"THE ME" within me speaking...

Penned down on the reverse of the train ticket for my journey from Chennai to Payyanur on 4^th Feb 2010, for my brother’s marriage reception on 5^th Feb and my sister-in-laws’ cousin sister’s marriage on 7^th Feb, my 5^th train journey in the last 4 weeks and the 3^rd one alone.

As I sheaf through the pages of a book “Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri trying to read and understand & imagine the scene described in words in the pages in front of me, my gaze and thoughts are wandering away in its own world. I sit gazing at my shadow intertwined with the shadow of the window bars which form immense number of patterns as the train sped along the tracks it is so used to travel along daily, passing the shrubs, bushes and trees which bear as mute witnesses to its journey. Before my eyes danced a haze of dim flickering lights of the many houses that passed by, with people whom I’ll never see, unaware of my birth, existence or death. The many roads passing before me, curving and extending beyond my current realm or line of vision, reminds me of the roads I’ve traveled upon and the turning points in my life. It also makes me think of what lies ahead for me, which path I’ll be traversing next, where it will take me, what lies in store ahead before I complete my journey of life fulfilling or not fulfilling the purpose of my existence. My thoughts wander yet again to the life I lead now. It has been quite some time since I’ve started contemplating a change long overdue. My eyes are dazzled and my thoughts broken by a sudden blaze of lights outside. Seems to be a marriage hall, where 2 people would be thinking of their future together, just like I think of mine, in a sea of people running around me, each with their own thoughts. That familiar face, the look of understanding, that sweet smile which says a thousand words by itself without a single sound being produced is missing, long lost in the numerous friends I’ve parted ways with, over time. There was a time when I used to be surrounded by them, like a shipwrecked sailor lost on an island surrounded on all sides by the sea to as far as the eyes could see. Those best days of my life when I used to be an extrovert, without me being aware of it, seems to be in a distant past, where I existed and lived. Living and traveling alone and being an introvert is something I’d never dreamt of even in my wildest dreams, but a fact that has been forcefully thrust upon me, with friends I cherished for a lifetime moving apart, lost and confused with their own problems.

That charm, the smile, that captures a million hearts, which I boasted of once, lost somewhere where I dare not tread for the time being for fear of losing those happy moments forever. When did I change? Where and at which point did I change? What brought about the change? How much have I changed? These are questions that haunt my mind always these days. I wish I could be the same person I used to be once, at least a faint whiff of what I was. But alas! I barely recognize the me of yester years now. Feels like it was a mirror image of myself physically that lived in the past and just asked me to continue from where he stopped, but with a mind empty as a slate and a hunger to see and learn things he never heard of or could conjure up in his mind.



I’m disturbed…I’m shaken…I feel cold and numb, not because of the cold and damp air that whispers its secrets in my ears, but more because of my current state of mind, which knows not where it is leading the physical me to. I feel stiff, arrested and unable to move, not because of the confined space I’m in currently, but more because of not knowing what to do. I feel blind even with my eyes wide open, not because I’m not wearing my spectacles but more because of the uncertainty that fogs my mind about my future. I feel deaf and dumb not because I don’t have anyone to talk to and open my mind or no one to listen to, but more because I’m at a loss to understand what’s happening around.


I’m shaken from my thoughts and lamenting by my co-passengers on this journey who are making preparations to tuck into their berths into a world of dreams, asking me to switch off the lights, and hence bring to an abrupt end my chain of thoughts which I’ve penned down, quite contrary to my usual self when I just let my thoughts wander off into oblivion with no record of what conspired.