The Lady of Dreams

Have you ever witnessed a dream coming into reality? Would you believe if something similar happens to you? Something coming into reality which you always thought of being outside the jurisdiction of even the almighty God. It happened to me, and it changed me and my perspective towards this universe substantially.

The first time I saw her, I was bewitched by this astoundingly beautiful lady of my dreams. Her hair mirroring her independent yet gentle soul, complementIng her innocent eyes. Those innocent eyes which can melt a whole block of steel with a glance, portray her as a knowledge seeking child. These eyes in turn complement her lips that seem as tender as rose petals. These lips are the conduit of a near-dormant volcano i.e. her body which has stopped erupting for a while now. She domineeringly controls her instinctive volcano with self-constructed and buoyant lake of reasons encircled by the bricks of accumulated mature encounters that she had in her life since her early age. She has learnt to make peace with every storm, hence, the active volcano, which she was once, is moving to a dormant stage now, at least in colloquial terms. This is both positive and unfortunate, like an unwanted paradox. She has to be vigilant of her mascara, but it is normal to wash it away with tears without worrying about the artificial masks that she has to endure.

But the most significant attraction is the aurora that her skin emanates uninterruptedly. It attracts me, it invites me and it fills the darkest spots of my life with ecstasy. It makes me believe that my fingertips would shine bright once I touch her bright skin radiating this turquoise-aurora around her body. I wonder if other people too can see this soothing light attached to her like a radium-studded ring.

I still fondly remember the moment when she unintentionally touched my hand once. I can still feel the warmth of her skin around my forearm. In fact, it is that blissful sensation that calms my senses when I foresee a low-point in life.
Amidst this whole dream, a flash of reality strikes my involuntary river of thoughts which constantly reminds me of her fusion with someone in future. Is there someone already in sight of her? Would I ever know?

Bring back my smile!

Smiles are everywhere, even near the faces where the tears reside temporarily. Like the Sun, a smile is an object of permanence, which is sometimes eclipsed by the opaqueness of misery and despair. I see people greeting each other with a smile, it looks so normal, despite being farcical. For the simple fact that we greet each other with a smile in anticipation of a smile back to us. It is like a trade of emotions. Does it make you happy? It doesn’t make me happy though, not more than for a tiny microsecond.Sometimes the eyes search for a smile which they hope would not have changed over the passing time. Eyes that look you in the same way in which they always did. You hope that in this world of ‘consistent change’, this face should not change, not even in physical terms. A moment of ecstasy runs through your nerves right from the navel to the tip of your chin and releases into the air through your hair. This temporary implant of emotions joins the permanent stream when you imagine and pause the time at relive that exact moment when you saw that smile for the last time.But the law of nature doesn’t work according to the comforts of anyone. It works under the supervision of time. An immemorial law of time is that it expects patience from its followers. You just cannot circumvent this law. We’ve been told by our ancestors that for a worthy moment of joy, an infinite amount of cost in terms of time and efforts has to be sacrificed. This is why, we all wait, we wait for that one right time when the ray of sunshine would calibrate the time in our favour. I wait too, for that moment has to be mine someday. I wait, for that little moment of infinite delight is beyond any amount of pain that I suffer today. I wait for the shaping of clocks of time in my favour someday. That day, I would take my hand out to touch the smile that I saw, breathed and lost years ago.

Panoramic lucidity

And I failed again! This time the remorse is deep-rooted yet looks manageable. I have tasted the dust earlier and this time my lips are already scratched by the uprooted yellow grass. The cricket chirping near my nose seems amused by my condition and seems to be relishing my ill-fate. My eyelids are covered with minute particles of dust and these particles are itching the cornea of my eyes. I tried to open my left eye which is opposite to the ground but I see a group of people laughing while watching me grounded. I immediately closed it to save myself from this embarrassment. I tried using my left ear to hear at least one familiar voice, while keeping my eyes closed. To my dismay, there is none at this moment. Suddenly a voice crossed my ear and it seems familiar. A ray of hope emerged to find support in this semi-arid place with scorching sun burning my body and the dust covering every bit of my skin including my eyelids and hair. The voice said, “it is his destiny”. The concealed emotional bubble suddenly busted and the liquid filled and trapped inside the bubble finally escaped and dispersed out of my both eyes, nose and the mouth. I felt marshy near my face but simultaneously the dirt around my eyes, nose and lips washed away, clearing the panorama of life for me.

