Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Spring

Two shirts lay on the big bed, one of them made from the finest fabric, a creamy Van Heusen and a usual black collarless t-shirt. I always thought that for such occasions, t-shirts were a bad omen. So I put on the t-shirt as an instrument for future rationalization. It was late November and the night was pleasantly cold, thankfully my sister had given me a sweater carefully chosen in colour, black. Far away from us, a group of violinists and cellists were playing Vivaldi. The aggression and the freshness of the music must have changed the weather. They were far apart because I couldn't see them, but the sound clearly penetrated my ears. The gush of wind and the chromatic arpeggios of the climax went together in perfect harmony. It was the end of fall and start of winter, but the air was spring and so was the music.

The wind was such that all the streets were equally inviting to walk on, it was time to take a stroll and talk and not the time to sit down and relax. 'Get me out of this place for tonight', he called upon me, 'I am bored'. As pleased as I was at that invitation, I took him out. We met on a dark street just outside my place. 'Talk', he exclaimed. And I started telling my favourite story, the story of creation and metaphysics. 'So, it so happened that God one day wanted to create a habitat for his favourite, the man...', I'd gone till Thursday and he cut me, 'Oh, by the way, I have to get back in fifteen minutes', so disappointed was I, the whole creation, followed by the rise of humanity, the holy prophets, my interpretations and then our discussion, that was my plan.

His Italian descent was completely overshadowed by his suave modern accent. The curl of the dark, heavy and longish Sicilian hair rolled over the back of his neck. His moustache and bear ed were neatly trimmed. The muscles on his face moved in such a beautiful manner, just like the Greek figures Michelangelo would have had carved for the pope. His smile contoured the nerves on his neck in an amiable manner. The colour of his lips was faint pink, eyes dark brown and hair dark black. They were red some day, but he told me that they turned to black the another. He had lived the lifetime in Sicily and just a few years in western Europe. But he had acquired all the modernity of the west, still maintaining the raw and crude humanness and shear beauty of the south east. So beautiful and charming were his manners that I was too much engulfed in looking at him, silently observing him walk, move and exclaim calmly. I wished the time to stop or at least slow down for some moments for I wanted to talk to him for eternity. And I completely forgot about the 15 minutes I had at my stake.

It was clear that to attempt this agenda, I had to hurry. Obviously, if I ran while talking, my efficiency would have increased, so I began to run and resumed from Thursday. I went on and on, from God to Abraham, to Moses, Noah, Christ, Mohammad, I kept on talking and as the content of the conversation increased so did my sprinting. And now I was at the climax with the clashes of Martin Luther with the pope.

'The pope actually was collecting money for the Sistine Chapel, though Martin Luther had reasons to oppose, it would had been better for the art if he were to oppose something else. The papacy did a lot of foolish things back then and he could have found a different issue to raise as well.' I went on, I also realized that I was sitting in a cafe under the starry night, 'It is interesting to see how Taylor connects that same psyche of the German mind to the Nazi agenda, he claims..', 'Oh, 15 minutes, I have to go now, bye' and I was crushed under the avalanche of his words, crushed in the heart and in body as he quickly disappeared. It was disturbing enough that he didn't agree with my views on creation, but he could have at least heard me out.

Now I when I found he was gone, I could listen to the music again all alone by myself, they had finished spring and had started on winter. The frequency of the bass matched with my heart beats, the temperature of the surroundings fell down drastically and I began to shiver. And since now he was gone, I stopped running and started walking, it didn't matter where I went because all the streets now were equally bad and I had nowhere else to go.

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It was a cold day, especially cold since it was a winter day. But it was a dull night to end the day. While returning from work, I made an acute observation that all the streets were equally bad to walk on. I badly needed to go out and he was pestering me for a long time now. And yet he failed to talk about whatever he wanted to, each time! But today, in this early winter, I found myself alone and had no other option than inviting him.

He was obviously thrilled in my company. He was full of vigour and energy, I couldn't have spent more than a couple of minutes with him without getting bored. Pitying his situation, I told him that I had 15 minutes for him. He was grossly disappointed and surprisingly eager to finish his task. He was talking something about religion or something, obviously, I didn't pay any attention. When it became too boring, I just disappeared.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

mood of the post doesnt go with the title. What's wrong?

Philip Carey said...

I dunno :) but the music was spring na.