Saturday, August 6, 2011

italian


Once upon a time there was a young boy going back home after around a year of studies. He had achieved almost everything he wanted and everything he ever desired, and fulfilled each and every expectation ever expected from him with bright colours. Well, not every expectation though, because one can never expect everything to happen and so there were things that were not expected from him or rather say that it was expected that they won’t be fulfilled so thinking of latter as a possible option I can say he fulfilled each and every expectation ever expected from him...

And today he was on his way back home, sweet home. All this while he was busy studying and was busy earning a name so as to make his parents proud of him. He had a name and a nice identity where he was but he wanted more because a more was expected from him. He had family, friends, love and everything else that we all need to live happily. And he was a very good guy from every corner of his heart, atleast he felt that way about himself and he always tried his best not to harm anyone by any means, not even in his thoughts and dreams...

And today he is sitting on an airplane and heading towards a place that nurtured him and made him what everyone wants to be... ‘A happy man’. Thinking of all the good times that he has lived in his home and the nearby streets, all the memories he has created and the ones that are about to get created, and every possible little thing that brought this unconscious smile all over the cheeks of this man staring at him from the window pane of the plane that was acting as a mirror due to certain laws of reflection. And the twinkle in his eyes was clearly visible and even he too was able to feel it’s shimmer...
All the hugs, tight and sweet... all the kisses, on cheeks and on the lips... that will be gifted to him very soon... everything that he’ll eat and every memory that will be cherished... he was engrossed in it and by now he started wondering in his native streets and became the same young lad running for the kites in those streets again...

While he was thinking of all such sweet things he was looking outside the windowpane and was fascinated by the view, the whole little world above which he was flying... the clouds and the buildings and the sea everything appeared to be smaller than his fingers and also the birds flying around his plane were fascinating him....

He is constantly looking at a bird and observing it’s continuously growing size as it is approaching towards him, he just can’t believe what just happened and so do I, that bird was not actually a bird but a plane that just crashed into his window pane, and hence his plane...

As if something came alive out of his artificial small world and after this smash his mind just stopped working, it was forced to, he lost consciousness as his head banged on the window pane or rather say as it was crushed on his head... all his dreams and imaginations were shattered instantly like the window pane and his spectacle lenses... he lost all his senses and soon he gained it as the plane hit the ground, his mind gained bit of senses and ordered his eyes to open up but eyes were refusing... because of a natural defence mechanism called reflex action they got closed and in between those little eyelashes they caught the shards of the shattered window pane or the shards of his own shattered spectacles....

He tried to pluck those pieces out so as to open his eyes, he tried hard and with a little opening he was able to see the smoke flying all around him and rest everything appeared blurred, be it because he was not wearing his spectacles or say because of the smoke, all I know is else was blurred... he couldn’t see but there was a creaking silence that he could hear... he could feel the unbearable pain in his back and arms and the bloodline flowing into his eyes from his head.....
He could feel the aura of death around him, the sound and the view of death was clearly in front of him...
His life started to flash before him again, all the people who were important, all the memories that made him smile they all flashed before him and he realised how much he loved everyone and how much he loved his life and how less he lived it and how less people knew about his feelings for them....
His heart felt crippled when he realised that he wanted to say so much to all the people around him, be it his family or friends or that teacher who taught him how to aim higher or that girl who taught him how to love, or that stranger that inspired him to live more every moment...He had so many unspoken words flowing down inside his body, and all he had was helplessness and the regrets of not letting these people know their worth in his life.....

He picked the spectacle stick in his hand and dipped it in his own blood and started writing something on the piece of paper that flew on his face out of nowhere....

With shacking and frightened hands he wrote with a quill of spectacle dipped in his blood something for the people he loved....
“”Dear mum and dad,
I love you and I am thankful for everything you have given me in my life and as I am leaving all I have to say is please keep smiling always and if ever I have hurt you forgive me and I just want to say I have always loved you, but today I can feel it that I never told you so....
Dear love, you taught me how to love and smile and made me a blessed man, you always shined on my smile please don’t let me get blurred in your tears... “”

That’s all that was left unburnt when someone found it while clearing off the area, he tried to immortalise his heart in that piece of paper.... he tried his best to say it all but destiny had some other plans for him, he kept it crumbled in his hands as he saw the fire coming near him.... his body caught fire and so did everything around him too... he saw that piece of heart getting burnt in front of his eyes.... he saw all the blood get clamped into ashes in front of him.... his fists were burning and from it the ashes begun to fly like the sand flies away from our fists and like the water spills from our fists...
He saw all the tears and blood getting dried in front of his own burning eyes... that sense of dying incomplete and that sense of failure, his last wish was turning into ashes and all he could do was watch them burn.....
Everything burnt with him, his body his love and his soul.....
And as he opened his eyes again he found himself in a new world, in the life after death.... he was afraid to open his eyes and look around himself, his fists were still clecnched... but he had to open his eyes and he did....
And he found himself in his bed, his body covered in sweat and knees touching the stomach and fists clenched and within the clenched fists was a piece of paper that had nothing in it... that was blank and it would have ended up in the trash if it weren’t for that dream of death....
He washed his face and saw those eyes staring at him from the mirror, he kept on looking at him for a long time and then he smiled but that smile was kind of fake, a smile that said to him that ‘go and do something worthwhile and come back to life again....
And he went back to his bed and dipped his quill in the ink and wrote a sonnet for his love on the same crumbled piece of paper and allowed it to dry on his table.... and went back to sleep again...
With this sense of dying incomplete, and getting burnt incomplete, and flying off into ashes incomplete...., he allowed his heartbeats to beat into the pieces of paper....
And hence a new identity was born....
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
And rest is all history...
Mukul Raisinghani

ps: wrote this one while going to goa after 4th sem,while sitting near the gate of the train. really sorry that i didn't edited it at all and just copied every word from that paper and that may have made it full of errors but i guess you'll get the message either ways.

pps : i guess there was no plane during the era of shakespeare but i hope you understand that's the beauty of fiction you can write anything, shakespeare has wrote many fiction things why not make him a part of fiction???

ppps: and as far as the name italian is concerned it has nothing to do with anything i randomly named it that......