Unending pursuits...

It was late in the evening when I stood at the balcony of my house looking at the world outside. Street lights sprinkled colourful ellipses on the tar roads which overlapped each other like in a Venn diagram. These areas of interaction added more colour to the dark road which was now dolled up in all hues and shades. This happens to her every night when she lives her Dream of Colours in her otherwise dark existence. The moment sun begins to fade away to brighten the existence of some other world, she waits with bated breath for the daily make-over she goes through with such elan.

Buildings reflected each others' lights with an underlying fervour that comes from a sense of mutually shared responsibility. At a distance vehicles moved with a steady noise. An undercurrent of uniformity running through all that bustle. The roads around me stood there silently trying yet again to soak in all the colours just to be disappointed the next morning. Some car would pass by once in while acting like a bump in the otherwise smooth flow of consciousness pervading the world.

The sky looked menacing with eleven dots of fire spread on it. These eleven dots of fire chased each other in their pursuit to become bigger by engulfing the others. In this otherwise anarchic world some rules persisted which made these fiery dots stay in the sky and not bring down their hot pursuit to the earth. A distant moon, living in reflected glory, stood there watching this blind pursuit dispassionately. He wished for a quieter existence but the stars were beyond his control. For what can some one living under the reflection of some other entity say to those who have fire of their own? For the world, he was the king of the sky when in reality he was just a lone sad old man who looked at the earth with a longing seen in lovers who were once together but got separated by a cruel turn of fate.

A tall Ashoka tree, painted black by the night, stood in front of me forming a bridge between the earth and the tumultuous sky like the magical beanstalk. The chaos of the skies finally had some effect on the earth and a strong directionless wind started blowing. A stray polythene bag which was silent until now started fluttering wildly. A plaything for the mischievous wind, it danced to her tunes. I saw it moving uninhibitedly around the walled campus seemingly enjoying its gifted freedom, believing that it has wings of its own. Just then it got stuck in one of the pointed iron rods planted on the campus walls. It tried hard to free itself. Its moves were so desperate that even the stars forgot their pursuit to look at it. The entire world went still to watch the struggle for freedom. I instinctively moved towards it to free it and let it take its flight of freedom but then thought better of it and came back to where I was standing. The freedom of the polythene bag was not real but induced. Once the wind goes, it would come down to where it previously was. I let it realize that it never had any freedom but was just a plaything of the wind. The realization finally dawned upon it and it gave up. The wind moved on to some other spot to pick up some other toy. The stars resumed their chase and the vehicles kept plying noisily. The tar road kept trying to absorb colour. I went inside to catch some sleep.