The city precinct wasn’t too far and after walking a few miles, he was out of the city. Rain had stopped altogether now, paving way for an imminent, clear sunrise. Despite of all that he had been through, he wasn’t tired. Yet, the quietude around him, made him feel sick. Solitude is bliss, but loneliness is wearied. With divided mind he wished that he met someone around. Yet, not a soul appeared to be present, till the distance he could see.
Wearily, he flopped on the roadside. Pulling himself backwards, supporting himself on his two hands, he got lost in the surroundings. Something surreal caught his attention. Mother earth was to deliver a baby ball of fire, to humans to animals, to everyone. Soon, all the land were to be reddened by the blood of the pregnant mother. Just the way he was begotten. Some thirty years back. He was told by his mother, that he didn’t cry, but made her cry a lot. She got nine stitches post delivery. But nor did he laugh, so as to portent any greatness in lifetime, just quiet, whimpering periodically. He wasn’t born for the purpose of others, or for his big family. The sense of belongingness was alien to him.
As he grew, the shell grew tighter and tighter, and he drew in closer to himself. His primary interests were thoughts. And his favorite word, “why”. Even at the age, when he couldn’t spell himself, he asked “why”. This appropriated seriousness served to make him older and quieter. At studies, he was good in science, for it offered him answers to his “why” to considerable extent. And the point, where science would begin to dither, he stored the questions for some future time of his life. He did get answers, but it came with more questions. But that is to come later.
Naturally he had very few friends, and towards them as well he had no sense of attachment. With the growing age, the dissimilarity of the assumed and the actual world troubled him beyond bounds. Poverty, hypocrisy, cruelty and inequality kept on pouring the Ganga of “whys” to him. There was no answer, no solution, no way out. And with time he had begun to hate this world.
But then, as in all stories, for worse or best, as perceived, something seminal was set to happen. Frustration is the seed of love. Until a man has grown sick enough of the worldliness around him, he isn’t ready for that unearthly emotion, of love. For the first time since his birth, he felt that he was reborn. As if, everything that he had all along known, was so little, as if all of a sudden the world’s entire secret was known to him.
Suddenly, beauty seemed so ubiquitous. In the flowers, in the stars and moons, in the rain, in the songs, in the breeze, in solitude, in every relation. In every thing that he could perceive, he felt beauty and the urge to belong to it. Whiff of first love, had transformed his world. But who was her, at the center of it all?
It had all started one day, while talking to her, he realized, he might be in love. Putting aside all the shyness, he decided to write it all to her. It ran the risk of impropriety, yet, when does madness think of anything as proper. At the end of the letter, he wrote, “You may not be able to requite my love, and yet that is okay. It may have been better to let things go on; yet, I could never have known it, until I would have told you. If refusal and pain is what follows after this, it would be too cheap a price to pay.” He had underestimated something.
…
It was getting hotter now. Sun had reared up to the center of the panorama. He got up, and again took a look around. Why all of a sudden the world has become so empty? He tried recalling, what had happened to him, but to no avail. And as if in a flash, he got ready to walk alone and he set out on the desolate way ahead. After walking for some mile, he realized that he felt happy. As if all of a sudden, the happiness of entire world had dawned upon him. He couldn’t help smiling. This sudden bout of happiness seemed to be drowning him.
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