“Image is everything, everything is image!”
Well, if you’re only going to chuckle by the humor of Ranbir’s scene, you’ll miss something. Maybe not something what you should compulsively be interested in, but something that gleams in my stand. For me it’s a substance that creates driving forces in my mortal run; sometimes I primarily feel it.
“Just swear to God in front of me now!” That was what my father fired, glaring red eyes towards his drunk son who was mouth spewing shit in the commode. There was a sense of urge and expectation fading away behind his anger. Mother was weeping in the attached room, holding the milk she would have poured through my throat. It was a remorseful scene. Through my drunken eyes I could see their swollen faces and I felt the pangs of conscience. That day, I knelt before the one called God. I didn't care if he existed or not, but I swore by his name.
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I have a devil inside. It has grown along with me. During early days, it was just like every other child; soft, innocent and fortified by the ones who also raised me. It started relishing the newness and beauty of this sphere. It traveled with me to anywhere, played with me when I played with my friends and whispered excitements to me in the dark. But, it was mischievous at times, it often overdid stuffs, overprotected my every sense and over blooded me when I decided things; perhaps it was this aspect that differentiated me from the rest of my comrades.
“Mama..he bit me here.” The new friend ran towards his mother crying and showing his arm out. She had done what normal mothers use to do, when they come as guests to any home; asking their kids to go and play with the ones in the house. The bite was so shrill that it marked deep red impressions of my newly grown teeth on his skin with a little tinge of blood oozing out. The woman rubbed her son with a frightful eagerness. I could see a mixture of love for her son and fear in her eyes; the fear of me.
Gradually, this fiend in me started becoming unstoppable. It got under way at sites and presented itself. I lost myself when it erupted and quietly followed the tracks, it fancied to tramp on. I developed a fear within me, probably the first feeling when I began to understand things, with a deeper intuition. A fear that involved the pros and cons of an extinct me predominated by this cursed wretch.
“Your anger may land you in hell one day. Control it!” Mother would advise me smearing my forehead and sing prayers for me to sleep. Her touch was pure sublime love, it curbed the vicious thoughts induced by the one that quietly moved through my veins. But, I had to think for my long term existence. I didn’t want anyone to find my devil. I wanted to be good like all others. I decided to hid it by any means. I stopped going out, interacted less with people and by the time I was ten, I became the quietest one in our gang.
Well, it wasn’t an easy task. I had to operate at all instants of time. I had to fight it to stop evolving from nowhere, sometimes even had to make friendly talks. Nights were the toughest; it violated my thoughts during that time. Free time was its favorite, it would run into me. So, I started taking to other practices like painting and reading story books in order to make sure I didn’t leave any unused interval. These habits went on to make me more patient and calmer as time progressed. By degrees, my devil seemed to stamp out of me. It was just what I wished for, he left me. I began to feel free and happy; I became good. I was an example of all the characteristics which parents dream their child should possess, behavior, duty, obedience, courtesy, in fact everything. People praised my parents by asking how they raised me. They replied smilingly, “It all depends on God.”
God! This name however wasn’t something that fell in my genre. I only believed in me, in my ways to do things. I was sent here with a monster with whom I burnt years fighting it. It was me all along! Nobody, but I knew, how I dealt with souls to create an image of myself, the image for which I was the envy of everyone. I had won a battle, battle against my devil. I had thrown it away. But literally, circumstances had other things to say.
