Silence of the Lambs

A message alert on my phone woke me up today morning. It’s a Sunday and I realized that I had overslept. The message was from a dear friend who resides in the building next to mine. I knew that he wouldn’t send a forward message to me on a Sunday morning. Curiosity helped my heavy eyelids open. The text told me to read a particular page in the newspaper. Could it be some sensational news? But my friend knows that sensationalism fails to suck me in. It had to be something else. I grabbed my cup of morning tea and started whipping through the pages of the newspaper.

A man. A young man who had dreams. Though he has a name, I prefer to keep him nameless. He was closely associated with my friend at the institute where he took his masters. The article was about a meeting this young man had had with a popular film-director. This ‘meeting’ was one among many in the basket of his dreams. He had shared his creative aspirations and some of his amateur work with the director who clearly seemed impressed with the enthusiasm of the young man. One of his dreams had come true.

A man. A young man who HAD dreams. He does not dream anymore for, he rests in silence. Precisely a week back, on a cursed day, he decided to bring his life to an end. It had come as a shock to my friend and a few others who shared some kinship with this man. I remember seeing and feeling the grief that my friend shared with me. I do not know this man yet my heart reaches out to him. I don’t want to be judgmental about his decision or the circumstances that drove him to take that decision. All I would do is pray for his soul to be at peace.

Millions would read the article today without knowing who this man is. Some may admire him and some may envy him for having been lucky enough to have had a meeting with that popular film-director without knowing that he does not exist anymore. The director himself may recall the meeting with this man and may be kind enough to go through his amateur scripts and poems which would eventually find its way to some corner of the shelf if not the trash, not knowing that the young man would never come knocking at his door again.

Finally, all will be forgotten. His name may not be remembered; hence I kept him nameless. Elaboration of circumstances is futile because time is irreversible. Why did I choose to write about this man whom I had never met and to whom I had never spoken? Why am I writing today about someone whom the world is going to forget tomorrow? Why write about the grief that is fugacious?

I had not decided to sit down and write today when I woke up in the morning. There was nothing waiting to be expressed. But after reading about this man today, I felt an impulse to give him some space on my blog. He is not here today to read this, but this would be read by at least a few, whose hearts would stop by to pray for his soul.

May his soul transcend this realm knowing that one of his dreams came true. All other dreams are like little lambs wandering…following the sunlight. Wandering silently.

Stop by when you see them... stop by to listen to the Silence of the Lambs.

The Meeting Point

My friend was right.

It was a Thursday. I should have been at work…but I wasn’t. I had taken an off. There were a couple of domestic errands to be undertaken. I had planned my day in advance. Although I completed the tasks, the sequence of events deviated from my plan.

Late that evening I went to the mall with my cousin brother. We were having a look around at the new layout of the retail store there when, to my utmost surprise I bumped into an old schoolmate. She was my junior and we knew each other well, but we hadn’t met since I passed out of school. Inspite of residing within a radius of 1 km, we had never come across each other for nearly a decade. Mutual recognition was instant even though we weren’t in our school uniforms. We updated each other on our current status and exchanged numbers before we left. We could not talk much as both of us were running short of time.

Fast-forward 2 hours. I dropped my cousin at his place and was walking back home. At the gate I bump into another old schoolmate. This time… a senior. We belonged to the same house back in school and had fought the wars (the monumental debates of Vivek) beside each other. She had been to the other side of the globe while I trotted up and down the city for the last couple of years. And finally we had to meet right there at my gate. It was a pleasant surprise for both of us.

Did these two meetings happen merely by coincidence?

It was an unexpected turn of events that compelled me to take an off that day. A mall is the last place of choice to spend time on an evening, for someone who likes to confine himself to books or restrict himself to a stroll around a peaceful place. It was the young lad who had taken me there. We were behind our time schedule. Things weren’t going as per my plan. But there was a grander plan already made. If my plan had worked I wouldn’t have met these two ladies… one from Himachal and the other from the ‘glorious’ Yamuna (this one is for the Vivians!).

I choose to believe that there was no coincidence. My 'disconnected' status over the years and absence from social-networking could not stop me from meeting people from the good-old days.

My friend was right… ‘Life has its own way of making roads meet’.