the long search

When you have nowhere to go, go back to yourself.

Wish & Rain

I wish it rained. This has been far too long a dry spell.


For quite some time, it’s raining fire. Everything appears so lifeless, so barren out here. It’s, as if, the world around me is crying out for the heavens to open up; for a sudden downpour which takes you by surprise but gives a pleasure which otherwise cannot be described or measured.



This dry spell sometimes is so reminiscent of the lives we live.



Parched earth. Parched life. Parched soul.



I wish it rained.




There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;
Someday soon, there will come soft rains……

To Hope

Beyond hope, there is memory. Years back, I had read this line somewhere.





B and I. We rarely met. Whenever we did, we did not have time for each other. Just enough to exchange pleasantries. But I knew B well enough. He was a part of the extended branch of the family tree.


I have not met him in last three and a half years. He lives a few hundred miles away.


Last time I saw him, he was on a hospital bed, unable to move. An accident had left him immobile. Doctors said he had hurt a nerve somewhere along the cervical vertebrae.


B was a good student, did well for himself with a Government job. He was a better painter and a writer. He was passionate about his after-work life.


That January night, three years back, he was on his way back after a game of badminton when B met with an accident. Nobody noticed him though. He was lying by a desolate roadside for the next six hours till the day break when someone spotted him. There were some minor bruises on his body, ones which would not need any hospitalization. But he had hurt himself bad.


In the next few hours when he was rushed to the hospital, I saw him lying on his bed. He appeared normal. He felt no pain. He felt nothing below his neck. No sensation at all. In clinical terms, it’s called quadriplegic.


B was married just for seven months. I remember attending his wedding. He looked very happy that day.


His family worked very hard for him. He was put through severe physiotherapy regimes but there was little or very slow improvement. Sometimes, at low-levels of quadriplegia, limb functionality returns. Sometimes, when the degree is severe, it takes years. Sometimes, it just does not.


B’s improvement was slow. There were times when he, out of sheer desperation, would want his near and dear ones to leave him to die.  But his family never gave up on him. His wife M just did not.


I have not met B ever since.


A few days back, when I returned home, as usual after the mid-night, I saw a book lying on the table. It was short story collection and B was the author.


I turned the cover. The first page read: To M.  I owe this book to you. And, this life too.


*****


One need not always hold on to memory. Beyond hope, I believe, there is still hope. Even in the depths of hopelessness when every light of faith and belief flickers out, there is still hope. We just need to know where to look. I am sure B did find out.


 


To B. And, to Hope.



(Image:  http://www.manywallpapers.com)

About this blog

If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed

My Guests

Tag Cloud