Diffusion

    When you were really young there was always somebody to look after you; somebody to watch you cry, watch you fall as you tried to walk, watch you poop and to watch you cry after you pooped. That could probably be why I cried less much when compared to the other kids. I was content with being watched.

   And soon you had playmates. The world seemed to be composed of umpteen little games, when life seemed to be all about winning or losing them and there was no middle-ground, no delay and no unforeseen complications. Though it's not 'life' which you were worried about back then you had begun to think about that word. Whether you played 'The police and the thief' or seven-stones or Scotland Yard or an indianised version of some game originally designed for the western kids(You've been misinformed about the way things work in India through these indianised versions), they were playmates around you.

   Then there were books into which you buried your head. You were gladly allowed to do that, without questions, without restraints because people considered it healthy and commendable to do so and weren't aware of its pathological limits. Never-mind, there were books for company.

  There were friends who introspected with you, who rejoiced with you, who mourned with you, who appeased your senses with sense, who found sense in your rant; some stayed, some walked in, some walked out -often unannounced, complying with the vagaries of distance, vocation and 'life'.

    They were boyfriends/girlfriends - whom you never tried to reason with, never tried to unravel.

       

   To me the entire 'life'(I wish there was an alternative word for that), seems like a battle against loneliness. Whether I am at the winning or losing end, I've never been able to say.