STORY IN QUESTION AND MOTION

Part II - MOTION

Imagine this motion. You are coming out of a shower and you hear your child's cry. She has just fallen down a swing across the narrow road separating your house and a play area. 'I'll run out as I was!' The luxury of sitting and comfortably analyzing this situation will make you say this, isn't it?' 

                                                                                                                                                                                                         Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

In continuance with questions clogging his mind, Asid was down. He had no shine; was lost; older in three years and twenty days than he was in 10 years; living in shadows and broken in many ways. Daily motion was hard to come by in every sense of the word!

But almost always the best way for a commoner to feel good about self is to watch other commoner's motion. Just when Asid thought he was a failure of monstrous proportions, a friend's terminal illness was revealed to him. He had kept it a secret for fear of being treated anything but 'normal'. He wanted to live life on the same terms if not better as anybody else. Love of the ordinary motion kept him going he said.

Suddenly, Asid was no longer at the bottom of the dilapidated structure called life. He possessed what many din't and still many take for granted - a healthy body.

Furthermore, the next door girl whose daily motion was (for the two months she was there) boasting her luck and posting her Niagara Falls, Disneyland pictures on every social media channel, was back. Back with uncertainty about her stay either there or here. D.Trump kicked in and kicked her out.

She is seen daily these days to Asid, complaining about the traffic, the pollution, the lack of ease of doing things in India and her dying future in this country. But she also swears by her patriotism and is a sucker for all local traditions and cultures, especially Indian food. Oh! The sweet, sweet irony! Life's motion around Asid was full of contradictions yet, people managed a sleep, a laughter, a mask and woke up to live another day.

So why not him? When was he true to himself?

Another childhood friend met him while on a work trip. He had sold off the one dream house his parents had built because his business was motion less.

There is a sinful joy, guilty pleasure in hearing such things. Obviously, Asid reflected, compared -consciously or unconsciously. Never would have Asid wished any such motion play out in the life around. Despite what his wife claimed, he too had a good heart.

So, not suddenly but gradually, Asid began to enjoy the perks of being in a life - the family life, a job-goer's life, the ordinary life. At least his wife could see him at his worst. She had wiped his shit for two months after a horrible accident, as he understood the unconditional motion of ordinary love. 

Asid enjoyed hearty laughs at meals with family. Luxury to dress, feed, travel and pay bills compensated for routine motion. At least he was not heading for bankruptcy like his friend's. 

Then there were friends with whom every motion compensated for many scathing others. Trekking, discussing intimate fears, grief sharing; watching a sports encounter together made his day and in time, days. In a parallel universe, he could have been out of all imposed and willing obligations and still couldn't have bet on sorting his messy life.

Like the time when lightening struck his mother dead in one swift motion. Freakish death for a city-dweller, who had sheltered under a fateful tree under a thundering sky. Asid's issues suddenly didn't seem issues at all. At least he had the posse of the most important human parts. Not minds, not hearts but shoulders to cry on.

That's not to say there are no motions in life that can be controlled. Like that of a movie star reaching the dizzy heights of fame or a footballer bending destiny to his will to reach ultimate sporting glory, or a mountaineer conquering the most challenging heights. 

Despite this knowledge, Asid was coming to terms with the ordinary. If everybody was a star in his or her own right, stardom would be the new ordinary and life's motion would still be the same. Stars are stars because the ordinary make them so!

Next, fatherhood phase. Suddenly everything looked up in Asid's life. No other motion mattered whether important or trivial. Not that issues changed. Life unleashed with a renewed vigour, wave after wave of surprises and brutality.

Motion was the same. Only now Asid rode the wave instead of fighting it.

The gulf between thinking and acting is where all life's ships port.

No, he didn't run out the way he was.

You might think your motion will drag you out to help the child, even nude. But in reality you will reach for the nearest pair of pants or wrap a garment before venturing out.

Asid definitely wouldn't want anyone to be in such a situation. But when reality hits, ideal motion has to come to term with the practical. Like billions of Asid's do, day in and day out.