The Sarcasm

The world lay buried in the depth of that tearing wintry night except some. They were the dogs, the beggars and the fervent nocturnal youth belonging to the civilized niche of this classified society. The smoke, the wine, the rasping music, the glittering lights and unrestrained wildness was what night meant to those reveling brutes. A door pushed open and a rhapsodizing crowd oozed out onto the empty, silent streets. It was a frigid dank winter dawn and the Sun was yet to rise. The raucous music that poured out through the door tried to amalgamate with the mundane moist air of the tranquil dawn but alas, it was hoarse enough to disrupt the silence till several yards. The intoxicated crowd marched on the streets with a drunken valor and faltering gait. The words were lost before they could find their way out moreover the ears were too deaf to hear.

The flame of their youthful ardor had died and they straddled through that narrow lane slandering everything which their drowsy drunken eyes could perceive. One of them went and kicked the lamp post while the other a bare street dog that lay half dead with cold…..and it woke up startled from its grave, whining and wagging its tail. As they made their way through those desolate slumbering streets rummaging the tranquility, a couple of sleepy eyes peered through the heavy eye lids as they pulled themselves up with great effort. The dying night was heralding the murky dawn……and as he craned his crest out of that Prussian blanket, he perceived the ferine roaring creatures mocking the wretched beings that lined the cobbled pavements. He stared at them with intense disgust and subtle heaviness as if endeavoring to fathom those sluggish beasts. One of them listlessly toddled towards the sleeping man and bent over him measuring that abominable dour beggar. She murmured something but it was lost in that cold moist air. The beggar gazed at the obtrusively clad tall girl with awe while she stared as if he was a loathsome object. It was perhaps his grotesque poverty and his unkemptness that made her look at him inimically. A faint smile smudged the corners of the dry lips and taking the shawl off her shoulders; she threw it at him….followed by a piercing laughter and then trotted away. It was laughter of ridicule!!!

The morning light slowly took reign over the night sky and traces of life appeared on the streets. A couple of municipal workers with two huge brooms were swishing the streets and heaped those colored wrappers at a corner of the pavement. The grey crested retired populace streamed towards the local park and the road was sparkling with life again. The beggar slipped out of his numerously patched torn blanket and wrapping himself in his newly gifted shawl he marched towards the shallow crowd that thronged the road several yards away. He jostled through the murmuring mob and perceived a thin delicate frame of a woman. It lay stiff but was still breathing. It was her, the generous owner of the gifted shawl!!! She had swooned and her companions had fled.

The beggar stooped over the delicate drunken beauty and sprinkled some water on her weary countenance, took the shawl off his shoulders and wrapped the girl with the same. But there wasn’t any smile of mockery or detest. The sarcasm of Life!!!

The Ticking Clock!!

The fingers glided over the keys of that uneven keyboard and a stream of letters appeared on that white screen. He had been doing this for the last few days perhaps making an attempt to beget a creative literary piece. But his relentless efforts and his old ingeniousness had beguiled him……or hadn't been generous enough to give his thoughts a window……the window of words. He had been scavenging through every obscure corner of his brain to scrape out something productive but alas…all his efforts had been rendered futile!!

He sauntered around in his little room puffing out small rings of smoke from his cigar and reflecting upon everything that he could recollect and could submit his thoughts to those keys which arrayed the keyboard. Distressed by his futility, he dropped himself on a big couch and gazed at the massive historic clock that hung from an ancient nail embedded in the east wall. The red of the retreating sun which peered through the thin parallel stretches of the clouds tinged the room with its warm shade and illuminated the ceaseless time piece. But was it really ceaseless????

It had never stopped since he had known that he was in senses and that treasured clock had been an epitome of constancy and perfection. This ancient object of grandeur had always been revered and preserved because of its faithfulness and precision…..and his still eyes gazed vigilantly from their hollow shelter. He had been making comparisons between the relentlessly scurrying time and his insipid life. And he was suddenly struck with awe. A sudden trepidation....and a fear grappled him that it was the time that measured his life. It was not just the time either; rather it was the time piece that hung on that east wall. He could see the clock ticking away…..but not with its usual pace. The hands pinioned to a massive brass nail seemed to drag themselves sluggishly in that huge hollow chamber ….as if they would stop the next moment. His fears got exacerbated. He sat straight on his couch alarmed and perplexed…..waiting for the last minute when he would perish with the dying time!!!

