My Second Birth

I am living two lives in one birth.

I am no SUPER-human; alike all I too am a NORMAL-human with just an unwashed black-box of the last flight.

It is quiet unusual to say that I remember what, where and how my previous birth was; that I indisputably recall every single happening, just as if it was a pleasant yesterday. From the time I grew up to the days I fell in that beautiful love and unfortunately couldn’t live long to cherish it. I remember everything. I remember everyone, not a single face fades off my memory.

In my first birth… I was born about half a century ago, to be exact in 1960, in ‘Kali’, a village some 50 miles east from where I now live. I had a lovely family: My mother, who was always concerned about me; my dad, who was a constant supporter in everything I did. He did not even question me when I decided to quit school in my 8^th standard. My lovely little brother who gave me his share of kheer in every festival and looked upon me with hopes to take the goats for grazing for the next coming months. I had a granny too but she was quiet old to participate in anything.

On my usual grazing courses I met Chanda, a resident of the adjoining village who too used to be in the forests with her cattle. Slowly but deeply, we fell in love and our meetings increased dramatically. Waiting became habitual and our faces lit up on seeing each other. However, neither of us accepted but deep within we could feel each other’s state. She realized somehow that next to her I loved kheer and she would bring bowls full of it for me cooked with her added ingredients of love and affection.

However, our dates discontinued following my ill health. The last autumn I saw, took me in its folds up to my grave. In was seriously ill with high degrees of fever and could do nothing other than coughing and sweating profusely. I left for my cremation from the bed in fifteen days, at the age of 25 wasting the remaining years. I believe my disappearance would have brought a sudden bolt to all, including Chanda.

So in 1985, the exact year of my death I was reborn. I had a granny now; she told me tales of my birth. If I were to believe her then I was born in a bullock-cart on the way to the government hospital barely 3 miles ahead. My mother cried in pain all the way ahead as and when the cart moved over a stone or went through a pit. I though do not exactly remember my birth, but everything after that is clearly scribbled inside my scalp. I grew up in a mosque compound, my dad was a priest in the mosque and I had five other siblings, (all elder to me) who loved to play with me all day long.

Unlike the last birth I was now born fair and that made me the prince of the mosque compound where I lived. There was something very strange, as I grew up and started roaming the adjoining places all around I found them familiar and thoroughly roamed. My mind had it all like a map within it: the mosques, the temples, the grounds, the factories, the mills, the fields and the woods. I was familiar to EVERYTHING like having inhabited there for decades in the past; ironically I was just crossing a mere age of ten.

Then one fine day I set out on a trail with the memories of my subconscious. I crossed places after places and with each falling step my memories gained more depth. I realized I was there before, undoubtedly. That night I had a dream, I saw myself at the same place where I had been during the day. Then my dream carried me to the place where I had lived my last birth.

The next morning, I stole a few chavannis from my dad’s kurta and set off for the village to discover the traces of my past birth. “Kali Gaon,” I told the conductor and in a course of an hour he too yelled out the same words for others and me to get down. There I was on a big field that used to hold a Ramleela stage in the Navratras. I had been here to attend the seasonal fairs and other carnivals. From there I took a straight walk, passing through barren lanes and field mounds, balancing myself with stretched arms. I crossed hand-pumps and tube-wells, I bisected my journey short through sugarcane fields and ran across orchards until I finally reached an old hut.

I went inside, uncared about who I now was. An old woman slept on a cot, her face wrinkled, skin loose and hanging like a deformed leather shoe. The walls of the hut were dark with smoke of the fireplace. In the gloomy ambiance, I spotted a framed photograph hanging on a nail. I went closer and rubbed it clean to realize it was me; this is how I would look a few years later. Beside it was another frame of a man. It was my dad. Both the frames had garlands over them. I looked back at the old woman with sympathy. She slept with parted lips and her fragile hands over her chest. Her face was pale and she barely seemed alive. I touched her feet and moved out of the hut. As I passed by the courtyard, a thin man walked into the hut looking at me, he was my younger brother.

I moved ahead, roaming in the old familiar vicinity with heavy steps. Thoughts about my past life raged in my mind; in all this time I had recalled everything, the happy old days, the grazing of the goats and of course Chanda too. I kept walking under the burning sun and it kept me perspiring. In a few minutes my throat choked and I reached a hand-pump. As I struggled to pump and drink simultaneously I heard a feminine voice call from behind, “Let me help you.” I collected the falling water in my hands and drank with all my energy. With a long exhaling breath I rose up to thank the generous lady. As I looked up to her something within me moved. Her appearance was of a spinster, though aged enough to be married, but she seemed to be held behind by some reasons that showed in her face. Her eyes were waiting to see someone; the lines on her forehead were narrating stories and her stare at me was probably framing judgments and questions within her.

She probably was still thinking on me, but I had found all that I had come for. It was her, still waiting for her lost love.