The Irony

Poetry, Problems and Appearances.

        I was at the hospital today (Personal reasons). I don’t like hospitals. I don’t think anybody likes hospitals. But there they are, when we want them the most. For me, walking inside a hospital is a tedious process. It’s full of people I call the Observers. Don’t be alarmed, they are normal people like me and you. They are those, who stare at us, studying every aspect of our personality, the way we walk, dress, and talk. They look right into our eyes, judging us, maybe even having a guess at why we were there. Outside, they may pass us without even glancing. But here, they sat, stood and stared. We can’t blame them though. There’s nothing much to do. Most are just tired and probably want something to distract them from the turmoil in their minds. It’s a good thing that hospitals are crowded. We feel we are not alone, everyone has problems, some lesser, some greater. And the children! They seem, even cuter than usual, against the dreary backdrop, with their frilled frocks and shiny caps. They put a smile on every face they pass. Let them observe. The only problem is that I am not very accustomed to such attention. So when the eyes fall on me, I get a tad nervous. Angels of Victoria, how do you do it? With spine straight, chest out, hands symmetrically moving opposite to the legs, I took controlled, flowing strides, through the crowded, narrow, whitewashed corridor.

That’s when I saw the girl, a dark, beautiful girl. She was slim and of medium height. Small red lips, not the artificial lipstick red, but natural, red, rose-petal lips. Imagine red surrounded by black. Glowing! Thick, silky hair, perfectly combed and braided. A watch on one hand, and two red bangles on the other. Red Churidar that perfectly stuck to her body. Unfortunately, her voice was normal, not very interesting. She smiled as she passed. I looked down. Why am I looking down? Idiot! Ah, yes, her feet. Dark red nail polish. Why do I always look at their feet? Now this is going to be awkward, but I must confess, she was silently followed by the scent of jasmine as she faded away into the crowd. How much time had she spent on grooming? Here I was, wearing whatever first came to view. But what really astonished me, relating time, was how much I had noticed, in so little of it. Well, now who’s the observer, I wonder. The frailty of man is that he can’t help but admire the beauty of a woman. Beauty, in her part needs an audience, right Mr Holmes? Or maybe I should stop watching too much Sherlock.

As I was buying medicines, I heard an eerie music. A man’s nasal voice kept repeating a group of words, in a bizarre tune. It had the simplest lyrics ever. It went like this “Paper! Paper! Newspaper! Rashtradeepika! ”. A kitten sat in front of him, atop a slab covering the roadside gutter. She licked her paw and rubbed them over her ear, in harmony with his song. I was surprised. Professor McGonagall? I pointed my pen at her and tried the Animagus reversal spell. Nothing! Maybe I should stop watching Harry too.

My thoughts drifted back to the dark beauty. If a man could make a song out of something, as prosaic as a newspaper, surely, I must find words to a song about her. Thrice our eyes had met, each instance, a bit longer than the previous. In the first, I realised that in some ways she resembled the person I saw every day in the mirror (Don’t worry, she’s not that hideous). Is that how my face looks from the outside? But she looked gorgeous. Are there people out there who would describe me by the same token? Quite unlikely! But, maybe there is. In the next, I thought whether she looked attractive to other men as well. Possibly. In the third, I searched her eyes for her feelings toward me. What’s going on through her mind right now? A complete mystery!

That’s when I remembered something I keep forgetting. I’m changing, faster than most of my friends, not for the better but for the worse. Every month that passes leaves my face uglier than it was the month before. Yes, that’s the truth. No, I’m not exaggerating. This will be a good time to reveal to my friends (who haven’t seen me for a year; others know) that I am suffering from a disease. Don’t worry. Nothing serious. I’m just changing colour. It’s called Vitiligo. Remember Michael Jackson turning from black to white? There was a time when he’d wear a hat to cover most of his face and a glove to cover his hand, remember? I thought it was some new trend he was trying to set. Everyone did. But we were wrong. It was because of the disease. Vitiligo. It slowly paints one’s skin white, not all of a sudden, but little by little, during the process of  which one is sure to look like a piece of modern art, too abstract to be comprehended. Poor thing must have been devastated. Being so famous, he must have been under a lot of pressure to look good. Even we, the unknown, are under some. He wrote in a song, ‘They Don’t Care About Us’, the lyrics ‘Don’t you black or white me’, as a message to the people to let him be, to allow him to change without so many questions. But he persevered. And though I cannot say he defeated the disease, for it has no real cure and can only be controlled, he stood firm. Doctors, researchers, no one really knows the actual cause, let alone the cure. There are lots of hypotheses, though I have no idea, what you do with one.

Something dragged me back a few years. It was early morning. The air was fresh, so fresh that the children could taste the sweetness of the mist as they yawned. That day on the prayer ground, under the dew damped trees, warmed by the early morning sunlight, was the first time that he was called a Negro. He can look back now, at that moment, from a distant perspective. But think of a pampered boy of eleven, mocked for his colour, something over which he had no control. That day, he went home and took a bath. He scrubbed his skin mercilessly with coconut husk, so hard that he felt the sting of soap water washing over his torn open flesh. And yet, the colour endured. So, as he went to sleep that night, and for many nights to come, he prayed to his god, “Dear Lord, please make my skin white like the others. Please.”

There’s a common saying, “Be careful what you wish for”. Look at him now. All the medicines, he buys, to bring back his colour. The irony of it! But no one’s to be blamed. They were just children. No one taught them the right way to behave; they learned the rules on their own. All of us make mistakes. And wishes don’t come true. A wish is a wish, and Reality is what you make of it.

Each of us have a unique set of problems, right? Some terrible, some tame. What we must remember is that, whatever we are given in this life is a gift. In fact, life itself is a gift, possibly one of a kind. We must learn from mistakes, conquer our problems, and grow stronger. Each problem in our life has a solution. Sometimes, the solution may be final. At other times it may bring us right back to the problem (‘Catch 22’) or to a whole new one, in fact. And then, we start all over again.

Hours to sunrise, it’s windy outside. I can hear the crickets, the rustling leaves, and nothing more. Not the birds, not the cars, not the men yelling. Nothing! I remembered the ephemeral smile on her lips and penned down a tolerable sixteen-line-poem in her memory. You may be wondering, why go to such an extent for a person who hardly touched your life? Are you so desperate? To the latter, I say, I’m not sure. To the former, I say, why not? Why not write with passion about a person you hardly know. Why not immortalise her in the pages of my secret books? Maybe years from now, someone will find those words and fall in love with them. Long after we are dead and gone from this world, and not a trace of our bodies remain, the words will linger, just as I’ve placed them tonight. The words will outlive the speaker and the subject. Don’t you think that, that’s worth spending time on, even if the poet’s name perishes, to be replaced by Anonymous? What say you, Donne? Four hundred years later, your poems still warm many a heart. What say you? Goodnight and God bless.