Disguises

Noon it was. May be a bit towards the eventide, or may be a bit more nearer to the noon time. That didn’t matter. For the glare was noonish and that was enough…..

Hell.

What makes a time of day noon?

-Heat, intensity, vividness?

Whatever…………. one fails to recall.

This was noon. Of that one was sure. And of that the faces around me were sure.

None needed any watches. None needed any computation. None needed any consultation.

And too, none of us had taken our watches with us.

A watch is not nice, it’s a mechanical demon we strap on our wrist to dissect our mind into tiny pieces. It’s a drainer of energies, it’s a mean device that watches us with derision and is watched by us with fear.

Yes a watch is not nice. It plans events in advance for us and take our compliance for granted. It fragments our being to suit the social monster that stalks us all the time.

No, we need no watches on holidays.

We were at the sea shore and had taken a few dips in the lukewarm water. None of us were real swimmers. We have all been brought up in the shallow ponds at our villages where we swam with jumping frogs and slithering water snakes.
This was bliss to us.

What was undulating before us was something inexplicable and vast. It was might in motion. It was imagination on the move. It was a billion bosoms thirsting in a trillion sighs.

New to us this was.

Just now I was waist deep in water. And before that, the others were there, splashing about, jumping around, till they thought it was safer on shore.

The water caressed me with its thousand hands. Now like a baby pulling at my chest hair, now with large calloused palms rubbing me over so that the skin tingled. Now enveloping me in embraces that only in shuddering love I have met, now patting me on the head like some sane and wizened village elder, now grasping my elbow like a trusted friend, now with the warmth of a mothers bosom, now in the glee of a long met brother, now with the advances of lass in passion, now admonishing like a parent in anger………..

The sea was alone with me and it was playing with me.

When did the play stop and the time begin……..?

I still don’t know.