Colorblind - An Illusion

Chapter 1: Appearance

“Because an illusion is an illusion. Reality always exists despite the facade.”

― Kasie West, Pivot Point

Not every time you witness a death, do you change yourself into a beast. It isn’t the first time she saw someone dying from her family. She has been a fighter, having lost her mother and father in a plane collision, along with another 310 people in a single breath. That was the year

1996. And today, it’s almost 23 years that she has lost someone again.

She sat by her window in the drawing-room. Looking across the street. To the right. To the left. She could see the crumbling essence of humanity, a person’s greed to win, but every observation isn’t necessarily a hint. But sometimes, the slightest of hints can reveal the truth buried within since ages, killing the person, and the soul together. An act of royal revenge, like blood, might or might not be blue, but with Rohena, the color never mattered.

Chapter 2: Actually

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced”

― Søren Kierkegaard

Rohena has been suffering from an acute form of color blindness – Achromatopsia – where the person sees everything in shades of black, white and grey. Over the years, Rohena has garnered her own attention in a way she never had.

Rohena Awasthi, a 27-year-old movie reviewer, has been living in a double room apartment, alone, no domestic help, in a locality bustling with Punjabi community. The screeching of brakes, loud horns, and a neighborhood best left untouched. She has never known the people living next door, has her daily supply of groceries delivered to her on a phone call. Rohena is a perfect example of a crusader living out there fighting a world within herself. She writes for a popular online magazine and has her reviews published weekly.

Rohena has a brother, Amrish, who lives in Abu Dhabi, but is seldom interested in talking to her sister, until interested to know about if Rohena has found a potential buyer for their father’s own home in a posh locality in Delhi. But Rohena has never made a single effort to inquire about the trade-off of their father’s property, something he had been quite boastful about, a memory, that Rohena still has when her father used to feed her stories about how their forefathers migrated from Pakistan to India, and how valuable their last asset is. A huge lawn, a wide terrace, and the broken merry-go-rounds and swings, are some of the biggest memories Rohena associated with her father’s last known asset. Amrish, on the other hand, does not attach himself emotionally with either Rohena or their father’s house. For him, it was a treasure waiting to be ripped off of its innocence, due to its high market value in crores.

The brother-sister feud has not been there for long. There was a time when the two were on good terms. The death of their parents had bought them close in a loving way. They had trips together, watching movies, all until Amrish decided to marry her colleague, who for reasons best known to her, was not quite approving of Rohena. Amrish and his wife had settled for a court marriage, where Rohena was invited despite the backlash from his then-fiancée-now-wife. Soon, Amrish moved out to start a nuclear family, leaving Rohena alone in their home. Today it’s been 4 years since Rohena moved out of their father's home and started her career as a reviewer.

Rohena is an independent girl who has seen life in a way no one can ever see. Even a happy life appears black and white to her. But for the past two weeks, Rohena has been skipping work, ignoring calls from her office, and mostly calling in sick if at all she bothers to. Today, she decided to write something.

Thinking of the life I have had, Pinch of happiness, spoonful sad

Fighting the webs memories have spun around me,

And make me feel scared, and creepy, I have been standing next to my own,

A starving death,

But I don’t know what I really meant,

Coz both sides, I am alone,

Myself is against me,

Letting me be, who I won't ever be, Tall and straight,

And every other trait, Wishing to reside within me,

But breaking the chains is harder than I think, Breaking them, before the ship begins to sink,

I wonder, is it going to be too late, Shall I or shall I not wait,

Has the devil's game already begun?

Or as Pink Floyd said,

I am headed straight, into the shining sun,

It’s all a mystery I have been trying to solve all along,

I have been waiting for it to end, since long, really long...

Chapter 3: Inside

“If you don’t fear yourself, you’ll never love yourself”

-- Anonymous

For her, the era of colored movies never began. Although she was born in the age of color TV, colors were never a part of her. Somewhat she began to accept that she does not belong to today. Her destination, her calling, is not along with people like Amrish, like her colleagues, or for that matter the people she sees from her balcony walking down the road. She will never know who these people are, where they’re headed. No, she is not depressed. She is just being practical. If she doesn’t feel anyone worth talking to, it doesn’t mean she is sad, or depressed for that matter. She feels she is just too strong. Like her dual-tone vision, there are only two kinds of people for her - Right and Wrong.