He sat dumbstruck with horror and the clock seemed to run out of life….ticking slower and slower with each passing moment. There was a dreadful silence…except the clatter of a swift galloping heart and the clickety-click of the dying clock. All of a sudden a lady pushed in through the closed door and interrupted the silent cacophony. She pushed the half dead man with mild shudder and he woke up startled from his deep slumber. The lady pressed on his forehead a tender kiss….and handed him a cup of tea and departed from the room. He briskly made his way towards his unfinished task and made a dramatic narration of this fearsome reverie. It was an opus which portrayed the joy of life that filled the gap in between the brackets of birth and death. The concluding lines of the piece read ‘I receded away with the dying time. And I was dead!!!’

The next morning the lady entered into the little room and found him lying supine on his couch still, cold and dead. There was the finished piece of his last work and the dead clock gazing at the silent corpse.

The Truth

The afternoon sky peeped through the dense mask of those green leaves which formed a massive canopy over that lonely path, crawling into the dense spruce forest and losing itself somewhere in between! The dankness of the cold winter noon and the discomfort which it brought with itself compelled me to walk out of my doors and walk upto those virgin hills which stood at a mile from the dwelling …. And savor its tranquil verdure. The world outside seemed busy and playful…somewhere gray and industrious, while the rest in various shades of moods and classes…..separated by the societal chasms. Soon the faces were lost, and then the murmur of the crowd, the sordid streets narrowed down and got transformed into a continuous streak of land peering from the grasses as I walked away from the swarming multitude. And now I stood at the foot of the hill, wild and magnanimous and…. swallowed in a green-grey blanket with a thin curtain of mist blanketing it further.

Just a mile away from civilization and how untrimmed and untamed life seemed to be…. I treaded through the woods on that thin thread of path waiting for it to disappear completely so that I would turn back to begin my retreat journey. All this time I had been wondering whether I were the only trace of civilization in that feral world but nay…. A sudden screech disrupted the perpetual silence. Was it just the dry leaves, or the impatient breeze, it could be a broken bark or a wild boar but it was the footstep of a man, another man….crushing those dry leaves which covered almost the entire forest floor. With him was a woman, clasped tightly in his arms, tall and all covered in black with perfectly black glasses veiling their eyes. Emerging from within the mist through those thickets of trees, the blurred image of the humans gradually gained prominence as they walked towards me. She, the lady had slipped her hands into his and clung to him…. and he walked straight but with a sluggish gait, as if he was dragging her. They walked past and the man watching me gaping at their sudden appearance smiled but with an unfinished expression and I smiled back too.

But there was an uncanny familiarity…a strange feeling did grapple me. It was the lady. Had I not seen her before? Had I not known this lady all wrapped up in that black apparel?? Had she not been my first girl? She was!! She was the girl I had known in my college times sparkling yet a silent conundrum. How silently had I adored her silence and tried to fathom this deep gorge, unspoken and unveiled!! My admiration succeeded by infatuation and then by a strong liking made me tame her in my mind. I might have talked to her a couple of times or more, but I had treasured those moments in some pronounced corner of my frame. How much I craved to be with her, talk to her and hold her in my arms but alas…all muted desires sulking beneath!!

I turned back to see how far had they gone and it was just a few meters away. I was seized with a desire to get back and stir the past, to talk to her and relive those long lost moments but the man…..Who was he? A grey crested tall gentleman perhaps in his late fifties. My curiosity exasperating with every passing second pulled me towards the drifting couple. I hurried to them and hesitantly uttered in a wavering voice, “hello sir!!! I am new one in this town and…. ” and swiftly with a sharp coarseness a ‘hello’did echo back. Before I could speak more words, the man poured down a buffet of questions, all of formal kind but perhaps the best way to begin with a cordial conversation. As the minutes glided by, I tried to move my eyes from the sober countenance of this fine man and place it on the woman, an impeccable finer human form. But her glasses, those were an obstruction!! She seemed not to look at me, as if untouched and unmoved by the conversation.

The man turning his crest towards the lady, spoke out loud, “ And the lady with me is my daughter. She got a sprain in her ankle and the doctor advices her to take a walk every day. So we love to walk through the forest path and devour the forest air. Is it not pleasant sire??” The humid air, the freshness of the leaves, the pristine aura, indeed all was pleasant..but more pleasant was the beauty of my beloved!! And I continued, “It seems to me that I know your daughter….madam were we not class mates during our graduation time?? We often talked….Mukul here.” She turned towards me, her brows contracted a bit, as if trying to read through the past and the face gradually brightened up. A sudden Smile escaped from the corner of her lips, quite reluctant to show how beautiful and mesmerizing it was!! A faint voice replied, “yes, I do…I do so well. Dint we have coffee at times!” And I was gladdened!!....Gladdened to assume that I too was a fragment of her memories. And a myriad of questions started building up in me. Did she treasure me as I did?? Was I a framed monument in her gilded chest of memories?? Did she like me as well?? Or was it just my Love that made me take these assumptions!

