A Soliloquy of a Solitary Sage

 

[ The parking lot of the University of Baroda. The parking lot and the place around it look deserted as classes are over. Asit, a young boy in his early twenties with his unshaven chin and ruffled hair is sitting on stairs and brooding over something of great import. His gaze is fixed on an Ashoka tree. Gloom loomed over his face.]

Asit: [ Stands up, walks to the Ashoka tree and touches it] A year ago my life was a beautiful garden that was always green and was visited by an angel. It was a garden where fabled flowers danced and chirping birds crooned in tune with rustling wind. It was a garden that was perpetually blessed with spring. But today the same garden has been laid waste. Since the angel has left the garden with a vow never to return, autumn has been the only season that pervades the garden and an unending yellow shroud has been eternally cast on it. Trees stand bereft of leaves and intimidating silence has superseded songs of birds.

[Walks back to the stairs and sits there]

I still remember the enchanting monsoon evening when I stood with Jalpa under this ashoka tree, we both had a tete-a-tete baring our souls to each other and for the first time I plunged into the ocean of her eyes, which betrayed her most cherished feelings that she was so determined to keep to herself. I remember the beaming smile that frequented her lips, while she talked to me. But, today I am alone here waiting for a moment that is never going to come back as a cloud that never revisits the town it has passed on its journey. I am dying to relive all those sweet moments when I sat next to her holding her warm hands in mine and no words escaped her or me.

I devoted all my love to her and doted on her, but, I confess, I could not rein in my fickle heart. Never did I think that my dalliances with other girls of irresistible charms could prove so much fatal. Now I am left with no business but ponder the only question—why did she jilt me?

I find an answer when I look into myself. Only I know, and perhaps she also knows, how desperately I was trying to pretend to be talking to my dentist while Nikita called me on my mobile and Jalpa was standing opposite me. By seeing embarrassment on my face and hearing me stammer, Jalpa could have easily concluded that I was talking to Nikita, a girl who people believed I had lost my heart to. And I still remember that poor girl Nikita, despite her dismay, congratulated me over mobile on knowing that I was talking to my newly found love Jalpa. Unfortunately, Jalpa also knew that the person I was talking to over mobile was not my dentist but Nikita, the girl who I was thought to be crazy about. I could see a ripple of disapproval on Jalpa’s face then and therefore I cut Nikita short and resumed my talk with Jalpa. Though Japla knew everything, she overlooked it.

Each of my lies that I told Jalpa long ago still haunts me. I remember I was with Nikita on the university ground on the first night of Navaratri and the next day I told Jalpa, ‘I don’t like this festival and so I don’t go out at night’. I remember how tactfully I avoided Nikita in college so that Jalpa should not suspect me of being besotted with Nikita and thus she should not be aware of the fact that I was cheating on her.

On the contrary I never bothered to hide it from Nikita that I was desperately in love with Jalpa because I never feared losing Nikita but the possibility of losing Jalpa sent a shudder down my spine. I know one evening I was sitting next to Nikita in a garden, and talking to her very affectionately and paid all my attention to every word she uttered. But then my mobile started ringing and I read ‘Jalpa calling’ on the screen. Very quickly I went away from Nikita, leaving her alone and talked to Jalpa for a quite long time. I could see all Nikita’s hopes getting shattered and tears rolling down her cheeks. Now that I have been abandoned I realise how much pain she might have gone through.

I still have a fickle heart, a heart that being as light as a feather keeps drifting with wind and does not have any power to determine its own course. In a society where only strong resolves are respected even though they never materialise, sensitivity of a feather to wind is generally misunderstood to be a weakness.

 

A Song of Time

A Song of Time

I, Ishmael, am a child of a city of banyan trees, a city well-known for its cultural, aesthetic and historical richness—a city called Baroda. But today I am miles away from this city which has influenced my life to a great extent. At present, I live in Ahmedabad, a city with lots of hustle and bustle that render my woe inaudible and cause it to fade away.

It is a leisurely Sunday evening and I am heading for a cafeteria called Blues, where youngsters hang out with their friends and couples linger at the coffee tables for hours. I enter the cafeteria, sit on a chair that has been engraved with the king of hearts and then start looking at the menu.  While I was going through the menu, a muffled but familiar tune over the babel of people in the restaurant catches my attention. As I zero in on the tune, I stumble across one of my favourite songs—‘ Look into my eyes and you’ll see what you mean to me. ...search your heart, search your soul...when you find me there, you’ll search no more..’

Ultimately, I have been caught by what I have been escaping from—blues. The song, which I once used to associate with bloom now reminds me of nothing but an unending gloom. I was sitting with Niki under a banyan tree when I first heard this song. I remember I and she used to go to a garden and spend some time together there every evening when I was in Baroda. During one of my initial trysts she crooned this song and bared her heart to me. The happiness I felt at that moment was too big for me to contain and it made me delirious. Suddenly, everything seemed to be more exciting and colourful to me. I was able to hear her name in chirping of birds; I saw her face in various shades of trees. I saw the existence obliterating every possible boundary between me and her. My days started with a call from her, her endearing voice— ‘Good morning. Let’s go jogging.’ And my night ended with her ‘good night’.

