Flashes....

It is said that when you are about to die, your entire life flashes by you in that last instant. I often wonder what that flash would consist of? Will that encompass the people you hold near to your heart or will it be a retrospective blitz of all the  rights and wrong gathered over your entire life? Will it be a chalice of desires that lay beneath the masked existence we all have come to live by or will it be like a blinding glare which strips you naked in your own consciousness... hard to fathom, harder still to understand why this context when life at this moment is the more potent seductress!!


Of late, it has become a habit of mine to delve in these flashes and relive some moments gone by in my imagination. These moments to the contrary of what one might construe as 'being memorable' are too simple to be even remembered. It is this very simplicity that makes me marvel at the human mind. The more flashes I relive, the firmer I believe that our mind documents every iota of our existence, every single detail like a recorder that has been created without the stop button!


Let me give you an example, the other day I remembered that while coming back from my summer vacations from my grandmother's village I was travelling in the bus and I was holding my favorite 'Choprasons' bat in my hand. During the journey I had torn of a bit of the  green sticker and thrown it out of the window. I have wondered several times where that torn sticker must be now!!


I have at times visited the platform of the not so crowded 'Gomoh' station (this is a station near Dhanbad, my hometown) in my mind where once I had got down to catch a local train to Dhanabd. I somehow distinctly remember the hawker who was selling 'masala matar' with tomato and onion garnishing on top. The memory is so vivid that at times my mouth waters thinking about the street food. God only knows, how that tasted and why of all things I remember the 'masala matar'! In fact I also remember the setting, somehow the sunset and the sight of people returning from work and the train whistle makes me want to return home.


Once while returning from the neighborhood store, having purchased my favorite chewing gum 'Centrefresh', I was too engrossed in opening the wrapper that seemed to have melted and stuck to the gum due to the heat. I managed to free the gum after a few restless minutes of toil but in the process I dropped it on the road. I remember looking sideways sheepishly and then picking up the gum, dusting it on my pants and chewing away to glory.


The list is never ending and I intend to add  more in the coming days but I want the 'flash focus' to shift to my better half. When I say so, don't be misguided that I have intentionally trained my thoughts on her and then jotting down the memory. In fact quite often I remember the fleeting glimpse that I had when I saw her for first time on our wedding day. I was at the entrance of the marriage venue and hogging all the limelight as the groom. I was too engrossed in the rituals being performed when suddenly out of nowhere I got hit by rice grains!! That fleeting moment when I traced the culprit and saw the most beautiful woman I have known in my life moving away quickly, remains firmly entrenched in my heart. I don't know how many times I have relived the moment only to catch the glimpse of my wife quickly and silently tip toeing away for cover. Somehow time freezes in that moment, in her eyes!! 


I am somehow reminded of Keats (Ode on a Grecian Urn) at the moment when he said
'When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt, remain in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thous say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know'