Tar of memories

Yesterday, I decided to accompany Joy out in the balcony while he waited for our mother to come home. I carried the book which was coming near its end, making me read every line of its last few pages, twice. Believing that on doing so, its words will graft onto my memory, like mathematics formulae which have never left me.

The weather was a bit gloomy, and the air had an eerily nostalgic smell to it.  And the flecking paint of the balustrade eerily reminded me of our derelict house in Delhi, which is now partitioned and divided.

It had a similar balcony, the house. And as kids, I and my brother would spend an inordinate amount of time hanging from it, watching the passers by walk through its extremely narrow lane. Joy watches every person passing by with the same inquisitiveness of a child, shifting glances from one person to the other, searching for a familiar face. And I guess that euphoria of finding a familiar face in a sea of unfamiliar faces has never left me. It has interwoven itself with intangible things which do nothing but make me feel nostalgic. A complete waste of time it is, I’m told- to live in the past, to seek familiarity, to search for smells, to search for places, to search for love.



And so Joy waits, while I’m overcome with nostalgia- of what will never come back to me, will never be mine and pacify me. A text jolts me out of my reverie; it’s the same as ever, now come to join in the mire of my own complacency and lassitude. I’m stuck in a rut, a cycle that never ends. And he must inevitably be a part of it, an interloper I’ve so carelessly fallen in love with.



I’m jealous of this little soul, who tirelessly waits for my mother to come back, without any promise that she will. I’m jealous of the house that stands beaten in the middle of a market, capable of igniting a forgotten past. Because here I am, being overpowered by it all, hiding behind the book lined walls of my room. I’m collecting these memories, as evidence of what I was denied, of the promise that was never kept, of the harsh games of reality, to be shown in the court of life. But Joy waits loyally, expecting nothing, wanting nothing. Maybe that is why humans are sad little creatures, stuck in the doldrums of memory.

Joy, as you wait, I’ll wait with you. And we’ll forget everything else (and I literally did forget the INDvsSL match yesterday! Caught up with it later, phew!).

Finally, reunited. And I'm eternally stuck in the tar of loving memories.