A TIME TO MOVE ON

Extracts from an old diary of a writer

Scattered notes 1.


The sun has gone down, but there is light. Evening is yet to come, but afternoon has gone long ago.

It’s twilight. And I am writing. I am writing on the roof of our flat here at New Alipur, putting my diary on my lap. Just a few hours ago, the early May sun was burning high above my head. But it is cooler now. My skin is burnt, the breeze from the southern horizon has turned it into brown from reddish, and my eyebrows are curled. My nose is in the direction of the horizon where just a few minutes before the red ball went down. I feel the cold of evening now. I feel the gust of the west at my face. But I have the touch of fire inside me, which was burning me since noon over my head. I have the diary on my lap, and I am trying to write.

The sky turns blue. I higher my neck, and keep looking at the clouds in the southern direction. I look at the TV tower; I look at the MERLINS, the South City, the floodlights of the Eden Gardens, the Howrah Bridge, the Hooghly Bridge and many more. I look at the birds which keep hovering over, ready to go back to their nest after a tiring day. There are also the big winged bats and owls, which start to come out of their nest. I sit still, I feel the wind at my face, I wonder of the whole world, which seems still from here. I look at the Southern Avenues. I keep looking, but I don’t find the thing I want.


A couple of times, I ask myself “Have you ever fallen in love?”

“Me? Being who?”

“You being the person who stood under the Eucalyptuses and Deodars once and wondered about the rest of the world.”

I remain silent. I try to remind if I wondered about the rest of the world when I stood under the Deodars and Eucalyptuses. My mind goes back in the colonies of Hardwar. I keep losing myself away on the paths of Dehradun. The breeze hits my face and I fail to resist it. It drains me. It drains my soul and makes me the loneliest person on earth. My eyes go back to the past, in the water of holy Ganges, leaping from the hills. I remind of the cold, ugly rooms at Hardwar and the wet blanket I had in my room, which caused me shiver each and every night. I remind of the songs they used to play at the Bharat Sebashram Sangha every morning. And then I think of the Eucalyptuses, lone, long, standing still in the corners of the colonies.


“No.” I keep it short.

“Never?”

“Never.”

I become dejected. I keep myself busy in other things and works, but that conversation hurts me.


A couple of time another person inside asks me the same question.

“Have you ever fallen in love?”

“Me being who?”

“You being the person who stood beside someone a long time ago and wondered whether God exists; who used to travel to places only to find the beauty of the world.”

I hesitate.

“May be once, or twice.”

Soon the person asking questions vanishes and I become alone once again.

-Nov'09