Beauty, Unity, Colours

I stand looking at the rain outside, a thin sheet filtering the orange light of the street lamp. Traffic is sparse on the road at 1 am. I feel as unprotected as the cow, white and shivering, standing outside in the rain. But there is a certain dignity to her as she stands unflinching, facing the rain - not in resignation but with determination or it seems to me. She looks up, now and then, as though willing the rain to stop and yet challenging it to continue pouring.

It has been a long time since I have thought of beauty. These days I look at concrete buildings and smoke emitting buses and vacant faces that hurry past me, with a certain distaste. I feel myself growing indifferent. Now I realise there is nothing wrong with anyone. I have forgotten beauty. I have blocked my mind against it.

Escapism is an addictive drug. I try to escape the dark ugly botches but on a night like this, they come back, vivid and threatening. They have grown manifold since I last had the courage to see them in full light.

A website tells me that I will live till 2062. My first emotion is weariness followed by suprise at my weariness... The Ecaudate Macaque once remarked, as we stood under the starlit sky - "I respect anyone who has lived even an hour more than me." Then, it seemed like some fantastic statement - mysterious and intelligent. I adored him more for his way with words. But, as I look at the rain and the clock, I understand what he meant. My only achievement is that I have been breathing for twenty one years and will continue to do so until I stop. How will I know when to stop?

I used to have favourite colours. I used to like black and white. I was not fond of gray. One day I understood that colours are light photons dancing. Happy colours are happy photons, dancing merrily away swinging their arms. Peaceful colours are calm photons dancing with dignity. Black is born when the photons decide to take rest. White is born when all the photons gather together to have a ball. Is this the unity I am supposed to see?

I look at the sunset. Orange sky and an endless sea of sand. I don't see the colour. I just see the sun and the sand. My mind stops. Colours vanish from my mind's eye. Only the feeling of awe is captured and stored away for eternity. Is this the *unquestioned* unity I am supposed to experience?

I look into the eyes of the Brown-Eyed-Boy. A Brown I have never seen before. A Photon-dance that is new to me. There I am, surrounded by Brown and filled with the Brown. He smiles and I realise I am smiling back when I look in his eyes.

"I have never seen a cricket bat," he is saying, "My father often talks of cricket though he has never seen a cricket match in 30 years. I have always wondered what it feels like to hold this." He speaks simply as though it is the easiest thing in the world to speak.

But I am struggling to hear. I can see streaks of electricity. Words? I can hear syllables. I am aware of his incongruous American accent - incongruous because the sound waves are emitted by an Indian larynx through an Indian mouth on an Indian face with an Indian nose and reflected by Indian walls into Indian ears...

He runs his hands lovingly, gently, over the cricket bat. He looks fascinated. He turns to look at me. I look at myself in his Brown Eyes. He reaches over and pushes away the strands of hair falling over my forehead - gently, lovingly. He looks fascinated.

deja vu.