That Morning...

For us it was a drift from bad to worse. We had made a niche for ourselves in a far end of the city where we stayed for almost 2 years. My job compelled me to shift to the middle of the city, take a costlier yet worse house and inhale more dust and pollution everyday.

It was our first morning there. After a tiresome session of shifting the previous day, we had just started settling down in this new house. You could not even call it a house. It looked like those deserted jungle lodges. Walls and floor darkened by dry algae on the cement, decades old paintings and posters hanging on walls, dimly lit lampshades most of which were broken and about to fall, barely minimum furniture lying here and there like a rat’s nest and above all, the place was unusually silent.

At first it really felt like an adventure trip in which we are left behind by our group in the middle of a jungle. The silence was so loud that it seemed to engulf all other noises. Even our own voices sounded like unwanted disturbances there. The only thing we wanted to do at that point was to somehow break that stony silence. We switched on the TV, refrigerator, fans etc. and started talking louder than usual. Then life started pumping into that deceased shack.

Sleep was the only agenda for us then. The room, again a dingy crash pad, was haunting enough to take away our sleep and breath. With almost half the lights on in the house (for obvious reasons), we managed to get some sleep. We slept over an untold quest if we were at the right place.

Next morning, we got up quite early. Another unusual sign for us but there was no probable reason to deem the house responsible for that. I got up and went straight to the bathroom. When I came out, still rubbing sleep off my eyes, another scare was waiting for me. I could not find her anywhere in the house. I thought she would be in the kitchen but she was nowhere to be seen. The place still had its unusual lull and the door was left bare open.

I stepped out and a cool splash of fresh and cold mist softly touched my face. As if I am far from the toxic city of Bangalore, amidst the snowy abodes, the springs and the streams, the orchards and the tufts of nothing less than heaven. With a slow recovery of my instantly benumbed senses, I noticed stairs in front of me which seemed endless in that mist. I climbed up each step and the dry leaves crumpled under my feet making my rise significant and conscious. My eyes reached the terrace before me from the top of the last step and there was a divine sight waiting for me. Just across the terrace, at the far corner, there was she, in her off-white satin gown which gelled completely with the morning mist. Inseparable yet distinct like moon and moonlight. The hem was reaching the dark floor to make it appear inferior in contrast. Her one hand rested on the wall while the other held a cup. Bearing such warmth and passion in them, how could they both look so serene, intense and cool.

Her lightly flowing hair on the neck looked as if the night is dominating the day and asking it to wait a little more while dreams crown up and minds onset. Her eyes gleamed like first rays of sunlight that embrace the ground and her lips looked like a kiss of fresh dew. I saw her gazing at the sky as if streaks of light were cutting the heart of darkness and reaching for the horizon.

It was a scene to behold. As I panned my vision through the terrace, everything had a pious and soothing effect. I almost forgot the world for sometime and just lived in that moment of ecstasy.

As the last leaf crumpled, the din of life came back calling. Although the feast was over, we savored the taste. We had a satisfactory smile on our face which needed no explanation. The next one hour, we were involuntarily a part of the silence around us. There was no more a wish to disturb the sanctity of that silence and it felt as if now the silence had started speaking. There were words, there was music, there was joy and there was calmness. We let all our windows and doors open and the mist and silence seeped in and filled every corner of our soul with the celestial grace.

Now the house didn’t haunt, now the city didn’t daunt. It was not just the beginning of a day, it was embarkment of an exploration.