Chapter Two - The Four Sights

CHAPTER TWO

The Four Sights

SIDD WAS ABOUT 29.
He had a wife. A newborn son. A kingdom waiting for him.

But he couldn’t rest.
Because he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was being hidden.

So he asked his charioteer, Channa, to take him outside the palace.
Not to the festival.
Not to the market.
Just outside.
Into the real world.

He didn’t recognize what he was seeing at first.

A man bent at the spine.
Gray hair. Loose skin. Barely able to walk.

Sidd asked, “What’s wrong with him?”
Channa said, “He’s old. It happens to everyone.”

Everyone.
Even him.
Even his son.
Even Yasodhara.

And just like that, the illusion cracked.

Next, they passed someone coughing in the dirt.
Rag over his mouth, blood on his hand.

Sidd turned to Channa again.
“Sick,” he said. “It happens, too.”

And Sidd realized: health isn’t permanent.
It’s borrowed. And it runs out.

The next one didn’t move.

Carried by four men, wrapped in white cloth.
Mourners behind it. Crying.

Sidd didn’t ask this time.
He understood.

Death.
The end of all of it.

He felt it in his chest.
A cold clarity.
Everything dies.

Not just people.
Happiness. Power. Kingdoms.
Everything.

Then came the last one.

A man in simple robes.
Head shaved. Eyes calm.
Walking with no urgency, but full presence.

He wasn’t sick.
He wasn’t grieving.
He wasn’t clinging to pleasure either.

Just… still.

Channa said, “That’s a holy man. A seeker. He gave everything up to find peace.”

Sidd didn’t say a word.

But in that silence, he made a decision.

“If death is certain,
and suffering is real,
and everyone is pretending like it’s not happening —
then I won’t pretend anymore.”

That night, Sidd came home different.

He looked at Yasodhara. He loved her.
He held his son, Rahula. He loved him too.
But he knew the truth now. And he couldn’t unsee it.

He waited until they were asleep.

Then he got on a horse, left the palace gates, and disappeared into the night.

Not to abandon them.
But to understand life before it was too late.

“I can’t protect them from death unless I understand it myself.”