The
regardless footsteps towards home, as usual start with a routine, tackling the
strides of the never-ending flights of a stair, each step a tango to
the flow of time, to the seething tick-tock of a haggard clock, every ticking
movement, a drop of sound trying to quench the thirst of time’s muteness.
Perhaps, the reason for the signboard next to the clock-tower, Time n
Sound. Strolling yonder, head as usual slightly bent downwards, the unbaffled
gaze beholds, lying next to the partly deformed railing almost battling to
guard the catwalk, a sodden cover of the famed glue given the name Quickfix,
and a bit across it, a dull brown poplar leaf, an embodiment of the soul of
autumn’s rage, persisting through the cold beauty of winter. The sight brings
to mind yet another unflurried act of nature mocking at human efforts of
restoration, irony immortalized.
Some
yards further, the steps are greeted, as they have been a countless times
before, by a feigning stretch of the defunct side drain, now having assumed the
form of a prolonged pool, of storm water, presently home to a queer looking
used bottle of potable water, alongside an empty packet
of cigarettes. The picture of ravaged lungs on it, appearing equally
ravaged. Next to these, some frozen lumps of snow, adorning a fine layer of
dust, oddly resemble the adjacent small blocks of concrete, which roofed a shop
till some days before. Apparently, in unison atlast, celebrating the banality of the
functional failure of the very side-drain which houses them and too of the
administering minds. This side-drain is not alone in its travesty, as it has
its reasons to enjoy its place in the grand scheme of all side-drains and also
of the (mis)administering minds in the city, proud to embrace failure
collectively. Just that the empty bottle looks so thirsty, and the cigarette
packet so withdrawn.
Somewhere
midway before the home, on one of those creepy corners on the roadside, lies a
cast away bottle of beer labelled Kingfisher, seemingly wailing its emptiness
or perchance even feting the same, Reminding the uneasy mind of
the ever-so restlessly fluttering Kingfisher hovering over the turbid
Jhelum on the bundside. The only difference, possibly, between the actual
Kingfisher and its impersonation on the beer bottle, being, the packaged
confusion reflected amply in the convoluted line of shops and malls dividing
the serene bund from the chaotic road. A subtle conjugation of disjuncture.
A
tad farther, while passing the playground, its desertion makes one feel, as if
this homeland is nothing but a forlorn canvas painted in hurry, it instills
infinitely varied feelings each time one beholds it. Now an audience, now an
act. An anchor sometimes and a storm at other. A life full of revelry bestowed
on a being of dirge. An Armageddon inside the sanctum of Paradise. A
resignation consoled by dejection. Lord Almighty might have been inspired by
this place to create Adam, at-least.
The
road to my home, like all other roads in my homeland, does not seem to lead you
anywhere, it’s like a moment of silence striking all the tacit notes
of requiem all at once. The countless faces passing by do not bring
forth a sense of familiarity, rather a sense of suspicion, suspicion that the
eerie look of loss in their eyes comes from the same suffering that has my eyes
stony. Wonder if a time comes, when someone suggests them all to cut their
hands, which failed to gouge these eyes, a constant remembrance of agony. But
as for now, even with this much of excruciation, the dull and slow brevity of
the roads in and around my homeland, never fatigue to act as a drug which
inebriates most of its dwellers with a severe sense of sentience.
This
ruefully merry city is unlike the contritely gaudy cities which overwhelm
people to the point that they completely vanish in the ensuing make-believe glitter,
rendering them just dark spots the glimmer thrives upon. This homeland, with all
its emptiness, is like a sincere black-hole, where the spirit of all light
reaches its zenith, an embrace of two boundless emotions. Its silence, the
lament of its own choked sigh, the ripples of its own impeccable sight, now
blurred, by the streams of tears shed to protect the sanctity of the seas of
blood that feed the same void and make the wings of freedom flutter with an
abandon.
Without
knowing the why or the need thereof, being here feels more like a tree, though
with a shade greater circumference of mobility, but still a bare tree,
breathing through the gaping hollowness of its own retiring skeleton. A tree,
deeply settled in and laying with the indistinguishable layers of time’s soil,
the trunk, a mute memory to all the storms, to all the calm, to all the
blossoming moons, to all blazing suns, to all restless summer days &
anxious winter nights, to gripping moments and dull mundane instants, to
infuriating dog barks, to deafening gun barrels, to protracted and
pointless tulip rows, to almost empty mass graves and famed terraced gardens,
to disappeared body of human souls, to spontaneous and visceral coronaches, to
cheerful and lively wedding songs, to the firecrackers about to set the night
sky on fire, to retired & tarry spines, to passionately thumping bosoms, to
autumn’s red bridal cheeks and winter’s white bridal gown, to hollow laughs
& rich wails, to the stillness of apparent flux, to blatant secrets, to
knowledge & ignorance, to relentless dreams & tireless sleep, to deeds
imprisoned in words & words proudly divorced from deeds, to failure &
hope. Contrary it may seem, yet it’s the trunk that has to bear the burden of
both, being rooted at one end and of the exemption of its branches which have
nothing to embrace at the other.
Just
about my mute trunk reaches the farthest bounds of its circumference, the rumble of the worn out engine of a combat vehicle brings back the sense of
friction between my feet and the undulating surface of this road. I wish there
were more stairs to manoeuvre the indefinite gaps between dead ends in oneself
and the stalemate of roads, I would die to see them both end up in the
wilderness, like a tree in a stairwell basking in the suspended freedom of the
staircase, the ultimate abode. But, as always, the dreadful thought of a fall,
as in this moment too, echoes again, and I resign to hope, the last stretch of
dusty & unpaved road home.
