The rock is a drum and you are stomping around, tapping your flat fopt trying to find thay satisfying hollow plonk-plonk sound indicating a void under the stone. Roll a pebble down the hill to find the spot where the sound is deeper, richer than rock bouncing off rock. Is there a geological explanation for this interior resonance? Is it just the sound of the empty space, a bubble of air trapped beneath molten rock during the volcanic formation of this block erupting from the flat earth? Or is it an underground tunnel, part of a giant hole or vast gallery, home to a tremendous subterranean snake?
This snake uninterested in the large impetuous monkeys fighting in the parking lot, shaking trees and jumping from motorbike to motorbike. The snake is deep underground, asleep. He is indifferent to the beggars crouched in the middle of the footpath, hand outstretched. He is impervious to the toothless woman in the impeccable brown and black patterned sari, hand out, calling to you by the car. Not even the band of boys yelling and swearing in Urdu; especially not the one in the sunglasses and purple t-shirt screeching to his friends can disturb the snake. He is deep, deep underground and unperturbed by human trivialities. He is ancient but not old. He is waiting to wake, to shake the earth. He can move the balancing boulder, perched atop the tall conical rock. He can make them tumble in search of that satisfying plonk plonk that interrupts the mundane sound of the small rock bouncing against the solid stone.
Sacred snake, traditional knowledge, followed, pulsating below the surface, tangible, alive but not understood. The mists of time cloud all meaning.
