You went but your presence remains!

Image Courtesy: Google Images

I knew one day you will go, but I didn’t know that your moving away will invite such a vacuum in life. Your ethereal enigma of being humane and humble still haunts me.

Sometimes it felt that your existence is surreal but when your smile hacked gloomy clouds to pieces, it dawned upon me that you are for real. The pearls of happiness was entangled in your lock, once I was passing by you and a pleasant breeze shook your silky strings of hair and the pearls started dancing. I was overwhelmed by the utter ecstasy that I encountered.

In the morning when I was taking a stroll, I saw something very familiar. It was beads of sweat, which used to beautify your forehead, lying on the blades of grass in the form of dew. I was amazed how omnipresent you are!

I moved further and found children playing with gay abandon. Here again, I experienced something very known. Unremitting energy emanating from supple bodies had a semblance of your indefatigable exuberance.

By now I had passed quite a distance and understood more of you.

I was moving ahead with a mind full of your thoughts. Suddenly, a car screeched to halt.  The scene attracted attention of morning walkers. I too went there. I saw a lady frantically running to the site of the car where a boy of 10 was sitting his skin grazed and limbs bruised. First of all, she slapped him and then grabbed him in her arms. The child started crying but not because of pain but because of affection shown by his mother both in slap and in embrace.

Again I had a feeling of déjà vu. In your motherly scolding and affectionate reprimand, I have often experienced the emotions of that child. I was stunned how pervasive your impact is in the life, around me.

On the next bend of the road was a septuagenarian tottering with a stick. I found your patience in the stick to support a strong effort of feeble legs to traverse distances.

Now, I am assured that even if you are away, your presence is still very much there around me in variety of forms. And this presence will always defy the void that used to scare me to death. On my way back from the morning walk, I have earned this knowledge that you will remain in my life till my death, be it in any form-- droplets of dew or depths of patience!

To be left behind, alone!

Image Courtesy: Bing Images

It was the last boat that I saw off. Gradually, with the undulating moves of sea waves, the vision of the last boat also went blurred and finally the boat vanished. People who were with me moments ago have moved on in the direction of their desired destinations. Moments ago there was hullabaloo of emotions, now there is silence of separation.

I am wondering what happened to my boat.

I am alone on the coast with the footprints of the people who left. These footprints have restlessness and eagerness of reaching to the destination. They will also evaporate in the coming days as those who left them behind, evaporated a while ago.

A bird is asking me: why are you still here? Why didn’t you go with your friends?

Innocent bird doesn’t know I can’t fly in a flock as they do. We humans have sections based on some criteria and characteristics. Neither I fulfilled the criteria nor did I have the characteristics to stand at par with them. And for these very reasons, I am left behind.

Now the Sun is setting and the ink of darkness is getting splattered across the sky. Wind has withered and trees have turned into stone. The whole ambience seems defunct.  

Tonight, the Moon is eclipsed by clouds of despondency and stars seem pricking the eyes. The extensive bosom of sky seems shriveled to accommodate my grief spawned from separation.

The fragrance of people who left is still fresh in the air. The memories of moments spent together come unbidden to mind and bring tears to eyes without effort. This seclusion is suffocating. I am missing moments and madness (of those people) that were meticulously stitched with every day and night for past couple of years.

But then there is also a sense of happiness that others have carved success with their hard graft and committed determination. There is a vicarious feeling of rapture that others have blinded the world with their brilliance. With their scaling of heights, I also feel climbing up.

By and by, the darkness of the night is being wiped out by the youthful rays of the morning Sun. Birds have started chirping and wind has become lively again. Is it any sign of a new hope?

Aha! I can see a spot against the rising Sun in the sea. Is it a boat?

I keep my fingers crossed!