My favourite word in the English dictionary is epiphany..
I am a Piscean and have always had strong intuition and I have had so many epiphanies in my life.
This is one such epiphany.
The year was 2003 and I was living in a 2 bedroom apt in Mumbai with three kids.
Yaya was 5, toothless was 3 and baby was a year old then. Kids and I had been used to having a bigger place in Malaysia and to move in to a tiny place in Mumbai was tough on all of us. By the end of the day, I was so exhausted both mentally and physically taking care of three kids 5 and below.
I needed some ‘me’ time, so I used to tuck the kids to bed early,then read something and decompress. I cherished those few hours of solitude. No sounds of horn blaring, no sounds of people talking loudly outside, no street vendors calling out!
It was very peaceful and I absolutely enjoyed those hours. Until one day, someone started to sing.
It wasn’t that his voice was bad, actually his voice was beautiful. He was singing Urdu ballads.
I had nothing against anyone singing, but there is a time and place for everything, not in the middle of the night, not when I was enjoying some ‘me’ time.
But because I follow the live and let live philosophy, I tolerated his singing, hoping he would just go away.
He didn’t.
He would come once every two or three days and sing for at least an hour!! and I would be cursing and swearing.
But one evening after enduring a hell of a time with my mother who pointed out all my flaws and let me know that i am a total failure, all I wanted was to disappear in to my world of books. It was around 11 pm at night and the singing started. This time right underneath my bedroom window.
I remember storming out of my apt, taking the lift to the ground level and searching for the person who had the temerity to sing at that time of the night,
It was pretty easy to spot him.He was leaning against the wall and sitting down. He had some sort of a rag bundle in front of him. I walked straight to him, hoping to give him a piece of my mind.
I was ready to call him an idiot. I had all the curses in English translated to Hindi in my mind by the time I reached where he was sitting.
I stood right in front of him.
It was a moment of epiphany.
He nust have sensed my presence. He interrupted his singing for a few seconds, smiled and then continued.
I said he must have sensed my presence, because he was blind. He was so totally blind!!
I felt so bad!
Here was a man, who would never know what is day and what is night and I was angry with him because I needed a few minutes of solitude.
My anger vanished
and I am sure if anyone had seen me at that moment, they would have thought that i had gone bonkers, for I sat on the kerb and listened to the songs that I didn’t understand in the middle of the night.
I also learned a valuable lesson..that I really should live and let live!!!