Santosh Bakaya |
When the Tables Turned
The trees have seen it all. The spunk of Spring and the gall of fall. The lone bench remembers many a besotted couple, smiling, laughing, smirking, kissing, hugging,
chomping on doughnuts, and sipping coffee from colorful mugs, admiring the ecstatically chattering folks on the ferry.
The bench recalls a teenage couple fighting over a strawberry doughnut, the girl licking the icing with a glutton's greed. Happy folks relax and read, feeding toddlers, their faces creased in smiles.
"You look funny covered with sprinkles." The boy sneers.
The girl crinkles her nose and continues licking, unfazed by the boy's jeers.
The sky is azure and sunny, and watches with a twinkle of amusement, as the boy whacks the girl on the head, and she breaks into a peal of laughter.
Wistfully, the bench recollects the boats bobbing up and down- down and up with all the excitement at their command.
Squeals follow as the sailing boats swirl dangerously in the waters.
Many exuberant youngsters ride bikes with a devil-may-care attitude, singing off- key songs.
Flower sellers sheathed in smiles, sell fresh, fragrant flowers.
The bench is suffused with a glow of pure joy.
But then one day, the tables turn. The apple cart is upset.
The bench loses its glow, and starts looking pallid.
Unbeknownst to the avian fraternity, intimidated by a vile, vicious virus, humanity has locked itself within the four walls of their houses, scared eyes peeping through windows, keeping tactility at bay.
The trees rustle, beckoning the humans to come out of their houses.
The birds chirp themselves into a crescendo. An Oyster Catcher hops around, woebegone, looking for the child with the tricycle, whose chortles of joy had always sent it into a tizzy. Its orange-red bill seems to have lost its luster. It doesn't even like to feed on shellfish now.
Where was the kid? Where was his tricycle on which it had once taken a furtive ride?
Scarlet tanagers, swallows, warblers and yellowthroats all held a meeting, discussing the mystery of missing humanity.
Humanity cowered and shivered like never before, wondering at the reason for this severe punishment. Seasons changed.
The sun glared with full fury, the sky was covered with navy blue clouds; the rain pitter- pattered. Masked humanity still moved within the four walls of their houses, now clad in woolens. Leaves turned yellow and fell.
The virus did not go. It sniggered in malicious glee, at its hold on humanity and its triumph in viciously imprisoning them. It had successfully unleashed a dystopian world on unsuspecting humanity. It did not want to go – yet.
The bench looked around sadly, overwhelmed with an immense feeling of loneliness, missing the impassioned discussions of intense folks, under the trees and on the benches. There was a vibrant pastiche of myriad hues in the sky, the birds were still singing, but to the bench it sounded like a threnody.
An unending dirge, and it felt lonelier.
Where was the revellery? Where were the rambunctious kids? The sense of loneliness seemed to throttle it, and it looked on sightlessly, hoping for some sign of hope.
There would be hope- there is always hope.
But till then loneliness was its only friend, so it hugged it.
There was no taboo on hugging palpable abstractions, so they continued hugging. The Bench and Loneliness.
***
Bio: Award winning poet, novelist, biographer, TEDx Speaker, acclaimed for
her poetic biography of Bapu, Ballad of
Bapu, Dr. Santosh Bakaya’s twenty- eight books encompass multiple genres. Reuel International Awardee [Poetry,
2014], Setu International Awardee [‘stellar contribution to world literature’, 2018 Pittsburgh, USA], Eunice D
Souza Award, 2023 [WE literary Community] she runs a column, Morning Meanderings [Learning and
Creativity. Com.]
Her Tedx talk [Myth of Writer’s Block]
is popular in creative writing circles.Her collaborative e- books, [Blue Pencil] Vodka by the Volga [with Dr. Ampat Koshy, 2020], From Princep Ghat to Peer Panjal [With Gopal Lahiri, 2021] have been # 1 Amazon bestsellers.
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