h a i m i s h

²

"Sir, this is the last stop. You need to get down, the train’s going to get washed.”

John Kevin, black hair streaked with evasive hues of white and a loosend up tie picks up his big brief case, heads a curt nod towards the conductor and descends the train.

With no predecessor, Boss Ashok Shrnivasan comes to his mind as he mentally thanks him for the early day off.

Recent days at the office seemed longer and more painfully monotonous than usual even if the passage of time was something that Kevin’s mind couln’t really register. 

To say the least, the past few months had been a passing blur and if anything, Kevin was atleast grateful that he could chunk this catatonic state of mind to his mother’s death.

Certainty, even in uncertainty. Certainty that was what he thrived for. Being certain, calculated and controlled. It should not be a surprise that this new apprise of unpredictable and unorigined mood was quite a put off.

What is going on? Why?

Kevin needed to know. How; now that was a question that didn’t need an answer.

Idly walking down the platform, letting the herd of crowd take him wherever they were taking him, for the first time in months made him feel not so faulty at this unprecedented behaviour.

He had no responsibility to strangers. He didn’t have to tell them anything, he didn’t have to know anything. For the first time in a long time Kevin was certain that nothing was awkward.

Although one thing was awkward, he had never been to this part of the town, and the depot was getting less populated by the miniute and now he was losing track of who to follow. Life had become a huge blindly follow what the other is doing because you have no idea. And perhaps this was what it needed to dust the fog. With no people to depend on, he had to open his eyes. Quite, literally. To follow sign directions.

Every blue arrow pasted on the walls, followed by a meticulous “exit” had now become Kevin’s track.

The open sky was a dark blue shade with clusters of huge welcoming white clouds. The leafy breeze braught with them the scent of earth.  

Kevin walked and walked and walked a bit more, occasionally he would take a right and then a mindless left but walked he on. The weather was cool and friendly, the movement on the road was minimal, almost as if God had made all the drivers and riders lay off that particular evening. The chirruping of birds assumingly made him more aware of his surroundings. Probably a lot of trees? Perhaps the town side?

And then suddenly there it was, like a blossoming yellow on a stagnant paper of white. A boundaried life in an otherwise unhappening, still painting.

The noise was loud, happy and diverse. Women, men and kids seemed to have united in one happy movement. That sound of music carried in the winds and in the dancing trees and in the singing birds was what drew Kevin out of his stupor. Here was yet another track to help him dust more of the fog that had gathered in the spaces of his mind. Kevin followed it, like a wil-o- the wisp.

Perhaps a 200 meters to his immediate right was a reflective and rippled blue lake; a lake and then green land everywhere around.  The trees here seemed taller and greener, but of course Kevin couldn't confirm that comparison; up until now he wasn’t minding his environment.

The drifting sound of chatter piled with chatter and the cacophonic rhythm of it’s laughter came from a collective circle of villagers sitting not far from the lake.

They emitted shades of blue and pink and greens, yellows and that intense red above it all, enveloping them all like an ever absorbing cloud.

A town gathering, Kevin thought to himself. So this is why the whole place looks empty.

The sun was still up and would be so for about one more hour. Kevin looked ahead at the water, at the sky and the sun. All so subtle and soft. Vast and ever accepting, taking in all it touches and making it beautiful. A small, closed smile formed at his lips and now Kevin too was touched. He was a piece in this expanding picture. A hue of red, and pink and white and green all at once. A burst, a spectrum, a bottled up new world, now finally out. Kevin felt so many things at once; he sat down.

His knees to his chest, looking out at the view that lasted till his eye sight. Alive, stirred, grateful, accepting, relieved and finally at peace.  The sigh that came after was a sign that Kevin had at long last felt what he had to, understood what he had to, learnt what he had to, and knew what he had to, Certain.

  
It’s not something he could clearly give the form of a thought, even to his mind; this was something new to ascertain. Like a window opened by the wind and suddenly everything was sorted and at its place. The fog was making way.

Kevin sat there till the sun dipped into the effervescent lake, stood up with his big brief case and smiled at the now tranquil villagers. He walked away in the poised evening, the songs of the winds following him. An ambit of colors making its way back to its orbit.

«___________»

There was this really weird time I wasn't doing anything at all, months of nothingness and then I sat and wrote this, aftttteeeer a very long time of writing nothing at all.