گردبادی از هویت

She was there.

She stood on the edge of the vast valley, which reached out to her to convince her to jump to oblivion.

The sight was not new to her. She had thought of it infinitive times in the past, but then, she had also mustered the courage to take the final step, that day.

In the abyss of thoughts which were overwhelming her mind, and memoirs which brimmed over her heart, she had forced herself upon this consequence.

From the pinnacle of the Tower she was standing on, all she saw was the wake of vultures circumscribing her Grandfather's deceased body.

On the other hand, was the inexhaustible horizon to jump to.

~~~ 

The Tower Of Silence had become a second home to her, now. 

Why, she had lost her entire family to such an unexplicable calamity.

In a span of three weeks, her entire world had come crashing down upon her.

The first to leave her side was her father, followed by her grief-stricken mother. Now that her grandfather had left her too, she was orphaned.

Grandma was the most oblivious to it all as she had abandoned all sense of space and time. 

She had lost all hope in the beauty of life and saw it now as a dull, lifeless panel which had been ostracized by all.

~~~ 

Just as she was about to let her feet lose touch of the ominous ground, she felt someone's hand tucking at her saree.

She saw her Grandfather!

With a note and a archaic collection of five pages in tow, he led her down from that edge to the entrance of the Tower Of Silence.

Once she was outside the Tower, all she could see were a soiled letter and a handful of pages on the road.

In the immensely morose sky above, she saw a raven perched on a tree branch, overlooking the sullen moon.

A signboard outside made her realize that she was part of an exclusive community. A community that had made her what she was.

That which had given her an identity, 

As an antiquarian legacy. 

It then occured to her to pick up those pages and the letter, lest they be blown away by the meandering wind. 

The letter, to her utter dismay, was blank, though it had گردبادی از هویت written on it. 

گردبادی از هویت in Persian, meant 'The Whirlwind Of Identity'.

And, the pages? 

She could sense that they held the unknown answers to the many unexplored questions which had exhausted her completely. 

They were hoowever, a pointer to some bigger secrets that they would reveal. These incoherent, random pages would somehow weave together, the fabric to a deterministic ancestry. 

~~~ 

Her Grandfather's voice clearly echoed saying: "Go back home, Dear. We are waiting for you."

She rushed back home to find a sight which overwhelmed her beyond all bounds.

There, she saw her beloved Grandfather in spirit and her aged Grandmother whiling away on their most favorite hammock in the house.

As soon as she tried to approach her, Grandma got up and proceeded to the inside of the house, with Grandpa's spirit following her particularly to Grandma's Prayer Room.

There, she saw light.

It suddenly occured to her, of the Fire Invis, a game which she used to play with her Grandma. It was like the Secret Spy. A coded message on paper would be discovered and see the light of the day when subjected to fire.

The soiled letter, then was no different. It led her to explore a secret chamber in her grandparents' room which had been concelead by a door with a symbolic inscription on it, all these years.

The central lock of three concentric rings had been overlooked by her as a child, even though it sparked her curiosity as a mature individual. 

Grandma knew and chanted the prayers which would unlock a better understanding of the abyss. 

The opening of the lock made her even more receptive to the intricacies of the existence of her dwindling community. 

~~~ 

For it revealed to her, a book dating to the 10th Century, tracing the journey that her ancestors had taken to carve an identity for themselves and members of their sect, battling the dominance of Arab Muslims in Iran, establishing a name for themselves as professionals, partnering with Englishmen, and partaking in the Industrial Revolution for India's development as a country. 

Now, with her grandparents having left her all on her own, it had dawned upon her to not let go of life as a  precious possession, which had to be preserved in all its purity. 

The embellishment of a Fravashi on the outside of the book ushered into her, a sense of determination and perseverance to hold on to herself and steer clear of all suicidal tendencies which had clouded her essence to liveliness and hope. 

The wings symbolised the Spiritual World and made her draw inspiration from the spirits of her now deceased family. 

The body symbolized the Physical World and reminded her of the sense of control to her materialistic possessions that were not to overpower her, at any said point in time. 

The head symbolized the sense of Conciousness of a greater purpose to her sect and her community, than her own, and that made her reminisce the teachings of Prophet Zarathustra, in their entirety. 

~~~ 

Out of those five pages which she had obtained outside the Tower, four belonged to members of her family, and one was to call her own. 

The Whirlwind Of Identity had thus been simplified, with her embarking on a journey to self-realization with her Grandma by her side. 

As they were about to leave, they saw her Grandpa in spirit, on the same hammock, keeping to himself, the memoir of his cherished abode.

~~~ 

In a matter of hours, she had known what it meant to embrace Zoroastrianism and embark on... 

The Path Of Zarathustra 

~~~ 

I am participating in this creative activity organised by makers of The Path of Zarathustra in association with BlogAdda.

P.S.: All images have been attributed to Google Search.