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Sunday, October 8, 2017

The Insomniac Diaries: yearning for break of dawn

The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world”
 Leonard Cohen
“All bad things must come to an end”

 I read the line from the breaking bad poster stuck on the wall, just in front of my bed. I broke out of the comfort of warm blanket and immediately felt a twinge of coldness in my knees. I washed my face with cold water just to alert my senses.

I went to the balcony and thought about the various things going in my mind for the last couple of days. I ended a five-year long relationship with the girl, I thought I was going to marry and get old with. I had expressed extreme sympathy for a friend who became a victim of domestic violence. I resurrected a person from attempting suicide; I had a cousin brother in London who was battling with life with a blood clot inside his brain.

Words like guilt, love, expectations, frustrations, loneliness, mental tiredness and many more frequently used terms from the same genre became a regular part of my life and now I treated them merely as tools to express my emotions.

My life was like boxer standing in the ring and trying to defend the incoming punches, I was standing in position where I had no time to recover and get stable to give my own knockout punch.

I went through a lot of mixed emotions, guilt of not being loyal towards the person who cared for me, being a little selfish about my own affection, lonely off being not able to find a single person in my phone contacts to share my feelings with, sensible of not letting someone end his life just because he failed in his life.

I got restless, decided to get back inside the room to place myself again under the comfort of the warm blanket. I stared at the static fan and off-white colored walls and thought about the various nights I had spent thinking about improving my life and making it a better place to live. The very next moment another thought struck me, about how in all those aspects I was a miserable failure.

My life was slowly becoming an amalgamation of despair and sadness, where all I did was live my life in two images. One where I presented myself as a person of how the society wanted me to be and secondly the person I wanted to be. However, now come to think of it, we all are living our lives in the same pattern of duality.

It was not the lack of sleep that was turning my thinking process into a more complex system, it was the lack of hope. Lack of happiness that you get from little things you go through in life, the atmosphere of an early morning cool breeze, sunshine in the dawn, a moment when you see flock of birds twittering their way into the blue sky not worrying about the destination. People going for their usual morning walks and being internally happy that they are taking care of their body, The huge crowd assembling near the tea stall for their early morning tea, mothers preparing lunchbox for their children, that little kid crying his heart out in a emphatic way to tell his parents that he doesn’t want to go to school. I missed these small ordinary moments to be cheerful.

Photo by Zac Durant on Unsplash

When Life starts throwing random punches towards me, I should behave like the great Jake Lamotta- let it beat the hell out of me, but not be able to knock me down. With that thought, I realized how true the breaking bad poster stated, that all bad things must come to an end and so will my sleepless nights would one day see the end of darkness.   

Saturday, September 23, 2017

The Blue Umbrella: A Cinematic Fable


A distinctive simplicity surrounding the idyllic nature of a small village located somewhere underneath the mammoth mountains of Himachal Pradesh, forms the scenery of Vishal Bhardwaj’s “The Blue Umbrella”, an adaptation of Ruskin Bond’s novella of the same name. 

The film’s opening scene has Nandkishore Khatri (played by the brilliant Pankaj Kapur), owner of Khatri tea stall, lying on a charpoy, taking pleasure of a warm sunny morning, sucking his favorite lemon pickle. He is busy listening to the predictions about his future via a robot; the pre-recorded voice tells him delusional talks, which are contradictory to the realistic persona of Nandu. He is a shrewd shopkeeper, who gives credit to kids; in order to swindle them of their prized possession. 

Biniya (Played fluently by Shreya Sharma), a nine-year-old girl, residing in the same village is well aware of the tricks played by Nandu and always prefers to keep up a safe distance. One day, while tending her two cows, her eyes spots something on the blue horizon, it is a dreamlike moment in the film, an artistic blue colored umbrella slowly lands right in front of her, its beauty awes her, she had never seen something such a stunning and artistically designed umbrella before. For Biniya, it is nothing short of a star that has fallen on to her feet. Vishal Bhardwaj presents the scene in such a way, that it is love at first sight for Biniya. She slowly places her hands on the umbrella, delighted by its presence; she makes it a part of her life, even going on the verge of exchanging a bear claw to a group of Japanese tourist to whom the umbrella originally belonged. She has felt the coldness under its soft paper like canopy, its opulent bamboos, and wants to experience its delicate ruffles. 

