Reflections through an empty glass – The week that passed

A ten year old – young boy climbs a ‘seven feet tall – broken glass fenced’ wall and jumps into the ground, putting to rest the gasps and shrieks of an imagined crowd, thrilled and buoyed by the cricket. And as he feels the canvas on the ball, the wood on the bat, and the bucolic essence of earth, thoughts take a backseat and it’s all a rush of adreline through his veins.

Eleven years hence, the ground is not the same, neither are the players and yet the adreline that pumps in my body is not a drop short of what it was then. The smell of wet earth, the brightly lights of the night, the govind cricket lawns, the team, the crunch and the one run that kept us ashore of victory. Ah, I relive the kidulthood again.

And there were the departmental games, under the bright sun of the afternoon, abuses being hurled from everywhere, the tension that is the game is what keeps the spirit alive … and you forget all else except that one game, that one over, that one ball. I was focused deeply, engrossed in the game and so was everyone in my team and that is what fetched us victory. The MIESS champions, re-crowned after two years.

And the artist in me, released from the thinking mind, held its own against me-the player. It was srishti, my last in IIT R, and boy did I let go. Got my face painted, symbiotically representing the mother earth and won a prize for that too, painted the wall with Incredible India, a collage of what we are. And at the end of it all, I sure feel nostalgic. Good games, great friends and moments to treasure – A week that had it all. And left me wondering how many more shall I have for the kid in me.

Of Unusual Rain and Usual Madness

I can hear the water dripping from the leaves of the tree outside my room. It is raining, drizzling slowly. Every rain, I have felt like it is the first in my life. It brings a sense of ‘again’, a joy of being; life starts afresh with a zeal and hope that heavens pour.

But today, it is something else. The morning seems dull, the colors washed out, streets empty, flowers numb. It is as if nature has a character. It settles down in your mind and takes the shape of your feelings, pretty much like water. The trail of rain is numb today. Why is this so, why is the heart not leaping with joy, why is the mind still, the thoughts unmoving.

The laze settles deep in my head, I do not feel like getting out of the bed. I just pick up my diary and scribble a few words – incoherent voices in my head.

Oh, how beautiful is the rain…

Leaps the heart, beyond the sane…

 

Unfeeling and numb, I may be…

Of the world and its pain…

And the threads of life I hold…

Uncaring, cold, inhuman and vain…

Yet, this life has lots to offer…

Before it drizzles down the drain…

I do not know what drives me forth…

Is it the human in me…?

Or is it just the rain!?

 

It is a scribble, just a dumb set of lines unmeaning of the mind. As I get up and look out of the window, I look at little kids playing in the garden below – running around puddles of muddy water, uncaring of the chill, the water, the mud – naked feet making ripples in the puddles of water. Naked hearts – open, free and unassuming. And I realize that it’s not in the rain what makes me feel, it is in me. And the voices in the head become coherent again. The thoughts will not let me be me, so shall I stop thinking. Yes, I should but I can’t. The mind caught in the shambles of the world will never be free now, I will never be down in the rain again. Never. It sends a chill down my spine. Will I never love the rain again !

And I realize that arty and lazy can be a deadly combination – for the diary I believed I wrote those lines on, it never was there. So, I am left with a chill down my spine and a pillow-cover scribbled over in black graphitic marks all over.

Art and Laze and Me.

We, the humans – My love for humanity

Groping for the water bottle in the dark, I knock down the watch. The green dial looks illuminatingly at me. It’s 4 AM. It’s been a rough night again. I have no idea when I went to sleep. Yet, I feel fresh. The morning and the night … hand in hand, and the spectacle is beyond my thoughts. The converging thoughts are shattered by the sudden shriek from outside. As I barge out of the room, a pair of eyes, blood-shot, red, fearless, cold, stare at me. Smash ! Intimidated I shut the door back. Looking for something to throw at him, I pick up the old slipper and shivering, head to the door again. It’s there… How ugly, how devilish, eating from the dustbin, It’s disgusting. I throw the slipper, it slips out of the way, runs hard with the piece of polythene it was chewing. Happy I am, Am I?

The shiver in my body settles down, the storm in my mind sets up. As I look into the mirror in the bathroom wondering who of us is an animal – the one with polythene or the one with the slipper? The answer never comes …

and I love humanity for the answer need not come ! ever.