Stargazer

Some memories last a lifetime. Moments freeze and remain in front of your eyes forever. You just have to close your eyes to relive them. In the summer of 1996, I had attended the marriage of a relative, in a very rustic village. I was thirteen. At the onset of teenage, I was too young for anything damaging, yet, I had a reputation. However, this post is not about that. It was one of the hotter days that summer, when left with nothing else to do, we decided to explore the countryside. 

Me and an older cousin of mine decided to take a long walk around evening. We went across the small pond that had almost dried up. It was the first time I had seen a very large flock of swans drinking from what was remaining of the pond. The ridge along the pond had trees on one side and mostly dry land on the other side. We kept walking, talking of things I barely remember. I had a stick in my hand and I kept fiddling with it, hitting every plant I saw on the way, recklessly. 

A point came where we were in the middle of what can be best described as a serene endless piece of land, with the setting sun on one side of the horizon and impending darkness on the other. At a distance, we could tell from the dim lights, was the village. A gentle cold breeze had begun to blow. We decided to stop and go no further. It was time to return. As we turned around, the pond had a fluttering silver line across it. It was the moon. As we moved closer to the village, we decided to sit down on a large rock, rest for a while as we had nothing else to do at home. My cousin was a frequent visitor to that place, and hence going back was not a problem. I kept looking at the pond, over which, the yellow, not-so-bright moon wandered. 

Soon, it turned dark enough for the stars to light up the sky.  It was at that point I decided to look up straight into the sky. At that point, with hands under my head, I looked up into the sky. There were a million stars spangled across the sky and to my right in the sky, shone the bright moon. Crickets chirred incessantly as a gentle breeze humbly comforted me. Calmness engulfed my soul. Conversation had succumbed to nature. 

Moments don't last forever. Neither did this. My cousin shook me up from the ecstatic stargazing indulgence. We walked home. Over seventeen years have passed since that night at Sanjeevanraopet. Not even once in all these years have I felt the peace, tranquility and the ecstasy I experienced that evening. However, it is so fresh in my memory that I just have to close my eyes to re-live it. But it is still a memory - and a memory is never an experience.  

But as years passed, I realize, that experience was the birth of the unrelenting romantic in me. 

- DK