Like Snowflakes
Part 1:
The voice in his head suddenly came to a standstill. The wondrous world that he had conjured up from within his heart disappeared: all of its colourful greenery, cajoling whispers, the moon-kissed sky, and dotted stars waned away to a small closed room where the only things in sight were a plastic table and chair, with scrappy white paint decorating the walls.
It made him ache so, as the few sentences he scribbled on the white paper all came to life and danced around with the elegance of a trained Ballerina. It drove him to the cusp of insanity, fuelling a raging inferno.
“Write, Write, Write!” He screamed out; frustrated, sweeping away the thick bundles of paper in front of him with his outstretched arm in one swift stroke.
“Is it truly such a big deal to be able to write as good as everyone else?” Theo screamed as he pulled his hair from either end, rife with anguish.
“How the hell can I become a commissioned scriptwriter if I can’t even write a damn script?”.
“Then what about those far-fetched dreams you spoke about? Are you ready to give up, admit you are a failure, and go back? Just like he foretold you would.” The devil whispered, poking a stick at his deep-buried insecurities.
“Screw this!” Rage boiled over, as Theo banged his fist on top of the writing desk.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The noise ran rampant through the small room.
“And where did your failure lead you?” A shrivelled voice asked, contemptuously.
Bang!
“Right. Back. To. Me.” Mouthed out Theo’s father.
Bang!
Even the stench of the Kutti-Beedi that he swore to forget when he ran away from home seemed to have covered his small paradise of dreams. Wrapped around his father’s bony fingers, the beedi’s reek would waft into his nostrils mixed with the musky smell of Sandalwood-Athar that made him want to vomit his guts out.
“Dreams are something to be kept inside your head and not your heart. Ketto da, Hamse. One should be the master of his dreams, not its slave.”
“The only thing in your heart should be your dheen” he emphatically patted his chest, with the beedi still laced between his fingers.
Bang!
“You’ll never see the footsteps of this home again. I’m disowning you, you piece of shit. Get out of my house, you imbecile”. were the last words Hamsa had ever heard uttered out of his father’s mouth.
Bang!
Years had passed by, and he was no longer the meek Hamsa who was scared to chase after the dreams in his heart being chained down to the madrasa halls reciting the Quran and learning Duas and getting caned by the long-bearded Ustaads. Rather, he was Theo- A man who was brave enough to leave behind the murky halls and chains of dheen. Theo: A divine gift.
Weeks crawled along, as they walked by as months, and then ran past Theo as Years. He sat in front of a brand new stack of papers, only this time in a coffee shop in the Snowy Edens of Shimla.
A cup of Cappuccino rested beside him, and he seemed to be in deep thought. His mind was focused on the deadline in front of him- Finishing the rest of the script in just two more months. Considering that it had been three whole months since he started to visit the café to write and was barely a third of the way in, it was a big ask. And yet he relished the opportunity to challenge himself because that’s what all good writers do-challenge themselves.
Yet he would still somehow make the time to peek a handful of times at the reception. Theo leaned over his mound of papers, out of habit, only to find Sourav standing in front.
Sourav was a lean man, whose presence always reminded Theo of his estranged father because of the similar stench of cigarettes. But they were close acquaintances, preferring to write in the peace and quiet of the cafe, at either end. One could find Sourav sitting for hours on end, typing furiously onto his laptop, unlike Theo, who preferred to write on paper that he could feel with ink that he could smell.
“Congrats, bro! I just heard from Jaggu that he liked your script the most and went ahead and decided to do his next feature with you.”
“Yes, haha, one step closer to the dream!” Theo gave him a weak smile.
“Oh right, you must’ve been writing, bro. Sorry for the interruption. Even Imma write. Ciao.” Saurav said as he disappeared off into his very own world.
Once again, Theo began to see a brand new world beginning to be formed by the letters he scribbled down at a furious pace. And in the midst of all this- Theo tried to sneak yet another peek. This time it had found its intended target, a young woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties.
With her auburn hair pulled back into a ponytail, with vaguely discernible blue streaks visible in patches, she wore a staff t-shirt that managed to hug all her curves just right. She was the cashier, only for a change he had taken Theo’s heart as well.
To be continued…
Join us tomorrow to read the second part of this wonderful piece! And stay tuned for the next 3 days to read the entire story with all your heart! Follow us on Medium (PaperKin) and turn on the notifications so as to not miss the best of us. Follow us on Instagram (@paperkin_blog), Twitter (@kin_paper) and LinkedIn (PaperKin) too!
