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.