11. What is fear?
Human beings perpetually live in fear. Fear defines us. Bring me any man, and I can tell you his life story through his fears. Fear drives us to do things, things which becomes part of our character.
If we investigate the nature of fear, more often than not, we reach to the point of 'fear of death'. Death kills our soul, but fear of death makes us soulless. The more you fear, the more you distance yourself from your soul. What good is man without soul? What good is a man if he is an animal?
This single idea of 'fear of death' is the source of all fears,which includes the generational fears -- Fear of losing job, fear of insecurity, fear of losing a family, fear of losing fame..everything..everything in humans life is defined by fear.
Fear begets fear. Fear is a vicious circle. The more you feed it the more it rises.
Damn! My mind lecturing me again, I thought as I trembled with fear holding my mother's diary.
Sometimes, instincts take over the mind and all rationalizing becomes useless.
Yes, useless it became, all that rationalizing, because, the trembling didn't stop.I knew that I had smelled that peculiar sweet and sour smell. I knew that the smell was stronger on the 'ataka'.I knew that I felt some wetness on my hand as I searched the same ataka. I remembered that I rationalized it as some nonsense -- as exactly my mind reasoned -- an illusion of fear.
But, my mother's dairy was not an illusion. It was right there in my trembling hands. It was right there before my eyes, and I was not dreaming either. I was not sure of that dream part though.But, even if it was all a dream, What difference that would make? I felt the fear, dream or not.
Sometimes, reasoning itself, if not taken to the extreme end, makes us fearful. Because, reason uses facts, and the facts were --
1. My mother felt that she was being watched by someone.
2. She smelled a peculiar 'sweet and sour' smell, in congruence with my experience.
3. My Dad obviously didn't notice none of it.
The last point, if true, had some grave consequences,one of which could be genetics. My mind monkey climbed to the top of tree and started swinging crazily, and my hand and body trembled more.
As I watched myself with amazement at my trembling hands,and as I watched the trembling diary, a photo slipped out of its pages and fell on the floor.I picked it up.
It was a 3" x 4" black and white photo. It was my beautiful mother's photo. OMG! She was soo beautiful.I could even go to the extent of saying that Dimple Kapadia in bobby, whom my mother admired, is nothing before my mother's beauty.The black and white nature of that photo added a quality which almost says that the photo was not real, almost like a myth -- some kind of legendary tale.
But, something was very peculiar about that photo. Something was amiss.Something was wrong. First of all, the photo was taken at an unusual angle, from a top angle, and mother had to lift her face for the photographer to capture her face.Second, the expression on her face was very unusual. Its difficult to describe that expression.If you were at Hiroshima when the atom bomb exploded, and if you captured the faces of the victims, who just came to know about the bomb, and if they were half-way in the process of changing their expressions from smiling to absolute fear, but not completely in fear, that was the expression I saw in my mother's face and eyes in that photo.
It was as if my mother was smiling,just before the photographer clicked, and then changed her expression to fear, as he clicked it.
From the angle in which the photograph was taken, I kind of deduced that it was humanely impossible for anyone one to photograph from that place, as it was very close to the ceiling, and only a midget could achieve that impossible feat. I was sure my mother knew no midgets.
Questions, questions, questions.
Who clicked that photograph? Why that unusual angle? What made her fearful?
I noticed a small print of date on that photograph.
Sep 2nd 1982.
I quickly checked the dates in the dairy, and the date coincided with those dates when she actually felt that she was being noticed by someone, and smelled the smell.
It meant that during those August-September months of 1982, something must have happened. I also noticed that the college student was mentioned a couple of times during the same time.
A sudden, uncharacteristically cold breeze from the windows knocked off the photo from my hands, and it flipped over.
There was something written behind the photograph,in my mother's own hand writing.
I saw IT. I saw IT. I saw IT.
It saw Me. It saw Me. It saw Me.
no doubt about it. That idiot didn't see IT.
I am gone. I am gone. I am gone.
I am done.I am done.I am done.
My Life. My dreams. My plans.
Gods are crazy. Gods are bastards. Gods are evil.
Why me? Why me? Why me?
Cry.Cry.Cry.
Laugh.Laugh.Laugh.
Proofffffffff. Pooooooooooffff.
She saw something. Okay.
Something saw her. Okay.
gone. why?
done.why?
gods.why?
cry. why?
laugh. why?
Whatever she wrote, she must have written it in abnormal state of mind. It didn't make sense. How could a sight of something bring such abnormal changes in behavior? What did she see? Why didn't anyone see IT? What is IT?
I looked at the photo again, this time concentrating on her face.Her face was flawless. She had that quintessential black katuka under her eyes.Her hair was just a bit disheveled, but not much. She was just like that bapu bomma, with a large bottu, probably red in color. Her facial muscles were tensed.A beauty in danger. Who doesn't want to save her?
Then I noticed a small mirror behind her, in the window,placed at 45 degree angle to the window. I brought the photo close to my eyes, and zoomed in. The mirror was a bit bright, and when I noticed closely, I kind of deduced that it must be flash of light in the mirror, most probably the camera's flash,if at all the camera had a flash.
Thats all there was in the photograph. Nothing more to glean.
I heard a knock on the door. I quickly switched of the light and pretended sleep. My dad came in to the room, switched on the light, making sure that I was asleep.
My pretension became real, and I fell into deep sleep. That was uncharacteristic of me. Me sleeping soo early? I guess my nerves were fired by the fear and the adrenaline rush. But, surprisingly the after effect was very calming...and the goddess of sleep invited me into her lap, and I fell in deep slumber.
continued here...
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