who am I? I am just an empty vessel,” he said while walking with her to the open field around the main quad of the university.
The Night of Shiva
“Are you fasting, too, today?” She asked him absentmindedly.
He didn’t know that it was going to be the night of Shiva.
“Fasting for what, why?”
“Tonight is the night of Shiva. I am fasting today.”
He was not fasting, but what he said next took her by surprise.
“I treat every night as the night of Shiva.”
She didn’t like the trivialization of the Night of Shiva. She explained to him the beauty of the millions celebtating the night, and how for a complex society like India was managing itself by aligning people and their states of minds by the festivities like Shivaratri.
He was now curious about the way she understood the Lord of Lords, the Shiva. And he knew that the conversation would now go on the whole day and the whole night when she mentioned that she believed super large numbers could be conscious.
He had read some physicists talk about consciousness of large integers, but he didn’t know how to process such claims. He was now sitting below the soft sun in the afternoon of the night of Shiva in offing with somone reading the autobiography of a book.
And without much thinking, he shared with her that he, too, was going to fast.
.
.
[….TO BE CONTINUED]
********
Disclaimer: Nothing I have written here is set in stone. I am putting these ideas to start a conversation and bring people to discuss and debate the issues captured here. Give me feedback, and it will help me learn. I will keep updating this article.