Everyone in the village, astonished by the visual of little Biniya holding a blue umbrella under the snowy skies of Himalayas, but Nandu, who is not merely stunned, but rather fascinated over the umbrella, he doesn’t like the pendulum of attention swinging towards Biniya’s way. He approaches Biniya, and offers her candies, sweets, and pulls out many more lucrative proposals to exchange the umbrella, but always ends up getting a clear “NO” in response. There is a marvelous scene in the film, where Nandu carrying colorful balloons, approaches Biniya and offers less than 1/10th of the price of the umbrella (He got the actual price from a city store, but didn’t had the required amount), assuming he would defraud her. Nandu receives yet another rejection, leading to a point where the balloons flutter away leaving Nandu all alone, simple yet a deep metaphor of Nandu’s dreams to hold the umbrella getting beyond his reach.  



At this point, Nandu’s assistant asks him “is the oversized umbrella worth it?” Nandu replies with some extraordinary references to clear his motive, which for me forms the crux of the story, because there are certain moments in our lives where our fixation over any person, book, movie, city, food, TV Series or a non-living object empowers any rationalization, and we are not even bothered about any second opinions, till the point its aura surrounds us.
“Is seeing a rainbow on a sky worth it?”
“Is making a paper boat float in the water worth it?”
“Of what worth is watching Sun set behind the hills?”

“One cannot put a price tag on the peace that the soul is in constant search of” He explains, and claims that he and umbrella are soul mates from some earlier birth. 

There is a deep attachment, which Nandu over the time has grown for the blue umbrella, which has become a symbol of pride and paradoxically according to his subconscious mind, a catalyst of peace. He is resolved in his quest to conquer the blue umbrella.   

Soon after all the failed efforts on Nandu’s part to get the guardianship of the umbrella, Biniya lose her most valued possession, she is heartbroken, devastated and the same village who stood in awe upon seeing Biniya walk into the village like a queen with the umbrella see her walking through rains without it. Biniya is totally lost, she has nothing on her mind but the blue umbrella, she suspects Nandu’s involvement, but fails to prove it. Meanwhile, the suspicion has hurt Nandu’s ego, and he swear to get a similar umbrella, and till then will not taste his favorite lemon pickle.   

Nandu finally gets his hands on a similar red color umbrella; everyone in the village is yet again in awe by its sheer magnificence. I wonder there is something alluring about the umbrella that caught everyone’s attention yet there are only two people, who takes a step ahead and make it an important part of their life, the difference being that while Biniya applauds the delicate nature of the umbrella, Nandu makes it an issue of ego satisfaction to have it under his ownership. The pendulum of attention swings towards Nandu; he has now become a center of attraction for the villagers. However, Nandu does not acknowledge the gracefulness of the umbrella; he is too preoccupied to massage his self-esteem.  

There is an astute scene in the film, which portrays the dichotomy between Biniya and Nandu’s attachment with the umbrella. Nandu is to travel via a bus, unable to close the umbrella and get inside the bus; he makes a turmoil scene out of the situation. It leads to him trying various awkward ways to close the umbrella, suddenly comes Biniya to his rescue, tells him “It doesn’t shut like this”, and takes the umbrella from Nandu, feel the touch of the bamboos, and effortlessly close it. Nandu holds the umbrella close to him and Biniya watch him leave, it is an emotional moment, and tells you how much the umbrella means to both of them. While Nandu holds the umbrella close to his heart like how a mother would keep her newborn baby, Biniya, on the other side simply gaze at them going further away from her. A momentarily separation epitomizing the nature of both the lead characters and their affection for an inanimate object. 


