Bangalore showers just made a comeback and so did the Lockdown. The city has come to a standstill – an eerie silence surrounds my apartment which is next to a busy road. The only noise which breaks this silence is the shrill sirens of ambulance carrying someone whose life they can save & shrill calls of vultures who roam the sky looking for food. A dichotomy – an impasse which we are living through in the past year
The strong breeze coming in from door meshes
with the melodious voice of Jagjit & Chitra from their album Passion – a
cassette which played in my Walkman 100’s 1000’s of times perhaps – gifted by a
dear friend. Songs have a way of transporting you to a past – for me this was
the time of dreaming and. A life lived in songs, pages of books, scenes of
movies and friendships – a dreamy sequence of life which transformed into a
life consumed by the necessities of life.
The weekend is an extended pause where I feel
the breeze, the words I read, feel the scenes played out in front of me and try
to experience the dream like state I experienced long back. Now I see the dream
in my children and more than mine I want their dreams to be fulfilled.
All dreams don’t get fulfilled or if they do,
they turn out to be different & the lockdown has taught us all to be in the
present and be ready to step into unknown.
We have learnt to look around at the despair of
so many people, close friends in ICU, the chatter in the group where friends
are trying to organize oxygen for someone and feel lucky.
Lucky at being just your normal self.
