On His Leave

Stare! Aha! The mysteries of stares! Where do I start? She had been staring at me from a distance of seven yards for the past half-an-hour. I had been busy avoiding it like I was scared of the consequences of meeting those eyes. The glances I stole told me that her eyes were full of mischief. This put me in a dilemma. I wanted to go deep inside those eyes and unravel the true intentions and yet somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do so. It had been around seven minutes since one of my ‘glances’ when I heard her voice. It took me sometime to decipher her words. She was shouting at someone. Was it me? What had I done now or maybe it was because of lack of any action on my part?

Words! They are so much easier to understand when compared to eyes! Each word carries a predefined meaning with it (unless it’s a part of a double-entendre) which makes it easier to decipher unlike eyes which carry different meanings, unique to the beholder. I have always been able to connect with words. Through books they have led me to different worlds, time-lines, adventures; inspired me when the chips were down; stirred up my emotions – be it love, anger, jealousy, pride, hate, sorrow or joy. Words have brought hope to me in the past and continue to do so. I have felt exhilaration on hearing some words while others have driven my passion. In other words, words have shaped my thoughts, my actions over the years.

Turned out, I was not the one being shouted at! To my amusement her words were directed at another lad who apparently had blocked her view. To be honest, it was flattering even if a little drummed-up (at that moment I relished all the attention of course, having just stepped into my adolescence). Her eyes were once again fixed on me. I don’t know for how long the status quo was maintained but when I woke up several hours later she was chatting up one of my best friends. It took all but an instant to realize that I will never know the secrets behind those black eyes. Later I’d be glad I didn’t reciprocate in time. She got married over the course of next five years (not to my friend) and for all I know, is happily raising her kids somewhere. However, during that journey I decided to learn the language of eyes and over the years I have started to understand much (with the help of another girl of course).

This fascination with the ‘hidden’ manifested in other spheres of my consciousness. Especially, the way I viewed words; where earlier I saw simplicity now I had started looking for deeper, more secret meanings. They still inspired me, moved me and the usual but along with it all came a different world which sometimes amazed me, sometimes scared me, sometimes delighted me, sometimes was just there because I was bent on finding it. Word play became my latest fascination- blanagram, anagram, ambigram, palindrome, pangram, lipogram, autogram– name it and I was into it. I enjoyed all this as much as…let’s not go there, for the time being. Someday I want to write about the pairs of eyes that have taught me so much and right now it’s time to gather material.