Aesthetically Alive

1.
He maintained eye contact with me throughout the conversation as if trying to make sure that I understood with perfect clarity the point he had taken. I was concentrating hard not on what he was saying but on his facial expressions. His eyes contained the determination of staring down mine till my brain registered his thoughts and gave him due credit for their intellectual nature. My eyes were determined to stare down his till I found out the exact emotion that they were supposed to convey, or hide for that matter.

Was it confidence? Was it zeal? Or was it the kind of happiness that comes naturally to someone who sees meaning in every feature of life? Perhaps I was wrong, perhaps it was fear that he was hiding behind a thick curtain of pretence. I hoped it were the latter, I hoped fervently that the thoughts he was expressing were not his own.

“When you said that it was your favourite book Ria I knew it, I just knew that it must be a great book and that I just had to read it. Boy am I glad that I did.” Ashok said, finally rounding up what had been a one-sided discussion on my erstwhile favourite book. He had talked for half an hour about the message he thought was hidden in the plot, how the natural and supernatural were all in fact pointing towards the humane, how some of the sentences which he quoted were endowed with reason and feeling combined in a delicate mesh. I could do nothing but smile in submission though I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. The worst thing was not that what he said actually made sense but that he said it in a manner expecting me to have come across these conclusions a long time ago.

I wondered why I remembered nothing about the book except the enjoyment That I drew from it at that time, why I couldn’t quote any striking lines from It and why no book I ever read had stirred my soul and made me a different person. College was over for the day and a group of friends sat outside on the now empty corridor. Most of them were considered the intellectual crème’de la crème of the college, about just as intellectual in matters concerning art asa bunch of science students are permitted to get and I had just started hanging around with them.

The conversation revolved around books, music, international news, and even business deals. A thin girl called Maya with large hazel eyes that always seemed to be looking for something smirked at someone and then with a flourish quoted lyrics from a Pink Floyd song “ C’mon you target for faraway laughter, C’mon you stranger, you legend, you martyr and shine.” Everyone laughed. I kept mum. It was one of my favourite songs too but I lacked the delicacy of nature to remember any lyrics and moreover quote them when a fitting situation arises. A feeling of deep incompetence surrounded me. For someone who takes pride in being a lover of literature, art, and music the revelation that everyone else seemed more sensitive to these things than I, came across as a shock.

I felt incredibly ill at ease. Did I lack the ability to feel? The things that made a mark on sensitive natures left me untouched. ‘It is a keen sense of perception that makes these things beautiful for them’ I found myself thinking ‘and I lack it. I wished I were like them.

2.
It was the month of May and the final exams were in commencement. Students were pouring out of the hall after the maths exam had finished. “Who would have thought half of the paper would be theory? What has maths to do with theory?” Anita shrieked in a state of panic that refuses to die even when the worst is over. “Green’s theorem. Ria did you know how to prove the Green’s theorem?” asked another voice, with more apprehension in it than curiosity. It was Ashok. He looked as if what bothered him was not the fact that some of his answers were wrong but that someone else might have gotten them correct. I turned around and quickly made my way out of the crowded examination hall, being careful enough to avoid seeing him or anyone else who might have tried to discuss the question paper with me.

The paper had been tough. I could vision a fail grade in the course, and so could a lot of other students judging from their faces. Some looked just drained while others wore a look of insolent cheerfulness. Maya stood at the cycle stand. Her face belonged to the former category. Thankfully she did not try extorting from me some wrong answer for her sadistic pleasure. “I lost five marks on the Fourier series” she said “Can you believe that?”“What are you talking about?” I almost laughed at her face “Five is nothing. I didn’t even attempt questions worth twenty”.

A cool, soothing breeze was blowing and it physically felt good to be outside the stuffy, warm hall. I glanced up and saw that the sky was a murky grey--the promise of a coming shower, a welcome sign in the hot summer season. The change seemed to affect my spirits as well. The road to the hostel was empty save for a few other cyclists and in this particular season it was lined on both sides by trees leaden with flowers—bright yellow, delicate pink and white flowers. As the breeze blew these flowers fell from the trees showering us in a snowfall of colours.

To my own surprise I laughed, and the sound that came from me was an expression of pure joy. Maya glanced at me with a look of incredulous wonder. “But it’s so beautiful” I said, aware of an imploring tone in my voice. “Flowers? Are you mad? How can you be talking about flowers?” She obviously found it difficult to comprehend that someone could bother about something as trivial as flowers when the maths exam which was so much more important had just taken place.

‘Oh no’ I wanted to say to her ‘that is their beauty. Couldn’t she see that their beauty lies in being present at the time when everything else is so wrong. What are they but a beautiful reminder that beauty does exist even in the most dreary of situations? What are they but tiny entities of hope meant to be enjoyed to the fullest?’. I didn’t say any of these things though. I thought how Maya and Ashok and all others could see everything I saw and were yet blind to it. It was I who wasperceptive to nature and beauty at this moment. I who was practicing what they could only preach. I smiled at the flowers, the clouds and the sky. My spirit seemed at rest and I didn't want to be one of them anymore.

I felt aesthetically alive.