Candid sighs

I've never touched somebody
Like the way I touch your body
Now I never want to let your body go
Bryan Adams -- Song: Let's make a night to remember

A time comes in our lives when we feel a sudden pleasing fluency in the myriad thoughts we think. As far as my memory goes back, I’ve always been a surmising type. Thinking about very naïve things -- like the alluring colors of butterflies in our kitchen garden, back in the serene yards of Kashmir. I would be fascinated for instance by the gooey cheeping of tiny-fluffy chicklings that mom used to raise. The tender shards of old folk-tales our ever-old neighbours' granny fed us. How did the wily wolf understand Urdu, I often wondered?

As I grew up, I found myself still pondering. Still curious. Still asking? All my education, upbringing and love for books made me some kind of a liberal. Thoughtful. Activist. Feeling for others. The downtrodden and helpless. The cruel travails to their drumming my car-pane at traffic signals. The world has been living with such extreme contrasts, I try telling my heart. Still their desperate eyes pike me at odd hours. If God is just, why does He let these kids starve, heart throws back.

I have stayed hapless on many counts. I could never cease to be a romantic. I could never shrug that innocence which love evokes. Love for nature, friends, kind souls and some. I still believe in unadulterated, unconditional love. Another matter, no one takes the call!

Then there is a humorous side to my musings. My pals will vouch for it. I believe a sense of humor... is needed armor. Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life.

I will be candid. I have a heart which is simply: f**** caring. Now this means two varying things. At one level I have been compassionate and at yet another, I got hurt more than anyone else. Misunderstood! It is not that my choices have betrayed me. I think my stars go astray somewhere; I think I can’t align myself to anyone anymore. Like those gypsies. Nomads who wander. My heart wanders.

They say journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will-whatever we may think. I am glad that I’ve a candid set of scruples and I always – loved. With all my heart and soul and everything!

I don’t think many will ever understand me in this life. Anyways, I don’t believe in a second life. Afterlife – can’t say. A friend – who is a co-religionist – is hard trying to convince me that there is an after-life and people go to heaven or hell. He goes on, ‘Your mom was kind, she will be in heaven’, you don’t pray, you may go to hell’.

Hope they let me see mom for a while. Hope they allow brief reunions.

Samy