Apple of Someone Else’s Eyes
“Hear me out. Listen to me.”
At first, I could not make out where the
question was coming from. I looked around, saw the man sitting next to me, a
fat gentle man in a blue shirt and white dhoti; then the young man leaning
against the iron bar close to my seat; I saw the back of heads of the people sitting
in the front seats; I also saw the many people crowding in a line in the aisle
inside the bus.
“You can’t see me?”
The voice came back. I was pulled into a pool
of curiosity that never before enveloped me during the afternoon hours. The next
move I planned was to seek help from my nearby passenger.
“Don’t even think about that.” The voice
said. It warned me, in fact.
I did not know what the repercussions would
be, if I went against the instruction. This was the third sentence it spoke to
me. OK, I agree, it’s my intuition that it’s an ‘it’.
I tried to focus. I could only see the seat
in front of me.
“Look here; open those eyes of yours, which
are so accustomed to see only manmade uselessness. Here I am; miracle among all
the manmadeness.” The voice said. It sounded preposterous to me to listen to
some hallucination inside my head. But it was as real as the crowd inside the
bus and their fight for inches of space inside.
Then I saw, with a heavy voltage of shock
crossing my heart. I thought about everyone I love, everyone I hate, and every
moment I spent dreaming books and stories. I saw a face on the back of the seat
in front of me. It was fully animated, not a picture. It was vague, and no one
could easily see her in just a random try. Her? How on earth can I trust my
sanity still? Nevertheless, the face looked like a woman’s.
“Who are you?” I mumbled under my breath, worried
about the prospect in a rational society, talking to a face on a seat cover or
as I believed, to myself, in a
hallucination. I would not need to take additional pass to some mental
hospital. The people will do everything. My students had to come up there to
meet me, tomorrow morning. What would happen to my blog, to my unfinished
portions in the English literature class, to my students, to my love, to the
book I am about to read? No, that is a risk I
cannot afford.
“I am your fatigue.” The voice came back.
I noticed, by this time, that even my
nearby passenger is not noticing the face on the seat cover. Hallucination—I decided,
right at that moment. I also decided to play with it a little more time. I know
hallucinogenic instances could entail immense possibilities to learn. The book I
read had told me that much. I am spared of peyote poisoning, thank God! This thought
gave me courage. So I mumbled under my breath, one more time, “What do you mean,
you are my fatigue?”
“I am the Wisdom in your fatigue. The bringer
of rejuvenation, like the night that brings the brightest morning to your
doorsteps.”
“Why are you here, now?” I said.
“I am here to show you the stupidity of
yourself and the man sitting beside you. But before that let me tell you this, I
know completely that you consider me just an aberration of your overworked
brain—a hallucination. But I am not. Look at the child beside the man, near the
window.”
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| Image Courtesy: Google |
I had heard the child asking silly
questions to her father, the man sitting beside me, as I sat near him in the
seat, a few minutes back. However, I was intent on focusing at my latest lessons
in the class. So I left the conversation, tuned out. The girl was asking, “Why
is the evening news paper not called Matrubhumi, Papa?”
She had voiced this question a couple of
times before the man heard it. He said nothing first, and then replied in a
sagging and tired voice, “Because Matrubhumi is morning paper, darling.”
Then I wrapped my thoughts about the class
bully whose parents came to meet me complaining about his results, the previous
week. And right then, out of nowhere, or perhaps, truly from my fatigue was
born this woman face.
I do have a character. I do not want to be
a child-ignorer. So I said to her, “I did not…” I stopped. There was no face,
anymore. My words, accidently, were a bit higher in tone. Some of the
passengers, including my seatmate, looked at me. I showed them my cell phone
and grinned ear to ear, shrugging.
I had my answer, I should take a less
crowded local bus back home tomorrow onwards. This one is too crowded for
hallucinations.
“Oh, so when this newspaper comes in the
morning, it becomes Matrubhumi?” the little girl asked.
The man, her father, replied in a nod. He had
an evening paper in his hand now, and was leafing through it.
“Why don’t some people do not have
children?” she asked again. Her father did not reply. Although he attempted,
his words were locked inside the box of inhibition in facing this child’s
question.
| Image Courtesy: Google |
I could have told her about angels and
children, how angels come in the form of children, but they forget who they
are, once they grow up, I thought. Then the girl made another enquiry, “Doesn’t
that road go to Mattannur, too?”
“No, it’s Caltex.” Her father replied.
“After Caltex, doesn’t it go Mattannur. Then
why don’t we take that road instead?” the girl persisted. I would have told
her, she was right. But this is ‘one-way’ system. You know that that road will
lead to where you want to go, but you have to be patient for everyone’s good
and take the turns and junctions to meet the same road at another juncture,
traffic free, and welcoming.
My seatmate, the little girl’s father, kept
on reading his evening newspaper, and did not say a word.
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