I MISSED MY PASTS
Stephan
C. Hmar 26/12/2012
One astonishing
fact about our life is we always missed our pasts. And, squarely I found this
seems to be one of the axioms of our complex life.
Young or old, or
the not so old people I come across mostly argue with one common tale: their good times have gone. Oh! How
precious is the past? It’s everyone’s tales of pride, comfort, value or
meanings. A weak man here used to be a strong gentleman in his past. Wrinkled
old grandmas, here and there, used to be mystic beauties of their times. A
widow used to be happy when she was with her husband and a widower could not
find any lovelier bride than that of his past, however he may try. Oh! Songs
and Gospel and drum-beats of bygones were sweeter. How come every tiny thing about
the past could have meaning so close to the soul?
We revamp and
smarten our present. We fight, kills, unite or divide to redecorate our present.
We proclaimed ourselves successful or unsuccessful; happy or unhappy. But in
them all, we always found the pasts were way sweeter.
Indeed, the pasts
hold our soul.
The sweetest
moments are always on those long-gone moments and the fronts are on the present.
Why is it that we cannot go back to our pasts than always lingering on the
boundary of present and future? Why is it so that we are always confronting
something unknown?
One evening, under
a fog-covered December, I went to a book-stall to see what they have. I saw books,
stacked on the shelves, as well as scattered on tables and floors. I could see
books of current affairs, general knowledge, MCA, BCA, fictions, love stories,
quicker mathematics and more. I gazed at them with starry feelings. They
hurried me back to the departed moments that are unlikely to re-cycle back. My
mind eyed back those times when friends and I struggled to memorized GK, and
toiled day in and day out to crack confusing arithmetic. Oh! We found quicker mathematics were too
quick to understand then. I wish if we only knew how quicker those math are
now. And how less did we knew that only the quickest math is the need of the
occasion now. Again, how sweet were lovers and their story and what confusion
is love all about now. Knowledge was meaningful and sweet then. Now it is drab.
Everything was testier but now, they all taste sourer or duller. All these Recollections of long-gone moments
started to come back and irritated this unchanging soul.
But, surely I could
not purchase any of those books of the past. I needed to stick to something of
the front, of the present. Hesitatingly, I picked up a copy of Reader’s Digest
and checked its contents. I pulled out my purse, paid the seller and went back
towards my vehicle.
I kind of felt unsatisfied.
But, what more can be done?
Along the drive way
back home, I felt an ardent sense of straying too far away from what my soul
longed. What I need to purchase has
changed; my liking has to change; I have to try to make the ambience around me
changed. Aa! What has all these years done of which I barely knew? Why did I not
picked up book of my pasts but picked up a different book which I thought
always was a book of no help --- costly and small in size, with thick pages of
unruly advertisements within them. I accessed its weight and size and
complained the high price tag. I felt, maybe, an unyielding sense of
foolishness. Or a sense of some sorts of isolation after something inherent has
been snatched from you? I sense wave of changes brushing my unchangeable longings
and soul.
It is sad that changes
bring us further and further from our pasts. Our childhood friends; friend and
friends with whom we shared schools and colleges; people with whom we have
shared glasses of beer, Chivas Regal, wines and pepsi; people to whom we cried
narrating a story and people with whom we shared a hearty laugh are straying
further and further. They are gone, like a familiar pitch of voices of near and
dear diminishing amongst mountains and valleys. When we think back about them,
we often starts by missing someone in particular. Next, we miss another one.
And then, at last, we end up missing everyone.
Once in a life
time, we all experienced this sphere of closeness where bad was not that bad
and good is not good either. Bad and good were just interesting. Self-respects
and prides were not crucial. The innards crave for innocent enjoyments was all
that was. It was nothing less than the anticipated paradise. You just cannot
ask for more. Everyone, this and that, was just under one umbrella of
understanding, no styles or words were required to fit in it. All fit in like a
round peg in a round hole.
But sadly these
accounts are bygones now. But they die hard. In fact, they will never die. They
still flow with the blood stream where the blood longed and seek for freedom
and serenity in this era of the know-how, where every sentence from the mouth
have to be combed with carefulness; where everyone have the eyes of hawk and
the mind of hyenas.
The clock says
tick-tock and I will be 35 soon. Structurally I am changing fast. No doubt. I
will also see my friends in the near future being changed structurally---- a
bit wrinkled, or slightly grayish or fat or thin or more handsome or more ugly
and so on. But certainly, more I will see of them as imitating the nature of a
character they thought matured, yet unwillingly, due to demands or by the call
of surroundings. Sure enough I will also be definitely like them, talking wits
and wisdoms. Yet, these changes will be of no contest to contaminate the firm
knowledge the soul have had. Soul persist change and longed for lost paradises.
Yes, something real of the inside cannot just change, and all the glare of
wants and needs that confronts us can change us extravagantly on the surface.
Inside is always the same. Changes are of the physical, and the soul is still
there, left unchanged.
And my RD book?
Alas! Veneer changes that are inflicted on me by this and that of the corridors
of life made me need it. I have to act as needing this book than all the other
books in that shop. But beneath this, my innermost soul wanders in deprivation
much like wild beast wandering for an oasis on a roaring and fuming desert.
I sat on my table
and read the contents of my Digest book. 1. Delicious ways to release fat. 2.
The riddle of Pandit Nehru. 3. How to have a positive attitude. 4. Gripped by
the loop of chances, etc. I also see writings on family, health, pets, money,
challenges, kindness, works etc. and etc. In their midst, I felt like an old
soldier being summoned back to a chaos-inflicting war zone.
Aa! 35 years of my
life is going to make me need to read and think about all these things. I will
once again, have to learn to adjust with them. And the back of my head longed
for the blissful pasts where I didn’t need any adjustments to fit in. Now, I am
governed by the rules of cares, normality, and politeness, right and wrong. I
feel meaningless.
I guess I just miss
my pasts.
