Life!

Life!

I was speeding to work, and as usual, was engrossed in the early morning calls on the mobile, when I noticed it. It was clinging on for dear life, to the front windscreen of my Indica.

Actually it was right in front of me, almost at the eyeball level. That I missed it for the first couple of minuets of my drive, tells you how distracting it is to talk on a phone, even if you are using “hands free.” The phone engages the mind rather completely.

The wind hitting my car must have seemed like a raging hurricane to it. Try smashing the glass of your car’s windshield and then drive at around eighty km/ph. You would realize the force of the gale that hits you.

I forgot the phone, as I marveled at its tenacity, its ability to stay on the slippery surface.

I braked the car to a halt and peered at it through the see through barrier. It was frozen against the glass. It was tiny, just as big and thick, as my little finger, with a curved tail, that was almost twice its length. And it was petrified. A thin sheath of skin covered its small, protruding eyes, and its tiny jaw was frozen in determination, as it struggled to hang on. The almost non-existent claws of its feet were trying their best to dig into the hard, impenetrateble glass.

It was a newborn, common lizard, which inhabits our homes along with us. Just how did it choose to come along for a ride?

I am no lover of lizards. In fact they are downright eeky. Yet, I did not want it to die so soon after it was born. So I tapped at the glass trying to shoo it away. It did not move a muscle, except for a small, softly vibrating, twitch at its minuscule throat.

It was breathing. Other than that, it may well have been a small rubber stick-on toy that kids play with. As it chose to ignore my knocking, I wondered if I should get down and poke it with a piece of paper perhaps, to make it run away.

But instead, I started the car and moved on. This time, I eased my foot on the gas pedal. The wind pressure lessened. My tiny friend suddenly moved. It darted to my left, and in an instant disappeared down the hood.

There was a scalding hot engine there! If it survived that, it would encounter a host of pipes, not to mention a fan with wicked, ruthless blades!

Will it survive, I mused? I felt a kinship with the brave fellow, so far from home, so far away from his parents. Don’t we all cling on to something every day to live? To our work, relationships, status? Then I shook my head clear it of the defeatist thoughts. That is what life is all about.

That is the beauty of the life cycle. The moment you take birth you want to live, no matter how desperate the circumstance, how steep the odds against you. It is nature’s most deep-rooted principle. The survival instinct. The reason why the world is. Even that tiny being was not willing to give up on life without a fighting for it. All the way.

You may be a miniature, insignificant insect, doomed to perish the very night you are born. Yet for those few moments you celebrate. You zip around; you flirt with a flame or a skylight. You die, but before you die you live, Fully.

Published as a middle in The Hitavada,Nagpur dated 15.7.2009

Those Six Inches!

The cat was stiller than any statue carved out of stone. Her small, sleek, cylindrical body was crouched in an impossibly grotesque, frozen, pre-leap. Each muscle was taut, concentrated; leashed, till the moment presented itself. Mesmerised, I killed the engine of my car and followed her fiercely intent gaze.

Expectedly, just a few yards away, were the pigeons. They were blissfully pecking at whatever they had found on the floor of the car parking lot. Ironically enough, the lot itself was attached to the well known Hindu cremation grounds of the city.

I had just driven in, and had braked my car, when I saw the cat. The living, as always, were blissfully unaware, that their death lurked just a few feet away.

Death is in fact, always, just six inches away from anyone who breathes. That is about how far we let our exhaled breath travel, from our nostrils, before we greedily suck it back in.

Like an alert fielder patrolling the boundaries in a cricket match, it stalks, patiently. The moment it catches a mishit, it grabs the prize, and runs away, full of glee. What it leaves behind, is a suddenly still, mound of ambitions, desires, loves and hates. It is final. Absolutely. It brooks no arguments.

Up points its finger, and up you go.

I was already late for the rites (somebody else’s), but kept sitting where I was. What better place to ruminate about the end, than outside a cremation ground. Inside it, I knew, an angry ball of fire was already licking a dear friend to the basics. I should have gone in and shown my face to the other mourners to prove how I too was a responsible, caring, member of their society. They would then remember to attend my funeral. The immediate family was beyond caring.

They had lost him in an accident, the previous day, a day before Deepawali. All four of them, were driving together to distribute some gifts to friends, when he lost control over his car. The friend who called to inform me, had added, that the bereaved wife just kept repeating, to anybody who came to condole; that his last words were, “My God! The brakes have failed……….we are going to crash……….!!!” Three had survived, almost unhurt, physically.

The cat, meanwhile, had noticed me. It turned its head to glare at me, and tell me to get on with my business, and then it ran a few steps forward, to take a new position under a scooter. I was morbidly fascinated. Whom would it pick? How does death decide? The birds had continued enjoying their breakfast. Which one of them was just, just about to go? They were making strange grunting noises. What were they talking about? What was my friend saying, just moments before he realized that the brakes of his car had given up on him? Was he planning the Deepawali night party? The next big car he was about to buy? Was he telling his children about the gifts he had brought for them? Or was he telling his wife how he planned to expand the business after Deepawali? What?

My mind debated (just for that split second it takes us to ponder on life and death questions; when they face others), whether to vroom the car on and warn the birds. I decided not to play God. The cat had to eat too. Quietly, I shifted the gear, stepped on the gas peddle, and eased the car out of the parking lot.

Let them not attend my funeral, when my time comes.

I had to buy candles to light that night. Deliberately, I moved my mind away from the unseen scene of a young boy lighting his father’s pyre. Life has to go on, till death decides. It’s like Yudhistra told the Yakasha, “The strangest thing on earth is, that all of us frequently go and cremate out near and dear ones, but still we truly believe, in our hearts, that we would escape.” Truer words were perhaps, never spoken.

Published in The Hitavada as a middle Oct 7,2007