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Searching for the ultimate truth

Inam Ahmed
Under the gaze of a zillion celestial eyes in the sky, 75-year-old Amin Sai searches for the ultimate truth in his flowing white robe and headgear. He looks tired at the dead of the night, his steps waver, and yet he occasionally beats his wooden Prem Juri and lip-sings a few lines to the Lalon songs wafting in the air. Then he sighs.
“I have not found him yet,” the baul says. “I've been searching him for 32 years. Maybe I never
will.”
Away, a baul sings: “Milon hobey koto odiney (When will the union happen...)
How this old man shrivelled by age and 'insanity' had travelled all the way from Kushtia without a penny in his pocket and still remains alert in the hours beyond midnight is mystery.
In this remote village of Char Ramnagar in the middle of nowhere in the mighty Padma, hundreds of bauls — the madmen and women who have reached the edge of 'insanity' lashed by the winds - gather to affirm their universal brotherhood. And they search their inner self.
The huge open field becomes a sea of people. Huge sound boxes have been carted all the way from Dhaka and electricity arranged. Bauls - a blend of mystic Sufism, Tantrik, Vaishnavism and Bhuddism - sit patiently under a marquee and get into a higher level of consciousness when they do not see anything but their inner existence.
"This is us," says Abdul Aziz Sai, who left his family and everything and went on the path of Alek - the ultimate truth, the incomprehensible one. His long hair and moustache flows in the wind. “I am trying to know myself for the last 27 years. I am trying to go from one Alek to another. I know nobody can explore himself in its entirety. The redemption never comes. We can only try.”
What was supposed to be a protest against harassment by some influential villagers who early this month harangued the Bauls who were performing their rituals has tonight become a search for inner soul and reunion with the Supreme Being whose eternal abode rests within man himself. The 'mad men” look lost in their endeavour; when they would know themselves only then they would be totally free from the early and the mundane. But they don't find the end to their spiritual quest.
“The quest will end when we can give up all our lust for the earthly things,” says Mohammad Sai, who was one of the victims of harassment. The man claims to be 95-year-old, but he looks not less than 75. The village bullies had cut his hair and beard. They had dragged him to the mosque and forced him to perform Tawba (to seek Allah's mercy for committing a crime).
"I have given up my every longing for the world. When they harangued me, all I could do is to weep and say why this to us. And now I have forgiven them. I told the court that I hold no contempt for the culprits. I tell myself if I cannot pardon them, if I cannot overcome my earthly being, how can I find Him? How can I find my Sai?”
In this dead of night, in this godforsaken char land, people are still streaming into the village. In the absolute darkness of the night, their flash lights try to find the way to this hinterland. A sudden mist then wafts in and engulfs this vast empty land in a hint of enigma.
The beams of the flash lights are getting smudged.