Mirnmayee

“What would you do, then?” I had asked ludicrously, caressing the fresh stubble that had mushroomed on his face.

“I would disown you, try other options. There are too many women out there, you see.” He had teased, gently kissing a silent tear drop that had escaped my iris; A tear of ecstasy, that.
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Premonition, I must say!

It’s been 4months since this conversation occurred, but the memory of the mushy banter lingers on; bringing in a nostalgia that smells like mud after the first rain.

Sitting by the window, I muse; a feeling of dejavu takes over and I revisit those fragrant memories all over again. Searching for a string of memory, trying to visualize that exact expression, that voracious wordplay, that intimate touch.

I experience a mixed bag of mental chaos and excitement whenever I do this; and if I do hit the thought a serene contentment persists! Like the thrill that i experience on finding a favourite trinket that I had assumed to have lost. An inexplicable calm erupts within; a calm that smells like the fresh paint on a grill gate.

However when i fail to land that memory,sand below the feet pulls me into an ocean of distasteful yen. Exactly the way I feel now; the mind’s eye fails to recollect images from my last meet with Sid.

I can’t place that face, can’t picture that adorable smile that reaches his eyes, can’t recollect the words that we had sculpted into those moments. As I see bits and parts of my past and try to fix the puzzle together, beauty and bitterness interchange places in the mind reflecting the faces of a disloyal memory.

An old past that was very pleasant, a recent past that was an obnoxious stench, and a present that is…

If there is anything about myself that I had wanted to change, that was the perfect-ness with which destiny had shaped my life, I had it all. And then i thought I lost it all in a nano-second!

Everything had changed,

My dreams became voluminous abstractions.
My love, a faceless intimacy.
My gaiety, a tailored hope.
My lust turned, to a lifeless yore.
Thought of his kisses, created incomplete mirth.
Smells of the dawn left me with dull reveries!

The exquisiteness of my perceived completeness died in that moment, when I finally realized and accepted that I can never see the world the way I did earlier. For a person who thrived on the beauty of external landscapes, who derived strength from watching, observing and painting the world she saw it was a disaster..

The first few days were terrible.

But slowly, I started focusing my attention on the power of inner vision, the brilliant images that were studded into the necklaces of sight within.

From being a fulltime artist, a painter to being a student at the Brail center; the journey was surely the most challenging one. The sense my own incompetence and incompleteness disabled me. Made me “different”!

“Pursuit for Intellect and love, the only reasons for living” I believed. And to pursue these, you don’t need sight, I started convinced myself.

To re-create the essence of nature’s beauty with my hands and to revel in solitude while painting, the 2 most humbling experiences that had kept me alive vanished. What I saw around me, and the feeling that sights stimulated had dictated the way I painted the world. And it was all over.

The rest of me fell apart along with the sight. The passion to live, to emote, to feel, to observe and to even think.The struggle within to reorient myself to a world felt not seen, to come to terms with the loss of old relationships, the colors of my paint and yes, the sense of self-insufficiency was inexplicable.

When I met my coach, the first thing that struck me was that I might never get to see him. He took me by my hand and I felt the warmth of the support running through my fingers. He held out the cane to me and walked with me. It was the beginning of a strange journey,of learning and evolving.

Of experiencing aesthetics pleasure of a totally different stroke. Learning to hear sounds of people, pain and nature. Of relating changing directions of wind to seasons, to feelings.

Of understanding people sans their gestures. Of listening to vehicles approaching before crossing the streets.

Of re-living my self discovery process in entirety, all over again; of learning to walk straight ,of feeling the sunrays on the closed eyelids, of recognizing where my mouth is and feeding myself food from the plate without spilling it all over.

It was a chaotic and emotional time, and I was relishing the new found way of life.It was liberating and binding both at the same time. Liberating to seek that freedom I’d lost.
And it is during this period, that I started writing; About my inner visions, about imagery from the past, exploring meanings that emerge from other senses.

Of losing sight and discovering vision. Of putting in words, the pictures I’d wanted to paint-of invisible terrains that illuminate my artistic crave.

And after 2yrs of such eye-opening ordeal, I’m now waiting in the operation theater for the Cornea transplant .I’m not feeling nervous really, but I would be dishonest if I say iam not thrilled. Sid is here today, I guess trying to bring a smile on his face-I sense a guilt that smells like washed clothes bundled inside a cupboard.

Iam unsure now, of going through this. .Of getting back to the normal world, of sight; of letting go a cozy, self-sufficient world I’ve created within.

“Are u ready?”, the nurse asks.

I stare back at the direction of her voice, eyes shut.

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