S

It was just one of those days. In 2005.

S was still around. Life was focused on entrances. Competition was fierce. Yet, dreams were simple. The mind was relatively free of maladies. Nothing mattered. Laws of motion, chemical equations, microorganisms… that was all. Failure, disillusionment, and mania, were still impossibilities.

It was then, that S started talking. He was under stress. Crushed under the weight of his own expectations. Yet, he talked sense. I hated him. Precisely for that. He talked without gestures. Carefully breathed his spiritual fudge into my system. He talked of creativity. Of enlightenment. Of the Soul. Of faith. Of miracles. He intimidated me. To the extent of boredom. I asked him to shut up. I had stopped understanding. I was seventeen.

Today, I don’t see S around. His ideas never really got him anywhere. A wasted life. He’s very much silent these days. However, on certain evenings, one longs. For those rambling chats. Like a wrap. A sure protection. Against a cold, uncaring world.

Over the years, S has been in and out of oblivion. At times, its things like these that trigger him back to memory:

Many years later Billy was to say to me, ‘Things might have been different, Romi, if that wretched storm had not come up when it did. You see what I mean, don’t you?’ I did not, and I told him so; but then there were many things that I did not see which Billy saw and which, step by step, led him to the only end that awaits those who see too much.

P.S: Excerpt from The Strange Case of Billy Biswas by Arun Joshi. This post is largely on account of the rains I think.

Now Playing:: Jaane do na...................Cheeni Kum