The World that was never mine....

“Every day we have to fight several insecurities which come to our way intertwined with the trials and tribulations this cynical world has to offer.”I read these lines when I was 15 years old and I encountered several dilemmas in gulping down the lines. The lines were wrapped in a cryptic aura which I kept untouched in some remote corners of my mind, not ever wanting to stumble upon it again. I detested the lines even though I couldn’t digest the intricacies of it. The lines depicted a world which was contradictory to the world my mother’s stories and paintings elucidated.




After so many years the lines came rushing back to me from the isolated corners of my mind when my eyes fell upon the newspaper mercilessly showing this picture taken during the Bhopal gas tragedy. The name of the photographer just eloped out of my tiny nutshell, though I am aware of the fact that this was an award winning capture (look at the IRONY).The first glance at this picture made me feel naked knowing that the truth I despised the most has finally dawned upon me. How terribly I wished to elude that moment out of my mind! Now each word of the lines read long back was striking a hard chord causing pain which I feel will linger on till I finally give up the paintings and story world I have always dwelled upon.



While lying on the bed that night my eyes fell upon the painting hanging above the door for the last so many years. Everything has changed in my room except that painting. The painting was a symbol of a revered and utter existence, untouched by insolent facts of life. I suddenly pounced from the bed and reached out to the 25 year old canvas which has shielded my eyes from my very existence. Now it was time to sever it off. While bringing the canvas down, it slipped off my hands with a shrilling crack. My mother came running to my room asking why I was running the errand (it has been 2 years she is asking me to let go off the canvas). I turned to her as a tear rolled from the corner of my left eye, she looked up and left without a word but we both communicated in silence in that iota of eye contact. She was sad, though she was the one who taught me to walk into the world through the canvas



I didn’t sleep that night. A void was created in my wall and in my heart. I felt cheated as I was being ripped away from my world. The world that was never mine........