My Broken Vase

Last few days have been quite relaxing and peaceful. I spent as much time as I could time at home all by myself. Days lazing around, watching movies, talking to friends, lunches, dinners, and other leisurely activities were like long awaited bliss that I needed. I wish I could go rewind a little and back to those days in last week.

Oh yes, I also took up cleaning and dusting of my house (after a looooong time) – the wall unit, my book shelf, ceiling, sofas, floor and I was blowing off every speck of dirt that my eyes could see. My inspiration and vigour kept rising with every particle of dust that I cleaned. During little short breaks, a hot fuming drink made from freshly grinded coffee powder given to me by a dear friend kept getting my valour back to cleaning again. My “pick-dust-clean to shine-coffee break” act continued from one object to other and from one room to other. I kept rising an inch higher after giving a shiny touch to things below. Finally I found myself standing on the edge of our wall unit with a beautiful glass vase in my hand taken from a shelf above. With a Jim Carrey grin, I looked at it – “it’s your turn bayyybeeeeeee” and started to softly clean it. I moved my hand inside it, over it, around its open mouth, and all over the curves and edges – so beautiful it was (psst: come back, it’s a vase), bought from a local street side market in Mumbai but it looked like a masterpiece from Belgium. As the beautification continued, I felt some tickle inside the pocket of my track pants – it was my mobile screeching “zzzz zzzz zzzz zzzz”. I took out my mobile, pushed in the green button and started to talk placing the mobile in between my shoulder and left ear. I don’t know to what I suddenly reacted on the phone and down went the pseudo Belgium masterpiece, slipping from my hands to the floor. It lay there broken into pieces and I kept looking at from 6 feet above. I quickly disconnected the call, got down carefully and put the pieces aside in a corner of the room. Fortunately enough, I could find some permanent-fix glue and patched up the broken pieces into a vase again. However, no where close to the original stuff, it looked kind of pale and dead. I placed it back to originally where it belonged and retired from my cleaning workshop for the day. Took a coffee mug and couched myself on the sofa, staring at the assembled vase, looking furiously into my mobile and sipping the hot coffee. I got up, went closer to the vase, looked at it, came back to the sofa, sat down, again stepped towards wall unit, took a more closer look at the vase, and again came back, don’t know why I was doing this, what kept me doing this for three four times. Finally I tanked into my sofa and unknowingly kept staring at the vase. From a distance it appeared to be the same, the joints were not vividly visible. However, when I had observed it from close, I could see the break marks, that it did not appear as attractive and that it had lost its luster.

I didn’t realise when my close observations and monologue with the vase took me on a philosophical expedition. Much like the vase, many relationships around that appear to be perfectly fine when seen from a distance are in reality a nicely crafted patchwork. Everyone around is turning over ambitious, spearheading to pounce upon every inch of success possible, gaining popularity, earning recognition, getting rewards, improving on financial strength but with every step higher, emotional tolerance is being degraded day after day. Materialistic maturity has replaced emotional maturity where selflessness, understanding, affection, trust don't seem to exist anymore. Relationships these days seem to have lost their luster, just like the vase, they have stopped living and are merely existing. While some stick around just because they don’t want to carry a social stigma, others go on so that some financial support keeps coming in and they don’t need to compromise on their existing lifestyle, and there may be few who keep quiet just because they would need a companion sometime ahead. Whatever it is, it’s just either the greed or the fear that rules relationships these days. Though I don’t deny that relationships based on pure love and trust no more exist, there are exceptions and that is really beautiful. I got confused whether was it correct for many such relationships to just carry on without any charm left in it, what’s the fun, where’s the thrill. Wouldn’t parting ways and staying single be a better option? If I am anyways not doing any good to the relationship, not contributing to its beauty, why not walk out. It doesn’t harm either because you would still lead a life the way you want and on your terms without thinking about the implications that it would have on people around. May be it turns out to be a happy ending for everybody.

I got up from my seat and took down the vase, it wasn’t beautifying the place anymore, it looked messy, my craftwork had failed I thought and placed the vase in one corner of the store room just for its remembrance. I may not buy a new vase or anything that replaces it, the shelf still lays vacant.