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.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice read......
Human mind is indeed a cobweb of emotions....Unpredictable at times...
past,present..all entangled....
hmm...chhtarpur memoirs??

Unknown said...

It was a surprise for me. A serious read from vikas who is always funny as swati said. A good read. A touching portrayal of the predicaments encountered by the human mind.

Unknown said...

It was a surprise for me. A serious read from Vikas who is always funny as swati said. A good read. A touching portrayal of the predicaments encountered by the human mind.

Unknown said...

It was a surprise for me. A serious read from Vikas who is always funny as swati said. A good read. A touching portrayal of the predicaments encountered by the human mind.

Srinath Ramakkrushnan said...

A wonderful capture of mind. Filled with studness throughout.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful Post indeed...miserable and touching at the same time. The moments where he is comforted by his mother have been very nicely put down...Kamaal ka likhte ho yaar :-)