Hima's Pages

The evening sky has always had an enchanting hold on me as it invokes a strange blend of emotions in my mind. Emotions, that are ineffable and which often fill my heart with unreasoned sadness. The sky had a camouflage of greyish blue and red as the last rays of the sun kissed the earth. The gentle breeze that swept past me brought with it an aroma of bereavement and weariness. All around me were people flocking back to their homes from their workplaces. Among them were helpless faces, hopeful faces, and faces that could not be deciphered easily.

    I rushed through the streets to reach Marina Beach before the sunset. After a long gap of five years, finally, I am getting to see a sunset at Marina. This sea has been my playmate for long. There is nothing about this sea that I do not know, for I have heard all the stories that its waves unfold. It is from here that I’ve learned the most important lessons of my life. These tides have taught me to rise up courageously every time I fall and to never back down.

    Time is essentially a subjective phenomenon, and I feel as if the five years that I spent away from home were five decades. Is it the city that has changed, or is it me? Change is the law of nature and nothing whatsoever remains out of its parameters. Life has never been that easy during those five years. It has taken its toll on me and there were moments when I thought living was inane.

     The idyllic sunset has pacified my raging emotions, bringing into my mind ripples of fragmented thoughts that form and then die out. These passing thoughts are impelling me to retrospect all that has happened in those turbulent years of my life. But, for now, I am relieved and happy that I’m finally home, back to the place that has been my first love. I had a very different notion of love back then, but now it has become just another synonym of adjustment. Over these five years, the distinction between living and existing has become rather blurred for me. Life was nothing but monotonous, and the mundanity of it strangled me. I would have endured everything, but this bond drew bounds to my dreams, hopes, and thoughts. Bond? What does that word really mean? 

It took enormous strength to unfetter myself from those imposed bonds. I never thought I would ever be able to break free of those chains. But life surprises us by telling us who we really are. There came a point when nothing actually made any sense and existence seemed futile, and I knew I had to act, and my action redefined and changed the course of my life forever.

Now, at last, I am breathing the air of freedom, gazing at the distant setting sun, awaiting the arrival of a new day. After all, aren’t we all awaiting spring?