First rays of light blinding her eyes, Oh! how she loved the mornings! The feeling of damp sand beneath her toes as it imprints her footprints into it. Admiringly she look back tracing the prints from where she had come; smile lit on her face seeing the beautiful play of the morning waves and the way they make all the prints disappear in a single motion of sheer play. She couldn’t trace her way back on the sand but she did saw a small town far away on the other side whose small houses can be barely visible from the naked eyes. But somehow just looking at that blurry scene can make her remember the scent of the sand of that small town, the warmth spreading the small lanes and no matter how loudly these waves scream at her she can still hear the laughter of kids around the corner of her home, in that small town, as they used to play on the streets.
A splash of water came as waves hit the nearest rock, bringing her back to the town it belongs to, the anger was apparent and the whispers from the sea “You are here now”, “you are one of us” as they again move back to disappear in the arms of the sea heading backwards far back where stood a bridge which connected the small town to this big town. She remember taking that journey herself when she was walking through that bridge scared of leaving the warmth and love of her people, confused thinking what the big town has in store for her. The long and tiresome journey was full of hatred, frustration, anger, confusion, fear, sadness but at the same time excitement thinking back she wonder how she remained sane enough to cross the journey even with all these flood of emotions. But she did and so did the others who were walking with her, behind her or way ahead of her.
But the journey wasn’t easy not because there were too many people or because she was still alone but because there were too many tears along the way. The helplessness of people, who need to leave their old town to find a better living in the new town. The tears of mothers as they say goodbye to their sons, the helpless but proud eyes of a father as he wave his hand towards his daughter not knowing when the next meeting would be. There were also people who were coming back to the old town to meet the peoplethey left behind, remembering their faces makes her heart still ache, the confusion and fear has gone now but so is the innocence of their eyes. They all seemed happy to her but their heart hollow. Nevertheless she took the journey and reached the lightning city whose shimmer was visible from the roof of her home. That was her first step in the big town and since then she is been running the race lost somewhere in the crowded skyscrapers.
But as these waves, the passer bys, the morning walker or the joggers crosses her thinking that she is one of them, she stood their giving shape to her ever building dreams. Her dreams lay where her roots are, she denies to strip her old town of her childhood memories and wisdom which gave her the place in the big town in the first place. She looks back at the waves looking at them dancing at the sea shore thinking that they had won her over. But they know nothing of her dreams, her ambition, her roots and her life. Because if they had known she wouldn’t be standing there where she is today. She smiled at the bewildered expression of the ways, slowly she turned and headed right back where she came from as if walking on her own footprints backwards, which were now nowhere to be seen. But she doesn’t need her footprints, because she knows where she belongs, where her wisdom belongs, where her dreams belongs, and slowly her lips whispers “My dreams are where my roots are”.
Written By: Ritika Patel
