The Butterfly

The butterfly perched by the side of his bed, its wings fluttering ever so lightly in the morning breeze. They were a beautiful shade of black, glistening like velvet, as if painted by the dark of the night. There were little patterns of white adorning the black, piercing but with a cool glow, like moonlight. He thought he could make out shapes in the white, and it seemed to stir some part of his still drowsy mind. There flowed an undertow of emotions, but there were no memories. He felt both happy and sad at the same time.

He dreamt the same dream again that night. Standing atop ochre steps, he was gazing at the meadow in front of him. Behind him lay a building aged well over half a century, weathered by the scores of people who walked through it, most of them never to return. What lay behind him was completely out of sync with what lay ahead, in distance and in time. If there were people there, they had all turned to stone, unmoving statues, yet gazing at him through their stony eyes. But none of it mattered to him, he had eyes only for what lay ahead.

She stood there in front of him, her eyes meeting his. Dressed in a black and white shirt and light grey jeans, she was a gorgeous sight to behold, his heart missing several beats. The wind blew a few strands of her silky brown hair over her face, caressing her cheeks, almost like blowing her a silent kiss. He felt jealous of the wind, how lucky it was to do what he longed for so much. He stood there transfixed, overwhelmed by her beauty, in a moment that seemed to stretch on infinitely. And he hoped for it too, wishing, though in vain, for time to stand still, for the universe to end, paused in that moment.

An unrestrained joy welled in his mind, and he knew why. Her cute lips were parted and she was smiling at him, her eyes sparkling as they smiled too. His racing heart gave in as the unbearable pressure caging it broke, giving way to a torrent of happiness. A wave of pure bliss washed over him and he smiled the most heartfelt smile of his life. He held nothing back, all his love for her was laid bare, reflected on his face. Maybe she felt it too. Or that’s what her eyes told him. Those eyes, those enchanting pools of the prettiest shade of hazel in the world. And the way they sparkled when they were locked with his, he could lose himself in them, admiring their unfathomable depths. As she stood, silently, smiling in front of him, he knew that he was changed, his life would never be the same again.

He jolted awake, his dream shattered like a delicate crystal glass and he felt hopelessly lost. The pang of loss cut him so deep, as if it tore his very heart out of his chest. He felt claustrophobic, the world around him caving in, just like his world within. How did it get to this? How could he let her go? Would he see her again, or her beautiful eyes, which spoke to him in a language known only to his heart?

He sat on his bed, head buried in his hands, his mind searing with regret. That’s when he noticed the butterfly as it fluttered over his face. For just a moment, he forgot everything and his mind blanked out. All he wanted, for a few insane seconds, was to catch the butterfly, hold it in his hands, and call it his own. He reached out and grabbed at it, fingers brushing against its velvety wings as it slid through them, away. Defeated. Lost! The memories came flooding back. Tears began streaming down his face and he closed his eyes wishing for it all to end. There was no point to his life anymore, no more reason to live. He wanted to fall asleep, burying all his pain, into a deep slumber, and never wake up from it. He contemplated it too, but then, amidst the warm tear drops, he felt the slightest of touches. He slowly opened his eyes only to see the butterfly resting gently on his cheek. He knew not why, but it brought a weak smile to his face, and the faintest glimmer of hope in his heart

Deluge...

I look up at the sky and see dark clouds hovering over the horizon, floating ever so slowly towards me. The wind picks up these clouds and they gather speed, bringing along with them the soothing sound of rain falling at a distance. It feels like nature’s way of playing a melancholy tune. The thunder adds a bit of edge to the tune, playing out its crescendo. The humming becomes louder and it’s just a matter of time before the downpour swallows me and everything around. But I don’t want to run from the rain, I am waiting for it, to feel every moment of it.

The wind is now a low howl as it brushes through my hair, and the anticipation keeps growing until it gnaws at my mind. Just when I think I can’t wait any longer, the clouds shower the cool rain as if it were a gift from the heavens. The first droplets feel like pure bliss, like the first gulp of water for a man weary from travelling a long, lonely road through a dry desert. Everything around me takes on a bright sheen, the trees, the leaves, the ground, as if the rain rejuvenates it, imbuing it with new life 

The water drenches me from head to toe and cools my entire body. But the way it soaks my mind is even more amazing and this feeling of serene calm sweeps over me. It overwhelms me, pulling me under a trance. I don’t exist in body any more, all I am is this feeling. I can’t summon up the words to describe the feeling and its unfathomable depths or its inexplicable beauty. All I can muster up is that it feels like an elixir that soothes my soul and lifts me from the fragility, the transience and the triviality of human existence.    

Belonging….

There are few places that you've been where you feel like you really belong. These places leave a lasting impression on your minds and in their own subtle way unravel fragments of your personality to you. They may be your old school, or a park where you've played a lot, a garden, a lake or even a beach. When you are there you are able to tune out all the noise of the world outside and be completely aware of your own being, like an island of calm floating amidst a sea of chaos. You are drawn to return to them again and again as though a hidden force is tugging at you to return. It’s as if the invisible threads of fate intertwine you to that place forming an unseen but unbreakable bond. The wall that you've built within comes tumbling down, and inhibitions and insecurities are cast aside when you are there. Regrets about the past and worries about the future don’t seem to matter and all you can think of is the present, living life one breath at a time.

