Sun and shadows..

Have you ever noticed the pageantry of the setting sun?

I have seen it follow me all orange and big racing along as I eye it from a moving bus/train/auto.

I have tried to catch the last of it as it lazily snuggles behind the cold mountains and I try to still feel the warmth in the receding light.

I have seen it; in all its majestic glory descend into the thirsty expanse of the blue waters.  The golden rays gurgling and playing with different hues on the palette of the ocean.

And today I made the sun just disappear flat out...  

It was this little cloudy and hazy sky and the setting sun looked like this meek boy you could look right across in his eyes. It was faint but still held on to his well rounded form. I took off my eyes and meandered a while in a conversation. It’s a strange conversation where you are all but searching for words- the few words, the few glances and the hanging pauses before you know you have to say goodbye. You glance periodically at the cruel timekeeper; it was 6:30 pm. I look into the treasure trove of yester day’s and yester years to fish out a conversation. For all my efforts I am back to looking at the moving hands at 6:35pm. I didn’t fare well but a conversation is a two way effort so my friend why don’t you push the cart for a while and I’ll pitch in just as you want.  

It’s no good ever ..you lose it quarter way or inch somehow midway then fade out.  And fade out we did, and the only thing to rest my eyes upon was this faint little sun in the sky; almost scooped up by the arrogant clouds. It was 6:54pm and I was stalking the sun watching its every move.  And then I made the sun disappear, it faded right before my eyes...

Ah what an emotional fool to believe that I could make the sun to disappear..

Perhaps you can make the sun to disappear at times. And then your only hope is that perhaps protected by the looming shadows the conversation still carries on uninterrupted in an unknown world, while we walk into the daylight of the world as we know it.

Simply put it’s not easy for me to say goodbye!

Smash...

Smash! The voice bellowed... It was time to go for the kill, serve the most potent ‘power-speed’ smash and leave the opponent defenseless. There was at least four pair of eyes following the shuttlecock (old joke, a speck-y player so 5 pairs of eyes). Well there were other people waiting for their turns and so watching the game and so following the shuttlecock but the command was strictly picked by just a single pair of eardrums and relayed across to the brain, my brain! And so I positioned myself all alert and taut, ready for the action.



Well if it wasn’t a well executed smash, best case it would have landed in my court itself, not angled well enough to cross across the net. A technical alibi is any time better than an embarrassed grin. Then there could be the case ‘not powerful enough’, ‘not speedy enough’, here the opponent gets a high for having just saved a smash shot.


Oops now that wasn’t a smash. It went long and outside the badminton court. It was a naïve shot just a last minute attempt to just get it across, far-far across. Your partner knows exactly that he’s got a raw deal, but thankfully he isn’t the sneering kinds but still you become a miniature version of yourself dwarfed by the real players. The opponents discover soon enough the weakling in the court and target you left, right and centre. There are some occasional freak shots that get applauded to keep your morale boasted but all in all you are trying to save your face through the game. The opponents score courtesy you, the onlookers are happy seeing that their turn to play next is coming sooner than expected again courtesy you.


Its that moment of your life when your entire life passes in front of your eyes, your childhood days when you never learnt to play ‘the game’, the college days when u preferred lazing around and then the office days when all you do is dream to do something productive. What the hell! Who cares if I never played before, I am playing now. I am the weakling today but I’ll outsmart at least few even pathetic souls tomorrow. And best of all I know people who promise to teach me the game from afar and even better come and ‘avenge me for all the 15-luv’(just an expression not that it really happened!)