REGRET

Sitting on the ledge, looking out at the city spread out under my feet, like a sparkling carpet sandwiched between the starry land and sky, suspended in between the two landscapes of heaven and earth, was a great feeling for most. The smell of the dam earth, moist from the evening showers after being scorched thought the summer, waiting eagerly for the rains which followed. The heavenly smell of the flowers blossoming in the gardens beside the Chamundi temple helped me get a clearer head to contemplate my thoughts.
Sneaking out of my uncle’s sub-urban house, climbing down my cousins window using a rope fastened just a minute earlier, taking care not to make a sound was hard but it was worth the spectacular view lying in front of him. The city of Mysore, spell bounding in every aspect couldn’t help take my mind off the problem or rather my torment. The quote “the minds torment is the only one which can affect a man, not any other” came to my mind as I began placing my thoughts in order. It all started when he truly began understanding her for who she was and what she had faced. But trying to disassemble thought s from the middle is never productive, so I went back to the start of the thought.

                That morning was just normal. Walking around with all the people that were new, like him to this alien place where for four years we were gonna learn all the skills necessary to live the rest of our lives out. Making new friends, listening to boring speeches by old men, taking the grand tour, all of it routine and all of it unremarkable except for the one person that would cause me to stand here reciting this story. But she never entered my life for another two months, she was there in that room, I met her but she was just an acquaintance. The two months when everything went as planned, where everything just fell into place. The play changed it all. Asking her if she was interested was maybe the biggest folly and my biggest right choice all along. But it all happened due to that dammed play.

                The play was a chance for us to showcase out talent but as most play’s go this wasn’t a one man affair. There were quite a few of us involved and she was one of the people I had roped in. My only reason being that she was intelligent and that she spoke good English in a place where the dictionary was being laid to rest every single second. The play was where she put her talents out and that was where I began to take interest in her. The way she delivered her dialogues, the way she carried her character, her confidence in front of the audience was just mesmerizing. That left me to think that this girl isn’t perhaps what I had pegged her to be. The play went of well and by the end of it we went form being acquaintances to good friends.

                Secrets are dark, deep and ugly, that is the nature of secrets and that is the selfsame reason that they remain and should remain secrets. But when someone starts confiding in you, you become comfortable enough to confide in them. You confide in people you like, love and trust. One evening as we walked away from the campus, walking on the gravelly path lying in between the autumn trees, I learnt her secrets as she poured her heart out.  Understanding what she went through wasn’t hard as someone who had undergone equally grueling albeit different circumstances. Watching her walk down that path pouring her fears out in a flood made me realize that I was talking to a person who had been through hell. She was a piece of coal who had endured through the burning heat and enormous pressure only to come out as a diamond. Those pink cheeks flushed from the wind hollowed out in a sad sarcastic smile as she concluded her troubles and just balked beside me her head held high in spite of all she told me.

                Damaged as she was, there was sincerity in those bright brown eyes.  Eye’s which still haunt me as I stand beneath this starry sky. Her reaction as I told her I loved her was “not unexpected’ but like all humans I had hope. Hope, that eternal illusion that at least a few things might go our way, just as we wish they do. She ran away from me, the girl I gave my heart to ran away from me, the girl I gave my heart to her and she ran away from me, taking my heart with her leaving me a heartless wretch, dammed forever. I had no heart and no immediate purpose. The impending sense of doom that hovered around me in the air was visible only to the best of my people. A dear friend who cared told me “Take a holiday Bud, will help you heal your heart” Little did he know that I was missing my heart and that there was not a bit left to heal

                But this friend always had my best interest at hear and taking his advice, I had come over to this picturesque town. All of the town picturesque had no effect on the gaping hole left in place of my ripped heart. When she ran away with my heart I sincerely believed she erased me from her memory. I walked past her when we were there and there wasn’t a flicker of emotion in those chocolaty eyes. There was just the blankness of indifference, the absolute enemy of love. These thoughts were heavy on my mind. These were precisely what I had come here to help clear from my mind so that I could fill the hole of my heart and go back. The starry night of the chamundi hills helped reflect back the deep thoughts in my mind as I felt someone approached me.

Family are the first of the friends we have as we grow up and those bonds are the one’s which are usually the strongest. My cousin, whom I had tried very hard not to wake up during my descent from his room where we had been sleeping, had unceremoniously followed me here and had been sleeping had arrived. He had emerged now to help me as the turmoil had been  going on for quite some time. A couple of hours  more would bring the rosy red sun, the colour or her flushed cheeks and also my uncle and aunt. He sat beside me and said “ Man, if u can’t bury it then move on with it. Don’t let it occupy a majority of your brain. Remember her, but also remember you still have a lot to achieve, she is not the end of your road. You are in pain, I understand that but as one of your favorite quotes go “Pain is temporary, Pride is forever”. Overcome your pain man. There’s plenty of game out there and for guys like us it shouldn’t be a problem.

Don’t forget her or what you fell about her but always remember even she wouldn’t be proud if you threw away your future just because of her. She would in fact be ashamed of you, she would probably begin to despise you utterly if you throw your life. So let go home and get some sleep, so that I can stop worry about you running away”.

Laughing at his weak humor and thinking, well he does have a point. I will not give up just because of this, but it doesn’t mean that I will forget it. As we approach his house I engrave and sear into my memory everything I remember of her so that even if I want to she would  be something  I wouldn’t forget. She would remain in my memory as something sweet, sour, tangy, bland, hot and yet cold in my life.

As I watch the sum rising bathing me in the golden rays, I realize she is my regret and my release. She is a regret I shall draw my strength from. She is a regret I will have for now gained. She is a regret I shall strive to overcome and she is a regret I shall never forget.