From Becoming to Being

First, I thought I'd become a drunkard. Then an idea came to me: why not to become wine itself? Then I thought, where does wine go? In the glass. So I thought of becoming a glass. Then a question came to me: from a glass where does wine go? It goes in my mouth and makes me mad. Therefore, I thought of becoming a madman. I pondered and wondered: BECOMING a madman..! Nonsense..! BEING a madman is better than

 becoming a madman. ..........................................

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And ultimately a ray of wisdom glittered in me: Just 'being' is far better than being 'this' and 'that'.

My Hometown

They say,"Hiren does not love his homeland and has no respect for it either.". And I say,"Palanpur is a place where clerks in colleges are respectfully referred to as 'saheb' (babus) and despite being utter bumpkins and miserably married, clerks exhibit their audacious libido by propositioning/proposing girls of their colleges..! And college principals are so much worried about about their students that they allow and encourage them to cheat in exams. It is a place where nepotism has grown rampant. For example if you want to work at some dairies, you have to be a Chaudhery. It is a place where folks are so much inquisitive that they are even desperate to know what kind of underwear you are wearing. Nonetheless, I do love Palanpur-- I love serenity of the track that passes by my farm, the calm and peace of Shashivan/Jahanara Baugh, the beautiful architecture of the college where I studied and later taught and last but not least an exquisite place called "Hathidara" where the beauty of nature abounds and hillocks hold an intimate conversation with the sky and a playful gale scribbles its signature on farms. Yes, I do love Palanpur."

8:42 a.m.
26th August, 2012,
Ludhiana.

Caught in Creation

I painted a painting in a spree of passions long ago. But now that I'm sober and the tempest of passions has passed, in my conscious calm I look at the painting and feel that I am one of the faces  in the painting and my being outside the painting is nothing but just an illusion. Will you please pinch me? So that I can know what is reality and what is illusion.

10:41 p.m.
23rd August, 2012
Ludhiana

Sin

Despite all the sermons that we listen to in solemn silence of a church and all the great books that we read under a shadow of a silent tree, we are tempted to commit a sin. Notwithstanding all our arduous efforts, we slip down the slippery slope of 'original sin'. I guess our sins must be an envelope wherein lies hidden God's message. And sins must relate us to our origin.

Losing a friend.

Write a chapter for your own autobiography in which you describe an achievement or an embarrassing experience or a sad occasion. (600-900 words)

Showers of rain come with monsoon and disappear as leaves turn yellow on trees and herald autumn but rain water seeps deep inside earth and enriches reservoirs of rivers. Similarly there are some experiences of life that shine for a moment like lightning and enlighten many things. Though the thundering and dark clouds that accompany such lightning may intimidate us for a while, we certainly reap a very rich harvest of wisdom during the calm that follows the tempest.

I can still vividly recall the moments of alluring ecstasy and enlightening agony in my camaraderie with my friends.

I was studying at the University of Baroda and staying there in one of the hostels. And the zest for life was in full spate in me. I was ambitious to scale new summits of success and eager to grab whatever gift life was to offer.

The first Friendship Day during my stay at the hostel came to me as an opportunity for me to express my gratitude to my friends for their friendship that I was privileged to. And I had decided to express my gratitude to my friends for their company that makes my life livelier. A good number of plans crowded around my mind and I was in a real dilemma about which plan I should go for, as I had plenty of friends whom I was indebted to for their friendship. Ultimately, I planned to first greet and meet my friends Kwinal, Asit and Bunty, who lived with me in the same hostel and treat them to a very sumptuous luncheon at a posh restaurant of the town and I scheduled my candlelit dinner with Niki in the evening. An incredibly rosy picture about the friendship Day appeared before me.

A cool night with soothing sleep was over and a new sun of hopes was shining bright on the horizon. I got up at 6:00 a.m. and was getting ready to execute my plan. But my hostel friends were still snoring in their beds. As I had decided to have lunch with my hostel friends, I called at Udupi Restaurant and told them to reserve a table for four people. Then, I went outside to get some gifts and Friendship Cards and hoped that by the time I was back my friends would be up. It took me more than an hour to get the things and come back to my room. I came back to the hostel opened the door of my room and saw a bit disheartening scene. Bunty and Asit had gone somewhere   and Kwinal was still sleeping though it was half past twelve. I woke him up and asked him, “Where have Asit and Bunty gone?” “They’ve gone to Rita’s home. And will be back in the evening.”, he answered.

“Get up, bloke. We’re having lunch at Udupi together at one this afternoon.”, I said.

“Sorry, dear I can’t join you. I’ve gotta go to my uncle’s place.” , he replied.

I was beginning to realise the verity of an old adage -- man proposes and God disposes.

I rang up Niki.

“Hi, where are you?”

“I’m in my room in the girls’ hostel.”

“Some friends and I are going to have lunch at Udupi restaurant at one. I thought you could join us.”

“I’m afraid I can’t. But we are going to have dinner together this evening without fail”

“Ok, not a problem.”

The void loomed large before me and my heart was beginning to sink. How lonely I was despite a myriad of friends around me! But the prospect of having candlelit dinner with Niki was such a promising prospect that I forgot all my loneliness and dejection and started harbouring hope of having the most memorable evening of my life.

It was half past one and I was very much hungry but I had no other option but take my lunch alone in the hostel mess. I quickly had lunch and went back to my room and had a rejuvenating siesta. It was ten past four when I woke up. From my closet I took out the gift I had bought for Niki and placed it in the paper bag in which I had put the Friendship Day card for her and started waiting for the clock to strike seven in the evening.

The door opened and Kwinal appeared there. He asked me, “Can I borrow your bike if you do not need it now?”

“Ok. I do not need my bike now but I will need it at 6:30 in the evening because I am going out with Niki at seven.”, I said.

“Don’t worry I will be back before five.”, said  Kwinal.

From the window of my room I saw him disappearing on my bike. I had two and half hours to kill. So I went to my friends’ room and talked with them. I glanced at my watch. It was half past six but still Kwinal had not come back. So I got a bit anxious and called him but I got no response. 

I went into my room. I looked at the paper bag wistfully. The minute hand of the clock in my room was inching towards twelve and it was five to ten when I rang up Kwinal a second time. “I’m on my way to the hostel.”, he said. It struck seven but he had not come back and I needed my bike desperately because I had planned to take Niki out for candlelit dinner.

The sun was setting and it was getting dark. The local shops were getting lit. People were thronging nearby restaurants. At last, Kwinal came back at eight. I was fuming with rage.

I told him, “You told me you’d be back by five. Look at the watch. It is eight o’ clock. I was to meet Niki at seven.”

“But there were scores of problems. First, I got stuck in traffic and as I moved ahead the tire got punctured and I was held up for more than an hour.”, he explained.

“Whatever. I don’t want to listen to this rubbish. And you’ll never ever borrow anything from me.  You’re a big liar.”, I screamed. Kwinal’s face fell as the last word escaped my mouth. With surprise my other friends, Bunty and Asit kept looking at me. And Kwinal placed the key to my bike on my palm and walked away very much shattered. With my glassy eyes I saw him going away. A very embarrassing silence pervaded me and my friends.

“Though I got my bike back, I lost my hope to have a candlelit dinner with Niki. And above all I lost a friend who always stood by me.”, I admitted with shame and remorse. Tears welled up in my eyes.

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.