What are you?

I am a book that people like to read, but would not like to study. The shorter the stories, the easier they find it to read. A book that attracts every passerby with the cover picture that resembles a painter’s pallete in black and white. Glossy and all that but has no colors. Oh yes! And no one will ever want to exchange me for any other books. They want me forever to be there in their bookshelf. Why?! After busy mornings, busy afternoons, busy evenings and tiring night outs, once in a while reading me makes them feel different. More complex maybe in other words. And that’s exactly what they want; the pleasure of feeling oneself being complicated, the pleasure in brooding, the pleasure in finding pain, the pleasure of admiring sinful lust, the pleasure in considering suicide, the guilty pleasure of entertaining negative thoughts, the pleasure of forgetting the once-important in life, the pleasure of imagining the never experienced, the pleasure of never letting go oneself, the pleasure of confessing sins, the pleasure in being crazy and so many more.

Some others are people who are good storytellers. I am not sure if I have helped them anytime, but I seem to remain in their bookshelves too, occasionally moving to their beds for bed time reading and sometimes among the pile of books next to table lamp.

In short what am I. I am book full of long and short stories, both real and fiction.

I am never everything but also never something...sometimes...

Thoughts on a rainy day

In the early morning hours of a beautiful day, I am carelessly walking through a small familiar village of Kerala. An unknown, yet so familiar village. I am walking through a forest, tall trees on my either sides, rich green color, the smell of wild flowers, twittering of birds.

I have now reached a playfield. A large empty playfield. A football ground, I am guessing. There is none. Not even an old punctured football in some corner. I start walking again. I notice there is a wall stretching long on my left side. How? I stop and take a closer look of the wall. I gently touch the rust colored laterite wall bricks. My fingers fall into the holes on the bricks. It’s old. The walls! The bricks rather!

I am hearing music. From? I close my eyes and lean on the wall. The music is coming from the other side. It is the sound of bells. Temple bells! It is a temple wall.

‘Om Namah Shivaya…Om Namah Shivaya’

It is Lord Shiva. Images of the Shiva lingam flashes within. The color black with streaks of red. The third eye. Ashes! I pull myself away, scared for some reason that I do not know of. I look at the same old wall, but in amazement this time. It is now layered with wet green moss. The dews are twinkling. Beautiful! But was it there before? Few minutes back? No!

I don’t want to see the world anymore, however beautiful it may be. I stare at my own footsteps and start walking faster now. Out of nowhere appears a silent river on my right. How did I notice it? I don’t know. I stop again and look at the river. It is serene, flowing slowly unlike me-my mind. Maybe I should stop here for a while. What do you say?

I sit on one of the huge flat rocks on the riverside. I slip away a few times before I settle down. I look into the river and see white stones. Smooth round stones. I dig my feet in. Golden anklets against the white marbles, the running water adding luster.

A moment of ecstasy. I smile to myself and look up to the sky with open arms. The sky is getting darker. The clouds seem to follow me forever. In no time falls a drop of rain on my forehead. I close my eyes & imagine the rain that’s going to be.

I open my eyes and here I am in front of a 19-inch desktop in a lonely office on the 25th floor of a commercial tower amid the hustle and bustle of crowded city. Far from what I just imagined.

Do I long to be there you ask? Well no! I don’t! It is only better this way.

Good day!