A Tribute to Him

Its raining outside. I know, not just because of the sound sight smell of it…I know it because I have just come in. Some 15 minutes back when it started to rain, I said adieu to my books, got out of the bed, wore my slippers, removed them (???)…and went out! For the first time in the last 10 hours, I could appreciate the weather…and not curse the electricity board (for the abundant power supply to the city already enjoying the hearty shower of the blessings by our very own sun god (pun intended (for the lame ones who dint get the joke))), lousy fan companies (for making fans lousy enough to silently retire during a 41 degree C afternoon, leaving some miserly souls to thunder-wonder at their sudden un-heroic departure), mosquitoes for biting in all the wrong places (you know what I mean) and myself for missing the aims while trying to squash them with a slap (and hitting myself in those very wrong places). Keeping my hands on the rail, I stretched my neck out and let the drops fall on my face (and then I also remembered to remove my glasses). I felt a different sensation run through me. I smelled a different fragrance fill my nose. And when I opened my eyes, I saw different colours! “But rains supposed to be just colourless water, isn’t it?” I thought. To see if it was really colours pouring down in that midnight shower, I asked my right hand to go under the shower, and I asked my eyes to follow carefully to detect the first tint of colour to fall on my hand…it did (the hand)…and they did (the eyes). It was actually colours pouring from the heavens!

I stood there in sheer amazement for about 5 minutes…looking at my hands get motleyed and rainbowed in the most beautiful and the transparent of the colours, and then decided to get back. While returning, I noticed the weird yet-unwitnessed freshness that that plant had taken up…or did the rain do it? (I suddenly also noticed that I had been smiling this while). Returned to me bed, got up, walked up to the mirror…bitch that I am, I still wanted to check if colours really poured. And what I saw was more astonishing that the rain itself. One look at the person in the mirror told me that the plant alone hadn’t taken up that weird freshness…the rain had done something to me as well. I saw a radiance in the being in front of me…I had never been so happy to see myself ever; weird, isn’t it?

And now, sitting straight in my bed, I think of equally weird things. First, my feet would not leave the ground; remember, I removed my slippers before going out?; even now that I am in my bed, my feet are firmly stationed on the wet marbles, spreading the colours of the magic rain in all sorts of places in the room. Why???

I don’t know!

Secondly, why do I feel these colours have been following me since evening? Not that I am sad about or anything…but just that, you know, its kind of unusual if everything around becomes so colourful and charismatic! Does “he” have anything to do with it?

I don’t know!

Maybe he does. I think it all happened after I met him this evening. Ok, let me not indulge any more in these cheap thrills of suspense and tell you that this “he” is my 30 months old cousin. As I entered his house today (cribbing and cursing the electricity board, lousy fans, mosquitoes, myself), I realized that my cousin was fast asleep (for a change)…but not for long. “He doesn’t sleep” aunt said. I knew. But today it stuck me. There was this 30 months old boy who doesn’t sleep, doesn’t eat, doesn’t drink, doesn’t sit, definitely doesn’t walk, maybe sees, maybe hears, seems to understand when his mother scolds him (seems to)…just lies there aimlessly all day staring at something in the empty space. “The doctor suggests that we should relieve the child of this life”, aunt said and started weeping. “What life would he have even if he survives…”; “guruji said he would live for 55 years…but doing what? Lying there all these 55 years, possibly not even aware of the fact that what he is experiencing is a magic called life!” I closed my eyes…and felt a strange numbness drown me. And next when I opened my eyes, I saw these colours! I think he did something…

Yes, he did. In an instant he told me how blessed I am. I realized what I have…I have a life. I realized that when I say that life has been harsh with me…I am so wrong; because, apart from life, there is something that I have…a penchant for life…a passion that helps me survive whatever shit comes my way…the bug of optimism that helps me see good in everything and helps me glide through highs and lows of whatever life makes me see. I have something that not many people have…and surely my cousin doesn’t. I opened my eyes and saw colours!

And now…sitting straight in my bed with my feet still smuggling colours in the corners of my room, staring at my incensed radiated coloured palms, I want to believe that there is somewhere a god out there. I want to believe in His presence…But faith is not something that one can close his nose and gulp down like a foul-tasting medicine. But I want to believe...because I know, if there is anything like a god somewhere, he loves me. He does...more than he has ever loved anyone else...