Everyone on this planet has that one “special interest” for that one “specific thing”, or that one “hobby or habit” which to an outside seems totally illogical and bogus, but for the person in contention, it might be a matter of life and death.
Speaking of which, there was this young kid, who lived just two blocks away from where I do. As recent as until last month, I saw him almost every single day, on the way to the garden for my daily evening walks. On his balcony with an absolute stone cold face, as if donning a mask of sorts to hide his true feelings from the outer-world, there would he be, gazing at the skies for hours and hours at once. My immediate response to the sight was as typical as it could have been, since I instantly started judging him. “He must be insane! Who does that?” were some of the compliments that came to my mind for him. And the point to note was that I was judging and defaming a kid, who had never done anything wrong with me. Let alone the part of doing anything wrong, he didn’t even know of my existence and yet I was blatantly naming the poor boy.
This cycle kept repeating for a good 20 days, where I would observe him from a distance and then would continue to move on to my daily routines. Until one day when I saw him again, but this time he has not on his balcony, instead he was sitting on the bench, in the garden. I could not forgo this chance, being the nosy & inquisitive personality that I am, my feet spontaneously started moving towards the bench he was sitting in. I went near him and silently sat beside him anticipating at least a tiniest of reaction from him. But it wasn’t to be, as I sat through the next 5 minutes, waiting for him to turn his head towards me, which would give me a window of opportunity to fire away all those questions I had. I felt an essence of his state of mind in those moments, when I was sitting so close and yet completely invisible to him. I ascertained that his physical presence was only a splash whereas his actual existence was at some other place, at the exact same moment.
That was the moment when I really deciphered the true strength of a human mind. A crippled man can fly without having wings, and mute can win the Grammy award, only if his heart truly desires and his mental strength supports his dreams. Same was the case with this kid, or so it appeared to me at least. By then, a huff had already begun to build up in me and I could not wait any further for him to organically return from his stupor, with the intension of not startling him, I gently dabbed his shoulder with my hands. My action evidently woke him up from his daydreaming like state and as soon as he regained control over all his senses, he was taken aback by the presence of a stranger near him. I took stock of the situation and before he could get into any panic, I took the first step of calming him down. With a broad smile on my face and depth in my voice I said to him, “don’t you worry about my child, I have come here with no evil in heart. I saw you sitting here all alone, so came here to check on your wellbeing.” This assurance did the trick as his facial expressions turned back towards normalcy. His risen heart rate too got back to its stable limits and the trembled body just begun to cool down a little.
Having successfully gained his confidence, I proceeded further to seek answers to the questions, which, if left unanswered would surely transform themselves into a canker. “What is your name my child?” I asked the kid, to which he replied. “I am Ron Pattison, sir. Pardon me for asking, but why are you interested in knowing my name?”. “Don’t take me wrong my child, I have seen and observed you for quite a while now and there was something about you which got me curious to know more about you. May I please ask for the reason for you to stare at the skies for hours? I mean, it’s beyond my comprehension to see someone do something like it, and that too with so much consistency and passion.”
“Sir, he responded, I like to gaze at the skies because I like doing it. I really do not have a definitive reason for it, but I can tell you one thing, it gives me a feeling of belongingness, an emotion of oneness. I do not know why, but the colour “blue” of the skies, just leaves me mesmerized & spell bound. In my head, the sky becomes my canvas and I start to scribble infinite art pieces on it, by combining and connecting clouds of various shapes and sizes. When this happens, I find myself teleported into a world where I get the freedom of letting my imaginations loose. At that point in time, I truly get the feeling of weightlessness with no strings attached to me. No one stops me or directs me or expects me to do things on their terms. That is one place where I truly feel liberated, a place where I can breathe freely, without the burden of expectations from the world.”
I was literally in shock to hear such deep and sensitive words from a kid of his age. I could not believe that this is the same boy whom I judged from a distance, without trying to understand his part of the story. Don’t we all do it with other? But why do we do it? Please spare a thought and spread love with others because there are enough people out there to hate, and you are not one of them.
