Requiem for a dream

 

And some days
I open, my eyes to the lore
A mourning heart,
feeling numb to the core....

And I wonder what happened,
to my zeal to be me?
A forgotten passion
Lost, in the maze of sanity....

And I close my eyes,
to break myself free
But all I hear,
Is a requiem for a dream.....

Of painted skies - and more...

It had been a tiring day. We had just started driving back from Tucson towards Phoenix downtown. My trip to Phoenix had been quite eventful, to say the least. Three years of city life had made me forget what it was like, to be in the wake of mountains. This trip had brought back lots of hurtling memories from my childhood – a few pleasant ones and some unpleasant ones too. But there was something special about this evening, which made me want to forget them all. For as far as I could see, there were mountains adorning either side of the highway. It was all so mystical......so mesmerizing, that we hardly even spoke – A and I.






Sitting in the car besides him, my eyes searchingly followed the wide expanse of mountains that lay all around us. I had a vague feeling that I was leaving something behind - what I did not know. My gaze lingered on in mid air for a while.....and then re-focussed itself on a bunch of stores by the highway. A quick scan registered Starbucks in my mind – and no sooner than it did, A asked – ‘Coffee’?? I smiled – wondering at his amazing capability to read my mind sometimes....

We pulled over besides Starbucks, and went inside. It didn’t take me long to decide what I wanted, A got something too, we paid off and walked on, out of the front door. A whiff of fresh mountain air took me by surprise, as soon as we stepped out. The effect was both chilling as well as refreshing. We hardly took a few more steps towards the car, when my eyes skimmed over the evening sky towards the left. No sooner than they did -I stopped.

On my left, was one of the most beautiful visions I’ve ever seen in the evening sky. The sun was setting somewhere far off, behind the mountains.....and as it did so – it left behind it a vivid trail of hues....... it was a vision that instantaneously took my breath away. The moment I saw it, only one thought crossed my mind - if someone ever gave me a paint brush and asked me to paint my own sky – this is how it would look – a mix of deep crimson, dreamy yellow and a subtle blue.......



....Kahin door jab din dhal jaaye.....


We stepped up onto the elevated divider, dividing the small mall from the highway to get a better view. What started of as isolated streaks of these three shades in the distance, soon became a beautiful medley of colours. It had barely been five minutes, when the colours started receding off one end of the sky......and deepened down the other.

....Visions of a painted sky....


The whole phenomena lasted less than 15 minutes.......but 15 minutes that I would never forget in my lifetime. I felt a sense of pure joy, I hadn’t felt in quite a while. The colours were nowhere to be seen now, but their magic still seemed to linger on......like perfume!

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and sank in what was left of the day. When I opened ‘em – A was looking at me.

‘What are you looking at?’ , I chided.

‘What do you think?’, he said, quite matter-of-factly, and smiled.

I smiled too - and off we went towards the car, back to where we had started from......

The object of my affection

It was an unusually quiet Sunday. G was not at home. I was pacing up and down the whole length of the living room thinking about what to do. Random thoughts crossed my mind - could I go watch a movie?? Or read a book.....or make the numerous phone calls I’ve been avoiding since an eternity?

Nothing seemed to fit my world right at this moment.....something about the calm Sunday evening told me to just lie still and watch the day go by. So, I decided to yield to my heart’s temptations - put on some nice old ghazals in the cd player, pulled up a chair and just let it all sink......my worries, my desires, my passions and my pains! The music filled the air with 'Tum itna jo musukura rahe ho' – one of my old time favourites. It belonged to the genre of songs that I thought were so truly beautiful and poignant at the same time.

I was just trying to drown myself in the magic of the moment, when I noticed her - standing alone, away from 'em all - looking innocent, yet absolutely gorgeous . She was bending slightly to the side, as if bowing to her own naked beauty. She was one of the bunch of three roses that I got G for her birthday yesterday. I wondered why I hadn’t paid a closer attention to this little piece of life brimming in my home earlier. I shifted a little in my chair, and rotated the vase to the right- to get a better peek into her world.






It was then, that I saw the impeccable grey shadow on the wall behind.....For some strange reason, it made me feel a little uneasy. It was as if I had seen more than I was supposed to. Was her world such a somber grey, behind that beautiful white? For an instance, I thought, I caught a glimpse of hurt behind that innocent smile.....a tinge of pain, beneath that subtle veil.....

I rang up A and showed him the pics. A few quick seconds of file transfer was all that was needed to share them all.

‘So, what do you think?’, I asked him

‘It’s nice, I like those small white flowers behind the leaves’

‘Oh, is that all?’

‘No, where were you standing when you took the pic’?

What has that got to do with anything, I wondered.‘Right next to the Café Terrace’, I said, a little annoyed.

‘Oh,ok! So, is this the rose on the left?’

‘No, it’s the one on the right’, I replied, more annoyed than earlier and wondering what he was up to.



...The trio - original.....


‘That’s not possible, you just showed me the pic of the whole bunch and the right flower doesn’t seem to fit in’

I looked at the pics again. ‘Oh, I tilted the vase a little to get a better view, so yes u're right - it's the left one in the pic ’!!!

‘Oh, I see....'

He had a keen eye for sure but I thought he was missing the whole point.

A long silence followed before he commented again.......

‘And what’s wrong with the third pic, it’s showing a strong variation of colours’



......Solarized....

‘You call it solarized, A’

‘Hmmmm… why don’t you get these pics enlarged, enig! With the rate that you click snaps, you can have your own webshots site by now!!’

Ok, so he really was missing the point, or my mood – or both!

‘I need to go take a shower, A. I’ll catch up with u later’

With that, I hung up the phone abruptly and just took a deep breath. Of late, I had started feeling that A doesn’t really share my passions and didn’t quite understand my penchant for pain.We seldom thought about things in the same way. Did we have to? Maybe not, but weren’t the differences outgrowing the similarities? I was not sure what was disturbing me more - the fact that he often didn’t see what I saw in things, or the fact that he saw what I didn’t –a few distorted colours and some little big nothings. In short, things as they were - and not things as they could be.........

I cast one sidewards glance at the white rose lying in the vase....... she was standing so serene in her own glory - unruffled by the storm brewing inside of me. I went closer and touched her petals. It was absolutely irresistible – the sight of an unblemished white!

....In sepia....

No sooner than the thought crossed my mind- that I smiled. Wasn’t it this that I had liked in A in the first place – his uncompromising simplicity and his absolute lack of pretence! All in all , his tendency to keep things simple and straight. He didn’t wear any masks, and didn’t entangle his life in a hundred different meshes – the way I did. He didn’t look for hidden meanings in things – and was at peace with his own world. I was totally the opposite – I always found unnecessary things to brood over, and was never at ease with my life. I kept looking for pain even in the most unexpected places – and could never balance the strings of my life right…….

The realization was so subtle........yet so true. The rose was still smiling at me from a distance. I didn't want to complicate the truth more than this. I left it right there, in its beauty, and went on to dissolve my thoughts down a warm shower - with a promise to see life-as-it-is and not life-as-it-could-be.........