PARIJAT-8

The morning was sheepishly lazy. John looked to the large sized mirror in his room. He looks haggard with the disturbed sleep. Water sags below the eyes are distinct. Look of tiredness was prevalent on his face. Beards have grown in his pock-marked face. The old marks of small pox have prevented those beards to grow uniformly. Surprisingly the skin inside those small pox marks look tender and young. Oily pores have opened up in the sagged chins. It is mixtures of white and black, all sprouting up on that unshaved face.

John splashed fresh cold water in his face. It was refreshing. He wanted to wear a smart look. Hairs in that semi bald head have grown wild. The receding and thin hairs have become fragile too. Disturbed sleep has made him to roll on his bed with frequent changes of side. That has given a further untamed look to his hairs.

It was Sunday morning. John put on a loose trouser and moved out. He wants to look younger with a smart navy cut to his hairs. It is a funny but interesting feeling. We sometimes want to fly back and go back down the memory lane. We want to have a flash back of everything. Every thing looks pleasing all of a sudden in the dark lane of memory. That child inside us crawls up mischievously. We forget we have grown old. We forget we have become more matured and responsible with the burden of reality.

Ahha! It is nostalgic! It is vibrating and pulsating memories of that game of hide and seek, that wild swim towards upstream of river and soon followed by floating on back, looking up to the sky and thinking of somebody with that bewitching and infectious smile while the gentle flow of river glides you to its destination and that blind folded game of touching and catching somebody when everybody moves around you. You move your hands in blind fold with hope of catching that smile. It comes to your fold knowingly, stays there knowingly little longer than required, falling knowingly over you as if everything has happened accidentally, by chance. As if that smile was not willing, only you have caught her in that blind folded game. It is feeling of getting everything while hand is empty. It is there still it is not there. So near yet so far.

Time passes by. We fail to realize that still we play the blind fold game of childhood. Till today we move with that feeling of unknown, unseen, unrealized pleasure of achieving and failing, getting and losing. Eyes are open. We do not see anything. Like that blindfolded child we move our hands in nothingness and emptiness in hope of touching and catching the elusive. We fail to see in that dark corridor of the place of worship somebody lit lamps for us with lips full of prayers. Ahha!

John has reached the barber shop. The surrounding appeared to him quite different from an ordinary barber shop. It is a longish room with a huge backward. The back yard gives an impression of a play school. Tiny toddlers are on bicycles and tricycles. Some are simply running along with the tricycles. Slightly seniors are on see-saw and on glide too. Most of them have already had their haircuts but refuse to go home. John went inside the hair cutting room; the longish room is made up of mud walls with split bamboo inside it as reinforcement. The walls are elegantly thin, flexible and strong. Mud wall gives dual advantage of coolness in summer and warmness in winter. The room was equipped with ten revolving chairs to serve ten customers at a time. Ten small wall hanging mirrors with racks for keeping the haircutting tools. All the chairs are occupied. It is sound of busy scissors and never stopping mouth of barbers. They know everything -politics, sports, films, music everything. Every thing appears to be in their finger tips. Only you need to be good listener. Never mind, if you are not a good listener, they have an uncanny knack of drawing your attention to their talk. They know your pulse.

Behind this row of ten chairs hangs a screen separating people who are in wait for their turn to come. Long benches with reading desks are occupied by people in wait. John went inside occupied a seat in long bench. One old man appeared with some reading materials. Those reading materials are actually old paper cutting stitched together subject wise-sports, stories, events etc. John was surprised to find these innovations a small barber shop. He was further amused to know that all the ten barbers are the owner of that shop. Anybody is free to join there. The new entrant has to bring his own cutting equipments and revolving chair. The flexible mud wall with its roof shall get extended over night.

He thought of Raghu's words. It is battle of unequal. Big fish will eat away small fishes mercilessly. It will be the win for big and strong. He smiled on his own when he remembered that wise man saying “life's battles do not always go to stronger or faster one, sooner or later he/she wins who thinks he/she can”. Look for your strength, recognize that, explore that and exploit that, you are bound to be a winner. Can any mechanization replace that tender touch of human hand? Can any mechanization replace that bewitching and loving smile of friendliness? Can any mechanization replace that feeling of loving together, smiling together and crying together? Man has become robotic but that feeling has not died. It smiles, likes, loves, cries, gets angry, shows emotions and as long as you are serving those you are bound to be a winner.

John had his navy cut and special massage with mustard oil. The strong and pungent smell of mustard oil drives away all tiredness of the muscles. There is a spring in his feet as he walks. His mind and thinking have taken an upbeat trend. He remembers Marandi’s labour groups and joys of geese synergetic flying. Down in the lane of memory he recalls the flexibility of that DEODAR tree. It was a spectacular sight of adoptability and flexibility. He was astonished to see that DEODAR tree which grows tall with look of a closed umbrella has in fact bent in a right degree to have horizontal growth more than the vertical to avoid the shade of big tree growing over it. Once it avoids the shade of the big tree it again goes up vertically. To balance that extraordinary horizontal growth it shoots a branch down ward for support just like a banyan tree.

Small has its own significance. In that battle of that unequal it is bound survive with that winning smile of parijats. Develop the flexibility and look for your strength.