UMBRELLA- iN SUN AND iN RAiN

Present

Past

And the stars shone last night unlike any other night.

Last night before dozing off to yet another troubled sleep, I looked out of the large window into the dark night with bright sky twinkling with myriad stars and I had a feeling to belong. The vastness of everything around me, the sky, the glass window and the night, everything, made me empty.

And today, the picture in front of me is a face, a face on a glass window, very many stars in the night sky outside, with empty eyes.

Believe me when I say, I never wanted to, now when I look back or look ahead or remain, be a stone. I may collapse now, any moment, count the seconds ticking away, it may be any second now. But, deep within me I know I won’t. I cannot.

I too desire the shelter and shade of a rock. I want to look up at the stars; I want a finger to point to the sky, I want to be shown. I want to, I too want to get drenched in the rain, and get wet till the bones. I want to shiver and run home holding a firm hand, that firm hand. I want to see the sun rise and set and want to exhaust the ever willing ears with my umpteen questions. I want to, I too want to be vulnerable. I want to ride on the clouds and hear stories about the far away wonderland; I want to hear those stories in that voice, the voice of the mountains. I want to be beaten and protected, shouted at and pampered, despised and adored; I want to be loved. I too want sit under the shade.

But the umbrella is lost!

And when I think and see out in the real world I realize there are so many like me and so many unlike me. There are many more privileged than me and there are far many worse. And still I cannot help being what I do not want to be.

For once, just once I want to lose. I want to sit with the audience and enjoy the act, enjoy being the spectator.

Sometimes I see a lone cow grazing on a large green pasture and cannot help but smile at the irony of the painting.

And today the sun is up just like the days before today. And I am sure there will be a rainfall just like a few days ago.

Kashiv had a sudden urge to wash his face, he hadn’t finished writing. He walked to the basin, splashed his face with cold water, looked in the bathroom mirror and smiled, a smile of resignation.

Father – in sun and in rain

Image courtesy- Pinterest