Sunset at the sea

 

The evening breeze was blowing caressing their face, the time was well past 6 in the evening and the red line of sunset had appeared on the horizon. The white boat was in the middle of the ocean now slowly drifting towards its goal.

”For how long” asked Jessica

“let’s see! I am super excited” answered Anuj, with this he left for home to complete the unfinished packing, his childhood dream of studying “film-making” as a professional course was to take flight the next day.

Jessica and Anuj used to sit by the sea for hours every day and watch the boats disappear at the horizon. The horizon to her was like a dream that existed only while it lasted, things that lost their essence just like a beautiful thought that engages you for a while and leaves you wondering

The time beside the seaside appears to have somewhat slowed down in pace just like the the strong wave stroking the sandy banks. The boat at the horizon slowly heading towards its goal  where even the mighty heavens are waiting to embrace it in its arms. But what does a boat at the tethered to the shore  know about this embracement, it is merely happy to be safely battling the waves.

Jessica smirked at the thought the analogy was too persistent to deny.

The white boat appeared as a dot on the big sheet of horizon.

Jessica’s father worked at the dock as an engineer. She came from a middle class family where your needs are fulfilled and wants are subdued where studying is not a hobby but a need. Her parents wanted her to complete her education and “settle down”, and in this case completing education meant “becoming an engineer” because according to them that is the shortest and the easiest way to lead a fulfilled life, it was her passport to a “settled life” which according to her father is the priority or rather should be the priority of everyone. Owing to her father’s concerted efforts, she had always been a top grader in her class thus fuelling her father’s engineering” ambitions for her to greater extents.

From the time immemorial she had been taught to answer the same thing whenever someone  asked

“What would Jess like to become when she grows big like daddy?”

And without any hitch the reply was “An Engineer”.

Her knowledge about being a grown-up had been confined to eating unlimited chocolates and stashing umpteen number of cola bottles in the fridge at will. She was admired for being so career oriented at such a young age, and this made her proud and won her chocolates and was more than a reason  for her to stick to that answer.

She was the son that her parents never had she was their only daughter and that made her the sole point of their attention and to sum it up means by which her father wished to live his unfulfilled dreams.  This was all when she was a kid, now she was a grown up and on the verge of choosing a career path. For her it was no more about eating chocolates or earning accolades, but her parents still harbored the same ambitions and aspirations for her.

The thing about dreams , aspirations and hopes is that they are good until they become an obsession and unfulfilled dreams are worst because they can never be achieved by the current means that’s why they have been termed “unfulfilled” in the first place. But people relish them in their future and want to burden their own young ones with them, parents supplement this with a phrase “After all, If not you who else”? And this made Jess feel obliged as if it was the little she could do for them for being their daughter.

Yesterday as was her habit she was watching the sunset on the sea shore. While the sun went down each day at the same time, but that day she saw the blend of colors that accompanied this act of nature from blue to red, then orange and then a tinge of green as if nature was filling its canvas with beautiful hues and with each passing moment the old color dissolved into a new one and ultimately the blackness. It was as if someone had dropped stone in the unusually calm waters of her mind that had created ripples. She was transfixed, and pondered over what her expectations with her selves are and what does she want to end up being. She thought everything is changing constantly. Even the beautiful patterns formed in sand change with time, no matter how good they are or how artistic they are everything lives its course and is replaced by a newer version, so like everything else why doesn’t she have the muscle to change her decision of becoming an engineer, after all it wasn’t entirely a decision but a submission on her part. Like every time else this time too the answers were not very conclusive either she did not hear well or her inner voice had been subdued so much for so long that now even lending a deliberate ear to it received silence. Either way she failed to comprehend the sanctity of the realization. Night had come over, a black blanket printed with stars surrounded the earth.

A voice calls “its dinner time Jess, come home!” it was her father.

Jess  tries to catch a glimpse of the sailing boat but by that time it was already out of sight owing to the “darkness” and the “distance”. She gets up and saunters towards her home.