When He Lost and Found His Soul: Third part of a Trilogy

By Pranab Ghosh

When He Lost and Found His Soul:
Third part of a Trilogy

Drenched in rain, I soak in words. Those come from the left, the right, back and front. I stand perplexed, finding it difficult, almost impossible to grasp the right words and their right significance. Left and Right. The ... isms compete with each other coated in sugary syrup, resembling some women. “All My Melancholy Whores,” a journalist and writer would have written, but what has been once created need not be recreated.

Rain falls. Somewhere in a parched land a Man looks at the cracked-up land and waits for the rain. I shudder. Here it has been raining for the last five days. I remember Bible. It rained for three days and three nights and earth disappeared. Our earth gets submerged. I stay afraid. What if it disappears? No Noahs are in sight!

It took one in Biblical times to save the human race and other species. How many would we require today?

I look towards my right and find her standing some distance away. I see the cloak of love. I hear the protestations of love. But words soon get blurred. Love talks all sham. Eyes start to do a merry-go-round. It’s ghastly. It’s ghostly. They whisper. I counter the love talk and try to move. Did someone pull out the dagger? I am carrying no weapons.

... Love ... love ... love ... I presumed ... Only a ploy ... Only a plot ... Only a mischief ... Only a faith ... Only a hand ... And it takes two hands to clap, they say. “Here I come, the other hand,” whispers hate, the dagger that comes out of the cloak.

Love ... and ... hate ...

Love ... and ... hate ...

The potion is the cure all. ... They think. ... The panacea. ... Doses should be increased or decreased. The disease and its remedy ... the disease and its remedy ... All will fall in line ... They think.

Drenched in rain

I soak in words

Coming from the heart

Coming from the brain

Coming from the liver

Coming from the rotting gut

Coming from the belly, empty

Coming from the soul ...

And then I listen!

A heart to heart talk? You dare not question, lest you get lynched in the hands of your love. Instead you whip up a passion and try to cosy up to her, wanting free-falling love to submerge you. You wait patiently.

“You are falling apart,” a voice whispers in your ears and you look to your right, to your left, and then front and behind and see her standing at a distance from you, towards the left. You begin to move. Someone throws a bucket of water in front. It’s mud! The road is ‘kunchha’, not ‘pucca’ as you thought. Your path gets muddied. Slippery. You may slip. You may fall, but you keep going, balancing with two hands spread towards the horizon at both sides, moving those up and down involuntarily, to prevent the fall ...

You move on. The sun comes out in the horizon; her face is kissed by the rays. She appears to be glowing. Did she stand there through the night, expecting you to begin your journey in the morning and reach your destiny? You stood through the night ... ? Or did you squat at midnight on the grass that had been growing for sometime under your feet, or did you go to sleep in your grass bed at night? You fail to remember. But now at daybreak you seem to be engulfed by a missionary zeal and you take your fledgling footsteps towards the sun, towards her ...

Her face beaming

She turns around

And begins to move

Further left

Now in front of you ...

You are cautious

You take measured

Steps, so as not

To slip ... one ...

Two ... three ... four ...

You walk and walk

And

Walk

Dreams disappear

In the process

Faces disappear

In the process

Longings disappear

In the process

Association disappears

In the process

And ...

And ...

And ...

Where is the mud path?

It’s concrete

It’s asphalt

Now

A highway!?

How far have I walked?

“There is a meadow ahead

A river and a hut ... for all of us,

For all of us ... ” she whispers.

Dream returns

Association returns

Time starts taking

Cognizance once more

Tempering the time

Is the need of the hour!

PS: Is she real

Or a dream?

A fact or

A fantasy?

Time has the answer!