Opaque Sight
The teeming moments between this moment and the ones which
have slid past seem bursting at the seams entailing the vast repertoire of
stormy material which have grown pricks tattooing my heart with a graffiti lurking eternally to gobble me up rendering me
a mute spectator of the world going around
It was a huge
hiatus a big blank between this moment
and the buried past. The other day I was
walking over the corridors of Daryaganj in Delhi. Stretched out before me were the wide swathes of books gone soggy and soiled in the dusty
paths.People were walking past them and unwittingly treading upon them which of-course could have been
avoided if there was some thought for those beings of immense erudition whose
blood marrow and the karar of life was
embalmed in the black dried up drops of their lekhni.Who were they?The hollowed
out eyes of the Premchand were peering at me.His jaggy moustache looked pathetically drooped . There seemed to
be no resignation but a defiance in those still eyes. I got fixated on him and
picked him up gently and placed him a little away in a protected heap where
already I could see his other bandus huddled together vying for their space amongst the formidables of yore
the yeats the keats the hemmingways the fielding hardy the dickens and the entire conglomeration of
cosmic wit and the quintessence of human
intellect.They were there lolling in the
muck and lost in the bidding sounds of their current masters the kabbadies who
were trying to attract the attention of
the passers- by but who could care no less.They were frantic to find their way in the dense crowd since they had bought the cinema tickets worth three
times the cost of those classic jewels and were rushing like nervous wrecks.
They never wanted to miss even the
trivial commercials showing before the main
fair.
I stood there having a pan view of the entire area.It
smelled of a particular community.The smell of indigenous ittars which was a mixture of incense sticks
and the warped air which had not gone
through the regular circulation that happens in open houses.I stood there rooted
mulling over my small bits of writing which could not measure to a fraction of
any of these great souls but which cost me my life time. .And there they were spilled on the narrow
corridors of that Sunday market going through the ignominy of neglect .Even censuring them would have
been a tribute to them but the complete negation of their being might be corroding
their thirsty souls which got
decimated for the very recognition of these mortals when
they were alive.
It was pathetic.I winced at my aspiration and opened my
opaque sight to the common sights of the daily affairs.
The man before me was sprawled out..I came closer.His whole body was full of sores
.He was drooling at his mouth.I asked the shopkeeper what the matter was with
him he
simply jerked his shoulders and
went with his business.I wanted to take him to some emergency clinic but no body
was ready to help me.The man looked at me in an amused manner while evading the
flies which were digging into his wounds.He stretched out his hand in a subdued
manner with a sharp glint in his eyes .I in a dazed manner put some money in
his hand and quickly left the scene.
Comments
Post a Comment