Dear Readers,
Not writing is not living adequately. Yet we must endure those long bouts of desert heat to feel the delight of an oasis. But doesn’t the moment after we have passed an oasis feel the most painful? Leaving the comfort of quenching and walking towards an unknown? But then you might ask is it the real thirst? It is but a way to fuel our ultimate thirst which is the destination. Aah, what a comforting philosophy to bear the heat for the time (Kolkata from where I write is now sizzling in the summer heat at 42 degrees). The traveller must walk. With shame, I come back to my notebook to scrabble such words and more. Here is an excerpt,
“The sun doesn’t set behind the same tree all year round. But it must set, squiggling and adjusting the perfect posture of rest. We celebrate the day of the moon’s shadow on the earth with the wonder of a child who knows no science. He said just when the ring is formed, I wasn’t thinking of the cause, but a certain line from Keats came back to me, it was terribly sad you might complain, but it was what made me feel most intensely human, as the eclipse does to us; so human, so tiny in the vast cosmos.
Like the shadows make their settlements, the forest floor nurtures the shade-loving plants and bushes, the tall trees drink sunshine, and the vines, which came into existence millions of years ago believing in nature’s compassion, hug tighter. The word, compassion, reminds me of a mountain river, the sudden halt at the edge of a cliff and then the generous jump – come-passion. My aunt always had a bias towards people living near the river, telling me they were always more kind and understanding than those pushed deep within the city walls. They see nature making and breaking, the erosion and deposition of soil, the thirst of summer, the fertility of monsoon. They are thus hopeful. I asked her, but isn’t it the same with people growing plants? She said, yes, but not with the vigour as she did for the river.
She saw the sea at forty for the first time. I wondered what she might have to say about it. An entire evening spent in observing the waves, forming and breaking and sometimes whispering in its foamy deliberation. My aunt’s response to the sea was silence and tears, while the waves did the talking, like an impatient child who needs to tell their mother everything while she is on a call. Perhaps the sea reminded her of herself,
The repetitive action,
Slavery to the moon,
Earth’s rotation,
The river’s restless disguise
And the wave’s revelation.”
21/04
DP
Catharsis 