The hall was packed and majority of the people sitting there were quite excited. They were from different age groups. A unique literature was coming out in the market the next week and this was the reason they were assembled there. Some prominent people had already reviewed that piece of literature and raved about its quality and depth. Critics have always been complaining about the low intellectual level of the masses based upon the kind of literature they read these days. They expected that sooner or later a necessary change may come.

Suddenly, but silently a man wearing jeans, T shirt and a black turban appeared from the main entrance to the hall. Moving through the aisles towards the stage, he occupied the seat left vacant for him on the stage. He was not a writer by profession and this was his first book.

This press conference was especially called for the book THE SILENT MAN.

“Sir, it is an honour to have you here. It provides us a rare opportunity to get in touch with you and know more about your book. It is generating much interest in everyone and is due for release next week,” the anchor said.

“I appreciate your invitation,” the Author whispered back in a soft tone which was hardly audible. The anchor came forward and handed the mike to him. The Author repeated the same words again and this time everyone could hear it.

“The readers and audience wants to know more about it. Here is a chance for you to connect to them and speak about it,” the anchor said.

With that statement the attention was now on the Author. He was an engineer by profession and had been working with a leading Infrastructure development organization. He never had any plans to publish his work but then at some point of time in his life he felt that he must share something with people which he experienced himself in the company of someone.

Though from outside he appeared normal yet to many, the Author was a weird man. He would remain absorbed in himself and his little creative world. Though officially it was his first book, yet people believed that he had kept hidden a lot of unpublished and original stuff with himself. He had though published a few passionate short stories earlier dealing with the various manifestations of life, which were well received by the readers and critics both.

His home was a unique place where the characters that he created for his books and stories would come to life. He would act like them in front of the mirror, express the emotions of every single character and would often involve his servants to be a part of the act. Each servant would be given the name of a character from the story and then the Author would personally explain to them the details of the scene to be executed from the book. The servants would enjoy it but later they eventually would laugh at the insanity of their master. Whenever they go out they would happily spread the rumours about the mental state of their master. And the listeners would ask servants every now and then about whatever new was going inside that big bungalow of their master.

Though the Author was a swift communicator, yet on some occasions he would prefer to offer silence to people instead of words. He would laugh in the middle of serious conversations, smile for no specific reason and he would leave parties and functions in between without any hint of embarrassment or regret. But they all felt one thing – he was a passionate man and this passion would be gracefully captured in his book and expressed through various characters to enchant the readers afterwards. They expected that he shall continue with the same quality as he expressed through his stories earlier.

The Author introspected for few seconds, looking straight in the eyes of the anchor, a smile appeared on his face and he uttered in a slow yet graceful tone, “Yes, I shall speak to them”.

“Is it based on a real story?” the anchor asked.

“I don’t know what real is any more, for everything sometimes appear real and at other times illusive to me. But I called him the Silent Man. He was born and brought up in the same city. I saw him there. He was older to me by some twenty years,” the Author replied back.

“You observed him during your teenage years?” the anchor asked.

“Yes, during our growing years we were presented a rather grim image of him. We readily accepted it for we felt that truth is always where the majority is. But then I realized that a single man’s truth is much more powerful than the lies of a thousand men and it gets revealed eventually,” the Author replied back in a confident tone, his eyes shining brightly.

“Tell us more, Sir,” the anchor urged.

“I clearly remember he used to speak very less. He would either be seen working in a hut outside the city or nourishing the crops in the field or even taking a stroll around the lake alone. He gradually developed a special affection for that environment. I vividly remember taking few peaceful rides on his boat through the lake,” the Author replied back.

“He lived out of the city?” the anchor asked.

“He had to. There was a reason that he unlike others had to move out of city and we as kids were not allowed to ask much about the same. We only knew that his life appeared rather ineffective and to some extent dangerous to a particular set of people in the city who held high position of power and so they spoke against him often. They would crack jokes among themselves and ridicule him at every available opportunity,” the Author replied back in a nostalgic manner and was lost in his own thoughts for few seconds.

“You still remember that man?” suddenly one guy from the audience, a friend of the Author, asked him.

“Yes, Michael. All those related to that city at least surely remember him,” the Author replied.

“There surely was something about him,” Michael said.

“What something?” the Author asked back encouragingly to strike a conversation.

“I am not sure. I later felt he never belonged to our city, though born and brought up there,” Michael replied.

“Yes, that’s true. He was living like that for quite long,” Author said.

“The people of the city felt threatened by him and thus they ostracized him from their so called society, in the creation and functioning of which they took great pride, but still…” Michael said.

