Mind in a Doldrum

I woke up with an uneasy feeling- sweaty, sticky and humid. An early morning overcast sky had ensured the humidity to persist and the discomfort level, carried over from the previous night, persisted all the more. Drawing the curtains of the window of the living room, I stood there for a while facing the eastern sky. A jackfruit tree stood there just across the boundary wall. For a moment i gazed at the numerous baby jackfruits that hung from the branches-green, fleshy and edible. On the left of the jackfruit tree stood a mango tree, a barren one, quite unusual at this time of the year, when trees burst into flowers, buds and fruits. I looked at the mango tree for a while, my eyes hovering around the criss-crossing branches, but it was all barren. The air felt heavy and moist. The rain god having played truant, the city had been experiencing a sweltering heat for the last few weeks coupled with high humidity levels. Nor was there any trace of the Norwesters that normally lashes the city around this time of the year.

Try as much as one can, one cannot have control over one's thoughts, they always, willy-nilly determine their own course. The human mind is a cauldron of activities, at least mine has always been one-eternally vacillating between the real and the ideal. My mind could never be reigned in as far as the flow of thoughts is concerned. And so I stood there by the window of the living room of my "home" in the City of Joy and yet felt a terrible angst of being displaced. So this unreigned existence called "mind" was soon transported to a far flung place in the Land of Dreams-the United States of America.

Peoria, to me is a sleepy, peaceful town, especially in comparison to the hustle and bustle of the City of Joy. Perhaps the 'small-town girl' trait in me helps me to connect more spontaneously and effortlessly with small towns. Suddenly my mind was missing the lush, unadulterated greenery, the sudden burst of flowers and foliage one gets to see in spring. I wanted to breathe the fresh, unpolluted air to escape the damp and heaviness of the air that I was breathing then. Ahh Spring!!! The cool, balmy zephyr, the birds singing and the crispy warm vernal sun...The transportation of the mind in time and space is invariably accompanied with a complete detachment of the body as I was soon to realise...

A SLUMBER did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:

I seemed a thing that could not feel the touch of earthly years. No motion had i now, no force; I neither heard, nor saw...

I was woken up from my slumber by the splash of cold rain water into my face. Looking up, I realised the heavens had opened up with all its might- thundering, roaring, cutting across dark strips of cloud" while the moist Earth was smiling below". And my mind, having been jolted from the temporary slumber was basking in this heaven's glory- feeling, enjoying, bathing in the cool waters of this refreshing downpour, cooling down my mind which had till then been in a thunderous 'doldrum'. The mind was at peace now...ahh Norwesters...ahh the City of Joy...my "home".