Tuesday 10 August 2021

Akshika Chachawa, ShortStory2021 Magazine

By The Beach


‘Hi I am Veer, umm aaaa… I have seen that you come here, by the beach every night…’ spoke Veer, awkward at starting a conversation with a stranger.

‘So do you…’ Interrupted the girl, smilingly.

‘Ahh yes… I mean I just come here to stroll for a while. Well I have been coming since the last week only.’

‘Okay. Well, I come here daily, my pilgrimage ! Also- Hi Veer, I am Rabia…’ she replied, giggling. Veer couldn’t resist himself to laugh, either.

And then they started walking together, by the beach, embracing the cool breeze and conversing throughout.

Veer was a messed-up-guy, a logical over-thinker, always in search of the real answers, from life, universe, and was usually involved in that whole confusing deep thing. He was a graphic designer, from Pune, and off to a solo vacation, here at Goa.

And Rabia, was a chef, in a buzzy restaurant of Goa. An explorer herself, a nyctophile, she was just in love with the picture of nights, and found life better with stars gazing upon her and the moon smiling to her.

So, after walking for a while, they sat on a huge rock and found each other having an interesting conversation together and that’s when the truth craving mind of Veer asked Rabia, ‘You know I always wonder how we humans have been searching for certain answers since ages, from our most underdeveloped form to this highly digital era, and still the questions are the same, what do you think , why can’t a person understand life, in a lifetime…?

Rabia thoughtfully replied, after a pause, ‘hmmm…it’s interesting that you atleast think about life and its unrevealed layers, people fail to notice life, people hardly interact with the other sides of life…but I don’t know the answers myself, maybe even I will take a lifetime, understanding life’, she chuckled.

‘So, you think I will ever get my answers…that I have been always in search for… ?’Veer asked almost blankly.

‘I believe stopping to chase the solutions, is a solution itself! You see Veer, it’s not always about holding and sticking to your questions, let your questions be free, let them roam and explore the universe and return back with answers. You know sometimes we are so mad chasing the answers, we forget the worth of the questions…maybe some questions are so precious, that no answer could explain it’s worth’, Rabia answered in a calm and lost tone.

‘Wow! I never thought this way…but isn’t it heart-breaking that a person, will die someday with many unanswered questions…?’Veer asked still blank .

‘No, maybe life is not about unravelling all answers but about asking questions and having our own assumptions, as answers, because that’s the beauty of unanswered questions’,Rabia explained her own assumption.

‘So this way we all have our own answers, rather than a universal one…’Veer spoke to himself.

And then a bizzare silence followed…with the night giving all the answers. Veer turned to thank Rabia for all those strangely beautiful answers, and she suddenly vanished into the dark whispering, ‘It’s not me it’s life.’

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