by Chandramohan Nair
There was a time
in my days of youth,
when life’s travails
I faced with cheer,
for I could take off at will
on some random flight of fantasy.
Intrepid climber atop Mount Everest,
fearless astronaut in wondrous orbit,
a sporting hero to a joyful nation,
at times a gifted scientist or a writer
else a famous actor or a singer.
I could be any one of them,
basking not so modestly
in the adulation of the masses.
But things have changed over the years,
these days such dreams don’t take flight,
perhaps because life has taught
that rarely do they come alive,
and time no longer stretches ahead
to hold new fancies I might have.
Without my gift for reverie,
it’s stressful now to face situations –
some unpleasant,
others plain dull and dreary,
that life throws up from time to time.
Hospital visits are filled with foreboding –
corridors full of
distressed eyes,
tests and procedures
now mandatory,
then comes the anxious wait
for the physician’s pronouncement.
With friends and relatives
the old stories have been wrung dry,
travel to my jaundiced eye
is both tiring and monotonous,
functions I find tedious affairs
whose end cannot come too soon,
social visits, alas, a ritual
filled with a sense of déjà-vu.
Looking at life
square in the eye
in the manner of a stoic,
I’m afraid doesn’t
quite agree with me.
Oh! how I wish I could see the glass
half full again
and get back to life as of yore,
when I could summon
a daydream of my choice at will.