“But still, what?” Author asked.

“Still, they could not understand his silence and aloofness. They would often discuss it among themselves. He built a hut outside the city and lived there alone,” Michael said.

“Hahahahahahaha…they were fools,” Michael, the anchor and the audience were a little surprised after they received a large guffaw from the Author. He was known for such behaviour.

“Why fools?” Michael asked.

“Because, they forgot one thing,” Author said.

“What?” Michael asked.

“Silence is stillness for some and loneliness for others,” Author replied back with a gentle smile.

“What does that mean?” Michael asked.

“They felt challenged but they could not accept that challenge. Because it was not a competition of arrogance but of humility. It was not an expression of power, but an absence of it. He accepted whatever they offered yet remained content. This was something unacceptable to them. When they expected retaliation he only offered them silence and so I call him the Silent Man,” the Author replied back.

“Hmm…” Michael nodded back in acceptance.

“The more they discarded him and kept him away from themselves and their systems and society, the more he got close to himself. His outer dependence was soon replaced by inner contentment,” the Author said.

“Can you explain that a bit?” Michael asked.

“Your freedom, free from the idea of ‘becoming’ as a desperate identity need, breaks the dependence of your happiness on the outcome. You become alive; you flow like a river, blossom like a flower, unobstructed, seeking nothing. You become existence, existence becomes you. Mind dies, heart rises,” the Author replied back in a poetic way with unique expression of hands.

“Hmm… gradually over the years the peace they started witnessing on his face would annoy them often, but I wonder why?” Michael said.

“Well, they have always believed to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who don’t and no doubt he was strikingly different. He was just curious. He asked them questions which nobody asked earlier, he raised doubts on their beliefs and ideologies which no one did earlier. He made them uncomfortable. He in a sense exposed them in front of their own people and this was something they could not accept,” Author added.

“So they wanted him to suffer?” Michael asked.

“Yes, they wanted him to be like them, to bow to them in acceptance, but they failed,” the Author replied.

“Why did they fail?” Michael asked.

The Author had a loud snort of laughter that amused everyone again and then he replied, “They tried their best. They could not have killed him as they wanted him to live in pain. To increase the intensity of his suffering they separated him from his family. His parents were only allowed to live in the city on the condition that he cannot stay with them.”

“But why they eventually failed?” One guy from the audience who was hearing the conversation asked.

“To their utter surprise the stones they threw at him with hatred and ignorance could not harm him. On the contrary, they were used by him in laying the foundation of his house with love and wisdom,” Author replied back.

“Hmm…” the guy nodded back.

“Not only that. There was something else as well,” Author said.

“What is that?” the anchor asked.

“Initially, when they found that he was a man of profound intellect, they tried to eulogize him as a saint, but he refused to acknowledge it. This disregard made them angry and they tried to denigrate him as a sinner, he refused that as well. He was neither a sage nor a sinner,”  the Author replied.

“This seems quite interesting. Do you remember any of his words?” This time a girl from the audience asked.

He spoke on rare occasions. He though once remarked beautifully, “Just a tiny fraction of the dust, we all are, could be reduced to nothing at any instant by the divine decree. If this fragility of our existence doesn’t make us humble, nothing else can. At some other time he instructed and said, ‘Leave aside your individual destinies for a moment and understand that there is a larger destiny. It is a common thread that invisibly entwines us all. This thread weakens by its constant brushing up against religion, caste, creed and various personal ideologies (deceptions of mind). What that larger destiny is? Well, it is called LOVE (absence of ego). The next time you observe yourself fulfilling your individual destiny by suppression of another fellow human and yourself through an expression of selfishness and insecurity, remember that you are just running away from fulfilling this larger destiny. You settle for anything less, you invite mediocrity’,” the Author replied back in an excited tone. Perhaps this excitement was a mere reflection of the fact that he knew that man closely.

“Do you go back to him often?” the anchor asked.

A deep silence filled with sudden grief covered up Author’s face following the anchor’s statement, but in few seconds it was replaced by a childish smile. He replied, “I do go back to that hut often. I feel like home there. I feel that presence there. I take care of the hut, live in it for some days and sometimes give it to other like-minded people for short stay of not more than three days.”

“We would like to know more about that SILENT MAN and your book. From where and how it all started?” the anchor asked.

“I guess, then you’ve got to tolerate more of me and I would only express in brief. As far as the rest is concerned for that you will have to read the book itself,” Author replied back smilingly.

By that time the Author had the audience’s undivided attention and he continued the tale of the SILENT MAN.