Life is beautiful

I would have liked to talk about me, about what I like or don’t like, what I do and so on and so forth. But no, not today. Today it can’t be about me. Today, it must be about Him. God. And Life.
Right now, I am sitting in a closed room, with only a small window to my back, that opens not to the open skies as I would have liked, but just to the garden in our colony. But the sights, the sounds, the fragrances are still fresh in my memory, burning brightly with an inextinguishable flame. I so very dearly hope they will burn forever. You don’t chance upon God so often.
Imagine. You are walking on a road that you traverse often, more like everyday. You are alone, or maybe with a friend. You are engrossed in your thoughts as you often are; life in recent days has been pretty hectic for you.
There is a gentle wind, not warm as is expected for this time of the year. Not cold either. It just is, a soft hand caressing your cheeks, soft lips kissing your brow. You don’t notice it at first, you hardly notice the weather: what more is it than just a noisy television playing in the background? But then, ahead you see a tree. The tree is flowering, little yellow flowers that you never found beautiful, that you in fact considered disgusting in the sweltering heat of the summer. But today they have acquired a strange charm. Today, the wind lifts them out of their home, out of the tree that they so serenely drape, and blows them around in the gentlest of swirls. You look at the scene and wonder. In those flowers, little yellow petals that seem shapeless and formless, you imagine you see a princess. You see a princess, smiling, draped in yellow, borne on the wind, playing with it, entwined in it. You see in that scene a glimpse of joy, pure, unadulterated joy that for a moment cruises through your veins like the sweetest of nectars, that swims in your head like the most enduring of dreams. It is gone, of course, for you have tripped over a stone; but wait, dear friend, for there is bound to be more.
Later in the evening, you are going home, swept along in that mundane drudgery of the city they call traffic, thinking nothing, seeing nothing. But today, my friend, you are going to lose yourself. For today, God has taken out his canvas, taken out his paintbrush. For today, God is going to paint.
The sky is overcast, or at least has been so for the past several hours. It is gray, the dull, steely gray that seems to mock the summer, threatening to wash it off in one single burst of rain. But now, the first shafts of sunlight pierce through the clouds; the sun, in its dying moments, will breathe one last breath of pure gold. Suddenly in a patch there, right ahead, or maybe slightly to the right, there has emerged a patch of blue. And no, it is no ordinary blue, it is flushed, it is the freshest, the most eternal blue you could ever know. That patch of blue, then, is bounded on its sides by little wisps of cloud: gray and white, they intermingle among themselves like tiny little tendrils growing into one another. They bring up in the sky a landscape almost as detailed as that on earth. There, there is a mountain, a peak of gray cloud, capped on the top by a wisp of white. There, then is a valley; if you strain your eyes, perhaps you can see a thin river of blue running through it. And perhaps that little strand there is a coast: a cliff jutting out to sea. You look at the sky, and little by little, you forget where you are. You are no longer here, in a Delhi traffic jam, you are there, among those clouds, around you their snowy fluffiness, and you hold in your hands little fluffy blobs of whitish gray smoke. You twirl it around, and it becomes a thin strand of rain, falling to the earth. You blow it out, and it becomes a veil of cloud, to drape the moon yet to come. You run, you walk, you fly, for in this world everything is possible; for in this world reality has melted in your hands.
And then you turn your gaze a little lower, and are aghast. Above you the clouds were gray-black, silently but firmly trying to restrain the sky, and the sun, but near the horizon, they have given way. And there stands the sun, like a bride parting the curtains, looking at her groom and blushing. There she is, brilliant yellow, the most priceless gold on earth, and around her that fitful yellow-orange glow, as if she has set fire to the sky. But no, the fire is not violent, for the light is gentle, the flame more like that of a candle, striving to light, yet too shy to push away the fatherly clouds that surround her, so that color dissolves into color, and like two hands holding each other, like two souls so different and yet so alike coming together, the sun unites with the clouds, the day unites with the night, so that the horizon ahead is that soothing, divine mix of an ancient gray, and a mature yellow that strikes at your heart, that shuts down every single thought that you might care to think. For what must you think, brother, it is all up ahead, the greatest painting, the greatest poem, the greatest song all rolled into one, right ahead of you, and it has all been created only, only for you. You look at it, and look, and look, and look, through the trees, between the buildings, from your balcony, every moment relishing it, every moment feeling contented that you are here, just here, even if here is a mundane house on a mundane road in a mundane city, for God is playing out to you. And as you turn away, the scene etched in your memory, you whisper, as if anything loud will break the spell – Life is beautiful.