“Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself. He threshes you to make you naked. He sifts you to free you from your husks. He grinds you to whiteness. He kneads you until you are pliant; and then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.”
Irrespective of all the arguments, I kept on visiting the avenues in a regular basis, and now the lake place and Shiva temple were added to my destination.
It’s not only just because it was the last time when we met at the lake places and near the Shiva temple, and as we walked together, remained silent for most of the time, and waved at each other while we parted at the front of her home, and never met again… but it is also because some happenings keep asking me the very basic questions of life, and in a way someone inside me kept telling me that the answers could be found at the place where I had left someone lonely, or may be it was the other way around.
And for some unknown reasons, Shiva temples across the various places started attracting me. I don’t know if it is because I got spiritual all of a sudden, or it is because I didn’t find peace anywhere else, started wandering at temples. In my imagination I kept moving in the narrow lanes of Varanasi, found myself staring vacantly to the unknown places she’s lived or sitting in steps of Ganges, and when the Sun goes down I kept sitting in the dark, listening to the old regular classical songs, marking the characteristics of Varanasi. The murmuring in the railway stations kept coming in my ear when I am left alone with nothing, and the stars come down to shine at the southern parts of the city where she’s now with everything, love, happiness, relationships…things one can live with in peace.
I keep standing in front of the figurine saying nothing. People start wondering looking at me. And then I murmur.
“…God, what is that you want of me?”
God smiles all the time. Is it just because people want to see him that way or he’s just like that… Knowing everything? He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t listen. But all you have to do is to throw him the question and he will direct the right path for you. And here is the secret. You yourself have to find out what is that he wants you to assign. After that, you are on your own. May be things are a bit confusing, but that’s the way they are.
And then I decide to seek for true love. I seek for happiness. Not for me, but I urge to God to show me the true love, and what is it called happiness. I want to know how it feels to be loved, or to be happy. God keeps smiling all the time; and I do not find the right path to choose.
Sometimes I feel I am wasting my time, walking to places each and every day, while wondering about the rest of the world. Thinking about a person you’ve known for five years and losing her in each and every moment of your life, and how does it really feel to be loved in a way when everything just seems to go against you, even the person you’ve fancied the most, doesn’t know about the love of yours towards her, and when you keep writing day after day about her or just stay at your home thinking what she would be doing now, walking to the places she has been, talking stuff she’s told with certain kind or manner, and deep into your heart you keep telling yourself, what could be the reason of her behavior…why had she said nothing to me…
I let my emotions take some break as I eye towards the crowd. I wait near the bus stop at Charu Avenue and watch people coming in and passing by. And then I found out something- a child of around three playing with cigar packets. The child is half naked. He is wearing a shirt, which is not distinguishable with any other dustbin clothes, muddy and dirty, must be the effect of frequent dust of the air mixed with the local tube well, where he’s taken to bathe, with all possibility. His body is filthy, smells like he hasn’t used a proper bathroom from the very birth of him. He is just another kid from the roads, untidy, unmindful, playing with cigar packets. As I hear some shouts towards him, and my eyes follow its source, I look toward a mid-aged man, with beard and mustache, with a defective leg, sitting in the corner of the path, selling cigars. I come up with the conclusion that this man could be the child’s father, selling cigars, making money while spending time with his child.
And then I astonished. It’s not only just because it is not always that you see a family at the road living their life, but also it’s the way that surprised me.
I found the child’s mother after half an hour, when she came from somewhere and started talking to the person with beard and mustache.
My search for happiness seemed to come to a catastrophe.
I decided to have my lunch at a nearby hotel so that I can come back to the bus stop once again and continue my experiment on these three persons on the road. One with a half-shirt, aging about three to four, ugliest creature on earth, another with a eternally unshaven beard and mustache, and the third with a mistaken beauty, with a total hundred percent chance of coming from a godforsaken slum. What a discovery!
The tiring noon ran over the long afternoon in turn leading to murky evening leaving me amazed at the bus stop that day. I kept all my imaginations about happiness miles apart that day just to watch this family, sitting happily at the footpath beside the bus stop. I saw the man yelling at his wife at least hundred times, and just after a few seconds, getting confused about some things and calling for her. I saw the half naked child, most of the time playing with stuff one can see at the footpath; cigar packets, old toothbrush, wearing clothes that remind one of old, rotten vegetables from the local markets. Hands and feet filled with dirt, and the whole body reflecting poverty of an eternity. I saw the man with beard and mustache, selling cigars and tobacco, shouting on his child and wife, sometimes talking to the child with soft voice, giving him company and entertaining him, married to a lady who is more than happy to stay away from her husband and her child, a mistaken beauty, showing-off her body.
I kept watching the family for the whole day, and when I decided to leave and reached home, the eternal question was still hovering around my mind. Are they happy?
At first I rule out the matter of sex. It can’t be about sex. A child, who is born from these kinds of persons coming from two completely different opinions and culture of life, can’t be just because of a mere sex. Is this because of love? Is this what I was looking for? I became confused once again.
