January

“No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference.

It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left.”

I stepped into the soft sunlight that is only felt in the mornings. 

The sun showed itself in patches on the ground, giving way to the shadows of walls, which enveloped my hiding spot, but also entrapped it.

The place was an idyllic clearing at the back of human settlement, where flowers and grass and kitchen gardens flourished unperturbed. There were a great many creatures about. Pigeons and sparrows fluttering away at their leisure, tiny squirrels making their way through the wild vegetation beyond the walls, and few unwanted lizards, because of whom I kept my distance from the plantations.

The sidewalk would be my path today.

The sidewalk too, had outbreaks of grass. Tiny life attempting to survive the human endeavour.

I was in search of peace that morning.

Quiet, subdued, I walked aimlessly, hoping to see a bird I'd seen here before, on another excursion. The bird had slant eyes placed diagonally on a brown-feathered head. A tiny yellow beak, morphing into the brown feathers imperceptibly. And its wings were blue. As azure as...fluorescent light.

It was strangely and blissfully quiet. There were no songs that I played on repeat in my head, no moles that I made mountains out of.

The end of the previous year had been tumultuous and draining. I'd fallen into despair, which, of all the things in the world to fall into, is arguably the worst.

All efforts at rebuilding what I had lost were thwarted by an overlying desire to continue my languid dissipation. When people ask me how the past few months were, I usually have trouble explaining it. All my efforts bring me to metaphorical explanations.

To borrow a cliché, it felt as if a void closed in on the beauty of the world, ensconcing all that I had found dear, then hid all the light with a wallowing shade. The ubiquitous nature of the shade made it almost impossible to escape, mocking all my efforts to do so. I felt entirely alone, and that too, without reason. There were people I could easily connect with, I just couldn't see them through the shade. I was not short on connective opportunities. I was short on connection.

I was scared to say all of this to anyone, in case I was faced with derision or mocking laughter.

With the new year, my self had been stifled enough, and it brought out the rebellion. Slowly, I began to work through everything.

First, I lit a match under the shade.

The glow was enough for me to peek through.

Second, I tried to surpass the extent of the void, stretching out of its bounds, slowly enlarging the corner I had painted myself into.

And gradually, the match was no longer needed and the void had been stretched to its breaking point.

The light flowed in.

I still had days when I could sense the void on the horizon, but I know it won't be back anytime soon.

For now at least, I am alive.

The plantation path overlooked an empty residential complex.

The building was tall, grey and lifeless. It looked as if it had been abandoned in the final stage of construction.

Its glassless windows gaped at me with their empty mouths as I walked to and fro, wallowing in the peculiar silence of my thoughts.

The wind caressed all living beings with its cold fingers, and to the non-living, it gave motion.

It must be strange to be inside an abandoned building with a hundred open mouths, I thought.

I wonder if the owners of the flats had their aashiyaana snatched from them.

Or are these abodes unwanted?

If so, it must be hard.

It was hard for me to cope at first. 

To have some sort of direction, I gave January a theme.

The theme would serve as my torchbearer, guiding the charade of my life into reality.

January was proposed to be the month that I regain my balance.

The word 'January' came from the Roman god Janus.

Janus was the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. He is two-faced (quite literally), and presides over the domain of War and Peace.

I found what I wanted this January.

I hope you did, too.

I spent an hour with the pigeons and sparrows and squirrels and leaves and flowers and grass -and lizards- and wind.

I am now inside my room, its familiarity monotonous but comforting.

I touch my cheeks. They're cold from caresses.

Author's Note

Dear viewers, I apologize for this sudden and prolonged hiatus. The good news is, we are now back as a monthly endeavour.

I will post on the last day of every month.

Till February approaches, goodbye.