esta tarde, this afternoon

Watching the kids play at the swings in the park that afternoon, she became conscious about all that she had missed upon. Growing up had been a hurried business and she had taken her time in rushing through childhood. Feeling stupid about how enticing the notion of being grown up sounded, she wondered why people talked about it as a perfect state of being, something to be achieved.
She had often thought about things like these only in public places, the danger of them overpowering her senses in the surroundings where the vicinity comprised of her alone, was too big a risk to be taken. Many a times she had abandoned herself mid-way, trying to get lost through the happenings of her life. But with age had come the knowledge that life would not cover what eye-lids could hide.
Her view about the world had been altered at different stages of life but the notion had stuck all through. The only change was the reason that she adjudicated for the ways of the world, the end was always her contempt for it.
There were moments in time when she felt that life was beautiful. She did not however, linger on the topic. She recognized it only to the point of feeling it. She never tried to stay with the thought. Grandmothers, on sunny Sunday afternoons had put forth a thought,
“Things talked about lose their beauty in each word uttered, each syllable spoken, emotions flowing out with words. “
And so at instances when she did feel positive without dwelling on the positivistic way of thinking, she just kept it close to herself, ignoring it beyond the flash of its discovery.
That afternoon, the sun had been particularly friendly- shining its glory on people who would otherwise be swept in the cool sensation of the winters, imbibing the cold with such sincerity as was hard to emulate. The grass seemed more fresh than green. The clouds had given way to the chirping birds which had migrated away from home, much in the same way as her. They had found this place as a recluse only to fly away to another place which seemed better still.
Shabnam!
Someone from a distance called in her direction. Swiftly shifting her stance she looked searchingly for any trace of familiarity.
To her disappointment a young Indian girl passed by with a child holding her hand. Trying to attempt a smile was difficult; it had been centuries since she last puckered her lips for anything other than condemnation.
There weren’t enough reasons to make her smile anyhow, not even few, not even any.
She remembered the day that she had arrived in the city. It seemed to have been the perfect recluse, the place away from home- a land of opportunities and unparalleled freedom. To top it all she would have a high-scale job to match her undiluted interest in the work with which she was involved. Being appointed as an artist with one of the most exclusive galleries in the world, it had been her dream-come-true. Being called to be a member of highly acknowledged and reputed artist’s brigade, she had not only proved herself but to herself too. She had always had inhibitions about what people acknowledged of her abilities, she had always accepted criticism with much more warmth.
It was like all other things in her life-both welcoming and pleasurable, initially. That’s where it ceased to exist, nothing beyond the word ‘initially’. It was at that point when she wanted to rush back to the comfort that could only be attached with one place on earth, her home. She knew that that had been an abstract perception way before she even thought about an attempt at preparing to pack.
She stayed where she was, accepting all that came her way. Most of it was absolute criticism, which had been her domain, which had been the place where she most felt at home.
Thereafter she had never toiled with anything other than work, which felt like a pleasure only to the extent of being the reason that kept her from herself. And it had been reason enough.
In the first few years she let doubt interrupt her estimates about life, she let life prove it to be something better. Gradually she derived happiness from the fact that her estimates had begun to take shape of theories, which were being proved at one time or another. Finally there was so much conviction in her theories that she constantly searched for ways to prove them faulty, even malicious. It was as if she had become obsessed with loopholes. Each conversation every idea, all interactions had revolved around her fixation.
Her work no longer reflected a new concept; art was repetitive, no more art, just an embodiment of her spirit. Those who had stuck around her found her menacing, insulting or insinuating. People would always have better business to look after. Wasn’t everyone looking for an escape? Why would they indulge themselves in whiling away free time in getting laid by the burdens of thoughts from which they too had sought shelter?
Now, when she had grown old enough to understand only this-that there was no escape, that life was but a yearning for better, a reclusion from it and a search for newer concepts, which after all evolved from the same mind that hunted it, she tried to escape again.
Except that now, she was escaping, flying with the birds, figment by figment, thought by thought breath by breath; soul from body, life from mind. She smiled, realizing that the means to the escape had not failed her. She had been an achiever, at last.