Aab used to love traveling. He would explore cities, but would revel in the countryside. He would blossom out seeing the rain rejuvenating the perched earth. He would walk miles in the jungle, or sit back and watch in fascination the fields and rivulets whizzing past a train or car window.
Then age and tiredness caught up with him. Also he found that humans are as humans anywhere – so there was no need to explore humanity and being humane anywhere was the same. So now Aab likes to sit by the wayside and watch the world go by. He has realized the motion is relative to two objects. One can be stationary and see the other move in and out of views. He remembers the old adage “If Mohammed does not go to the mountain, the mountain will come to Mohammed.”
He remembers with a chuckle how he was sitting on the kerb when a harried traveler asked him “does this road go to ___Nagar?” Aab had replied much to the irritation of the impatient traveler, “No, the road stays right here,” and before the latter could get more angry, had added softly “but you can travel on this road and reach ___Nagar if you want to.” Obviously the person-in-a-hurry had neither appreciated the sense of humour nor the wisdom in Aab’s words.
But Aab has learnt the hard way that roads do not go anywhere. He knows that men move on, they have to, while the path the destinations the whole world remains where it is. He has seen with his own eyes how kings and landlords have fought for acres of land, for control over vast territories, for supremacy over land and sea – and finally have been interred in two square yards of land known as a grave, with even the grave dissolving their bones into nothingness.