The decisive moment occurs; Nandu’s ploy is finally out in the open, the red color embedded in the umbrella leaks out under rain. Panchayat order boycott of Nandu, and returns the umbrella to Biniya. The winter arrives soon afterwards, snow descends like pearls from the sky, the entire village sprinkles with silence, as if mourning for Nandu’s embarrassing act of stealing an umbrella from a little girl. He is lonely, broken, and probably guilty of his act, but there is no one to notice that, and the kids he once conned, now mock him as “NandKishore Chatri Chor”. Supposedly, a Himalayan Bear walks through his shops roof, scared for his life, and yet no one to ask, Nandu terrifyingly resorts to a corner in his small room. Nandu is resolute to not leave the village, despite all the insults and loathe thrown at him from the villagers.

Biniya feels the regret floating inside the abandoned Nandu. She goes to his shop, and buys candies, without mocking him or making him realize of his acts, she leaves, and moments later Nandu realizes she has left her umbrella. He takes the opportunity and takes the umbrella inside his tiny room, Nandu gets a personal moment of solace with the umbrella, he is not in atoned with the situation though, he blames the umbrella for transforming him as a person, he’s fed up of the umbrella, which once was a catalyst to his peace of soul. 

The thing about “The Blue Umbrella” which made me really love the film, in the first place is an innocent appeal of the story along with the atmosphere that Vishal Bhardwaj creates with his distinctive narration. A tricky genre in literature that he picks; Fable, which could have easily resulted into a one-dimensional children’s film, but it turns out into a film that has a universal appeal. Ruskin Bond’s short stories, novella’s, novels always has a certain kind of earthiness, charm, straightforwardness, utmost honesty, real characters with a moral dilemma, realistic situations and to Vishal Bhardwaj’s credit, he never dilutes those characteristics in his adaptation. More so, Vishal Bhardwaj gives Ruskin Bond’s fable a deeper perspective with an intelligent use of the umbrella as a metaphor, which is very subjective in its nature; it could be a figure of desire, love, greed, status, attention-triggering object. The story might seem too rural in nature, but even if placed under urban settings, it would make viewer smile, because it is more about the emotions of the characters, and their transformation as individuals.

I wish Vishal Bhardwaj would complete his trilogy with another film in this genre, where he places a young actor with a veteran, like in case of the scheming “Makdee” (Shweta Prasad along with Shabana Azmi). During “The Blue Umbrella”, it was Shreya Sharma, who shared screen time with Pankaj Kapur, hopefully in the third film; we might see a young kid with Naseerudin Shah. 


Only if we could discover happiness in small events of our life like Biniya does when she holds the blue umbrella. 


Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Memory: Between Neurons and Narratives

“There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligence's.” Jane AustenMansfield Park

Memories underlie the core existence of our life, our ability to learn, understand, recognize people, and re-live the moments of past that shapes our present and future. It is fascinating and to some extent unsettling to imagine that all of our experiences hinges around the millions of cells around the flesh between our ears. It is an extensive topic of research in the field of neuroscience, which summarizes it as ‘The capacity to keep and develop acquired information and knowledge’ and put forwards several hypothetical yet exciting theories on the fundamentals of its functioning. 

Photo by Jordan Whitfield on Unsplash


However, I wish that neuroscience also tried to walk around the emotional complexities associated with memory, and the zigzag pattern of relationship it plays with the human mind.

So, how does the association between our emotions work in symmetry with our memories?

I will like to hypothesize memory as a never-ending graphic novel, which our mind picks and wanders through the visually striking images from our experiences. A graphic novel, which have certain colorful sections (memories which are positive in their nature, packed with hope), certain monochromatic one’s (memories that are sad in their nature). The template in either case remains the same; a previous event which has marked itself subconsciously in our mind, however it’s the emotional core surrounding the template which further classifies it into either colorful or monochromatic shades. It is like, the memories we adore, is represented visually in several bright colors, and the memories which are distressing, appear in black-white shades to provide different coating of emotions encapsulating that moment.

