The Final Question

Ahh!! Its the eve breeze of 7:30 blowing at my garden gate...7:30 my favourite time of the day...my favourite time of the lost life .Its been two years that I left the incomplete stories of my life buried in the silent dust of this land. They were within me all his while...and when I was heading for a new beginning..i preferred to leave them where they’d begun from.



Two years passed by, as quietly as thunder to a deaf man...I remained immune to emotions, to tears...to gashes...to wounds. I remained immune to creating memories. And here I am... back to these woods...this lonesome cottage, which made me understand togetherness...this cliff that made me witness the entire world..., the stars, the sky; and yet concealed me from their clutches.



And yea...its 7:30...and here I am standing amidst these woods...near my cottage...at the cliff...looking at this stagnant view after two long years. All seems unchanged...unruffled...the stars...the town...the street lights that reflected a holy cross on the lake...the dark shadow of the Peepul tree that shifted from being an apparition to the elephant God... and the silhouette that made me feel watched as I stood in the wilderness in the dark of night. I have the same thoughts...the same old breeze brushes my cheek...my heart pounds sensing an unknown fear...all the same...as if the two years never existed...as if I was holding nothing but the strings I’d buried deep down. All seems forgotten...


The clock ticks...its hands making an inverted, lop sided V. Its 7:30 in the evening...and I am waiting. A lamppost in the opposite hill gets switched on...I see the golden twinkle on the opposite hill...the most undimmed... And I yet again tell myself...its yours. I know not where you live...I know not where you are today. I know not who you are. All I know is...that all of these years, 4whenever I was uncertain about the decisions of my life...I came to you for answers,...I waited for the clock to strike the 30th minute of the 19th hour... I oscillated between the two options that concerned me. My answer came from the opposite hill...the lamppost glowed at answers, which always proved right. I know not when was it that I began to depend on you...began to connect with you...began to fall in love with you...!!! YOU...??? ..but who were you...did you even exist?
I loved you, I did not know who you were....but how does it matter...i knew I loved you. Remember...I’d come to take your permission..i’d come to appeal for acceptance...but you responded in the opposite. It was shattering. You became a bitter memory, which I did not want to carry forward. I buried your thought in this wilderness...while they sent me to serve another man. This ‘another’ man...who I was told was my husband... I served him right. But my story...my truth that I loved you...??? My truth wantoned in this wilderness....

And look what has it done today...I am here...with this infant in my arms who the world says, is my baby. I am at the cliff...after two long years...the clock just cuckooed a 7:30. I am looking at the opposite hill...with a question about this wanton tale... “Did you ever know that I loved you...can we ever in this life be close..? The breeze gushes...a rage abounds. The lamppost does not rekindle... My baby shrieks to remind me of his existence. Astounded, I shift my glance towards the life in my arms... only to find the reflection of the lamppost glowing in his eyes. The opposite hill lies silent and dark...and here I have all my answers lying in my lap.