The Open Window

By Harish Mohan alias AsExplainedByJunkie.....

It’s been a long time. Lately, through conscious means, I became a victim of THE ROUTINE. After what seemed like an age of reluctance, I persuaded myself to collect the will required to be happy by waking up, walking the dirty road to the office, and sit numbed in front of a cubicle for 8 hours, hit the gym and sleep. Today was a little different. Thrilled by the desire to be detached and inconsequential, I left office early enough to walk a road that I have not walked for quite a long time now.

The alleyway where I go to collect my stuff from is a topic fit for a painting itself. It sits just next to the main road, which on most of the days, is bustling with the noise of drums, ‘Bhiku-Matre’ dances, and begging urchins. You walk out of that noisy blare to turn right into a pitch dark, extremely narrow alley. It’s difficult to decide on a first glance, what haunts you more, the silence in the air and in the faces around, or the stench emanating from unwashed clothes and burnt fish collected at one corner. I step down to 3 stairs and enter a cramped, one room with two little girls fighting over a beautiful doll. Interrupting their session of joy, I blurt out a meek ‘Dus ka’. The ‘pudiyas’ are taken and having got the gear along, and head for my lush and huge society.

Here’s how this works. I get back to my home, switch off the lights, switch on the laptop and the music system and start to roll. After a while, when I awake from my lull in total darkness, I find myself in love with the short restless walks that I take across the hall while the music guides me through my mind. My mind runs in a series of flashy images, each promising a vision of the great beyond. Then, as the angels of imagination always do, they give me a symbol.

The symbol that I am about to talk here is that of the open window in a dark room. The best view is to look down, across the play ground where the children are cherishing their best moments of the day. This is nothing but a sight of absolute and pure joy, as little tots run around in playful glee, wishing for time to cease still. Over looking the play ground, is the by now familiar sight of lines and lines of skyscrapers and apartments, where each flashing light in a house tells a different story. There is of course, the story of the young girl, about 16, angelic in demeanor, with expressions of forlorn and lost love on her otherwise sweet face. The balcony, a refuge for the soul, in real estate terms, also plays gallery to a different shades of characters. There are the couples, each weaving their own spun versions of ‘A Promised Life’. There is the frantic dance of the young kid with dreams in his eyes and a hope in his heart, while he kicks around the football with his own visions of a prosperous future.

It is a period of total objectivity and one of the best substitutes for the brain numbing, de-sensiting medium of entertainment which is aptly called ‘The Idiot Box’. Here is the connoisseur of art, looking at a picture which he can only dream of. A portrait of the vast canvas of life, enacted in different colors, each conveying its own meaning and depth. Of what arises, and has happened to all those people who have always stood by the open window and made this their haunting ground for life, I cease to comment. But this, I hope serves as a platform for all those people who attain their idea of peace and serenity in the quiet chirps of the bird at dawn/dusk, and share their smiles with those very tots during their precious moments of joy.

So, what do you see out of the OPEN WINDOW?

P.S: Could not have helped but to take these thoughts and post before like many words which get lost in time. I hope the guy manages more of the wonderful insights or rather outside view of what lies in inside or whatever and keeps more of such amusements coming in. Brilliantly Crafted though!. And the pleasure is all mine ! :D