Protracted Peek-a-boo

Interminable wait, a tardy sojourn.
Should I abide as the seasons mourn?
Your travails across the expanse so blue;
Ah! Why tease me with this peek-a-boo?


Botanical gardens, Ooty

Paradise (?)

Picture this (if you can, that is): It is close to 8 o’ clock in the evening. You are walking down the road towards one of the busiest crossings in all of Hyderabad. You haven’t slept properly for about a week now, and had a pretty long day to add to it. You had to go for a movie at 8, but are not sure now, and are trying to call everyone up concerned to confirm that you would prefer going for the later show.

You are walking straight down, on the divider, alternately messaging, calling, or trying to call up. You haven’t for once looked up on the road. Your mind is in a muddle. Or maybe you take the road too much for granted to actually give it a space on the horizon of your mindspace.

You have reached right in the middle of the road, close to the traffic policeman’s box, which is empty. You are suddenly very very aware. Of yourself, and yourself alone. Nothing else. You don’t know how you got there. Everything is a blur. There are people talking, to each other, to some others, to some present, to some absent. There are people waiting in anticipation. There are people just existing. But you don’t know why they are doing what they are doing.

Suddenly, one of the lights turns from red to green, and cars whizz past, but you don’t know why. You don’t know why they won’t slow down, you don’t know the reason for this perceived madness, except that it is something that is.

You don’t belong here. You can’t associate. You feel you have suddenly dropped out of nothingness. You have no idea what you are doing there. Everything around is a blur, a blur of motion, a blur of faces, a blur of conversations, a blur in time.

A guy at the corner is signaling something, except that you don’t know what, or to whom. It is a weird mixture of hand gestures and parting of the lips, except that the sound is distant and the gestures unfathomable. Another set of lights change, and with creaks and shrieks, another set of gas guzzlers shoot out. A tinkle, and two cycles almost collide. Unfortunately, you still can’t connect – it is almost as if it’s a different world, a different universe altogether, a mutually exclusive existence.

And it is then that you look at your watch. It is still not 8 yet. From the time you last remember, it is eons, except that your watch doesn’t quite agree. It tells you that not even 300 seconds have passed.

You turn around and look up. Bright neon lights flashing Paradise in red illuminate the restaurant at the end of the universe.