TWILIGHT

There is the left and there is the right. There is the day and there is the night.

And he had always wondered why it was and what it was. That is whenever he could take time off for wondering. Strange isn’t it? In the days gone by there was time enough and subjects no less to wonder and wander in and out of. An issue, an idea taken out, flirted with, tossed up into the air and poked into. Ultimately, it floats down for what it is –germs for further ideas. That was in the days gone by.
But, today it is different. He would muse in moments snatched from the day and the night; while walking on the road and off it. Yet somehow, he couldn’t place or categorize things. And while the day would merge into the night he would not exactly be thinking about it but it would still be there in the back of his mind. Somewhere there in the back of his mind.

One day his friend called him in to offer a few words of advice. You have lost your fire. Your mind, body and heart is here but not your soul he said. He stared into his eyes and through them .Let me not react. Please God, I want to respond.

If he has lost his fire, why did his heart burn-with acidity- every morning? Consequence of the junk that the city fed him with? If he has lost fire, why did his eyes sting every evening? Consequence of the smoke exhaled by the city in the name of progress. If he has lost his fire, why did his body burn, every night, as if in the grip of a vicious malarial fever? Consequence of all the things that he wanted to do during the day but couldn’t? Consequence of all the things that he didnot want to do but ended up doing anyways?

He wanted to react. Deep inside him a voice screamed: My soul is mine not yours. Not the goddamned company’s. Not anybody’s. Be happy. You got my mind .So why ask for more. Anyway, balls I care.

The last plaintive wail of a dying demon!! But, all that he did was smile. And all that he said was I will think about it. But all that he knew was there will be no time for it.

So, when she asked him what do you think and feel about what there is between us, he replied “I will think about it.” And think he did: while crossing the streets: while the kid beside him emptied his bag in the bus; while he got sandwiched in the local trains etc etc.

Then he remembered the days when there was time to think. And as his mind clouded with thoughts, he found himself walking in the middle of the road. And the sun, it was busy ringing down the curtains. Vehicles whizzed by in a maddening rush to get wherever they were going. Some had their lights on. For a moment he was afraid of being runover by someone whose sole objective might be to make it. But, then the richness of the moment overtook him.

It was that glorious time when the daylight had ended but night had not descended. The sun had set but the moon had not arisen. Some people called it twilight, but he would prefer the grey zone. Between day & night. Between black & white. Between left & right. Between passion & passivity.

I wish I knew.

(c)Atanu Prasad Sarma