A Walk to Somewhere
By Anshuman Tomar
Different walks at different times bring a sense of peace into that vortex of longing that loss brings
The reams of sunlight found their way to the floor of my room through the bars of the window and took me back to the days when I would hide behind the shadows of the chest-of-drawers. Those beige coloured chest-of-drawers, rather the blackness of the shadows of that piece of furniture, was my safe haven. It was where my longing was quenched. The place where hours would go by without me catching a glimpse of a living soul. A dark corner, a cubby-hole where I could be listless, allowing myself to be paralysed, listening into the dark, the cold voices rising from the shadows within. The grief of losing her had left a gaping hole that I was incapable of extricating myself from. This sorrow was terra incognita.
Those moments, now, felt as far as this sunlight does leaving the sun and entering this room. I felt a generous spread of sweat on my bald pate. I pulled out a cloth to wipe it away. With the swipe of the cloth my glasses tumbled to the floor. Ah! there they were. The warm rays lend them a sheen, a sheen of pride, perhaps, I said to myself, almost in a whisper.
It was a relatively warm day in October. Somehow, the day demanded that I revisit the darkness of those shadows, now living in self-imposed oblivion. Well, I should go back if that’s what the day said. Now that I was in my late-fifties with a crutch instead as a partner, it would be gratifying to meet my other partner, the one who once lived, from the days I was young without a “wigeon-head”!
***
A few years ago, on my 52nd birthday, I decided to give myself a present. Except, I didn’t know what. Every time I got stuck with an indecision, the colour blue saved me.
So I sat down to paint.
With each stroke of the brush on paper, a pattern of clarity was created in my head. By the end of the painting session, my canvas was awash with Prussian blue, and I was awash with a resolve to go on a holiday by myself for the first time after losing her.
I booked myself on a 10:30 morning train to Sindhudurg. It would take around eight hours to get there. Seated in a general compartment, being soaked by the warmth of the December sun of Bombay, I began to daydream. Everybody, almost everybody was there in the summer of 1994. It was somewhere near Bhimtal where the maternal family was present. She was there too. The trek we took with the army men in those gloriously majestic mountain ranges, a river gushing by, those pine trees arching up into the blue sky, a taciturn sky; it filled us with a sense of unbridled joy.
A nudge from a fellow passenger shook me off from my reverie. We had arrived.
At the platform, I saw my auto-rickshaw driver holding my name card: A-B-HI-NAN-DAN.
After exchanging the customary greetings, he took me to my homestay. It was an old, typical house with a red roof, tucked away in a coconut and areca nut grove with a long silvery beach, a lagoon and picturesque fields to accompany it. The owner was an old Maharashtrian woman who ran this venture to preserve the local heritage, ethos and tradition.
The next morning, after walking around the lake, I was admiring the purple hibiscus growing wildly in the unkempt garden. My quiet was interrupted by a sweet, iridescent voice.
“I love that butterfly on the flower.”
“Yeah…Isn’t it beautiful?”
“I want to catch it.”
“Try and get it gently.”
Both the girl and I nimbly ran towards that butterfly; futile was the effort and elusive was the butterfly. But it did give me a few fleeting moments of joy, a joy which had the innocuous texture of childhood. I savoured it.
I rubbed the sweat off my forehead, looked up at the sky, and smiled into the sun.
***
Every part of me is absorbing the abundant sunlight.
A blissful company.
Sunlight visits this room with generosity
Entangled in golden red hues.
***
A few months after my return from the trip, the rains were unstoppable. The skies were an unflinching dark grey. Nobody on earth shall be spared, each speck, each soul, animal, creature shall be drenched — this must have been the diktat of Mother Nature.
Well, this did not dampen my spirit to go for my daily evening walk. It was the same path every day. Slopes going from the gates of the house, then tapering away into narrow alleys.
A few steps into my walk, I saw an uncharacteristic visual: an old man dressed in sparkling white with a red umbrella was walking towards me. Somehow, this visual infuriated me. Maybe, it was the exhaustion of watching the rains the whole day that made me feel this unexplained rage.
As he neared me, he said, “The rains have been lovely!”
“What…really!!? You are definitely an optimistic soul,” I reply, my eyes rolling.
“How can anyone be so grumpy on such a beautiful day like this?”
“Grumpy? That’s mean, old man.”
Suddenly he grabbed my shirt and said, “Don’t you dare call me mean, you piece of shrivelled up skin.”
I was caught completely unaware by his action and his words. I pulled his hands away from my shirt with a jerk. “What the hell is your problem?”
“I am sorry…I don’t know what came over me.” And then he began sobbing. I didn’t know how to react.
“It’s fine, sir. Are you alright?”
My question was met by a few more sobs. He calmed down after a few minutes, apologised with his head down, and began walking in the opposite direction. As his footsteps receded, I could hear him singing faintly…aate jaate…
…haste gaate… I trailed off and continued my walk.
***
Shadows of the trees are brighter than the shadows I am enveloped with.
Reflections of a dark soul are cornering me.
Looking beyond into the sky to forget my dreary existence.
Colourful monsters of the night.
***
The man must have been in his late seventies. His attire was simple: a plain cotton kurta pyjama with kolhapuris. I would see him at the park, every day. He would wait patiently for the pigeons to come to him. He looked happy and contented while immersed in this activity. Perhaps an activity that was his escape from the existence he wanted to fly away from?
Some birds were disinterested in what was being offered to them. While some pottered about by his feet. It looked like the pigeons were busy confabulating. I wondered what they must be talking about. Wish we could make him happy…his white kurta is perfect for us, don’t you think so?
Anshuman Tomar is an erstwhile broadcast journalist and now works as a freelance media professional. He is on a journey to seek the meaning of life through fatherhood, anthroposophy and ruminations.
