A flickering beam of light interrupted my siesta and opened my eyes to a sea of white glistening homes. Still half asleep, I peered through the window to notice the houses below growing bigger as the faint voice of the air-hostess announced our arrival at Visakhapatnam. It’s been a while. Two months at a place like Roorkee is a very long time, with the inevitability of not just its inedible food and the gruelling summer heat, but all of life’s vagaries it puts you through. Nevertheless, it was a different, stronger ‘Me’, a changed, chastened person that left Roorkee at the conclusion of this semester. And now, with the solace of home harmonising discordant thoughts and poignant memories, I have mustered just about enough patience and courage to sit down and write this blog.
But, what makes it ever so difficult to pen down my thoughts has nothing to do with my inability to frame sentences, but with the fact that writing is, as Paulo Coelho said “Public nudity of the mind”. We all know the famous English saying “The pen is mightier than the sword”, and how I wish I could write to stir people’s minds. But ever wondered how much courage it takes to embrace your thoughts publicly?
An interesting train of thought, but not something a writer of my calibre would like to pursue in his or her writings, at least at such a tender writing age. So, allow me to save myself some public humiliation, and permit me to write about something more pleasant. But mind you, I still have complete authority to change my mind, when so ever I feel like.
So, as I was already saying, before being tricked by my mind into digression, it’s been a fairly long time, and I’m awfully relieved to have finally seen home. Sometimes, the thought of home this way makes me feel like a soldier, fighting his battle in a foreign land. His life, marked by ephemeral returns to His humble dwelling, where bruised limbs and battered bones are mended, and the soldier is sent back again to face the harsh realities of existence, only to return once more, and the cycle goes on, till one day all His struggles yield him a Home of his own. And the seemingly unceasing cycle comes to an abrupt end.
For most of us, the image of home that we carry in our minds is one of permanence, as temples of redemption and emancipation which, regardless of the persistent demonic efforts by the vicissitudes of mortal existence remains untainted and unblemished by their influence.
It is therefore, in such a home that I finally seek refuge, amidst grave adversity and turmoil, hoping for its magical atonement to rid me off my wounded scars.
And, as the process of healing continues, I rest my case. Au revoir.
PS : Stay tuned.
