Through the Highs and Lows of an emotionally driven mind

The lock clicked open as he entered his apartment. He opened his door and faced the huge new painting he had recently installed on his wall. The splendor of the ship and the cool blue sea behind it seemed to give some calm to his excited nerves. He nudged the door to close behind him and took off his shoes.

He loosened his tie and fell on his couch. As he bounced on the sponges of the couch, he switched on his music set- Beethoven, his favorite. It was the perfect tune, for the perfect occasion. The view of the evening sunset seen from his balcony was, perfect! Everything was perfect.

He had just been promoted. At 25, it was a new record for the youngest project leader. What more, his parents had found him a suitable match. A beautiful and intellectually sound female who was even better than anyone he would have managed to find himself.

What was he saying, “Better than anyone I could have managed to find myself”?

He pondered over the question for a while. All those memories flooded back to him. The wonderful times he had with the girl he called “Kiddo”. The unexpected meeting in the railway station five years ago, when he had decided their acquaintance had ceased for good; the awkward manner in which he had proposed to her and the wonderful feeling of joy when she accepted him a week later; the hours they spent on the phone, getting to know each other;the twinkle in her eyes when she gave him one of those naughty grins; the days he had to wait for her to recoup from her chicken pox; their first official date; the first kiss, the second and the first time they made love; the way she bit his ears; their first major fight; the second major fight; the fight on his birthday; and then, the manner of their breakup. The memories were bittersweet.

And then he remembered Christie. Christina, the girl he had met just for a couple of hours in his life; the girl who made all the difference to him and turned his life around in those couple of hours; the girl whom he never again met; the girl who’s face he couldn’t even recollect.

He met Christina a week or so before his break up. He got to know her as a friend’s friend. She was five years elder to him, married, with a son and seen a fair share of life as compared to him.

It was a day in which the gods were angry with the city and had poured like crazy. The day had been a reflection of his mood- furious, dark and gloomy. He had had the most imperfect birthday the previous day and it was getting no better. Every quarrel he had was hastening the breakup and he could do nothing to help it. He needed a break. He had to do something to break the monotony of his life. But it was raining cats and dogs and he couldn’t step out of the house.

Thankfully for him, his friend called him out for a drive. He latched on to the idea and so found himself in the car with his friend, heading out to some place he had no clue about. This was when Christie joined them. Through the coffee, she had spoken to him about a lot of pursuits in life other than love. She had brought out the concept of living ones life for his family. She had spoken about how the search for peace could be fulfilled by the simple act of chasing ones passion. She had spoken about positivism, objectivity and a lot more of complex concepts in the simplest of terms.

“Look for happiness through the eyes of those who you love. Look for it in those who realize how much of a difference you made in their life. Treat everyone with the same amount of care that you would show when you see sadness in “your kiddo”. Set your heart free and you will find it influence thousands of hearts around you. Maybe she will come back, but if she doesn’t just make sure you don’t grow old with the feeling that your life so far had been without a purpose.”

These words, he had repeated every morning since the first time he had heard them from Christie………………… That was five years ago.

He took a pen and wrote,

“To Christina, with love………

Today, I can say I have lived my life as best as possible. I repent not for any mistake I had done or for the pain I had put my heart through. For I have grown successful in my career and in my social life. No one can be loved by everyone, but I can surely say that I am loved by most people who know me.

I know not where you stay. I know not how you are doing. I know not whether you remember me. But if you do, I say, “Thank You for turning my life around.”

And if you don’t, I say, “Thank You anyways”.”

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I like cats! They say when a cat closes its eyes, it imagines that night has fallen upon the world.

I was not born in the best of families. My father was a businessman who lived a cockroach life. He came drunk in the night and often left the house before I woke up. There were times I recollect where we met once every fortnight or even less. My mother took to ‘social welfare’, the term she used to justify her absence from home and hanging out with similar ,rather sad ladies who claim to look after others while their own lives are in tatters. This situation often left me all alone in a four roomed house.

I had never been the brightest kid in my school. As a matter of fact, I hardly managed to clear half my subjects. Math and science were my worst enemies and English was my best friend. Speaking of friend, I was shy by nature and I hardly made any. With my curly hair and braced teeth, I was often made fun of as the bunny of the class. I truly was a dork who kept to himself and stayed away from the normal world.

So at an early age, I took to books.  I started off with Tinkle, graduated to Tintin and Archies and Asterix. Soon I indulged myself with Agatha Cristie and Sydney Sheldon. I plunged into reading fantasy once fiction became predictable. I sometimes used to recreate some plots and enact them inside my room.

