shailendra gulhati - SHIVA, The Ultimate Time Traveller

I believed it was important that Shivas endearing mythology, as well as His scintillating spirituality, both needed to be known.
The twin wings that make the truly ethereal flight He eternally embarks upon. It became my call to write a book that gives equal emphasis to Shivas story and reveals the fabulous mystic that He is, and indeed, has always been.

At first, I was overwhelmed by His infinite aspects: What could one write about Him, who is Timeless, Limitless and Boundless? And then, the question itself revealed the answer. One sure mark of Shiva, is that He is bound to Parvati. It is said of Shiva that He does not incarnate. Of Parvati's bhakti (devotion), it is said She is one who can make even Shiva incarnate.
He is Timeless, and yet when Parvati manifests, it is time for Shiva to arrive. He is formless, but when She arrives, He manifests form. She is His eternal soulmate, and they always find each other, through the mists of cosmic time, even through lifetimes; such is the magic of their love! For it is said, Parvati is His wife even from Her previous birth, when She was called Sati.
And I realised that behind the innumerable tales about Him,
at the core of the myriad roles that He plays out, Shiva's story,
is essentially a love story, over and over again.
There is the Pauranic Shiva: The Timeless One vouchsafed to us by the ancient tellings of the Rishis, down to our grandmothers tales. The Shiva from Kailash.
Shiva, the mountain Chieftain who lives happily with His beautiful Queen, Parvati, and the merry mountain men called ganas. Because His traditional story must always be respected and passed on, it is important to read about Shiva from the Puranas and assimilate this learning into the contemporary idiom of His legend.

But there is also the Adhunik Shiva; the Omnipresent, who is always here, lurking in our own hearts, in the present, and therefore the most modern at any time.
For Shiva is Mahakaal, the Ultimate Time Traveller...The Shiva who sometimes comes into the fantasies of writers to make up new storiesas indeed in my own heart He has been, and remains a constant inspiration, stroking my own imagination

In the deepest reflection, we realise that all things are possible to God; As long as we do remember the Traditional, the modern can be imagined.
In my book, therefore, while there will be conformity to tradition in recalling the magnificent trysts of the players from ancient times, there will also be exciting new characters to introduce a dramatic interplay. These are names which may not have been heard before, but who nevertheless encapsulate the spirit of Shivas fantastic bhakts. They reiterate that the enigmatic story of Shiva, enfolds All! Past, present, future, history, mythology and fantasy.
A magical story about the possibility of Shiva in dance with all the mystics of all the worlds, through all the ages and to our own present time.
Aum ShivaShakti Namah!
Shailendra Gulhati

SHIVA

Sati His voice worked like an awakening call.
Sati He repeated. And He did not say anything else;
there was nothing else to say.
Shiva repeating Her name like a mantra on His lips,
sounded like a thousand poems sung, by a divine singer,
who voiced eternity in each moment.
Shiva She managed to utter the mantra She had indeed been repeating a million times over.
Yes, my dearest? He answered.
Shiva, will we be together?
We are together, He smiled.
No. I mean, will we be together always, like this?
Yes, we will always be together.
Is it possible for one to be conjoined by her Isha? Please dont wake me up from this dream
Humesha He whispered softly, and lifted Her, bringing Her face near His own.
Humesha? She asked.
Hum, Isha. When the divine finds its plurality as One, it is forever.
A love so perfect, it becomes clear there never were two!
This is no dream, Sati it is the coming true of the dream,
He said, with a soft but sure voice, gently putting Satis feet back on the ground.
They stood face to face, His arm still around Her,
stilled in the moment where He had planted Her,
as if She had always been there, and whispered in sweet resonance, Humesha

FOREVER

The first time Shiva went into a cosmic trance, He was thrilled to bits. And He realised thats where His story began:
in a cosmic trance.
He loved mountains. He loved to dance. He loved to wear His hair long. He was a simple hillbilly: good at heart, and He loved his fellow mountain men. But He was not considered in turn, a fellow man.
It was said of Him that He was God HimselfThe Primal One.
He was said to be the Timeless Lord of the mountains and also the men He so loved.
He was Shiva, the Auspicious. Shiva, whose very presence was able to transform humans into demigods.
So many times on His mountain sojourns, He had chanced upon a singing shepherd, or a wandering minstrel, singing of Shiva!
Sometimes, as a bonus, even lovelorn women sang His praises, when they actually pined for another suitor; and He was amused by the stories He heard about Himself.
There were all sorts of things talked about Him, and He generally liked most of it, just because of the possibility it offered. It gave Him a strange excitement; this fact that