I remember my first time on a swing
without any assistance at this park in the cantonment where my father was
posted. Hisar. I've plenty of memories attached to that place but somehow that
feeling of being on the swing all by myself has always been with me and I have
thought about the reason behind remembering it,vividly so,on numerous
occasions. I haven't been able to convince myself with absolute reasoning but
the closest I've come to concluding is that it was perhaps the sheer joy of
liberation.
The air felt lighter and crisp above
the mundane familiarity of the earthen heat over the ground level. I liked how
close I could be to the perfect blue sky and grasp it in all its gigantic
glory. The beauty of its vastness,the brightness just overwhelmed me. I drew
the sky that day in the evening and all I did was empty the bottle of blue and
white paint on a sheet of paper and move my palm across the sheet from one end
to the other. And I did the same for many sheets and then asked my mother to
pin them all together because that was how big the sky was I informed her
diligently. So she told me it was much bigger than what I had imagined and
perceived. This led me on to painting a few more sheets and she kept pasting
them until the cardboard above my study table was filled with blue sheets and
my canvas was set. It made me smile,the canvas I had painted. I had a sky of my
own so that when I returned home I would still have the joy of looking at
it,all bright unlike the night. I used to have the night lamp facing the canvas
so I could see it from my bed and before I slept it gave me things to lookout
for the next day. An incentive that just grew manifold in practice. As I grew I
wanted to know about how and why was the sky blue,how did the birds fly,how I
couldn't stay in air for long like them and hence forth. Those were perhaps the
times I learnt the most,because I was learning out of sheer curiosity. That was
another liberating moment.That canvas was saved for many years by my parents as
I kept adding to it.
First,the Sun, evidently a big yellow
circle at the right-hand corner then birds(simple black extended curved 'v' )
which I eventually replaced with pictures of different birds and their names
and two features of the bird that made it different from the rest. Then came in
trees which made it even more exciting because I then took to climbing
trees(and falling terribly times and over,I then learnt gravity was no good,and
how being idle is no child's play but a trend that Sir Isaac Newton set forth
with much ado) and getting a pocketful of leaf samples to show to my parents
and ask them which tree it belonged to and that led me to learning about the
different kind of trees around the place and subsequently giving me an insight
into seasons with the yellowing of leaves and the blossoming of flowers. And
all this happened because one evening I was left alone to be,and fend for
myself without anyone to help/guide or teach me. Something as casual as
swinging all by myself when there was no one but myself to observe,ask and
answer to my questions. From that moment I have had plenty of opportunities to
see,hear,ask,learn,draw and write but seldom have I felt the same as I felt
back then.
And I know why.
It is because I have never been that
free,for a second time. I live under the shackles of what I have heard,seen and
learnt much before I have allowed myself to observe to understand and believe.
I have led myself to believe in the preconceived.
Terrible isn't it?
To not be free and just follow what
another said and made me believe. I think I think too much about everything
that is and that can be but I want liberation now,like I did a few years back
for months and years together until the monotony of the usual spoon-feeding
trespassed taking away the single greatest joy of life,of being free. So I
document this realization before I can make another trip to a swing that awaits
me and ironically yet another preconceived thought comes to my mind to set me
free, from what someone else said and I'd like to believe that-
It is never too late.
**My expedition be blessed because I
just spent hours together thinking about how to not think and to think to make
myself believe that I mustn't think. Dang!**
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