A journey back home.....Alone !!

This one is about an experience; sort of a mono act wherein everything else was just added tunes to the act.   

    It probably happens almost every time I come back home, alone. But, it was only that day when it grabbed my attention and I kept on thinking about it. A bunch of different thoughts that keep hovering in my mind, were truly felt. 

     It’s a 15 minutes journey by train which after the whole day many a times becomes an agony because of the overcrowding, the constant jostle and occasional fights among commuters and of course the torturous weather of the city. I usually stand at the gate, firstly to allow myself get down easily and secondly the cool breeze to give some temporary relief from the claustrophobic situation inside. But, at times when I get lucky, I am gifted with the luxury of boarding in the well desired Belapur bound trains that remain less crowded.

  

            It was such a luxurious treat I could avail that day and I was alone, which is another rare event as I usually get company to chit-chat with on various issues: from as serious a topic as politics to some silly & nonsense crap. I was standing at the gate; a sudden cool and strong wave of breeze hit me and almost took me away from my senses to a different world. My eyelids got themselves closed beyond my notice as if they wanted me to feel the air entering the body and touch my souls. When I tried opening them, it was hard against the powerful thrash from the wind that the speeding train was channeling towards me. The breeze along with it brought a wave of different feelings and emotions: I don’t understand why always the not so cherished memories strike me first; I turned cold with a vengeance. All those lost days, lost hopes emerged as meaningless desires freshly painted on the canvas. I could then suddenly feel a few drops coming out of the closed eyes. 'OMG……what is happening' I thought! But thanks to the air-stream which saved me of the embarrassment as people would surely mistake it a result of the wind that I am facing. At that position, the wind knocks you so hard that there remains every chances of losing balance and especially if you are in a trance like me. I was then slapped and knocked back to senses.

As they say ‘wake up from your dreams and face the real(ity)’ (which is not always harsh), getting back to senses was a treat to my eyes. I realized what I was missing out on, and all those overwhelming thoughts suddenly turned into wasteful facts to linger on. There was another canvas before my eyes: as vast as the sky – covered with dark grey clouds, dotted with some clear patches, as green as those tall trees – swaying in the air that is carrying messages from soon to arrive monsoon. As the train was moving ahead leaving behind the trail of city life of greater Mumbai, the force and sound of the wind was becoming even greater and louder. I captured the frame in my mind: the huge creek full of water with random waves in it lined by lass green mangroves in one side and the city line of the mainland on the other, and dark hilly dots far away almost at the middle of the sea. The water haunts me every time I come and cross the bridge over it and pull me down when I look at it with a fixed glance. It felt even stronger that day; the water seemed to have been frozen with a wavy appearance and I could feel the depth it had within. It reminded me of a comment someone once made, "Your eyes are very differently beautiful; they are calm but deep, as if holding a lot of things within, hiding something massive". I got the sensation all of a sudden as I ounce and ounce of fresh oxygen got pumped into my lungs, that I was left refreshed, rejuvenated from inside. As if, I was going to start a new day with full vigour; all fatigue, pain in the back just vanished….

I started humming tunes of various songs, in a row much like a medley. I felt as though I am the only one being treated by nature to its utmost pleasure. I was floating in the air like those free birds, everything else around turned out hazy exactly as happens in the films to give focus to something the actor is doing. In my mono-act, the chit-chats from fellow passengers, calls and shouts from the vendors were like the background score. For a few seconds I veered my glance inside, towards the fellow passengers. All of them were busy in something or the other: some talking to their train friends, some sitting lazily and trying to get some sleep by the time they reach their destination and of course most of them busy with their smart phones. I felt pity for them, smiled and thought of shouting at them for what they are missing out, for them to take time out of their busy life just to ‘Stand and stare’ for a while and forget everything else that make them annoyed and make them find ways to spew their frustrations on the fellow passengers and go back home as refreshed as I was feeling. A lady, sitting at a diagonal direction from me, caught my attention all of a sudden. I stared at her expressionless face for a while, and then realized that she was probably observing me for a long time now. Firstly I was feeling like I am a movie STAR whom the world is watching alive. 'She was probably feeling amused', I thought to myself,  'to see all those ever changing and multitude of expressions being displayed on my face as I was drifting from one thought to another'. She was probably thinking that I’m a bit not normal, as I would have thought had I been in her position. But strangely enough, she was still expressionless as I was trying to read her mind in that few seconds. She lowered her eyes and I turned around to the fast melting canvas once again,
…..and remembered one of my writings from January 2014-----

The intoxication of loneliness in slowly winning over the heart..!! - (I am mentioning this here because all that I have written came to me when I was travelling alone that once upon a time I was not much fond of..but now enjoy every bit of it)

In akelepan mein bhi ek ajeeb sa nashaa hai……
Na koi jaam, na kisi ki chahat,
Magar phir bhi dil chahta hai, iss nashe mein dube rehne ko; 
Har pal har ghari, jo chhaya hai dil o jaan pe, 
Shayad inn tanhaiyan se mujhe pyaar hai…

                                                           I realized that all these thoughts, feelings, emotions are not new to me. I have and I always experience them, almost each day I come back home alone. But probably, as everything in the world is said to have a right time to happen, that was the day for all those sensations to strike me and strike so hard that I get compelled to write them down …… as a story, a monologue; as a bit too much poetic and philosophic (as you wish to look at it). :-) :-)