I wonder, how is editing of the graphic novel done? A certain “editor”, which plays a crucial role in developing a narrative of events to put on display into the graphic novel. It is certainly not the emotions; because they qualify into moments that are later on branded as memories, rather than quantifying it. The subconscious mind primarily edits the narrative of the memory. Memory is both resolute and delicate; sometimes we are able to beckon up the scenarios from events that occurred years back with perfectionism, and on few occasions, we are not able to remember events moments after their occurrence. The subconscious mind determines the memory that we want to recall, and later determines the importance the event carries with itself. 


Then, why would we store memories in monochromatic shades? A thought comes in my mind. It would be a great tool for human psychology that we remember only those events, which are colorful, visually aesthetic, positive, full of happiness, bringing a smile on our face, when we recall them. Life would be so better and calm, we will only wander around the nostalgia of brightness.

Perhaps its too fictionalized, but why not for just 10 minutes imagine that if we can recollect the brightest of our memories and spread them on the table like a set of paintings, and provide those memories with the unadulterated attention, and love, they deserve. Imagine, at the end of a long, tiring day, overcoming the irritating traffic on the roads, unnecessary gossips around your workplace, the judgmental stares from your neighbors, coming back to home, collapsing on the couch, closing our eyes, and taken into those glittery, vibrant moments, where even the tiniest of details around the backdrop can be easily recalled.   

If only we could maneuver our memory for a trait like this. 

Perhaps, the editor (our subconscious mind) does not want the graphic novel to shape up one-sided, and wants to keep up an unspecified ratio of shades so that our interest remains occupied, we are compelled to go back and turn few pages, and while looking for the colorful pages, come across the dull ones.  

As neuroscience progress, memory is bound to get explored with different perspectives on the origin, individual performances, functionalities associated with it, but that would be strictly in terms of coding of genes, expression of proteins, and the signaling of the neurons and our behavior patterns, without taking into consideration the plethora of emotions adjoining it. 

It is the storm of wide ranges of emotions, which appears internally in our mind, immersed into the space of our present existence, forming a ‘moment’, which ages into memory, and no research of neuroscience can explain what triggers those emotions, how they assemble with our present, how those moments age and what prompt the cells in our brain to revisit those memories. 

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Seeking Silence

"When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence." -Ansel Adams

There is an utter melancholic feeling that engrosses my mind when I am standing at a railway station, amidst the chaotic atmosphere the place resonates with, I try to discover a sense of silence, a split second of peace, extracted through the disarray, and the only way to meet that simple yet complicated moment is to simply see the surroundings, go through the nostalgia of thoughts running in my mind, and cross the plethora of images spawning in my head, and seek silence.

There isn’t any specific rationale behind my search for silence and peace, silence is beautiful, and in the middle of this chaos, which I surround myself with, it seemed more seductive. 

The scene at regular small town railway stations are not quite parallel to one’s I grew up imagining through Ruskin Bond’s short stories, perhaps set in a much diverse time, where one doesn’t need to put an effort to get a moment of silence. The demon shaped engine with the thunderous honking sound expressing a strong sense of rage and ordering people to move on and get inside the train, I think of it as a metaphor, commanding people to move on in life too through a new journey. 

