His cell-phone played a popular western classical number as NB watched it blink. He had just ignored the twenty-eighth call from friends and family and the unknown. Hate messages kept pouring in as he stared at the ceiling fan with blank eyes. He could mute the cell-phone but not the loud sarcasms exuding out of the text messages. A sudden loud bang jolted the otherwise lazy evening. NB who was visibly jarred for a second came back to normal realizing it was Diwali, a yet-another festival in the long list of a lousy Indian calendar.
His social networking account displayed over 500 friends, far too many to the credit of a loner. NB couldn’t trace back the origin, the journey, and his final transition to a polar bear in hibernation. The dormant hide-away phases had become far too frequent now, almost to the extent where NB started doubting his own sanity. A strange sense of sadism had crept in his life as he stared back at his mobile, waiting for another call he could ignore.
Winter was unusually cold this year and NB’s addiction to a cup of warm ginger tea had intensified manifolds. As he walked into the kitchen, the steel pan with remnants of a previous midnight tea fended him off. To feast his sore throat on a cup of hot tea, he’d have to diligently wash the tea powder and the sticky leftovers. “Your problems aren’t as big as you present them. You love being in pain” – one of the several text messages read.
NB rubbed his palms as the boiling water made his kitchen a little warmer. Over the past few years, he saw close friends losing their patience on him. Once greatest admirers of his art had now turned passive, and the nearest ones gotten withdrawn. Serial blasts of firecrackers lit up the world outside as NB added tea leaves to the simmering water. Ginger, pepper, eggs, guitar, harmonica and books…perhaps these were his only trusted friends now. They wouldn’t seek your attention nor shower you with guilt trips when on certain day; bouts of speechlessness shackled your tongue. Some of them would perhaps decay, displaying colours of contempt while some would stay intact, not uttering a word.
NB wouldn’t stare deep into people’s eyes anymore, as a strange fear would engulf his conscious each time. What began as a slight discomfort in public gatherings had now turned into a complete lack of composure in long lunches and coffee breaks. Happy, smiling people would get him anxious. NB couldn’t connect to anyone. Or was it just momentary? A power cut and the subsequent darkness were perfectly timed. Just when NB had prepared his profound mind to accept the implied meaning of the power failure, fireworks lit up the window pane displaying his own dark shadow amidst the bright walls…
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2 comments:
Often, (read very often) in an attempt to fill the vortex of our very own existence, we experience these bouts of phase-outs where we feel fundamentally disconnected from other people, doomed to speak and yet never fully understood. Like for many, NB seems to have those inescapable fleeting moments of separation that transports him to a thought of being sane no more.
A rather bitter reality, but a nice read!
I can't hold my curiosity. But why NB as the name? I hope this is not autobiographical. Although the thoughts are profound and deep, but I hope its about a fictitious character because somewhere deep down it makes me sad to read this.
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