I head towards the Shiva temple once again to find an answer. But the tiring visit to the temple proves to end up with nothing. I, unable to sort out anything, become dejected. In the midst of winter nights, I keep the window open and look towards the empty roads. Why is that sometimes we feel that we are very close to the answer, but yet don’t find it. The curtains of the windows of the room of the Punjabi family from the other side of the road remains still. And then I remember about the curtains of the windows of Pallabi’s room. I do not give it a second thought. She is now someone whom I can not think of. Now that I have to consider that she has better things to do in life and had to move on. I become unmindful. God keeps smiling all the time.
I kept on watching the family on the footpath each and every day. I would reach the bus stop half an hour early, and just sit there and watch, while waiting for the college bus. The people on the road would have their business, would come in, wait for the buses and go away but I would sit still, keep looking at the man with beard and mustache, at the half-naked child, and on a rare occasion, the mistaken beauty would show up and all the eyes of people waiting for the buses would search around her body.
And then one day on the same footpath, I see a couple.
They are blind, to be specific. The man holds a stick, followed by his wife, holding his hand. The lady wears a pair of black glasses. I watch them as they pass by. After all, how many times do we see a blind couple walking on the footpath without any help from others. I keep on looking at them as they head towards the nearby railway station. So they are going to catch a train! I imagined in my mind about the scene when they catch the train. I imagined how they able to live by their own. Being a blind person, it is not so easy to do things a normal person does, add to that you have someone you are living with, and she is also another blind person. This blind couple now astounded me.
But the bus that draws me to the college comes soon and I become busy in other things. Soon a unit test in college is rescheduled and it seems it would happen a few days before it was actually scheduled to. I hate it. One of the very few things I hate in the world is that when people keep talking about studies and when someone says he is doing an engineering degree. Trust me it is bad. Given a chance, I would rather do English honors. It’s pathetic to continue performing as an engineering student as well as keep watching people on the roads, read books and novels everyday, write stories and other things, and then sending them to different magazines, newspapers or somewhere else with a little hope to get them published. Well anyway, I live.
After a month or so I stand once again on the very bus stop, and I see the blind couple once again. I watch how they walk on the road with the help of each other. After then on, I watch them everyday on the road, as I see the cigar-selling family on the footpath. Now it seemed that I had something to think about love and happiness. I had now many more faces of love, relations and liking to think about. I thought about me and Pallabi(sorry that I had to use her name again), about the girl from the neighbor-colony and her boyfriend, about relations that do not exist, about the cigar selling family, and about the blind couple. It seemed that everyone around me was trying to write their own stories of love, happiness and relationships. So who is happy? And who are in love?
I felt bad about how lives of some people around me were going on. I met a one legged old lady, a poor family having only one person as the source of income, and he too, lame. And last but not the least a blind couple, fighting with their lives. I saw a tiny girl cleaning cups of tea in a tea stall, and then cleaning the whole shop. I felt bad in my heart after seeing these things. How can a person fascinate about the love or happiness for his own sake after experiencing these happenings. I remember about the girl from the neighbor-colony and her boyfriend, and thought about the scene when they kissed each other in front of me. So kissing someone, or holding hands in public, is that how we know that we are in love? Is that how we want to be sure that we are in love? These thoughts make me deserted and dejected every time. I do not find peace anywhere. This is something which can not be solved only by sitting in my lone room, listening to Gajals and classicals, or trying to find answers in the memories of someone whom I don’t want to remember(see, at least I am trying not to take her name). For me, this goes far beyond finding the answers of mere some questions. But this is for the thirst of our soul. When the soul needs to find the answer of something, we travel the whole world, may it be for a simple question too. So I head towards the Southern Avenues once again.
The visit becomes futile once again. One thing I was beginning to understand now that possibly I was doing some mistakes. There should be something, that I should be aware of, but not finding it. It’s just getting close, but yet not close enough.
And then after a couple of days as I look through my window towards the room of the Punjabi family across the road and see the curtains flying in the air, I remember about Pallabi once again. But this time not about the curtains, but about the opinions of relationship she gave. And in this way, in a moment everything became like daylight to me.
“ ‘Love comes only from respect and nothing else.’ She said, as I stood amazed at a corner of our classroom staring at her.” This is from my diary of four years ago.
If love comes from respect, then it must lead to two other things. Attraction towards the person, and caring for the other person as well as showing responsibility to the person, showing that you care for her, and will be there when the other person needs you.
No one passed the norms that she used, not the girl from the neighbor-colony, not me, not she herself. And then the blind couple showed up from nowhere. Now I know what she would have said, had she been here with me.
“See, it’s actually them, who are in love. Don’t you think?” And she would give a sigh, as if everything in the world has been taken away from her.
Yes, I know. It’s not always an omen shows you which path to choose, but it’s also not always an omen shows you the answers of the questions going into your mind. It’s like an everyday happening that a blind couple turned up and showed me the meaning of love. And what about the family on the footpath, selling cigars and tobacco? Are they happy? You bet, they are. But what are those things that constitute happiness? Well, I am still searching for an answer.
It started nowhere and it ends nowhere.
And a certain ruler asked him, saying, 'Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' And Jesus said unto him, 'Why callest thou me good? None is good, save one, that is God.' - Luke 18: 18-19
-Jan '10
