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Audio Theme - Doin' Time | Lana Del Rey |

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May 04, 2017

Thursday,

03:30 a.m.

Dear Diary,

Shadow.

Your shadow lingers in your wake, a dark companion that trails you through the abyss of existence.

In scientific terms, a shadow is a dark area that forms when an opaque object blocks light from a light source.

I wonder who plays the role of shadow in her life then. The girl from the hills.

Is it me?

What I am then?

The opaque object? or the dark area?

The cause? or the consequence?

It's foggy there. It rains almost all the time. Her university is housed in the foothills. Yet she never misses a class. In this matter, she is like me.

I may not be there all the time, but I watch her.

Every Saturday evening, she gets an out pass issued from the warden's office and leaves her hostel with a packed backpack.

And it's only when she crosses the threshold of the main gate of her university that her demeanor changes. The 'I am a simple college-going student' persona slips off. Her shoulders tighten and become straighter.

Her eyes, dark as sable, become aware. They know what they are seeing. They move around cautiously.

Her breaths become calibrated. They know when to breathe in and when to breathe out. Their intensity is measured.

Every step she takes is numbered.

The whole Sunday, she searches. She searches for something desperately, breathlessly, tirelessly. She changes buses after buses, trains after trains.

By now, I have a feeling that even the local trains might have become aware of her aura. And she must have known every inch of the local state-run buses and trains.

In the dense, dark fog, I don't know what searches for so hard.

She returns back to her hostel in the wee hours of Monday morning and attends her classes the whole week like nothing happened. And the cycle continues.

When your life is on edge, you become aware of certain things. There is somehow clarity. Clarity, if it is light that is governing you or the dark?

But what if there is confusion instead of clarity?

Confusion if it's light that's governing you or the dark?

Somehow, I find myself in a state like that.

In my heart of dreams and horrors, dark is when I find Shivalika's fingers intertwined with mine in the broad day light, and light is when my dark frame becomes the shadow of a certain someone whose own sense of light and dark is distorted like mine.

A constant state of chaos and reality-that's what I think both of us are.

Her, an illusion, and I, her shadow.

At times, I find myself staring at the engagement ring around my ring finger. It fits me perfectly, obviously, because Shivalika got both of our rings customized accordingly.

But, weirdly enough, I find it loose. As if it will slip out of my finger anytime. And an even weirder fact: I imagine that the sensation it will leave behind once it slips off my finger will be soothingly cool.

Now, whether this is my state of mind or just a figment of my imagination, I don't know.

Instead, my memory keeps on fluctuating between three different images: the sight of a Gulmohar tree, the magestic image of a university located in the foothills of the Agasthyamalai hills, and finally the picture of my engagement ring, with my life in a loop.

To the world outside, a man of flesh, blood, bones, money, and power-that's what I am. In reality, though, I am but a man of fear.

I fear taking off that ring around my ring finger. I fear the dark around me. I fear what my shadow is made up of under luminosity. I fear anything or anyone whom I find behind me. Nothing or no one around me is as they appear to be. I fear people and their saccharine smiles. I fear their honeyed words. I fear their motive behind everything they do.

What if they take off their mask? Leaving me behind with a truth much more terrifying than my own distorted reality?

What approach should I take in such a grim predicament?

Should I cling to the fragile threads of truth? Or  should I embrace the seductive allure of falsehood?

Perhaps donning a mask of my own design would serve me better?

In the end I arrive at a chilling epiphany; I must guard my own shadow. My words will echo with the semblance of truth, yet carry the pungent aroma of deceit, a scent only I can discern.

The girl from the hills. Only if she ever turns around will she find out that her shadow is guarded too.

The only difference is the fact that she doesn't guard her own shadow; I do.

People like us don't look back, because if we did, we'd be dead.

Dead, not because there would be a lack of air, but because there would be a lack of light. Because you never know what's hiding in the dark, what's breathing in the dark.

Signing off,

M.D.

P.S. : I am neither the opaque object nor the dark area. I am neither the cause nor the consequence. I am the whole. I am her shadow.

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