The tea vendor’s, selling the worst tea that you’re ever going to taste, oil smudged snacks being catered around every corner, B-grade magazine with a picture of girl displaying her cleavage to grab men's attention, which are desperate for something to cling on before embarking on their journey. A reek of phenol suddenly scatters on the platform, indicative of the fact that railway cleaning staff has come on time for their duties. Railway stations have gone a drastic change with times, there aren’t any coin operated weighing checking machines around anymore, where one simply inserted a one rupee coin and stood straight for few seconds and got a small yet reasonably thick brown color chit showing their weight in bold black color, the upper part of the machine had a round display with a colored wheel inside it. Upon placing the coin into the machine, the wheel rotated for few seconds, creating a dramatic scenario, and moment later, the chit used to emerge from the machine with the person’s weight printed on it. The wheel even had small bulbs glowing with bright colors that made the weight checking process more fascinating for me. I recall many instances where i used to excitedly go and check my weight and always came back furiously, tearing the chit and started questioning the machine for its lack of authenticity.

Another interesting feature of railway station was fortune-teller machine, based on the same template as the coin weighing machine but in place of a person’s weight, the machine spat the thick small brown color chit with day’s fortune printed on it. It was a clever way of indulging a person’s attention into the rubbish printed on the chit as they embark on their journey. 

There is certain yet an unknown distinctive ambiance of a railway station, and that uniqueness is created by the thousands of people communicating through the railway, hundreds of people sleeping inside the waiting rooms, on the platforms, queuing up at four in the morning to get their tickets, several groups of people rushing towards the general compartment to fit in their body for the journey. Everyone has their own story, some share, some prefer to stay quiet, people get acquainted with strangers, hear their stories, share stories of themselves, talk about politics and more. By the time, journey ends, a bond is formed, which I would like to term as a ‘Railway Bond’. 

The moment of silence knocks the door of my mind, when a train leaves the platform, the crowd scatters away from the platform, the vendors go back to their bases, and waits for the next train to arrive, I see a pattern, and in that pattern, there is a consistent gap existing between the arrivals of different trains on the platform. This is the point where the silence seduces my mind into its shell.

Silence is therapeutic, it is omnipresent yet difficult to identify. It gives a sense of freedom to the mind to unravel the chain of complicated thoughts; it is constructive in nature, lending all the necessary tools to erect a clear picture in your mind.
 
Photo by Lukasz Saczek on Unsplash
I travel around with the shell of silence and let the voice around it subdue the noise made in my mind. 


Monday, July 17, 2017

Death: The Undefined Space


"Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace."- Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost

It is another insomniac night, and sleep has been a distant dream, the moment I try to close my eyes, I have this sudden burst of anxiety (In whatever chemical form it is found in our body) rush through my veins. The group of butterflies in my stomach elevates my anxiety to its peak level. I feel like a student sitting in an examination hall about to give the most vital exam of his career. I think about random topics to ponder over in order to occupy my mind, because that is the most appropriate pastime for an insomniac, TO THINK.

Photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash 


I randomly browse through various topics in my mind, that I wanted to think about, but I could not stick to a particular one, like my insecurities, my anxiety, my fears, my ambitions. I opened Twitter, just to divert my mind, I scroll through my timeline, desperate in search of something that stays with me through this silence, which have become my companion. A national award-winning lyricist and writer, I follow had tweeted few hours back 'Dying in sleep would be such a calm and hassle-free way to leave this world and end your journey', I immediately knew, that this is the topic I am going to ponder over and put my thinking neurons on work.

As Dr Sheldon Copper suggest, that during such period of analysis, we must put on our thinking cap, so I do the same, and ponder over DEATH.

Death is inevitable; we all are going to die; the mediums might differ but result would be same. Heart will not pump the blood; oxygen supply to the brain would stop. Whenever someone in a Punjabi family die, people communicate the news to each other by saying “O Poora Hogaye” literally meaning the person is complete. I recall an instance asking my grandmother what this sentence means, she responded with an elaborate explanation that how Sikh consider life as a cycle, starting point being their birth, and ending point being their death. She further went to explain me how death is an impartial phenomenon. It does not discriminate humans on their religion, gender, age, social status.
I recalled another memory, which made me a bit uncomfortable, I tried to re-frame the entire scenario in my mind, my grandfather came to his room, sat on his moving chair, asked a glass of water, closed his eyes and within moments he left us. In a chaotic world, dying in silence and peace would be such a pertinent path to complete our journey.  Mike Ehrmantraut, one of the coolest characters in Breaking Bad, ignores Walt’s apology and tells him and to shut the fuck up and let him die in peace. It is one of the subtlest sequences of a person accepting his death and trying to find solace in it. 



