A friend in need..

I was never really interested in poetry.. But sometimes, when I stumble upon it, I think it surely conveys more than prose. More than a movie. More than the drama. Few lines, packed with a few words, all in disguise! All trying to say something away from their literal meanings. Individual meanings for different individuals.. A taste of everyone in the small concavity placed near their hearts, their niche.

Yesterday I came across such a poem, 'Remains of the Past' by Javed Akhtar from his collection named Tarqash (meaning 'Quiver') that inspired me to make a decisive call. I don't know whether I could put up the entire poem here, but let me quote the first paragraph from it..

'A half-preserved stone statue,

A few old copper coins,

Mysterious jewels of blackened silver,

Some broken plates of brass

Were found in a desert

Under the ground...'

Is this what they call nostalgia? For after reading this poem, I stared at the wall and all my buried thoughts, the tension, unsolved issues started to surface.. I went with the flow and started jotting them down on my laptop! I don't write much abstract, for I'm a man of few words. But today I realized that I think in abstract quite fine..

...

No, he wasn't fine! Not one bit.. He was screaming silently - like a centrifuge, humming its way in revolutions, shaking, breaking, crushing, squelching cellular microorganisms into shreds; to bits and pieces. Everything around him seemed to spiral down to the same damning obscurity.. It was like he was drifting through time, but instead of passing through the entirety of it, he was being dragged into it further, deeper and deeper, like towards an apocalyptic finale! But time and again he realized that there was nothing apocalyptic about it.. He was just losing control of things around him. Things such as relations, understanding, assumptions, moments and he needed to get all those back in control again.

He was maybe waiting for a call. A call that cannot possibly take it all away, but maybe fraction it.. A call from a distant friend.

...

For all we know, the friend was drifting too, in the same muddy waters.. shrieking in silence, akin to the rigor of the suspended potential of a seconds' hand in the clock just before it strikes the next second, the next moment, in the anticipation of the next instant.. It was like standing at crossroads. Situations forcing her to choose one road, emotions pointing another, facts indicating towards the wrong direction while time is pointing at the last remaining road.. Heart though, wants her to stay at the crossroads. Move an inch towards one and she'll be betraying the other three.

She's yearned for an awaited call too. A call that cannot possibly put a stop to the drift, but definitely provide strength to withstand this nauseating impetus through time.. A call from that distant friend.

...

When in school, we used to call her driver 'Chomu!' for reasons unknown.. Honestly, I tried my best, even Abhirup did, but could not recall how we started calling him that! Actually, to think of it, Ashrujit started it.. and that too straight on his face, the daredevil that he was, and of course we thought he didn't know. Maybe he did, we never know now.. All I know was he used to detest us - taking advantage of Anita, her goodwill and her ride - the old Maruti Suzuki 800, green and forever-dented on the bumper to the back, on the left side..

Everyday, after school, she'd drop us at the Gariahat crossing, from where we used to manage our own way back to our homes.. Chomu used to flinch each time Ashrujit would point to some random hot girl on the footpath and shout out 'CHOK-CHOKE!' flashy! declaring it to everyone sitting in the car including Anita and her driver..

I didn't talk to Anita for a week, when she told me that Hedwig is the first casualty in the last part of Harry Potter series, a day after it was released and I was still to lay hands on the book.. Later I did the same to with, in retaliation, once I overtook her on the book.

When my mum was in the hospital, fighting cancer, she was the only one among the people who came to see her, who had brought flowers.. These are the half-preserved stone statue, a few old copper coins, mysterious jewels of blackened silver, the broken plates of brass that we find in a desert under the ripples in our head.. I never forget such things and hold on to them like my siblings.

...

'A half-preserved stone statue,

A few old copper coins,

Mysterious jewels of blackened silver,

Some broken plates of brass

Were found in a desert

Under the ground...'

'That desert where

once upon a time,

a city stood'

Finally, I did it last night. I gave her a call and had a long talk, a long conversation, where we spoke and listened equally.. the drift stopped, momentarily, for both of us and we felt solid ground again! 'Hey.. yeah I'm fine.. actually no, I'm not!' Time seemed to stop by and listen to what we had to say, maybe felt sympathetic too, if the system permit..

Anyways, The drift started again today morning, though this time I knew I could take a break and step down on terra firma, at times in between.. for I know that I'm not alone!