Discrete Illusions of a Destroyed Mind

The night was serene, cold and as mind staggering as it gets. On that full moon day, twinkling stars had little scope to get noticed as the moon had completely stolen the show. The atmosphere on Juhu beach was a feast for writers, poets and all sorts of artists as it was an epitome of beauty. Though nature was at its beautiful most, all the so-called connoisseurs seemed imperturbably asleep at home as hardly anyone was there on the beach to accompany the man, who was walking alone on the sand, at that aberrant time.

Wearing a torn shirt that looked unwashed for days and a pair of jeans that was in no better condition, he shivered often during his erratic walk as the temperature reached its record lowest in the city around that time. He had a bottle of cheap, country liquor in his right hand, which was ‘revitalizing’ him after regular intervals. The man seemed impervious to the cold and even remained unaffected by the crescendo of night. For a sophisticated man, he looked no better than a drunken beggar. For an erudite psychiatrist, he was a clear case of severe depression and for the society, he was an adverse factor that every civilized family would like to keep away from. ‘But who was he?’ This question seemed insignificant as there was hardly anyone around to even bother to take a note of him.

The man suddenly stopped and sat down at a place, facing the sea. He took out a broken wrist watch from his pocket and glanced at it ambiguously as he was out of his senses. After a few glares, he could successfully see and then understand the time. It was 2.30 am – not a surprising time for him. Along with the watch, fell down a letter. He picked it up and stared at it anxiously. The scene in front of his eyes changed rather dramatically. He was teleported to a different world. He saw himself, proudly walking down to receive the best domestic batsman of the year award, in the foreground of a big round of applause. His tired, hopeless eyes, for a whit of a moment, spoke the language of pride and glory. The next moment took him to his 21^st birthday treat, which was thrown in a place as lavish as J.W. Marriot with his first few earnings. As he rushed through some more moments; he found them magical. He felt the warmth of his mom’s touch; he pictured his dad, proudly speaking about his son, among his friends. He smiled as memories were unfolded in real time. That was his first smile of the day.

The next moment did not move him in space; it just shifted him back in time. He spotted himself with someone he felt was the most beautiful girl on the planet. He and that girl were walking together on Juhu beach in the twilight, holding each others’ hands. The man was his happiest ever to recollect that. He unfolded the letter that fomented his journey back in time. It read –

“Dear Raj,

Be it cover drive, straight drive, square cut or some other ones that can’t be mentioned in a decent letter, I simply love all of your shots.

-yours forever,

Avantika”

As words of that ingeniously witty letter were uncovered, a smile (that was a hearty laugh once) had no option but to surface on a face that it had quarantined way back.

The man kept on smiling along with a couple of tears. His grin was the truest it could get. He had just lived three lives within a matter of three moments. He felt content for the shortest fraction of time. But his happiness was destined to be ephemeral as he asked himself, “Why, why can’t I actually live all this again?” and he was carried away by the moment as he passionately tried to grab the letter with both of his hands. Destiny answered his question rather ruthlessly as only his right hand obeyed the order of his brains as he had lost the left one, a long ago, in the course of time.

- Mihir Chitre
mihirmumbaikar@gmail.com