Dilemaa - IV

And then it vanished, just like those ripples last night,as if it never had been there. He realized suddenly what he had been doing since last night. He was inebriated with his own ideals, and perhaps in his own fit of realization he had overwrought himself. It wasn't strange for him to wallow in this dialectic with himself, but yesterday , he had given up. He gave up all that he had created, all that he had clung to, all that he had borne till then.



Yet, now, he felt repentant. He couldn't believe that he had destroyed and forsaken all that he had. How was it that he was so sure of it? Where had been his senses wandering? He felt like running back to his house this moment and go on as if nothing had happened. But, how could he do that, all of them had witnessed his fall, which he had so graciously chosen. How was he to face them? And if he has so gracefully fallen, why this gracelessness in going ahead? He groveled on the ground to beg mercy from god, but he realized he no longer had one. The anxiety of being as well as unbeing took hold of him, and the world around him appeared to close in on him. How small, how centric it is, swooping in him, in this fraction of time.

"People live by their individual myths, and all have it different from others. Now the interesting part is to realize that, it is what defines life. So long as , for a person, his life is defined and in sync with his myth, he will adjust accordingly, in view of a greater aim , however once that view gets destroyed, he cannot easily gain himself back. My pursuit, thus is not something that would be supposed to be true, for it establishes the existence of false , but rather something, which is apriori , something that need not be corroborated by experience. And yet be the defining element whatever we perceive around us.
I may not succeed in chasing it in my life, but how do I accept that our myth of life is the supreme. So I keep on, traveling the sinuous ways laid by knowledge and let my heart believe." He recalled these words, whihc he himself had written, before taking the plunge, and yet, now, it seemed to him nothing more than a mistaken thought.

Dejected and enervated with his dilemmas he flopped on the ground. All was lost, he thought. So quiet was he and the quietude all around him that he could hear his breath as it rolled in and out of him in deep sighs and bellows. Surroundings had become hotter now and wind was blowing harder. A drift of dried leaves and wastes circulated around his legs . So intricate and meticulous was the arrangement that he got lost into it. To create this , leaves had dried and then been carried together by the wind , accompanying some bits of wastes on the way and now kept together in a loop. At any moment they appeared to move out but none did and all swirled and wallowed in that afternoon sun. They were all adrift by the wind yet keeping together. How insignificant was this to him, yet he couldn't help but marvel at it. He had seen it many a times before, but could never have had associated himself with it's intricacy. But he did now. May be man needs to descend and dry out before could appreciate the beauty and order around him, and sadly they never do, unless they are forced to let go .

He had struggled enough to let go his love. It was not to happen and it didn't . How could he have had let go of that so easily. His myth, had been challenged. But, since he existed , as he failed to obliterate himself , he had to reorder his myth. Perhaps the separation drove him madder than what love had done. His view of world changed to that of a cynical one. How insignificantly had he estimated the power of pain in his letter to her! Maybe the pain had a covert purpose, to bring him down and grovel for death. To make him realize that pain was much bigger, much harder, much fearsome than death. And it did kill him, not his physical self although.

"What's the Point after all?", was what he started to believe in. It was a shock, but it did instill in him a quest. A quest of truth, self and world. All were elusive but he couldn't care any less for that.And it was perhaps the same quest that had driven him to the present state.

Finally, he could muster strength to trudge the infinite way ahead. Perhaps, the little thoughtlessness had invigorated him.However, he must have had hardly taken few steps, when he heard the grating sound of a bullock cart, approaching him from behind.