One girl, two realities
19. Epiphany
It is known that Manu was happy the week leading up to this party, surprisingly so. Not to say that he was insensitive to his friends, but because he had gained some much needed clarity for his play from the shock of this incident. It would be interesting to see how this all happened.
In the short time that he had known Kit, Mali and even Raghav, he had become very attached to the three, like they were family.
He had been taking turns with Kirtana, visiting Mali in the hospital, giving her company during the tests and routine examinations that were conducted to ensure Mali was okay. They had met some others in the hospital. Netra , who was having her appendix removed. Her husband, possibly the most devoted man on the face of the earth, hardly ever left her side. He had been worried sick about his wife, and took care of her every need. He would have chewed her food for her if he could. Was there such a thing as too much love? It was amusing to see them together.
Then there was someone else Manu had been observing. She came in to meet with a physiotherapist on the same floor every day. She seemed to be in a great deal of pain, although from the looks of it she could not feel much from the waist below. Manu felt a strong urge to go up to her and give her a big hug…
Manu often dozed off while waiting for Mali or Kirtana to come and takeover ‘Mali’ duty. And each time he slipped into a bizarre dream… a version of what he had.. ‘one girl, two realities’.
It was a occasion like this where he woke up, with a start, only to quickly say bye to Kirtana, before running back home, to put pen to paper and write his idea before it became diluted by second thoughts and distracting conversations.
Here was his latest idea. The play would open with a man, a man who wrote music. He would be at a point in his life, where fame had left him, and he no longer produced work that could earn him his daily bread.
He moves to a more modest dwelling and begins a routine life of early retirement, fed up of trying to work hard to make a living all over again. He goes to a park one afternoon, as he did often these days and meets a girl…the girl is a dancer, she says.
A few days later he finds that the girl he had met, could not have been real. She could not be…for the girl had died years ago. There had been several conflicts in this area that was now a civilized town, but once upon a time, a girl had lived here, where this park now stood… The girl had been a dancer, that was true, but in better times . Her dreams were killed when she survived a landmine accident, with no use of her legs… she was hurt inside and out. She lived a few years before she passed on...
He visits the park again. And there she is…waiting for him to come. She comes to him, she is not crippled. She speaks little, as though preoccupied or in a trance…she is just dancing, moving to unheard music. The writer of music would at first think that he has gone crazy…how could he be seeing the dead? Soon his doubts on his sanity are replaced by fear..at which point he begins to confide in a neighbor… a young man. A blind man. The man does not judge him, he believes what the writer appears to be seeing.
Soon the writer realizes that this girl is as real as she wishes to be…she has come to him to fulfill her dream, without which she would never rest…to dance to the perfect music and be applauded for her grace.
The story would be one of eerie beauty. The writer, with the help of a few struggling musicians would work to compose, the perfect music for the girl…and she would finally have her song and her dance.
One night, she would dance to that on a rooftop, as though to an audience, and she would appear in both her forms, for her spirit knows two realities. Of happier innocent times, and of hardship and conflict. She would find her peace at last…and the writer would find his success again with a beautiful new composition…a happy ending…
Manu scared himself a bit as he wrote down this concept. He would have to create some moving music, not to mention have some skillful dancers in his cast. The part of a blind neighbor was all Raghav…a bit of very obvious inspiration.
The play would have to be constructed tightly, for an abstract concept like this, would not be easy to portray. One could easily get lost in fluid plots and melancholic music. It would need a modern approach, to a bittersweet story. He had his work cut out for him, but at least he had direction. He wanted this play to be a commentary on how harsh realities like death and conflict cannot crush a person’s dreams, and how your spirit is tied to that dream, and you can achieve it against all odds. it also would serve to point out the hardships of the physically challenged… blind, crippled…
Manu… back at party, smiled, and sipped his drink…this play would be a feather in his cap…he thought.
1 comments:
Brilliant !! Awesome imagination .
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