He woke up to the smell of rocks. His first vision after the prolonged slumber that he was in was - the horizon. He turned himself and faced upwards, to find the sun shining at his zenith. He pushed himself up and looked around. To his utter dismay he found himself on top of a rugged rocky mountain. It seemed he was in a No man’s land as his line of vision could not sight any habitat. Scared and perplexed he started looking for his cell phone. To add to his worries he realized that the only piece of device that could have given him some clarity was missing. He could feel his heart-beat race as he had no idea how on earth was he there. He stood up and started running helter-skelter. “HELP...Is there any one around?”, he cried out loud again and again, in a mere attempt to pacify himself as it was quite obvious that the locale was devoid of human presence. He had raced about five hundred meters senselessly when he stumbled over a rock, rolled over and sloped down. Just when he had held the rocky edges and managed to save himself by stopping the slide, he found himself at the crest of the mountain. One more inch down the line and he would have fallen to death. A gust of hot air blew past his face, supposedly a reality check!

He pulled himself up and retreated. Trying hard to get back his sanity he took a deep breath, and made an attempt to recall the previous night. All he could remember was the intentional intoxication he was succumbing himself to. Amyra had returned back the engagement ring and broken their four years of togetherness. She had suddenly realized that she valued her parent’s decisions more and can never stand up for the cultural difference that they were born with. “Please move on, if you haven’t”- this was her last note for him. He wanted to return back home to Ma that evening and speak his heart out but Ma had left him for eternity, two months back. He missed Ma. The only other person he could go and unburden himself was probably Dad. But he never shared that space with him. In fact he was never sure about his feelings for him. He has spend hours brooding over how exactly he felt about him, unfortunately it always ended dubiously. After Dad had left Ma and him, 22 years back to set up a new family – all he felt for him was an ambivalent feeling of love and hatred. Except for the monthly lump some amount that Dad used to send as a part of Divorce liabilities, he had never experienced paternal love from him. So quite obviously he had shunned away the idea of going to Dad to balm his state of mind.

Divine providence had been harsh on him always. Bruised, blank and blasphemed, he had made his way to one of the local joints of the city. Being in trance could possibly help soothe the pain he had always suffered in his 26years of life. Bizarre thoughts were zooming in and out all over his mind. He had drank and doped himself to nemesis and finally concluded- his life had no meaning, no love and no valid reason to be extended. The only way to release this agony once for all is to embrace death. Expiration was the shortest way to succeed over despair- is all he could vision then.

His reminiscences of the previous night was interrupted by the long but not so loud screech. He looked up to find it was the eagle’s cry.

It soared above him in circles for a few seconds, thereby lowering his flight and gradually landed onto the rock beside him. He was appalled for a while and wanted to run away and save himself from being prey to the mighty creature. But surprisingly the powerful creature looked helpless, tired and very much harmless. The eagle had aged, he noticed the old wings and the thick feather sticking on its chest, making it difficult to fly. Its flexible and long talons had become loose and sagged.  The elongated and sheer sharp beak had bent. It was on its way to demise, counting its last few hours, drained out of life and in a lot of distress. He empathized with the eagle as he could relate himself with it. Every second was just taking both of them, one step closer to death.

All of a sudden and to his much surprise the eagle started knocking it’s beak against the rock. Once, twice, thrice and the deliberate knocks continued till the beak was plucked out. Once the beak was gone, it started plucking out its old thick feathers one by one. He stared amazingly at the eagle recalling the rebirth fable which Ma used to narrate to him in childhood. He could see it happening right in front of his eyes. The story of the eagle was unfolding to reality.

The Eagle supposedly has the longest life-span of its species. It can live up to 70years. But to reach this age, the eagle goes through a lot of hardships and has to make a hard decision. While it is in its 40th year, its talons get loose and can no longer grab prey which serves as food. Its beak lacks the chisel.  The enormous weight of the heavy wings, obstructs its flight take offs. In short the eagle loses its might and charisma. Then, the eagle is left with only two options: DIE or go through a painful process of CHANGE over a period of 150 days. And this eagle had obviously made the right choice!

In this hibernation phase the eagle flies to a mountain top and gets rid of all its past woes just the way the eagle was doing right in front of him. He could see how the eagle was giving away all its old memories, habits, past traditions one by one just to metamorphose itself into a newer individual. The eagle thus went featherless, without talons and beaks as it was in its “revival embryo” phase. But he could foresee how a new beak would grow, then new feathers and then long flexible tight talons and in no time it will leave its past behind in an oblivion, and the renewed creature will take the famous flight of rebirth with a resurrection shine in its eyes. He looked up and speculated how this helpless creature would soar higher and higher above all at the end of this painful dormancy and yes this time the eagle’s screech would be LONG and LOUD!

His thoughts were impeded by a long monotonous noise and a slight vibration. He woke up to the morning alarm and found himself lying on the bed in his room. Absolutely amazed at the abrupt transition, he felt  dizzy. The credibility of the resurgence dream made him go into a daze for a while. Absorbing the lessons he had learned from the life changing dream that he just had, he got up from his bed and stood in front of the mirror looking at a newer him. Feeling light and happy in heart, he could not stop exuding his “motivated” smile and his eyes shone…they were lit up with Resurrection.

Each one of us has the ability to choose between DEATH and RESURRECTION in a single lifetime.

Be the eagle and go for resurgence however painful the transition phase might be