MY FIRST POST

Every time i open my pen and diary to write something i find it very difficult to pen my thoughts, its certainly not because my knowledge of the language forbids me (my twelve years of formal English education and my recent victory in the duel with The Barron’s is a proof!) .

And tonight i found the reason that has been coming over me..........

Like most of the Indian movies let’s start this journey with a brief time travel....

Not so long ago on the eve of 8th of February in the serpent year of 1989, in the receding chilly zephyrs, an old man was writing a very important letter to someone very important when his pregnant daughter cried out in pain. Alarmed by the cries of his daughter the old man dropped the pen, the nib broke and he ran to assist his daughter. Amidst a lot of tension he took his daughter to a hospital 15km away. Everyone in that house spent a sleepless night that day. Though all were very happy, for they knew the next dawn is going to be very memorable for them all.... yes they were getting a gift from the God. The old man was happy too, but there was a feeling of emptiness somewhere in the bottom of his heart. The next morning his daughter gave birth to a sweet n cute baby boy and the old man spent a lot of money that day buying boxes of sweets. He was all smiles. He went room by room to every room in the hospital and gave away those sweets. He offered sweets to the god, the doctors, patients, friends, relatives, mendicants and almost to anyone and everyone he met on that day. He seemed to be the happiest man in the world but somewhere in the bottom of his heart he felt he was having a feeling, a feeling, a feeling of missing something, a feeling for which he had no reason. He later brought his daughter back home with his adorable grandchild swathed in a green towel, like a lotus bud in its leaflets. Proud of becoming a grandfather for the first time in his life, he directly went to thank the gods who had blessed his family with a heir.

He loved this baby more than anything else in the world, more than himself... but whenever he saw the serene face of the child he got this feeling in the bottom of his heart, a feeling which was more like a feeling of guilt, a feeling of irresponsibility, a feeling of compunction, a feeling he could not discern, a feeling he had no reason for. In spite of his conspicuous happiness, his daughter felt something was wrong with her father. For three months he had this feeling. The feeling was growing in its acerbity day by day. He was so disturbed mentally that he started losing his health. Noticing the deterioration in her father’s mental and physical pluck his daughter decided to talk to him about this. But something stopped her from doing so for another 2 months. Later, one day when he was in his death bed she went to him and talked to him in private. It was the month of July and the monsoon had set in. There were heavy showers everywhere, everyone was enjoying the first rains of the year, the baby the first rain of its life............. but for this old man this unreasonable feeling was overpowering him... it was killing him. Suddenly there was a strong thunder and a blinding lightning, the old man in his death bed shuddered, and a thought struck him. His memory rolled in a violent spin five months back in time, and stopped on a cold windy night in the serpent year of 1989. He caught his daughters hand and said something ...... there came another loud thunder, the old man shuddered and lay still.............. For the first time in his life he stopped breathing.

Today exactly twenty years later, as I was talking to my mother she told me this story. Unable to contain my curiosity I asked her about the “strange feeling” that killed my grandfather. I asked my mother the reason for the “feeling”. I asked her what my grandfather told her this day twenty years ago......small trickles of tears rolled down her cheeks......and her silence was killing me ... I was desperate .. I pleaded her intermittently to tell me those last words of that dying man...I pestered her for an answer, not worrying about her remorse because somewhere in the bottom of my heart I had a feeling that this has got something to do with me, it was not a mere coincidence to have discussed this tonight..... I had a strong feeling that this is the reason why I am not able to pen my feelings and thoughts too.... I wanted to know the reason ... I wanted to know the reason...

Finally my mom told me the reason...there was another loud thunder and a blinding lightning..... but I heard it as clearly as she did exactly twenty years ago from the old man... the reason that caused this unreasonable feeling in my grandfather... the reason that caused the feeling that killed my grandfather.... the reason ... the reason that is now a curse on me... the reason that stops me from penning my thoughts...

“The reason...” My mom said ,” was a paper weight, he failed to put a paper weight on top of the most cherished and the most important letter of his life on that night before your birth.......and in all the hurry he lost that letter to the cold February winds..... “

So the reason of my inability to pen my thoughts was this curse HOLD IT! Or rather a boon for me... maybe my grandfather did not want me to write anything on a piece of paper and lose it to the winds and get myself killed by a “feeling- that has no reason”. The moment I realised this I threw away my pen and took out my laptop and without an interruption I come to the end of penning rather typing down this remarkable discovery!!