The Unnamed Lady

She was sitting all by herself by the traffic light. What did her eyes see ? They were cast down upon the road. Her fragile body was oscillating and the motions seemed to rise to a crescendo. Her hair was undone, big visible layers of dirt had made their texture like that of a jute rope. Her frame was bent in a squat and her overall demeanor was that of a frenzied stupor. She had big eyes, but they were cast down on to the road. Even as big vehicles darted across, her eyes did not seem to register the events. On her arm was a bangle. It was a set of glass bangle, red in color. But she had it only on her left hand. Her right hand was empty. 

I do not know why i was inexplicably drawn to her. I had just had dinner with a couple of my colleagues. We spoke about a lot of things. About how the politicians are making a mess of the country, about how the education system in India does not promote knowledge, about how the disparity between the rich and the poor exists, no matter what. All of them seemed very distant now. All that my mind could register was this fragile frame moving to and fro, ignorant about whatever was happening around her. 

Does she have a name ? Should I go up to her and ask her her name ? Would that be appropriate ? On retrospect, when you consider the questions that enters your mind, you realize how far we have come as a race and how far I have come as a person. The requirement of permission to initiate a conversation is symbolic of the mental leap that it represents. Would it be the same if it was a pretty girl at the bar ? Or a friend of a colleague who I was meeting for the first time. Definitely not, I think.

She had no name after all. She remembered nothing about herself. She did not know who her parents were, or where she was from , or how she was where she is now, or what her name is. For me, it was something incomprehensible. How does a person not know what their name is ? How does a person not know where they are from ? How does a person not know anything about their past ? I break my head about what my purpose in life is. I break my head over the question of who I am or who do I want to be. I break my head over the meaning of my life. I break my head about the events in the past. And I could not believe her. Here was someone, so completely oblivious about themselves that they hardly knew they existed. It was the culmination of her life that she had grown so alien to herself. 

Two hours had passed by. I was still sitting beside her. I do not know why. Am I exploiting her ? Am I using her to find my answers ? Am I trying to get into her head and explain my troubles with her solution. Her mind would be an interesting place to be. What would it have ? What does my mind have ? Whatever my mind has, I know for sure it starts with an 'I' most, if not all, of the times. Can you imagine a blank mind ? Subdued by years and years of substance abuse. Can you imagine a hollow soul ? Sucked up of life by years and years and physical abuse and violence. Can you feel it ? You cannot. I was trying to understand something that was beyond my capacity to understand. 

There are concepts. There are words. There are equations. None of them so difficult to understand as a single simple thing as an emotion. No word can convey an emotion that you have never felt. It can only create in you an illusion of having felt that emotion. I was trying to induce in myself those emotions by sitting besides the unnamed lady.  I was in search of self-pity. It was a desperate attempt to feel what I thought she would be feeling. These were not ideas conveyed through words, but by senses. 

I could not leave the place because I had found a part of me. And i wanted to run away from it no more. Fear made me stay there frozen. I was in that dreaded intersection of purpose where you do not know whether to plunge or to withdraw. Such a petty fool I am ! I thought. Half hoping that the lady would finally get up and leave or at least turn around, curse me, spit at me, hurl abuses and leave me laughing to myself. I guess that is what I wanted to do and I was projecting it onto her. So weak a man. 

I slept there at the pavement. When i woke up, it was 5 in the morning. For a few seconds, i had to scan the location to find out where I was. As i got up from the previous position, which was being stretched out dangerously on the road, i had a funny feeling that all those people who must have seen me, must have thought of me as a hopeless drunkard. 

She was not there. It gave me an inexplicable joy to be rid of her. It was like the clearing of shadow for warm rays to come in. Was she the shadow ? Or was my soul a shadow to my self ? I care not. I felt free. 

Maybe, someday you too will meet her. If you happen to, ask her name, please do let me know. Her face is stuck to my mind, but i have no label to put on her. 

Maybe if we stop labeling everyone, we will know everyone better because then we will not be concerned about details fabricated in complicated words but about the message that each soul carries within. Maybe, then we will be able to feel the joy in each others laughter and maybe then we can think of each other as same, as branching from the same tree of life. Maybe, then can we be unconditionally happy. 

The experience helped me a lot. I look up to the unnamed lady in times of despair.

If you meet her, say her I said "Thank You"

Will you ?

The bottle clanged by the dark corner of his room, as he looked at the ceiling fan which were diffracting the light from the tube , he saw a demon rise and fall in the shadows that darted across his ceiling - now rising now falling, now bellowing balls of fire ,smoke and ashes, now stabbed at the heart by a hero born out of the same ashes. As his gaze went over yonder, he could see little children playing in the garden and the sound of rain mingled with their laughter as the shadows lengthened and all sounds faded into the darkness, until all he was left with was the silence of his sorrow and pain and the feeling of head spinning around. He fell unconscious.

The river was flowing at its own ease, singing its own song, scurrying along at her own pace. Her voice echoed through the mountains and mixed with the fountains and added to the freshness of the water that fell onto the rocks - blessed are their souls to be bathed by such sanctity. She had to rush down like everyday to meet her lover the Sea, who like a true lover stood there waiting with his arms wide open. Everyday, every moment, all she wanted was to rush into the arms of her lover. Her smiles, her songs, her freshness, her life, everything was bundled into a singular intent - of being in her lovers embrace.

He woke up dazed. A very bad dream it was. He shook his head and pulled out a pitcher from the bucket lying near his bed and started drinking of it. The freshness of the water that hit his lips lifted his spirits like notes of music rising to a crescendo, like a woman seduced into a state of absolute nothingness, until the realization came crashing down on him - his love was no more.  The nightmares seemed childish, the headache seemed like a itch from the past, subdued, dead. He grasped his hair, and letting out a frantic yell put his head on his palms and started wailing.


His home, his bed has been this little device, cleverly designed to keep the crippled living, giving them the illusion of freedom. Who wants to live with a crippled ? Every day he woke up, he left a ray of hope that his love would come for him. Everyday he took his world, his wheelchair and himself to the Metro station and waited patiently, with a smile on his face for his love to come.

Who will tell him, she is dead ? Who will break his heart ? Is it not better to let someone live in the illusion of hope. Is it not better to let someone get up everyday and think that something different is going to happen and that their life is going to change.

Maybe it is. Maybe it is not.

Even today you can see him outside the A____ metro station, a smile on his face, a dream in his eye. Will you dare to break his hope ? Will you dare to break him? Will you ?

Wise words from the great Khalil Gibran

Seven times have I despised my soul, says the great Khalil Gibran :

The first time when I saw her being meek that she might attain height.

The second time when I saw her limping before the crippled.

The third time, when she was given to choose between the hard and the easy, and she choose easy.

The fourth time when she committed a wrong, and comforted herself that others also commit wrong.

The fifth time when she forbore for weakness, and attributed her patience for strength.

The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face, and knew not that it was one of her own masks.

And the seventh time when she sang a song of praise, and deemed it a virtue.