1. Cats of Kashi: Death
The winding streets of Kashi has carried countless souls from the river to the eternal ocean. Amidst these crowded lanes, an old cat strutted through the narrow alley with an air of quiet confidence despite her limp. Her small, nimble black and white bony frame was a stark contrast to the smooth, even surfaces of the stone walkway beneath her paws.
A million people had walked these alleyways and weathered those stones. This alleyway was a world unto itself, a place of bright and dimly lit corners and forgotten secrets. The cat was frail, hungry and her old white-haired mistress was nowhere to be seen. She had to fend for herself. Morsels of fallen cottage cheese and fats from loud vendors were not enough to curb the growls of her stomach and no one took pity on her. Her once black face with her cosmos green eyes had both greyed with age. Her eyes always remained half closed and yet despite the toll of her age she remained a creature of quiet dignity and grace.
The Moon hung low, as she walked through the oily wet alleyway, its dim silver light casting long, ominous shadows on the walls of the buildings that made the alleyway. Slightly lower on the horizon was a reddish hue, like the vermillion in the gaps of the smoothened rocks. She could feel the moon’s gaze upon her, a cold, unwavering presence that followed her with a sense of quiet curiosity as though wishing guiding her. The crescent moon knew something she did not. It’s light was not harsh nor bright, but rather a soft, ethereal glow that seemed to penetrate from her eyes to her soul.
She’d walked these alleyways for many years and knew every corner of it, but this time it was ethereal, she felt as if she was walking there for the first time. She was a tourist in her locality being carried towards her destination, towards the crescent moon. As the world went by, loudly people walked around her, chanting, crying, throwing ash, sandal, and vermillion powder around her as they rushed to their destination of that ancient and timeless river. The familiar sound of a hundred temple bells ringing now seemed odd and strange to her.
Slowly she walked, she looked for a prey, a faintest scent of a breeze of a rodent among the thousands of smells that was Kashi. She felt the primal force of what it meant to be alive as she spotted a rodent. She made a dash for it, among the hundreds of feet of devotees. A culmination of lifetime of learning, a final chance to prove her worth and to continue to live. As she pounced there was a scurry of motion and the rodent pounced away and she was left breathless and tired. Her prime motive was to survive at any cost necessary, nature had dictated all of her choices and there was no shame at this last attempt at survival.
She immediately collapsed with deep breathes and then licked her calloused paw, and she savoured it as if it were coated in honey. She looked up and the moon continued to be a silent witness that never wavered in its gaze. It was both beautiful and terrifying, the moon and her were bound and there was nowhere else for her to go. She limped towards it again with the same beauty, wonder, dignity and grace.
With every step she took, the reddish hue of the sky turned brighter. She could feel the heat of the town spending the last bits of her energy. She stood still at the end of the alleyway. It opened to a vast river bank with flames that flickered in the darkness. Flames that arose to almost touch the moon. Every second was intense, the smoke acrid, thick but she was transfixed by the flames devouring the wood.
Despite the dancing flames, there was a certain stillness about the scene, a quiet reverence that spoke of the deep respect and honour that was being paid to the deceased. It was as if the entire universe comes to a halt at this place, focused solely on this moment of transition, this passing from one state of being to the next.
She sat and observed this obstinate reality of life.
Much to her awe, among the people was a Man with matted hair and ashen body looking at her. She couldn’t help but make her way down to him to the banks of the Ganga River. She could feel the weight of history and tradition pressing down on her like a weighted blanket. Despite the burden of it all, there was also a sense of peace and tranquillity that settled over her, a sense of connection to something greater than the universe. The crescent moon, reflecting on the river and the in the sky, the man beckoned on her and in a trance, she moved towards him. She was always part of an infinite cycle that she could not comprehend and she will always be part of this infinitely.
The people crying suddenly went mute as she limped towards the man, there was a sudden stillness as she crawled. She collapsed at his feet. She felt a heat like never before as he picked her up. He slowly ashed her forehead with three horizontal lines. She looked up to see the crescent moon behind his matted hair, with the sound of the river flowing behind. She looked up to see in His eyes the entire cosmos. In them, she could see the beating heart of every living creature and the blood that makes them live. In those eyes she also saw a trillion souls and the faces of billions of creatures. She was one, one of trillion, infinitesimally small and yet He was there for her.
Her eyes suddenly fully opened to be transfixed on his, she heard her last words, “I receive you”
Images generated using Bing Image Creator (Dall E)
I wish I could write what I see in my mind - so I took ChatGPT’s help in framing certain sentences.
