The cat that wudnt hunt

Prologue

How far are you from your dreams?

The story..

It was 4.30 PM of yet another day of my life. I heard noises as I entered the house. It was the TV. My mother was listening to Vittal Bhajans on Sanskar with the unchanging sincerity and religious fervor that I had seen on her face for the past 11 years. It was loud. But it was louder inside my head. I wanted to get away from the noise at once. I found refuge in the bathroom. Only for a few minutes though. My sister had come home, gotten irritated by the same noise as I had and decided to show it on the bathroom door. Maybe she was pretending the door was the head of the man screaming at the mike.

Before I could change, quench my thirst and sit on the bed in our room, my sister came gushing from behind and with great dexterity switched on the computer, the sleeping speakers , seated herself in front of the system and made a few random clicks at the mouse. Even before I could gather what she was up to, Iron Maiden was resounding all over the small room. Knowing what I would say next, she raised her hand and asked me to leave her alone with her music . I knew the better of it. I was in no mood to talk anyways. All I needed was some peace and quiet. As I stood at the threshold of our room and the hall I saw my mother had already begun reciting the bhajans along with the people on TV. There was noise on either side of me. They were different in nature, but noise nevertheless.

The terrace was a welcome relief. My thoughts wandered briefly at the scenes I saw on the 3 stair climb and for longer at our three storied house (which was now more like a hostel for working women) how we were reduced to living in a hall and a bedroom after our father left us and all the other people who lived in the house, the rent with which our mother made plans for us.

5 o clock is a nice time, I thought. I could hear the birds, squirrels, boys at the nearby ground. I started combing my hair with my fingers and closed my eyes.

Mother was very tensed, always worrying about her 2 girls. I was 29, unmarried and didn’t display any interest in marriage. My sister was a confused bundle not knowing how to cope with our sudden downfall and general degradation in lifestyle. She never grew up. (No wonder my mother was worried.)

She (my sister) was going through a break up. I wouldn’t call it one. Cos she was never really involved with anyone. She was doing it only because she didn’t know what else to do. She was throwing herself at people she didn’t understand but expected them to understand her. She was never in love. But she was always possessed. And every time realization dawned upon her partner, they would call it quits. She never broke up with anyone. It was always the other person. She lacked the maturity even to see that it wasn’t working. It always came as a shock for her. Even the fourth time. She would mourn (in her own way) and then get back at life. I would know she was out of mourning when she would start getting calls late in the night again.

I was not the living incarnation of Buddha either. I had my problems. But I dealt with them more passively than them (my mother and sister). Some people needed to bury the noise and questions inside their head with noise and questions from outside. Be it Vittal Bhajans or Iron Maiden.

I always sought to clear my head looking at the sunset and allowing the breeze to flow through my hair. Whether I got solutions or not, I felt relaxed and realized there was no need to worry. There was no race. The universe would always win. So why fret so much? I felt like I was a part of the system, not above it. I felt like all my problems were small. I felt like I was small.

I never wanted to be a dweller. I always wanted to be a traveler. I wanted to wander from country to country learning different trades, meeting people, learning life from them. I could already see myself walking with a great sense of purpose…the sands would change from place to place under my feet but the sky would be the same. Every day I would see the same sun. And in the nights, I would see the same moon and stars.

I dreamt or rather envisioned myself going to Spain and running a coffee shop. A choclatier in a remote French village. A pani puri stall in Varanasi. A florist in Shimla, and a pottery shop in the streets of Egypt. All at the same time? No. I wanted to travel. Pitch up in a place and stay there until I made enough or had enough and then push myself off to another place. Reaping unknown treasures, learning new things, get cheated, sometimes cheat, eat my full at times and not get enough at others. But to never stagnate. Know seven different languages. To penetrate people at sight. Never to be bound. Yes, that is what I wanted…never to be bound. That is what I dreamt of. But “how” you may ask? But those details your heart never bothers to give you. In a world without boundaries and formalities I would have been exactly what I perceived myself to be. But this is world made of boundaries. Social, financial, practical sometimes and all other sorts.

