The day we returned from Har ki Doon, I had this day dream; although everything in it actually happened with me, it felt like a reminder of my father's lost Battle of life. And it brought me to tears, yet again.
Someone like Debo or Jith has been looming around my studio for a while, maybe a few days - asking me to leave, or close the studio. I didn't know why. So I have not been paying attention and I have been ignoring him although I knew that he was dangerously looming around and fuming like a demon.
One day I was inside with my sister, Khushi. She was sitting on the sofa and I was standing and talking to her. Suddenly he gushes the glass door open and enters like a storm. I am still standing facing him while he charged at me like a bull, or a mad elephant. I felt completely powerless, helpless, numb, so much so that I could not move an inch to dodge him. It was as if I was hypnotized to a trance, possessed by something like a demon reducing my physical powers to null; numbing my mind and my strength completely. He comes straight ahead and rams me to the ground. My head cracks. Before I realize he lends a heavy cracking blow to my right cheek bone with his knee. I hear my skull crack right open. In an instant he cracks open my left jaw with his elbow and I could feel blood oozing inside my Skull and gushing out through all the openings of my face. Keeps slamming me left, right and center until I almost lose my consciousness. In my half dead state I could dreamily see my sister also getting hurt, and then he left like a storm through the door before I blacked out completely.
Next time I open my eyes, I am shivering with excruciating pain and incomparable fear trembling to regain my posture. I take sometime to sit up and see my face in the mirror totally disfigured and decapitated. I struggle to stand up still shaking, my hands and legs trembling to find the keys quickly. I manage to get my hands on them, switch off all the lights, come out and lock the glass door and leave immediately in my decapitated state, body reduced to a rubble.
After I return home, I see my sister quietly lying down, head resting on the lap of my father and I could also sense the presence of my mother sitting beside. My father is stroking my sister's head staring blankly into the white wall in front and no one is saying a word. My mom utters, " you have the same script as your dad". I turned my gaze from them and isolate myself into a closed room.
My eyes open and I wake up stretching my jaws as if I could still feel the blows on my face. First quote that comes to me is, " let the world grow into you and you can grow into the world" - a slight aberration from Jith's tattoo quote, " let the world change you, and you can change the world." I switch on the dim bed-light and sit quietly staring blankly into my blanket.
Thoughts start streaming in as I try to figure out the meaning of this dream that I had. The only thing that I could sense was my mother's words which meant my life was almost totally the replica of my father's life. Till recently I have not been able to look into his eyes and speak. Every time I do look into his eyes now, I can see pain, tremendous amount of heart wrenching, excruciating and unexpressed pain, forcibly held inside for years so that no one else can see it.
He had tried to do everything in his life in the best possible way with the best possible intentions, never wanting to hurt or harm anyone in the process, always trying to protect and provide for his family and close ones. First the biggest blow he got was from his own Blood Brother, then he was forced to start his own venture which was forcibly shut down by the laborers. Then he tried again and again. And again he tried but failed every time. Eventually he got ousted from his own house where he had grown up spending almost 40 years of his life. After that, at almost 60 he could not recover from his Haunting past and left all hopes of making it big ever again. In this while both his son and daughter had grown up taking up their own career path and that was his biggest achievement in his whole life, all that he could really be proud of.
I felt a strange pang in my heart while all these thoughts were streaming through me. Questions started clouding my head. Will I also fail in my career like him? What did my mother mean by her words? Will my son also have to see the same sad eyes burdened with a lifetime of pain like I do in my father? Will I also end up so lonely, isolated, unheard, not cared for? All the virtues I have built, will that all go in vain? All the things I could do, will that all wither in vain? All the things I could give the world and its people, will all of it rot away in vain?
Yes, the dream could only make that much sense to me. They won't let you, they won't let you, they won't let you. You could lose the whole world but make sure you never let yourself lose your family.
Of all my Creations, my child is my most precious creation.
Someone like Debo or Jith has been looming around my studio for a while, maybe a few days - asking me to leave, or close the studio. I didn't know why. So I have not been paying attention and I have been ignoring him although I knew that he was dangerously looming around and fuming like a demon.
One day I was inside with my sister, Khushi. She was sitting on the sofa and I was standing and talking to her. Suddenly he gushes the glass door open and enters like a storm. I am still standing facing him while he charged at me like a bull, or a mad elephant. I felt completely powerless, helpless, numb, so much so that I could not move an inch to dodge him. It was as if I was hypnotized to a trance, possessed by something like a demon reducing my physical powers to null; numbing my mind and my strength completely. He comes straight ahead and rams me to the ground. My head cracks. Before I realize he lends a heavy cracking blow to my right cheek bone with his knee. I hear my skull crack right open. In an instant he cracks open my left jaw with his elbow and I could feel blood oozing inside my Skull and gushing out through all the openings of my face. Keeps slamming me left, right and center until I almost lose my consciousness. In my half dead state I could dreamily see my sister also getting hurt, and then he left like a storm through the door before I blacked out completely.
Next time I open my eyes, I am shivering with excruciating pain and incomparable fear trembling to regain my posture. I take sometime to sit up and see my face in the mirror totally disfigured and decapitated. I struggle to stand up still shaking, my hands and legs trembling to find the keys quickly. I manage to get my hands on them, switch off all the lights, come out and lock the glass door and leave immediately in my decapitated state, body reduced to a rubble.
After I return home, I see my sister quietly lying down, head resting on the lap of my father and I could also sense the presence of my mother sitting beside. My father is stroking my sister's head staring blankly into the white wall in front and no one is saying a word. My mom utters, " you have the same script as your dad". I turned my gaze from them and isolate myself into a closed room.
My eyes open and I wake up stretching my jaws as if I could still feel the blows on my face. First quote that comes to me is, " let the world grow into you and you can grow into the world" - a slight aberration from Jith's tattoo quote, " let the world change you, and you can change the world." I switch on the dim bed-light and sit quietly staring blankly into my blanket.
Thoughts start streaming in as I try to figure out the meaning of this dream that I had. The only thing that I could sense was my mother's words which meant my life was almost totally the replica of my father's life. Till recently I have not been able to look into his eyes and speak. Every time I do look into his eyes now, I can see pain, tremendous amount of heart wrenching, excruciating and unexpressed pain, forcibly held inside for years so that no one else can see it.
He had tried to do everything in his life in the best possible way with the best possible intentions, never wanting to hurt or harm anyone in the process, always trying to protect and provide for his family and close ones. First the biggest blow he got was from his own Blood Brother, then he was forced to start his own venture which was forcibly shut down by the laborers. Then he tried again and again. And again he tried but failed every time. Eventually he got ousted from his own house where he had grown up spending almost 40 years of his life. After that, at almost 60 he could not recover from his Haunting past and left all hopes of making it big ever again. In this while both his son and daughter had grown up taking up their own career path and that was his biggest achievement in his whole life, all that he could really be proud of.
I felt a strange pang in my heart while all these thoughts were streaming through me. Questions started clouding my head. Will I also fail in my career like him? What did my mother mean by her words? Will my son also have to see the same sad eyes burdened with a lifetime of pain like I do in my father? Will I also end up so lonely, isolated, unheard, not cared for? All the virtues I have built, will that all go in vain? All the things I could do, will that all wither in vain? All the things I could give the world and its people, will all of it rot away in vain?
Yes, the dream could only make that much sense to me. They won't let you, they won't let you, they won't let you. You could lose the whole world but make sure you never let yourself lose your family.
Of all my Creations, my child is my most precious creation.