Mike Ehrmantraut finding Peace in Death



Mike Ehrmantraut finding Peace in Death


I try to analyze death,

Is it a sensation leading to permanent desensitization?

Is it a form of sharp sound waves that arrives with a crescendo of music piercing our eardrums? 

Does it seem as an angel calmly whispering in our ears that we are going to a better place?

Or does it appear as a devil disguised as an angle trying to con us in the lure of a better place? 

Is it the transporter that takes our soul into the field, which is beyond the idea of wrongdoing and rightdoing that Rumi, has talked about?

Death, on many instances does not seem as easy and peaceful; it often is brutal, heartbreaking affecting not only a single person for whom it is meant for at the first place, but also to everyone related to that person. It build’s organically into your mind, taking your body and mind through the path of loneliness, pain and slowly leaving your body and mind to wonder around in an undefined space.

I try to create a fictionalized scenario on death (if that’s an fitting way to present it), if a person is on the verge of death through any means, be it a pathological condition, or a psychiatric condition or simply through an aging cause, slowly their organs would stop functioning properly leaving the subject under extreme physical disturbance, and emotional distress for their loved ones, few lucky one’s would be able to bid good-bye to their loved ones, other’s won’t be able to say a proper goodbye to their loved ones. The moment body stops responding and physiological function stops, the soul leaves the body taking along with itself a jar consisting of thousands of emotions, be it guilt, heartbreak, happy memories, rejections, moments of utter loneliness, moments of pleasure. The soul enters the undefined space, wandering around and seeking another medium to encompass all the emotions with it.

Does the undefined space act as the divider between Heaven and Hell?

Does the undefined space form a minuscule portion of the gigantic universe, where the soul rambles around?

Does the undefined space keep the soul, and later prepares it to be transmitted into another body (acting as a medium), by loosely forming the basis of consciousness through the jar of emotions the soul has kept?   

Another thought hit my mind, what happens when a person dies a premature death, does the scenario post death remains same?  Does their soul wonder around the undefined space seeking out an appropriate medium to transfer the large chunk of emotions?  Another scenario is that the point of soul-searching for another medium might come from the fact that my subconscious level makes me want to believe on the perspective of reincarnation. May be the undefined space acts as cloud storage for the emotions when a person dies leaving the soul wandering around the universe. It is an indication that once our journey ends, there is no alternative route to start the same journey, the road end there.

The advances made in the Quantum theory has led to development of many novel theories that try to put different perspectives on death, life after death with respect to consciousness, time, space and the universe. I try not to go deeper into quantum aspects of death, instead I try to focus on my fictionalized scenario and stick to it, and indirectly telling myself that I had an eventful insomniac night analyzing death.

I try to rewind the entire self-mediated thoughts on death, and get answer to several odd questions from myself, the nature of death (Not suicidal, but in widespread reason), the self-created undefined space, which even I am not sure how to characterize it, the soul containing a jar of emotions, the basis of reformation of consciousness to lend the soul into another medium. 

I go outside my small room, and walk into the verandah, it’s about to dawn, and I am far away from understanding death,

Do I really need to? I ask myself, probably no, and that reassured stimulated ‘NO’ comes subconsciously from the fact that we have to accept it under any circumstances.

I take off my thinking cap, look at the sunrise, and still seek out sleep.

Monday, May 1, 2017

A Flight of Love

“And when all the wars are over, a butterfly will still be beautiful.” -Ruskin Bond, Scenes from a Writer's Life



The field was lush green covered with the dark clouds, it seemed as if the sky had been invaded by the demons of the rains, and at any point you could feel that they will leave a thunderous roar, droplets of rain at any point were awaiting to kiss the flowers in the field, the green field was scattered with silence, the flowers awaited the presence of their regular friends whose presence spills magic on the entire field.

