Shoebox reflections

Everything I ever owned which is of value – it fits in a shoebox shoved under my bed. There is a Time and Place for things made up of nothing more than useless sentiment – under the bed is a good Place. And Time…well that’s the tricky one.

Shoebox delvings are meant for certain type of days- when the sun shines a little gentler – when the current road seems too beaten to death and its time to blow the cobwebs off on things that cannot be supported by 4 pieces of cardboard. A guided tour down memory lane requires environmental support.

So I yanked the old box out one morning.

An old postscript to ‘my little lady, from Grandpa’
Reams of angst ridden poetry in support of a current love interest.
Play tickets.
Newspaper write ups cried over and loved.

Suddenly…an email.

A sign of modernity - an email worthy enough to be printed. Proof of the early days of distrust in the transient cyber world where one click can destroy – that’s where I found him.
Immortalized in low quality jet print on file paper.
Forgotten in a shoebox.

All I could remember of the writer is this vague combination – of laughter, elaichi tea and a cheap paratha place with red plastic chairs… throw that in with some indistinct pursuit of artistic endeavor- and that just about makes the cut.

That’s it.
Nothing more.
In complete shock I realize that I can’t remember anything else.
Zilch.

There’s a sickening quality of a Hannibal Lector about Time. It creeps up on you and slowly erases, in parts, a lifetime filled with sensation and action. And one day, out comes a shoebox and you hit pause mode, turn back and it’s a wall of blackness. You’re left to grope and snatch at what was so intensely alive and all you can get … all there’s left are a bunch of dull freeze frames randomly strung together, with an insipid sepia about it.

Time wrecks havoc.

I sat there, clutching at this piece of paper …watching another day draw to an ominous close... Another day of consequence and events that will slip behind that iron veil…into the wall of Time. Unrecoverable.
Inviolable.
Gone.

"You once said to me: 'If we never meet again - it wouldn't make a difference'. But you didn't say it wouldn't matter. Do you know I understood the nuance. It was really long ago, but but did you know?"

The email ended with the day.

Of Adventure mostly...

A room grows dark. A blue light envelops it…and suddenly, through a crack I can see those simmering eyes of Galadrial burn at me with …oh so much compassion.

I can hear my brain say aloud “It’s got to be Elven”…and the rest of the thouht just fades into a strange tongue….and I realize I know the meaning of those words although I can’t understand it. … “Its got to be Elven when there is such compassion that’s never been seen before on a human face”.

Then…she lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark.She stood tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful.

Those blue eyes framed in that ethereal face moved into expression…And then she's gone…the dark fades as a trashy tubelight flickers on...

... And I read the book. Now its all just in there.

That book is a part of the Life I never had…a life that peeks open through doors in dark rooms and fade with the light of an alleged Reality.

Some times, even when I don’t know it, I find myself walking down the roads on the Other side. Without knowing it, my feet took a turn at a Time warp…and ….I’m on the Road.
Rickshaws pass me by and people talk in a language unknown to me…I walk apart from the roaring crowd that marches to the rhythm that’s unfamiliar to me. … A map in my bag and I smell Adventure.

Or the banks of some sacred river at sunset….watch the faithful go to prayer at a melancholy call across the landscape…or when the sun rises a top a temple in Rajashtan.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

The trip ends and magic and adventure sinks into the gaps between…the pages of a book.
I switch the lights on in the dark room that flickers to harsh glow of Reality.

And I read the book. Now its all just in there.

The world, someone said is divided into those who have read the Lord of the Rings and those who are going to read it.