Saturday, November 12, 2011

Sometimes pain is unable to express itself overtly. It just simmers at the brim like a lidded pot full of boiling water. It scalds you and leaves a scar that can never be erased. I suppose the same can be said about love. Love can be the most vitriolic and corrosive of all emotions. As Marquez said, unrequited love can make your corpse smell like bitter almonds. All glorified and worshiped, love has now become this arrogant tyrannical  God who rules our lives with a whip. Controlling our emotions, our movements, our thoughts. We are enslaved by this all-powerful master who keeps lashing his whip with unabated cruelty. Love needs to be brought down from this higher pedestal to a more earthly existence from where he can see the pain he has been afflicting on us for so long. He needs to be made more humane, not Godly. From their heavens above gods are unable to see the plight of earthlings. Humane love can be argued with, fought against; Godly love is above reason knowing no laws of logic and rationality. He works in a whimsical fashion. These whims need to be done away with. This tyranny needs to be done away with. Rationality has to win over this recklessness...

Some day it will!

Winters of Memories.

Winters knocked at her doors once again; bringing back to life old wounds and pains. Nights being longer during the winters, gave greater opportunity for those buried memories to resuscitate. She would lay there awake with eyes closed, deep in thoughts that varied from uncertainties of the future to some remote childhood incident that gave its rare appearance in the constant rolling of the reel of life. 

She was reminded of those winters of her college days when she lay awake in her bed just like now, not due to insomnia, but due to hunger pangs. She would then wear her knee length coat over her shorts and leave out on a journey to calm down the raging fire in her stomach. With her furry slippers on, she would walk on the pavement covered with snow flakes and several inches of snow on either side. She enjoyed the way chilly winds felt on her bare legs. She would want to stay longer but would inevitably hear a voice of caution from one of those open windows.

Her rescuer on those hungry nights was a beauty called Aisha. She would make her some great pasta and tea with African herbs. This enchantress from Africa with a bewitching smile had several admirers. Her crazy ways attracted men of all sorts. Her room smelt of perfumed oils and was the warmest room during those cold nights. She was her best friend. Their friendship was meant to last forever and it did.

The weight of her memories would slowly lull her into sleep continuing their appearance in her dreams. Every year she looked forward to these dreams as they were the most varied of all. Forgotten events and people from the annals of her well lived life would come back to life. 

The days were painful though. Having no recourse to the memories because of several things to do, she would have to bear the pain of broken bones and stiff joints. That was when her loneliness hit her the most. She wished to share the burden with someone but found none.

Several years back when she did not understand what loneliness meant, a few lines occurred to her which she penned down. "Loneliness," she wrote,"is a state of mind. A lone fisherman in the midst of the sea might not be lonely at all whereas someone amidst a myriad of people might be the loneliest of all." Those were the days when fancy thoughts came to her from out of nowhere. Little did she know that she would be the one living these lines several years down the lane.

She craved for company when alone but wanted to get rid of those who surrounded her and wished to be left alone. Such contradictory behaviour was not a sign of mental disease. She had realized that the search for  right company was an arduous task. People around her were ageing but refused to grow. Their thoughts failed to match to the graying of their hair. Depth and profundity meant talking about serious issues in a superficial manner. She therefore preferred loneliness over such company.

One winter night as she was getting ready to get lost in the labyrinth of memories, she heard a knock at the window. She opened it up and the spectacle was breathtaking. The moon was at its most beautiful phase. The reddish-orange full moon looked like a dot on the forehead of a lady with a smooth black complexion. Just then she realized that a considerable time had passed since she saw something as mesmerizing. She was reminded of her hobby of sky-watching which she followed with passion in her school days. She would spend hours at the telescope looking at the distant stars, tracking satellites, and looking at the craters of the moon. Today she was no longer able to perceive those stellar entities as gaseous or rocky masses. Now they seemed to convey a whole new meaning to her, striking conversation with her distant self. The vast lake in front of her seemed like the playground of the moon in its various forms. She was encapsulated in the sight.

Even as she was letting the long due joy sink in, she saw a lone boat with a man rowing slowly and steadily towards the moon.

She now knew that she had finally found her companion for life...