The Youth I Wasted
The young couple reminded me of the youth I wasted. The
young lad must have been in his early 20s, while the lass seemed to be
struggling to look beyond the wall that marks the 20th year. The trinkets
in her ear, nose, hands and around her neck obscured the skinny figure she had.
There was the customary ‘sindoor’ in the parting of her hair indicating her
marital status. The deep intimacy between the couple pointed to a union
effected in the recent past.
Several relevant questions raced through my mind at once. I
wish I could ask the couple if they had
eloped or if they had had an arranged marriage. They looked as if they belonged
to a rustic background. Indian villagers marry off their wards at an early age,
and this could be an example.
In a small way, the young couple were mocking me because of
my celibacy and age. I ought to have given up the burden of celibacy at an
earlier instance, but situations had never been amenable to matrimony. Things
would have been quite different had the hurdles and barriers not been a part of
my fate. I would have found myself on a completely different train, it would
have been a different journey, the co-passengers of the journey would have been
different, and an entirely different destination would have waited for me. The
youth and freshness of the couple pointed towards the several wrong turns my
fate had taken.
The truth is that my fate has never been in my hands. I
could never have avoided any of the wrong turns. My fate, that dictated the
wrong turns, was etched out on a stone tablet several millions of years ago,
long before the earth was created. There were several crests and troughs
typical to my case. A head-injury resulting in several physical handicaps that
would plague me for the rest of my life was on the cards. Ammi’s death collated
from it only to add to the wrong turns. Her departure from our lives left a
night without end that searches for dawn to its very edge. The sun seems to
have lost its typical warmth, the moon no longer erases the gloom of the night.
The Script Writer had scripted several dénouements and
climaxes in the script. But none of these wrong turns could be dubbed as
‘wrong’ ---- the Script Writer’s skills at writing scripts could never be
doubted.
I only hope the wrong turns that have been a part of my life
would not be a part of my second chance to live. Life would be quite different
for the second chance. There would be the youth with all the zeal, fervour,
energy and vigour typical to it. I wonder what happened to my youth. I badly
wish I could go back in time and rectify the mistakes made by my fate, but the
mere belief would be being thankless to the Script Writer, for the expertise
with which each yarn is knitted can never be doubted.
But this certainly is not the end. The end would not come
till I give up. I shall never give up in my crusade against my fate. After all,
it is only my patience that is being tested.
