The Flawless Flautist

In my lifetime, I had witnessed many of my family members breathe their last, including my Father who died of throat cancer when I was in my early twenties. Though he was in severe pain, my Father never shed a tear. Like him, many departed in pain and agony. I later understood that the last moments of a human are the sum of all algorithms, the settlement of the astral with the physical body before it disconnects. Where the algorithm reflects a positive reminder, the departing person leaves in peace with no infirmities attached. The most dignified death scene that I have ever witnessed was of my elder grandfather Pothina Srinivasa Rao who built the first cinema theatre in the State of Andhra Pradesh, Maruti Cinema, in the year 1921. He was about 88 years old and was very much active in visiting the two cinema houses he had built, giving tips to the Managers to improve the quality of sound and projection. One fateful day, he did not get up from his bed in the morning due to a high fever and within three days, he died peacefully, gradually slowing down the rhythm of inhale and exhale with long breaths, which came to a halt on the third day.

Further among the public personalities, the most sensational is the departure of His Excellency Abdul Kalam, the ex-President of India who just collapsed on stage while giving his last discourse, passing away even before he knew. It was as if his soul was snapped in a hurry. One more great personality I adore is Bharat Ratna JRD Tata, who left his mortal body in a hospital at Switzerland and, during his last few minutes, he said with a sparkle in his eyes, “I am going to another world and it is exciting, very exciting.” The great Abdul Kalam, JRD Tata and many like them such as my grandfather are all called ‘Karana janmulu’ in Telugu which means ‘people born for a specific purpose only for the benefit of the world around them’, and I consider them as not just role models but Gods incarnated. Great people are born for a purpose and they leave Earth once the purpose has been served. They preached to the society around them about their values that they believed and practiced. So did Gopala, the Yadava Lord.

The eighteen-day battle at Kurukshetra in which the entire one hundred Kaurava Princes born to King Dhritarashtra and Queen Gandhari met their gruesome death, leaving their parents in the deepest sorrow and despair, with a belated futile realisation that it was their self-earned destiny. The widows of their sons, wailing in the palace for their dead husbands, added to the inconsolable sorrow of the King and the Queen. The royal couple in intense sorrow and grief wanted to visit the battlefield to identify the corpses of their sons and mourn for them. They were described of the dismembered corpses of millions of warriors who lay strewn all over the vast flatland. Gory sights of decapitated warriors such as Dronacharya whose feet and thighs were being chewed by jackals and there was the inconsolable sight where Dussala, the only daughter of Dhritarashtra and Gandhari who was running throughout the battlefield that now turned to be the largest mortuary on Earth. Poor Dussala was searching in the pile of carcasses like an insane woman for the head of her husband Jayadratha, the King of Sind, so that he could be cremated in full physical form. The family members of the warriors searching for their bodies and most of them mutilated beyond recognition and everyone’s only agendum was to perform the last rites for the peace of their departed souls.

Krishna sensed the raging anger of Queen Gandhari and stayed close to her and gestured Yuddishtara and his brothers to follow behind him expecting the volcano of emotional antagonism in Queen Gandhari to burst any moment. They reached the far end of the battlefield where they found the mortal body of Duryodhana lying alone besides a lake and realised that he died helplessly. The parts below the pelvis including the thighs of the royal couple’s eldest son was crushed to pulp by Bheema for having gestured vulgarly at Draupadi thirteen years ago. Gandhari could not hold her anguish further and it was then she turned towards Krishna and cursed him for having provoked the war between the royal cousins. Gandhari lashed at Krishna that he could have avoided the war between the Kauravas and Pandavas, being the mentor and guardian of the Pandavas. Then, the Queen gave the ultimate curse to Lord Krishna that his entire Yadava Dynasty shall also perish without a trace and that just like her son Duryodhana who died miserably alone, Krishna too would in his last moment. Krishna responded only with a pleasant smile when Gandhari was cursing him, for he knew what was coming. In the process, he averted Gandhari’s aggression towards the Pandava Princes for they stood for justice all the time and they had suffered enough until then. Gopala lived for a just cause and to guide humanity from all misery, he did not avoid the curse of Queen Gandhari nor did he ever reasoned, for he already foresaw what was coming.

It was almost 36 years since the dust settled at the epic battleground at Kurukshetra between the Pandava Princes and the Kauravas, and the prophecy of Gandhari was coming to reality. A few days ago, swarms of locusts destroyed all the crops and the entire granary of Dwaraka. The civilians were consuming arrack and killing each other. Chaos has already broken within the Yadavas leading to a civil war. Observing the signs of the brewing catastrophe, Balram and Krishna realised that the day of the Gandhari’s curse had arrived, and decided that it was time to leave their mortal bodies. The Lords of Dwaraka left their palace without entrusting the daily chores of administrations to their ministers, except that Krishna instructed his charioteer Daruka to start off to Hastinapura with a message to be conveyed to Arjuna.

The Yadava brothers walked by foot into the forest nearby in different directions. Balram sat under a tree and slowly slipped into in deep meditation. Krishna treaded deeper into the forest and sat leaning to the peepal tree he found to be inviting, placed one foot on another, gently swinging them to the rhythm as he started to play his flute before his final journey from the world of mortals. Krishna placed the flute horizontally against his chin, and the subtle air of the Lord emanated a soft mellow sound purifying the air around from all directions. The melody was flawless, for such embouchure was not possible for any other flautist. The distance between his transcendental lips and the celestial flute was neither near nor far but was as parallel as the earth and heaven that are within the mind of the man. The tune was neither high or low but relayed until the heavens above signalling his arrival soon and a farewell to those living on earth. The sound of music from the celestial flute was a farewell bid, the communication was understood clearly by all the creatures in the marshy forest at the outskirts of Dwaraka.

Jara, the hunter found a sharp metal at the sea shore which was suitable to be the perfect arrowhead. He ground it first to the shape and then gladly fastened it firmly to one of his best tempered arrows. He then started off for the hunt with a hope to bag a worthy prize not knowing that his aim is going to end an era of a Legend. In the meanwhile, the Flautist’s melody flowed gently like pleasant breeze into the wild, reaching to all the creatures, and they swiftly assembled to the spot lending their ears to the Flautist, in trance. Suddenly the animals heard from a location unknown, a sharp whistle that travelled above them. A swift arrow pierced through the Flautist’s toe, revealing no reaction from Him. The King of the Jungle bewailed with a painful growl in a syllable that was not his regular call of proclamation but was of grief.