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 Trees stand bereft of leaves and intimidating silence has superseded songs of birds.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.