The Retribution

With the advent of the ‘fall’, when the birds who guard the borders of the sky and the earth were chirping in supreme bliss, I found an awful ‘remorse’. Something that I have known for a while, yet deferred the acceptance of it for small moments of ecstasy. The smashing of the mirror of hope numbed my senses, stopped the clock and halted the motion of my dreamful journey, to a standstill. I gazed upon the sky to look for the passing time and asked if ‘this time shall pass away too?” There was no answer. I realized it was the time for ‘retribution’.
The myriads of positive ions that used to crash on my chest and filled my lungs during my long walks suddenly disappeared. The ‘music’ which used to smoothen the flow of deoxygenated blood from my veins to my heart signaled its incapacity to give any more relief. I sought help from the almighty above, he exclaimed. “You said I have died long back.” I quickly scrolled all the options left to seek solace that I yearned for, at that moment. I ended up having only one option and to my surprise he was the one who actually gently stroke my back and said “Everything is going to be alright.” It was ‘me’. I realised that over the passing time my loneliness had actually become my strength. My lone walks, my lone conversations, my introspections, my lone secrets, my lone nights, my lone winter fogs, my lone raindrops, all have strengthened me enough to face the challenges that would possibly come in my way further.
To all the people who seek solace and warmth in a relationship, I want to ask them one question, “What if I am contented with the relationship that I have with myself? Also how can you seek happiness from someone else if you cannot be happy with yourself?” After all, at the hour of crisis, nobody, not even the almighty that people believe in, came to my rescue. I am the one to be loved, to be loathed, to be taken care of and most importantly, to be trusted.
This retribution may have bigger and long term consequences, most of them negative ones, but I am prepared for it, as long as ‘I’ am with myself. Hey life, ‘Bring it on!’.

Beckoning of Japanese Maple.

Japanese Maple, the autumn flower brings ecstasy to the soul.

Such flower beds on the land that the change of seasons bring, reinforces the belief in the law of change. Although, each change invites resistance initially, but gradual acceptance ensures the flow of immense joy.

Like the seasons, we are all bound to invite change as we sail through the boat of life in this never ending journey of the sea.

We meet the Maple during autumn alone when it blooms to her full strength. But this bloom is not permanent. With the descending of winter, the maple too goes dry and sheds her beauty. This doesn't mean that it is the end of her story, but the emergence of moment when it would begin her new journey to bloom in the ‘new Autumn’ with the ‘new trees’ who have joined her in this season.

But this bond is not permanent, even the Maple understands it, hence it doesn't fall in the trap of nature by succumbing to the temporary forces of affection or bitterness.

The fall of Maple leaf is celebrated and appreciated. Her entanglement with the wind during the flow is admired by the people. Also, her death due to the fall is celebrated by the people clamouring on the ground. Maple's beauty erodes gradually after the fall. The people who admired her when she was dancing with the winds touching her branches, stops the admiration. But there is no escape to the fall, it has to happen at a preset time and conditions.

The performers change, the audience change, even the art changes, but the stage remains permanent.

Rendezvous with the truth.

A poor planning procedure carries the baggage of uninterrupted assumptions with plausible hopes of self-rectification. It doesn’t cater to the possibility of adopting alternative instruments of strategy during crisis management. It may adopt under-grounding of petty errors and omissions that cannot hold the planning procedure hostage. But the chief flaw in such procedure is the assumption of assured success even at the cost of limited skill injection and superhuman notions of trust on oneself.

When the primary plan does not expeditiously drift according to the defined assumptions of successful undertaking, the planning process stoops down to failure. Why? Because there is no secondary plan or even if there is one, it is not hard enough to lift the weight of the primary plan and carry it towards the destination. The result of the impaired notion of unsuccessful plan manifestation is a wounded leg with increased distance of the journey towards destination. This toilsome journey from the narrow yet distant roads seems unfathomable. The gloomy eyes with distressful eyelids of despair pushes the destination into a mirage of hope. A thirsty throat in the scorching heat of discernible failure yearns for a rain of hope and travels indomitably to the last mile and touches the lake of overwhelming success.