Saturday, June 27, 2015

The idea of death during College days



It was just another usual day. I couldn’t remember the date but it do remember waking up at 6.30 exact as usual, doing my stuff and getting ready for college. I took the walk to the bus-stop 15 minutes prior to its arrival given that our bus driver had a reputation to keep up for showing up as per his own temper. Anyways he did arrive about 20 minutes late and I jumped in. Everything else was same and still inside. The same old depressing faces and same age old beaten road. I have travelled so much down this way that everything now just appeared to be soaked in monotonous bleach and was so deeply engraved in my mind that I could recall every turn even while keeping my eyes shut.
I was at my usual window seat at the left hand side of the bus which I once claimed to be my parental property and another day my birth-right, listening to my songs, my head slightly tilted and resting on the window pane. The whole route from my bus –stop to the college was so dreadfully morbid and dreary to the point even a sight of a nude porn-star trying to hitch a ride would go unnoticed. The summers felt like the wrath of a thousand suns determined at burning every splinter of biologically- degraded specimen that would dare to walk under them. But on this particular day and I couldn’t have imagined that a sight like this and the event that followed would leave an imprint which although was not disturbing but could be described as terrible and unforgettable.
As soon as the bus crossed the Rau tri-junction reaching in front of IIM, it slowed down to a huge commotion ahead. Not that something like this was unusual but what followed next stirred some disturbance across the bus and I could hear people murmuring with a definite hint of shock and perplexing tone. Suddenly my eyes rolled on the road as the bus rolled forward slowly and I see countless fragments of plastic fibre lying on the road and a big black twisted frame which tells me that it was a motorcycle few moments ago. But what really freaked me out was the blue and silver gloss fragments of the plastic fibres shining bright under the early morning light as if they were already burning and melting under the might of an early sun. I could feel a sudden chill running down my spine and the chill disturbing itself throw the vast network of the veins in my body, right from my vertebrae column to my ribs and through my wrist into my scrotum. And those fibre pieces now piercing my eyes with the intensity of a thousand suns conveying me something I was trying hard not to imagine but something that was inevitable like a dark truth which you try to avoid from confronting or hearing, the one you don’t want to believe but no authority on the damn planet could deny its existence and no amount of ignorance will change the fact that it is in-fact the ultimate truth. Yes, I recognised the motorcycle from the shards within a moment and I knew whom it belong to and so I was trying my best not to think about that person who could be riding it but life has a way of surprising us from the many things which are obvious but you still act all stunned. Just few meters ahead of the wreck I saw my Richmond sitting on the road, his legs crossed, holding his left arm with another and staring blankly into the glittering tarmac of the road. The looks in his eyes with fear that it appeared like he could see the very core of the earth. He didn’t move, neither was reacting to any stimulus from anything that was happening around him. I was two of my faculty at the site. One was standing next to Richmond talking to someone on his phone and the other was discussing something with the cops who arrived on scene. As the bus rolled away further, I felt that moment like a tragic scene in black and white with a slow moving frame and me looking at this guy who was just hit head-on from a oncoming vehicle as the bus drives away. The gravity of those few seconds was such that it felt like hours.
The news had already spread like a wild fire till I reached the college and one of the staff member asked us to wait in the reception area before we proceed to our classes. Soon the whole reception was jam-packed with students of all the 4 terms and everyone else was looking serious and whispering. The principal showed up 5 minutes later and informed us that one of a student from my class has been in the accident. He further continued and informed that a guy from the junior class who was riding with him died on spot. Because my classmate was wearing a helmet it saved his life but the other guy was not so lucky. The news was followed by a two minutes of silence and we were asked to proceed towards our classes.
Not that we have never seen or heard of any, especially at this particular road which had a reputation for freakish accidents, but the fact that something like this happening to someone you know is more frightening and disturbing. Not only Richmond was my classmate but we also shared a common first name and he was also among the very few people I really liked talking to in my college. He was a funny guy who goofed around a lot but was damn critical on his grades and often could be seen licking the teacher’s ass during the final terms. He wasn’t actually bad but his reputation of creating a ruckus and then still getting caught preceded him as did his retorting attitude.
For the next two months Richmond was not seen. He went back home in Allahabad to his hometown so that his parents could help him recover from the shock. By the time he came back things were back to normal. No one tried to bring the topic of the accident in front of him neither anyone inquired about what happened. But he would often talk about it to Vaibhav and me how he feel himself to be accountable for the death of this other kid who was riding with him and how the god saved his own ass but took away the guy who was the only child to his parents. Vaibhav was not much on talking about such issues and I guess it was for his own good. He lowered the I.Q. of the entire class and he was too dumb to comprehend and comment on such matters because whenever he opened his mouth he would only shit bricks of foolishness which he used to build his rotting castle of self-loathing imprudence and harshness but was hard for me to tolerate and hard for Richmond to pacify himself.
It took almost a year for him to recover mentally from that accident but he never forgot it and neither did I because just yesterday while looking back at my college days the image of that accident came back to my mind and I was somehow compelled to think about some dark and grim question of our existence. The question born out of the mass effect of the part memory and partly because I was reading “Looking for Alaska” and have just reached the point where Alaska is dead in a car accident. The question of life after death and why do we often try to avoid this reality even when we experience it every day around us and even though we are aware of the fact the someday we will all end up dead, broken into molecules, atoms and neutrinos, decomposed and reduced to the same dust from which we were born, gradual rotting mass or a burned-up pile of flesh and bones which breaks down into the fundamental element again. Then why does the very thought of death is perceived as gloomy and seen in a negative luminosity. Why can’t it be discussed like any other normal talks just like we talk about latest fads, our recent crush or some materialistic shit that we recently brought? Why can’t there be more of scientific temperament developed and theories and equations be evolved regarding the structure of death and its nature. Why does the answers regarding afterlife if it is there, are doomed by doubts and misconception. Is there an afterlife or is death nothing but a bleak end dangling in infinity, just another dark and thoughtless void of nothingness.  We claim to have achieved optimisation by evolving into much more intelligent and rational beings than our ancestors but then we forget that there has always been a difference between achieving scientific intelligence and intellect. If death is certain and all that exists on earth is meant to die why cannot be regarded as another normal transformation or a progression to much higher astrological level if that is what pacifies the common mass.
Civilisations ends, their great monuments turns into dust, the once famed and notorious mortals dies and all that remains of them is a memory lost somewhere in the emptiness of our thoughts and the vast ever-prevailing darkness of morbidity or the shining light of exultant thoughts of our own construct. There is no beginning and there can be no end. All that exists is a continuous cycle of transgression and compliance transforming us from a single atom to fully-functioning biological machinery and then again disassembled into its fundamental components and this goes on forever. We are all nothing but only an inconsequential cog of a gargantuan space-ship floating across space on a sea of memories and portraits, watching and contemplating as each of them passes by.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

