Saturday, May 2, 2009

the road un-traveled

excuse me if the "write" takes a little flavor from the previous post ;)
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The first step he took made his leg shiver, but he smiled and tried ..... and soon , he was as nimble as a deer. He waved to the real deers around who were motionless and looking at him, with the curious surprises. He saw the long road ahead, which made him look at his feet with eyes of sympathy, but he smiled. The road looked straight but with a lot of hurdles of different heights, he smiled.He knew it was going to be a long journey, so he kept looking back at times to the distance he covered to keep him going. Soon , he became a runner..... he ran, faster, toppled a couple of times, got up again and ran, swaying his head to the wonderful tunes inside him. He ran dancing, jumping ......... singing. Sometimes he felt the hurdles too short and he smiled broader. For a long time, he did not look around, but when he did, ....he was surprised, the deers were now so indifferent to him, they were grazing in the fields and were looking around without even acknowledging his existence. They were happy, at least they looked happy. This did not affect his smile, but soon he found himself slowing down. Funnily, he was frowning with his smiles now. Not being able to justify the happenings with him, he became restless. He was not at all smiling and once suddenly he just stopped himself. He looked at all the deers around him, he was surrounded by a lot many of them and ........ all of them with a condescending air of superiority. He looked up,closed his eyes, screamed with frustration and urged his heart to tell him what he needed!! one last desire... He opened up and saw just one star in the sky, very bright. He felt the desire inside, it was very clear... he wanted to run again, but this time he wanted run away. He saw the end of the road, far ahead.... it looked beautiful from such a distance. He ran......... ran, with an anxiety, with a rage, with an unlimited energy. It was not that easy for him, something was wrong....the more he ran , the more he found difficult to run. To his utter surprise, the road was getting steeper..... he kept on running, but he was crying now, crying his heart out.... he felt he was running up a mountain which was getting higher and higher. He did not stop, did not even stop to think about what to do.... but he cried ....more ... until he threw himself on the ground, surrendering to that strange trap.... he came down rolling, like a marble left from the brim of a bowl. After such a cruel reply of all his queries, he was left alone. He was inanimate for quite a while and when he opened his eyes, with his body lying facing the ground, he did not feel any pain. He turned back, got up and saw all deers smiling at him . The road looked straight again. He looked up, there were infinite stars, but THE bright one was gone. He took a fawn in his hands, hugged it, smiled and started walking towards the end again :).

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Gone with the Mind

Every time he blinked, he got a glimpse of a very messy graffiti, a web full of motions,sounds, scribbles, faces - smiling,laughing, screaming, crying. Then he closed his eyes...and the scene grew so clear and bigger. He felt like either being pushed to that graffiti wall or the wall just pacing towards him. He felt a jolt and threw his eyes wide open and saw his mother sitting near to him, calmly knitting a sweater for him. He noticed his mother had to wear glasses nowadays. Things were very silent around... he could listen to the watch click and the drop trickle from the bathroom tap. He was sitting on the sofa with his one arm folded, palm supporting his head and the elbow on the armrest.He breathed steadily.....but those stills (when he blinked) sprouted some irritation in him. He took a deep breathe and stood up, asked if his mother wanted something.
She smiled and said, " Tea? ... He just smiled. He washed his face and for some mysterious reason stared at his eyes in the mirror, cursed them, but smiled again.

He found some trouble with the logistics in the kitchen, but could get quick replies to his doubts by his mother.

"oh good :) ", his mother sipped and said.

"hmm",he replied and went to his room with his cup of tea.

He sat on the window, trying not to think anything, not to let his mind follow any thought and not to let his eyes follow any thing he looks at. He knew he did not want to close his eyes...he sipped slowly and kept on staring at some imaginary point up in the air. Funnily, he wanted his ears also not to follow any sound, though he found it difficult to control them. The sun was setting, and after rolling his eyes to several locations, he looked at the floating dust particles, in the beam of sunlight from the ventilator. With an unwilling frown over his eyes, his mind had already started running....catching up new thoughts.He knew what was going to happen.His thoughts were getting furious very fast...new pictures of the past experiences and "never to happen" fantasies were getting built up. He found himself sitting on a roadside rock with a packet of peanuts, wearing a cowboy hat and the next moment he was running in a marathon. He felt all the emotions together....fear, anger, love, remorse, compassion, passion, pain, but no peace... he searched for it....but all efforts for concentration went in vain, and finally he shook his head in distress. He was blinking faster now and started walking in the room with two fists behind his back. He frowned harder because of a discomforting realization about what he saw....there was something peculiar about the things he saw on the road - all the people passing by , showed just one emotion - suffering, pain.Even in the marathon...he was just about to finish first when he looked back once and stopped altogether. It was not a race....all others were far behind with absolutely no strength to run.


Then he scanned through all the emotions he thought he was going through - they were an illusion, a physical and mental illusion.There was only one - he felt it very hard now, a deep sorrow. He felt the enormity of an unknown suffering, with a slow sensation down his hollow throat. His blinking stopped and his heart grew steadier.He sat on the corner of his bed, and for the first time, he felt a great desire to dive into that little ocean of pain, to make the feeling grow.He closed his eyes and accepted whatever he saw..... made himself cry beside the graffiti wall. Tears came rolling down his cheeks .... he took a deep breathe and fell on his back keeping his arms open, and the tear drops moved to the side corners of his eyes.

His mother came blabbering something about the size of the sweater and stopped at the door. She looked at him, first with surprise then with concern. He did not move....he felt her coming and sitting close to him. She sat there for long.... looking at his tears till his eyes started drying off. He opened his eyes and looked at her...she pressed her hand in his, and left with an affectionate smile. His eyes followed her and then he turned to other side and looked at the wall painting.... it had a drop dripping out of the sun setting into a beautiful valley.He smiled and closed his eyes again, hoping for a better sleep this time.