It will no doubt, ensure social distancing, albeit, just for a day. But what I am liking about this day, is something different, entirely different and unexpected...
After ages, in fact after several decades, I am, once again experiencing peace and solitude. Environs are silent. No, it is not the silence of a cemetery or a "shamshan ghat"....
No way, just no way...
This silence is divine, peaceful and of happy ambiance. There is no noise, no voices, nothing. Only sounds that I hear, sitting in the front lawn of my house in Chandigarh, is of gently blowing wind, rustling leaves of the trees and plants around me, of birds chirping, of squirrels tweeting and clawing each other, beautifully coloured butterflies, distant sound of some enchanting old Bollywood songs on someone's radio...
And it has once again rekindled my dead desire to write some poetry. Dead, because the right words had stopped coming in my mind. The feeling, the desire, the urge, the inspiration; every thing had died down in the middle of the daily battle of life. In the middle of the daily struggle for sustainance, sustainance of self and family, of daily chores of life...
I had totally forgotten that wind still blows gently, that leaves of the trees and plants around, still do rustle, that there still are so many little birds even in an urban habitat like Chandigarh. I had forgotten that squirrels can dance...
I had forgotten how to live...
And I had forgotten that I could still smile, a beautiful and enchanting smile which was lost in the daily rut of life...
A smile which could evoke a still better smile on the face of my life...
And it reminds me, once again, of my beautiful childhood spent in the foot of the mountains, on the edge of the massive Mala forest range of the Terai region of India, in Uttar Pradesh province...
It was there, decades ago, that I had truly enjoyed my life, a free and carefree life of a child, climbing trees, picking up lotus flowers from a nearby pond, running after birds and butterflies, stealing fruits from the orchards around our place, listening to the stories being narrated by some of our helpers and finally getting off to sleep in their laps...
Fantastic memories, like a fairy tale...
It was then, decades ago, that I had enjoyed this simitude...
Thank you Modi...
Thank you...
