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Dhara

by Geetika Sodhi Lohan
(Ghaziabad, India)

A saint once happened to cross a brothel. Unaware he decided to rest in the shed near the main gate. There was an abominable lull in the darkness of the night, not even a dog to howl.

His conscious sleep was interrupted by the sound of anklets walking towards him.
Emerged from the dark, Dhara, the beautiful and the most popular dancer of the brothel who was indeed fancied and desired for by all including the richest and the most influential across the town.

Dipped in pride the snobbish damsel couldn't but notice the sage with an appearance so enticing, however, wasting all her efforts and enchantments to lure the composed sage.
Distressed she left for never to date had a man shown the decree of ethics and self control.

Years passed by. The saint, with a few wrinkles on his face and body happened to cross the same brothel. Exhausted, he looked for the shed again.

The shed had turned home to an old woman who lived on death bed, unattended. Grey hair wrinkled face, and torn clothes, Dhara seemed to have encountered an ill-fate. The Saint recognized her in the first glance as she laid there mourning. Dhara hadn't recognized him for the obvious number of men she had embraced all her life.

The Saint had never forgotten Dhara for never had he seen so closely a woman so beautiful. He cleaned Dhara's wounds dressed her in a saffron robe medicated her and, on learning that she
lived there abandoned due to a fatal disease that had prewritten her fate, took her along to his village where he nursed her till she breathed her last.

In her last days she had managed some fainted memories of the night she had met the Saint for the first time. Saint had on one of the days confessed his love for her and that how after that night he had never sought a woman for in his heart framed she who was unmatched.

"..Nowhere after I met you did I find a woman as pretty. At once I had thought of declaring my love to you. But I did not for you were beautiful and more over many men wanted you. My love would have waved off like a drop in the ocean. I always wished to be around you to express my love only in a time when your beauty had faded and so had disappeared your pride and the men you thought loved you.
God has indeed been kind to have given this opportunity to me..."

Dhara did not survive for long. Never did her dream to embrace the Saint that night got fulfilled. The sage lived all his youth with love in his heart and made it divine by serving Dhara without seeking anything in return while Dhara died with love in her heart and made it eternal by carrying it with her soul forever.

Love is selfless and full of service, without judgements, inceptions and needs.

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