And “what when you are not young?” some may ask.

I very strongly believe that when you follow your heart, it will always show you the right thing to do at the right time. When you follow your instincts, dreams, hunches you will see how life falls into places like pieces of a puzzle. You will not have to plot, plan, scheme and scramble towards your goals. Rather when the time comes, you will know what exactly is to be done next. That is the belief I carry with utmost passion in my heart. So when the time comes to set my feet firmly on the ground, I will know when, where and how.

We all interfere with our heart’s ways. Always. Ever since we learnt to protect it. Ever since we learnt we could change the course of our lives on our own. But I should never have done it. I have seen that all decisions good or bad, when I make them, can never be undone. My job for instance. I never wanted to a teller. Not a teller at the local bank. I never wanted to a B.Com. But I convinced myself to try it out. There were several points in my teller-journey when I knew I should have quit. I wasn’t happy there. But there was always something or the other that came up and this decision had already become another undoable knot in the string I was spinning along.

But when my heart shows the way, even wrong decisions turn out fine. My first (and only) relationship was a wrong turn with my heart leading me, but I was back on track before I knew anything has even gone wrong.

Is it just me? Or do all people experience this? Maybe most people are not even capable of listening to their hearts. They have gotten so involved in the lights and smoke and noise of the people around them, that their own light and own voice does not reach them. Yes, most people are like that. Some people never hear their hearts and do not even know the existence of a dream very close to their being. Some do recognize it but are scared to reach out. I belong to the latter category. Which category is worse, I do not know.

I saw the breeze shake up the branches of the coconut tree in our front yard. The flowers will pollinate I thought. And then there will be coconuts. Another gust of wind years later will make a coconut fall off which will grow into a tree. We should have been a part of this symphony right? But we are not. After years of evolution, erosion and corrosion we have achieved what wise men call the ‘sixth sense’ But I think it’s just the reminiscent of a vast array of wisdom that was bestowed upon each and everyone of us, eons ago.

There must have been a time when every man sensed an earthquake hour’s before it struck. Just like the roaches.

There must have been a time when every man knew where to find water in a forest. Just like the monkeys.

There must have been a time when every man knew to talk to the spirits of the trees and the mountains. Just like the sherpas.

Our hearts knew everything it needed to take care of us. But we stopped listening to it and we stopped listening to the world around us.

I suddenly thought of the cat that wouldn’t hunt. My mom had found a stray kitten and fed it 3 times a day. We had never made it our pet. It came on time for the food and left. We had once been out for a weekend and on coming back found the dissipated hunger struck cat waiting for us at the gate. I wondered why it hadn’t followed its instincts and gone hunting for food. I thought maybe it forgot how to hunt. Or maybe it was too scared to get into the real world. I thought we were all like that. Growing up under the securities of a society around us, we are scared of following our instincts. For the cat it was food. For us, it’s our dreams. The dreams that should have fuelled our lives. Instead its the rules and the dreams of the society that fuels our lives; eventually burning down our dreams.

The lights were going down. The clouds were reflecting more of red and orange now. I should try and remember all of this so I could write it down in my diary I thought. There are very few times in our lives that we heed to our inner sense and allow it to speak up. This was one of those rare moments and I wanted to pen it down before I lost it again in the vast continuum of life. Even as I was thinking this, my mother yelled out “Swatiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii”. It was time to clean up the front yard and put ‘kolam’. None of the other residents in our house would do it.

As I climbed down the steps, I saw there were no lights on any of the rooms taken by the IT girls. They wouldn’t be back until late. I would be fast asleep when they came and I left the house before they woke up. Wondered how their lives were. Were they living their dreams?

Epilogue:

The TV was quiet when I came back after finishing with the front yard. Iron Maiden was playing at several decibels lower than before.

Mother asked my sister to connect to the internet and check if any of my prospective suitors had responded.

In 20 mins, we were all gathered around the computer to check for more “offers”.

My dreams? I will continue to see them.