(Inspired by Thoreau)
In the bustling yet familiar market of Lalgudi, where the river Kollidam flowed not far away and the scent of ripe mangoes mixed with the sharper smell of spices and fresh jasmine, there lived a cloth merchant named Sundar. He was a man of regular habits, but of late his mind had grown restless. Even when he locked his small shop in the afternoons and walked out beyond the town, his thoughts remained tangled in accounts, customer complaints, and unfinished obligations.
One Thursday afternoon, Sundar closed his shop a little earlier than usual and set off towards the open fields beyond the market. He had barely gone a mile when he realised, with a start, that although his body was among the trees, his mind was still behind the counter, calculating yesterday’s sales.
Near a quiet stretch where the path turned towards the low hills, he met an elderly man named Krishnan, a retired postmaster who was known in the market for his long, unhurried walks. Krishnan walked with a slow, steady rhythm, looking about him as if every leaf and stone deserved attention.
“You seem to have left the market behind in body only,” Krishnan remarked mildly as they fell into step.
Sundar sighed. “I think I cannot preserve my health and spirit unless I spend at least four hours a day—often more—sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. Yet even when I walk, the village comes with me. Some piece of work keeps running in my head, and I am not where my body is. I am out of my senses.”
Krishnan smiled the quiet smile of a man who had walked many miles.
“You must walk like a camel,” he said, “which is said to be the only beast that ruminates while walking. When a traveller once asked Wordsworth’s servant to show him her master’s study, she answered, ‘Here is his library, but his study is out of doors.’ I am always alarmed when I discover that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walks I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society. What business have I in the woods if I am still thinking of the market?”
They walked on in silence for a while. The sounds of the market—the calls of vendors, the clink of weighing scales—faded behind them. Krishnan spoke again, gently.
“While walking, be there not only with the body but with the senses. Feel the pressure of the ground under your feet, the aroma of the earth after the morning sun, the sound of the leaves, the coarseness of the path. Breathe. See. Listen. Be alive to the place itself.”
Sundar tried. He noticed the warmth of the dust beneath his sandals, the faint sweetness of wild grass, the distant glimmer of the Kollidam. For a few moments the accounts and obligations loosened their hold.
When they parted near the edge of the fields, Krishnan raised a hand in farewell. “Return to your senses,” he said simply. “The woods will not mind your presence, but they ask that you bring all of yourself.”
That evening, back among the winding lanes of the market, Sundar found his usual worries waiting. Yet something had shifted. The next afternoon, when he walked out again, he practised leaving the shop behind not only in body but in mind.
And in the gentle, unassuming way of Lalgudi, where even the quietest truths are discovered between the stalls and the open fields, Sundar began to understand that a walk was not complete until the spirit arrived with the feet.