Reminiscence and Reality

Ominous presence is what most would call it. The gruff silence could only be interpreted as haughtiness… a certain element that took away the youthfulness of the age. Only at unguarded moments there would be spurts of the self. A certain surrender of guard. But they were so sparsely scattered during the tenure of 12 years of inhibition that nobody really noticed.


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In the silence of the room the only desire was to communicate … to look for a meaning in all the commotion. Believing things are not what they seem … trying hard to gel in. And yet something held back … maybe the arrogance of self-respect. Changing beyond it seemed humiliating.

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The inward drive didn't harm anyone … just as a snail secure in its shell, or a worm in its cocoon. Yet the dream was to flutter … to be a butterfly … radiant colours … smiles … rainbows of friends. So colours spilled into words ... into the paint brushes ... into the rhythms. An occasional gesture of plentitude flooded the soul. And then there was the sky.

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Sunset on the Ganges © Subhragshu S. Chattopadhyay

During the winter solstice, the sun is dimmed. There are a few prisms of dew on the grass, making rainbows on the glass of Glenfiddich. Star-gazing, the desire to have had more rainbows rushes back like gusts of old wind…