Photo by Karina Vorozheeva on Unsplash

Tika, the most beautiful butterfly in the entire universe awaited the presence of Mikhail, her companion, her soul. Tika came flying in the field, touching her favorite flowers. The presence Of Tika sparked the happiness in the lonely flowers of the field. 

Flowers blossomed with merely the presence of Tika, the demons in the cloud went away  and made way for the Rays of Sun, to come and greet the most astonishing butterfly in the world. Tika traveled through the entire field, and awaited Mikhail to come.....

Each flower in the field, tempted to appear attractive, so that Tika would come and grace them with her presence, but Tika kept flying without even bothering about any flower and kept searching for Mikhail. She was restless, and kept flying and kept looking for Mikhail, but he was nowhere to be found.

She remembered the moments when both of them used to meet and fly as high as their wings allowed them to be, she remembered how jealous those flowers became seeing their closeness.

Tika's wait finally came to a pleasant end when she saw Mikhail flying from distance, she sighed and wanted to capture that moment forever in her heart. Mikhail and Tika united, which seemed like after an infinity, the flowers blossomed despite their jealousy, they could not resist the love both of them had for each other, carelessly flying into the sky.

The passion with which both of them fondled each other's wings could put a couple dancing under the Eiffel Tower to the tune of saxophone under shame. The flowers of the field despite their jealousy to see their love had developed a routine to see them unite again and again, as their love was the only thing that brought the light of hope into the field.

'How far will we fly?' asked Mikhail.

'Till the point we reach the end of the sky' replied Tika.

'The universe is way too big for us' said Mikhail

'Its way too small for the love we have for each other in our hearts' replied Tika.

They kept on flying and exploring various fields, and many countless flowers where they inhaled each other's fragrances.

Tika was in search of something, which Mikhail sensed.

'What are looking for'? Asked Mikhail.

'The most beautiful flower in the universe' said Tika.

'For what'? Asked Mikhail.

'To be in your presence, to be in comfort under your wings' said Tika.

After some long search they found a yellow colored Busan flower, who awaited lots of guest under its buds, but won't let any creature flourish under his intoxicating presence, as Busan wanted to host the most beautiful butterflies in the world, and after looking at Tika and Mikhail, he sighed and told them
'Welcome my little friend's, I waited your presence since eternity'

Mikhail and Tika were more than happy to be under the presence of such a heaven like flower. They came and sat on the bud of Busan, intoxicated under his presence, under each other's wings. 

Tika and Mikhail knew that the point had come, where there souls would unite, they emotions would unite, the ocean of feelings they have for each other would be mixed under the pure extract of their love. Tika sensed that the time had come where she releases the fragrance of love, a smell that would take Mikhail to the seventh cloud.

Mikhail patiently wait to inhale that smell, where they both will follow to the path of heaven guided by gods of love.

Amidst the ecstasy that both Of them shared, they ignored the nature around them, the surroundings where they were welcomed so warmly by the yellow Busan, which had turned purple in color.

As Tika and Mikhail came closer, Busan changed his appearance, it's as if he was changing in accordance to their mood, he was like the orchestra player under the instruction of his head curator.

The shining sun had eloped, the demons reappeared, Busan had become darker, whereas Tika and Mikhail did not care about the surroundings.

Busan waited for the butterflies to be lost under the pleasure of their love, the moment he anxiously waited for was there in front of him.

Tika and Mikhail never woke up again.

Busan, instead of caring for the butterflies had turned into a poisonous host, who survived from the fragrance extracted from the bodies of dead butterflies.

As Busan extracted Tika's and Mikhail's fragrance, their souls left their body and somewhere in the other side of the universe, Tika and Mikhail reunited and kept flying.....


Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash