True Colours
A solitary muse on Yaoshang, which once used to make us go frenzy though time has taken away all its charms—and now it has become just another day in this faraway land*... whilst the memories are the only comfort, slacking off the uneasiness.
Five days of fun and frolic, with colours, music and friends, can whip you into a state of ecstasy. Yaoshang comes in the joyous spring when the sun regain its serenity, after being dampened by the cold airs of winter in our hometown. Back in those days, we were cheerful as much as those sunshine. Playing with colours, and roaming and roving through the bumpy Imphal streets were mere excuses we had from the celebration.
* I have been living in New Delhi for the last four years.
And in the later years, the entertainment-studded sport contests that are held in every nook and corner of the valley, could make us late for the late-night thabals. The festive spirits that caught the people, and how we were hold captive, have no expression. It lies only in our impression and ideas how much we had revelled. Obviously, there is a sense of loss, staying here in a distant place, with just my dreams and wishes, and simply remembering about the good old days.
Oh heck, is this what we call life. Time surely does fly. The anxious moments of windy Februaries, when we yearn for the coming full-moon night, have ebbed away. A sudden thought struck me if everything has gone away, breaking the tempo that we had since childhood. I solace with the notion that it's only change, which wise men say, is the only permanent thing in our universe.
At this time of the year, the winter burqa has also been unveiled slowly in Delhi, the destination for fulfilling dreams, the place of untold sacrifices, the locale where stones and steels are found abundant; the hardness that can be seen in gobs even in human relationships. They call it holi here, observed on the last full moon of the lunar calendar and a day after.
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The colours, sometimes mixed with irritating water, are everywhere: in the alleys, in the terraces, on the balconies and on the streets. Though the shades are overflowing, my views have rendered them too insipid; not even the chants of a thousand gulal-faced people can awaken me. Maybe my indifference has incapacitated their merry-making and jollies, from my weakness or my unwillingness to blend the times of those I spend in Imphal and those I have had here.
Or maybe I have more love and care for my home than this place, where I'm keeping my body and soul together. It can be also that I have found more comfort in my memories and dreams than putting this mundane reality in black and white. Perhaps the reason could be all of them.
No matter how much you love, no matter how much you care; in the end, the sun will set one day, leaving you with only thoughts that you have for those moments and people and things. You have to wait for another bright, new day to make your affection and warm feelings grow. It takes a hell lot of patience to take you to the heavens of life. You know your true colours, when you are in a dilemma.
However, you learn a lot in hard times, however unpleasant it maybe. You know about yourself better than anyone else in the world. Then Robert Frost had rightly pointed out that the woods are lovely, dark and deep and that we have miles to go before we sleep. So Yaoshang or no Yaoshang, we gotta move ahead in life, whilst we cherish those memories of childhood, of adolescence and of those moments that we hold dear. Life is truly full of colours, with its varying hue, defining every moment as we encounter them.
Yet, even if I am determine to get a move on, I know I'll always miss the fight to go to a specific location for thabal chongba.We always wanted to go to the thabal of that leikai first near our girlfriends' places. Fair enough.
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