The Call of the Desert by Sunil Sharma

The desert is calling!

It is a plaintive sound that comes from the depths of the lonely desert and is felt in the depths of an aching heart… like a song of mourning sung by a young Indian widow in a semi-deserted village in the middle of the huge rolling desert.

He heard the call coming over the heaving dunes as if an ancient bard was playing a wind instrument in the open to an invisible audience.
It is powerful and stirring. Only the desert folk can hear the eternal voice booming across the expanse of pure sand. The profile changes here, so does the call. The sunrise call is dulcet and invigorating. The one at sunset is sombre and melancholy. It is the sound of somebody playing the violin and the amplified notes hovering and remaining suspended in the still air, creating a haunting melody.

Once he had listened to the music of Yehudi Menuhin in New York and he remembered he felt uplifted. This music is different, it is exalted music emanating from the bosom of the desert – a sound ethereal that takes one to the very origins of time and space, to the big bang and the exploding universe with its brilliant collisions, cooling hot matter and slow creation of galaxies – all that cosmic experience packed in a moment and felt in the solitude of the heart. The call deeply affects his mood and the material earth-centred being. It makes him feel airborne, becoming an astral traveller, leaving the dross and feeling lighter and buoyant. The elemental music is working on his overworked sensibilities. He sits straight and listens.

It is coming in waves now.

The surging call lights up the dark congested interior of blood vessels, arteries, capillaries, nerve-endings and tissues. A deep, primitive call heard by the blessed nomads across the long centuries and now heard again by a fresh visitor to their hardy land. For a moment, the physicality of form is shed and weightlessness of soul achieved. Paulo Coelho knows this state intimately.

He is in the middle of a theatre. Live theatre. Colours are raining down, music is being played out by an orchestra, al fresco. The sun is rising. Light and dark are perfectly balanced in this moment. Night is ending; day is beginning. It is marvellous!

The colossal is waking up. The cool crimson dawn is breaking slowly. The entire place is awash in pure gold. Wavy sand is aglow in soft yellows. The tender disc of the sun carves out a fascinating region of fluid shadow and light in the ancient unyielding land.

It is wonderful therapy for an over-satiated soul.