The Road Not Taken

By Divinya Banerjee

I remember my mother's heartfelt chronicles about my childhood days, her teary eyed narrations about the day I took my first step, the moment I made my first gesture and simply, how meticulously she kept a track of even the most insignificant days of my life. Those days seem to be an eon ago. As much as I yearn to relive those memories, I can unflinchingly assert, that the journey of my life has been characterised by wisdom, and an everlasting thirst for new experiences.

I have witnessed the seasons change ceaselessly. I have spread my wings far and wide, and travelled across the length and breadth of the world. I have seen the vigorous tides of the ocean, and felt the gentle breeze of nature. I have seen innumerable births and deaths, of near and dear ones.

However, despite having been subject to such tempestuous aspects of life, I have always failed to fully fathom the resistance that even my farthest acquaintances have perpetually portrayed towards the 'uncertain.' The overwhelming trepidation for the unknown, is something I have always wanted to comprehend, but to my dismay, I have not been able to.

Perhaps this is the reason why I chose to probe into the apparent actuality, instead of letting myself get entrapped by the prevalent norms of 'doing the same, doing the known.'

My friends and family never took a step back from injecting in my mind that my time to give in to old age has arrived and that, my time to fly is gone. Somehow, this is not how I wanted my journey to mark its end. I was certain that till my last breath, I wanted to do what I loved...to fly, much opposed to what society expected of one...to stay at ''home'' and wait to be engulfed by Death.

That is when, I took off for one of the many more flights to come.

Now that I sit under the shade of a tree, I look back to the splendid flight that I just had...perhaps one of the best of my life. The sheer joy and pride in spreading those gigantic, magnificent wings, the eagerness to fly through the beauty of nature is paramount. The minute fragments of leaves that hovered around the eyes as I sat on a branch, the all consuming aroma of the orchards that I just visited, the various enriching encounters with so many others of my kind, on one hand pumps up my heart with pride for having the courage to fly again, but at the same time, it makes me realise that there is so much more to see, so much more to learn.

As the realisation sinks in, I am ready to take on the world again...and this time, to new heights. I want to embrace the splendour of nature with 'open arms', feel the taste of the sun and rain,yet once again, sit on the tip of a skyscraper and dive straight into the sea, brush my wings through flowers and thorns, and do the things I have never done.

Every life on this planet will end. I, too, will be a subject to the transitoriness of life. Having said that, my last few days will not be accompanied by penitence and regret for succumbing to the lifestyle imposed, and not living to the fullest. Inspired by Robert Frost who says, ''two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference'', my beliefs run at par with him, otherwise, the augmented experiences and happiness, garnered on traversing on the road not taken, would only have been immaterialised dreams of an inconsequential life...

By Divinya Banerjee