Being Caged

You would know if you have spent a night all by yourself in the countryside. How the dampening moonlight quivers around the eyes while delivering to the ears packets of rhythmic noise from a wedding party on miles away. In the lonely sheet of helplessness where you lay uneasy, these parcels recreate the many weddings you have been to in the past. So, the groom must have arrived and his feet must have already been washed. The guests must be feasting somewhere close by. The band must still be playing for the over enthusiastic friends of the groom. One of these would shake a leg to the whiskey in his head. The percussion strikes all too gently for its intensity and its distance. Listening to it you relish the charm of being by yourself. Loony bird nights.

Feels like a street say from somewhere in a dusty town, The sun has set. The street is fast emptying while you continue staring at it from the street side bench. Chill sets in quietly and the hands reach for the warmth of the trouser pockets. You wish that the town permitted you a night out on the street without anyone questioning or offering shelter. You wish one of the home-bound vendors could take you along for a meal and his biography. Tales of his white female buyers would be delicious dessert. The vendors leave, the bench begins to hurt and you get up only to find a reason to go back. To that pending assignment or to that regular TV show.

You are awake on a rainy midnight and are in a hotel room close to the sea. Sleepless and aroused you think of the book to read, Turn a leaf and dream aloud yet again. A sea is so much about life and warmth. Yet you don’t have access to any of it. May be because you don’t belong. But the scene from the window tells me that the ones who belong too are leaving for their huts. Their baskets and stands rolled up in one. Who does the sea belong to then if it has to spend the night on its own. May be I am only being jealous of people who don’t really own the things I am now yearning to own. Doesn’t everyone go to sleep night after night? Leaving the groom and the bride, the dust and the bench, the hotel and the beach-all to themselves?