FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

A Few days ago I had to go to a far distant place in connection with some of my official assingments.By  the time I could wrap up my bag on completion of my work and started back my return  journey, the Autocrat and monocrat of the day turned total red and descended to touch the edge of the blue horizon to mark the end of the day and usher the evening.
After traveling about 25/30kms,suddenly the engine  of the car started emitting a peculiar sound and the car was stopped abruptly.Despite the best effort of my driver,the car did not move even a single inch apparently to coincide with the wishes of my ill luck who had been following me since long with a dog like tenacity.
The place was totally desolate and the entire place was enveloped with deep darkness coupled with the regular and synchronised annotations of the sounds produced by crickets.The somber and serenity of the deep darkness aided suitably by the sounds of the crickets made the place a  mysterious one and I felt an uncanny sensation as if I had been landed to a different planet far from the madding crowd of the modern world.No shops,no house and no light could be spotted by us excepting some vehicles speeding past of us. However after few minutes we could see a blinking red  dot a little far away. Closer scrutiny revealed that some body was smoking cigarette.Both of us ran to him and my driver spoke to him in local language.Fortunately he was the chowkider of an Inspection Bungalow and he agreed to allow us to spend the night in a room.He helped us to push the car nearer to the gate of the Bungalow and opened a room for us and lighted a candle.My watch indicated the time at 7.30PM though it looked like midnight.My driver arranged a torch and went to the car to ascertain if he could fix up the problem.
Meanwhile I was sitting at the Verandah stretching my eyes to the outside darkness thinking Abra ka dabra and went in to the world of fantasy and became philosophical like few fool bongs.Thee flash back of my childhood till recently was played on my mind.It came to my mind that when I was born,I had no name but when I would die ,I would leave behind a name.Hence the journey from nameless to acquisition of a name  and  to leave  the  name at time of exit might be called as life.The journey from log house to logs at cremation ground could be termed as life.When a new baby was born ,he was loved by all and sundry and similarly when he would die ,every body would shower lot of love and praise to him.In between he would have to manage in  any way. No body "in between"could hesitste to hurt ,insult  or  take him for granted  or to ignore him totally as and When  required.He may  regret for the right thing done for the wrong persons in the name of principles of natural justice.He might seek apologies from the super power that for not being able to learn the worldly mathematics and as a result all the figures evaporated one by one leaving few big Zeros for him.The Trial balance of the  life never tallied  but remained dark and hollow as that of the outside darkness.I was recollecting that during my journey of life, I made number of my close friends as my enemies and number of my enimies as my so called friends who true to their of their character left me after their work was done  .   I was thinking about the futility for such madness,mad competition and rat race amongst the madding crowd in the din and bustle of daily routine life especially when all the soldiers along the king and queen would be kept in the same box after the game of chess is over.I thought my self to resign out of all such worldly activities.It could be far more better and safer to depend on self than to depend upon the fickle minded mob.
Just at this time I came back to  my senses at the call of my driver informing me that the car was ready and asked me to come immediately and carefully as the place was supposed to be the breeding grounds of snakes.Within a couple of seconds I found myself inside the car thinking that there is no dearth of snakes either in a serene place like this or modern society  and snakes in the guise of human being could be  the most dangerous whom we used to meet of and on in our daily routine.
Within the next one hour i.e by 9 pm I was back to the din and bustle of the modern life.The pomp and glory out side attracted my attention  and  I found life in it. I felt it is better back to be in the lap of madness and better to be in association with  some pure mad people in as much as they can not pretend and avoid the so called intelligents.It is better being a human than to be a human being.
The story does not end here.After about 3/4 days we visited the place to enjoy the serinity of the place as also to give the chowkidar a reasonable amount for providing us the most needed service.we reached the place and every thing found was in exact order as that of our previous ecperience but could not locate the Bungalow only.on enquiry with the villagers we were told that indeed there was an inspection Bungalow long long timr ago may be about 30 years back.But few extremists  torched  the bungalow at that time to protest against the local government.And the entire bungalow along with one chowkidar was gutted into fire and turned in to Ashes. The reminiscent of the bungalow like foundation, broken and burnt bricks were lying here and there.But we saw even spent some time......Is it a case of Anachronism or hallucination