THE DAY

My name is Dominique. I am called Doni by everyone. I live in a small beautiful town where I go to the town school. My house is atop a small hill which overlooks the neighbouring slopes and buildings. Life is pretty much the same for me every day, with school in the morning and dance lessons in the evening. Except on weekends, when I get to play with my friends and neighbours and I also go to painting classes.

My town is very small. Everybody knows everybody. That is good in the sense if you got lost and you didn’t know where to go, someone would always know where you have to go. That is also bad because if you didn’t get lost but you wanted to keep your destination a secret, you couldn’t!

This is the story about just another day in my life which started very uneventfully with my mother pushing me out of the bed and finally out of the house! However, it did not quite end in the same way. What happened that day has left a lasting impression on me and I doubt I will ever forget this day of my life.

It was quite late that day as I stayed back an extra hour in the dance class. Our school was hosting its 50th annual cultural day which was just a week away and I was taking part in one of the dance dramas. Our school cultural was really a big day for us and perhaps the only eventful thing in my life until now. With the big day closing in we were practicing quite hard and long into the day every evening.

As soon as the class got over, I raced to the dormitory, changed, packed my bag and left for home as I did not want to be late for dinner. All the dancing and exhaustion naturally starved me! On the way I also had to stop by at the grocer’s and the launderer’s. After picking up the grocery, I headed to the laundry, which was just few minutes away from my house. It was almost dark. As I was heading round the corner, I had a strange feeling that someone was following me.

Now although this had never happened to me before, still I was prepared for come what may. I always kept chili powder and a pen knife in my person. As I was quite close to my house, I was not so worried about it and tried to ignore the feeling. After stepping out of the laundry I tried to peek behind my back inconspicuously at my stalker. I saw a man dressed in complete black. He had on a black bowler hat and also black glasses! His shoes and his gloves were black too. The only colourful thing in his appearance was, surprisingly, a rainbow coloured umbrella which was in shocking contrast to his entire bearing. He did not look very intimidating, certainly not with the cheerful umbrella! After a cursory glance, I did not pay much attention to him and I started walking home.

Suddenly I heard my name from behind me. I stopped dead on my tracks. I turned around and there was nobody else in sight save the umbrella man. I wondered how he knew my name. Mind you, I still wasn’t scared. I considered myself pretty brave as I was an active member of scouts and guides! I waited for him to call my name again. Maybe he would have heard it from the grocer’s. Maybe at the laundry. I tried guessing who he was and how he knew my name. I noticed that he was walking with a strange gait. He was limping actually and he was holding the umbrella like a walking stick. But at the same time, he was careful enough not to put his whole weight onto the umbrella, as though it were very precious to him.

As he came near me, I nearly jumped out of my skin! He had no face! Or maybe he did! But there was no nose and no lips! Then I heard my name again. “You are Doni, aren’t you?” It was coming from him, but I had no idea of knowing how he spoke! By now I was too scared to utter anything. I merely shook my head to affirm that I was Doni indeed. Then, very slowly, but definitely, he smiled. Rather, it was more like stretching of his lower jaw into an infinite half moon. I thought, if he grins any wider, his skin will fall off!

He spoke again. “My dear Doni, do not be afraid of me. I am your friend. You know me very well”. I mustered up enough courage to say “I don’t think I know you, Sir. Who are you? You seem new to this place. Are you lost? Would you like me to take you somewhere?” Hearing this, Mr. Friend became very sad. His smile went down (at least I imagined so!) and he looked crestfallen. “Alas, Doni, this is my plight you see. I am not lost. It is everybody else who is lost. I always go to the right place at the right time, but most of the times people do not see, much less hear me! You are quite different Dom. You seem to be able to understand what I’m saying even when I am not uttering a word”. I realized with a sharp prick that he was really not talking and that the conversation was actually going on inside my head! I felt dizzy all of a sudden. I looked around. There was nobody in sight. I was quite close to my house. If I wanted, I could just break into a run and reach home quickly. But somehow I felt I had to stay and listen to this man. I felt I had to know who he was and where he was going.

