Unpublished Articles

Darkness. Azure sky. An Open Window. A flash of lightning.

And at such a melancholy time, a moment, at the speed of lightning came and stood before me. It smiled at me. How could I smile back? I was sad. It said “Embrace me. Hug me dear to your heart. Satiate your desire with me”. I looked at it like a fool. “Desire and you? Why should I desire you? Why should I satiate myself through you? You are one from the countless moments of my life. Why should I bother so much about you? What’s your existence? A moment in my life, indeed! As it is you are not going to come back again.

It laughed. That was a strange smile – “You are a fool” – it seemed to convey. I was nonplussed, a bit scared too!

If I embrace it, would I be myself? Would I maintain the freedom of the moment? If I embrace it, wouldn’t its existence mix in mine? How then will I retain my freedom? Wouldn’t I be ensconced in the influence of that moment? Would I not be a slave to its exaggerated foolish ideas of desire? But then do I want to be alone? Don’t I wish to submit myself to somebody?

“Tyen tyakten bhunjeetaha.” My own thoughts echoed like a celestial prophecy!

But then, how? How is it possible to first renounce and then enjoy a thing? How is it possible to enjoy a thing and not yearn for it? How it is possible to live a life without desire? Is it not a mark of disrespect? I can understand the controlling of a wish, but to renounce it completely is impossible. Is it that if I enjoy a desire without a wish, I do not get bound to it? But wish covers all egos and is the focal centre of Ego. Is it that uncovering of Ego makes it possible to enjoy things? The numbness associated with Ego-uncovering process is a culmination of joy? If we initially renounce a desire so as to avoid grief – that being a saviour from grief, does it guarantee happiness? But do we need a savour from grief?

“Tyen tyakten bhunjeetaha. Tyen tyakten bhunjeetaha” that celestial announcement again.

But not all moments are same. Not all are joyous. Some of them give a deathly anguish – like sleeping on a bed of red hot iron. Some of them lend yearning like a ‘Shree’ played with internal chords and causing havoc. Some of them come like an infertile woman, lending nothing – casting glooms of loneliness. At some moment nothing happens and at another, you don’t know what happened. Some bring the enthusiasm of a child dancing in the rain. Some lend to an unquenchable lust of peeping beneath the wet bosom of a drenched woman, and the thirst which can be satisfied only through her lips. But …

But these moments are momentous. If not experienced then, they don’t come back.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line;
Nor all your Tears wash out a word of it.

Even if you want them to come back, they don’t

aadamI ThIk se dekh paataa nahI.n aur parade pe ma.nzar badal jaataa hai

Does the second rain bring the same smell of the first – that same enthusiasm of the parched soil quenching its thirst? Momentous life?

Are all these moments then pearls of my life? Are they stringed together to form a necklace of my life? If I don’t embrace them, will their heavenly grace fade off? It we stop using a perfume since it will get over; wouldn’t it stifle in the bottle? If the sandalwood piece is going to diminish by making it a paste; then as well burn it as a fuel!

Momentous feeling stringing into the necklace of my life!

As I realized this, the moment was slipping away. “Wait”, I cried. “I need you. I want to embrace you. My desire was covered by my Ego. Without you, I am incomplete. In a society where controlling emotions is considered a sign of good breeding, I want to wear you on my sleeve – unabashedly.”

That moment still brings goose pimples to my skin. Like the evening glory, her feet were diminishing on the other bank of the river. Her long hair was let loose and the string of flowers I had so lovingly planted was falling off. I was on this bank, waving her a silent goodbye as my entire existence seemed to come to a halt and my mind sifting like a beggar through the myriad intricacies – running wild!

Creative principles caught in a mesh of creativity, suffering thus!

But do I have the time to wait for this momentous pain - to seek the pleasure of satiating my desire with the sorrow of this moment?

The next moment beckons me. A similar infinitesimally important moment confronts me. I have to be ready to embrace it.

Where do I have the leisure of a single moment?