Returning

 

I didn’t believe I would survive this. I didn’t.

All that kept me going  in the rain of the adamant downpour of exams, amidst the unending trail of worries, uncertainty, and the blankness of a tentative future looming before me, was a dream. The dream of making through the end – and after all got over – standing  at the terrace of our little home, far away in the villages and sniffing the wet scent of the air with my dress puffing in the howling wind. Everything were at sixes, my head was a messy cellar of age-old ruminations, cluttered and in ruins. I searched my way out in frantic despair. I wondered if I should give up, if I should let it all go. At moments like these, I would close my eyes and return to our little home in the village, under a thousand stars, the stars that were mine a million light years ago, the stars that birthed my broken beautiful self.

I don’t know when my story will find its destination, but I believe in the truth of this moment. I believe in the serenity and innocence of this evening breeze, the stark blue sky and the depth of its silence. I believe in the joy of returning to my pen after a year of self-imposed exile.

I believe in returning.

…

Far away, someone is singing hymns, the sounds of khol-kartal reverberating in the solitary winds.

There is a subtle connection between beauty and melancholy – you realize it in the rarest of moments.

Oneday, during those months of turmoil, my friend showed me a beautiful fountain pen – a slender perfectly shaped nib poised over a thick cylindrical body, with a rich purple grip, navy blue and purple starlight bursting across it in whimsical vibrance. A creation so beautiful that it hurts. The pen brought back hordes of memories, gusts of pain and unresolved memories. It brought back my abandoned blog, my incomplete writing diaries, the beautiful pens I have left behind on my journey – beautiful pens with beautiful memories.

And the days dragged on and on. Relentless. Tiresome. At times, it felt like it would never end.

There were times when I would drift in and out of consciousness. All sensations of reality would leave me. Sounds would subside, the chaos and madness of this world would drown into oblivion. I travelled through vortices of time and space, somersaulting into another time, another place. Silence poured in through glass windows. Then I could hear. Then I could hear the roaring of the waves, the gurgling of water splashing over the beach, and tiny streams of water flowing between my toes, wind caressing my face and hair. I could see a restless green and blue ocean, million years old, a young foamy beach beneath my feet and an azure sky above. I knew I was free, and far, far away, away from everything I knew and believed to be true. 

On days like this, I would ask my buddy, “Why don’t we go to the sea for a day or two, after all this shit gets over?” He knows all about my erratic whims and would agree with a smile. Both of us knew, it would be a long time, for ‘shit’ to get over and a long long time, before we could see an ocean.

Yet I longed to see the sea. I long to see the sea and I know, my sea is a long way off.

I am at a harbour waiting for the sun to set so that I can set off on a ship when the gleaming orb floats across the scarlet waters.

 

Picture Courtesy: Google