Unable to find any song to explain my predicament, I sit up at night staring at the city lights from my terrace. My cigarettes have all but run out and the smoke from the one lit in my hands is barely visible in the darkness. In this part of the country, the days are blazing hot and there's no subtlety involved in its expression. Being an admirer of the understated I don't know what to do with this full blooded rawness of the day. Which is why the warm waves of night air that rub off my shoulders and body feel comforting and familiar.
The night here is thick and heavy. Unlike a big city, the few city lights punctuating the darkness seem frail and burdened by the huge dark night. A certain restlessness is all about me. I shake my legs... tap my cigarette incessantly; anyone seeing me would think I'm eagerly waiting for something very significant to happen. But I'm not. I'm just inexplicably restless. I want to run away. I have this crazy urge, where I imagine myself running into the darkness and after a point the sound of my steps fade and so does the vision of my body that's running into the darkness. And after a considerable amount of time. A considerable amount of silence... on the other side a sunny beach emerges from the fringes of the dark shadow. And there're these eccentric characters from the French movies I've seen (as a wannabe appreciator of art movies in my younger days), who smoke and giggle and go running into the water while I lie on the sand with a huge dog running itself in a frenzy from the waters edge to my feet. There's a stranger whose guitar strums I can hear as and when the wind blows my way. I catch the tune to be Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat". The foreigner has a perfect gravelly voice and I can't help but moving up to him and asking him for a few more songs. He says he's forgotten the notes and proceeds to play a song I can't identify and therefore remains incapable of evoking any reaction unlike the Famous Blue Raincoat.
Many hours later sitting in my office I think of the same thing. Of the beach. Goa isn't too far. I could take a train from here to Bombay and then one from there on. I begin contemplating the steps realistically. I'd put in a mail with my resignation. I have some money in the bank. I owe that money to my employers if I quit before the stipulated period, but that's all the money I have so I can't give that up. But if I run away unannounced then they don't give me my documents, my relieving letters, my provident fund money etc. etc. Could I just do without all of that? What is that fund providing for? World Peace? Does it give me the warmth of the sun after a swim in the ocean? Does it it give me the sea breeze to calm my tired muscles after an entire afternoon of swimming in the sea, sitting on the rocks watching the local fisher men try their luck as the sun turns the corner around the horizon?
Maybe if I were a kid I could? Just run away? And then people would worry and bring me back home and cook my favourite dishes. If I were a kid this wouldn't be something that would seem preposterous.
The night here is thick and heavy. Unlike a big city, the few city lights punctuating the darkness seem frail and burdened by the huge dark night. A certain restlessness is all about me. I shake my legs... tap my cigarette incessantly; anyone seeing me would think I'm eagerly waiting for something very significant to happen. But I'm not. I'm just inexplicably restless. I want to run away. I have this crazy urge, where I imagine myself running into the darkness and after a point the sound of my steps fade and so does the vision of my body that's running into the darkness. And after a considerable amount of time. A considerable amount of silence... on the other side a sunny beach emerges from the fringes of the dark shadow. And there're these eccentric characters from the French movies I've seen (as a wannabe appreciator of art movies in my younger days), who smoke and giggle and go running into the water while I lie on the sand with a huge dog running itself in a frenzy from the waters edge to my feet. There's a stranger whose guitar strums I can hear as and when the wind blows my way. I catch the tune to be Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat". The foreigner has a perfect gravelly voice and I can't help but moving up to him and asking him for a few more songs. He says he's forgotten the notes and proceeds to play a song I can't identify and therefore remains incapable of evoking any reaction unlike the Famous Blue Raincoat.
Many hours later sitting in my office I think of the same thing. Of the beach. Goa isn't too far. I could take a train from here to Bombay and then one from there on. I begin contemplating the steps realistically. I'd put in a mail with my resignation. I have some money in the bank. I owe that money to my employers if I quit before the stipulated period, but that's all the money I have so I can't give that up. But if I run away unannounced then they don't give me my documents, my relieving letters, my provident fund money etc. etc. Could I just do without all of that? What is that fund providing for? World Peace? Does it give me the warmth of the sun after a swim in the ocean? Does it it give me the sea breeze to calm my tired muscles after an entire afternoon of swimming in the sea, sitting on the rocks watching the local fisher men try their luck as the sun turns the corner around the horizon?
Maybe if I were a kid I could? Just run away? And then people would worry and bring me back home and cook my favourite dishes. If I were a kid this wouldn't be something that would seem preposterous.
