Today. Today, I find myself standing in this
room full of mirrors. The sun I see is blue, it’s cold, but the light is warm.
I can’t feel the air around me, but I know it’s supposed to be there. I
suffocate in the presence of atmosphere, so I eradicate, I eradicate the
unknown, I wonder what brought me here.
As a teenager, unaware as I was, and still am,
I pondered over the magnificence of a leaf. Why does a leaf come into existence?
How does it grow? If after getting detached from the plant, it dies away, why
does it do so?
The other children always thought I had strange
ways. That I was different, and as any different person, was tagged as weird.
When a child sees a leaf, he touches it; he
relishes the moist feel of its surface and, sometimes, plucks it for no
familiar reason. I believe, the reason is lack of knowledge. The lack of
knowing that the reaction is unknown, or the anxiety of knowing it to be
continuously so. And this is something I was well experienced in. I was a leaf
which was plucked over and over.
I had
heard stories from my mother how it felt to live in an actual home, go to
school and play with other children. No matter how much I always wanted these things,
I never had the privilege. A small fate of turn had been the reason for what I
am today. My grandpa fell a victim of cancer, and the substantial financial
background was lost. My mother was married to a miner, my spiteful father. She
was living in the conditions Mama never thought she would. There was an
insufficiency of money, but the insufficient love overpowered it. After my
elder sister was born, the financial status of the household improved, as Mama
started working in other houses. After I was born, I used to visit these houses
since the time I don’t remember. But the time from when I remember, that was
the time my father died in a cave-in, some of these houses were homes, and some
were standing just because the architect had constructed them to. There were
people who said they belonged to the upper class, but now as I look up on them,
they were no different from the people whom I live with.
My elder sister attended primary schooling for
3 years, but now both of us were going to be termed as illiterate. Mama said
that it won’t make a difference for her as she would soon be married. So for
the next five years, before she went off to the ugly baker’s house, she taught
all she had learned, in school and the world outside the school, which she said
“taught more”.
All day long I used to roam in the streets of
Chakari, in search of inspiration to live, thinking about how others could
always find some or the other mischief to do. Sister said that we belonged to a
country known as Zimbabwe, and there are people outside our country who think
we are lower than them. This concept was never clear to me. The concept of
countries, the concept of lower people and the lower people being divided further.
As I grew up, I felt more and more that I
didn’t belong to this world. I kept wondering how people can be happy. At the
age of 18, Mama thought it was time for me to see, what is that it is there
outside our village. So I moved to Chegutu into her cousin’s place. At the very
first day I knew I won’t be welcomed here for long. So I immediately started
looking for what I moved to this town, a reason. I got my first regular job as
a bus conductor. I had to collect a piece of paper from the travellers and in
return give other pieces of paper which were more apt for their purpose. Though
I didn’t have enough money with me, but soon I decided to move out to a place
of my own. I was taken as a tenant by an elderly couple, in their late 70s. Truly,
my stay with them was the most exciting part of my life till then. Hearing the
war stories from the now so-old-grown soldier, and his always-been-a-housewife
lady, were something I used to look forward to. How having so different
experiences and how they developed totally different attitudes towards life,
but still managed to be happy together was something I had never bumped into.
At my job, I usually travelled to nearby towns
with buses overloaded with people, but in the return journey it was quite
quiet. The drivers had different shifts but there was this one particular man,
who travelled with me most of the time. He always bragged that he belonged to
one of the royal families of Europe, and frankly, I never believed him. He said
his blood didn’t declare him to be royal, his deeds did. Though, I never understood
him properly, he was one of the most inspirational people I have ever met. From
him I learnt never to refuse. Whatever life brought from its tray to serve on
our plates, was meant to be eaten by us.
He always said that of all the lads he had met,
who moved from the nearby towns and villages, I was the wisest, and the most
melancholic too. He thought I thought too much, and that I should be a little
more free to commit mistakes.
In Chegutu too, I had developed relationships
with people whom I counted as acquaintances, but who called me, their friend.
Human intimacy was something which always eluded me. But somehow I managed to
tumble along with these guys. They were a bunch of musicians; each specialized
in creating music from a different instrument (including one of the vocal
chords) who shared a common dream of becoming a “band” as they called in the
“superior” countries. With them, I learned how the youth reacts to the world, and how it reacts to them. Of all that I encountered, one of the most astonishing things
was change. An event so minute, which could have been easily ignored, can
change a person with all its might. That night we all were returning from
Kadoma, after they had performed in the town-hall and me, for I had to.
Our bus had just left the depot, when we heard
what everyone, on the inside, hates hearing- the call, them yelling, “Stop!
Wait for us”. As the driver unwillingly stopped, we saw two ladies hop up the
bus.
One of them was a dull, old, white lady,
wearing a brown coat over a black dress and a small hat, odd for a woman to
wear. The other one was a younger blonde, more vigilant
and excited. As I handed the maiden tickets for both of them, she passed
a glimpse of the glow on her face, unto me. As she went and sat on the seat
next to, who seemed to be too old to be her mother, her aunt or sister, the
hollow men, not so different from me, began to discuss her grace. As the
night darkened, and sleep captured most of the few humble minds on the bus, I
observed the fragile one, as much as I could, as much as I shouldn’t. Her eyes
never matched what she spoke of. Though, I wasn’t clear on what I heard her
lips uttering, her actions well said she was trying to cheer up her mate, from
something which had affected her as well. Folks thought she was a person who
had the best of everything in her life, but it didn’t seem so to me.
As the sun came nearer to the horizon, and the
darkness swept away, we reached our destination. The girl soon faded away from
the words of my companions, but she didn’t leave my thoughts. There was only
one thing on my mind- how. There was only one desire of my restless mind –to know
how her vibes could be so positive, when it was clear to see, to whoever wanted
to see, that she was, indeed, sad.
I could think of nothing, as of how her
thoughts were being processed, and it was the moment when I realized, that I
had more thoughts in my head than I could handle. They continuously swept
between the idea behind arousal of a happiness and the regret for a full
lifetime being away from this thought. As walked to my home, I saw a child,
sitting in his garden, next to a plant, gently tapping the soil underneath it,
with his mother by his side, I crossed a group of young men, laughing together,
and two little girls, whose dolls were getting married. I saw the old folk of
the town gathered near the church. They murmured that today is the day next to
the last day, and they should thank the Almighty that what the town chaps had
been spreading around that yesterday, the 21st of December was going
to be the end of the world, was untrue.
I passed a smile to them, as for them, the
world was the same. But unaware as they were, like me, of the fact that one
world had ended. And starting from today, this anonymous man would make
something out of himself and the blessings He had reserved for him.
I always thought that my job doesn’t take me
anywhere. I start from one place, go around, without knowing where I would go,
and come back to the same place. I remembered every person in my life, because of
whom, I was here. And I smiled. I am not wrong. My bus, and my life, leads me
to no-where, BUT exactly now, here; this exact place where I’m supposed to be
–this room full of mirrors.
