The Doors..

Day 4  1985

"Eric, you know what your problem is ??"

"Hmmm....Maybe that I don't have any problem"

"Shut up"

"Then?"

"Its that you are scared.You want a perfect life. You are scared to disrupt that perfection. You are scared to make mistakes in life."

She tells me  on my face that I'm scared,that I'm an escapist. I don't have a proper reply for that and so I try escaping with my usual euphemism.Earlier I had to fight this battle on my own;evading my own questions,confused with an atrophied mind and as a perpetual refuge of my own war. Today she fights along.Sometimes with me and most of the times against me. I lose thrice over and again. But in the end there's a smile because I didn't fight alone. Because I found a compatriot in her.

"Its complicated Eric.I don't know how to explain it"

"Its not complicated.You are just making it that way."

"No Its not like that.Tell me what do I do for this?"

"Hmmm...."

She has many questions. And I seldom have answers.But there's an incessant stream of expressions between her questions and my almost nonchalant answers.Most of the time she starts off with anger;doubt,fear,laughter,apprehension,reassurance,sadness,harmony and then a new question.It goes on. And in this cycle of seasons I find my path to myself; sometimes answering her questions and most of the times getting confused. Its not the questions that matter now. Its the season. Anger,laughter.........

"Are you happy Eric ?"

"Yes,I'm happy"

"How can you be happy?"

"Because my happiness is a function of my mind and not of my circumstances"

"Fuck your philosophy Eric"

She is blunt when I bluff. No insinuation.Right on my face. I smile because I admit it and I know it. There are not many people in this world who could read me just like that; my words and my silence. Still we have these wayward conversations and still she finds out when I'm bluffing. Then why wouldn't I change?I don't know.Maybe I just like  getting caught. 

"She looks beautiful"

"Who looks beautiful ?

"But her outfit doesn't suit her"

"What?"

"The vegetables are falling down.He isn't noticing that"

"What? what"?

Initially even I couldn't make head or tail out of this. Then I saw the world of her dreams. Actual dreams with vivid images. A beautiful girl with an inappropriate dress,a random man losing his vegetables on the road,group songs,pink Cats and so on. I never try to interpret her images. I just listen and I could go on listening. 

 I've been lucky about the few people I know in my life. And I never met anyone like this sleeptalking girl. The best thing in the world is to converse with someone as yourself. My facades break, my defence wrecks and my pretensions fail after the first "Hello" or maybe even before that. I become myself. My insecurities, my doubts, my fear,my hopes;they fail to transform into an incomprehensible verbiage;flow out seamlessly.The greatest pilgrimages are not made to places but to people who destroy your masks. I'm on my way....

And the next time I say this I already know her reply.

"Eric,you know what your problem is ?".........................