That Tall Smoking Fellow

Poetry!

It has been years since i thought of a rhyme. May be my soul has missed the rhythm caught in the mundane missives. Pre-occupied with laziness, and with not many new experiences with the human kind, i have been wordless for years and years now.

I was at my poetic best, ten years ago. In school, as a teacher. Students might differ, and likely to recall and refer me as That Tall Smoking Fellow. It was an interesting episode in my life. I was smoking heavily for five years. Doing nothing but to smoke, drink and think hard, really, really hard.

I am not sure what I was thinking all those years for an answer that still seems so simple but too complex, beyond comprehension. I was sure, then, that it was all fake, the being, the father, the mother, the family, the attachment, the love. I was not seeing truth anywhere. Farce were the faces.

Everyone Was Eternally in Expectation. In despair, I used to smoke to fill the air above. I had given up on life till a smoke filled afternoon when I was asked to teach Economics. Even now, I have no reason to believe that I have any knowledge of the subject. I have no clue what the definition is.

It was the awakening. There were five or six girls in that classroom. Many teachers, including the vice principal and principal, had tried teaching them. Only to the disapproval of the girls. I walked in straight. Told them that I knew nothing about any-nomics, let alone economics.

They sat mutely, looking at a self-proclaimed stupid. I read a few pages and explained what I intuitively learnt as I read and intrepreted it to them. Wondering at the plight of students at the hands of teachers like me, I walked out down to the meadow after the class and smoked till darkness, with wry smiles in between, smiling to myself.

Tragically, the girls approved of me. I was sure it was not for my knowledge of economics. My friend blacky told me that the girls need not go outside to look at a handsome fellow when they have someone at the classroom itself. I had a charm. But was too bony for any girl to be interested in. Besides, the town knew too well about me and my friends. In fact, the three women who ran the school had to convince a community to send me to teach a bunch of girls!

I think it was one girl in that class who changed my fate forever. She had told the correspondents that I was extremely intelligent. I was their teacher for a month as they took the eleventh exams. She joined some other school, the next year. I have never heard of her after that. Poor me, I don't even remember her name. It started with S.

The year that followed in school transformed me totally. It was then that I discovered poetry. It was then that my heart sang songs of joy amidst a sea of sorrow. It was then that I lived in abundant love, saoking in the radiant light of unadulterated love of the little ones. Soul, the stranger, showed me the mercy. It was then I started living again.

Awake to love, life and longings, poetry pursued me. Attachment had a new meaning and definition. The then children liked that tall smoking fellow, their teacher, for a year. And I suppose, fondly think of that lanky fellow even now. For, he introduced them to many, many things, other than the language and sciences. Including poetry and philosophy. I will know, tomorrow. For I just visited them living as a community encircled in the web.

It is raining outside. It is raining in me.