The threads of history weave strange patterns in the web of time. Mysterious and complex as the tapestry sometimes appears, the finished product invariably is a work of art. Often, one cannot see the entire picture from the limited perspective of a small portion of a lifetime. It’s by expanding the mind and trusting the universal flow that it’s possible to make sense of what may be considered nonsense or “none sense.”
It was sometime in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century.Far across the seas in the ancient land of Bharat,which today is known as India, mighty forces were at work. Somewhere in the north central part of that land, in an area inhabited by the descendants of fierce Rajput warriors, the Maharajah Jai Singh the Second had already made tremendous scientific advancements in the pink and lavender city of Jaipur.
A young boy, about the age of ten, served at the court of the powerful Jai Singh. This boy’s name, taken from another powerful ruler of earlier days, was Mahn Singh.Well versed was he with the stories told at court. On many an evening he would listen in quiet amazement as visitors from faraway lands exchanged stories and tales with one another. As Mahn Singh grew older, he would dream of those distant lands across the seas and would repeat the stories he learned at court.
Thousands of miles across the oceans, England had a new queen. Elizabeth the First, daughter of Henry the Eighth, was a shrewd and powerful monarch. She was constantly at war with Spain, which was then ruled by Philip the Second. In an all out effort to conquer England, Philip the Second dispatched the Spanish Armada. The defeat of the Armada did not prevent the Spanish from trying to colonize parts of South America and the islands of the Caribbean.
On one of the Spanish expeditions led by Don Pedro da Silva, a young sailor named Juan Martinez was watching an approaching storm. Great was the fury of that storm and when it abated the entire crew, save one, was no more. All but Juan Martinez perished. He barely survived by clinging to a piece of floating wreckage. Days passed under the hot, tropic sun until,finally, delirious and dehydrated, he drifted to land and was rescued by a strange band of warriors. He had drifted into the estuary of that mysterious South American river called the Orinoco.
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