My life changed when the time I reached my high school. By then, I had lost my interest in fictions and fantasies and turned to personality development. I needed a girlfriend too. As a matter of fact, I needed friends, full stop! So I plunged myself into books on how to improve my life. I learnt how to be effective. I learnt when to say no and how to say no. I learnt many ways to achieve success.

One particular book(ask me later for its title) said that we have to recreate the day’s events before going to bed in the way we would have wanted it to have happened. I liked this method of living life as it gave me a chance to erase my memories of disappointment and look forward to recreating my life the way I wanted it to be.

I became a better person. I got rid of my glasses and switched over to lenses. I visited the salon and had a neat haircut. I even carried out a wardrobe change. I practiced making speeches every morning before the mirror and within a month I was transformed.

Every time I got snubbed by a girl or every time I made a fool of myself I corrected my mistake over the evening and would come back better the next day. Eventually, Mary Jane became my girlfriend.

Boy was she a beauty. She always came in her lolly pop red dress. Her pink hat with a feather on top complimented her dress perfectly. She wore white stilettos and white stocking. She was smoking hot. I never got tired of seeing her that way. We had the perfect time together. She would always let me hold her hand and guide her through Central Park. No matter how many times I explained the history of New York, she would listen to me patiently.

Aye, she would ask the right questions to keep the conversation going. She had an awesome sense of humor and would be the first tease me when I acted silly. She was so full of life, and my love for her never hit the dip.

Soon Mary Jane introduced me to my Danny. Danny was a junior director by profession. He was looking to create his own movie and the time we met was indeed God given. For, in me, he found the perfect ally and also a source of funds for making his idea a reality. Together we produced a number of films which were later to be box office hits.

We created films of all genres. Be it romance, action or Horror, we gave awesome movies. I was the secret behind Danny’s success. I gave him amazing stories. I tweaked the script to achieve the cutest dialogues when it came to romantic films. We were a success.

Danny married Gloria, and I married Mary Jane. Along with Jack and Jill, our Norwich Terriers, we are family now, living under the same roof.  Mary Jane and I bought us a Benetton and Danny got Gloria a Bentley. We have everything in the world. We are at peace with life.Thank you God, for showing me how to live life, like the cat.

Jimmy Welsh

PS: Jimmy Welsh is an inhabitant of the Wonderland Association in NY, an asylum for the insane. Often people hear him demand for checks to be sent out to a certain Daniel Crowe. He has been released five times only to be brought back for claiming to be the husband of anyone who wears red tops and white stilettos. It is ironical that Jimmy Welsh scored the most in the latest NY psychometric test to identify the man who is the most at peace with life.

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I guess the problem I face began somewhere during the sixteenth century.

It was the time when the joy and euphoria of ‘The Renaissance’ had begun to fade and population of humans began to grow in crazy proportions.

The time of the artists had come to an end. People were bored of praising them and making them celebrities. The masses desperately needed to earn their bread. The concept of business and trade evolved. Mass production became the frenzy. Mediocrity became celebrated.

Words like individuality, genius, perfection, skill gave way to adaptability, flexibility,productivity and team work. Anyone with basic education was heralded as ‘potential’ for generating money. The few talented souls who showed anomalies were regarded with suspicion and termed as outcasts.

‘Crazy’, ‘mad’, ‘psycho’ and ‘relic’ titles were assigned to condemn those people and curb such behavior. The artist clan began to dwindle in size.

Normal people were given heavy compensations. This in turn gave them access to live the ‘high’ life.

No one complained if they had no clue of what they were doing. If they ever did, they found solace in company and hid behind the mask of ‘teamwork’.

The psychos never stayed long. Either they turned normal, or they perished trying ventures that would have been lauded, fostered and funded, had they been done during the Renaissance.

But among them all, a few took on the world. They embraced failures. They accepted poverty. They renounced the access to technology that made them lazy. They strove hard in what they believed. They fought abuse. Their families shook their heads on seeing them. “They are failures, as they don’t earn as much as others. They are irresponsible, as they chose a different path. They are immature to move away from a golden treasure. They will learn someday, that they were wrong.”

They walked on, oblivious to all their criticism. They found peace in life through doing what they believed in. They found integrity, for they had control over their work. They were merry, satisfied and contended. They were the remnants of the artist clan. Their art was their heart and soul and very purpose of existence.

Am I an artist too?

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