the name is bond
We never know where relationships could begin. It’s a pleasant Sunday morning when she walks down the road to a petty shop. Someone standing next to her is talking in his mobile and quite audible enough for her to understand the words. She hears some words that send a familiar tinge ringing through her ears. She strikes a short conversation only to realize he is her best friend’s cousin. Three years later, she is married to him.
Sometimes we never get to know a person even after watching him for months or sometimes years. The real ‘him’ is hidden deep within the realms of a clandestine heart, hardly raising its head at any eventuality whatsoever. Outside, he’s the most talkative glib tongue, so vibrant and dynamic that he opens up as casually to his seniors as much as he does to his peers and as much to a kid with a persuasively congenial bond. Even in the most frustrating or lackluster of moments he finds some scope for displacing his energy. But talk to him deeply some day and behind all the vibrancy and dynamism is hidden the awkward tragedy that life could never manage to cure. ‘Ok..(sigh) Forget it’ he quips and smiles. The smile is worth a thousand drops of tears transformed for the sake of continuum of the future.
There are times when a common tragedy binds two unknown persons. But tragedies need not even be so large as life can make it. Take some people, strangers to each other, standing in a bus-stop waiting for bus. Each one traveling in their own train of thoughts and an eye on the far end of the road looking for what appears to be the bus they were waiting for. All of them lost within themselves.
Now, let the bus be late for more than an hour or let a gush of heavy rain lash through the place. And suddenly we see more movement. There is more talking. The chains are pulled on the personal train of thoughts and they convert into a collective curse of the late-coming bus.. and how this is happening often these days.. and that man’s similar experience in the same place a week back.. or how the lashing rain affects the city roads and that old lady who has left the clothes hanging on her terrace and that man with the largest umbrella sheltering hitherto strangers and laughing his way to keep them away from the droplets sprinkling its way into the umbrella. They are no strangers anymore.
Strange are bonds. Stranger are how people bond. I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous – everyone hasn't met me yet.
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Sometimes we never get to know a person even after watching him for months or sometimes years. The real ‘him’ is hidden deep within the realms of a clandestine heart, hardly raising its head at any eventuality whatsoever. Outside, he’s the most talkative glib tongue, so vibrant and dynamic that he opens up as casually to his seniors as much as he does to his peers and as much to a kid with a persuasively congenial bond. Even in the most frustrating or lackluster of moments he finds some scope for displacing his energy. But talk to him deeply some day and behind all the vibrancy and dynamism is hidden the awkward tragedy that life could never manage to cure. ‘Ok..(sigh) Forget it’ he quips and smiles. The smile is worth a thousand drops of tears transformed for the sake of continuum of the future.
There are times when a common tragedy binds two unknown persons. But tragedies need not even be so large as life can make it. Take some people, strangers to each other, standing in a bus-stop waiting for bus. Each one traveling in their own train of thoughts and an eye on the far end of the road looking for what appears to be the bus they were waiting for. All of them lost within themselves.
Now, let the bus be late for more than an hour or let a gush of heavy rain lash through the place. And suddenly we see more movement. There is more talking. The chains are pulled on the personal train of thoughts and they convert into a collective curse of the late-coming bus.. and how this is happening often these days.. and that man’s similar experience in the same place a week back.. or how the lashing rain affects the city roads and that old lady who has left the clothes hanging on her terrace and that man with the largest umbrella sheltering hitherto strangers and laughing his way to keep them away from the droplets sprinkling its way into the umbrella. They are no strangers anymore.
Strange are bonds. Stranger are how people bond. I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous – everyone hasn't met me yet.