A thick blanket of heavy cloud hangs, as if
enveloping the entire runway. Stars like lights, inside and outside the
aircraft. A stretch of yellow line on the flight strip separates the zones of
airlines, as if different solar systems orbiting within their confines.
As the plane takes off and I get elevated
to God’s kingdom, the earthly clouds, which the blades of the plane slice
through, the stars and their abode, seem to have exchanged places with my city
beneath. A cluster of lights.Of stars.
The journey that I am making now, made last
week and will be making for the following few weeks, is not merely
professional. For me, this terse absence from my city of joy, from the people I
know, is a magic potion that aids me to take refuge in a faraway city among unfamiliar
people. It is an elixir that heals my antsy mind. The bud within opens up into
full bloom. This journey is not just an evasion from the city but a
serendipitous encounter with my lost self, an opportunity to regurgitate.
It’s been long since I have heard my voice.
My inner voice. The relentless cacophony around have long deafened, dumbed and
blinded my senses.
When I am on the clouds, fetid vapours emit
from a smoked up heart. They hang in front, clouding my eyes; their claws
intertwining with those of the sooty clouds outside, till I have been
completely enshrouded and ingurgitated and devoured.
Moments pass by. Moments, dragged beyond a
clock’s ability, fleet away. I open my eyes. To a new world. Ahead. A sunnier
world.
And lo! When the clock strikes seven on the
dial, the sky bifurcates- the sun on my left, yellowing its share of the
skyspace and the moon on my right, scattering its pearls around. A divine sight
that no god-forsaken mortal could witness.
No solar system, no milky way could rear a
groom more powerful than the sun and a bride more angelic than the moon. The
knightly clouds stand as guards of honour as the groom kisses the bride. The
sparks from the constellations echo through the universe, ricocheting in
countless milky ways. The newlyweds consummate as the infinitesimal world snows
under the trivialities of life.
But this lonely wanderer, stand the sole
witness to a celestial conjugation, the thirst of my eyes quenched.
As I spread my vision across the unending
expanse, I find the vapour missing, the sooty smoke absent and my vision
clearer than never before.
My watch says one hour twenty five minutes
since boarding, that is twenty five minutes since the starry wedding and here I
am, on the runway of Patna airport.
A fuller, more content Debarati, signing
off.
