BY THE BROOK, SILENT DAYS

It was another late morning by the brook, when I suddenly decided to slow down along my walk on that oft-trodden lonely path of pale grass and pebbles, that meandered its way through waist-high wild flowers and bushy green down to the patch of dampness that flanked the flowing stream... 

As if I was expecting somebody to catch up with me, somebody with little feet and little paces.. With eyes as sad as a lonely violin, and lips pursed up and quivering, as he would say nothing, reveal nothing....

Deja vu?

I saw him there, caressing the petals of wild flowers in a dense thicket of a serene green and shy yellow. I knew those eyes (but did he know mine?) I knew the gentle sadness behind those eyes, one that came from the lonely world of a dreamy prince. The colours and the magic, the princes and the fairies of that world never fitted into the scheme of things that he saw everyday in a busy city life that went on, a life which, he knew, would never show interest in the mystery of his magic princedom, no matter how much he dreamt.

Yes he did not know me, he didn't recognize my eyes that locked gaze with his.. His dreams had taken him here, into the lazy idyll of a streaming brook and the banks of green bushes and shy flower colours that stretched by its sides. He had come here so that I would look into his eyes, and feel, and remember, and ponder in the silent slow hours that I would spend, seated on its damp earthy banks...

moments flowed by..And then it was as if I knew I had seen enough, and as if he knew his job was done... He walked away, looking down on his shadow that guarded the pebbles into a delight of cool shadowy respite because the midday sun was a little behind his back...

Tomorrow he would come again and perhaps sit in my shadow as he would look across at the opposite bank..and the stream would flow in its own rhythm of fluid notes.

But that would be tomorrow. I would have plenty to remember and think about....

FROM INSIDE THE GLASSHOUSE

THE TAIL END

https://www.facebook.com/notes/lipi-sanyal/the-tail-end/438481046210447
[* The link pasted above is a Facebook note written by one of my lady - friends here, which I had come across months back. Here I write a Post Script to it.]

Going through this memoir made me an audience watching a ballet.

Following the lines with a mind engaged with intensely eager graphics, I notice movements, of human eyes, eyebrows, jaws, lips....

I follow them, eyes and brows and lips -  a ruefully oft-ignored set of 'entities', an exclusive club of members abused by blunt neglect, despite being loyal to their master (or mistress) - a club so intricately wrapped around our 24 hour long day, as we live, breathe and go out there to have a go at the world outside, to embrace or to take life on head on.

I notice the Prima Ballerina too, as she
pirouettes around like a nimble dancer and takes a plunge into a dramatic sequence under the gaze of none-too-impressed ballerinas.

The protagonist pair of the script, the Gold Framed Pair, skirts around too,
along with the rest of its lot and becomes the chosen one. It sends its mistress on a delightful flight which almost reaches to feel the Ninth Heaven. And I ask myself : "Have I witnessed such brilliant choreography ever before?"

The next few and fleeting moments seem to be frozen in vacuum, Time the old gypsy man suspended in ether. Then the last flight unfolds in frozen frames at the onset of the climactic crescendo.

I see that the last flight is sadly bereft of all Grace and finely tuned Finesse of the nimble-footed that could have reached heavenly heights. Rapid thoughts interact in a momentary
tent-et-tent, keeping the Royal Couple right in the centre of human attention which, true to its own nature, moves in a never-ending circle.

The jury delivers at last. Human Judgment casts down with a Curse, the pair of Gold Rimmed Glasses with brute impunity from the heavens. And the last flight, stripped of all respect and glory (that is oh so transient in the human mind), takes along with it the golden treasure which crash into terrestrial terrains to break in to pieces. And with that, my heart breaks too.

But of course in our insensitive world, man is never short of replacements, is he?

ANATOMY OF REMINISCENCE

Sometimes those evenings come when you keep thinking about songs and you keep painting pictures in your mind with the melody and words, one after another. And you suddenly stop painting in your mind because you just don't want to proceed even if it is a half finished eccentric jamboree of colours - the notes of melody impress upon you, not exactly in harmony. Yet you stop right there, upon an incomplete, imperfect, ill - comprehended drop of impatient emotions. And the imperfect 'nothing' seems to be agreeing to whatever you speak to your own self silently.

I have observed it in private solitude and tried to get to the root of it - a kind of deja vu that doesn't disappear but drags along,  lasts for more than half an hour. To get to the root of the seductive mystery you have to move retrograde. When I indulge in starting a long trek, I see a path, unreal and rarely trodden, but with vibes so powerful. It's like a thread that runs through beads of memories- sweet or sour, happy or forgettable, placed in near perfect chronology.

I don't agree with the established explanations in psychology books, that qualify modes of reminiscence as linear and retrograde. It might be explained via mathematical equations, perfect and solved. But man himself  is imperfect, his attitude and approach are imperfect so memories have to be imperfect too.They do not always orient themselves in a nature which is chronological. It is us who place them one after the other so that in times of dire necessity, falling back might find us in a much welcome harmony. So when we reminisce, we do not loose objectivity and sanity.I find memories scattered randomly, and at times merged with each other to an extent, even recent and old ones.It is an irregular cluster of the ecent and the old that tells us that a continuous thread does run to our roots. And when one stops, leaving a half painted picture, it means you have chanced upon such a string which goes long back, not four weeks or months, or four years.

Memories stream by. One moves back and back, and it's a question that motivates you, something like those half-hearted silent nothings you mutter to yourself ending with a question-mark each time, once again.

If I was asked why 'once' 'again', I still don't know. I mean, I might come out with a signing off sentence, but I know that I am still ignorant about 'once', just as I am about 'again'. Still it makes sense if I plead ignorance putting 'once' and 'again' together, despite me being aware that it's not an answer. And I am weary now.

I've been living all alone since a long time. There used to be more signs of life around me then, and nothing ever suggested that a time like this might come. It helps you, keeps you motivated to look towards tomorrow with something in mind. I am not pondering over right or wrong, it's just looking back over the 'presents' and the 'absents'.

Why do I feel like putting up a response then? It just adds to a list of questions, and that doesn't do people like me any good - people who seem to be all over the place all the time and it is hard not to notice the jamboree and the elaborate vacuum that actually sounds so empty.

But that always makes a sound for you. It's a sound alright. It's the part of the real life. At times that sound tells me that I've taken a long time to accept a fact, and I have erred. All this while, I have been searching for an answer without understanding the question.

I realize that with time the question has changed into a fact of life somewhere out there, and I didn't notice when. It's not about answers as to why. The fact is - there won't be any answer ever for me, because the question has ceased to exist in its primal state, and so it is thus best to keep them where they are and move on.

As I have written -- once again. 

I am a happy man now, eager to dream.... the dreams seem  eager to be dreamt too.. And doesn't that make every single day my day? It does!

And my signature line, which Frank Sinatra crooned over a Sunday afternoon Phlips radio to a 7 year old me and gave me goose-bumps as i choked on "Wow, that's a dreaming croone!" whisper, shall not change. And I dream too, as I write - WHATEVER I DID, I DID IT MY WAY..