These places have a life of their own too and it’s not always that you have the connection. They seem to have their own persona, just like people do. Sometimes if it’s too crowded, or too noisy, or too hot or just for no reason you could feel like a total stranger to the place, an outsider. And this makes it worse, but hey, maybe the place isn't in the right mood, or maybe you just aren't. But if by chance you do get the feeling that today you belong there, what follows is magical. You can’t predict what then goes through your mind and in what new direction your stream of thoughts would lead you. You begin to explore sides of yourself that you've never seen before, and rediscover parts of yourself that you thought were lost or long forgotten. Sometimes it’s like reading through pages of your diary that were left unwritten bringing up memories old and new. Happy memories, the one’s you would cherish all your life. A few sad ones too, that bring a deep longing for what might have been. And countless memories that leave you laughing hysterically, of silly mistakes that you've made and pranks you've played and those that were played on you.

For me, Calicut beach has been a place where I feel at home. Be it on lazy afternoons when few people bother to step out into the scorching sand, or overcast evenings when the sound of thunder echoes with the roar of the waves or late at night when the ocean is painted silver by a full moon. Whatever I may be doing, be it listening to my friends chat, or walking along the shoreline quietly aware of the waves lapping at my feet, or attempting to swim through the waves with a few adventurous friends (or at least that’s what we pretend we are doing), or simply staring at the unfathomable ocean, sometimes I feel a mystical connection. It’s as if some part of me is hidden away in the sands or buried in the sea and I can feel that part only when I’m here.

Another place which speaks to me is the grassy mountainside (I don’t know what else to call it) behind my school. As it was on top of a hill and far away from anything else, there was always a light breeze there. I used to sit there with one of my friends and we watched eagles take to the sky. Sometimes the eagles would glide effortlessly with the wind and sometimes they would struggle to rise above it. A few times there were so many eagles flying around that we called it a ‘quidditch’ match. And the view there was just spectacular. You could get a feel of the entire city of Calicut from there. The city’s tallest and most prominent buildings rising like islands of concrete through a green ocean of trees. As the eye drifts westward you could see the trees and buildings merge with the endless Arabian Sea at the edge of the horizon. If you were still enough, you could easily fall under the illusion of hearing the soothing ramblings of the sea though you were so far out from it.

Maybe it’s these place that bring these thoughts out of me, or maybe the thoughts were already there, hidden in the recesses of my minds, needing the right time to reveal themselves. Whichever be the case I feel grateful for these places and for these thoughts and for the people who've made these places special. And I’m sure that at least some of you have felt this way about places you've been, places that are so special that you just can’t forget them. Places which you would like to revisit, if only to revel in the solitude they offer and to reminisce old memories. And I hope that whichever road life takes us through, we find places along the way where we feel like we belong and people who make this journey worthwhile, and that they may always have a special place in our hearts.

INSOMNIAC

The world around me turns to grey

Everything seems far away

All voices… noises… fade away

And I’ll run, to fight another day

Eyelids, heavy cloaks over weary eyes red  

Shoulders stooped over by burdens of the day

Legs tired to the bone, made of lead

Too hard to lift, a tonne they weigh

Through a wave of fatigue, I dragged myself to bed

And on pillow and quilt I lay my head

As I hit the lights and embraced the dark

A realization came to me sudden and stark

Too tired to sleep,

Too sleepy to stay up

Oh! Not this again! I beseech

But tonight would be a very long night

Sleep was in view, but just beyond reach

Staring at the start of a losing fight

Hollow thoughts keep ringing in my mind

Stuck in an endless loop

Like a broken record player on rewind

My minds stays on, though my eyes they droop

And no rest, no solace, I can find

Images, voices from days long dead,

Premonitions of roads I’m yet to take

These waking dreams, these thoughts I dread

For neither pleasure nor sense they seem to make

Caged like a prisoner in my own throbbing head

So painfully numb, am I still awake?

Stuck in a realm, a world bizarre

In no man’s land. Neither awake, nor asleep

Currents pulling me away from a conscious shore afar

Too shallow to drown in the ocean of subconscious, so deep

Two opposing forces, my mind at war

Driven to the edge of insanity, a cliff so steep

No pretense of reality,

No world outside

Unraveling my personality,

Till I have nothing more to hide

The masks I wear come undone

My demons, all out, into the sun

But the numbness drowns out all the fear

Of monsters lurking in my mind

And of voices, dark and drear

So numb, that it leaves no feeling behind

The harder I try, the more I drift away from sleep

Like a noose growing tighter as I pull myself free

Oh! How I yearn for slumber so deep

And of escape into the world of dreams

Still struggling I lay, with a long lost fight

Then I beheld the glorious sight

The first rays of dawn, the night they break

As I still lie awake