However, being totally engrossed in elusive happiness, I did not know that the sweet feelings and the delirium of joy would turn out to be short-lived. One evening I wanted to meet her. So I called her number.  Her caller tune—‘Look into my eyes and you’ll see..’ first  seemed to promise me that she would come and meet me. But to my dismay, nobody answered my call. Then, I got anxious and kept calling her again and again, but instead of her voice, I heard the caller tune. Now this caller tune was enervating me and I was beginning to lose the hope to see her again.

For three months I kept searching for her but my efforts were in vain. Through a common friend of mine and hers I got to know that she has left Baroda for good and all. She left the town. She left the pleasant dreams. She left the garden forever where I used to meet her. She had made some promises but she left them unfulfilled. Leaving behind some memories that will keep echoing in the deep recesses of my mind, she left Baroda with a tacit vow to never return.

Now it is almost two years since I last saw her. In my loneliness I ask myself: what do I have now that she has left forever? And an answer dawns within me—even though she has gone, she is no more with me, her memories, which are my only solace, throng my mind and make my life somewhat tolerable.

My attention shifts back to the song ‘look into my eyes’, which is playing in the restaurant. I gulp down the tea on my table, pay  the bill and leave the Blues with a spontaneous realisation that every spring is followed by autumn and autumn itself heralds spring. Still the song ‘look into my eyes’ is echoing in my mind but it infuses gratitude in me and makes me feel the beauty of those sweet but ephemeral feelings.

Dreaming About You.....!

 It was seven o’ clock in the evening. After wading through a lot of paper work at my workplace, I was heading home. On my way home, I was enthralled to see the crimson sun, which was bidding farewell with its golden rays piercing through foliage of the tall trees that survived the onslaught of urbanisation. The leaves and twigs of the trees, which were shaking owing to gusts of wind and the backdrop of the crimson sky created such an abstract painting that was really difficult to fathom. Moreover, the chirping of birds was the icing on the cake. But I was surprised to realise that people had been so much deafened by the rattle of coins that they could not hear the enchanting music of birds.

Anyway, I plodded home. After getting home, I had a cup of tea while I was flicking through a newspaper. Then, I talked to my children and tried to know how they were getting on in their studies. I could smell the aroma of delicious food and I heard my wife calling me for dinner. Then I sat before the television and took dinner chatting with my wife. After taking my dinner, I spent some time rambling around my house until I started feeling sleepy. I looked up at the sky and was startled by the formidably dark sky flecked with twinkling stars.

I entered my bedroom and lay down on the bed. In no time , I succumbed to the power of sleep, which took me to the realm of dreams, a world that mockingly but mysteriously defies the logic of our conscious world and opens new vistas. Now, what follows is an entangling vista unveiled by the dream I had that night.

There were numerous beautiful fragrant flowers in the jungle and a small brook was flowing nearby crooning its own song. I was a butterfly fluttering from one flower to another and penetrating unchartered areas of the jungle. Bright red berries were dangling from the branches. I flew to a bush dotted with a lot of blue flowers. I perched on its stems and noticed a pool below me. For the first time I saw the reflection of my own body. My irresistibly lovely wings, tinged with a variety of colours were delicate but they were able to challenge the gravitational pull  of the earth and keep me hovering in the sky. Then I thought that I should not indulge in narcissism, so I flew off the stem and enjoyed skimming over the brook. Then, as I got hungry I looked around and found some cherries on a tall tree. I flew to the tree, sat on a stem and started savouring the berries. They were really delicious. I was totally engrossed in savouring the berries and did not know what was happening around me. All of a sudden, a bulky branch of the tree came rushing and fell on me. I was almost smashed. My wings were broken and my vision became blurred. I became unconscious.

With a start I woke up from the dream and looked around in my bedroom. It was half past four  in the early morning. Then I opened the door and quietly went out to the garden. I sat in the garden and started pondering over the dream I had just had. In the darkness, I saw the plants around me in my garden. However, this time the things were not the same. I was able to see the life glowing in the plants and hear the peal of eternity in the timeless moments. The dawn broke and a mysterious question dawned within me—“Am I a human being who has just dreamt of being a butterfly or a butterfly, in fact, dreaming to be a human being?”

When we are dreaming, the reality seems to be false and the dream appears to be real, whereas when we are awake, a dream seems to be false and reality the only truth. it is high time we transcend this duality.

                                                                                                                    

My fingers intertwined in your fingers. My eyes fixed on yours. No movement at all. Neither in you, nor inme. Just eyes speak. Sometimes yours, sometimes mine. And a gust of chilly winter wind tousles your hair throwing some of your tresses on your eyes. And your eyes piercing through your tresses penetrate my heart. Engulfed in a mysterious silence we both reveal ourselves stark naked to each other and merge into each other.

She asked me, "What would you do if I were with you at the moment when the world is about to end?" I said, "If you were with me during the end of the world, I'd penetrate you through your eyes and my lips would utter, 'My world starts when you open your eyes and ends when you close them. Though we live in two different bodies, annihilation will divest us of our bodies and make us naked and in that pious nakedness we two will lie together for eternity.' ".

Those who're ostensibly sobre accuse me of being inebriated and condemn me as being lost in my own dream world.Behind their apparent hatred for me I can see how much fascinated they are with my nonsense chat. They, for self-deception, proclaim that there is no world except this one, but I've also seen them taking a plunge in the "non-existent" dream world through their backdoors. And there they hold me in high regards as their precursor.