Translation

Chapter 3 : Old Age 

One morning, Prince Siddharth set out for forest excursion on his golden chariot. The entire pathway was bristling with people to welcome him. The pathway soon got carpeted by flowers heaved by young girls from balconies and windows of adjacent palaces and houses. The environment became fragrant with smokes from aromatic sticks.

Suddenly, the prince saw a gasping and panting human like object stopping and proceeding step by step by the side of the pathway with the help of a stick. Utterly amazed, the prince asked the charioteer about that moving object.

The charioteer solemnly explained that the moving object was a human being just like them whose life elixir was getting sucked by the time slowly and steadily. Once, he was also swinging in the childhood roller-coaster.  Sometime, in adolescence, he was also wandering with bewilderment in the alleys of forest of wonderment. He also used to roam with extended hands in the aroma engulfed with maddening waves of mango-groves lost in romantic dreams. Now, the same person, afflicted with several disease, is wandering as a dying bird in the treacherous valleys of despair and hope. 

The prince asked – “What is old age?”

The charioteer replied- “Old age is autumn of the youth. The dry branches are getting burnt in the fire of life. Is has conceded defeat from the sweet dreams of the past. The time ruthlessly treaded upon the dry yellow leaves of youth. These dry leaves sobs in the shadow of evening of life. However, expectations still searches for the days of youth with pain filled groans in which he had once entirely surrendered. The entire world was once a reflection of his expectations, happiness and ambitions. That complete climax of youth was once full of nectar from flowers of passion. Intoxication, jauntiness and improvidence used to spill like dew drops. Now, that demolished forts of youth simmer and burn slowly like sparks in the diming vision of distant remembrance. Old age is a strong and authoritative signature of time on youth; signature that is a compelling, intense and fierce. It is an incurable ruthless blow.”

The charioteer further added-“Old age searches for his own distraught, distressed youth amongst the dark shadows of undulating valleys of his hopelessly lifeless, dry and shrinking wrinkles; that youth which was once juicy, elegant and musky. The radiance on face recedes. The old age advances with downcast eyelids. , The heart is filled with despair. It fails to rejuvenate. Loneliness engulfs. The tired and defeated hunter watches broken toys of his wealth and keeps sighing. This is old age.”

The Prince further probed - “Does old age not differentiate? Does it settles upon everybody? Would my black hair, my youthful personality fade and inflict perpetual agony to me? Would I also be poisoned with old age syndrome ?”

The charioteer smile and said-“ The way different seasons- spring, summer, autumn and winter and the rainy season are for all and influence identically on everybody; the way sky covers both palaces and shanties without difference; in the similar manner like sunlight and  moonlight , old age does not differentiate. The white sheathing of time covers youth. When the lords adored joyful childhood, you never forbade the time to snatch childhood and replace it with adolescence. When the youth arrived suddenly with hundreds of lotus flower, you fully enjoyed the titillating, intoxicating youth. Even t hen you did not forbade. Whatever the time had in its possession, it bestowed expansively and nobody ever desisted. Now what the time has to offer, we have to endure. It has to be respected. This youth has to go one day. With bent waist, white hair, ever diminishing vision, aided with cane gasping oldness would surely come. Veins will bulge out of dry skin. The life flute will cry with pain and agony. The longing and craving would gaze out of crevices of eyes like a frightened bird. Bone would part with flesh. In spite of all these, the old age would never relinquish yearning. Instead, it will cling strongly to the end of the life string to live few more breaths.

The charioteer further added-“Lord! Youth is an uninhibited adolescence. The conceited arrogance of youth challenges - come what may. It does not care for the future. However, old age is the essence of accumulated consequences reaching climax. This old age is the entry point of death. Here not only youth but life faces a certain defeat.

The perturbed prince asked- “Is old age is so much dreadful and arduous? Have I also to suffer this ? Is all this beauty and happiness only a sarcasm; a mockery by time? Do my beautiful, graceful wife Gopa and our infant flower Rahul have to endure this misery? Will all the fragment exquisiteness around us wither in such life inferno? Will this old age devour all colour of life and overshadow everything? Is there a way out ?

The charioteer replied with utter calmness-“ we are only time. This nature is the enchanting robe of the time. This nature creates different shades of inner and outer appearances. Within a period of time, the nature weaves a web of obtuse and subtle consciousness….The time changes and beautifies  its guise in infinite ways  and appreciates itself  on the mirror of  universal consciousness. Sometimes it annihilates; sometime it creates. We mortal beings are not its depositions but means . We are bunded and disciplined in the cobweb of time. Nobody could cross its limit.

Kumar Siddharth became very discouraged – “Why the time cannot be trespassed ?”

The wise charioteer had the answer-“Bounded by desires, man sleeps in a kind of enchanted  sleep.”

Kumar became highly disturbed and  prayed for silence-“ My heart is  extremely pained . Shame on such a life! Shame on such an existence! Turn back the chariot. This pain is getting unbearable. This youth, this life, this luxury are but a great defeat of the ego!”