The Captain's medal



Staring into the hushed darkness of their barrack, sipping through the last rounds of intricately blended malt Roark spoke to Col. William in a deep thoughtful voice. This was the first time  Col. William was hearing Roark opening his heart out to someone with so delicate profundity and thoughtful genuineness

 Capt. Roark said to Col. William, “How many medals do you think you had won in your high school, Colonel Strickfield?”
“Quite a few I guess. I can’t give you exact number but I can say I had my fair share. I excelled in sports if not my academics which earned me a good reputation.” Colonel replied.

“And how many men do you think you have killed by now??”

“I don’t know Captain. It is not our job to count how many we have shot. All I do is pull the trigger at the man who is in my scope and whom I know is trying to hurt my men”

“It’s funny Colonel. When I was in high school I never won anything. Though I have always maintained and tried to convince others that I had all the potential to win, the thing is I never won. However I did participate in many activities but whenever it was time to perform like in a finale of any race my heart stopped beating and my mind would go blank with fear and I couldn’t move. But today when I shot that man across the street, I feel that this is the first time in my life I had achieved something I always longed for. Something I feel that was missing and now I feel completed.”

“What makes you say that, Captain??”

“It’s simple, Sir. When I walked to that man I just shot I did not see my enemy. I did not see a man who stepped on my land to inflict casualties. I wasn’t bound by the moral dilemma and ethical ambiguity of killing a man like many officers in my position go through on their first assignment. But rather I saw an accomplishment which delivered me a gratification I had never felt before. It is as simple as that, Sir, You see a man in that body, I see my medal”.

And in those last words the Colonel knew all that had to know.