The noon sky was turning murky. The complexion of the forest had turned greyer. The father with a domineering politeness said, “It is time we should leave. Look the sky gets a darker shade. Mom must be waiting. Better we haste.” Convinced and agreed we decided to part. But was it the last verse??Would the unspoken words remain sunken as ever??Was this the culmination of this beginning?? I could not have let her walk away this way...but all in my thoughts. As I was baffling with myself, she spoke out once more, “Mukul… we hope to see you soon at our place. It would be a pleasure. The house stands on the market street and reads H-8.” “Sure!!” I replied. The father caught hold of his daughter’s arms and slightly pulling her toward him and enquired about her ankle….and whether she could walk. And came a reply, “It is absolutely fine. You have been dragging me all the way…but I feel I can walk now”. She pulled a folded stick out of that overcoat….and let it down. It was a white cane!! She probed it through the ground and took a couple of steps ahead. My heart dropped low and I raised my eyes to the man. Fathoming my curiosity, he replied, “Last year there was a mishap…and she lost her eyes”…. A melancholy smile followed those words as if mocking at her fate, their fate!!

I turned tail to them and fled as if I were being chased, chased by her Blindness. How comfortable she seemed to be in that perpetual darkness as if it were her native clime, not a trace of despair, not a tinge of regret…all was like a fluent poetry without a glitch!! But I stood stunned and traumatized… my feet could hardly carry me...as if I were chained. She was blind, blind forever. She would never see me. She would never see the world either!! The Love, the rapture all was so effervescent. Just the truth prevailed in me that she was Blind. The strong desire to possess her in my arms was dead. The adoration of that silent beauty was gone. The hesitation, the conversation, the invitation….all was futile. How could she make my home? The reveries had been submitted to the hands of folly. This was not selfishness…this was pragmatism. And I walked away

They!!!

The impeccable beauty of the sky with its vivid display of numerous warm colors on its palate exhibited a phenomenal artistic masterpiece!!! The crimson…the vermilion….the saffron…the yellow….with the faintness of dark blue tingeing the peripheries….evinced the dusk taking reign of the sky. Innumerable breakers emanating from the nonchalant vermillion sea marched onto the calm sands of the beach….washed it intermittently…..and left behind a couple of shells…..sometimes a decadent corpse of some sea creature….and few other things that often become an object of décor on the mantelpiece. The briny breeze….the pallid foams….the myriad of colors….and the lonely couple….all uttered of warmth….and intense affection.

Untiring incessant disquisitions…followed by the mild frowns of the lady…..and the deep sighs of the man spoke of a sincere subject of deliberation that might have been stifling them….or just might have been a casual conference about politics.....the worldly affairs…..the future….or Love. Soft romantic murmurs were losing itself in the garrulousness of the obstreperous sea…as if the nature, envious of them was trying to usurp the romanticism from the Lovers!!! The man fiddled with her hands…..often ran his fingers through his lady’s tresses….and each time he did…..they got tangled in the overflowing mane….and every time she liberated them from the lover’s captivity. There were gestures of affection and understanding…..but the smile that often smudged the corners of their lips was not as frequent as it used to be!!! There was a play….a sonnet of intense emotions…..an enchantment that tangled the two…..a murky luminescence of mirth….and yet an unfathomable silence. What was it that the silence spoke of??? What stirred behind the girl’s woebegone stern face???

A couple of stars could be seen in the dark blue canvas….which had transformed its complexion in those flying hours. The warmth in the sky had faded away with swift nimbleness….and just the crest of the retiring Sun could be witnessed…beckoning the lovers to depart….but there was a hesitance……a refusal….and an unusual plaintiveness in ‘The’ day’s Farewell. The eyes which mirrored her soul reflected tears. The girl clang to him with an honest persistence…..while the boy with a weighted heart made ceaseless endeavors to cajole the sulking lady. What was it that had expunged them of happiness??? It was her wedding the next day!!!

It was the dirge of severance….of sacrifice…..and their servile love. How could have love survived the test of the societal norms….and stood against the clout of money and the strength of reputation??? Was it not obvious for the Father to get his darling daughter a husband, decked with riches and residing in the upper niche of the society??? Was not ‘Their Love’ a feeble and a childish amalgamation of passion and caprice??? Who would have cared to fathom the soreness of the incision….but chasing penniless Love would have smutted their reputation……and then ‘They’ would have spoken!!! ‘They’ were the people…the kin…..the neighbors….and those who suddenly become cautious of the duty of being a well wisher. Then was it not wise to break the links of frail love….and choose what ‘They’ said???

