I love the word beautiful because it sounds just like its name. It is so filling and expressive that its tinkle makes it extremely quenching…

That’s how I feel after landing back home. I feel beautiful. To me, it variedly means tranquil, content, wise, blissful, beaming, and pretty and I feel all of it. I feel the control that I have and I realize it is not heavy but lighter than I could imagine…

I am in the bus, on my way to Nathdwara. It’s a small town in Rajasthan that I must have visited myriad times. It is different this time because it is the need that calls than pleasure. I have been given the sleeper area that I keenly explore and soon realize that it is big enough to accommodate the whole of me (and maybe a couple of bags). Leaving my mother and aunty to each other’s solace, I shut the small haven provided and shun myself from rest of the people for the day to come.

To give me company is The Zahir that, again, I call beautiful. The book is a journey in itself. The turning of each page makes me feel as if I am unwinding every thread of my own life. I am on a voyage of thoughts that, till now, were entwined in the web of life. I have started enjoying my journey and my small room that just defines the space I need. I look out of the window but I am not really looking at what I am. I am smiling. Nature has its mysteries for sure. I jump back in the shores of the mystical words as if they were picked up from my own life…

I am falling in love with the sluggish pace. Everything is so calm and serene that I feel the breeze brushing my face and whispering soothing words to me. The breathing has become so filling that I can feel the air spreading in my lungs and then in the stomach. It’s getting darker and I try to increase my speed to cover maximum number of pages. Unfortunately, it seems that the lethargic pace has got on to me and I start peeping out before the light drowns in the ocean…

I am always less often advised and more ordered to think less so that I remove excess baggage of worthless sorrows from my life. I agree that I am quite pensive by nature. In fact, I think to such an extent that in that state of mind I can create an entire kingdom of imaginary world that has its less pleasurable and more sorrowful moments. I wonder, am I not deceiving myself by believing in the void called happiness that lies around me? Should I simply eschew analyzing to lead a satisfactory life…? Is that how simple it is…? It is easy to deceive but difficult to believe. I might not have the most satisfactory relationships but I don’t pretend to bask in false glory. I move on…

I try taking a nap but maybe, I want to make the most of this rare opportunity of thinking in my own space. I open the window and struggle to find out the distance that we have covered but the darkness doesn’t seem to be in my favor today. I let the air hit my face but it’s more pleasing than annoying. The air seems to erode each phase of my life with its pace. The movement is so fast that I am just feeling lighter and better with each passing minute.

It is dinner time. We have reached Surat. I get down and feel the air gushing in my stomach which is enough for me to realize how hungry I had been! It’s a dhaba type restaurant mainly scurried by travelers and workers. It isn’t very difficult to get a table for three ladies traveling on their own. We order mouth watering mutter paneer with butter nan. The place with its lower standards has amazing food. In addition, they offer special servings with complimentary tissue papers exclusively for us. Too much for this small place! Of course, special treatments are always welcome…

It’s getting colder which is a beautiful change from the scorching heat of Bombay. Subconsciously, the words of The Zahir have created a stir in me as I try and search for my own. I crave to read more of it but alas! The dark wasn’t visible…

It’s the blink of dawn and I get up with the night’s thoughts still blending within. The words soothe my eyes. This particular excerpt hits me. If I could express it, it spoke about me. In life we start our relationships on a great high but later, with the passage of time we lead parallel lives that walk together but never meet each other. We reach a point where the experience of staying in a relationship isn’t gratifying although there is no reason to complain. It is this that makes us continue because there is nothing to whine about. It is how we deceive ourselves in believing that everything is hunky dory as that’s how it is ‘supposed’ to be. We lead our lives like railway tracks. The distance between the two is 4ft 8 ½ inches which is illogical but followed till date because that’s how Romans decided it in the ancient times. They did so because that was the distance between the legs of two horses that transported the carriages! But we blindly follow it because not doing so would mean breaking the rules…

Its hit me. This is the root cause of all my sufferings. I have been entangled in the world that preaches nonconformist ideas but is knotted in traditional ways for quite some time. Till now, I was stuck in the world of hypocrisy where people simply followed rules but yearned to be different in their hearts, gulped down their thoughts so that life could be simpler, distracted themselves in materialistic pleasure so that it reached their level of satisfaction, disparaged others from doing something different when their soul was plain envious. No, I don’t want this life that I don’t have a right on. I don’t want to lead a life that was decided by Romans.

For the first time, I am satisfied for the actions that have helped me in not fooling myself. I haven’t really led an unconventional life but haven’t yet made myself a victim of tradition. Questions murmur in my head. It is easy to talk and write about inspirations but rebelling is not a child’s play. Maybe it’s just a phase. Whether I can do it or not only time will tell…

I am about to reach my destination and I have never felt lighter. I feel naked as if I have shed every agony from my soul. I want to come back and meet every person even associated with minutest incidents of my life. I want to start afresh and the practical person that I am, it’s never too late…