Instances From Life - III

I was walking on the edge of the road. The winds were bleak and the soil was damp. It seemed as if it’d rained a few hours ago. I didn’t know, wasn’t even interested in the acknowledgement. I was so silent. It felt like a stranger talking to myself. What’s happening; I thought miserably.

Walking alone in the dim light of dusk, I just wanted to go back to my childhood and be the person who kept smiling over the silliest things devoid any meaning. But time isn’t a good friend, is it? I could no more shelter the sorrows in my heart. It was at a degree of explosion.

“Bhaiya, One Classic Mild” I said, passing him a worn out Ten-rupee note.

The last rays of dusk had been disappeared by then. I lit a cigarette and kept walking. The smoke felt too good. After a long time, I had wanted to do some favour to my family by just relieving them of this daily embarrassment that I’ve caused. I wanted to run away. I didn’t know where I would be going. I didn’t know what would happen after that. All I thought of was the only fact, that I cannot be a blot on a bright wall.

I wanted to call Usman, who recently failed his CPT exams the second time and was currently under the same trauma as I. If there was a person I always wanted to be with me, it was him. With him, I always felt like my strength doubling, my soul supporting me and so does my heart. But today, I had even lost him. Lost him for the sake of some misunderstandings; and that was a sharper cut on my heart than ever.

“Brother, did my words hurt you to the extent that you forgot everything. Forgot everything! The friendship that we had from the past 15 years; you forgot! I cannot believe it.” I messaged him.

My eyes were teary and stressed. I didn’t know who else was walking around me. My vision was blurring and the blurredness was because of the flood of tears that had just assembled on my eye-lids before the final dead-flow. I wanted him to be with me today. I had never thought he’d ever misunderstand me. I had always thought that he understands me the best, but today when he fails to understand, who else could I expect understanding me.

He didn’t reply. He didn’t care to respond. In such a bad time, I was alone in life.

Puffing cigarettes were never so consoling than today. Darkness was enveloping the walls; submerging the world.

Nature had already proved me wrong when I thought that I still had a person on my side. Fouzia Di, I thought of her being the shadow of my existence, but I forgot there’s no place for a shadow in the darkness. I had tweeted her earlier but her behaviour proclaimed the defeat of my thoughts and beliefs. For the first time, she had behaved so differently, she almost avoided me. I couldn’t give it a thought. It was the most painful one.

“Bhaiya Kidhar Bhatak rahe ho”  A tall-framed man, who was walking behind me from the past 15 minutes, watching me behaving abnormally finally spoke up. 

“Bass bhaiya ek friend ka wait kar raha houn” I said, without making an eye contact so that the innocent tears in my eyes aren’t revealed.

I didn’t want the world to know that I’m loosing. I didn’t want the people to see me as a weak and unfortunate man. I wanted to be strong, I had always dreamed of my name being listed in the bars of ‘Toughest Survival’.

I had reached so far, nobody from my home side tried to contact. I felt like they no more wanted to accompany a person who could not even make his existence a reality. I mean, who’d like to stand besides a person who’d never be able to bring smile on their lips.

I realised, no matter how many times the dice falls on the side you had wanted it to; the only time when it falls the side you hadn’t wanted it to; you’re just like the King of the Board who knows that no matter how many steps it takes to rescue itself; the victory is never going to be his again.

By then, I had already puffed the whole cigarette. But some mere grams of nicotine couldn’t relieve me. It was as if God had placed a huge boulder on my chest, which despite my strong efforts, doesn’t agree the terms of displacement.

“Bhaiya, One packet Classic Mild” I passed two hundred-rupee notes to a young boy sitting in a small Tin-shop.

Once again in my life, I experienced the same thing; that in the bad times I was facing the calamities alone. How true is the theory of man being an individual to everything that comes in life; I thought.

I was alone or just say that loneliness had my company. And I didn’t even want anyone besides me. Hatred was flowing in my blood.

After spending more than an hour on a pavement doing nothing, I decided to return home. I didn’t want to, nor did my legs. But I had to, I had to return. There was a world waiting for me, challenging me; and no matter how bad a person we become in life, the arms of our mother and the hands of our father are always there to accept and welcome us. I couldn’t just abandon them and let them die, nor could I stay with them being a burden and disgrace; it was a dilemma. From the duo, I chose being unashamed and immoral one more night and returned.

-         Syed Rehan