Years trotted away….making way into the future……and the beaten love had melded itself somewhere in the staleness of the past. He had carved out a new life for himself…..and probably was happy….and the girl??? She had been placed amidst lavishness….so she too might have found happiness!!! And ‘They’???? ‘They’ never cared anymore!!! He had been patient all these years….patient with his failures…..the pain of estrangement…..and his efforts to wade through that grotesque pain. But the future hours generously turned amiable to him. He procured all that an ordinary man craves for…..a well heeled job, a comfortable dwelling…..and a beautiful wife…..but still the shards of the broken love dwelt in some preserved corner.

A couple of decades or more of family hood passed by!!! Those were the fertile years begetting him happiness….and prosperity. He had wealth, opulence, a business of repute and children. There were concerns of life and family melodrama. Years had started to ripen his age.....the rolling hours stole the bliss of youth from him. He had grown a frailer being. All his tasks were done…and he had been transformed into a recluse. His wife had died….and he too had succumbed to the decaying life. But that sunken Love??? Had it disappeared??? Is it not a palpable fact that memories are ephemeral colors that get expunged with time??? Because time plays its role well….and conceals every wound. He visited temples…..shrines and a few NGOs to devote himself to the service of God…and his men. He spent hours in the churches….attending to masses and deciphering the gist of Life. He had given himself to art, literature and all those refined instincts that had been the most prized possessions of man.

It was a cold winter Sunday, silent and pristine as usual. The church door smoked out a rhythmic hymn being sung in chorus. But he sat himself on an ancient iron bench which occupied an obscure corner of the untamed garden and tried to confiscate a bit of harmony from the serenity. He was all alone in that tranquil suburb of that garden…..perhaps with a couple of sparrows and……and a woman with a ball of wool and a half woven sweater in her hands. He could catch a glimpse of that bundle of white through those green thickets….and every time he craned his head to get a proper view of the lady…..she got camouflaged with those heavy untrimmed hedges the more!! It was as if nature was playing a childish game with him.

Uncontrollable curiosity and an hour’s monotony pushed his feeble frame toward the lady. She had in her hands a pair of knitting needles with a half woven red woolen piece hanging from one of them….and her heads almost buried in her creative work. It could have been a scarf….a sweater or something else. It might have been for her son or her grandchildren….or for her husband. He kept gazing at her……and she kept playing with her needle and the woolen thread with a commendable dexterity oblivious of the man’s presence. The mellifluous hymn which echoed out of the arched doors of the church had become silent…..and the fluttering sparrows too had flown away. He thought to leave the garden and head towards that sacred cradle……but suddenly pushing herself out of that trance, the lady raised her little head. It was her!!!

The man stood dazed and speechless. But she was still…looking straight into his trembling visage….no restlessness….no excitement….and not a streak of dejection. The fluttering butterflies…the dancing leaves…..and the singing voices….all seemed to have muted. There was an absolute silence……and the shattered debris of those gilded memories was being resurrected. The furrows that had made their

ways through that broad forehead revealed the time…..the long time they had been apart…..but yet the Love seemed to be oblivious of the dark gulch of the decades that separated them. It was young and fertile!!! The charm had been wiped out and the youth had shriveled away…just remained the memoirs of that unrequited love!! Neither the rendezvous at the roadside cafeteria…nor the unquenched hours of ceaseless rapture was alive…all what stood in that long passage of time was that ardent desire to slip their hands into each other’s and tread that narrow lane again….once again……or watch the lurid play of colors of the evening sky by the seaside. But he had been a married man…..and she too had been married…..and married to a rich husband. Was not she???? How could he have forgotten the bitterness of parting??? But where was the red dot on her forehead??? It was blank…..and there was not a single smear of red on her….she was widowed!!!

Sympathies clouded the more and the lover stood in despair. He was grappled with an irresistible desire to clasp her hands and never let them go!!But the sense of obligation….the call of duty…..above all the cacophony of the refined and the trimmed society….all prevented him to escape his confinements of ‘those societal norms’. He had sons, daughters and grandchildren. What would ‘they’ say?? Would not his impulsiveness make him a mere subject of mockery??? Man can learn to live without love…..but not without honor.

It was ‘they’ again. What would ‘they’ say?? But who were ‘they’???

‘They’ were none!!!

‘They’ is the self erected reason of an unfounded awe…..and a gorge that tears apart man from himself. It is just the virtual image that stands behind the mirror…..and is non-existent and imaginary. It is the noise of the muted voices which speak without reason……and influence our vulnerable conscience…..but then???? It is gone!!! Gone forever!!! And we are just left with ourselves…..all alone with regret….and sobbing repentance. But again….what would ‘they’ say????

The man stood there with a palpitating heart and tried to step forward….towards his lady. She picked the half woven woolen piece in her hand with a sudden jerk and tucked the woolen ball into the straw basket she carried….and briskly walked away….fading into the crowd which oozed of the church. And she was lost again!!!