Skip to main content

Story

As I walk past a narrow lane, something catches my attention. My mind says "you can't stop, you will go late!", but my heart, it pleads for a moment and my steps freeze for a second. I see a face, his eyes so hollow that you can almost read his mind. There in the blackened street wall, it reads MISSING beneath his name. I quickly scan his picture in my mind and become a crowd.

That day and for many more days, that face keeps surfacing in my memory. I search for it in crowded buses, in markets and also in the streets. I wonder what made me remember his face. I keep on asking myself, where could the person have disappeared to. Is it possible to someday disappear as such and not be found. How would it look like if I were to find my picture beside his poster having the same catch line MISSING.

 I again move to the place which held that stranger's poster, the poster has been removed. I see another poster with another face. A moment of revelation dawns. In this transient world, what remains constant is the search,the quest as we call it to find someone, something which we lost. We know we may not find them, we also known we can do good without them but we want to keep the quest rolling. The moment we stop searching for those long lost faces of our life, we realise we have learnt to retell our story. The characters keep coming and going but what remains constant is our story.

Stories don't limit themselves to this transient world. People take birth and find there roles as characters of a story which they claim to be their own and then they die but their story never dies. It is like we don't own stories, rather stories own us.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Sea (ii)

"I want to see a setting sun", I told him as we sat in the shack looking at the bright sun gleaming over the waves. "Sure, let's not move anywhere", he readily jumped over the idea. We talked about everything that we had anticipated all along, this trip, our future together, family back home as we nonchalantly waited for the sun to set. It was only when the waiter brought a lamp to our side when I noticed that we had missed the whole idea of viewing the sunset! "Phew! I don't see the sun", I yelled out alarmed "laa", I heard him say. " Well, isn't it good that we can again come back tomorrow and sit in the same spot waiting for the sun to set", he remarked. Well, this is what I like about him. His ability to look at the positive side of life. Well, if not a sunset, we saw a pale moon's silvery gleam over those tall waves. We laughed and talked over endless cups of tea and food. While it was time to leave the shore, we di...

Miss sunshine learns to speak

 Well, years back I had wrote about Miss Sunshine. She was a meek soul who hid behind written words. She would smile coyly but couldn't speak back to people, she was yet to bloom. I can tell you this for I have seen her grow all along. How did she find her voice?, you may wonder. Well, it all began when she stepped into the world of teaching. She made new acquaintances. Some pulled her down, others accepted her for what she was and it was this acceptance that she had got which helped her grow comfortable in her skin. She had met someone special. Someone who with his unfaltering acceptance made her realise that she too was capable of being someone of worth. They built a rock solid friendship over the years. He pushed her to overcome her fears. Most importantly he made her own this space, this blog. His acceptance made her come out of her shell, she was slowly learning to grow wings. Today, as she scribbles, she remains indebted to him.  Time wasn't always kind to her. She suffe...

What 2021 taught me...

  While I was a kid, I was taught to make new year resolutions. The whole process was symbolic, a new year meant newer possibilities. This ritual has stayed by me. This year, before I move on to hope from a brand new year, I want to thank 2021 for all the life lessons it had to provide: 1. In days when everything seems lost and dim, work on yourself because you can't disappoint yourself but the world might by not recognizing your effort. 2. Change is the new constant. No matter how much you try, you change and people around us change and that is the only constant. 3. Life eventually leads you to someone (when you least expect) whom you can call your "home". That someone who helps you become comfortable in your own skin, he or she is the one that you unconsciously were always in search for. 4. Acknowledge your mistakes and work on them. Life allows scope for rectification. You can't be late as long as you have today and a brand new tomorrow. 5. Travel to any place and ...