“Long thin ones are the hardest to find. They are scarred and extremely difficult to mend. The chubby ones always seem happy but who knows what goes into making these. Thank you for bringing these to me. I know, collection days are especially long for you.”
“Well, you know, you got to do, what you got to do! How long do you think, to mend these?” Sands asked.
“Probably six months to a year.”
Far away, among the hills, played a little boy. He jumped on the puddles formed by recent rainfall and splashed water so it soaked him wet. The sun was out after a long spell of rains. The little boy of six found his shadow extraordinarily amusing. It appeared and disappeared as the sun did in the left-over clouds. He tried to catch it as he was jumping in the puddles, so that the shadow drowned. But it seemed indestructible. It appeared untouched over and over again.
His mother worked in the rice farm near by. It was plantation time. She yelled, “stop doing that you silly boy, you will fall sick again!”
“Dow dow ripple, dee dee tipple, tipple ripple, double doo!” the little boy sang his favourite song, as he continued with his mission to drown his shadow.
It had been a busy day for his mother. She finally wrapped up her share of the work and hurried towards her son. She lifted him by his arm and dragged him along, towards the hut. She must have spanked him a couple of times, because he was crying.
‘Tired’ was not a word in her vocabulary, as she began to prepare dinner as soon as they reached the hut throwing the little boy by the door.
Seeing that his child was howling, as he entered the hut, he was mad with anger. He struggled towards the child, trying to focus on what his wife was up to, he grabbed the boy and beat him until he couldn’t utter another word. Next was his wife’s turn.
After the daily commotion had died down, she came out of the house for some peace. She sat by the door holding her dear boy who had cried himself to sleep.
The sun was about to set. She saw a big truck afar on the highway. To her surprise, the truck proceeded towards her and came to a screeching halt.
A dark man stepped out of it with a big, bulky bag. “I save the indestructible ones and mend the injured of the past, in the hope of creating happiness. I collect shadows.” He said.
Crunching numbers was Salil’s profession. He learned through his educational years that he was madly in love with numbers. They were his passion because he thought of them as an entity with no beginning and no end. Numbers, to him, existed irrespective of space and time. Of all sciences numbers were the most abstract and yet the most pure and everlasting ‑ an intangible as alive and real as the tangible. He thought of numbers as being omnipresent and unending. (It is believed that the first abstraction, which is shared by many animals and humans, is probably that of numbers). Mathematics was almost poetic to him. He saw philosophies and deep thoughts in his math problems. He thought numbers gave him little insights into the metaphysical. They almost corresponded with what was described as God in Hindu texts – unending.
People around him failed to understand this obsession with numbers. They thought his love for numbers was abnormal and weird. However, Anjali seemed to have understood him since the very beginning. She was an artist. If Salil was “yang”, she was “yin”. And they fit together perfectly. They were complementary opposites completing the whole.
Being an artist she understood his love for numbers. She understood abstractions. She believed that abstract concepts exist equally in art and science. But she chose art for its freedom of expression. Art did not lay any restrictions on how she could draw certain conclusions through her pieces. She believed in the wholeness of one’s existence - an existence without bonds. She understood that every human element is complete and incomplete at the same time. She found insights into the metaphysical through her art.
They had moved to Canada eight years ago. It had been a joint decision. They had thought that it would be better for them to be away from family for a while. They could concentrate on their careers and passions for sometime and then when the time was right, they would go back.
However, this cold country had somehow left them dry. They made new friends, but it was not the same. Something was missing. They couldn’t pinpoint to what exactly that was. It was an empty feeling that both of them had, every once in a while.
They hardly ever spoke to each other anymore. Their long talks about life and its wonders had somehow died. They were losing the “light”, if it were. Both of them felt this inexplicable loss. They say, a part of you dies when you leave your country of birth. May be that is what this feeling was about. It was sort of mourning for something that had died within.
That morning Salil sat on the bench musing over all these things watching the seagulls and the geese. It was spring and it was still very cold and windy for him. He couldn’t get rid of his winter jacket as yet. He sat there staring at the waters of Lake Ontario. The water was a mix of emerald green and pthalo blue. He thought, Anjali would have loved this.
She had left that morning, with two words scribbled on a note pad: “Good bye”. He didn’t know why or how she had come to this. He did remember her complaining about something or the other recently. However, at the present moment on this bench, Salil couldn’t recall what that was all about. All he did remember was that she was not happy and he did not understand why. Anjali had said that he did not understand human relationships anymore. She told him to stop thinking about numbers for once and listen to what she saying. He had thought of her as being unreasonable at that point of time.
But as he sat on this bench today, he missed her. He missed her a lot. He wanted to talk to someone about his recent findings on “Aesthetics of pure mathematics” – a thesis he had been working on for sometime. Anjali had provided very useful insights into this from time to time.
He sat there on the bench feeling the chills of loss, when all of a sudden a seagull, unable to withstand the speed of the wind, brushed his hair and managed to fly to the ground. He jumped up with a start and before he knew it, the bag of potato chips fell and the pieces scattered all around the bench.
Salil was confused by this abrupt stop to his thoughts.
He bent down to rescue the remainder of the chips and bag, when he realized that the sun was out and bright again. It was spring. He picked up the bag and peeked inside. He was happy to have saved a few of his favourite snack treats. He smiled.
The helpless seagull had a brought a sudden revelation with it. He noticed his winter jacket and smiled again. He realized he had packed himself up in puffed-up plastic, just like the potato chip in the bag. Content with his own world and neglecting the world of his best friend that was Anjali.
Salil took his jacket off, let go of the bag of potato chips. He took a deep breath of fresh spring air. He looked at the horizon and the beautiful lake again.
Next thing, he found himself dialling Anjali’s number
“Hi Anjali”, he said, “I am sorry. I was packed in puffed-up plastic”.
