The three lions looked at me with bright eyes and shook their manes. The fourth lion was facing the wall. So I couldn’t see him but I could hear him.
All the lions sat on a stone drum with a wheel or a chakra and animals carved on it. I could see a horse, an ox, an elephant and a lion. Under them was a stone lotus. It was placed upside down.
My parents and I were at the Sarnath museum, near Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. On a pedastal, I saw four lions facing the four directions. I could not take my eyes off them. I have seen pictures of the lions on rupees and coins, and the chakra is right in the centre of our flag. But I had never actually seen the figures. And I didn’t know that lions could talk.
Yes, talk!
'So, as I was saying,’ said the lion facing me, ‘We are called the Lion Capital.’
‘Capital means the top of a pillar. We were made to stand on top of a pillar. You can see the pillar still standing in Sarnath. Only we live in this museum,’ said the lion facing left.
‘These pillars were put up by King Ashoka, an Indian emperor. The pillars were nearly fifty feet tall and built all over India.’ said the lion on the right. ‘King Ashoka got rules written on these pillars. These rules were about leading a good life.’ he said.
‘Why did he do that?’ I asked.
‘So that people could read the rules easily, follow the rules and be happy.’ said the lion whose face I could not see.
‘But why are the four of you and the chakra seen on rupees and the flag?’
‘You see, since Ashoka was a great Emperor, people still follow his rules for a good life and it makes them happy. So his Lion capital and the Chakra became the national emblems of India,’ explained the first lion.
‘What is an emblem?’ I wanted to know.
‘Well,’ the lion on the right scratched his mane, ‘it is a picture or a thing that is a symbol for a country.’
‘Oh! Like the Olympic rings stand for the Olympic Games?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said all four lions together.
At that moment, my elder sister came up to me.
I turned to the lions, ‘And this is my sister, Megha.’ But the lions were now silent.
‘Are you talking to the Lion Capital, Mohit?’ my sister asked.
‘Yes, we were chatting,’ I said and looked at the lions.
Then, I looked hard.
The eyes were not shining any more. The manes were not shaking. They had turned into stone lions. What had happened to my lion friends?
I only heard Megha laughing.
All rights reserved @Sutapa Basu 2014
