AN EPIC BATTLE FIELD 17

Sitting on the brick embankment of the ancient
tank shaded by age-old trees, there is much to feel in
Kurukshetra. In the midday silence a porpoise becomes
bold enough to lift his horny ^snout above the water and
slide noiselessly between reeds and lotus leaves to pick a
discriminating lunch from the surface of the water;

a deep-mauve splash of colour from a tree in bloom that
overhangs a little island temple, stands out against
dark-green mango trees and dark red walls; somewhere
a pilgrim chants and a rhythmic stanza of the Immortal
Song floats softly on the stilled air:

Never born, never dead;

Independent of the past, the present, or the
future;

Unborn, eternal, everlasting;

More ancient than the ancient;

The soul is immortal though the body succumb
to death.

This is a world saturated with peace, a world of
enchantment