The 26/11 Serendipity

The last few moments of my room had seen a disastrous sight. The books flung carelessly in the air. The bedsheet and visions lay out of order. The furniture lay topsy turvy. The glass window had been smashed by the use of my guitar. Even the laptop wasn’t spared. As I turned around with a murderous rage, I saw a photo-frame lying atop the bed. Obviously it had to be the next! 

Seconds later, as it lay shattered to bits, so did I. The only difference was of Pain/Pane. I grabbed hold of the photograph (now out of the frame), even as I stated blankly at it. 

Once, that first year broke free… The rest followed in an unbroken stream. I cried as hard as a diarrhea patient pukes! It was a family photo at the Gateway of India in Mumbai. We were having ice cream. How lovely it was then! How unloved and lonely I felt now! Why only me? Why does the road I trudge seem all uphill? I’m about to succeed, but do not! Why is it that anything I love, is lost forever? Why worn out roads? Why not a roller coaster ride? I grabbed the photograph tightly against my heart, even as I cursed my life. I felt excruciating pain.

I looked at the photo again, when suddenly, a date at the bottom of the photograph caught my attention. As the photograph was bigger in size than the frame itself, I hadn’t noticed it earlier, when the frame was intact. The date read -“26/10/2008”. The background of the photograph showed Hotel Taj of Mumbai, where we had stayed. The expression on my face changed as I related both the date and the picture. It was exactly one month before the Mumbai terrorist attack on “26/11/2008″… A date that no Indian can ever forget.

That forced me to reflect on my present state of mind. Wasn’t it my family’s sheer luck to have escaped the blasts on the same hotel, by the difference of a few weeks? Of course, there had been hundreds who weren’t fortune enough to return. My heart was filled with remorse. Just a matter of few weeks, and I did change so much? When and how did I become so pessimistic? So ignorant towards the blessings of life? I stared at the date again…

If I could survive then, why not now? 

“True happiness resides within…”  said the cheerful image of me, on the photograph. And then, all of a sudden, nothing else mattered much… For I had fallen in love with myself, and my life!❤❤