The Final Critique

“Deepak!” rang a distant voice.

“Deepak!” The voiced echoed again feeling closer and growing louder. “Where are you?”

The boy felt as if he were floating in a warm dark space as he was gradually becoming aware of his name being called.

“Deepak, wake up.” The boy felt his mother’s voice close and intimate now.

He slowly opened one eye and then the other letting his pupils contract to the overwhelming brightness of the noon time sun. The silhouette of his mother’s loose hair dancing in the breeze eclipsed the bright disk of sunlight beyond.

“Surya,” the boy muttered in a sleepy murmur.

“Deepak, wake up. Your uncle called this morning and he wanted to talk to you. I told him you were at the temple and that you would call him back after lunch. Come now. We must head home to eat.”

“Mom,” Deepak replied languorously, “where’s Hanuman?”

“Hanuman? You must have been dreaming, dear. The only Hanuman here are those curious Langurs.” Pulling the boy’s shirt sleeve to prompt him to stand up, she repeated her demand to head home as she turned to cross the temple grounds.

Finally coming into full awareness, Deepak watched as his mom slightly lifted the side of her sari up to let it clear her sandals as she strode away.

The small berm he had fallen asleep on faced the south side of the Konark temple. All that remained of the majestic architecture that he had dreamt of falling into just moments before was the Maha Mandapa standing above a crumbled pile of stone where the Garbh Griha once rose. He imagined the towering shikhara capped by the amalaka that was no longer there. The chariot wheels and sentinel animals carved into the stone of the ancient building remains looked worn as they had when he had drifted to sleep. But now, when he scanned the panorama of the grounds before him, his mind filled in the gaps left by the scars of time.

The sight of tourists milling about the temple ruins began to fade away. His mother's figure, transiting the grassy span in between the Dancing Pavilion and the Mandapa, gave way to the vision of a freshly cleared field opening to beach surf and sea. He watched elephants and men working in construction teams fast forward around the field as spiral earth ramps grew skyward with cut stones. As the blocks were moved into place by the construction teams, principal forms of a new temple began to form. He saw more teams of men and pachyderms clearing a long narrow path through the forest parallel to the coast line until their progress was hidden by distance. Then, out of the tree tops, rose a berm of soil, rock, and logs that sloped up to the top of the growing shikhara. In fast motion he saw the boy and the elephants pull the amalaka up the grade and move the capstone into place. The earthen ramp shrunk away just as fast as it had grown. Now bamboo scaffolding encapsulated the entire temple with artisans fleeting about. Quickly the carvings appeared on all levels of the temple. The guarding statuary formed out of large blocks of previously positioned stone. Then everything shuttled away leaving the Konark Temple standing in reverence of the noon sun above.

"Two architects can have dialogue across many centuries," Deepak heard the voice of his uncle say, "by recognizing the design challenge that one has encountered and observing how that challenge was resolved."

Deepak pondered his uncle's words, blinked, and the vision was gone.

Across the grass, his mother had paused to wave at him to follow her.

As the boy stood up, his sketch book slid off his lap and landed on the grass by his feet. It had fallen open to a drawing of the temple in charcoal and ink.

Deepak gasped. “That’s not my drawing,” he stated to himself in wonderment.

Grabbing the book, he ran excitedly to his mother.

“I cannot wait to talk to Uncle,” he announced as he closed the distance between her and himself.

“Well, he has much to discuss with you,” she replied. “Something tells me he has a trip planned for the two of you!” Deepak’s mother dangled the end of her sentence with anticipation.

“I am certainly ready,” Deepak commanded as he picked his bicycle up from where he had parked it early in the day.

As the mother and son walked off the temple grounds, Deepak had the sense that something familiar was following them. At the edge of the tree line, Deepak hesitated and turned to take in the temple one more time before he and his mother walked away. Among the slow movement of visitors across the ruins and grounds, Deepak’s gaze caught a recognizable gray streak dart out of a crack in the remains of where the shikhara once stood. The bouncing creature leapt up to the stepped roof of the mandapa and scurried to the top. Perched at the peak, its eyes met Deepak’s. The Langur let out a happy squeal and then scampered away.