Prologue
Long back in my childhood, I chanced to go through a Chinese story that belonged to an ancient period of time. In the ancient time, there happened to dwell a Chinese peasant in country side along with his family. Here, ancient China meant, till that time, the Buddhist religion had not been introduced in the China. At that time, people majorly followed folk people religion. The period of time was so old and yet the invention or discovery of gun powder had not been accredited to the China, it was the period so long ago. The gun powder was invented after more than two thousand years of the time of this story. In the simple words, the stage of evolution of civilization just had crept from the primitive stage to the agriculture era only.
The agriculture based civilization that happened to live in country side lived a simple life. People lived in mud houses thatched with dry weeds, tended domestic animals and worked in fields. Perhaps, at that period of time, every where in every nook of the earth people were destined to live the same simple life. This Chinese peasant, on a day when tilling his land, found an asymmetrical flat piece, that had a sheen on it. In a curiosity he took that piece in his hand and observed that keenly. When on the front side of the piece he peeped into, he noticed the presence of some one inside that. In fact, it was his own image being reflected.
Noteworthy thing was, till that period of time nothing sort of any invention like mirror been introduced in the existing civilization. This reflected image ( that was his own but he couldn’t realize that,) bewildered him greatly. Obviously, he was unaware of the image reflection as such through some flat object. Knew not, he was looking into his own image. But side by side, it was a great coincidence, the features of peasant were absolutely after the features of his late father. The innocent peasant in looks were like the photo copy of his late father. The only naive idea that flashed into his mind was, “the departed soul of his late father had visited to see him through the medium of this flat object.”
He felt obliged greatly to the Master of the Universe for this blessing and carefully took hold of it, fetched it home and sneaking from the sight of his wife, placed it in a safe place of a small room of the house. Further he assured that the lock of door ( what ever simple contrivance for the purpose he had had) remain locked and no one should have approach to that miraculous piece. Since, whenever he peeped into the mirror and found the image (to him it was departed father), it soothed him. Now, when ever he found the opportunity of solitude, he began to pay homage in form of prayer before that piece of mirror.
Another reason, to keep this all away from wife was, if his wife chanced to look inside the flat piece and encountered his late father, it could invoke a horrendous ghostly thoughts in her mind. It might be taken as a bad omen like visiting of dead soul back in the house. Hence he proscribed the entry of every one inside that room. In his all the spare time, he used to pray before the mirror and later on began to have a conversation with father. As we all know, women has ever been curious by nature. It’s in their instinct since the day they landed on this earth. Otherwise also, women been compared to a cat because of this skeptical and curious tendency.
There also goes a proverb, ” curiosity kills a cat.” The sound of voice of husband filtering out from the door of the room, as if, engaged in conversation with someone also made suspect of some weird thing. This rose her level of curiosity and mistrust to an acme. It became essential for her to get this secret elicited any how, with whom her husband happened to chat with. On a specific day, when husband was on a distant travel, she maneuvered to unlock the door of the cell. There she found the same piece of mirror installed on a wooden stand gracefully, some fresh flowers scattered as offering around the flat object.
With a heart throbbing heavily, she lifted that piece of mirror in hand and looked into that, her own image reflected in that. As described earlier, till that period of time, no any item like mirror was known to people nor such thing was in existence. If some one had to find his or her image, the water contained in a container was the only appliance to peep in, but this reflected a dim image only. When she encountered with her own crystal clear image in the mirror, she was not able to realize that image as her own. The only mind boggling and heart rending idea flashed in her mind. It simply invoked a horrific thought, ” her husband was badly entangled into snare of some other woman, whom he had locked into this piece.”
Further she simply connected other threads of behaviour of the husband. By closing the doors, he remained busy in wooing, love talks with this woman only. This thought helped rise her fury to the seventh sky. She began waiting eagerly in tantrum for arrival of her husband. No sooner the poor man announced his come back into the courtyard of the house, she at once jumped at him with her all furious might. She blamed him for infidelity and accused him of being disloyal to her. To her, he was a demean, who despite having a mortal wife in the house had kept another woman locked inside the room and was preferring to pass his quality time with another woman.
The quarrel continued for long. Peasant tried to assuage her by mentioning the facts he experienced with the piece. But that was his own perception whist the wife had her own. She was not ready to give in. After all, she too was an innocent peasant woman and had had her own strong logic. Under the spell of hateful wrath, she thumped that piece of mirror on a hard rock and the only piece of mirror got pulverized into thousands tiny pieces like powder.
The present story begins from here
The basic issue is, till that time the entire human civilization whole through the world was living in the same phase of life. Even, no basic or fundamental scientific invention of any kind had been introduced down the memory lane of mankind. Though a little more knowledge of Iron and brass were supposed to be introduced or discovered. The human race was just half skilled in constructing muddy houses, wooden daily use apparatus and were prone to tend the domestic animals only. Then how come, a piece of “mirror” was found there. Who had invented that and how it reached to a distant far location of China. The discovery of this piece in itself was a mystery. To answer this mystery, I am trying to unravel it through a fictional mode in this story. A story teller always enjoys the liberty to allow her fancy run unbridled. the same liberty I will enjoy here, hence I chose the title of the story as “Unbridled Story. “ (End of the part 1. Cont’d .) Penned by– Vinay Pharasi —–
