THE TRESPASS

                   
                                    PROLOGUE

Hi! everyone. Having strayed into the humdrum of my ambitions, opportunism became the new order of my life. ' What profit would it yield?' was the new touchstone for forging new alliances. Bygone were the selfless associations and vibrant acquaintances of childhood. Being joyous without a cause was a long extinct occurrence and base impulses of envy and narcissism lead an insidious coup against undemanding solicitude and camaraderie. Little did I know then that the delirium induced by such a toxic concoction of  consuming desires and their exacting pursuits would end abruptly into a regretful disillusionment. The inevitable happened eventually. The worthlessness of my acquisitive striving mocked me in my face. In despair I realized that I, another proverbial fool, was an addition to the pool of countless victims who perish in their treacherous journeys to the promised milestone of 'success'. With the hindsight of a remorseful gambler who lost his fortune in a blind flight of passion, I realised that each unfolding moment delivers success if we harvest it fully. To live each second, of our ever ebbing lives, to it's fullest is success. To laugh is success, to cry is success, to think is success and not to think is also success. Every moment of awareness in our queer lives is success.      
            Ah! with this treasured insight how I yearned to scamper back to the true companions of my childhood and to loudly acknowledge my wrongdoings. I wanted to make amends and thus started seeking my old cronies who would stand by me on my faintest call. To my horror, then I realized that providence is not a slave to one's most frenetic longings. All of them were gone, lost somewhere in my senseless journey of self consumption. Perhaps they too had waited for me at the turns I left behind, called out for me, entreated me to give them a parting hug as if they knew that my return, though sure, would be belated and they would be gone. With guilt hanging around my neck and standing forsaken and shattered, I found solace in the though that my old abode in my quaint native place would throw it's arms open on seeing the apple of it's eye approaching. With an irrepressible reflux of nostalgia, I headed for the place which is the starting end of my memories. Defying the picture painted in my memory, my beloved house looked shrunk rather emaciated. The facade had crumpled into forbidding frowns and it appeared as if it feigned to ignore my approach.
            The interaction which I had with it and the consequent dejection which stung me is what I attempt to articulate in this post.

                                      THE TRESPASS

                 


"Strange, isn't it! Things have't changed much. Even this rusted gate is holding good." It was this frighteningly manipulated thought which flashed in my mind. Manipulated it was, for I stood unwillingly aware of the fact that this distortion was a handiwork of my ruthlessly ambitious and opportunistic mind. True to it's nature, it had made yet another crafty maneuver to assuage the sharp pangs of pain piercing my heart. Yes my heart bled, as the seemingly innocuous attempt to open the rusted gate of 'my house' invited a screech. The gate screeched as if the lack of moment for the unending years had made it's hinges sore. They found it excruciating to perform a specious welcome gesture.
            Has it forgotten me? It never behaved in such an unwelcoming, in such a frigid manner in my childhood days. On seeing me approach, it would throw open it's doors with a doting concern and took me lovingly in it's protective embrace. But then why does it refuse to recognise me now? It was to subdue the painful spasms stirred by this unanswered question that my astute mind forged an innately absurd thought, 'Things haven't changed much '
       This limp thought had to die in it's infancy, for today I was the old me, who would have dwelt and not sojourned in this house, who laughed not mocked, who was carefree not wary, who loved not liked. Suddenly the child, savagely strangled by the raging impulses, overwhelming desire for fame and glory, stood resurrected. With a haze of gloom in my downcast eyes, I wondered in disbelief, 'Why my caring home would disown me?
   Hey it's me. I, the apple of your eye. Oh! How you would take me in your soothing motherly embrace when I would return from my school in the scorching summer heat.The sweet water from your bosom tasted like nectar. See, I have come back to meet you, to once again laugh with you.
       Somehow this resoundingly silent conversation with my old friend failed to evoke any disarming response. The gate still sulked like a betrayed friend, cheated upon by someone it loved the most, trusted the most.
Barefaced, feigning indifference to the exhibited contempt, I, employing all my might, coldly opened the gate and trespassed into my own 'house'.




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