“Who are you Sir?” I asked him again. He spoke. “Dear Doni, I do not have a name. But I am a part of you. I am a part of every person. Mostly people do not realize me. Some blatantly refuse my existence. Some throw over a cover of materialistic reasons to make up for my absence. Some do not even bother to acknowledge me at all. Do you know who I am?” I ventured to answer “Conscience?” thinking of my moral education classes in school. He started to shake with laughter at my juvenile response. He said finally, “No Doni. I am not conscience. Although I do agree some people are not very scrupulous any longer. But such people completely lack conscience. I am present in everyone, irrespective of their class, work, age. Even in the most god forsaken of creatures, I do exist. I am your Mind, Doni. I am your Thought. I am your Ingenuity. I exist in everybody but I am unique to everyone. Do you not see Doni? Nobody else can hear or see me other than you! Whatever I am is visible only to you! You perceive me as an old man dressed in black with an outrageous umbrella. Others perceive me differently. Yet others do not see me at all!”

I was amazed at his words. Suddenly all his words were making sense to me slowly. He continued talking. “People have forgotten me in their frenzy to be a part of every rat race. It is a very sad thing to see everyone abandoning their ideas and thoughts to be part of some other plan which was not theirs! Look at you Doni. When was the last time you painted the bird on top the tree that you see outside your class every day? When was the last time you wrote a poem on your own idea? When was the last time you danced how you wanted to dance, to your own tune?” He was right! Just last week, I wanted to paint something different in my paint class instead of what the teacher had sketched on the board. But I was told not to harbor any ideas and instead flow with the tide. “Flow with tide?! You call that flowing with the tide?” He said very scornfully. He could read my mind! No, he was my mind.

“Wake up Don! You need to wake up! Stop dancing to other people’s tunes. You can do wonders yourself. Just let your thoughts flow. Do not be monotonous and artificial and colourless! Let your imagination take wings. Do the painting you wanted to do. Tell your school teacher that instead of a picnic, this time you and your friends want to go to an orphanage and spent time with the kids there. Tell your neighbour that it is okay for him to buy a horse instead of a car! It doesn’t matter what others think. If only you push the envelope and do something out of the ordinary, only then people will have the courage to follow you and do what they wish to do, however unconventional that may be. Convince your friends to break free from the rat race and do something different, maybe something which they always wanted to do but never had the heart to follow up on it. Let your mind free Doni and see for yourself its power. Do you know the power of your mind Doni? It is infinite. Just like the sky. And its depth is immeasurable like the sea.

“I am your mind Doni. Let me out. Do not always garb me in borrowed dull clothes. Let your mind speak Doni. Open the umbrella of colours and see the change in your life. If you do what you wish to do, so will everybody else. Be the change you wish to see in others Doni! Just see what happens when you let the paintbrush of your thoughts fly through the canvass of life!” So saying, he opened his umbrella suddenly and vanished, leaving behind only an essence of hue. I felt a deep arousing in my heart, as if a burden had been lifted off my mind. His words kept humming in my mind.

I don’t know how long I stood there. It must have been quite some time since my mother came looking for me out in the streets. She shook me out of my reverie and asked why I was standing in the middle of the street. I didn’t know what to say! She would never believe me. Even for my normal ordinary life, she sometimes thought I was making up stories. And this was well beyond mundane! So I sought to keep this story to myself until an appropriate time when I would have the liberty to speak my mind out, not caring about what people’s reaction might be on hearing such a chimerical incident. But I promised to myself that someday I would definitely tell about my experience to the world.

And oh yes, in case you’re still wondering how that day changed my life, well here’s the fact. I have decided to become a children’s writer because no matter how fantastic my stories would be, only children would have the virtuousness to believe in me.