Zara's Witness

by Shubhrangshu Roy

  First, a deeply emotional one: Zara, as you know, is also you, my daughter. Having given you a peep into your own dormant consciousness about the very nature of your being through the question of ‘who am I?’ and a hint of what’s that big deal about, I was rather uncomfortable giving Zara, the Witness, a closure of any sort. Hence, I avoided the call of logic. I also thought, having told you the story, it would be best to leave you alone to reach your own conclusion in real life: what you should wish to do after hearing it all should really be your business. Twenty-four is a good age to decide where do you wish to go from here, without parental handholding.

  Secondly, the nature of Indic philosophy not only spirals upwards, i.e., it ascends from one story to another, but it is also essentially recursive. Which is to say, it is never-ending and almost amounts to the same thing being told over and over again through shifts in the storytelling from generation to generation, from one millennium to another. In a sense, there is actually no ending, no conclusion. The storyteller and the story can go on and on. Zara’s Witness is just another way-station saga along that stream of everlasting consciousness, recalibrated for your generation, Gen Z.

  It could well be that Zara will re-emerge in the intergalactic space at another time, in another journey, in another form en route to another planet, in another galaxy, far, far away. Which makes it necessary to leave Zara with an open-ended plan.

  That brings us to reason three, the most significant aspect of Indic wisdom. It is to be found in the concept of mukti or moksha or nirvana. Our seers have long held that by doing good and great deeds alone, it is possible to gain mukti or moksha or nirvana in afterlife, freeing us from the shackles of rebirth. But more importantly, they have also divined that it is possible to gain mukti or moksha or nirvana here and now itself . . . in this very life. Zara’s ascent to the sky to discover herself in all and all in her, is symbolic of that mukti or moksha or nirvana. Her salvation could well be here or hereafter. It’s for you, Zara, the reader, to decide.

  Which is why Level V, the shortest and most abrupt of all the sections, ends with sva ha! This is the most sacred sacrificial chant that has prevailed for more than five thousand years. Now sva, which means both the Self and the Sky, has nearly a hundred manifestations, culminating in svadhin or freedom or liberation.

  That alone must be your ultimate destination, Zara, as it must for Zara, the Witness. And that alone must also be the fodder for another book.

  What say, you?

  Dad