Gold Skies
She twirled the pencil between her fingers as she lay on the bed. The room was dark. The windows were unopened, but evening had set. Her laptop was lit up, sporting a blank document.
Her aunt walked in and switched on the lights. Rida squinted.
“Yes, he took over his friend’s theatre. It’s doing quite well, he tells me,” she said to the phone. “But I’m sure he’s acting as well.”
Rida stared at her. Once her aunt had hung up, Rida asked, “Who’s theatre?”
“Haz’s. Didn’t he tell you? I thought you guys talked frequently.”
Oh, right. Haz, her cousin. “Yes, he told me.”
She sat up."He told me." The windows were opened. The laptop was closed and packed.
She knew that, quite possibly, this wouldn’t go according to plan. Life rarely functioned according to one. But a map and a rough destination could always work.
...
The plastic clasps of her backpack dug against her back as she leaned against it but she didn’t notice, lulled by the methodical movement of the train. She focused only on the newness of Uttarakhand.
It was morning when she reached. A few minutes before, she had gone to use the bathroom, leaving her bag on the berth. When she returned, it wasn’t there. She still had the key to the lock; but what use was the key without the lock?
There were her manuscripts, her ideas, all in that bag. Just then, that moment chose to strike her with the fact that she was a stranger in a strange land, with nothing. The panic struck.
Confused, she remained there until someone rushed up to her and handed her her bag, apologising profusely for a mix up and went away.
She let out a sigh and sat down. But all too soon it was time to leave.
She sat down on a bench, her head in her hands, still recovering. Calm, deep breaths, stillness. What must she do now, where should she go?
Then, a tap the shoulder, a map held out. A tear streaked face, also reeling in shock, smiling.
The girl sat beside her and held out her hand. “I’m Leila. Assistant marine biologist, but now I do plays.” A glint in her eyes when she said this, a smirk toying at her face, even though she had been crying.
Rida gratefully accepted the map (was it given on pure impulse?) And shook Leila’s hand. “Rida. I’m a writer. Currently a sweaty, amateur traveller”, she said, by way of introduction.
She didn't know why Leila was crying that day until much later, but she knew that as Uttarakhand unravelled around them, her life, from a knot, somehow became unravelled too.
...
Blanks must not litter your life. If life is just one big breath drawn in and let out, blanks merely signify that you wait. Your soul waits, idle.
And so, Rida proposed her idea for a play to Haz as soon as she and Leila had located his theatre. And thinking this, about blanks and waiting, she had said yes, tremulously, when Haz had replied saying this:
“I know you can act," he told Rida, who didn’t protest after an introspective shrug. He looked at Leila. “I know you’re a part time actress. I act.” Haz spread his hands (always the dramatist, for obvious reasons). “Why not? With a few more people, we could make it.”
...
The keyboard was only shadows. She blinked, looked outside and started in surprise. Evening had crept up unnoticed. Even the dark windows of the other houses had not realised. She sat staring at their black outlines until one of them illuminated with a sudden remembrance.
Lights came alive in the marketplace from the corner of her window. Signs flashed at passers-by, begging for acknowledgement.
A walk through the market and a stroll through the street food vendors revealed that Haz wasn’t there. There must have been a glitch at the theatre.
Rida found a piece of empty pavement and sat down. Her play was coming to an end. She grinned and shook her head, thinking of the polished stage of the theatre, Leila’s face when she read Rida’s soliloquy, the quiet comfort of writing and the knowledge that they, everyone, would now know the workings of her mind.
...
A flower dropped down onto the road as she walked,frantic. A portent of grey skies.The light from the lanterns splayed out onto the ground, the shadows darting across the grass.
Thunder, lightning, fire. A siege. Tears and sunshine. Something crashing, then burning.Her mind.
How could something be lacking? After writing the play, with so much of her soul in it, she thought she’d be able to turn herself inside out and perform. She had never foreseen this, this...chaos. Her heart beating too fast, all thoughts leaving her...
Calm had evaded her once more. Something so simple, yet so difficult. Tampering with your emotions. Playing with them, throwing them at the audience to contemplate with an easy and effective bow.
In her head, so simple. She walked on in the distant glow of the lanterns and the green lit trees.
...
They settled down on the grass with their breakfast. It was a new place for them to rehearse, scouted out by Rida. Trees covered them from almost all sides-the chink revealed only a roughly carved stone slide. Leila, Rida and Haz, each in their own way, found in them some peaceful solitude in the clearing, in the riot of autumn leaves and the restless rustles of sunrays.
Rida began first. “As the gold of the sun paves my way, I ask you; what be your purpose of journey?”
When they finished, Leila smiled at her and Haz said, “You’re doing exceptionably well today,” shaking his sandwich approvingly at her.
Rida knew. Strange, the way the mind works. It runs too fast and when it stops, it changes paths, switched boats. Instead of swinging in a storm, you’re gliding on rivers.
A flower dropped down as she watched. An omen of blue oceans, for sure.
...
She had been planning to traverse the nearest hill but found herself walking past it towards some unspecified destination. She looked at the emerald of the waiting hill, the grey of the shops, and wished she could turn them into emotions that she could pull out on stage. And then, after a walk that lasted hours, she discovered that she could.
The realisation came in the wee hours of the evening, when twilight stretched across the sky and the garden she sat in. She watched the birds greet each other, the autumn leaves meet the earth and thought to herself, “This is a beautiful city.”
The second this thought trailed away, Rida knew this was what her character would have uttered. And suddenly, she yearned for the stage. That was when she began to laugh. The salvation that she felt when she felt her soul leap and surround her whole being when she thought about her play, the thrill of the adrenaline when the blood in her veins shivered with fear and fulfilment...it came out in mirth.
...
The day arrived. Rida woke to excited whispers. The cast had gathered around her to exchange news and nervous giggles. The sun rose and when it set, Rida knew only ecstasy and exaltation. She had ventured a little further into her world and now, well, life was waiting.