Rip Van Winkle syndrome?

Intrigued, enamored or beholden? Which one of these would fit the bill? All three, perhaps, when it comes to some stories, one has either read or heard in childhood;  one often wants to, or tends to keep revisiting them at different points of time for different reasons.  

Some tug at the heart strings, creating sensations unfelt, some make one wonder, raking up unfathomable depths that were until then beyond one’s ken and some just grip one mesmerizingly. Others raise questions and some just leave a string of unresolved, unanswered bubbles in the air and so evasive are they that even getting a close look at them is not only unmanageable but is a strangely cumbersome act, as one tries to clasp them as they flit by.

They float around, vigorously bouncing sometimes; sometimes their diaphanous presence palpable and more often than not they are suspended in time, moments and memories coalesced forever. 

Any number of attempts to retrieve them in the first or several subsequent attempts can either be immediately fruitful or surprisingly vexing and often futile.

One such memory that repeatedly comes back is that of Rip Van Winkle and how every time it was narrated or every time it was read on a quiet, sultry day, it became more magical than the first time: his beard seemed longer, his wrinkles deeper, more creased, his eyes beadier and his demeanor more fascinating. The tiny group of men he encountered seemed more enchanting every time.

On other occasions it seemed like being in a time warp; the story providing a peek into the future, experiencing the unimaginable envisioned some time somewhere.

However, when he blundered back into town, nothing was the same; almost everything he knew was not as he had left it. But he had just gone uphill yesterday, just like he did every day, he thought to himself. He felt disoriented, he felt disowned, and he felt like he was a different person.  

He came back to a changed world, a world he had known and had implicitly always wanted to escape from: to take off for a while maybe, every day, to circumvent the mundane tasks he was required to do. He often rambled into the mountains only coming back at sun down, capping the day with a long drawn session of beer at the tavern, stippled with sundry gossip.

There is a Rip Van Winkle every moment today, things change drastically in the blink of an eye, and for him it was twenty years or was it? Perhaps it was just twenty hours or twenty minutes it is hard to tell. Did he slip into a slumber or did the world move in fast forward as he sank into a momentous stupor? What was it then, what is it now? Was it time lapse or a delayed reaction by him?       

People you thought you knew and had been close to just yesterday seem distant and far away, even though they sit across you smilingly chattering at a café.  There is very little to say and even less to share. Relationships you thought you had completely understood stand twisted and twirled in time; varied images that created unique symphonies, stop short at jarring notes every now and then unable to pick up the right musical notes and cues.

The streets seem more crowded the plazas over flowing with people, each a zombie lost in a morass of labyrinthine moves. The game seems the same, but the rules have changed, it is like being in the Matrix, sometimes a sense of déjà vu, sometimes doors changed to walls and windows sealed completely, suddenly.  For some this is it, for others there’s nothing that they recognize as they had known or ever knew. It seems to have changed the very essence of existence, the very pulse of the heart, the very presence of you.

Some walk a tight rope every day trying hard to recognize the pattern around them and get their coordinates right so as to retrace their steps soon. But, before one knows it there’s a domino effect changing everything around. It is like being on a merry go round, varying speeds and just as the eye adjusts to the corresponding blur around everything changes as one alights. The steps then are slow, the gaze   focussed on what was but isn’t anymore, the stride suddenly sprightly, the search still on. The merry go round has more takers as it spins around again and again.

©Copyright Suverchala Kashyap