Musings From My Evenings

I have realized that sunset and sunrise are made beautiful only because of clouds in the sky. A clear sky is an endless monotony of blue void. It’s the same in every direction you look. It’s the cloud patterns that make the sky beautiful.

The clouds with a silver lining.
The clouds that divide the sun into beams and shafts of light.
An extensive group of tiny cloud balls well marked in their arrangement that look like the scales of a fish….making the sky a mackerel sky. That’s got to be my favourite.
Clouds that are ripples on the surface of a tranquil lake.
Then there are large clouds and the mid size clouds.

Clouds soaked in honey, milk, rose water, silver, gold, saffron, turmeric
Against a background of powder blue, ink, a solution of copper sulphate, cobalt, ashes…

Sometimes, at the same time, you can see patches of all the different patterns here and there. Indeed, sunset and sunrise are made beautiful only because of clouds in the sky.
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Coconut tree is the most photogenic of them all…. it’s the shape that’s makes it so attractive…. fifteen to twenty fronds held together by a slender looking stem… resembling the petals of a lotus flower or water from a fountain or fireworks in the sky.….the symmetrical fronds, gently swaying in the air, the glistening leaflets reflecting sunlight, partly yellowish, partly green…the leaflets themselves, parting now, joining now as if they were one…..fluttering, like the wings of a butterfly... the older fronds bending outwards to make way for the younger ones at the center…. The tree is never bare….the older fronds dry away but there are enough younger and greener ones to keep the tree perennially beautiful.
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Although we want to be delivered from suffering, we unconsciously hold on to them, recall and recount them, take a kind of pride in them. That’s why cynicism appeals more than the philosophy of optimism to most of the people.
This is called masochism. Deriving pleasure from one’s own suffering. It is the opposite of sadism.
A profound thought is forming in my mind. :-) I have done my best to phrase it well. I just realized that Masochism is a waste of life ..except when the cause of suffering is Love. Love is likened to sweet poison. How true! The suffering is sweet. It at least gives your heart something to toy with… I would rather hit the rock bottom than try to swim up.
Woh Dil Hi Kya Jisme Dard Na Ho! Every poet will vouch for it..and everyone who has been in love.
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There has been some success in life. There are friends trying to make me believe I am very good. But why is there a doubt? Once in a way, when I read this article by a fellow blogger on the subject of finance or economy or stock market, all of which are Greek and Latin to me, when I have read twice a poem composed by a friend and still haven’t understood what it means,….my confidence becomes shaky, there is a feeling of inadequacy, out of which stems my biggest fear ….The fear of being a success among the mediocre. I DON’T want to be a success among the mediocre.
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Watched the starving, hungry, thirsty kids in Somalia …..imagined how ecstatic, overjoyed, they would feel even if you gave them a piece of bread. How thankful they would be. Hunger is probably the worst cruelty of life. Whether hunger for food, or hunger for love.

I had emailed someone. I received a generous response that I had not expected. Can’t tell you how happy I became. It was as little as an email. An email that perhaps meant nothing more than a gesture of politeness...and I could not sleep the night out of sheer joy….I was consumed in self pity at the realization of how much starvation there has been in my own life… for love…
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Most of the wounds have healed. Its time to flush out that last ounce of vehemence which swells to become a gallon every now and then. Put down the baggage I have been carrying for so long and be relieved at last. A few battles are always there to fight. But the war is over. Discard the weapons. I am only a few steps away from freedom. I am on the runway, picking speed gradually. I need to shed the last burden and then the flight will happen. The blue skies beckon.