Thousands of miles away, yet...

I do not remember what it was that made me realise, 'I am moving too fast'. I pulled in the breaks to a jerking halt.

I looked back to check how far I have travelled...the meter says I did travel a lot. But how can I still see the 'square one' clearly with my naked eyes? And where's the trace of 'me' that I am looking for? Why can't I see even the vague impression when I look forward? Was my journey like a wind mill? ' Running fast, but travel no far'?

It was some twenty years back. Just like many others, I asked the simple three word question ' Who am I?...Finding no one around to answer, I started my journey on foot. A search, for an identity...

And now when I glance back, sitting still on the corner of the tranqil lake, I can recollect answers to many questions that I have gathered during the journey so far...I know what I am, I know what I can do, I know what I can't...I know what I have gathered, what I had gathered and lost while running fast; some of them knowingly, some of them unknowing; but I still don't know myself...I'm yet to test the answer to that simple question...perhaps I need to be back to the square one and start the journey again, on a new way!

On the way back...

"A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.”
Lao Tzu

Don’t know whether we were good travelers, but seemed to be a little bit of it. We left home with the idea of exploring the enchanting land of Palampur, without knowing what plans the almighty had for us.

While negotiating with the Taxi operators in the Pathankot railway station, we ended up charting out a plan to first visit places in McLoad Ganj and Dharamshala (the land of Buddhist monks) and explore the vast green lands of Palampur on the way back. Though we maintained this travel plan till the end, the tit bits were changed many times in between with many omissions and additions. And at the end of the journey, when we were back to square one, there was consensus amongst us, it was a journey well made.

“I see my path, but I don't know where it leads. Not knowing where I'm going is what inspires me to travel it.” Rosalia de Castro

Travelling on the misty roads to Mcload Ganj, I realized the saying, ‘the journey, not the arrival that matters’. The suns playing ‘hide and seek’ among the trees in the foggy forests on both the sides of the road, touch of the ‘seemingly chilled but no not so cold’ fog on the face, rain drops lashing…it was a path to rejuvenation. Every moment I kept struggling to keep content my heart seeking to jump out and to vanish in the other side of the white vile of fog. The time was short and we had “milesto go before…”

On the way back, I made a promise to the misty land. “I’ll talk about you a lot. I’ll nourish you in the coziness of my heart. I’ll come back to you again.”

Sayonara!!!

Rays of hope...

These days,
I can hear my heart saying
its time
you confront your life,
its time
you nourish dreams
fill some colours
to the grey grey world

And I followed it, added a colour, a crimson colour full of life. I can feel the spaces inside my heart getting filled with sight and smell of rose and sounds of echoing laughter. I can feel it growing fonder, quieter, warmer then ever. I am struggling for words to paint my heart. There are thousands of them.As it usually happens, in these moments I find it difficult to choose the best of them...all of them dearer, all of them nearer...I am sitting quite till they grow strong enough to break the barricade erected long time back. I am waiting for the day they unfold their wings again, to touch the vast blueness above.

These days, I can hear my heart saying the day is not far...

Prelude to change...

So many times it happens. Standing at crossroads, you try to decide whether you follow your heart or your head.

After hours of deliberation, you arrive at a decision, assure yourself that you will stand by yourself on any eventuality. You take the turn and enter the wonderland of Alice.

Life is never the same again.

While in transition somehow the bitterness, that drove you to the decisive turn, goes to the posterior. You try to recollect the smiling faces and the echoing laughters and wish they were a part of the newness around you. Can't avoid the painful realization that these wishes can never be true...

With time you too manage to change yourself, at least to fit yourself into the new world.

But some how, even after traveling thousands of miles, you find you are not far away from the turn you have taken. As if you are traveling on a circle, with no starting point defined and no end too.

Quest

He tossed the coin in air, waited till it comes back to his hands, checked the result and tossed it again...I saw him repeating the same for several times.

"What's that for?"

"I'm in a dilemma."

