'Mountains stay rooted but the winds roam free'
Each night they'd stay perched atop the massive branches of an ancient Bodhi tree; this tree they said was born on the very night that the universe first learnt to blink; that its immortal roots kissed the heart of this earth.
Its gargantuan branches were an elephantine labyrinth of viciously green gleaming leaves that never seemed to grow old. So dense and thick was this tree with evergreen frondescence that an ordinary man might mistake it for a jungle. This colossal tree stood alone amidst a yellow scenery of primordial sand and time battered rocks, in a desert far flung from anything that knew how to breathe. In this parched land of golden sand nothing stirred and nothing moved; the air stayed caked with ferocious heat and the sun assumed a battering ram stance and beat on this desert like a ruthless star that it was.
Tangled in the prodigious branches of this benevolent tree lived the 'winds'. Winds of all sorts..the breezy ones, the stormy kinds..ones that were learning to be tornadoes, and others that blew in your face—ruffling your hair, kissing your cheeks. Each night these winds roosted on the hulking branches of their tree.. hissing, shrieking and resting in a mesh of fluttering gale.
They rested on their Bodhi before leaving for a new landscape each day.
Among these was a jaunty bit of salt kissed breeze that exclusively blew over the seas and oceans. She was warm and cool..moist with cordial humidity and refreshing with pleasant chill.
How she loved the never ending vastness of cerulean seas. "I think they try to imitate the skies. I often tell them they're far prettier than the lonely skies and smell better too" she'd often sough to the tree.
"Oh I never go near the horizon, you never know what dangers might lurk there, and it looks so boring and dull. Just a straight line, not even a wave..and do you know just the other day the oceans asked me to blow harder they needed a new current" she'd coo to the tree each night.
One night she blew in a gentle whisper and agitatedly veered. "I went near the horizon" she spoke in a sudden gust. "I saw a rock that caressed the sky. I've never seen a rock like that before. It was enormous. I was so afraid to go near it. I waited for it to move, but it was like you. It stayed in one place."
"Rocks are not meant to move" spoke the tree in deep rustling leaves.
"But it was different from a rock. It had no jagged edges from being wind worn, it was tall and mighty and pierced the skies. Why doesn't it move. Is it like you?"
"You don't notice my movements dear child, because you can't see me move. Each moment I feel my roots slither a little deeper into the earth, each moment I grow a little" the tree vibrated in deep baritone.
"So why does that rock not move?"
"That's its nature. Just like you're never meant to stay in one place, that rock is meant to stay rooted at one spot."
"Is it like you that I can't see it moving? is it a different kind of tree?"
"No, sweet zephyr" the tree rustled. "It's a mountain"
"A mountain" the breeze sighed.
The sea breeze took to blowing into a menacing wind over the seas each day and raced to see the silent mountain. The way it meditatively fixed itself to the ground, staring at the skies and never flinching no matter how hard the winds blew on its face. The way it stood proud and zen, entrenched to its core; its omnipotent chest a wall of stony sky.
"I wish to live with the mountain" she confessed to the tree one day.
"Mountains are meant to obstruct winds my dear. You can't possibly live with it"
"He holds me in a gentle embrace every time I blow over to him. Oh I shall be so happy. Nothing will ever change, dear Bodhi. I shall visit you each day and moisten your leaves with sea dew, just like always"
"My dear, he does not move and you can't stay in one place. You two are not meant to be, sweet creator of waves"
"Oh but I shall be his" she left for the mountain that night.
The mountain welcomed her with his indomitable stance and gave her a cave to rest.
She was ready to leave for her oceans the next day but knew no way out. There was no vent, no crack nor fissure. She was buried deep in the mountain's chest.
"Let me out dear" she whistled "I have to leave"
"You can't leave" boomed the mountain. "you belong to me now sweet breeze. There's no way out. We are together, just as we should. You will be happy here, and I shall care for you for as long as I stand"
"But I'm a wind. I'm meant to breeze through this world. How can I stay stifled in a cave. Let me out"
"You can't darling. I can see the seas from here, and I will tell you all about them" the mountain bellowed in a faint crunch of falling gravel.
"Let me out. have you no heart?" the wind was howling.
"I do have one, It's made of stone my dear, surely you know that. We belong to each other now. I have stayed here for centuries and now you shall live with me"
"If you don't let me out I will shriek and scream and blow back and forth until you erode..until I have found a way out. I'm wind. I can be compassionate breeze, I can be callous tempest"
"then do what you must, and I will do what I must"
The mountain stood..alone, cold, resolute, unmoving.
The sea breeze howled, she screamed and hollered. Wound herself to a cyclonic gust and lashed with all her might against the stone chest of her beloved mountain.
She cried a storm of hurricane winds and pound against the mountain's heart for a thousand millennia, adamant to let herself out of her lover's restraint.
"This shrill noise you hear is that wind still trapped in the heart of the valley. Still trying to erode that mountain, still trying to let herself out. The Bodhi tree still waits for her they say." explained the guide to an inquisitive throng of tourists.
