My Tryst With Life...

It has been a little over 20 years since the universe welcomed me. LIFE!!! Life was bestowed upon me by the creator. And upon many others too. Every second, or may be every millisecond, a new life is born, it can be a plant, an insect, or an animal, but its life that throbs, that develops incessantly, since eternity.

Time passes and everything starts to hold a specific meaning. Things that were merely there, around, are assigned a purpose in our understanding. Now they are there to fulfill a purpose. For a child, a newborn, all the world is same, un-known, it can't understand anything except probably that the lady who holds him always is someone or something quiet different than the rest, Someone Special. But the rest of the things are all either his toys or his play-area. Everything is treated with equality, fire and chocolate is the same for a 5month old until he has experienced them both, with an equal degree of curiosity, accompanied with the effort to understand and memorize the "Something" that has been encountered. When the number of these "Some-things" increase, it becomes necessary to assign each one an identity, to differentiate one from the other, and everything starts getting a name, which is taught by the elders, an effect of the surroundings, one is in. Language starts making sense, and instead of "Da-da" & "ma-am" &"na-na" specific and clear sounds are put into use, a different sound for every other thing. Thus slowly the world starts making sense, and an understanding is developed of how the world functions.

For a normal child being brought up in a typical urban life-style, the world mostly has CARS, BIKES, TALL AND SHORT BULDINGS, ROADS, SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, CLUBS, RESTAURANTS, HOTELS, THEATRES, GARDENS & PARKS, OTHER PEOPLE, COMPUTERS, CELL PHONES, TELEVISIONS & INTERNET. And these are the most relevant things for him. Even the parents are content, these are the things that form the typical "CITY UNIVERSE". But in this "City Universe" the only things those can be termed as  having life in them are the gardens, and other people. But then if one sits and starts thinking over the liveliness of these, a feeling develops, these things don’t feel Alive. The are all stagnant, not developing. The gardens have plants but there are no birds or bees to feed on the nectar of flowers or animals to eat the fruits. Though the plants are fresh, they don’t encompass the cycle of LIFE, in the complete essence of the word. It’s an artificial ecology, far from the natural, the perfect.

A pot of Gold in the mountain from venue.nu

A Newfie, perfect companion

On the other hand, a kid raised in a rural set-up, life is more about the cattle and farms, the sowing and the harvest, the summer, monsoon and winter, the nature forms the basics, and human interference is to an extremely low extent. In the words of a typical city lad, a purely mundane existence, a boring life in other words, nothing to do, no INFRASTRUCTURE. It’s a very slow paced life, slow and always calm, no one's running to catch the quarter to 6 bus or no one's keeping up till late to prepare for the presentation the next day. The whole of the society dwells on the earning and petty issues of farming, or small scale cottage industries. But amid all these, there's life, a natural flow of things, not artificially propelled or aided, changes taking place on their own accord, on nature's accord. The tiniest of things teeming with life, full of reality. Fireflies everywhere at night, lots of birds at dawn and dusk, the cool breeze in the morning, carrying the sweet scent of the fields or the forests or mountains beyond. The river flowing by, or the pond just on the outskirt. A sense or truth in them all.

Many a times I feel like running away from this city I live in, as it all seems too artificial, where-in everything is made to look like something else. Everything is nothing but an imitation of the perfect which is created by nature. I feel like going to some distant place in the mountains, where I could farm enough for me to eat, and have a pack of dogs and a herd of cattle.  Where I don’t have to smell the nitric and sulphuric fumes in the dawn and dusk, where it’s the pure morning breeze scented with nature's flavour, which feels like the touch of a poppy petal, or a beloved's kiss.

Castle in the mountains from wallconvert.com

But then, sometimes, it all feels just like a daydreamer's dream. I'm an engineer, a Construction engineer, its not FEASIBLE. Then again, that’s the whole charm of it, doing what isn’t feasible, or practical in the world I live in. Someday I will, run into the mountains, and live my dream. That's my tryst with life. That day, I shall have won over life.