WHEN THE RAINBOW COMES OUT...

No matter how hard you try to control your wishes. The inner ones, the deeper ones and especially the true ones. They keep emerging out. For a while they might subside but they usually strike back with a blistering vigor. They will calm down only if you hear them once yes just once....


A light bird feather glided in to my window and as I lay on my easy chair with myriad thoughts of my own dreamy world, it came down at the doorstep to knock my door. A light feather was heavy enough to brought me back into the world, a world not created by me but I still call it mine. It came down swiftly to caress my wet cheek. I was still embracing the touch and its mildness while it glued itself to the moistness of that single drop of tear which had failed to slide down. The graze reminded me of the days when my wings were still not clipped and wishes were largely not hidden. I allowed it to accompany me for a detour in my past and then distanced myself gradually yet feeling the softness on my wet skin. I gave it back to the playful winds watching it fly away into the rains now reduced to mild drizzle and so were my journey into the world of great heights and my ability to fly to touch upon a new high.

I followed the movement of that feather, it went around Asoka Tree and then the Neem and then around many other green milestones moving in circles and reaching no where. But it was smiling, because it could fly as per its own choice. I could feel it smiling even from a distance.

While it was still swirling, I was following its journey through the transparent curtain of those gentle rains from one tree top to the other. Its free flight, the way it moved up and down, high and low and then it would suddenly swish to one side. Just the kind of life probably I wished for and yes still wish. Were the mischievous winds playing with it or did the rains somehow breathe life into that lonely feather. Was it moving from tree to tree carrying messages of love or was it simply being playful or was it telling them of all the sadness in my heart and the intolerable pain of parting that was of mine to endure...??

I was still gasping for more thoughts about my inevitable transition, a transition to breathe less, to not fly anymore, a transition to cry but not with tears and many more.

The white feather again caught my fancy, Did Some bird shed it on its own free will or did it separate from the bird out of its own wanting? Did winds send it my way to know my story and share my thoughts? Did the merry yet wise winds know where to look for my unabashed smiles or just want me to search for it? They carry the smell which tells me that the world is still fresh and wild. There is yet more to live, yet more to flourish. May be it inspires the world how to live selflessly, how to cry inconsolably, alone while the world danced to the first shower of rains.

I would never know that.....

But I know for a fact now that wishing alone isn't enough in life. It does not translate into actualization of dreams. I have realized that bitter truth now, for if that were so I would wish to fly out of my window like that feather and far away higher in the sky with those little friends of mine... floating and gliding on the air current ; or mount on top of the grey fluffy clouds to sail... to simply breathe the air on the high and lastly to feel that I am still alive and I can still fly.

I stretch my hands to fell the sparkling drops from the clouds above, beg to persuade its falling water to carry on its drops the small innumerable pieces of my dreamy heart, just wishing to fly high and it kept wishing.

But nothing like that happened, the winds didn't blow anymore instead quieted almost to a halt, it continued to drizzle but I could not see the feather anymore flying, I strained hard and noticed it lying on one side of the small lane through my window...Lifeless.....May be it too eventually realized it was too incomplete once detached from the bird....

...Its destiny was to make the bird fly and not fly on its own...

....the winds were just playing with it...tossing it around for their own gratification...

I know wishing alone does not make things happen.. I know the rains this time would last much longer and the skies for a while continue to remain grey and dark. Yet I realized, like my tears, I cant control my wishing too, so I wished again and yet again.....

looking out this window when the rainbow comes out..................


KJ