For a help!

Raju lifted his head. Rubbing his eyes, he wrinkled his temple and held a palm over there as support. He still hadn’t opened his eyes. The dim kerosene lamp on a slim wooden stand behind him was still burning and lighting the room. One could see the round shadow of Raju’s head supported by a stand like object on the wall before Raju. It was nearly 7 p.m. and the rustling of leaves of the trees outside could be heard. Clouds were gathering in the sky as if they had been invited to shower the Earth. Outside, it was completely dark, not even a ray of light anywhere. The crickets were creaking from nowhere. Suddenly, the light was set on a dance by a stream of wind, untying the veil which had been tied like a cover for the window. The veil flew and fell on the floor. One could see the drama of dancing images - of the head, of the flying veil on the wall! Raju was very unfortunate to have missed such a wonderful event. He was still closing his eyes.

Perhaps he was thinking about his life! Perhaps. How should he be? All the moral codes, ethical rules and philosophies of life which he had thought were the things to be lived with, merely seemed sentences to him. Still he asked constantly – ‘how one should be in life?’ ‘Should I be reserved? Or Jovial like my friend always? Or a mix of both? How do you decide which is the best?’ He remembered a sentence – ‘Don’t be a puppet in the hands of morality and philosophies. Untie yourself and be free. Be as you wish. React what comes to your mind. Be open and live as you wish’. He had remembered this lot of times and his behaviour had been constantly influenced by this sentence. No doubt, very sooner he started doubting each and every word in that sentence, as life is not a smooth path with expected events. Life forced him to behave contrarily to each and every word of the sentence in many occasions, which were uncontrollable and inevitable for him. The moment he doubted, he started being reserved. When he was reserved, people around him too seemed to be reserved and he again fell prey to the first kind of life – living as you wish. He was constantly in a sweeping motion between the two and hence was never in an equilibrium. ‘What is that? Where is that equilibrium? How can I reach?’ And one may think, why Raju needed answers to these questions.

Raju heard the squeaking sound of the wooden roof outside the window. Something had started walking over it and it revealed its identification with a ‘Meow..’ ‘Oh! The cat. Living as per its instincts. It fears, shows its fears, runs away without any hesitation, stealthily moves in and drinks milk, pounces upon its food and fights for it, even. But.. But.. I am civilized! How can I show my weakness? How can I live upon somebody else’s properties without their consent, how can I..? Ptch. This life, full of contradictions, jealousy and ego is sucking’ Raju sighed, keeping both hands behind his head and sitting as if looking at the roof. But his eyes were still closed. He didn’t even give a conscious thought on what he was thinking. Everything was flowing like a river downhill from its source. The rustling sounds, creaking of crickets were overcome by the sound of rain, which started to pour down heavily all of a sudden. Rain and wind started romancing, dancing on the roof of the house. The sound became so monotonous. Had it stopped all of a sudden, the calmness would have seemed to be very unusual.

Raju opened his eyes when water droplets fell on his face. He couldn’t notice anyone spraying water on his face. Everything was dark. The light had gone. Being unable to notice anything, even where he was for that matter, Raju closed his eyes again. As if they needed a private warmer place for their romance, wind started bringing the rain inside the room through the uncovered window. Raju, feeling tired of thinking, fell asleep in the chair. He had a dream in the sleep. He had been a cat, sitting on a wooden plank in the middle of an ocean, crying out for someone’s help. It was dark completely and raining heavily. The wind had set the wooden plank on an oscillatory kind of motion, from here to there, there to here. All of a sudden, Raju heard a roaring sound. What was it? Before Raju could guess, before Raju could run through his mind something forced him deep into the water and he started to lose breathe. He breathed through his mouth for half a minute. And the unknown force was pushing him deeper and deeper and he couldn’t escape it. And at last he shouted – ‘God! Please get me out of this ocean. I want to live, I want live..’ And ‘Hush….’, Raju woke up with a big gush of wind moving out of his lungs. He was breathing heavily, as if recovering all the lost breath. He looked around. It was his room lit by the morning rays of Sun. His legs were wet and cold. That small room was filled with enough water to wet his ankles. Raju felt a pain in his neck for sleeping in that position for a long time. Raju couldn’t think of anything. He got up and went out!