Place- The middle of nowhere, flanked by an unending beach that starts
from where roots end.
Time- A Mid Autumn Night beyond any calendar, beyond memory.
A night that gifted me a long awaited
dream, a night that ignited many more dreams and a night I spoke to the waves
and saw an ancient, ageless empress on her marauding conquest.
A conversation is on here, between several
centuries and me. They shout out to me in their rumbling manner and acknowledge
their understanding by lighting up the horizon. It is a sparkling conversation
in a very literal sense. We have been talking for sometime now, about secrets
tucked away safely in the tiny huts of the crabs we’d seen in the morning,
about secrets being discussed stealthily in the ants colony I see so distinctly
in front, secrets of time and space they have discussed for centuries, and
above all about the enigma that I am standing close to now. The conversation is
interrupted at times by lighting, probably because Titan doesn’t want me to
know all yet, probably because Titan and the sea want a closer look at her,
she who belonged to them since the beginning.
It did not start like this. There was
nothing up to 30 mins after the ‘drop.’ I remember Pink Floyd getting scant
attention in the room. In a flash however my entire world became the iconic
artwork of The Division Bell. I had only heard of the Publius Enigma (I know
for a fact, nobody ever ‘solved’ the Publius enigma) but I discovered a new
facet of the artwork. Now I know there are actually 3 faces there but this was
the one and only time when the 3rd, the largest, the all-integrating
face appeared to me as a whole. I was hypnotized as I stared at his burning
glowing shrinking and expanding eyes. Those minutes triggered the mid autumn
night’s dream.
Outside, in distant smell of seaweed and
amidst thunderous applause of her familiar waves, she was busy creating her queendom.
It seemed like I had no further truth to unearth, nor know any more, but what
was going on in her tiny little head. Like
an impatient fetus craving for life outside, like a poem that is eager to be
put on paper, I probed her about everything going on in the tiny little head. I
saw a tree burning, burning bright, burning pink, sparkling but with glisten.
Then there was dopey, her firefly, from that place far above the marketplace. I
have only seen fireflies in a herd, very rarely in isolation. But it seemed
like she was the only firefly left in front of the vast expanse of the sea, she
had come on her bidding.
Then there was the boat, a few feet away
from the sea, being rocked by the turbulent waves. She put on the captain’s
coat and I was this petulant tourist, hell bent on staying at the deck, drunk
on dreams. I could imagine being forever in the boat, in the turbulent tides,
banished from the distant lands, quarantined from work and bosses. I dreamt of
being ghosts that tired sailors see from their masts, before they sip some more
of sailor’s rum.
The ghosts wouldn’t leave me, the ghosts of
all poetry I read, all films I saw, and every single shot I wanted to take. The
waves had become spot-lights now, and I had the camera rolling. In a few infinite
seconds I shot all of her, in every angle, in all profiles. She was a coy woman
speaking through her eyes now, a proud ageless beauty whose every cell screamed
dominance the next moment. I had a lifetime’s worth of footage shot in those
seconds.
The empress was now on her conquest, I
followed suit like a hagiographer. We were fighting our crusade now, taking
religion to far off lands, the religion of questioning faith and freedom. I
followed suit to witness history, to document history. The beach was full of
moonshine, full of battling waves; the beach was empty so long as our conquest
went. I had tears by now, tears of pure joy, of desire, of a new language and
its script.
There seemed to be rebellion in far off
lands, there was a fire rising, red as blood, sharp as a shot of pain through
the spine. Her conquest ended, she went home.
The flight of fancy was now on its waning
curve. She wud’nt reveal any more of her secrets. Undaunted, I persist. To know
more of her, to look for some hint to the riddle, to unearth that tiny little
head. I kept thinking of it, of the layers of thought beneath it, of so many
filters that keep out the otherwise mundane world from reaching her.
I don’t know if I slept, I don’t know if I
have been sleeping much since. But I keep thinking of her conquest, her
queendom and the tiny little head, in day dream, or in dreams; I am not very
sure.