"So, you are trying to solve it by tossing!"

He nodded positively in reply.

"But how many times do you toss to arrive at a decision? Don't you think it's foolish to let a metal coin decide things for you?"

"Yes, even I also feel that way. That's why I'll be tossing till I get the decision right, the decision that is mine, till the toss takes me to that. At times first toss takes me there. Today it's taking time. I have tossed some thirty times till now," there was an oblique smile in his face. He resumed tossing...

Lexicon of Mind...

I am trying to be silent. But the words bubbling in my mind never let that happen. Words that the processor somewhere in my brain is producing incessantly and tirelessly. Good words, bad words, cold words, warm words...There is no dearth of reasons; there is no dearth of occasions and stimuli.

I have seen smiles, butterflies and fireflies getting transformed into words; words that will fuel your the journey ahead through miles of roughness. Chirruping of the morning birds, sound of creeper leaves in the breeze and rain drops take the shape of words, musical words that will flood you with emotions, keep you warm in chilling winter nights.

There were thousands of occasions when I failed to stop the processor from converting the silences in between the conversations, blank spaces in between the lines into words, words that made me fret and sulk and pursue unwarranted turns on the paths. At times I put-up efforts to generate anti-words to fight with these, at times just take them for granted, let them rule...

There are times when I succeed in managing time and spirit to capture them in black and white. Most of the time they get lost ; die out after struggling for hours to see the light (just like the echo).

At times I get tired of them but they never...

Incomplete...

I got curious and peeped out of the window to check what was happening on the lane out side. The little girl was crying her heart out stumping her feet on the ground. That she was crying despite being alone ( there were no one to pacify her) made me feel she was really upset about something.

I usually find her playing with her playmates in the evening but never had any chance or reason for interaction.

"Hey, what happened?"
It seemed my question fueled her grieves and she started crying even lauder. " What happened? Why are you crying? May be I can help you out?" My second question succeeded in generating some response from her. " I am trying to collect the marbles in my hands," she said maintaining her sobbing. "But every time some of them slip out of my hand". That's when I noticed the collection of some twenty marbles she was struggling with. She had palms too small to accommodate more than five marbles at a time. Even if she managed to pick up one more, another slipped out. She was struggling for a quite some time and got frustrated with the slipping off...there was no one around to help her out and started crying.

The innocence amazed me. "Why don't you put some of them in your pockets. Then you take away the rest in your hands," I suggested. But that made no effect on the sobbing of the girl. "Look, even it is not possible for me to take all of them in my hands at the same time." I made a demonstration of what I said, collected a hand full of marbles in the right palm and when I tried to put some more with them, deliberately slipped some of those already in my hand. The girl watched the demo, maintaining her sob. But she was not convinced by what ever I did and started crying again,"No, I need to collect them in my hands only." This time I really did have no idea what to do.

At that point, one of her playmates appeared in the scene. "What happened Ritu?" I noticed some light in the face of the girl. She explained him her cause of grief as she did earlier. " What's there to cry about? Let me put some of them in your pockets. Keep the rest in your hands. It is ok?" He did wait for her consent and started putting the marbles in her pockets. As the pockets too were not big enough, he put some of the marbles in his pocket and there were some eight marbles left to be accommodated in the hands of the girl. By the time he finished all these arrangements, the girl calmed down and stopped sobbing. In a few moments they left the spot, in search of other playmates. I found myself wondering "why?"
"Why it was that the girl resisted the idea that I gave her, but readily accepted the same idea when it came from her playmate?"

I was not a friend, the little boy was.

Yes, friends have been remaining a fascination for me.

They come silently, like cool breeze on a hot summer afternoon. Each of them with a unique bunch of enrichments. You know not when they enter your lives, capture the empty spaces inside and gives meanings to all your struggles. When you try to imagine your days minus them, you can feel the empty spaces within. You are a changed man now. They reign on you until one day the uncertainties of life drift you apart. They go as silently as them come. But never leave...