Did it happen? Did I really live through
all my memories? They passed me through for sure; and I do have a mental
snapshot of a lot of moments. I live a bursty life perhaps ... I run through
life with a very high speed but every couple of moments I tire and stop to take breath, and like a
wind gust, they all catch up with me - the moments I had left behind. They sync in.
Jasma, in skyblue shirt and dark gray shorts running after the Jeep waving me farewell. I was leaving after a month long vacation in her city; I didn't even know her a month ago and this day she was the first girl I ever really kissed. How old was I? 14 probably ... 15? I was sitting on the back seat and was looking back at her getting hid in the dust cloud, She stopped running after a while and her figure kept getting smaller and smaller till the Jeep took a turn. I was sadly smiling at her all this time but I'm sure she didn't see my smile, like I couldn't see her expressions. Did it really happen? Did I really live it? Is that all one remembers of the first girl one ever kissed? What day was it? What time of day?
There were happy faces, my granny sang folk songs, there were dances, flash lights, music, colors, sweets, shiny happy people - all the images flash before my eyes like a music video. Manu got married in Jan. We'll never be same again. Brothers, close by chance, not choice. We grew up together, shared the same parents, clothes, and the same room for over 20 years of our life; the most valuable years. We've shared so much in life it's impossible not to miss it all ... but I don't. I don't really miss it all that much.
Its this insensitivity seeping into me.
I had left most of my living moments far behind in my race towards the future, but I get tired every so often and stop for a breath, and they catch up with me, equally tired, broken, bruised, the sepia toned brown cornered images from my past. And they enter me with a push. I felt a few of them enter me like a whiff of air through my hair cruising down alone on 237 last Saturday-afternoon with the top down. I wanted to take a nap right then and there, in the running car on the highway. Sunlight on my face, wind in my hair - and a tear blurred my view for a second. It is something from the past ... but I can't exactly say what ... I don't even care enough to find it out ...
What all did I live through to end up here in my bed this morning? Did it all happen? Did I live it at all?
I open my eyes to the polarized blue sky. I'm lying on the grass. I've not done this in years - lie down lazily on grass and watch the clouds pass by. An occasional plane, a fleet of birds. Last time I did this was back in time ... in college. I was lying down with Vishakha looking at sky and discussing multiple inheritance in C++. Where is Vishakha right now? Does she ever think about me? When she kisses her man now? When she makes love to him?
Every couple of minutes while we made love, she had to adjust herself under me. Like something is poking her from under the bed. The rhythm used to break and my movements paused for a moment, and I looked at her face every time. Her half-closed eyes. Her half parted lips. Some fractions of my memories are so fresh ... I can almost taste her right now. Is it possible not to miss the first person you ever made love to? ... I need to know because *I* sure don't miss her all that much. I am not even sure if it really happened. If I really lived it ...