After a failed stint with a pet gold fish and our coup that liberated their birds, our neighbors brought in two rabbits. Sweet, round and self-indulgent. They were placed strategically in a sty-cum-kennel-cum-house-cum-rabbit-inn…that was kept in the common passage of the fourth floor. I noticed them…obviously. One thin, a bit quiet and calmer fellow…the other healthier, chirpier, more agile. I grabbed the opportunity and got familiar with them….No prizes for guessing that the healthier one and I got along….birds (?) of the same feather etcetera… etcetera….
Not that my life began to revolve around them…but they became an integral part of the scene outside my flat. So while climbing the stairs, I would imagine them jumping across their shelter with ears standing up…and I would tap my shoes and see them go round and round in a tizzy….a fond ceremony it became….I could feel they anticipated my antics each time I was around….
But more than me, they were busy with each other….the fatter one burnt his calories by chasing the thinner one…I sometimes felt it mumbled to the other about each passer-by….Didn’t they get bored in there…of each other…of chasing round-and-round…of talking?...What garrulous…lost…busy souls! They went on and on and on in each other’s company….Phew!
And one day, as I came up…there was just the thin one there….sleeping, I thought. May be, the other one was hiding behind…may be it was freshening up somewhere…may be it was eating out…may be it was snoozing...may be. But, I soon came to know it was dead. And a closer look at the thin one made me realize it was shell-shocked. I tapped my feet…clapped unceasingly…made a dozen faces…antics… all that I could think of… it just didn’t move.
I came home…I will not say my life was shattered….but I felt a strange discomfort …an unrest…a heaviness…time and again I would put myself in the shoes of that lonely rabbit and try feeling the difference in its life. I couldn’t even do that…I didn’t want to be in its shoes. It was too scary. It was overwhelmingly sad. What will it do now? Where will it go? Whom will it talk to? There were too many bad, empty, painful questions. So, I let it be.
We have an understanding again…I don’t tap...it doesn’t respond.
Not that my life began to revolve around them…but they became an integral part of the scene outside my flat. So while climbing the stairs, I would imagine them jumping across their shelter with ears standing up…and I would tap my shoes and see them go round and round in a tizzy….a fond ceremony it became….I could feel they anticipated my antics each time I was around….
But more than me, they were busy with each other….the fatter one burnt his calories by chasing the thinner one…I sometimes felt it mumbled to the other about each passer-by….Didn’t they get bored in there…of each other…of chasing round-and-round…of talking?...What garrulous…lost…busy souls! They went on and on and on in each other’s company….Phew!
And one day, as I came up…there was just the thin one there….sleeping, I thought. May be, the other one was hiding behind…may be it was freshening up somewhere…may be it was eating out…may be it was snoozing...may be. But, I soon came to know it was dead. And a closer look at the thin one made me realize it was shell-shocked. I tapped my feet…clapped unceasingly…made a dozen faces…antics… all that I could think of… it just didn’t move.
I came home…I will not say my life was shattered….but I felt a strange discomfort …an unrest…a heaviness…time and again I would put myself in the shoes of that lonely rabbit and try feeling the difference in its life. I couldn’t even do that…I didn’t want to be in its shoes. It was too scary. It was overwhelmingly sad. What will it do now? Where will it go? Whom will it talk to? There were too many bad, empty, painful questions. So, I let it be.
We have an understanding again…I don’t tap...it doesn’t respond.
2 comments:
Loved the last line....says a lot!
phew! this is brilliant rids, genuine!
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