She is the one who has never seen blood in its purest form - thick, fluidic, coherent. And she craves for that. “If you don’t know what’s flowing in you, you don’t know what’s in you”, she maintained. She feels blocked by her own thoughts at times. Easy to manipulate, hard to love, fear to say true, difficult to befriend - some of her traits. But still, she has an opinion. She has her say. To whom? To herself.

She always cares for what she believes about herself, not what others have pretended to know about her. She is easy to perceive. Perceptions don’t hurt her. She wakes up with these thoughts each day bustling in her head.

And today, she decides she wants to quit this job and travel to meet someone - who knows her but still doesn’t realize that she exists, someone who she hasn’t met but still believes is with her, in her, every time.

She was starting to fear her life, her own self, and so she decided to embark upon a journey, to break the shell, into unknown territory, a world totally different from hers.

Before she went away, she left herself a goodbye note,

Back of my mind,

I thought, I left everything behind,

Closed doors,

But still the eyes pour, They bleed blood,

They scream at the darkness,

Clashing with the memories,

The eyes feel them, but never do they see, Pain within the heart,

After all these years, I end up at the start,

End doesn't seem anywhere,

I love people, who don't even care,

Why is it that I love to bleed? Bleed those tears,

Weeping memories,

Of those who were once near, Who went far from me,

And left behind, Themselves in my mind,

Hidden in the shade of my own shadow, Binding me to that past,

I try to unchain, and let go at the same time,

I feel tired, but I say that I am fine,

Coz treading an unknown path is scarier than the known, The difficulties life has already shown,

They help me define myself, They help me not to cry for help, And I will take this journey alone,

The difficulties life has already shown,

Treading an unknown path is scarier than the known!

Chapter 4: Journey

“Sometimes, reaching out and taking someone's hand is the beginning of a journey. At other times, it is allowing another to take yours.”

― Vera Nazarian

It was a winter morning when even the brightest vision can question its ability to see. A blanket of clouds had embarked upon the surface, it seemed. Moist leaves hung upon a tree, dripping dew of their tips every second. Rohena stepped out of her home, with paranoia, questioning her own ability to take up this journey. She went back in, came out with a small backpack on her shoulders and began her journey.

She wanted to head up to the mountains, snow-capped, with all the energy trapped, welcoming to live her life the way she sees it. She took a bus to track down her life on the way, but little did she know that life has other plans.

450 kilometers away from Delhi, the bus met with an accident and landed up in a valley. Stuck inside the bus were 50 more passengers. No one could have been alive it seemed. Rohena, along with other passengers, was pulled up by the locals who were very helpful. The hospital was nearby, where some of the injured were already taken.

But before she could be taken in an ambulance, Rohena stood up. Blood flowed down her arms, her face splattered in mud; her jacket half torn and the hair was all messed up, she waved out to people, held them and more surprisingly, she saw the beauty in a way she never had. She could see the meadows, she could see the sky as is, those snow-capped mountains, traditional colored attire of the locals. Yes, she could see the colors, each and every one of them, which have been missing from her life since its inception.

She roamed around; looking and talking to every person she could see. She never felt this urge to speak up to anyone and everyone for ages. But she wondered - how could she survive, see those shining colors? How could she not feel a single pinch of pain? She never knew. She never got any answers.

Chapter 5: Redemption

“If it looks real and feels real, do you think it matters if it's real?”

― Daniel Nayeri, Another Faust

Rohena returned home. The neighborhood she lived in was unlike the way she had left it. There was not a single person she knew, but still, the house was the same she lived in. Those broken pieces of glass, that she threw one night before leaving, still lay there. She could see her blood when she accidentally stepped on them. But that didn’t hurt her. The journey she took probably has made an impact on the way she sees things, the way she thinks feels, and lives. She felt relaxed. She felt herself within.

Today, she lost the person she hated the most - herself - and started living a new life. And first thing in the morning, she wrote something:

All this life,

I have felt an urge in me,

To be or not to be, Today, I see you,

Feeling everything too good to be true, Without you, within me,

I feel a life is born,

Back to where we all belong, No strings attached to my own, I am happy, smiling, and alone,

Surrounded by the mysterious questions, Unanswered,

A story, quite absurd,

That has killed me off myself, But saved my soul,

Back to where I belong,

To myself, in my home,

Yes, I am happy, smiling, and I am alone For a moment, I turned and looked behind, I see me standing, I see me colorblind,

I see the tears; I see all the worries, Standing there,

I have left everything behind,

I see me standing, I see me colorblind!!